The Complete Works of H. C. McNeile "Sapper". Sapper
shook his head.
"You ask a great thing of me, your Grace," he said. "Only by the exercise of my power can I show you this secret—even if I can show you at all. And you are unbelievers." He paced slowly to the window, ostensibly to commune with the gods on the subject; more materially to flash once again the signal into the darkness. Then, as if he had decided suddenly, he swung round.
"I will try," he announced briefly, and the Duchess headed the chorus of delight. "Will the Presences stand back, and you, your Grace, take that?" He handed her the piece of material. "No hand but yours must touch the pearls. Wrap them up inside the silver and gold." Aloofly he watched the process. "Now advance alone, and open the box. Place the pearls inside. Now shut and lock it." Obediently the Duchess did as she was bid; then she stood waiting for further instructions.
But apparently by this time the Great Brooding Spirit was beginning to take effect. Singing a monotonous, harsh chant, the Indian knelt on the floor, and poured some powder into a little brazier. He was still close to the open window, and finally he sat down with his elbows on his knees, and his head rocking to and fro in his hands.
"Less light—less light!" The words seemed to come from a great distance—ventriloquism in a mild way was one of Lakington's accomplishments; and as the lights went out a greenish, spluttering flame rose from the brazier. A heavy, odorous smoke filled the room, but framed and motionless in the eerie light sat the Indian, staring fixedly in front of him. After a time the chant began again; it grew and swelled in volume till the singer grew frenzied and beat his head with his hands. Then abruptly it stopped.
"Place the box upon the floor," he ordered, "in the light of the Sacred Fire." Hugh saw the Duchess kneel down on the opposite side of the brazier, and place the box on the floor, while the faces of the guests—strange and ghostly in the green light—peered like spectres out of the heavy smoke. This was undoubtedly a show worth watching.
"Open the box!" Harshly the words rang through the silent room, and with fingers that trembled a little the Duchess turned the key and threw back the lid.
"Why, it's empty!" she cried in amazement, and the guests craned forward to look.
"Put not your hand inside," cried the Indian in sudden warning, "or perchance it will remain empty."
The Duchess rapidly withdrew her hand, and stared incredulously through the smoke at his impassive face.
"Did I not say that there was power in the box?" he said dreamily. "The power to render invisible—the power to render visible. Thus came protection to the jewels of the Chow Queens."
"That's all right, Mr. Ram Dar," said the Duchess a little apprehensively. "There may be power in the box, but my pearls don't seem to be."
The Indian laughed.
"None but you has touched the cabinet, your Grace; none but you must touch it till the pearls return. They are there now; but not for mortal eyes to see."
Which, incidentally, was no more than the truth.
"Look, oh! sahibs, look; but do not touch. See that to your vision the box is empty...." He waited motionless, while the guests thronged round, with expressions of amazement; and Hugh, safe from view in the thick, sweet-smelling smoke, came even nearer in his excitement.
"It is enough," cried the Indian suddenly. "Shut the box, your Grace, and lock it as before. Now place it on the table whence it came. Is it there?"
"Yes." The Duchess's voice came out of the green fog.
"Go not too near," he continued warningly. "The gods must have space—the gods must have space."
Again the harsh chant began, at times swelling to a shout, at times dying away to a whisper. And it was during one of these latter periods that a low laugh, instantly checked, disturbed the room. It was plainly audible, and someone irritably said, "Be quiet!" It was not repeated, which afforded Hugh, at any rate, no surprise. For it had been Irma Peterson who had laughed, and it might have been hilarity, or it might have been a signal.
The chanting grew frenzied and more frenzied; more and more powder was thrown on the brazier till dense clouds of the thick vapour were rolling through the room, completely obscuring everything save the small space round the brazier, and the Indian's tense face poised above it.
"Bring the box, your Grace," he cried harshly, and once more the Duchess knelt in the circle of light, with a row of dimly seen faces above her.
"Open; but as you value your pearls—touch them not." Excitedly she threw back the lid, and a chorus of cries greeted the appearance of the gold and silver tissue at the bottom of the box.
"They're here, Mr. Ram Bar."
In the green light the Indian's sombre eyes stared round the group of dim faces.
"Did I not say," he answered, "that there was power in the box? But in the name of that power—unknown to you—I warn you: Do not touch those pearls till the light has burned low in the brazier. If you do they will disappear—never to return. Watch, but do not touch!"
Slowly he backed towards the window, unperceived in the general excitement; and Hugh dodged rapidly towards the car. It struck him that the séance was over, and he just had time to see Lakington snatch something which appeared to have been let down by a string from above, before turning into the bushes and racing for the car. As it was he was only a second or two in front of the other, and the last vision he had through a break in the trees, before they were spinning smoothly down the deserted road, was an open window in Laidley Towers from which dense volumes of vapour poured steadily out. Of the house party behind, waiting for the light to burn low in the brazier, he could see no sign through the opaque wall of green fog.
It took five minutes, so he gathered afterwards from a member of the house party, before the light had burned sufficiently low for the Duchess to consider it safe to touch the pearls. In various stages of asphyxiation the assembled guests had peered at the box, while the cynical comments of the men were rightly treated by the ladies with the contempt they deserved. Was the necklace not there, wrapped in its gold and silver tissue, where a few minutes before there had been nothing?
"Some trick of that beastly light," remarked the Duke peevishly. "For heaven's sake throw the dam' thing out of the window."
"Don't be a fool, John," retorted his spouse. "If you could do this sort of thing, the House of Lords might be some use to somebody."
And when two minutes later they stared horror-struck at a row of ordinary marbles laboriously unwrapped from a piece of gold and silver tissue, the Duke's pungent agreement with his wife's sentiment passed uncontradicted. In fact, it is to be understood that over the scene which followed it was best to draw a decent veil.
III
Drummond, hunched low over the wheel, in his endeavour to conceal his identity from the man behind, knew nothing of that at the time. Every nerve was centred on eluding the pursuit he thought was a certainty; for the thought of Lakington, when everything was prepared for his reception, being snatched from his clutches even by the majesty of the law was more than he could bear. And for much the same reason he did not want to have to deal with him until The Elms was reached; the staging there was so much more effective.
But Lakington was far too busy to bother with the chauffeur.
One snarling curse as they had started, for not having done as he had been told, was the total of their conversation during the trip. During the rest of the time the transformation to the normal kept Lakington busy, and Hugh could see him reflected in the wind-screen removing the make-up from his face, and changing his clothes.
Even now he was not quite clear how the trick had been worked. That there had been two cabinets, that was clear—one false, the other the real one. That they had been changed at the crucial moment by the girl Irma was also obvious. But how had the pearls disappeared in the first case, and then apparently reappeared again? For of one thing he was quite certain. Whatever was inside the parcel of gold and silver tissue