The False Gods Read online

  "Did you tell the Doctor about it?" asked Simpkins, in the wheedlingtone of a physician asking a child to put out her tongue.

  "I tried to stir his memory gently, by careless hints, a word droppedhere and there, recalling some bright triumph of his reign, somesplendid battle, but there was no response. And so I waited, hoping thatof itself his memory might quicken, as mine had."

  "Did Brander know anything about this--er--extraordinary swapping aroundof souls?"

  "Not then----" began the woman, but Simpkins cut her short by jumping tohis feet with a cry of "What's that!" and his voice was sharp with fear.For in that silent second, while he waited for her answer, he had hearda noise out in the hall, the sound of stealthy feet behind the veil, andhe had seen the woman's eyes gleam triumph.

  Again the terror that had mastered him an hour before leaped into life,and quakingly he faced the darkness. But he saw nothing--only theshifting shadows, the crimson blotches crawling on the veil, and thevague outlines of the coffined dead.

  He looked back to the woman. Her face was masklike. It must havebeen a fancy, a vibration of his own tense nerves. But none the less,he rearranged the light, that while its rays shone clear on Mrs.Athelstone, he might be in the shadow, and set his chair back closeagainst the wall, that both the woman and the hall might be well in hiseye. And when he sat down again one hand clutched tight the butt of arevolver.

  VIII

  "You seem strangely disturbed, Simpkins," said Mrs. Athelstone quietly;but he fancied that there was a note of malicious pleasure in her voice."Has anything happened to alarm you?"

  "I thought I heard a slight noise, as if something were moving behindme. Perhaps a mummy was breaking out of its case," he answered, but hisvoice was scarcely steady enough for the flippancy of his speech.

  "Hardly that," was the serious answer; "but it might have been my cat,Rameses."

  "Not unless it was Rameses II., because--well, it didn't sound like acat," he wound up, guiltily conscious of his other reason for certaintyon this point. "Perhaps Isis has climbed down from her pedestal tostretch herself," and he smiled, but his eyes were anxious, and he shota furtive glance toward the veil.

  "It's hardly probable," was the calm reply.

  "What? Can't the thing use its legs as well as its arms?"

  "Ah! then you know----"

  "Yes; she reached for me when I was dusting her off, but I kicked harderthan Doctor Athelstone, I suppose, and so touched the spring twice."

  "You beast!"

  "Well, let it go at that," Simpkins assented. "And let's hear the rest."He was burning with impatience to reach the end and get away, back tonoisy, crowded Broadway.

  But Mrs. Athelstone answered nothing, only looked off toward the altar.It almost seemed as if she waited for something.

  "Go on," commanded Simpkins, stirred to roughness by his growinguneasiness.

  "You will not leave while yet you may?" and her tone doubled the threatof her words.

  "No, not till I've heard it all," he answered doggedly, and grippedthe butt of his revolver tighter. But though he told himself that herchanged manner, this new confidence, this sudden indifference to hisgoing, was the freak of a madwoman, down deep he felt that it portendedsome evil thing for him, knew it, and would not go, could not go; for hedared not pass the ambushed terror of that altar.

  "You still insist?" the woman asked with rising anger. "So be it. Learnthen the fate of meddlers, of dogs who dare to penetrate the mysteriesof Isis."

  Simpkins took his eyes from her face and glanced mechanically towardthe veil. But he looked back suddenly, and caught her signalling with aswift motion of her head to something in the darkness. There could beno mistake this time. And following her eyes he saw a form, black andshapeless, steal along to the nearest post.

  Revolver in hand, he leaped up and back, upsetting his chair. The thingremained hidden. He cleared the partitioning sarcophagus at a bound,and, sliding and backing, reached the centre of the hall, never for oneinstant taking his eyes from that post or lowering his revolver. Step bystep, back between the pillars, he retreated, stumbling toward the doorand safety.

  Half-way, he heard the woman hiss: "Stop him! Don't let him escape!" Andhe saw the thing dart from behind the post. In the uncontrollablemadness of his fear he hurled, instead of firing, his revolver at it,and turned and ran.

