Part 2

"Courage, my dear!" reassured d'Artois. "The enemy has slipped." Then, to Farrell, "_Allons!_ Let us get to work at once. I have several of those hunches."

"The quicker the better, Pierre," agreed Farrell. And as Antoinette's slender arms released him, he followed d'Artois down the stairs to the street.

_3. The Hand of Hassan_

"Your task, my friend," began d'Artois as, back again at his house, they sat down to plan their campaign against the phantom garden, "will be to watch at the plaza. You will loaf, and drink an occasional _apéritif_, and smoke your way into the day. You may see nothing; but with time and patience your watch will have results. All of Bayonne passes the plaza, sooner or later."

"But what," wondered Farrell, "am I to look for?"

"People who show signs of hasheesh intoxication, particularly Arabs or other Orientals," answered d'Artois. "You know the symptoms. You have seen enough _hasheeshin_ in Egypt and Syria. I need not describe their manner, or peculiar stare. We are in search of addicts who in addition are fanatic Moslems. A slender clue at best, but while you pursue that, something else may happen.

"And I, in the meanwhile, will be doing some private snooping of my own. This _Monsieur_ the Marquis des Islots is due for an investigation. That one has an open reputation for dabbling in obscure arts, and not such a savory reputation either."

"But," protested Farrell, "how do hasheesh addicts come into this?"

"Listen, I will enlighten you," began d'Artois. "We mentioned the Assassins, the followers of Hassan al Sabbah, the terrible Chief of the Mountains, _n'est-ce pas_? Those Assassins were of the fanatic Ismailian sect of Moslems. Those guests of the garden mentioned in this book"--d'Artois indicated _Siret al Haken_, lying open on the desk--"actually believed that their master had the power of admitting them to paradise for brief visits, at the end of which they were drugged, and dragged forth to awaken once more on earth, and ready for any infamy that might be demanded as the price of returning to the garden."

"I have all that," admitted Farrell. "All right, then?"

"The sect of the Ismailians," continued d'Artois, "was more than religious. It was political. Its members did not content themselves with theory. And if, as Antoinette's strange dreams indicate, we have a nest of Ismailians--that is, _hasheeshin_--to contend with, sooner or later one or more of them will be noted about town.

"As for Antoinette, it is quite possible that she is, without being aware of it, _clairvoyante_. And thus _Monsieur le Marquis_ will bear investigation. Do you therefore stand watch as I directed, while I pursue some private snooping. _À bientôt!_"

Whereat d'Artois turned to his desk, leaving Farrell to go to the plaza and seek a table under the striped awning of the café.

* * * * *

Farrell was none too optimistic, but upon his arrival at Café du Théâtre he assumed an indolence that in any place but southern France would have seemed a pose. But in Bayonne the enjoyment of placid idleness is an ancient art: and thus it was eminently suitable for him to sit and watch the smoke spiralling from the cigarette that smoldered between his fingers.

All of the Bayonnais, and all visitors, eventually pass the plaza: Portuguese and Spanish and Italian sailors, Arabs from Algiers and Morocco, Basques from the hills; English tourists on their way to the arcades of rue Port Neuf, where they found the only _épiceries_ in Bayonne where they could buy Scotch whisky; peasants, loafers, soldiers on leave; quietly dressed and unpainted girls who had left behind them, in their rooms beyond the Nive, all the gauds and garniture of their profession. Costly imported cars flashed by, to cross Pont Mayou and Pont de Saint Esprit; ox-carts lumbered past, the drivers, arrayed in dingy smocks, trudging along and reviling their placid beasts. Bayonne marched by in review; and Farrell watched the parade.

But despite his apparent idleness, Farrell's gray eyes were occupied with more than wisps of smoke, and the tall glass of _anis del oso_ that sat on the marble-topped table before him. Without in the least shifting his slightly bowed head, he was peering between his drooping eye-lashes at the passers-by, and at the boulevardiers who like himself sat sipping the meridional _apéritif_.

He was particularly interested in the trio that sat two tables to his right, where they could command a view of rue Port Neuf as well as the street that led to the Mayou bridge. They were swarthy and aquiline-featured. Two were Syrian Arabs; but the third, despite his dark skin and foreign air, was no Semite, but an Aryan: a Kurd from Kurdistan, one of those fierce mountaineers who in their native land are the terror of Turk and Persian alike. Yet the trio had kinship in at least one feature: the dilated pupils and the staring glassiness of their eyes.

