Читать книгу The Mask of Fu Manchu - Arthur Henry Ward - Страница 12
ОглавлениеI See the Slayer
The shutter opened so silently and so slowly that only by the closest watching could I detect the movement. There was absolutely no creaking.
A window of the Ghost Mosque on the opposite side of the street, looking like a black smudge on a dirty yellow canvas, came just in line with the edge of the left-hand shutter. And only by the ever increasing gap of yellow between the woodwork and the smudge of shadow, could I tell what was happening.
The effect was slowly to add to the light in the room. So accustomed had I become to the dimness that I felt myself shrinking back farther into my hiding place; although in actual fact the access of light was less, I suppose, than would have been gained by the introduction of a solitary candle.
My ghoulish imaginings came to a head.
Some vampire creature from the ancient cemetery was about to spring in. More than once since the relics of El Mokanna had come into our possession I had laughed at Rima’s superstitious terrors, but at this moment I admit frankly that I shared them.
Ispahan lay around me, silent as a city of the past. I might have been alone in Persia. And always the fear was with me that Nayland Smith, for all his peculiar genius, had misjudged the circumstances which had led to the death of Van Berg; that I was about to be subjected to a test greater perhaps than my spiritual strength could cope with.
What I should have done at this moment had I been a free agent, I cannot even guess. But I doubt if I could have remained there silent and watching.
Fortunately, I was under orders. I meant to carry those orders out to the letter. But in honesty I must record that during the interminable moments which elapsed from the time that some incredible creature had alighted outside the window, to the moment that the shutters became fully opened, I doubted the wisdom of Nayland Smith....
A vague mass rose inch by inch over the window ledge; grew higher—denser, as it seemed to me; and, with a wriggling movement indescribably horrible, reached the top of that low cupboard which extended below the window—and crouched or lay there.
I had formed absolutely no conception of outline. The entrance of the nocturnal creature had been effected in such a manner that definition was impossible. This was the point, I think, at which my courage almost touched vanishing point.
What was the thing on top of the cupboard? Something which could fly—something which had no determinate shape....
I knew that the visitor was inspecting the room keenly. To me, as I have said, it seemed to have become brightly illuminated. Colt in hand, I shrank farther and farther away from the narrow opening through which I was peering, until my back was flat against the wall.
That vague outline which disturbed the square of the open window disappeared. A very soft thud which must have been inaudible to ears less keenly attuned than mine told me that the visitant, almost certainly the slayer of Van Berg, had dropped onto the floor and was now in the room with me!
I peered into the darkness left of the big, littered table. Something was approaching the bed ... going, I thought, on all fours.
Definitely, the approach was oblique—that is, not in my direction. I was conscious of a shock of relief. I had not been seen.
Something glittered dully in the reflected light, and I heard a very faint swishing sound, almost the first, excepting the thud, which had betrayed the presence of this nocturnal assassin.
At first it puzzled me, and then, suddenly, to my mind an explanation sprang.
The creature was spraying the bed....
Ideas quickly associated themselves; for at this same moment there was swept to my nostrils an almost overpowering perfume of mimosa—the same that had haunted poor Van Berg’s room.
It was some unfamiliar but tremendously potent anesthetic.
In the instant that realization came to me, I knew also that the horrible visitor was not a supernatural creature but human. True, his agility was far above the ordinary, and his powers of silent movement were uncanny.
He was evidently armed with some kind of spray; and during the time that its curiously soothing sound continued, I found, so oddly does the mind react to indefinable fear, that my thoughts had wandered. I was thinking about an account I had once read of a mysterious creature known as Spring-heeled Jack, who terrorized outlying parts of London many years ago.
For the fact remained that this man, now endeavoring to reduce the occupant of the bed to unconsciousness, could apparently spring to high windows, quite beyond the reach of any human jumper, and indeed, beyond the reach of any member of the animal kingdom!
The swishing sound ceased. Absolute silence followed....
Peer intensely as I would, I could detect no trace of another presence in the room. But I knew exactly what was happening. The unimaginable man who had come through the window was crouching somewhere and listening. Probably he was counting, silently, knowing how many seconds must elapse before the unknown drug which smelled like mimosa should reduce the sleeper to unconsciousness—or, perhaps, bring about death....
Distant though I was from the bed, that sickly sweet odor was making me dizzy.
Fully a minute elapsed. No sound could I hear; nor could I detect a movement. But during that age-long minute I observed a vague white patch in the darkness, and presently I identified it. It was made by the initials painted on the green iron box.
And as I watched, this white patch became obscured.
A sound disturbed that all-but-insufferable silence—a sound of heavy breathing. Then, silhouetted against the window ... I saw the intruder. I saw a small, lithe body, muscular arms uplifted, the green box borne upon the right shoulder.
My hand trembled upon the trigger, but Nayland Smith’s instructions had been definite. The man bore the box to the end of the room. Here, shadow from the cupboard swallowed him up. Preceded by very little noise, the square outline of the box now appeared upon the top of the cupboard.
He had raised it above his head and placed it there, by which circumstances, since he appeared to be a small man, I was able to judge of his extraordinary strength.
My heart was beating very fast and I realised that I was holding my breath. I inhaled deeply, watching, now, the square of the opened window. A silhouetted arm appeared above the box, then a shoulder, and finally the whole of a lean body.
The midnight visitor was a Negro, or a member of some very dark race, wearing only a black loincloth: his features I could not see.
His movements interested me intensely. Stooping, he bent over the box. Certain metallic sounds told me that the iron handles at either end were being moved.
Then, as I watched ... the box disappeared!
The black man alone, a crouching silhouette, remained outlined in the open window. The box had gone; incredible fact—but the box had gone! Silently, save for a distant thud, that heavy iron chest had been “vanished” from the room as a conjurer vanishes a coin!
An interval followed, my reactions during which I cannot hope to describe, until presently I saw that the crouching figure was performing a sort of hauling movement. This movement ceased.
He stood suddenly upright ... and disappeared.
