A. M. Williamson

“ In a bewildered procession Teano, Jenny and I wandered through streets of mirrors, complicated groves, walled concentric alley ways, with unexpected and disappointing outlets until at last a pair of elf-eyes stared at me from a distant and unreachable surface of glass. I cried out; so did Jenny and Teano, for all of us had had the same glimpse and quickly lost it.
"Nicky," gasped Jenny, just behind my back. "And, oh, Red Joe's got hold of him! It's all up—if we can't get between them. It's Red Joe I stole him back from when we went into the Sisterhood." ”

“ There rose before Maida a fleeting picture of a young lay sister at the house of the Grey Sisterhood far away on Long Island. The girl had been of the monkey type, lithe and thin, brown and freckled, her age anything between seventeen and twenty-two; and she had seemed to regard Miss Odell, the Head Sister's favourite, with jealous dislike.
"The same type," thought Maida. "They might be brother and sister. But the boy is better looking than the girl. Funny they should look alike: she so American, he with his strong Cockney accent!" ”

“ You asked me here to dine, but a girl's life may be hanging in the balance. Her name is Madeleine Annesley. She must be the granddaughter of the man who was your friend, and the woman you helped him take. You speak of revenge! It is for revenge she has been brought here by the man you call Essain and his sister who is as wicked as himself. I never knew till I heard your story what that woman was to him, or why they worked together. But now I understand all—or nearly all. I love Madeleine Annesley, and I know she's in danger of her life. ”

“ Maida remained motionless: but the watching mehari uttered a snarl. The girl sprang to her feet, not knowing what to do. A cloaked figure which had slipped in attempted to hide behind the open door, but was too late. Maida saw the gliding shadow, shrieked, and would have run into the corridor, but the man in the Arab cloak caught her on the threshold, and muffled her head in his mantle. She struggled in his grasp, and almost escaped. Chairs were overturned: the rug under the table was twisted round the man's feet: I thought that he would trip and fall, but he saved himself. ”

“ Her face was familiar. I remembered that tremulous, wistful smile of eyes and lips, which (the thought flashed through my head) would be fine stock-in-trade for an actress. Still, for the life of me, I couldn't recall the girl's name or whether we had ever really met, until her chance came to dash into the breach made by disappearing plumes and feathers. She seized the opportunity with a promptness that argued well for her bump of decision: but she was helped to success by the tallest, thinnest, brightest-eyed young man I had ever seen. ”

“ As I spoke I became conscious that the lame beggar who had crawled off his mat to the door of the shop was whining again.
To my astonishment he hurriedly jumbled in English words as if he wished to hide them. Under his appeal, in Arabic that I should buy a fetish he held up in a knotted old hand, he was mumbling in English, that he would tell me for gratitude, what Ben Hassan dared not tell me for money. "Do not give him one piastre: he is lying," muttered the beggar. "Buy this fetish. Inside you will find explanations." ”

“ You were too well protected to be easily reached, but there are many ways of accomplishing an end. You were never a strong girl. Plots against your peace of mind were planned and carried out. Once or twice you came near death, but always luck stood between you and what Essain and his sister Zorah believed to be justice. The drama of your life has been a strange one. Your death alone without the restoration of the mummy would not have sufficed, though, had you died, Essain would have moved heaven and earth to gain possession of the body of Hathor Set. ”

“ Roger Odell, Senior, had obeyed every one of his dead love's requests. The "Egyptian relic" was a mummy case, with the human contents marvellously preserved; the jewel, an opal and crystal eye of Horus. In taking out the miniature from its frame, to be copied in a large portrait, Maida found the miniature of a man she supposed to be her father, and had ordered that enlarged also, to hang in her shrine. ”

“ Poor Morosini had thought himself blessed by Heaven in his unhoped-for chance to see Nella. He still thought the same, as he stood inside the room across from the telephone bureau; but luck had turned. Hardly had the door closed upon Morosini, when the chambermaid crept back to lock number 1313, and regained the forgotten pass-key. Nella would desperately have called the girl, making some excuse, or, if worst came to worst, even telling her the truth. At that instant, however, the doctor came from the lift, to station himself in front of the telephone window. ”

“ Almost without telling I knew that the secret must concern Irene's jewels, which were worth at least twenty thousand pounds; a haul not to be despised. Bending over Don, I lifted my head and looked around. I was sure that a knothole in the wooden wall had come into being within the last five minutes. If there'd been an aperture there, it had been stuffed with rags, now noiselessly withdrawn. It was distant not a yard from Donald's face as he lay on the mattress, and a person crouching on the floor outside could catch every word, unless we whispered. ”

