The Red Book Magazine/Volume 28/Number 5/The Red Eye of Vishnu

by Sax Rohmer

The Red Eye of
Vishnu The story of a
too-wonderful woman.

By Sax Rohmer

Author of the “Fu Manchu” stories

THE note of a silver bell quivered musically through the scented air of the anteroom. Madam de Medici stirred slightly upon the divan with its many silken cushions, turning her head toward the closed door with the languorous, almost insolent, indifference which one perceives in the movements of a tigress. Below, in the lobby, where the pillars of Mokattam alabaster upheld the painted roof, the little brown man from the woods above Khatmandoo shivered slightly, though the day was warm for London, and always turned his mysterious eyes toward a corner of the great staircase which was visible from where he sat, coiled up, a lonely figure in the mashrabeeyeh chair.

Madam blew a wreath of smoke from her lips, and through half-closed eyes watched it ascend unbroken toward the cloth-of-gold canopy which masked the ceiling. A Madonna by Leonardo da Vinci faced her across the apartment, the painted figure seeming to watch the living one upon the divan. Madam smiled into the eyes of the Madonna. Surely even the great Leonardo must have failed to reproduce that smile—the great Leonardo whose supreme art has captured the smile of Mona Lisa. Madam had the smile of Cleopatra, which, it is said, made Cæsar mad, though in repose the beauty of Egypt’s queen had left him cold. A robe of Kashmeri silk, fine with a phantom fineness, draped Madam’s exquisite shape as the art of Cellini draped the classic figures which he wrought in gold and silver; it seemed incorporate with her beauty.

A second wreath of smoke rose upward to the canopy, and Madam watched this one also through the veil of her curved lashes, as the Egyptian woman watches the world through her izar. Those eyes were notable even in so lovely a setting, for they were of a hue rarely seen in human eyes, being like the eyes of a tigress; yet they could seem voluptuously soft, twin pools of liquid amber in the depths of which a man might lose his soul.

Again the silver bell sounded in the anteroom, and below, the little brown man shivered sympathetically. Again Madam stirred with that high disdain which so well became her who had the eyes of a tigress. Her carmine lips possessed the antique curve which we are told distinguished the lips of the Comtesse de Cagliostro; her cheeks had the freshness of flowers, and her hair the blackness of ebony, enhancing the miracle of her skin, which had the whiteness of ivory—not of African ivory, but of that fossil ivory which has lain for untold ages beneath the snows of Siberia.

[Illustration: The tale was done at last; the incense-burner was cold, and breathlessly the Brahmin clutched his knees with long, clawish fingers and swayed to and fro. Madam de Medici spoke. “My friend of old,” she said, “you come to me from your home below the snows of Everest because you know that I can serve you. It is enough.” She touched the bell, and the white-robed servant reëntered.]

She dropped the cigarette from her taper fingers into a little silver bowl upon a table at her side—then lightly touched the bell which stood there also; its soft note answered to the bell in the anteroom. A white-robed servant silently descended the great staircase, his soft red slippers sinking into the rich pile of the carpet; and the little brown man from the Jain temple in the woods above Khatmandoo followed him back up the stairway and was ushered into the presence of Madam de Medici.

The servant closed the door silently, and the little brown man, fixing his eyes upon the beautiful woman before him, fell upon his knees and bowed his forehead to the carpet.

MADAM'S lovely lips curved again in the disdainful smile, and she extended one bare ivory arm toward the visitor who knelt at her feet.

“Rise, my friend!” she said in purest Hindoostanee, which fell from her lips with the music of the crystal spring. “How may I serve you?”

The brown man rose and advanced.

“Sit here beside me,” directed Madam, and she slightly changed her position with that languorous and lithe grace suggestive of a creature of the jungle.

Breathing rapidly, betwixt the importance of his mission and a new, intoxicating emotion which had come upon him at the moment of entering the perfumed room, the brown man obeyed, but always with glance averted from the taunting face of Madam. A golden incense-burner stood upon the floor, over between the high, draped windows, and a faint gray pencil from its dying fires stole upward. Upon this scented smoke the brown man fixed his eyes, and began, with a rapidity that grew as he proceeded, to pour out his tale. Seated beside him, with one round arm resting upon the cushions so as almost to touch him, Madam listened, watching the averted brown face and always smiling—smiling.

