Part 12

There was a sudden hiss of escaping steam, and the whole of the dropped trellis-work was enveloped in mist. The mass seemed to move as if it had been endowed with life or as if a strong breeze had swept over it. Then without the slightest warning a grip like a vice caught Isa Benstein below and above the elbow, pressing her forearm and causing her to wince with the horrible pain.

So tight was the grip that she could not turn or move. She stood there writhing in agony, and yet too fascinated to call out. The bones creaked and cracked, and still the pain grew greater; it seemed impossible that any human fingers could grip flesh and blood like that. Were all the weird legends clinging round the Cardinal Moth true, Isa Benstein caught herself wondering in a faint, dizzy way?

Then she braced herself up and struggled violently. It was characteristic of the woman that she uttered no cry. As she drooped and her eyes grew cloudy she had a faint vision of a face under a turban, and then there came a sound of swiftly rushing feet. The platform seemed to rise with a sudden jerk. Isa Benstein was wrenched from her feet, the weight of her body told, the arm came away with a cruel drag from the vice-like grip, and she fell a huddled, shimmering heap on the floor.

"I hope you are not much hurt," a voice whispered in her ear. "It was dreadful."

Isa Benstein scrambled to her feet breathless, dizzy, and writhing with pain. But her quick eyes were clear now, and she recognised the Shan's companion, whom she knew to be Angela's lover. His face was white and quivering; there was a nameless horror in his eyes.

"You saw it," Mrs. Benstein said. "What was it?"

"I cannot tell you yet," Harold said. "It was too dreadful, too awful. The shock of discovery almost unmanned me for a moment. We will speak about that presently. How did you happen to be just where you stood?"

"I was admiring the flowers. Sir Clement pulled down the frame for me, so that I could see better. He went away to get something that he wanted to show me, then there was that sudden grip."

"Which seemed to come out of a vapouring mist, did it not?" Harold asked hoarsely. "By accident I loosened the spring, and as the frame rose your weight released you. Is not that so?"

Mrs. Benstein nodded; she had no words just for the moment. Now that the reaction had come she was feeling sick and faint with the pain. Harold's eyes were still distended with the horror of some awful discovery.

"It is very strange," he said. "Sir Clement did not mean to come back to you, for he has just left the house. He slipped out with some companion whose face I did not see. But your arm is painful. Nothing broken, I hope?"

Isa Benstein raised her lovely white arm to prove that such was not the case. But there was a round red band, and here and there a thin red stream came from the broken skin.

"Would you mind keeping this to yourself for the present?" Harold asked. "Believe me, there are urgent reasons why you should do so, reasons so urgent that I cannot go into them now. If you are silent we shall bring one of the greatest scoundrels to the gallows. If not----"

"I will be silent," Mrs. Benstein said, between her white set teeth. "But if you could get me away to see a doctor, or if there is a doctor here whom I could trust----"

"Of course there is, I must have been a fool not to have thought of it before. Sir James Brownsmith is the very man, and he is interested in the case too. Nobody is likely to come in here."

Harold hurried away in search of Brownsmith, whom he had seen a little while before. He found Angela and explained what he desired to her. He had hardly got back to the great conservatory before the great surgeon bustled in. Coolly enough Harold locked the door. There was no chance of Sir Clement coming back yet. In a few words he gave a brief outline of what had happened.

"It's part of the mystery," he said. "The same horrible mysterious force that brought that poor fellow at Streatham and Manfred to their death."

"Good God!" Sir James cried. "Do you mean to say that you have solved that mystery?"

"Certainly I have. That is why I wanted you above all men to see Mrs. Benstein. Oh, never mind who I am for the present. To the world I am merely Aben Abdullah attached to the suite of the Shan of Koordstan, and I am popularly supposed to know very little English. Look to your patient, man."

Sir James passed the rudeness from a young man to one of his exalted position. Very tenderly and gently he examined the wounded arm. But his vivid interest was more than strictly professional.

