The House of the Falcon

  Lamb, Harold, 1892-1962.

  The House of the Falcon

  Copyright 1921 by D. Appleton and Company; N.Y.

  Publication History

  Copyright 1919 Frank A. Munsey Company.

  From The Argosy, (serialized)

  June 12, June 19, June 26 - July 3, July 10, July 17, 1920.

  Printed in the United States of America

  Table of Contents

  ARGOSY magazine cover

  I.—The Roof of the World

  II.—The Listener

  III.—The Gate

  IV.—The Seller of Rugs

  V.—Alai Bala Sleeps

  VI.—The Garden

  VII.—Into the Unknown

  VIII.—Events of a Day

  IX.—Abbas Arranges

  X.—Concerning a "Yashmak"

  XI.—Edith Rides Alone

  XII.—The Country of the Falcon

  XIII.—A Lamp Goes Out/span>

  XIV.—The Bronze Bowl

  XV.—Questions and Answers

  XVI.—Pandora's Box

  XVII.—Aravang Explains

  XVIII.—The Stone Chamber

  XIX.—New Arrivals

  XX.—In the Shadow of the Temple

  XXI.—A Veil is Drawn

  XXII.—A Pledge

  XXIII.—The Pledge is Broken

  XXIV.—The Vulture's Nest

  XXV.—Cards on the Table

  XXVI.—An Hour after Dark

  XXVII.—Sanctuary of the Tower

  XXVIII.—The Voice OF Mahmoud

  XXIX.—The Sayak Fury

  XXX.—The Passing of the Caravan

  CHAPTER I

  THE ROOF OF THE WORLD

  Men drop out of sight there. This one did. Or, no, I shouldn't say that. He went up out of sight. You see, he was carried.

  Yes, right out of the city up toward the top of the world—at least that's what the natives thereabouts call the mountains, where the spurs of the Thian Shan meet the Himalayas. About five thousand men saw him go.

  And not one of 'em cared to follow.

  They were natives of course, all sorts—Chinese, beggarly Sarts, Mussulman traders, Kirghiz shepherds and what not. He was a white man. The other Europeans in Kashgar were all in the new city, the Chinese city, where the taotai and the missionaries are. He had come to the old city of Kashgar, by the dried-up river. He rode—uncommonly well, they say—across the wooden drawbridge and under the arch into the thick of the bazaar section.

  Not that he'd lost his way. In fact he seemed to be looking for some one in the bazaar where he must have known there were no foreign barbarians—only the natives. His horse was dark with sweat land he was covered with dust. There was a good rifle slung over his shoulder and a native servant followed him. So the white men in Kashgar, when they heard what had happened to him, thought he must have been a big game hunter.

  Still, they couldn't understand why a hunter should off-saddle and go wandering through the bazaar as this one did guided by his servant. White men, even ovis poli and wapiti hunters, are not frequent visitors in Kashgar, you know. It's a city on the old caravan route from China into India and Persia. It's sort of stuck up there under the hills that overlook Tibet, Turkestan and Kashmir, and the hills themselves are rather a no man's land—tribal areas.

  I have said he was looking for something, or some one. And he didn't find what he was looking for. That seems to be clear. So he let his servant take him to a serai, an inn for travelers in the bazaar quarter. For a hunter he was traveling awfully light, and with no heads at all in his baggage. He'd made a long trek, too, judging by the condition of his beasts.

  It sounds just like a story, of course. The white man—we'll call him that for want of a better name—was sitting in a corner of the serai with his back to the mud wall smoking a pipe and watching the other inmates—a fine lot they were, too—when a big black-faced native in sheepskins, blind in one eye, got up and went over to him.

  "Effendi," the fellow said, "your slave who is the dust beneath your feet (he meant himself) has heard that there is danger and trouble in store for you here. Will the effendi ride hence at once and swiftly?"

  The white man laughed and said he liked it where he was. At this the chap of the sheepskins went out of the serai and began to run as if the devil were after him, through the twisting alleys of the bazaar, out past the mosque and up the road to the hills.

