He looked down at the malignant cripple.
"You"re wanted for the I. W. W. bomb murder, Albert. Did you know it?"
The hunchback licked his b.l.o.o.d.y lips. Then he kicked himself to a sitting position, squatted there like a toad and looked steadily at Tressa Norne out of small red-rimmed eyes. Blood dripped on his beard; his huge hairy fists, tied and crossed behind his back, made odd, spasmodic movements.
Cleves went to the telephone. Presently Tressa heard his voice, calm and distinct as usual:
"We"ve caught Albert Feke. He"s here at my rooms. I"d like to have you come over, Recklow.... Oh, yes, he kicked and scuffled and scratched like a cat.... What?... No, I hadn"t heard that he"d been in China....
Who?... Albert Feke? You say he was one of the Germans who escaped from Shantung four years ago?... You think he"s a Yezidee! You mean one of the Eight a.s.sa.s.sins?"
The hunchback, staring at Tressa out of red-rimmed eyes, suddenly snarled and lurched his misshapen body at her.
"Teufelstuck!" he screamed, "ain"t I tell efferybody in Yian already it iss safer if we cut your throat! Devil-s.l.u.t of Erlik--snow-leopardess!--cat of the Yezidees who has made of Sanang a fool!--it iss I who haf said always, always, that you know too d.a.m.n much!... Kai!... I hear my soul bidding me farewell. Gif me my shroud!"
Cleves came back from the telephone. With the toe of his left foot he lifted the shroud and kicked it across the hunchback"s knees.
"So you were one of the huns who instigated the ma.s.sacre in Yian," he said, curiously. At that Tressa turned very white and a cry escaped her.
But the hunchback"s features were all twisted into ferocious laughter, and he beat on the carpet with the heels of his great splay feet.
"Ja! Ja!" he shrieked, "in Yian it vas a goot hunting! English and Yankee men und vimmens ve haff dropped into dose deep wells down. Py Gott in Himmel, how dey schream up out of dose deep wells in Yian!" He began to cackle and shriek in his frenzy. "Ach Gott ja! It iss not you either--you there, Keuke Mongol, who shall escape from the Sheiks-el-Djebel! It iss dot Old Man of the Mountain who shall tell your soul it iss time to say farewell! Ja! Ja! Ach Gott!--it iss my only regret that I shall not see the world when it is all afire! Ja! Ja!--all on fire like h.e.l.l! But you shall see it, s.l.u.t-leopard of the snows! You shall see it und you shall burn! Kai! Kai! My soul it iss bidding my body farewell. Kai! May Erlik curse you, Keuke Mongol--Heavenly Azure--Sorceress of the temple!--"
He spat at her and rolled over in his shroud.
The girl looking down on him closed her eyes for a moment, and Cleves saw her bloodless lips move, and bent nearer, listening. And he heard her whispering to herself:
"Preserve us all, O G.o.d, from the wrath of Satan who was stoned."
CHAPTER VII
THE BRIDAL
Over the United States stretched an unseen network of secret intrigue woven tirelessly night and day by the busy enemies of civilisation--Reds, parlour-socialists, enemy-aliens, terrorists, Bolsheviki, pseudo-intellectuals, I. W. W."s, social faddists, and amateur meddlers of every nuance--all the various varieties of the vicious, witless, and mentally unhinged--brought together through the "cohesive power of plunder" and the degeneration of cranial tissue.
All over the United States the various departmental divisions of the Secret Service were busily following up these threads of intrigue leading everywhere through the obscurity of this vast and secret maze.
To meet the constantly increasing danger of physical violence and to uncover secret plots threatening sabotage and revolution, there were capable agents in every branch of the Secret Service, both Federal and State.
But in the first months of 1919 something more terrifying than physical violence suddenly threatened civilised America,--a wild, grotesque, incredible threat of a _war on human minds_!
And, little by little, the United States Government became convinced that this ghastly menace was no dream of a disordered imagination, but that it was real: that among the enemies of civilisation there actually existed a few powerful but perverted minds capable of wielding psychic forces as terrific weapons: that by the sinister use of psychic knowledge controlling these mighty forces the very minds of mankind could be stealthily approached, seized, controlled and turned upon civilisation to aid in the world"s destruction.
In terrible alarm the Government turned to England for advice. But Sir William Crookes was dead.
However, in England, Sir Conan Doyle immediately took up the matter, and in America Professor Hyslop was called into consultation.
And then, when the Government was beginning to realise what this awful menace meant, and that there were actually in the United States possibly half a dozen people who already had begun to carry on a diabolical warfare by means of psychic power, for the purpose of enslaving and controlling the very minds of men,--then, in the terrible moment of discovery, a young girl landed in America after fourteen years" absence in Asia.
And this was the amazing girl that Victor Cleves had just married, at Recklow"s suggestion, and in the line of professional duty,--and moral duty, perhaps.
It had been a brief, matter-of-fact ceremony. John Recklow, of the Secret Service, was there; also Benton and Selden of the same service.
The bride"s lips were unresponsive; cold as the touch of the groom"s unsteady hand.
She looked down at her new ring in a blank sort of way, gave her hand listlessly to Recklow and to the others in turn, whispered a timidly comprehensive "Thank you," and walked away beside Cleves as though dazed.
There was a taxicab waiting. Tressa entered. Recklow came out and spoke to Cleves in a low voice.
"Don"t worry," replied Cleves dryly. "That"s why I married her."
"Where are you going now?" inquired Recklow.
"Back to my apartment."
"Why don"t you take her away for a month?"
Cleves flushed with annoyance: "This is no occasion for a wedding trip.
You understand that, Recklow."
"I understand. But we ought to give her a breathing s.p.a.ce. She"s had nothing but trouble. She"s worn out."
Cleves hesitated: "I can guard her better in the apartment. Isn"t it safer to go back there, where your people are always watching the street and house day and night?"
"In a way it might be safer, perhaps. But that girl is nearly exhausted.
And her value to us is unlimited. She may be the vital factor in this fight with anarchy. Her weapon is her mind. And it"s got to have a chance to rest."
Cleves, with one hand on the cab door, looked around impatiently.
"Do _you_, also, conclude that the psychic factor is actually part of this d.a.m.ned problem of Bolshevism?"
Recklow"s cool eyes measured him: "Do _you_?"
"My G.o.d, Recklow, I don"t know--after what my own eyes have seen."
"I don"t know either," said the other calmly, "but I am taking no chances. I don"t attempt to explain certain things that have occurred. But if it be true that a misuse of psychic ability by foreigners--Asiatics--among the anarchists is responsible for some of the devilish things being done in the United States, then your wife"s unparalleled knowledge of the occult East is absolutely vital to us. And so I say, better take her away somewhere and give her mind a chance to recover from the incessant strain of these tragic years."
The two men stood silent for a moment, then Recklow went to the window of the taxicab.
"I have been suggesting a trip into the country, Mrs. Cleves," he said pleasantly, "--into the real country, somewhere,--a month"s quiet in the woods, perhaps. Wouldn"t it appeal to you?"
Cleves turned to catch her low-voiced answer.
"I should like it very much," she said in that odd, hushed way of speaking, which seemed to have altered her own voice and manner since the ceremony a little while before.
Driving back to his apartment beside her, he strove to realise that this girl was his wife.