The Voice of Káli

Front matter

THE VOICE OF KÁLI

By SAX ROHMER

NONE CAN PAINT BETTER THAN SAX ROHMER THE FASCINATING TERRORS RISING FROM THE DARK PLACES OF ASIA, AND IN THIS TALE HE EXCELS EVEN THE HIGH MARK OF HIS FU MANCHU STORIES. WHAT WAS THE HORRIBLE SOMETHING FROM THE MYSTERIOUS EAST THAT THREATENED THE LIFE OF VAN DEAN AND BROUGHT HARLEY OF THE FOREIGN OFFICE DOWN TO THIS PEACEFUL ENGLISH COUNTRYSIDE TO SOLVE THE DEADLY PROBLEM OR PERISH? THEY CALLED IT THE LISTENING DEATH. BUT HOW DID IT KILL? AND WHY? IN THE ANSWER TO THIS LAST LAY THE GREATEST HORROR OF ALL

I. A man unknown

Chapter I

A MAN UNKNOWN

THE Coroner's jury, their unpleasant task concluded, filed out of the extemporized courtroom and with almost military precision filed on into the bar parlor of the Three Fishes Inn.

It was near to sunset on a perfect summer's day. High up in the elms at the back of the ancient inn there was much busy chattering from the feathered colony, as though already they were discussing their southern journey. Rooks cawed unmusically; and a red glow spread further and further, right and left of the wood on a neighboring hill, beyond which the sun sank gloriously to rest.

A group of farm laborers homeward bound had collected in the porch of the old inn, to gather news of the excitement which had come to stir the life of this sleepy Norfolk village. The jurymen, conscious of their prestige, nodded distantly to acquaintances and entered the bar parlor to drink the traditional pint with the landlord. Curious glances were cast at the only stranger present.

This was a leanly built, brown-faced man, whose air of eager vitality must have told even the most inexperienced yokel that here was no ordinary personality. He had listened attentively to the recent proceedings, closely studying all the witnesses. And now, looking about him for a moment, he singled out a florid-faced individual whom everybody else treated with the utmost respect and who seemed to be fully conscious of the fact that he deserved it.

“Ah, Inspector Gorleston,” he said, “I thought you had gone.”

“No, sir,” replied the inspector, “not yet. I wanted another word with you. You see, my professional reputation is at stake, if you follow me.”

“I quite understand your anxiety, Inspector. A whisky and soda?”

“Thanks,” said the inspector, leaning on the counter. “I can do with it. This thing has rattled me.” He glanced about him and then bent forward confidentially. “You see,” he whispered, “when Mr. Burton van Dean applied to us at Scotland Yard for protection, we did our best. We had a special man put on duty at his place—the Abbey. What happened?” The inspector took a drink and answered his own question. “Scotland Yard instructs us to take him off! And what's the result? Here's this poor fellow the coroner's just been sitting on, comes and dies right there in the Abbey shrubbery!”

“Quite true.”

The inspector glared in choleric fashion, as if highly irritated at his companion's quiet acceptance of his concluding statement.

“Well,” he demanded belligerently, “he wouldn't have died if Jones had been on duty, would he?”

“Oh, I see the point!” murmured his acquaintance.

“As you've just heard, the verdict was 'death from natural causes, man unknown.' But was it my fault, sir?”

“Not at all.”

“Some half-starved tramp he was,” continued the inspector bitterly. “Yet, since it happened, Scotland Yard has ordered us not to come within a mile of the Abbey!”

The other nodded sympathetically.

“They think we're country jossers because we live in Norfolk. And because a tramp dies in my district, I'm told I'm unfit to look after a gentleman whose life is in danger.”

“Then you really think Mr. Van Dean's life is in danger?”

Inspector Gorleston bent more closely forward and with a fat forefinger he tapped his acquaintance confidentially on the shoulder.

“I've got two eyes, sir! Two good eyes! And there's something funny about that house.”