"This is very strange," he said. "There are no bones broken, I am glad to say--nothing worse than a severe bruise. But I could not believe, I should utterly refuse to believe that a human hand could make such a mark like that. Why, it would have to be as large as a shoulder of mutton to grip the forearm and deltoid like that. Did you see your assailant, Mrs. Benstein?"

"I saw nothing at all," Mrs. Benstein said, with a faint smile. "There was nobody to see."

Sir James shook his head, but Harold nodded as if he quite approved of the remark. Sir James was still carefully examining the round white arm.

"The thing tallies," he said. "There are the same cruel marks, the same indentations as from a coarse cloth. And also we have the same great force used. In the name of God, what is it, sir?"

Brownsmith spoke with a sudden horror upon him. Harold shook his head.

"I can sympathize with your feelings, Sir James," he said. "I came very near to fainting myself when the full force of the thing dawned upon me. But for the present I prefer to keep silence. And I will ask you to be silent also. You would be playing into the hands of an utter scoundrel if the slightest inkling of Mrs. Benstein's accident were to leak out."

Brownsmith pursed up his lips and nodded.

"Then the best thing Mrs. Benstein can do is to go home," he said. "Plenty of hot water fomentations for the present and something to follow. I'll see that it is delivered to-night. But, seeing that Mrs. Benstein has to say good-night to her hostess, and seeing that her dress is so low in the sleeves----"

Isa Benstein solved the problem in her own swift, characteristic fashion. She tore her dress from the shoulder so that the gauzy fabric hung over and hid the cruel red seam on her arm.

"Ask Lady Frobisher to come here," she said. "Then call my car and fetch my wraps. I quite see the necessity of making the thing look as natural as possible."

It was all done so smoothly and easily that no suspicion was aroused. Mrs. Benstein had simply had an accident with her dress, an accident that necessitated her immediate return home. She had had a charming evening, one that she was likely to remember for a long time. Her manner was easy and natural; she gave no impression of one who has escaped a nameless horror, perhaps a cruel death.

"I can slip away, thank you very much," she said. "Perhaps the gentleman who has been so kind will see me to my car. May I ask your arm?"

Harold bowed profoundly. It was just the opportunity he required. They threaded their way through the guests along the brilliantly-lighted corridor into the street where the car was waiting. Isa Benstein held out her hand in a warm and friendly grip.

"I am going to help you and Miss Lyne, if I can," she said. "Ask Miss Lyne to come and see me the first thing in the morning. After she has gone to bed to-night she will know and appreciate my request. Have you really solved the mystery of the two tragedies?"

"I am absolutely certain of it," Harold replied. "See, there is Sir Clement and that fellow--Hamid Khan, the man who was in the smoking-room, you know."

Mrs. Benstein looked eagerly out of the window. Her big eyes gleamed. "It is as I expected," she said. "I have made a discovery also, Mr. Denvers. If you will call on me after eleven to-morrow you will hear of something greatly to your advantage. Strange how fate seems to be playing into our hands to-night."

The car moved forward, the speaker was gone.

*CHAPTER XXII.*

*STRANDS OF THE ROPE.*

Denvers returned to the ballroom with a feeling that he would be glad to get away. The whole thing sickened him, the light laughter and frivolous chatter jarred upon his nerves. He had been very near to a dreadful tragedy; he had learnt a hideous truth, and he had not got himself in hand yet. He wanted to know the whole truth without delay. Angela awaited him anxiously.

"My aunt tells me that Mrs. Benstein is gone," she said. "She had an accident with her dress. Harold, you look as if you had seen a ghost."

"I have seen the devil, which is much the same thing," Harold murmured. "My dear girl, never again shall I flatter myself that I have no nerves. I dare not go into the refreshment-room and demand strong drink, but I shall be more than grateful if you will smuggle me a glass of champagne into the little alcove where we first met to-night. There I can tell you something."

But it was not very much that Harold had to tell. The terrible discovery he had made must be kept to himself as far as Angela was concerned. Mrs. Benstein would like to see Angela in the morning. She had a new design for a costume that might suit the girl, so that she was to be sure and wear the blue orchids that Angela had at present in her hair.

"It sounds very mysterious," Angela smiled.