The tale was done at last; the incense-burner was cold, and breathlessly the Brahmin clutched his knees with lean, clawish fingers and swayed to and fro. Madam de Medici spoke.

“My friend of old,” she said, and of the language of India she made strange music, “you come to me from your home below the snows of Everest because you know that I can serve you. It is enough.”

She touched the bell upon the table, and the white-robed servant reëntered, and bowing low, held open the door. The little brown man, first kneeling upon the carpet before the divan as before an altar, hurried from the apartment. As the door was reclosed, and Madam found herself alone again, she laughed lightly, as Calypso laughed when Ulysses’ ship appeared off the shores of her isle.

God fashions few such women. It is well.

“BY heavens, Annesley!” whispered René Deacon, “what eyes that woman has!”

His companion, following the direction of Deacon’s glance, nodded rather grimly.

“The eyes of a Circe, or at times the eyes of a tigress.”

“She is magnificent!” murmured Deacon rapturously. “I have never seen so beautiful a woman.”

His glance followed the tall figure as it passed into a smaller salon on the left; nor was he alone in his regard. Fashionable society was well represented in the gallery—where a collection of pictures by a celebrated artist was being shown; and prior to the entrance of the lady in the strangely fashioned tiger-skin cloak, the somewhat extraordinary works of art had engaged the interest even of the most fickle; but from the moment that the tiger-lady made her appearance, even the most daring canvases were forgotten.

“She wears tiger-skin shoes!” whispered one.

“She is like a design for a poster!” laughed another.

“I have never seen anything so flashy in my life,” was the acrid comment of a third.

“What a dazzlingly beautiful woman!” remarked another—this one a man.

“Who is she?” rose upon all sides.

Judging from the isolation of the barbaric figure, it would seem that society did not know the tiger-lady, but Deacon, seizing his companion by the arm and almost dragging him into the small salon which the lady had entered, turned in the doorway and looked into Annesley’s eyes. Annesley palpably sought to evade the glance.

“You know everybody,” whispered Deacon; “you must be acquainted with her.”

A great number of people were now thronging into the room, not so much because of the pictures which it contained, but rather out of curiosity respecting the beautiful unknown. Annesley tried to withdraw; his uneasiness grew momentarily greater.

“I scarcely know her well enough,” he protested, “to present you. Moreover—”

“But she’s smiling at you!” interrupted Deacon eagerly.

Boldly meeting the glance of the woman of the amber eyes, he pushed Annesley forward, not troubling to disguise his anxiety to be presented to the tiger-lady. She turned her head languidly, with that wild-animal grace of hers, and unsmiling now, regarded Annesley.

“So you forget me so soon, Mr. Annesley,” she murmured, “—or is it that you play the good shepherd?”

“My dear Madam,” said Annesley, recovering with an effort his wonted sangfroid, “I was merely endeavoring to calm the rhapsodies of my friend, who seemed disposed to throw himself at your feet in knight-errant fashion.”

“He is a very handsome boy,” murmured Madam; and as the great eyes were turned upon Deacon, the carmine lips curved again in the Cleopatran smile.

She was indeed wonderful, for while she spoke as the woman of the world to the boy, there was nothing maternal in her patronage, and her eyes were twin flambeaux, luring—luring; and her sweet voice was a siren’s song.

“May I beg leave to present my friend Mr. René Deacon, Madam de Medici?” said Annesley; and as the two exchanged glances,—the boy’s a glance of undisguised, passionate admiration, the woman’s a glance unfathomable,—he slightly shrugged his shoulders and stood aside.

There were others in the salon who, perceiving that the unknown beauty was acquainted with Annesley. began to move from canvas to canvas toward that end of the room where the trio stood. But Madam did not appear anxious to make new acquaintances.