“About the Abbey?”

“About the Abbey, sir. Funny lights have been seen there. Also the figure of a monk. Funny noises have been heard.”

“What sort of noises?” asked the other.

“Well, sir, as you're staying there, perhaps you've heard them yourself. A kind of piping, for instance?”

“Oh,” said the other, and his rather grim face relaxed in a quick smile, “that is caused by Wu Chang, Mr. Van Dean's Chinese servant. What other noises?”

“Well, sir, you heard two witnesses speak of the fact that a sort of wailing sound was heard the night that this unknown man died there in the shrubbery.”

“Yes, I took particular note of this evidence. You see, I had not arrived at the Abbey at the time of the man's death.” And the speaker's glance became introspective, as though he were contemplating some new idea which had just occurred to him.

“Altogether, it's a funny house,” continued the inspector. “Of course, Mr. Van Dean is an American gentleman, and very eccentric. But how Mrs. Moody can go on living there beats me. Still, I'm here if I'm wanted. I expect to be wanted very soon.”

His companion seemed to have lost interest in the conversation, however. And shortly afterward, bidding the inspector good day, the stranger left the Three Fishes and set out along the dusty road, a lean, active figure in his well cut blue serge, swinging an ash stick and puffing so vigorously at his briar that a positive wake of tobacco smoke spread out behind him as he went.

Curious glances followed him, for few strangers visited the inn, but Inspector Gorleston pompously announced that the gentleman was a guest staying at the Abbey, and this minor interest soon became swamped in the greater one of the tragedy that day investigated by the coroner.

Nevertheless, the worthy sensation-mongers in the Three Fishes would have found their interest revived had one of their number been curious enough to follow the stranger for three hundred yards along the road. At a ragged gap in a blackberry hedge, he paused. He knocked out his pipe on the heel of his shoe and looked cautiously around him. Then, “Are you there, Wessex?” he asked.

“Here I am,” replied a voice from some place beyond the hedge. “Any instructions?”

“Yes. Where have you left the bike?”

“In the lane at the other side of the meadow.”

“Then fly back. I'll walk slowly in order to give you a good start.”

“Good,” replied the voice.

Came a sound of moving foliage, of stumbling footsteps; and then silence.

Probably it would have conveyed nothing to the local worthies assembled at the Three Fishes had they been informed that the distinguished looking visitor who had so closely followed the coroner's inquiry and who now was proceeding once more along the dusty road was none other than Paul Harley of Chancery Lane, London.

Affairs of state, involving possibilities of war, had more than once been entrusted to his experience. East and West he was known as the confidential agent of the highest powers. But here, in this forgotten corner of Norfolk, he was known as as a guest of Mr. Van Dean, the American millionaire traveler who had leased the Abbey, one of the county's historical properties.

Paul Harley, however, was no seeker of notoriety. The nature of his profession rendered it inadvisable that he should attract public attention.

Now, as he paced along the narrow road, with the rays of the setting sun behind him, he became aware of an unaccountable chill, despite the genial warmth of the evening. That is to say, he experienced a chill which would have been unaccountable in another, but which, in himself, Paul Harley had learned to recognize as a sixth sense. This abrupt lowering of the temperature had often before advised him of the nearness of hidden danger.

It had come to him, that sense of danger, at the moment that Inspector Gorleston had spoken of the wailing sound, which, according to two witnesses, had been heard at about the time that the unknown tramp must have died in the shrubbery of the Abbey.

Possibly this sixth sense was the product of a trained imagination. But experience had taught him that it was closely allied to clairvoyance. Therefore, he felt that he must follow up the clue of this wailing sound. It was in some way associated with the extraordinary affair which had compelled him to abandon every other interest and to set out hotfoot for Norfolk.

He came to the end of the lane, but, before crossing to the stile opposite which gave access to a footpath, he paused, listening intently. Far away on the right, through the summer evening stillness, he heard the purring of a motor bicycle.