"Well, it does," Harold admitted. "But I'm sure Mrs. Benstein has good reasons for the request. Taking her all in all, she is the most brilliantly intellectual woman I have ever met, and if I mistake not she can supply the missing piece of the puzzle. Now I really must say good-night, dear old girl, and drag my master home. I have much to do before I go to bed."

"What did Mrs. Benstein do with the ruby?" Angela asked.

"I don't know. She utterly baffled Frobisher and Lefroy. At first it occurred to me that she had passed it on to you, but she would argue that your tell-tale face would give you away. I expect she acted as the hero of Poe's 'Purloined Letter' did--place the gem in a place so simple and commonplace, that nobody would ever dream of looking for it there. However, I am quite sure that the jewel is safe."

In the card-room the Shan was just finishing a rubber of bridge. He had won a considerable sum of money, and was in the best of spirits. As two of the players quitted the table, Harold drew his pseudo-master aside.

"You are not going to play again," he said, curtly, "you are coming home. If you refuse to come home I shall take no further interest in your affairs. Do you hear?"

The Shan nodded sulkily. Like the spoilt child that he was, he had no heed for the morrow. But Denvers' stern manner was not without its effect. He wanted a glass or two of champagne first, but Denvers fairly dragged him into the street. There was no car waiting, so perforce they had to walk.

"You're carrying it off with a high hand," the Shan growled. "Anybody would think you had the Blue Stone safe in your pocket. Have you done anything?"

"I have done a great deal; on the whole, it has been a most exciting evening. Still, so far as things go I am quite satisfied with myself. The rest depends upon you. It will be your own fault if you don't see your own back to-morrow. No drink, mind; you are to go to bed quite sober."

"Confound you!" the Shan flashed out, passionately. "Do you know who I am? A servant like yourself----"

"I am no servant of yours," Harold replied. "And I know quite well who you are. You are a dissolute, drunken fool, who is doing his best to bring himself to ruin. And I am doing my best to save you at a price. If you like to go your own way you can."

The Shan muttered something that sounded like an apology.

"You see, I am greatly worried about the Stone," he said. "The Stone and the Moth. You promised to tell me to-night where the Moth had vanished to."

"The Moth is hanging up in Sir Clement Frobisher's conservatory," Harold Denvers said. "Frobisher would have shown it to you to-night only he had a more interesting game to play. It is the very plant that was stolen from Streatham. You can imagine the price Frobisher would ask for its restoration. You would grant the price, and then he would have found some way to repudiate all the wicked story of that infernal flower."

"Of course I do, my dear chap," said the Shan, now thoroughly restored as to his temper. "It has been whispered fearsomely round firesides in Koordstan for a thousand years. The Cardinal Moth guarded the roof of the Temple of Ghan. All the great political criminals were sentenced to climb to the roof and pick a flower from the Moth. The door was closed and the temple seen to be empty. When the priests outside had finished their prayer the door was open and the criminal lay on the floor dead with the marks of great hairy hands about him. Sometimes it was the neck that was broken, sometimes the chest was all crushed in as if a great giant had done it, but it was always the same. Ay, they dreaded that death more than any other. It was so mysterious, horrible."

"And you have no idea how it was done?" Harold asked.

"Not a bit of it. The priests kept that secret. Of course they pretend to something occult, but I have been in the West too long to believe that. Still, it is pretty horrible."

"You would perhaps like to know how it is done?"

"Of course I should, Denvers. The priests are too cunning for that."

"Doubtless. All the same, I know how it is done, and, what is more to the point, Frobisher knows. It was the way that Manfred died, also that poor fellow at Streatham. And, but for a miracle, Mrs. Benstein, with your sacred jewel presumedly in her possession, would have been a further victim. Frobisher deliberately planned the last thing to close the mouth of a woman."

The Shan's eyes fairly rippled with curiosity, but Harold shook his head.

"Not yet," he said. "I must be absolutely certain of my facts first. Now I am going to see you into bed, and come round to keep you out of mischief in the morning. Meanwhile, I am going to restore myself to a Christian garb and call up Sir James Brownsmith, late as it is. Between us we might be able to put all the pieces together."