“I have seen quite enough of this very entertaining exhibition,” she said languidly, toying with a great unset emerald which swung by a thin gold chain about her neck. “Might I entreat you to take pity upon a very lonely woman and return with me to tea?”

Annesley seemed on the point of refusing, when Madam added: “I have just acquired a reputed Leonardo, and wish you to see it.”

There was something so like a command in the words that Deacon stared at his companion in frank surprise. The latter avoided his glance.

“Come!” said Madam de Medici.

As of old the great Catherine of her name might have withdrawn with her suite, so now the lady of the tiger-skins withdrew from the gallery, the two men following obediently, and one of them, at least, a happy courtier.

THE white-robed servant entered and placed fresh ambergris upon the burning charcoal of the silver mibkrahah. As the scented smoke began to rise, he withdrew and a second servant entered who facially, in dress, in figure and bearing, was a duplicate of the first. This one carried a large tray upon which was set an exquisite porcelain tea-service. He placed the tray upon a low table beside the divan, and in turn withdrew.

Deacon, seated in a great ebony chair, smoked rapidly and nervously—looking about the strangely appointed room with its huge picture of the Madonna, its jade Buddha surmounting a gilded Burmese cabinet, its Persian canopy and Egyptian divan, at the thousand and one costly curiosities which it displayed, at this mingling of the East and West, of Christianity and Paganism, with a growing wonder. To one of his blood there was delight, intoxication, in that room; but something of apprehension, too, now grew up within him.

Madam de Medici entered. The garish motor-coat was discarded, and her supple figure was seen to best advantage in one of those dark silken gowns which she affected and which had a seeming of the ultra-fashionable because they defied fashion. She held in her hand an orchid, its structure that of an odontoglossum, but of a delicate green color heavily splashed with scarlet—a weird and unnatural-looking bloom.

Just within the doorway she paused, as Deacon leaped up, and looked at him through the veil of the curved lashes.

“For you,” she said, twirling the blossom between her fingers and gliding toward him with her tigerish step.

He spoke no word, but his face flushed while he sought to look into her eyes as she pinned the orchid on his coat. Her hands were flawless in shape and coloring, beautiful as the sculptured hands preserved in the works of Phidias.

The slight draught occasioned by the opening of the door caused the smoke from the incense-burner to be wafted toward the center of the room. Like a blue-gray phantom it coiled about the two standing there upon a red-and-gold Bedouin rug, and the heavy perfume, or the close proximity of this singularly lovely woman, wrought upon the high-strung sensibilities of Deacon to such an extent that he was conscious of a growing faintness.

“Ah! you are not well!” exclaimed Madam with deep concern. “It is the ambergris which that foolish Ali has lighted. He forgets that we are in England.”

“Not at all,” protested Deacon weakly, and conscious that he was making a fool of himself. “I think I have perhaps been overdoing it rather of late. Forgive me if I sit down.”

He sank on the cushioned divan, his heart beating furiously, while Madam touched the little bell. One of the servants entered.

“Shilu min hína,” she said, pointing to the incense-burner.

The Arab bowed and removed the censer. As the door softly reclosed, she whispered: “You are better?” Sweetly solicitous, she seated herself beside Deacon and laid her hand lightly upon his arm.

“Quite,” he replied hoarsely. “Please do not worry about me. I am wondering what has become of Annesley.”

“Ah, the poor man!” exclaimed Madam with a silver laugh, and began to busy herself with the teacups. “He remembered, as he was looking at my new Leonardo, an appointment which he had quite forgotten.”

“I can understand his forgetting anything, under the circumstances.”

Madam de Medici raised a tiny cup and bent slightly toward him. He felt that he was losing control of himself, and averting his eyes, he stooped and smelled the orchid in his buttonhole. Then, accepting the cup, he was about to utter some light commonplace when the faintness returned overwhelmingly, and hurriedly replacing the cup upon the tray, he fell back among the cushions. The stifling perfume of the place seemed to be choking him.

“Ah, poor boy! You are really not at all well. How sorry I am!”