He crossed the stile and began to walk briskly along a path which would lead him to the tree shaded lane encircling the northern part of the Abbey grounds. On his left was a wood, romantic in the growing dusk; on his right a sea of grain splashed with the red of the poppy. It was a peaceful enough English landscape, but persistently that uncanny sixth sense spoke of danger. He stood still again, listening.

It seemed a perfect summer's evening, but long experience of the tropics told Harley that there was a hardness in the blue of the sky and a quality in the red sunset foreboding a storm. Faintly he detected the rustling of the higher leaves. His suspicion became a certainty that there was a thunderstorm brewing.

He pressed on, crossed the stile at the other end of the meadow and entered the shadowed lane below the rising Abbey grounds. On his right lay the nettle-grown gully where once had been the waters of the moat, in the days when the Abbey was a monastery.

He came to the gate, opened it, and crossed the bridge. There was no one in the lodge beyond, and as he walked up the drive, arched over with ancient trees, he experienced anew that foreboding chill. He came at last in sight of the beautiful old house surrounded by lawns and, well kept beds of flowers. His gaze, however, was directed toward an open first-floor window.

II. Káli

Chapter II

KÁLI

BURTON VAN DEAN had certainly changed the atmosphere of the Abbey. In the spacious library with its panneled walls and oak beamed ceiling, the influence of the American Orientalist manifested itself in the form of numberless Eastern relics and curiosities, which seemed strangely out of place; for memories of the monastery clung more tenaciously to this room than to any other in the old Abbey.

At about the time that Paul Harley was passing the lodge, Mrs. Moody sat in the library, knitting. Her expression was as sweet and as restful as usual, as she bent over her work, so that no one could have suspected the gray-haired old lady of any thought more important than the number of her stitches. But Mrs. Moody was a conscientious housekeeper. Actually, she was listening for some sound which should enable her to locate the whereabouts of Parker, the new gardener. Guests were expected to dinner; and cook had forgotten to arrange with Parker about the fruit salad. There came a discreet rap upon a door.

“Come in,” said Mrs. Moody.

A tall, handsome Oriental entered and inclined his turbaned head in a a salute at once dignified and respectful.

“Parker is not in the orchard, Memsahib,” he reported.

“Oh dear,” said Mrs. Moody. “How annoying. Do you know where Miss Joyce is?”

“I will inquire,” replied the dignified servant; and, repeating his curiously Eastern salute, he turned and left the library. This was Mohammed Khán, the Indian butler, and one of the several innovations introduced by Burton van Dean.

Mrs. Moody sighed gently and resumed her knitting. She had only taken up two or three stitches when a girl crossed the terrace and came into the library, pulling off thick gardening gloves. She was good looking in her open-air, English fashion, fresh complexioned and bright eyed. Her brown hair was as the wind had left it, and she had a swinging carriage which was nearly but not quite aggressive.

“Hullo, Mumsie!” she called, and running down the steps she perched on the side of the chair and threw her arms around Mrs. Moody. “Stop knitting and tell me how to get rid of Jim. He's become a perfect pest.”

“What's that?” inquired a drawling voice.

Both the ladies turned their heads as a tall, athletic looking young man, the habitual expression of whose tanned face was one of great gloom, came slowly down the steps into the library. His hands were thrust deep in the pockets of his dazzling golf knickers.

Mrs. Moody laid her knitting aside.

“Is Joyce being rude to you again, Jim?” she asked sympathetically.

“Rude!” echoed Jim. “Well, rather! I've been trying to talk seriously to her. What with chaps dying in the shrubbery, and all that sort of thing, it seems to me there's something funny about the house. Old Inspector Gorleston has got a yarn about a monk, or something or other.”

“Don't be funny, Jim,” admonished Joyce.

“I don't know about funny,” drawled Jim. “It's my belief that old Van Dean, with his funny servants and squatting idols and what not, is haunted.”