  Tapping lightly on the flags behind, he heard swift feet. It was coming,it was gaining, but he was at the door, through it and had slammed itsafely behind him. A leap, a bound, and he was through the ante-chamber,and, as the door behind him opened, he was slipping out into thepassageway. He went down the stairs in great jumps. Thank God! he hadleft the street door unlocked. But already the sound of pursuit hadstopped, and he reached the open air safely.

  Down the deserted street to Broadway he ran. There he hailed a cab anddirected the driver to the telegraph office. Then he leaned back andlooked at the garish lights, the passing cabs, the theatre crowdshurrying along home, laughing and chatting as if the world held no suchhorror as that which he had just escaped. That madwoman's words rangthrough his brain, drowning out the voices of the street; the tapping ofthose flying feet sounded in his ears above the rattle of the cab. Thator this must be unreal; yet how far off both seemed!

  Gradually the rough jolting of the cab shook him back to a sense of hissurroundings and their safety. He began to regain his nerve, and to busyhimself knotting the strands of the story into a connected narrative.And when, a few minutes later, he handed a message to the manager of thetelegraph office and demanded a clear wire into the _Banner_office, he was quite the old breezy Simpkins.

  Then, coat off, a cigar between his teeth, he sat down beside theoperator and began to write his story, his flying fingers keeping timewith the clicking instrument. He made no mention of the fears that hadbeset him in the hall and the manner of his exit from it. But there wasenough and to spare of the dramatic in what he sent. After a sensationalhalf-column of introduction, fitting the murder on Mrs. Athelstone, andenlarging on the certainty of one's sin finding one out, provided itwere assisted by a _Banner_ reporter, he swung into the detailedstory, dwelling on the woman's madness and sliding over the details ofthe murder as much as possible.

  Then he described how, for more than a month, Mrs Athelstone had laboredover the body, hiding it days in the empty case and dragging it outnights, until she had finished it, with the exception of some detailabout the head, into a faithful replica of the mummy of Amosis, theoriginal of which she had no doubt burned. It all made a vivid story;for never had his imagination been in such working order, and never hadit responded more generously to his demands upon it. About two in themorning he finished his third column and concluded his story with:

  "So this awful confession of madness and murder ended. I left the womanbound and helpless, sitting in her chair, her victim at her feet, towait the coming of the police." Then he added to Naylor personally,"Going notify police headquarters now and go back to hall."

  Naylor, who had been reading the copy page by page as it came from thewire, and who, naturally, was taking a mere cold-blooded view of thecase than Simpkins, telegraphed back:

  "What share did Brander have in actual murder? You don't bring that outin story."

  "Couldn't get it out of her," Simpkins sent back, truthfully enough.

  "Find out," was the answer. "Get back to hall quick. Brander may havelooked in to help Mrs. A. with her night work while you were gone. Willhold enough men for an extra."

  Simpkins called a cab and started for police headquarters at breakneckspeed, but on the way he stopped at Brander's rooms; for a miserablesuspicion was growing in his brain. "If that really was Isis," he wasthinking, "it's funny she didn't nail me before I got to the door, evenwith the start I had."

  On his representation that he had called on a matter of life and death,the janitor admitted him to Brander's rooms. They were empty, and thebed had not been slept in.

  IX

  It was just af
ter three o'clock when Simpkins, an officer on eitherside, entered the Oriental Building again, and hurried up the stairs tothe Society's office.

  There they were halted, for Simpkins had left his key sticking inthe spring lock inside and slammed the door behind him, a piece ofcarelessness over which the officers were greatly exercised; for he hadnot confided to them that he had started off in a hurry. In the end,they sent the door crashing in with their shoulders and precededSimpkins--and he was scrupulously polite about this--into theante-chamber.

  There an incandescent lamp over the youth's desk gave them light andSimpkins momentary relief. The men used hard language when they foundthe second door in the same condition as the first, but Simpkins tooktheir rating meekly. They tried their shoulders again, but the oak wasstout and long withstood their assaults. When at last it yielded it gaveway suddenly, and they all tumbled pell-mell into the hall. Simpkinsjumped up with incredible agility, and was back in the lightedante-chamber before the others had struggled to their feet. Suddenlythey stopped swearing. They looked around them. Then they, too, steppedback into the ante-chamber.