The sweet tones reached him as from a great distance; but as one dying in the desert turns his face toward the distant oasis, Deacon turned weakly to the speaker. She placed one fair arm behind his head, pillowing him, and with a peacock fan which had lain amid the cushions, fanned his face. The strange scene became wholly unreal to him; he thought himself some dying barbaric chief.

“Rest there,” murmured the sweet voice.

The great eyes, unveiled now by the black lashes, were two twin lakes of fairest amber. They seemed to merge together, so that he stood upon the brink of an unfathomable amber pool which swallowed him up—which swallowed him up. ...

HE awoke to an instantaneous consciousness of the fact that he had been guilty of inexcusably bad form. He could not account for his faintness, and reclining there amid the silken cushions, with Madam de Medici watching him anxiously, he felt a hot flush stealing over his face.

“What is the matter with me!” he exclaimed, and sprang to his feet. “I feel quite well now.”

She watched him, smiling, but did not speak. He was a “very young man” again, and badly embarrassed. He glanced at his wrist-watch.

“Gracious heavens!” he cried, and noted that the tea-tray had been removed, “there must be something radically wrong with my health. It is nearly seven o’clock!”

The note of the silver bell sounded in the anteroom.

“Can you forgive me?” he said.

But Madam, rising to her feet, leaned lightly upon his shoulder, toying with the petals of the orchid in his button-hole.

“I think it is the ambergris which that foolish Ali lighted,” she whispered, looking intently into his eyes, “and it is you who have to forgive me. But you will, I know!” The silver bell rang again. “When you have come to see me again,—many, many times,—you will grow to love it—because I love it.”

She touched the bell upon the table, and Ali entered silently. When Madam de Medici held out her hand to him, Deacon raised the white fingers to his lips and kissed them rapturously; then he turned, the Gascon within him uppermost again, and ran from the room.

A purple curtain was drawn across the lobby, screening the caller newly arrived from the one so hurriedly departing.

IT was past midnight when Colonel Deacon returned to the house. René was waiting for him, pacing up and down the big library. Their relationship was curious, as subsisting between ward and guardian, for these two, despite the disparity of their ages, had few secrets from one another. René burned to pour out his story of the wonderful Madam de Medici to the shrewd and worldly elder man. That was his way. But fate had an oddly bitter moment in store for him.

“Hello, boy!” cried the Colonel, looking into the library; “glad you’re home. I might not see you in the morning, and I want to tell you about—er—a lady who will be coming here in the afternoon.”

The words died upon René’s lips unspoken, and ke stared blankly at the Colonel.

“I thought I knew all there was to know about pictures, antiques and all that sort of lumber,” continued Colonel Deacon in his rapid and off-handed manner. “Thought there weren’t many men in London could teach me anything—certainly never suspected a woman could. But I’ve met one, boy! Gad! what a splendid creature! You know there isn’t much of the world I haven’t seen—north, south, east and west. I know all the advertised beauties of Europe and Asia—stage, opera and ballet, and all the rest of them. But this one!”

He dropped into an armchair, clapping both his hands upon his knees. René stood at the farther end of the library, in the shadow, watching him.

“She’s coming here to-morrow, boy—coming here. You dog! you'll fall in love with her the moment you see her—sure to, sure to! I did, and I’m three times your age!”

“Who is this lady, sir?” asked René very quietly.

“God knows, boy! Everybody’s mad to meet her, but nobody knows who she is. But wait until you see her. Lady Dascot seems to be acquainted with her, but you will. see when they come to-morrow—see for yourself. Gad—what did you say?”

“I did not speak.”

“Thought you did. Have a whisky-and-soda?”

“No, thank you, sir—good night.”

“Good night, boy!” cried the Colonel. “Don’t forget to be in to-morrow afternoon, or you'll miss meeting the loveliest woman in London, and the most brilliant.”

“What is her name?”

“Eh? She calls herself Madam de Medici. She’s a mystery, but what a splendid creature!”

RENÉ DEACON walked slowly upstairs, entered his bedroom and for fully an hour sat in the darkness, thinking—thinking.