“Jim, dear!” exclaimed Mrs. Moody. “Haunted!”

“He's a haunted man,” persisted Jim. “There are lots of haunted houses; why not a haunted man?”

“Poor Jim!” muttered Joyce.

A muffled sound of barking proclaimed the presence in the house of a dog somewhere quite near. Jim glanced guiltily in the direction of a door approached by a short open stair in the fashion of the Tudor period of architecture.

“Good dog!” he muttered.

“You see, Mumsie,” explained Joyce, who was Mrs. Moody's stepdaughter, “Jim brought Rex over from the Warren.”

The sound of barking was renewed.

“Oh, Lord!” muttered Jim. “Shall I let him out, Joyce?”

“Well, not unless I can find a key,” was the reply; and Joyce crossed to a writing table and began to search among the many objects which littered it.

Mrs. Moody, who had been looking from one to the other, round-eyed, expressed her gentle remonstrances.

“Surely, Jim,” she said, “you haven't locked a dog in Mr. Van Dean's study?”

“Well,” replied Jim, standing first on his right foot and then on his left, “old Rex kicked up such a row when we bumped into the livestock2”

“Which means,” interrupted Joyce, “that Rex took fright when he met Mr. Van Dean's tame cheetah in the grounds and so we had to lock him up to keep him quiet. No, no key here.”

Composedly she crossed and rang a bell beside the deepset fireplace.

“But, my dear!” murmured Mrs. Moody, “in the study! Mr. Van Dean's new book is there, a frightfully important book. Suppose the dog has eaten it!”

“Rough on me, Mumsie,” retorted Joyce; “considering I typed it!”

Mohammed Khán entered, inclining his head in dignified salute.

“Mohammed,” cried Joyce, “will you go up to my sitting-room and see if I've left a key on my desk.”

The butler bowed, turned, and was approaching the door when there came hurrying in from the terrace a gaunt-faced man, He wore hornrimmed glasses, and a Stetson hat with the brim pulled down over his eyes. His tweed suit was untidy, as was his whole appearance; and there was something at once furtive and nervous in his manner,

Jim Westbury saw him first, and, “Oh, Lord!” he muttered, “Here's old Van Dean!” and glanced guiltily in the direction of the study door.

Van Dean, however, had his glance fixed on Mohammed Khán.

“Mohammed!” he called sharply.

Mohammed Khán turned.

“Sahib.”

“Make an early inspection of the grounds, tonight. Test all the connections and report to me with the keys before dinner. That clear?”

“I understand, Sahib.” He saluted and went out.

Jim exchanged a significant glance with Joyce. Then, “Anything wrong, Van Dean?” he asked. “You look hot and bothered.”

“No, no!” The famous American traveler threw his hat upon a settee and going to a side table poured out a glass of water. “Nothing to worry about. My nerves aren't too good these days.”

His hand shook as he raised the glass to his lips.

“Haunted!” whispered Jim, intending the words for Joyce's ears alone. “I knew it!”

“Well,” declared Mrs, Moody, “I must say, Mr, Van Dean, that I have a dreadful sensation, sometimes, of being watched.”

“Nonsense, Mumsie,” said Joyce, sitting on the arm of her chair and taking her hands. “Don't say you're going to get nervy, too. You've been so wonderful.”

Jim, who had been curiously watching Van Dean, now took him aside.

“What's up, Van Dean?” he asked.

Burton van Dean glanced in the direction of the two women.

“I thought I heard a faint voice a while ago as I came through the shrubbery,” he replied in a low tone,

“Near where the dead man was found?” said Jim.

“Yes, Say no more about it. It was probably imagination.”

He turned, staring hard in the direction of a strange looking jade image, on a carven pedestal, which stood immediately to the right of the French windows.

“Mrs, Moody,” he called, “do you know why no one has come to remove this thing?” `

“No,” replied Mrs, Moody, “I understood they were coming this afternoon.”