“ Perhaps no girl as lovely as Maida ever thought less of her own charm. She believed that the one interest which had held her to the world and given her strength to resist the Head Sister's persuasions was a false star. It came into her mind that the best way to forget would be to promise, as her friend the grey lady had begged her to do, that she would become a life member of the Sisterhood. ”

“ Even its drapery is of gold tissue, embroidered with jewelled peacock feathers: its polished floor gleams like gold, reflecting thousands of golden lights, and its gold-framed panel-mirrors repeat again and again a golden vision. I was an early arrival, but there were many before me, because Prince Murad Ali had a reputation for un-oriental promptness, and lovers of pageants wished to see his entrance with his suite. If Doctor Rameses were present among the gorgeous groups scattered like bouquets about the ballroom, my most searching glances failed to pick him out. ”

“ Save my little Maida. The one legacy I can leave her is a jewel which I want her to keep; a miniature of myself taken for someone I loved, and an Egyptian relic which, for a reason I don't know, is immensely important. ”

“ Evidently he was desperately in love with Grace Callender. Could the mere fact that I had named a book of mine The Key, and turned my plot upon a mysterious key found in a dead man's pocket, have inspired Odell with revengeful rage? Except for the title, and the key in the pocket, there was nothing in my book or in Carr Price's play which bore even the vaguest likeness to the Callender-Graham tragedy. ”

“ Though she had twice come near her wedding she had never yet deeply loved a man; nevertheless, because of the "curse" and in fear of it, she resolved to give up all hope of happiness in love, never to marry, nor even engage herself again.
All this I remembered distinctly, not alone because my memory is a blotting-pad for such cases, but because the story had captured my imagination, and because I had used the detail of the keys for my own book, only substituting one for two.
"By Jove!" I said. "The key! Now, can that be the clue to Roger Odell's veto?" ”

“ No wound was visible, not even a drop of blood to cover a pinprick: but I could feel no beating of the heart; and the swift vanishing of the man in chain armour was ominous. I realised that, if the girl had died by violence, I might come under suspicion, unless I could quickly prove innocence. Needing my liberty in order to protect Maida, I could run no risk of losing it, and I realised that with Lady Mary Proudfit lay my best hope. ”

“ Soon we were out of the huddled town, walking beside the rocky bed of the oued or river; and never leaving the oasis we came at last to a high white wall.
"This is Essain's garden," Haroun whispered. "And here is the little gate I spoke of. Listen! I thought I heard voices. But no. It may have been the wind rustling among the leaves."
"It wasn't the wind," I said. "There are people talking in the garden. Don't try to break the gate. You may make a noise. I'll get over the wall and open the gate from inside."
"The wall is high," said Haroun, measuring it with his eyes. ”

“ I yelled to my man, and rode after it. "We must keep up with the beast. We must see where it goes."
I explained no more. Doubtless the Arab thought me as mad as the white camel, but I didn't care. The mehari had come to me as a messenger from Maida, and to lose sight of it would be, I felt, to lose her.
Fortunately, after the first sprint, the creature slackened speed, even turning its long neck now and then to see if we followed. So we went on, behind the shadowy form in the sand-cloud, until we came to the high adobe wall of a desert inn, a borg which my camel-man knew well. ”

“ The thing I'd give my head to find out is, who spread the lie?"
"You don't know, then?"
"No, I don't. It's a black mystery."
"Better let me use my despised detective talents to solve it."
"Oh, that's what you've been working up to, is it?"
"No. How could it be, as I hadn't heard the story when I began to work? But I'm willing to take it on as an extra by and by. My brother and I are scarcely friends. I'm not responsible for his act, and whatever the motive, I don't excuse it. Why go out of his way to hurt a woman? Yet I may be able to atone." ”

“ The proprietor of this hotel and his wife (good creatures and ambitious to cut a dash in the fashionable world) want a pretty girl—a 'real actress'—to sing and recite in the roof-garden these fine summer evenings. I don't suppose you——"
"Oh, yes I would! I'd love to be here. It would be fun!" Helen broke in. "I adore flying; and I should see you often—and Mr. Bridges too, perhaps. Anyhow, it would do to go on with till I got something else, if they'd pay me a 'living wage.'"
"I'll be your agent, sing your praises and screw up your price," I imprudently volunteered. ”

“ Rameses I believed to be far away, out of reach: but the assistant he had left behind was worthy of him. She had reason to know the New York hotel I frequented: the note-paper was easy to get: only the forgery business needed an expert. And what a clever idea that the summons should come from me! The Head Sister had known how hard, perhaps impossible, it would have been to make the girl break her promise. Now I saw why consent had been given to my calling on Maida at her brother's house. ”