To his great satisfaction, Harold saw his dusky friend not only in bed, but fast asleep before he had finished his own change. Everything seemed to promise fair for the morrow. It was past two, and Harold hurried along in the direction of Harley Street, and he was glad to see a gleam over the fanlight of the surgeon's front door. He was pulling the bell for the second time when Sir James Brownsmith appeared.

"What do you want?" he asked, testily. "A consulting physician like myself----"

"How is Mrs. Benstein?" Harold asked coolly. The question was quite effective. "When I saw you a little time ago, Sir James, I passed as one of the Shan's suite. Clothed and in my right mind, I am Mr. Harold Denvers, at your service. I have the solution of the Manfred mystery in my pocket."

"And altogether I have no doubt that you are a most remarkable young man," Sir James said. "Pray come in. I ought to be in bed, but I have not the faintest inclination for sleep. Come in."

Brilliant lights gleamed in Brownsmith's cosy study, where books and scientific instruments made up the bulk of the furniture. The famous surgeon proffered cigarettes what time he looked keenly into the face of his younger companion. He lighted one of the thin paper tubes himself.

"I am just from Mrs. Benstein's house," he explained. "I saw her alone, her husband knows nothing; it is her great desire that he should know nothing, that the matter should be kept a profound secret, in fact."

"It must be," Harold exclaimed. "Not a word of it must leak out. You made a certain examination of the wound. What did you find? Was there any blood?"

"I'm not quite sure. When I came to wash the arm there was no blood there. But there were the fibres of the rope, and they seemed to be impregnated with blood the same as those from the throat of Manfred, and the body of that poor fellow who was strangled at Streatham."

"Are you quite sure that it is blood, Sir James?"

"Well, I could hazard the suggestion, though I have not made a careful analysis yet. No blood on the victim, but blood on the strands of the rope. Strange, isn't it?"

"If it were true, yes," Harold said, dryly. "But it isn't. Look here, Sir James."

From the vest-pocket of his dress-clothes Harold took one wilted bloom of the Cardinal Moth. He crushed it between his fingers, and immediately they were covered with a rosy sticky bright red substance exactly like blood. No paint or pigment of any kind could have counterfeited the original so well.

"Well, that's interesting," Sir James cried. "I see your meaning. When the victim was strangled one or two of those amazing blooms must have been twisted round the rope."

"In other words, the rope that did the mischief was the rope that held up the Cardinal Moth," Harold said. "It was the same at Streatham; it was the same with poor Manfred; according to your own showing, Mrs. Benstein met with her accident under precisely similar circumstances."

Sir James rose and walked up and down the room in a fit of unusual excitement.

"You mean to infer that it was not an accident at all?" he asked.

"You have precisely taken in my meaning, Sir James. The Cardinal Moth is at the bottom of the whole thing. I must tell you a little of its history. The Cardinal Moth is unique amongst flowers; for centuries it guarded, or was supposed to guard, the Temple of Ghan. It had magical powers: it was used for the destruction of political prisoners. They were shut in with it to pick a flower, and always were they found dead, crushed to death. This part is no legend, as the Shan of Koordstan will tell you.

"The fame of the orchid got whispered about, and many were the tries to get it. At last a party of three men managed it; they divided the orchid in three parts and fled. Frobisher was with one part, and narrowly got off with his life at Stamboul. Lefroy got away with another part, but he lost it and almost his life as well in a fire at Turin, a fire that was no accident. The third man vanished, but his orchid remained intact till I came across it and brought it to Streatham, when it was stolen. My idea was to give it back to the Shan of Koordstan in exchange for certain concessions."

"Do you know who stole the plant from Streatham?" Sir James asked.

"I have a very shrewd idea," Harold said. "But that we can go into later. At the present moment I want to show you a little experiment, and when I have done so you will know as much as I do about the mystery. I am going to prove to you that the Cardinal Moth has been a terrible power in the hands of the priests of Ghan, but I am also going to prove that the power is exercised in quite a mechanical way. To-night I managed to bring away a very small piece of the rope that sustains the Cardinal Moth. You see, it is exceedingly dry and hard, and yet under certain conditions it thickens up like a cheap sponge. We will tie this end to this leg of the table and that end to the other leg, leaving it to sway a little, and not making it too tight."