“I wish they had!” cried Joyce. “The horrible thing gives me the creeps. But, oh2!” She hesitated. “I'm giving away secrets!”

“No, no, Miss Gayford,” protested Van Dean. “You are not. You have been an ideal secretary. But—” his nervousness became more apparent—“I feel I owe your mother an explanation. I had hoped it might not have been necessary. Tonight I know it is. Mrs, Moody, when I leased the Abbey, I knew my life was in danger.” He turned, almost pathetically to the elder lady.

“Then why,” she exclaimed mildly, “did you allow Joyce and myself to remain?”

“Because your brother made it a condition of the lease, a condition I have never regretted. But I think you ought to know that before I came here I had been in the East for close on seven years. I was reported missing, counted as dead. Your daughter knows where I was. There is no further reason why you should not know also. I was away up on the borders of Tibet. It was there I learned—” he pointed to the jade image—“what that stands for. I blundered onto a secret up there beyond Khatmandu. A horror! A thing which—you2” His voice broke. “Well, I got away,” he added, “maimed, but alive. Here in the heart of peaceful Norfolk I thought I should be safe.”

Mrs. Moody's eyes were growing more and more round.

“Safe! From what?” she asked.

“From the Voice of Káli!” he replied, but in so low a tone that the words were barely audible,

“But,” exclaimed Jim, “I can't cope with the thing! What has the voice of Káli got to do with this funny looking image?”

“And what is the Voice of Káli?” asked Mrs. Moody.

“It is a summons,” replied Van Dean, “used by an organization which regards the days of the world's white races as numbered!”

“A summons to what?” asked Joyce eagerly,

“To death!” replied Van Dean.

The two women stared at him, expressions of horror growing on their faces. Jim continued to regard the image on the pedestal, And then, “What is this thing, Van Dean?” he demanded.

“The emblem of the Indian goddess Káli!”

III. The locked door

Chapter III

THE LOCKED DOOR

FOR a while there was silence in the big library. The sound of a lawnmower could now be heard in the garden. Joyce was the first to speak.

“Is what you have told us the reason why the Government has sent Paul Harley down?” she asked.

Van Dean slowly nodded his head.

“Yes. No white man, myself may be excepted, knows so much of this secret danger to us and all other civilized countries as Paul Harley of the British Foreign Office.”

“I'm beginning to grasp the idea of the barbed wire in the moat,” announced Jim, “and the case of small arms and the burglar alarms, and what not.”

“I assure you,” said Van Dean, “that they are necessary.” He turned and advanced in the direction of the study stair. Before the French windows he paused for a moment, looking out. “Were in for a storm,” he murmured. “I wonder if Wu Chang has locked up the cheetah. He will have to be moved, tonight, as we are expecting visitors. He is always uneasy during a storm.”

Three pairs of eyes watched him as he he hesitated and finally went out by way of the door flanked by bookcases.

No one noticed that the sound of the lawnmower had ceased, and no one observed the approach of a bearded, surly looking man wearing a battered straw hat, who slowly crossed the terrace and stood looking into the room.

Finally, Mrs. Moody, heaving a great sigh, turned in his direction.

“You wanted me, Madam,” said the bearded man.

“Oh, yes, Parker,” she replied. “I wanted to speak to you about some peaches for tonight. Joyce, dear—” she turned to her stepdaughter—“will you see about it?”

“Certainly, Mumsie. Get a basket, Parker,” she instructed. “I'll join you in a moment.”

Parker nodded and retired as Joyce dropped down again on the arm of Mrs. Moody's chair.

“Dear old Mumsie isn't really worried, is she, about all this bogey stuff?” she asked affectionately.

“Well, dear,” confessed Mrs. Moody, “it is rather disturbing.”

There was a rap at the door and Mohammed Khán came in.