As Farrell raised his glass and sniffed the odor of the cloudy drink, he smelled trouble as well as _anis del oso_. D'Artois' somber hints were having substantial realization. Farrell's first reaction was to loosen the pistol in his shoulder holster. The peculiar stare of their eyes convinced Farrell that he had picked up the trail of that which d'Artois felt would lead to the source of the bedevilment of Antoinette's nights.

Farrell continued his apparent enjoyment of idleness. His broad shoulders slumped. He languidly passed his fingers through his sandy hair; but for all his efforts to maintain his poise, his long, lean frame was tense, and chills raced up and down his spine, despite the warmth of the day.

He summoned the waiter and called for brandy.

Then he noted that an exotic, imported car was coming to a smooth halt at the curbing. A footman in livery opened the door and stood at attention as a woman emerged from the rich upholstery and silver and cut glass of the town car that bore the crest of the Marquis des Islots.

Farrell recognized the woman as La Dorada. He wondered, as he saw her step to the curbing, why a carpet had not been unrolled to keep her feet from the contamination of the paving. The scarcely perceptible breeze wafted a breath of perfume whose cost rumor had for once fallen short of exaggerating.

La Dorada was passing the table of the trio from Asia. The one facing the Mayou bridge made a gesture. His lips moved. At that distance, Farrell could not hear what he said. La Dorada apparently paid no attention to the murmur. She was accustomed to whispered admiration.

Farrell ignored the warning of his intuition: it was too unbelievable and outrageous.

Then it happened. The Kurd, who faced Farrell, leaped cat-like to his feet. A knife flashed in his hand. La Dorada started at Farrell's warning cry, and added her own note of dismay as she saw his hand with an incredibly swift gesture seek his armpit.

"Smack-smack-smack!" roared the heavy automatic.

The Kurd pitched backward to the paving, groaning and clutching his stomach.

But even as Farrell drew and fired, the Syrian whose back had been turned to Farrell leaped from his place. And the knife he held found its mark, full in the breast of La Dorada.

The pistol spoke, but too late. Even as the impact of the heavy slug bowled the Syrian over in a heap, his blade sank home.

La Dorada screamed, reeled, and collapsed, clutching the dagger whose hilt projected beyond the blood-splashed fur collar of her coat.

As he leaped forward, pistol in hand, Farrell knew that she would be beyond assistance. A shot at the survivor of the trio was impossible, and pursuit was futile. Waiters, patrons of the café, and passers-by clustered about the dying beauty. In the confusion Farrell heard the clash of gears and caught a glimpse of a car tearing madly down toward the road leading to Maracq.

La Dorada moaned, and shuddered.

"Hassan----" she articulated with an effort. Then she coughed, and gasped. A red foam flecked her red lips.

* * * * *

The arrival of a pair of gendarmes, and, a few minutes later, a passing doctor, scattered the dense cluster of frantically gesticulating citizens.

"_Monsieur_," said one of the gendarmes, who had seen Farrell holster his automatic, "be pleased to accompany us. Purely as a matter of form, you understand. It is plainly evident that that one----"

He indicated the second of the assassins that Farrell's pistol fire had bowled over.

Farrell shrugged. It would be awkward for a stranger in town to be dragged into the formalities of a police investigation; and doubly annoying in view of his having a serious problem of his own to handle.

"Very well, _monsieur_," agreed Farrell with a wry grimace.

Then he saw d'Artois emerge from the fringe of the crowd that still persisted, at a distance of several paces. He whispered in the ear of the gendarme--only a few words, but they sufficed.

The gendarme turned from d'Artois to Farrell.

"Your pardon, _monsieur_. You may call on us at your leisure. It was routine, you comprehend."

Farrell in his turn bowed, and followed d'Artois to his car, eager to be clear of the plaza. And as they drove past the parkway that lies between the road to Maracq and the wall of Lachepaillet, Farrell gave his companion an account of the assassination.