Harold tied the rope as he had indicated under the eyes of Sir James, who watched him with breathless attention. The thing looked so simple, and yet there was a strange mystery behind it all, a mystery that was about to be explained. The two knots were made tight at length.

"Now, despite the warmth of the night, I shall have to get you to light a fire," Harold said. "It is absolutely necessary that we should boil a kettle."

"No occasion to do that," Sir James said. "You shall have your kettle in five minutes. See here."

From under the table he produced a copper electric kettle, filled it, and plunged the plug into the wall. In a little less than five minutes a long trail of steam issued from the spout. By reason of the long flex Harold could carry the kettle from place to place without cutting off the connection, so that the water continued all the time to boil and fizzle.

"Now watch this," he said. "I place this jet of steam under the rope here, and there you are! The effect is practically instantaneous. See what a simple thing it is." Sir James jumped back, horror and enlightenment in his eyes. His voice shook as he spoke.

"Infernal! Diabolical!" he cried hoarsely. "And you mean to say that Frobisher knew this! Damnable scoundrel; he is not fit to live, still less to die."

*CHAPTER XXIII.*

*A LUNCH AT THE BELGRAVE.*

Mrs. Benstein received Denvers as arranged the next morning as if the events of the previous night had been forgotten. She was looking wonderfully fresh and bright; a tailor-made gown fitted her figure to perfection. She motioned Denvers to a chair.

"I am glad you came," she said. "Now you are to please listen to me carefully and put the past out of your mind altogether. Since I saw you last night I have learnt a great deal touching the history of the Blue Stone of Ghan."

"Which I trust is quite safe," Harold murmured.

"Oh quite," Mrs. Benstein said, with a queer little smile. "I have even satisfied my husband on that point, though he has not yet recovered from the shock of your visit--I mean the visit of yourself and the Shan last night. You want to borrow the stone for a day or so?"

"That was the suggestion we ventured to make, Mrs. Benstein."

"For the purpose of throwing dust in the eyes of certain persons who are interested in an attempt to deprive the Shan of his throne. Mind, that is merely surmise, but I fancy it is correct. But I may tell you that my husband could never have hardened his heart to that extent."

"It doesn't matter now," Harold explained. "We are in a position to redeem the gem. Of course, under the circumstances, I need not conceal anything from your Mr. Gerald Parkford----"

"Capital!" Mrs. Benstein cried. "His name is good enough for anything. Now the path is quite clear. I want you and Miss Lyne to lunch with me at two o'clock at the Belgrave. The Shan must come along, that is imperative. He is to leave a note for his minister Hamid Khan to join him there at that meal, and bring the document that requires sealing along. Also I am going to ask Sir Clement Frobisher; only I want Hamid Khan to be a little late. Do you understand?"

"Most brilliant of mysteries; I'll try to," Harold smiled. "And the Blue Stone----"

"The Blue Stone will be in evidence when the time comes. See Mr. Parkford and ask him to bring that cheque along. My husband is too ill to attend to business to-day, so I shall transact it for him."

"He has had a great deal on his mind the last few hours," Harold smiled.

"That is it, Mr. Denvers. A corner in rubies, so to speak. Now will you go and settle up this business for me without delay? I understand that the Shan wants looking after if one desires to keep him in a condition to bestow his mind on business affairs."

"I'll take the hint and my departure," Harold laughed. "I suppose you have written all your notes. And I quite forgot to ask if you feel any the worse for last night's adventure."

Mrs. Benstein had written all her notes, and on the whole she felt little inconvenience from her accident.

"Not that I am at all satisfied," she said. "Mr. Denvers, I was in great danger last night?"

"Terrible danger!" Harold said gravely. "But I have got to the bottom of the mystery now, and the same thing is not likely to happen again. I can't tell you now; in fact, if I did there would be no luncheon-party at the Belgrave to-day. But your curiosity will not be unduly tried."