  He didn't stop running as long as he was visible from the balcony where the taotai, the governor, was having dinner. They noticed that, because those natives never run unless necessary, and then they ride.

  In an hour, after he'd eaten a little dinner, the white man was knocked out. Not actually, of course, but by fever or food poisoning. It was so quick in coming, it must have been poisoning.

  He still sat in the comer of the serai with his rifle across his knees and his face drawn with pain. He couldn't move except to put his finger on the trigger of his piece and watch the crowd in the serai with his eyes. This was necessary, because his servant had left him and he hadn't tried to get word to the few Europeans who were near by in the new Kashgar.

  Perhaps he did try to get word to them; still, there was no evidence that he did. A Kashgar crowd is harmless for the most part; but not when a foreign barbarian with his kit and rifle is helpless in their hands. Well—this chap kept watching the crowd and the crowd watched him. Waiting for him to die, most likely, so they could appropriate his kit and rifle.

  Evidently while he was still alive they didn't dare touch him. And it wasn't dark yet. The Chinese governor, who was very conscientious—a fine fellow and a scholar, too—and investigated the affair to the best of his ability, says that this was before the namazgar, the time of evening prayer for the Moslems who made up the greater part of Kashgar.

  Apparently the white man made only one remark.

  "Where is Jain Ali Beg?" he asked—referring to his servant.

  The serai keeper swore afterward to the governor that the servant had run away, perhaps because he scented trouble in the air.

  So the white man sat there, poisoned perhaps by the Moslems of the bazaar. So the governor said; but a Chinese official hates all Mussulmans. Then a curious thing happened.

  Those in the serai heard the trample of the camels of a caravan outside, in the alley. They heard the bells of the camels. And the leader of the caravan, the man who holds the nose cord of the first animal in the line, was the one-eyed chap in sheepskins.

  The caravan had come down the road from the hills. Nothing unusual in that, of course, because caravan transport is the only way of moving goods in Central Asia and a half dozen of 'em go through Kashgar every day. But this particular caravan didn't have any boxes or anything but a score of dark-skinned hillmen for riders.

  It might have come in to the bazaar to load up—only it didn't. The caravan moved down out of the hills in the dust, to enter the bazaar. It stopped just for a moment outside the serai, and the riders took the white man away with them.

  That was exactly what they did. Set him on a camel; then the whole string turned and went off with the one-eyed beggar in the lead. They had crossed the old bridge over the moat and disappeared into the dust before the bazaar knew what was happening.

  At that, the natives of Kashgar gave the caravan a wide berth. There wasn't a soul in the alleys when it went away. Every one had popped into the open shop fronts or under the sun mats. They seemed to be superstitious about it and the Mussulmans related something to the taotai about a caravan that came from nowhere and went nowhere.

  Yes, that particular white man went up out of sight. At least, he was never seen again.

  Now, what do you think of it all?

  CHA
PTER II

  THE LISTENER

  "Now, what do you think of it all?" repeated Whittaker. He rubbed his bald forehead with a plump hand and cast birdlike glances at the girl beside him.

  Whittaker flattered himself that he could tell a good story well, and that, having trotted over most of the globe, he had good stories to tell. Moreover the finest young woman of the Château had been listenings to him attentively.

  In the upper corridors of the Château music echoed from the orchestra of the ballroom, popular music with a tang to it. Whittaker's eyes had watched the girl's slippered foot tracing a dainty accompaniment. But she had smiled away several men who had come up to urge her to dance—had refused them, to listen to him. Whittaker glowed.

  "Did it really happen, Mr. Whittaker?"

  He liked the way her words slurred together softly, after the manner of the women born in the South of the United States. Whittaker believed that he was an excellent judge of women. So he permitted himself to admire the girl's tawny hair, dressed low on her neck, almost touching her bare shoulders.