"_Sacré nom d'un nom!_" swore d'Artois at the conclusion of the narrative. "That is the technique of the Fifth Order of the Ismailians. They worked in threes, so that if the first and second were cut down, the third would nevertheless slay the victim.

"They hunted Saladin seven hundred years ago. They slew Nizam ul Mulk. The Sultan of Cairo, Baibars the Panther, barely escaped them. They terrorized the Near East until Tamerlane in his wrath took by assault their almost impregnable castle of Alamut, tore it down stone by stone, and put to the sword 12,000 Ismailians. But the order persisted, though its power has been broken for these past five centuries, thanks to the savage efficiency of Tamerlane.

"And I am thoroughly convinced," continued d'Artois, "that you witnessed a recrudescence of that plague which ate at the heart of the Moslem world for several centuries. They seem to be branching out again. Even as during the Crusades they assassinated Conrad of Montferrat, so are they again carrying secret war against the infidel."

"But why," demanded Farrell, "did they strike La Dorada in the public square? They could have killed her stealthily. Even though they could not foresee that I would shoot two of them down in their tracks, the other spectators or the police might have killed or captured them."

"You miss the point," declared d'Artois, "which is pardonable, since even your extensive travels in the Orient would not of necessity bring you into contact with the Ismailians. They killed her in public as an example to instill terror in others. It is a matter of history that Ismailian assassins were often ordered to slay a dignitary and to make no attempt at escape. In one case the slayer struck, then sat down and began eating his travel rations of bread and dates, calmly awaiting the guard that would drag him to the executioner and impalement on a sharpened stake. The besotted _hasheeshin_ faced a horrible doom for the sake of re-entrance to the paradise with which their master duped them. The utter fearlessness and indifference to death and torture aroused more terror than the assassinations they perpetrated.

"So much for the _fedawi_, or Devoted Ones, Ismailians of the Fifth Order. The first four orders were the Grand Master, the Grand Priors, and simple priors, or initiates; and then a grade known as _rafiqs_, or associates. These upper grades were intelligent persons who after sufficient study in the free-thinking, heretical doctrines of the Ismailians would be eligible for the highest offices in the Order.

"The Ismailians became a state within a state; they undermined Persia and Syria, and for several centuries exacted tribute from sultans and emirs, with summary vengeance as the penalty of non-payment, very much," concluded d'Artois, with a malicious grin, "like those racketeers they have in your United States. That should make it clear!"

"But how," wondered Farrell, "does Antoinette fit into all this?"

"The companions and initiates of the Ismailians," replied d'Artois, "were adepts in alchemy, magic, conjuring, and occult arts. They used Islam as a mask for all manner of forbidden heresies and as bait to attract the pious oafs and religious fanatics who did the actual slaying and--how does one say it, _à l'Américain_?--and took the rap!

"Maymun the Persian founded the order. A free-thinker, heretic, and magician, he fled from the wrath of the Khalif Mansur, with his son Abdallah, to whom he imparted all his vast knowledge of medicine, conjuring, and occultism. And Abdallah built up on this start by promising the return of the vanished Seventh Imam, who had never died, but who was waiting for the day to return and rule all Islam. They still wait for the return of Ismail, the Seventh Imam. And in the meanwhile, behold the deviltry with which they amuse themselves, bewitching Antoinette, slaying La Dorada--_le bon Dieu_ can only say what will come next."

They drew up at d'Artois' house as he concluded his refreshing of Farrell's memory on the origin of the menace that had taken root in Bayonne.

"How about my watching the plaza?" wondered Farrell as Raoul admitted them.

"You have watched enough," declared d'Artois. "In fact, you have made yourself so painfully conspicuous that from now on I will have to watch you more closely than Mademoiselle Antoinette, or you will be found full of daggers yourself."

"Nuts, Pierre!" protested Farrell. "I've been away from home before, and I'm used to being hunted."

"Nevertheless, be on your guard," cautioned the old man.

_4. Shirkuh Makes Magic_

That evening, after dinner, d'Artois' man, Raoul, entered the study with a large envelope that had just been delivered by a messenger.

D'Artois glanced at the large waxen seal that secured the flap.