  "Ain't there any way of lighting this place?" asked one of them rathersullenly.

  "Nothing but three incandescents over the desks," answered Simpkins.

  "Use your lantern then, Tom; come on now, young feller, and show uswhere this woman is," he said roughly, and he pushed Simpkins throughthe door.

  As the officers followed him, he fell back between them and linkedhis arms through theirs. And silently they advanced on the altar, agrotesque and rather unsteady trio, the bull's eyes on either sideflashing ahead into the darkness.

  "The lamp's still burning," whispered Simpkins. They were far enoughinto the hall now to see the glow from it in the corner. "Flash yourlights around those pillars, boys. There, over there!"

  The bull's eyes jumped about searching her out. "There! now! Holdstill!" cried Simpkins as they focused on the chair.

  The black mummy lay as he had left it, the cloth still on the face, butthe chair was empty. Straight to the veil the reporter ran, and pulledthe cord. Light broke from above, and beat down on an altar heaped withdying roses and the statue of a woman, smiling. And at her feet therecrouched a great black cat, that arched its back and snarled atSimpkins.

  Beyond, the lights were still burning in Mrs. Athelstone's apartment,but there was no one in the rooms. Some opened drawers in the bureau andthe absence of her toilet articles from the table told of preparationsfor a hasty flight.

  They did not linger long over their examination of the rooms. But afterreplacing the broken doors as best they could and sealing them, theywent out by the main entrance to question the watchman, whom they founddozing in his chair.

  Had he seen anything of Mrs. Athelstone? Sure; he'd called a cab for herabout an hour ago and she'd driven off with her brother.

  "Her brother!" echoed Simpkins.

  "Yep," yawned the watchman; "you know him--parson--Doctor Brander.What's up?"

  "Nothing," Simpkins returned sourly, but to himself he added, "Oh,hell!"

  X

  Once in the street again, after a word of explanation to the watchman,the officers and Simpkins separated, they to report and send out analarm for Mrs. Athelstone and Brander, he to call up his office beforerejoining them. His exultation over his beat was keyed somewhat lower,now that he understood what Brander's real interest in Mrs. Athelstonewas. Mentally, he wrung the neck of Buttons for not having known it;figuratively, he kicked himself for not having guessed it; literally, hedamned his employers for their British reserve, their cool assumptionthat because he was their clerk he was not interested in their familyaffairs. "Cuss 'em for snobs," he wound up finally, a deep sense of hispersonal grievance stirring his sociable Yankee soul.

  Of course, this sickening brother and sister business wouldn't touch themain fact of the story, but it knocked the "love motive" and the "heartinterest" higher than a kite, utterly ruining some of his prettiest bitsof writing, besides letting him in for a call-down from Naylor. Still,the old man couldn't be very hard on him--he'd understand that sometrifling little inaccuracies were bound to creep into a great big storylike this, dug out and worked up by one man.

  At this more cheerful conclusion, a newsboy, crying his bundle of stilldamp papers, came along, and Simpkins hailed him eagerly. Standing undera lamp on the corner, skipping from front page to back, then from headto head inside, with an eye skilled to catch at a glance the storieswhich a loathed contemporary had that the _Banner_ had missed, heran through the bunch. The _Sun_--not a line about Athelstone init. Bully! The _American_--he was a little afraid of the _American_.Safe again. The _World_--Sam Blythe's humorous descriptive story of theconvention led. He stopped to pity Sam and the New York papers, as hethought of the Boston newsboys, crying his magnificent beat, till allWashington Street rang with the glory of it. And he could see thefellows in Mrs. Atkinson's, letting their coffee grow cold as theydevoured the _Banner_, stopping only here and there to call acrossto each other: "Good work, Simp., old boy! Great story!"

  Then--Simpkins turned the page. Accident--ten killed--bankrobbed--caught--Mrs. Jones gets divorce.... What!