  She carried herself devilishly well, he thought, and had a haughty eye. Came of one of the oldest Southern families, Kentucky, he believed, and knew it. Her father was rich. They went the round of Fifth Avenue, St. Augustine, the Riviera, and Canada—the Château, at Quebec.

  "Of course, Miss Rand," Whittaker was aggrieved. "You know Major Fraser-Carnie, don't you? Well, when you see him, ask him about it. He told me the story. And I"—he looked up hopefully—"l have arrived at an explanation."

  Leaning back comfortably in the settee Whittaker contemplated Edith Rand, who, with gray eyes half closed, was staring out of the drawing-room window at the lights of the Château terrace.

  Beyond the lights, the mist over the broad bosom of the St. Lawrence was luminous under an invisible moon. But Edith Rand did not see that. She was wondering why the man in the chair by the fireplace within a few feet of them was listening so intently to what the globe-trotter was saying.

  She knew he was listening because his cigarette had burned his fingers and he had dropped it hastily. He was playing solitaire on a green card table drawn up before his chair and was making palpable mistakes.

  When the chatter of people passing in from the dining-room or leaving the ballroom had drowned Whittaker's voice, the man had leaned ever so slightly nearer. She wished he would turn around.

  "Most people would say," Whittaker argued, "that the natives of the caravan—the one that took the white man away from Kashgar, you know—were robbers, brigands from the hills. Kashgar is north of the English lines in upper India, and it is full of outlaws."

  "No," said Edith Rand. "You said they only took the man himself, not his belongings."

  "Precisely—exactly what I was going to point out" Whittaker joggled his eyeglass triumphantly, "Now I have heard other people say that the whole queer event was a conspiracy. The white man in short was an outlaw, as well as the—caravaneers. That was why he lurked in the bazaar instead of going to his own countrymen in the modern city of Kashgar.

  "But my own opinion, my dear Miss Rand, is this. My theory is that the white man was carried off as a punishment for some crime he had committed. A crime against the natives, you know. Robbed a temple, or—ah—something of the kind. One-Eye—the chap of the sheepskins—drugged him and then went to fetch his gang. Helpless under the influence of the drug, the white man was borne away to his fate. Eh, what?"

  Edith Rand was silent. She had observed that the card player had returned to his solitaire with fresh enthusiasm; he was placing red cards upon black, quite correctly. He had even lit another cigarette.

  "And now," continued Whittater, convinced of the success of his narrative, "we come to the sequel. You remember that the white man's servant, Jain Ali Beg, ran away from Kashgar and was missing—for some time. A year later he turned up at one of the English Stations in the Kashmir hills five hundred miles away to the south in upper India. Major Fraser-Carnie, your friend, saw him.

  "Jain Ali Beg," nodded the globe-trotter, "was arrested. Doubtless, you wonder why. He had in his possession the personal effects and the rifle of his master—claimed they had been given him by the white effendi before his master was carried off. But Fraser-Carnie had no doubt that Jain Ali Beg robbed the man."

  As Whittaker said this Edith Rand saw that the listener laid down his cards entirely, with the game half finished, and began to tap upon the green surface of the table with blunt, powerful fingers.

  "And Jain Ali Beg was glad to be arrested. He had been running away because he was very much afraid. Not of arrest, but of something in Kashgar. Perhaps, of the caravan. Picture the scene to yourself—a lonely hill station with the British officer standing at the door of his quarters talking to the fear-sick native,

  "The next moment Jain Ali Beg was lying on the doorstep, knifed. And the murderer who had come up behind the house was my friend of the sheepskins—One-Eye, the personal conductor of the caravan. The queer chap actually took the pains to explain why he had killed Jain Ali Beg. He said:

  " 'For the space of three moons I have followed in the tracks of this one'—he pointed to the body—'to give to a faithless servant the reward that he has stored up for himself."

  "Then One-Eye vanished around the bungalow and, by George, the native servants of the station refused to try to follow him! They said a curious thing. They said:

  " 'Sahib, when the lightning strikes, does any one follow?'

