Adventure Tales #4. Seabury Quinn
room. Whimsically, he remembered that certain desperadoes of the early Wild West were wont to conceal their Bowie knives in the collars of their coats, and wondered what effect Rosalie’s sudden production of a murderous Malay short sword would have at some afternoon tea.
He held the captured pistol to the light and examined it closely. It was a heavy, blue steel weapon with a thick barrel upon which a smaller calibered tube was set. By breaking the stock, after the manner of a revolver, a plunger was withdrawn from the larger barrel, and when the stock was jammed back in place the plunger was thrust into the tube again, compressing sufficient air in the chamber to drive a light bullet with a velocity equal to that of a black-powder pistol. Across the stock was engraved the word Lübeck.
“H’m,” the Professor commented, trying the weapon’s mechanism, “German make, eh? I might have known they’d have a model on the market as soon as the British perfected one. Well, I think we’ve about all the evidence necessary for Nesbit’s inquest.
“Rosalie,” he turned to the girl, “just stand watch over our prisoner while I telephone the police, will you?”
As he retired to the study to notify the authorities he heard the extraordinary young woman informing her captive that a single false move on his part would result in instant and complete disembowelment.
“Now,” the Professor bent a stern gaze on the peddler, “why did you come here?”
The pseudo-Armenian shrugged his shoulders, or came as near doing it as was possible while his elbows were bound behind him, and tightly lashed to the rungs of a chair-back.
“I am a follower of Hanuman,” he replied in perfect English. “The grandfather of the man I put to death stole the image of our god from its temple in India almost a hundred years ago and kept it in his house for sacrilegious fools to gape at. Copies of the god’s image may be bought in the bazaars throughout India, and this we cannot prevent, but to have our sacred relics ravished from our temples—suppose we should come to your land and take from off your altars the images of your plaster saints, or the little pieces of bread which you worship, how would you feel about it? Other Englay have stolen other statues of the god from us, and we have hunted them down, one at a time, taken back our own and—their lives. The Milsted whom I killed—thieving son of a thieving grandsire that he was!—was the last. Others of our company had accounted for the rest; Milsted was mine.”
“Um?” Forrester nodded thoughtfully. “How did you get into the house?”
The Hindu smiled sardonically. “That was not hard to one of my calling,” he answered. “There was a great company of fools assembled at the place, and I bribed one of the servants to tell me the location of the room where Hanuman was kept. While all were at dinner I climbed through the library window and entered the museum. The god was not in any of the glass cases, but I found him in the safe, for it was an old-fashioned one and the lock was easy to pick. When I heard anyone near I hid in a steel case which happened to be empty. When I had taken the statue from the safe, but before I could get away, Milsted came to the museum and discovered his loss. I would have shot him then, but there was someone in the next room, and I feared he would raise the alarm. When Milsted found the god was gone he ran out and called more people, and I thought they were coming to take me, but before any could enter the room where I hid the lights went out and I ran through the dark to the window which I had left unlocked, and was preparing to jump to the ground when Milsted saw me and tried to kill me.
“I shot him with the gun which makes no sound and dropped to the ground, but slipped on the snow and lost the image. There was no time to stay and search for it, for the house was roused, so I ran to the barn and hid, watching the spot where I had dropped Hanuman. After a time I saw someone looking about the ground beneath the window, and saw him pick something up and put it in his pocket. By the light from the window I recognized you, Forrester Sahib, and followed you here to take back that which was mine, and kill you, too, if I could, for you have profaned Hanuman by your touch.”
“Why, you didn’t think I’d keep the thing, did you?” the Professor asked in amazement.
The Indian shrugged again. “You are an Englay,” he answered. “Whether the Englay steal from each other I do not know, but that they steal from us I know very well. Also I have heard that you are one of those who despoil even the tombs of the dead in the name of science. How should I know whether you would keep that which you found when you thought no one watched?”
“Uncle Harvey,” Rosalie interrupted, “this man is a liar. He says he is a follower of Hanuman, but we have seen the sign of Siva on him, and know him for a Dakait—one whose trade and religion is murder and robbery. His talk of recovering the god for his temple is a lie. He would sell it, if he could get it; maybe to the priests of the temple from which it was stolen, but certainly he would sell it.”
She turned to the pinioned Indian and hurled a torrent of fluent, though none too polite, Hindustani at him. “Dishonorable son of a shameless mother,” she exclaimed, “confess that you came not to return Hanuman to his home, but to steal him for yourself. I know your kind. You are a brother to the weasel and blood-brother to the snake. In the night you creep into the houses of honest men and they die and you possess their goods. Say, is it not for the honor of Kali, goddess of thieves, that you have done this thing?”
The man stared at her in pop-eyed astonishment. That a fair-haired young lady of the Occident should speak idiomatic Hindustani, even to a liberal use of the intimate insults without which no unfriendly conversation is complete in that tongue, astonished him almost as much as the girl’s deft handling of her kris had done a few minutes before.
“It is true,” he acknowledged, with a fatalistic writhing of his shoulders. “Of what avail to lie to one who possesses the beauty of the moonflower and the wisdom of the serpent? It is even as you have said.”
Rosalie preened herself like a satisfied bird. “You do well to call me moonflower, who was known by that name for many years,” she announced.
“Uncle Harvey,” she resumed her rather shaky English as she addressed the Professor, though she was perfectly aware he spoke Hindustani as well as she did, “I think they will make no mistake when they hang this fellow. He is one dam’ bad egg.”
ADVENTURE, by Clark Ashton Smith
Let us leave the hateful town
With its stale, forgotten lies;
Far beneath renewing skies,
Where the piny slope goes down,
All with April love and laughter—
None to leer and none to frown—
We shall pass and follow after
Shattered lace of waters spun
On a steep and stony loom
Down the depths of laurel-gloom.
Finding there a world re-made
In the fern-embowered shade,
Weaving bright oblivion
Still from frailest blossom-trove,
We shall mix our wilding love
With the woodland and the sun.
*****
Let us loiter, hand in hand,
Hearing but the heart’s command,
Half our steps by kisses stayed,
Prove the spring-enchanted glade;
Breast to breast and limb to limb,
Seize our happiness and bind it—
Lose the pulse of time and find it,
Free as vagrant seraphim.
Ever leave regret and rue
To the dutiful and jealous
Fools that are not near to tell us
All