“Am I going mad?” he murmured. “Or is this witch driving all London mad?”

He strove to recover something of the glamour which had mastered him when in the presence of Madam de Medici, but failed. Yet he knew that, once near her again, it would all return. His reflections were bitter, and when at last he wearily undressed and went to bed, it was to toss restlessly far into the small hours, ere sleep came to soothe his troubled mind.

But this sleep was disturbed—a series of dreadfully realistic dreams danced through his brain. First he seemed to be standing upon a high mountain-peak with eternal snows stretched all about him. He looked down, past the snow-line, past the fir woods, into the depths of a lovely lake far down in the valley below. It was a lake of liquid amber; and as he looked, it seemed to become two lakes, and they were like two great eyes looking up at him and summoning him to leap. He thought that he leaped—a prodigious leap, far out into space; then he fell—fell—fell. When he splashed into the amber deeps, they became churned up in a milky foam, and this closed about him with a strange grip. But it was no longer foam, but the clinging arms of Madam de Medici....

Then he stood upon a fragile bridge of bamboo spanning a raging torrent. Right and left of the torrent below were jungles in which moved tigerish shapes. Upon the farther side of the bridge Madam de Medici, clad in a single garment of flame-colored silk, beckoned to him. He sought to cross the bridge, but it collapsed, and he fell near the edge of the torrent. Below were the raging waters, and ever nearing him the tigerish shapes—which now Madam was calling to as to a pack of hounds. They were about to devour him, when—

He was crouching upon a ledge, high above a street which seemed to be vaguely familiar. He could not see very well, because of a silk mask tied upon his face, and the eyeholes of which were badly cut. From the ledge he stepped to another, perilously. He gained it, and crouching there, where there was scarce foothold for a cat, he managed fully to raise a window which already was raised some six inch. Then softly and silently—for he was barefooted—he entered the room.

[Illustration: A captain of Gurkhas crept through the woods to the ancient temple. He found the resident priest—a Brahmin—sleeping, and he therefore succeeded in gaining access.]

Some one slept in a bed facing the window by which he had entered, and upon a table at the side of the sleeper lay a purse, a bunch of keys, an electric torch and a service revolver. Gliding to the table, René took the keys and the electric torch, unlocked the door of the room and crept down a thickly carpeted stair to a room below. The door of this also he opened with one of the keys in the bunch, and by the light of the torch found his way through a quantity of antique furniture and piled-up curiosities to a safe set in the farther wall.

He seemed, in his dream, to be familiar with the lock combination, and selecting the correct key from the bunch, he soon had the safe open. The shelves within were laden principally with antique jewelry, statuettes, medals, scarabs; and a number of little leather-covered boxes were there also. One of these he abstracted; then he relocked the safe and stepped out of the room, locking the door behind him. Up the stairs he mounted to the bedroom wherein he had left the sleeper. Having entered, he locked the door from within, placed the keys and the torch upon the table and crept out again upon the dizzy ledge.

Poised there, high above the thoroughfare below, a great nausea attacked him. Glancing to the right, in the direction of the window through which he had come, he perceived Madam de Medici leaning out and beckoning to him. Her arm gleamed whitely in the faint light. A new courage came to him. He succeeded, crouched there upon the narrow ledge, in relowering the window; and leaving it in the state in which he had found it, he stood up and essayed that sickly stride to the adjoining ledge. He accomplished it, knelt and crept back into the room from which he had started.....

The head of an ivory image of Buddha looked up out of the utter darkness, growing and growing until it seemed like a great mountain. He could not believe that there was so much ivory in the world, and he felt it with his fingers, wonderingly. As he did so, it began to shrink—and shrink and shrink and shrink—until it was no larger than a seated human figure. Then beneath his trembling hands it became animate; it moved, extended ivory arms and wrapped them about his neck. Its lips became carmine—perfumed; they bent to him and he was looking into the bewitching face of Madam de Medici!

He awoke, gasping for air and bathed in cold perspiration. The dawn was just breaking over London, and stealing grayly from object to object in his bedroom.