“Pardon, Memsahib,” he said to Joyce, “there is no key on your desk.” He turned to Mrs. Moody. “There will be, tonight, how many guests?”

Mrs. Moody, whose expression had now settled into one of bewilderment, replied, “Let me see: Mrs. and Miss Westbury, Captain Latham and—oh, Jim, you will never have time to dress!”

“Eh!” said Jim, who had been staring intently at the image of Káli. “Just time to buzz back to the Warren and change.”

“Oh!” replied Mrs. Moody doubtfully. “Four besides ourselves, Mohammed.”

The Oriental bowed and retired.

“Uncanny chappie, that,” muttered Jim. “This place is full of funny people, funny noises, threats of sudden death and what not.”

“I quite agree,” murmured Mrs. Moody, “but I think—at least I hope—that Mr. Van Dean exaggerates.”

“I don't know, Mumsie,” said Joyce. “The Foreign Office would never have sent such a big sahib as Paul Harley down if there hadn't been something important doing. I should say2”

Suddenly, from somewhere in the house came the sound of a loud crash, followed by that of a whining which died away in a manner curiously horrible. Mrs. Moody clutched at Joyce convulsively.

“Good Lord!” said Jim. “What's that?”

Mrs. Moody stood up.

“I'm almost certain it was in the dining room,” she said. “Joyce, do come with me!”

The old lady hurried out, calling for Mohammed. But Joyce hesitated, looking at Jim.

“Jim,” she said, “that was in the study!”

“The dog!” muttered Jim guiltily. “I'd clean forgotten him!”

“So had I. I'll go and look for the key myself.”

She ran out. Jim was standing peering awkwardly in the direction of the locked study door when Paul Harley strode briskly across the terrace in the growing dusk, and into the library. Jim turned with a start.

“Hello, Harley!” he cried. “Anything wrong?”

One quick glance Harley gave him.

“Yes!” he snapped, and ran up the stairs to the study door.

He tried the door and snapped his fingers irritably when he found it to be locked.

“Westbury!” he ordered. “Run 'round the garden to the study window. Quick, man!”

Jim stared for a moment and then, turning, ran out of the library, crossed the terrace and disappeared. His footsteps could be heard upon the stone stairs as Joyce came hurrying back. On seeing Harley standing on the landing, she paused in confusion.

“Oh, Mr. Harley,” she cried, “I can't find the key!”

“What key?” snapped Harley grimly.

“The key of the study. Rex, Captain Latham's dog is locked in there!”

“Ah,” muttered Harley. “Is that so? How long had you been in the library?”

“About ten minutes.”

“Anyone been up these stairs?”

“Not a soul.”

“Positive, Mr. Harley.”

A door was flung open and Van Dean came in.

“Quick!” said Harley to him, before he could speak. “The key of your study, Van Dean!”

Van Dean ran up the stairs, fumbling for and producing his keys.

“What's wrong, Harley?” he asked. “What's all the disturbance?”

“I don't know,” was the reply, “yet.” Paul Harley took the key handed him and fitted it into the lock of the study door. “You haven't been in your study during the past ten minutes?”

“Why, no,” returned Van Dean; “I never use the other door. It's kept locked. You don't think2”

“No time,” interrupted Harley, “to think.” He opened the door cautiously and entered, Van Dean following him.

“Good God!” muttered the latter as he recoiled.

Joyce had been following up the stairs.

“Oh, what is it?” she cried. “Mr. Van Dean, tell me!”

Van Dean turned, holding up his hands. The expression upon his face terrified her.

“I'll tell you in a moment,” he said. “Stay there.”

“Oh!” whispered Joyce. “Is it Rex?”

Paul Harley came out on the landing and closed the door behind him.

“It is Rex, Miss Gayford. An accident.”

“Dead?” whispered Joyce.

“Yes,” said Harley. “I wonder if you would send Mohammed Khán to me, here.”