  "And that," Whittaker concluded triumphantly, "that, my dear Miss Rand, was precisely what the natives of the Kashgar bazaar said when the caravan came and carried off your white man. Strange, what?

  "Are you sure," questioned a quiet voice beside them, "the man was really dead?"

  Edith Rand observed that the card player had turned and was looking at them fixedly, his brown face serious.

  "Eh, why—he was stabbed four times about the heart, as dead as Mahomet——"

  "Not Jain Ali Beg." The card player shook hi head impatiently. "The man in Kashgar."

  The stranger pronounced the native names in a certain sonorous fashion quite different from the flat phrases of Whittaker.

  "Oh, the hunter." Whittaker rallied to the defense of his story. "Well, there's not much doubt that he is dead, after all that. He was never seen around there again, of course. You see there was something spooky about that caravan. You don't think he isn't dead, do you?"

  The card player smiled. "A case of corpus delicti is sometimes difficult to prove," he observed. And now his glance rested on the girl, keenly appraising, as if he were probing for what might be in her thoughts.

  Then his smile changed and he stood up, his dark eyes intent upon her. Few men failed to render tribute to the beauty of Edith Rand. His brows raised tentatively at Whittaker.

  "Pardon me," the globe-trotter obeyed the signal with some reluctance. He felt that the spell of his story had been shattered. "Permit me, Miss Rand, to introduce Edouard Monsey."

  With a ready courtesy the newcomer bowed over Edith's hand. In spite of his almost perfect English the girl felt that he was of foreign birth. She was vaguely surprised that Monsey should be an acquaintance of Whittaker—although her companion seemed to know everybody. For the past hour she had fancied that Monsey had been wholly absorbed in hearing Whittaker's story.

  She had seen the man at intervals about the Château—during rides along the heights, and once when she was walking alone along her favorite promenade on the ramparts. On that occasion she had been aware that Monsey had followed her with his eyes.

  "I have had the pleasure," remarked Monsey, "of meeting your father, Miss Rand, in the Château. We had something in common, you know. He is going to India on business.''

  He looked at her questioningly.

  "Daddy will have to take me," she drawled. "He would be right lonely without me. I always go with him. Mr. Whittaker was trying to frighten me with his stories——"

  "But it was true," protested
that gentleman. "It was quite true."

  Monsey shrugged. "Kashgar is hardly India, my dear chap. Calcutta, or Kashmir for that matter, is safer than New York."

  Edith turned to him impulsively. She was an uncommonly outspoken person, as her aunt, who was traveling with the Rands, had frequently reminded her—with the added prophecy that her disposition would undoubtedly get her into trouble, unless she married first.

  But the girl was quite heart-free and she was tremendously content with the path in life that Arthur Rand, her father, had opened for her. She liked to wander, to see things, and to ask questions.

  "Are you from India, Mr. Monsey?"

  Instinctively she felt that she should say "Captain Monsey," the man was so plainly a former soldier. His accent hinted at French schooling; the name might mean anything. India, to Edith, represented a pleasure spot frequented by likable men who played polo and owned horses—the girl had been brought up to love horses.

  Monsey hesitated momentarily, looking at her.

  "I have been there," he said, and changed the subject, requesting the favor of a dance. "A privilege so great that only the necessity of your coming departure emboldens me to ask for it. Miss Rand, may I be permitted to say that you dance as well as you, ride, and that is—perfectly?"

  It was one of the requirements of her world that she should do so—the festive world that was her birthright.

  Edith could appreciate the formal courtesy of the stranger, Monsey. It was that of the elder school of French gentlemen. But, even while the music called her, she found that her mood had changed.

  "Let's walk up to the ramparts," she cried "I visit them every night, and sit on a wonderful old cannon. If you don't mind——"

  As she tripped through the lobby with Monsey at her side, her quick eye sighted letters in the array behind the desk in the pigeonhole that belonged to her. Mail always held a fascination for Edith and she could not resist claiming the letters, handing them to Monsey for safe-keeping.