THE great car, with its fittings of gold and ivory, drew up at the door of Colonel Deacon’s house. The interior was ablaze with tiger lilies, and out from their midst stepped the fairest of them all—Madam de Medici—and swept queenly up the steps upon the arm of the soldier.

All connoisseurs esteemed it a privilege to view the Deacon collection, and this afternoon there was a goodly gathering. Chairs and little white tables were dotted about the lawn in shady spots, and the majority of the company was already assembled; but when, in a wonderful golden robe, Madam de Medici glided across the lawn, the chatter ceased abruptly as if by magic. She pulled off one glove and began twirling a great emerald between her slim fingers. It was suspended from a thin gold chain. Presently, descrying Annesley seated at a table with Lady Dascot, she raised the jewel languidly and peered through it at the two.

“Why!” exclaimed René Deacon, who stood close beside her, “that was a trick of Nero’s!”

Madam laughed musically.

“One might take a worse model,” she said softly; “at least he enjoyed life.”

Colonel Deacon laughed with extraordinary approbation.

But later, when the company entered the house, and Colonel Deacon sought to monopolize the society of Madam, an unhealthy spirit of jealousy arose between René and his guardian. It was strange, grotesque, horrible almost. Annesley watched from afar, and there was something very like anger in his glance.

“And this,” said the Colonel presently, taking up an exquisitely carved ivory Buddha, “has a strange history. In some way a legend has grown up around it,—it is of very great age,—to the effect that it must always cause its owner to lose his most cherished possession.”

“I wonder,” said the silvern voice, “that you, who possess so many beautiful things, should consent to have so ill-omened a curiosity in your house.”

“I do not fear the evil charm of this little ivory image,” said Colonel Deacon, “although its history goes far to bear out the truth of the legend. Its last possessor lost his most cherished possession a month after the Buddha came into his hands. He fell down his own stairs—and lost his life!”

MADAM DE MEDICTI languidly surveyed the figure through the upraised emerald.

“Really!” she murmured. “And the one from whom he procured it?”

“A Hindoo usurer of Simla,” replied the Colonel. “His daughter stole it from her father, together with many other things, and took them to her lover, with whom she fled!”

Madam de Medici seemed to be slightly interested.

“I should love to possess so weird a thing,” she said softly.

“It is yours!” exclaimed the Colonel, and placed it in her hands.

“Oh, but really!” she protested.

“But really I insist—in order that you may not forget your first visit to my house!”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“How very kind you are, Colonel Deacon,” she said, “to a rival collector!

“Now that the menace is removed,” said Colonel Deacon, with labored humor, “I will show you my most treasured possession.”

“So! I am greatly interested.”

“Not even this rascal René,” said the Colonel, stooping before a safe set in the wall, “has seen what I am about to show you!”

René started slightly and watched with intense interest the unlocking of the safe.

“If I am not superstitious about the ivory Buddha,” continued the Colonel. “I must plead guilty in the case of the red eye of Vishnu.”

“The red eye of Vishnu!” murmured a lady standing immediately behind Madam de Medici. “And what is the red eye of Vishnu?”

The Colonel, having unlocked the safe, straightened himself, and while everyone was waiting to see what he had to show, began to speak again.

“There is a Jain temple set deep in the forests on the mountain slopes above Khatmandoo. It is far from the frequented roads, and jealously guarded. No European, I can swear, had ever entered this temple until. last year. It was famed for its statue of the god Vishnu, the Preserver, in which was set an eye consisting of a solitary ruby said to be priceless because of its great size and flawlessness. Last year a certain captain of Gurkhas—I’ll not mention his name—left the town one night and crept through the woods to the ancient temple. He found the resident priest—a Brahmin—sleeping, and he therefore succeeded in gaining access. With a hunting-knife he cut out the eye of Vishnu.”

A chorus of excited exclamations greeted this dramatic point of the story.