“Yes, Mr. Harley,” the girl replied. “But what does it mean? Who could have2”

“Later, Miss Gayford!” interrupted Harley sharply. “All in good time.”

Joyce, dimly recognizing that there was more in this than either man had declared, turned and walked slowly out. As the door closed behind her, Van Dean clutched Harley's arm in a vise-like grip.

“Merciful God!” Van Dean whispered. “He is here!”

Harley rested his hand upon Van Dean's shoulder. They came down together into the library. `

“Keep a grip on your nerves, Van Dean,” Harley said firmly. “There is more to come. Someone, never mind names at the moment, entered your study a while ago.”

“But,” whispered Van Dean, “the doors were locked!”

“There's the window,” retorted Harley; “and the north wing is covered in ivy. Oh, there's no room for doubt! I saw something moving up there as I crossed the lawn below. He found Latham's dog in the room. The poor brute went for him, and2”

He ceased speaking as Jim Westbury, looking rather sheepish, came in by the French window.

“I say,” he inquired, “can I dismiss? Not a soul about.”

“Of course,” repied Harley in preoccupied fashion. “Sorry. I was afraid you would be too late to see anything.” He turned to Van Dean. “If you have no objection, I should like a word with Mohammed Khán and Wu Chang, I have satisfied myself about the other servants.”

“As you like, Harley,” replied the American, “It's up to you. God knows I'd trust them both. But all the same I2”

There came a rap on the library door and Mohammed Khán entered.

“Mohammed,” said Van Dean, “Harley Sahib wishes to speak to you.”

The Oriental bowed. Paul Harley crossed and stood just in front of him, looking him up and down with his penetrating gray eyes.

“You have seen military service,” Harley said. “When and where?”

At that, a trace of uneasiness disturbed the serenity of the Oriental's countenance.

“I serve under the Gaekwar of Baroda, Sahib,” he replied in his musical voice, “from the time I am twenty, for five years.”

“Why do you claim to be Rajputanan?”

“I was born in Rajputana, Sahib.”

“What town?”

“Shahabad.”

“And after Baroda?”

“I go to the Madras Presidency in the service of Colonel Forrester.”

“As what?”

“As butler.”

“Next?”

“He comes to England; I come also. He meets with misfortune, but the Colonel Sahib gives me a good name at the agency and I am engaged here.”

A little longer the steel gray eyes challenged the glance of the dark brown ones.

“Very good, Mohammed. You may go. Send Wu Chang to me in Mr. Van Dean's study.”

Harley's glance followed Mohammed's departure across the library. Then, with not a word to Van Dean or Westbury, he turned, mounted the stairs and disappeared into the study.

“Good Lord, Van Dean!” Westbury burst out. “What's it all about? I always thought you brought Mohammed Khán from India and all that.”

“No, Westbury,” replied Van Dean. “When I was forming my household here, I advertised for an Indian butler. He came from the Anglo-Indian Association in London. His references were above suspicion.”

“Then2” began Jim, and paused.

Unheralded by any knock, a little, stooping Chinaman entered the library, silent in his padded shoes. He glanced neither to right nor left, but shuffled across to the study stairs, mounted them, rapped on the door and went in, closing it behind him.

IV. The Mandarin K

Chapter IV

THE MANDARIN K

LATTERLY, an odd sense of unrest had come to the household at the Abbey. Bates, the chauffeur, had formerly lived at the gate lodge, where later, Parker, the gardener, had also slept. But latterly, by Mr. Van Dean's orders, accommodation had been found in the main building for both of these.

An undefinable air of mystery had begun to manifest itself from the time that the wealthy and distinguished American traveler took up his habitation there. Several servants had left, but had been replaced by others sent down from London. Mohammed Khán, the butler, and Parker, the gardener, were comparatively newcomers; and to the dignified Mohammed fell the duty of inspecting the grounds every night at dusk, particularly with regard to the efficiency of certain electrical burglar alarms, which Van Dean had installed early in his tenancy.