Jimgrim and a Secret Society. Talbot Mundy

ministries. I’m going to make it a personal issue with them in every instance. But I have to work in secret, or I’ll last about a minute and a half. That’s how you three men happen to be the first who ever heard a word from me on a subject that I’ve been pondering for five-and-twenty years.”

      “Strange, old boy,” said Jeremy. “You altruists are all plausible; and you all turn out in the end to be feathering your own nests.”

      “My impression of you is that you’re honest,” Strange answered.

      “Honest? You don’t know me,” laughed Jeremy. “I posed as a prophet of Islam in an Arab village. They used to pay me to make the dead talk from their tombs, and I charged ’em so much extra for every ten years the corpse had been dead and buried. Sure I’m honest.”

      “You keep good company,” Strange answered. “How about you, Ramsden? Are you interested?”

      “Interested, yes,” I answered. “Grim is the senior partner. Let’s hear what he has to say.”

      “How about it, Major Grim?”

      “How would it pay?” Grim asked.

      “Five thousand dollars a year for each of you, and all expenses.”

      “Would you expect us to obey you blindly? The answer is ‘No’ in that case,” Grim assured him.

      “Strict confidence, and the best judgment of all of you. Once we agree together on a course my instructions must be carried out.”

      “How about additions to the staff? I’d have to choose the men I’ll work with,” said Grim.

      “I approve of that.”

      “Very well, Mr. Strange. We three will talk it over and give you a definite answer tonight,” said Grim; and we got up together and left Strange sitting there.

      CHAPTER III

      “I have sworn a vow. Henceforward I serve none but queens!”

      We had not yet made up our minds, but were dining with Meldrum Strange under a great ornamental palm by a splashing fountain, discussing anything from China to Peru that had no bearing on Strange’s offer, when a coal-black Egyptian servant, arrayed in fez, silver-laced purple jacket, and white cotton smock, brought Grim a scented envelope. The scent had a peculiar, pervading strength that commanded attention without challenging. The envelope was made from linen, stiff, thick, and colored faintly mauve, but bore no address. The seal was of yellow wax, poured on liberally and bearing the impress of a man’s thumb. No woman ever had a thumb of that size. Grim turned the thing over half a dozen times, the servant standing motionless behind his chair. When he tore it open at last the contents proved equally remarkable. In English, written with a damaged quill pen, was a message from Narayan Singh that looked as if he had held the paper in one unsteady hand at arm’s length, and made stabs at it with the other. But it was to the point.

      * * *

      If the sahib will bring the other sahibs, he shall look into the eyes of heaven and know all about hell. The past is past. The future none knoweth. The present is now. Come at once.

      NARAYAN SINGH.

      * * *

      Grim asked the servant for more particulars—his master’s name, for instance, and where he lived. He answered in harsh Egyptian Arabic that he had been told to show us the way. He absolutely refused to say who had sent him, or whose paper the message was written on; and he denied all knowledge of Narayan Singh. All he professed to know was the way to the house where we were wanted immediately. So we all went upstairs and packed repeating pistols into the pockets of our tuxedos.

      Meldrum Strange agreed to follow us in a hired auto, and to take careful bearings of whatever house we might enter; after which he would watch the place from a distance until midnight. If we didn’t reappear by twelve o’clock, it was agreed that he should summon help and have the place raided.

      Looking back, I rather wonder that we took so much precaution. Cairo was quiet. There hadn’t been a political disturbance for six weeks, which is a long time as things go nowadays. The soldiers of the British garrison no longer had to go about in dozens for self-protection, and for more than a fortnight the rule against gathering in crowds had been suspended. Nevertheless, we were nervous, and kept that assignation armed.

      A carriage waited for us in the luminous shadow in front of the hotel steps. It was a very sumptuous affair, drawn by two bay thoroughbreds and driven by another graven ebony image, in fez, blue frock-coat with silver buttons, and top-boots. There was a footman in similar livery, and behind the carriage, between the great C springs, was a platform for the enigma who had brought the message.

      We were off at a clattering trot almost before the door slammed shut, swaying through the badly lighted streets to the tune of silver harness bells and the shouts of the driver and footman.

      Mere pedestrians had to “imshi” and do it quick.

      Lord! That was a carriage. We struck matches to admire the finery. It was lined with velvet, on which an artist had painted cupids and doves. There were solid silver brackets, holding silver tubes, that held real orchids—cypropedium expensivum, as Jeremy identified them.

      The curtains that draped the windows were hand-made lace—Louis the Something-or-other—half as old as France; and the thing to put your feet on was covered with peacocks’ bosoms done in wood, inlaid with semiprecious stones. There were mirrors galore to see your face in, but no way of seeing out of the windows without tearing the lace, and we didn’t feel afraid enough to do that.

      There was nothing to remind us of the ordinary, hum-drum world, except the noisy exhaust of Meldrum Strange’s hired car closely pursuing us, and even that sounded detached, you might say, like the sounds of next-door neighbors whom you don’t yet know.

      We didn’t have to worry about what direction we were taking, since Strange was attending to that, but there seemed to be no effort made to confuse us. We kept to the straight, wide streets, and crossed an arm of the Nile by the stone bridge into the better residential quarter, where mansions stand amid palms and shrubbery behind high stone walls. Nor did we leave the Nile far behind us.

      The faintly lighted interior of the carriage grew suddenly as dark as death as we passed under an echoing arch, and out again on gravel between an avenue of trees. We caught the click behind us of an iron gate, and wondered what Meldrum Strange would do, but hardly had time to think of him before the carriage came to a stand under a portico and the door was opened with a jerk.

      We stepped out into a realm of mystery. We could see part of the outline of a great stone house, built in the semi-Oriental, barbaric style of modern Egypt; but the only light was from a Chinese paper lantern in the middle of the portico roof, throwing quivering golden shadows on a front door that was almost entirely covered with bronze Chinese dragons.

      To right and left was a silhouette of fragrant shrubs against the blue Egyptian night; and there wasn’t a sound except what we made. When the carriage drove away and the click of horseshoes vanished somewhere around a corner there was utter silence, until the man who had brought the message stepped up to the front door like a ghost and pushed an electric bell.

      Did it ever strike you that sound has color? The din that bell made was dazzling, diamond white, reflecting all the colors of the prism in its facets. When I spoke of it afterwards I found that Grim had noticed the same thing.

      It was about two minutes before the door opened. Two black six-footers, who looked smug enough to be eunuchs, swung both leaves of the door wide open suddenly, and stood aside with chins in the air to let us pass.

      * * * *

      We entered a restfully lighted hall that might have belonged to a monastery, for it was all white stone without an ornament except simplicity. The ceiling was supported by plaster stone arches, and the whole effect was so unexpectedly different from that outside that it froze you into silence. It was like looking forward to the circus and finding yourself in church. There was even dim organ music descending from