"The crest of _Monsieur le Marquis_," he observed. Then, with a wink and a grin at Farrell, he continued, "Like Satan in the first lines of the Book of Job, I wandered up and down the world, and in it, particularly at Biarritz, and somewhat about the estate of our good Marquis. But need I assure you that if my presence was noted, it was also amply accounted for? _Mais oui_, of a verity!"

He slit the envelope and withdrew an engraved invitation.

"Hmmm ... _Monsieur le Marquis_ requests the honor of my presence at a _soirée_ at his château. The Thaumaturgical Order of Thoth is meeting in open conclave."

"Wait a minute," interrupted Farrell. "There's something fishy about this. La Dorada, his sweetheart, is murdered around noon. And now he sends you an invitation to--what was it?--some kind of juggler's convention. Anyway, it's utterly out of keeping. Not only inhumanly callous, but damned poor form; no matter what his private morals may be, a man of his station would have better manners!"

"Granted," acquiesced d'Artois. "But consider: this thaumaturgical society may be depending upon the meeting-place designated, and can not postpone it for the sake of one man's grief. That there is such an order has been for some time an open secret. Then, he himself may be absent from the conclave, even though it assembled in his name. Or again," continued d'Artois, "it is even possible that Monsieur the Marquis does not know of La Dorada's death."

"Absurd!" objected Farrell. "In a town this small----"

"Wait!" interrupted d'Artois. "Remember Antoinette's dream: the Marquis walked through the garden with the veiled Master. He may still be in that garden, not to emerge until the hour of the _soirée_."

"By the rod, that's possible," agreed Farrell. "Since La Dorada was presumably killed by the Ismailians, the Marquis may be in their hands, dead, or a prisoner."

"Now, as to this invitation," continued d'Artois, "it may be a device to exact vengeance for your excellent pistol practise. Their espionage would inform them that you, my friend and guest, would surely accompany me to the _soirée_.

"But mark you this: they can scarcely know that your Antoinette could tell you of seeing the Marquis in the garden. That, you comprehend, is the information that ties the scattered ends together, and makes their otherwise subtle trap seem obvious to us.

"My friend, do we go and defy them, or shall we stay at home?"

Farrell laughed.

"Pierre, you're comical at times! We'll go, and be damned to them and their trap. We can shoot our way out of any handful of knife-artists they throw at us, what?"

"Ha! Is it that you are informing me?" scoffed d'Artois with a fierce gleam in his steel-blue eyes. "_Voilà_--have your choice of my arsenal," he said, gesturing at his collection of pistols, ranging from flintlocks and cap-and-ball antiques to heavy Colt revolvers and automatics. "And perhaps, since we shall be outnumbered, we might slip into those shirts of Persian chain-mail. They are not much heavier than a sweater, and so exquisitely forged as to be proof against knives and any but the heaviest pistols. _Parbleu_, we will attend that conclave!"

After arraying themselves as d'Artois had suggested, they dressed for a formal evening affair.

"Thaumaturgy ... thaumaturgy ..." muttered Farrell as they stepped into the Renault and d'Artois took the wheel. "Wonder, or miracle workers, what?"

"Precisely," agreed d'Artois. "Jugglery, sleight of hand, trickery, but withal, an underlying substratum of fact that can not be dismissed. I myself have seen unbelievable things done by the adepts of Tibet. A corpse, _par exemple_, animated and made to dance by some devilish magic. The fact of my having been admitted to their inner circles in Tibet has in time leaked out; and it is to this that they would expect us to attribute my receiving tonight's invitation."

* * * * *

The château of the Marquis was out in the hills beyond the Mousserole Gate. It was perched on a knoll that commanded the surrounding country. Several cars were parked in a level space near the entrance.

"It seems," observed Farrell, "that there are other guests, although that may or may not mean anything."

D'Artois presented his invitation to the butler.

"_Monsieur le Chevalier_ Pierre d'Artois," he intoned in impressive but oddly accented French. Then he glanced at Farrell.

D'Artois interposed and instructed the butler, who then announced Farrell.

They advanced through the vestibule and thence into the salon, a vast, high-ceiled chamber illuminated by a pulsing bluish glow. The walls were hung with black arras embroidered in silver to depict with unsavory realism the grotesque imagery of Asian mysteries. At the far end of the salon was a dais flanked by tall tripod-censers whose pungent, resinous fumes made the air thick.