“The object of this outrage,” continued the Colonel, “for an outrage I cannot deny it to be, was not a romantic one. The poor chap wanted money, and he thought he could sell the stone to one of the native jewelers. But he was mistaken. He got back safely, and secretly offered it in various directions. No one would touch the thing; moreover, although of great size, it was very far from flawless and not really worth the risks which he had run to secure it. Don’t misunderstand me; it would fetch a big sum, but not a fortune.”

“Yes?” said Madam de Medici, smiling, for the Colonel paused.

“He packed it up and addressed it to me, together with a letter. The price that he asked was quite a moderate one, and when the stone arrived in England, I dispatched a check immediately. It never reached him.”

“Why?” cried many whom this strange story had profoundly interested.

“He was found dead at the back of the native cantonments, with a knife in his heart!”

“Oh!” exclaimed Lady Dascot. “How positively ghastly! I don’t think I want to see the dreadful thing!”

“Really!” murmured Madam de Medici, turning languidly to the speaker. “I do!”

The Colonel stooped and reached into the safe. Then he began to take out object after object, box after box. Finally he straightened himself again, and all saw that his face was white.

“It’s gone!’ he whispered hoarsely. “The eye of Vishnu has been stolen!”

RENÉ entered his bedroom, locked the door and seated himself on the bed; then he lowered his head into his hands and clutched at his hair distractedly. Since, on his uncle’s own showing, no one knew that the ruby had been in the safe; since, excepting himself (René) and the Colonel, no one else knew the combination, how the gem had been stolen was a mystery which defied conjecture.

Now René sought in vain to recall the details of a strange dream which he had dreamed immediately before awakening on the previous night; but he sought in vain. His memory could supply only blurred images. There had been a safe in his dream, and he—was it he or another?—had opened it. Also there had been an enormous ivory Buddha. ... Yet stay! it had not been enormous; it had been—

He groaned at his own impotence to recall the circumstances of that mysterious, perhaps prophetic, dream; then in despair he gave it up, and stooping to a little secretary, unlocked it with the idea of sending a note to Annesley. As he did so he uttered a loud cry.

Lying in one of the pigeonholes was a long piece of black silk, apparently torn from the lining of an opera hat. In it two holes were cut as if it were intended to be used as a mask. Beside it lay a little leather-covered box. He snatched it out and opened it. It was empty!

“Am I going mad?” he groaned. “Or—”

“You are wanted on the ’phone, sir.”

It was the butler who had interrupted him. René descended to the telephone dazedly, but recognizing the voice of Annesley, aroused himself.

“I’m leaving town to-night, Deacon,” said Annesley, “for—well, many reasons. But before I go, I must give you a warning, though I rely on you never to mention my name in the matter. Avoid the woman who calls herself Madam de Medici; she’ll break you. She’s an adventuress, and has a dangerous acquaintance with Eastern cults, and—I can’t explain properly, but—”

“Annesley! the ruby!”

“It’s the theft of the ruby that has prompted me to speak, Deacon. Madam has some sort of power—hypnotic power. She employed it on me once, to my cost! To make a clean breast of it, I daren’t thwart her openly; but I felt it up to me to tell you that she possessed the secret of post-hypnotic suggestion. I may be wrong, but I think you stole that ruby!”

“I!”

“She hypnotized you at some time, and by means of this uncanny power of hers, ordered you to steal the ruby in such and such a fashion at a certain hour in the night.”

“H’m! I had a strange seizure whilst I was at her house.”

“Exactly! During that time you were receiving your hypnotic orders. You would remember nothing of them until the time to execute them—which would probably be during sleep. In a state of artificial somnambulism, and under the direction of Madam’s will, you became a burglar.”

AS Madam de Medici’s car drove off from the house of Colonel Deacon, and Madam, seated herself in the cushioned corner, up from amid the furs upon the floor where, doglike, he had lain concealed, rose the little brown man from the woods above Khatmandoo. Kneeling there, he extended eager hands toward her and spoke:

“Quick! quick!” he breathed. “You have it—the eye of the god?”

Madam held in her hand a little ivory Buddha. Inverting it, she unscrewed the pedestal, and out from the hollow inside the image dropped a great, gleaming ruby!