  NOTED SCIENTIST SECURES IMPORTANT RIGHTS DOCTOR ATHELSTONE ARRANGES FOR ROYAL SOCIETY TO EXPLOIT RECENT DISCOVERIES

  Simpkins stuttered around for an exclamation; then looked up weakly.Instinct started him on the run for the nearest long-distance telephone,but before he had gone twenty feet he stopped. The paper was long sinceoff press and distributed. He had no desire to know what Naylor wassaying. He could not even guess. There are heights to which theimagination cannot aspire.

  Then came a faint ray of hope. That was an Associated Press dispatch--alate one probably. But if it had reached the New York papers in time tocatch the edition, Naylor must have received it soon enough to kill hisstory. But even as this hope came it went. The news interest of thedispatch was largely local. Doubtless it had been sent out only to theNew York papers.

  Simpkins forced himself to read the body of the message now, although hegagged over every line of it:

  London, etc. Dr. Alfred W.R. Athelstone, well known in London as the president of the American branch of the Royal Society of Egyptian Exploration and Research, arrived here this morning and is stopping at the Carlton. He announces that the Khedive has been graciously pleased to grant to his society the sole right to excavate the tombs recently discovered by one of its agents in the Karnak region. Doctor Athelstone left home quietly some weeks ago, and held back any announcement of the discoveries, which promise to be very important, while the negotiations, now brought to a happy conclusion, were pending. He sails for New York on the Campania tomorrow.

  "Do I go off half-cocked? Am I yellow? Is a pup yellow?" groanedSimpkins, and he started off aimlessly toward the park, fighting hisWaterloo over again and counting up his losses. That foolish, foolishletter! Why had he soiled his fingers by opening it! Of course, thatline which loomed so large and fine in his story, that pointed theimpressive finger of Fate at Crime, "_That thing that I have to do isabout done!_" referred to Doctor Athelstone's silly negotiations. Theletter must have been from him. Now, who could have known that a grownman would indulge in such fool monkey-business as writing love-lettersin hieroglyphics to his own wife?... And that blame black mummy. Back todarkest Africa for his! If any one ever said mummy to him there'd bemurder done, all right. Oh, for the happy ignorance of those days whenhe knew nothing about Egypt except that it was the place from which thecigarettes came!... Brander, no doubt, had gone out to send a cablegramof congratulation to Doctor Athelstone, and while he was away the womanhad started in to repair a crack in that precious old Amosis of hers.Perhaps the moths had got into him! "And she thought that I was crazy,and was stringing me along, waiting till the Nile Duck got back,"muttered the reporter, stopping short in his agony. "Oh! you're guessinggood now, Simp., all right, because there's only one way to guess." Andas he started along again he concluded: "Damn
it! even the cat cameback!"

  If there was one thing in all the world that Simpkins did not want tosee it was a copy of the _Banner_ with that awful story of hisstaring out at him from the first page, headed and played up with allthe brutal skill in handling type of which Naylor was a master; but hefelt himself drawn irresistibly to the Grand Central Station, where theBoston papers would first be put on sale.

  Half an hour to wait. Gad! He could never go back and face Naylor!...Libel! Why, there wasn't money enough in the world to pay the damagesthe Athelstones would get against the paper. He'd take just one look atit and then catch the first train for Chicago. Perhaps he could get ajob there digging sewers, or selling ribbons in Fields', or start aschool of journalism. Any old thing, if they didn't nab him and put himin Bloomingdale before he could get away.... He made for the streetagain. He wouldn't look at the _Banner_. What malignant littledevils the types were when they shouted your sins, not another fellow's,from the front page, or whispered them in a stage aside from some littleparagraph in an obscure corner of the paper--a corner that the wholeworld looked into. Hell, he'd get out of the filthy business! Think ofthe light and frolicsome way in which he'd written up domestic scandals,the entertaining specials he'd turned out on unfaithful husbands, thesnappy columns on unhappy wives, careless of the cost of his sensationin blood and tears! And now they'd write him up--Naylor would attend tothat editorial himself, and do it in his most virtuous style--and brandhim as a fakir, a liar, and a yellow dog.