The assembled guests were in formal evening dress. There were Spaniards with black mustaches, and Frenchmen with spade-shaped beards; and here and there Farrell saw lean, hawk-faced Arabs, and several distinctly Mongolian faces.

"More guests than the number of cars would indicate," muttered Farrell, nudging d'Artois. "This is all very flossy, but I smell trouble."

"And no Marquis," added d'Artois with a quick glance about the salon. Then he advanced to meet the man who seemed to be acting as host. After the exchange of a few words, d'Artois presented Farrell.

In the course of the conventional courtesies, Farrell appraised the master of the show. He was lean as a beast of prey, and as sleek. His moves and gestures had a cat-like grace, and his speech had the indefinable blur of accent that marks one who speaks many languages with equal ease.

"And thus I have the honor," concluded the host, "of offering in the name of _Monsieur le Marquis_ his regrets and the hospitality of his house."

He paused for a moment, regarding them with his intent, deep-set eyes; then with a gesture toward a row of chairs arranged before the dais, "Be pleased to seat yourselves, _messieurs_."

Farrell watched the broad shoulders and tall figure pass among the guests like a cat stalking through a jungle.

"Shirkuh of the clan of Shadi," muttered Farrell. "Ought to be an honest fighting-man, but----"

"'But' is correct," interrupted d'Artois. "There is nothing honest about that playmate of Satan. Mark my words, we shall see more of that gentleman, if we live long enough."

As they seated themselves there was a clang of bronze, and the faint, muffled wailing of pipes and the whine of single-stringed _kemenjahs_ from an alcove behind the arras. As the guests took seats, an attendant passed up and down the rows of chairs, offering small glasses of wine, and triangular pastries iced in curious designs.

"On your life, don't eat it!" muttered d'Artois as he palmed a confection he had selected from the tray. "Drugged, there is no telling what may happen to your good sense. This is all damnably familiar."

Another peal of bronze; then, as Shirkuh sprang effortlessly to the dais, the music dimmed to a sighing whisper, a sinister murmuring from outer darkness.

Six lean, brown men, nude save for loin-cloths that glowed like golden flames in the spectral bluish light, emerged from an entrance concealed by the silver-embroidered arras, and filed across the hall toward the dais. Following them came four others, likewise arrayed, but blacker than any negroes Farrell had ever seen. They bore a litter on which lay a form whose gracious feminine curves were not entirely concealed by the silken, metallically glistening shroud.

"Good Lord!" muttered Farrell. "A woman!"

The brown-skinned sextet ascended the dais. The blacks followed with their burden. As they halted, two others emerged from the back-drapes of the dais, bringing with them wrought bronze trestles on which the litter was placed.

* * * * *

Shirkuh took his post behind the litter as the sextet of adepts from High Asia seated themselves cross-legged in front of it.

"Fellow thaumaturges," he began, "I, the least of your servants, beg leave to present a feat that has never been accomplished save in far-off Lhasa."

He paused, smiled, and stroked his mustache. Then he gestured toward the shrouded form on the litter. An attendant gathered the silken folds and drew them aside.

Farrell barely suppressed a gasp of horrified amazement.

The woman on the bier was La Dorada. Her copper-golden hair flamed like living fire in the bluish-purple, pulsing light of the room. The hands, folded across her breast, sparkled with jewels. She had no other adornment or dress. La Dorada, the Golden, dead not over ten hours, and stripped of all but her exquisite beauty, lay exposed to the gaze of that assemblage of devil-mongers. For one terrible instant Farrell had thought that Antoinette lay on that bier; then he remembered her resemblance to the dead actress, and assured himself that Antoinette was and must be in her apartment on rue Lachepaillet, awaiting another night of fantastic dreams of an assassin's paradise, and the lashing of an invisible scourge.

"_Monsieur le Marquis_," continued Shirkuh with a smile that flashed satanic mockery, "is unable to be with us. But I trust that that which I offer will be worthy of your presence."

"Lord!" muttered Farrell. "I don't know the Marquis, but exhibiting her dead body here in his house--I've half a notion to start the show right here!"

D'Artois' fingers closed about Farrell's right wrist.

"_Imbécile!_ This infamy is none of your business. Tend to your own sheep."