LITMIR.BIZ

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smoke.

      Campbell had selected a table near the back curtain, and now stridently ordered one of the Malay waiters to bring gin. He leaned forward with an oily smile to the drunken-looking Ennis, and spoke to him in a wheedling undertone.

      “Don’t look for a minute, but that’s Chandra Dass over in the corner, and he’s watching us,” he said.

      Ennis shook his clutching hand away. “Damned old shark!” he muttered again.

      He turned his swaying head slowly, letting his eyes rest a moment on the man in the corner. That man was looking straight at him.

      Chandra Dass was tall, dressed in spotless white from his shoes to the turban on his head. The white made his dark, impassive, aquiline face stand out in chiseled relief. His eyes were coal-black, large, coldly searching, as they met Ennis’ bleared gaze.

      Ennis felt a strange chill as he met those eyes. There was something alien and unhuman, something uncannily disturbing, behind the Hindoo’s stare. He turned his gaze vacantly from Chandra Dass to the black curtains at the rear, and then back to his companion.

      The silent Malay waiter had brought the liquor, and Campbell pressed a glass toward his companion. “’Ere, matey, take this.”

      “Don’t want it,” muttered Ennis, pushing it away. Still in the same mutter, he added, “If Ruth’s here, she’s somewhere in the back there. I’m going back and find out.”

      “Don’t try it that way, for God’s sake!” said Campbell in the wheedling undertone. “Chandra Dass is still watching, and those Malays would be on you in a minute. Wait until I give the word.

      “All right, then,” Campbell added in a louder, injured tone. “If you don’t want it, I’ll drink it myself.”

      He tossed off the glass of gin and set the glass down on the table, looking at his drunken companion with righteous indignation.

      “Think I’m tryin’ to bilk yer, eh?” he added. “That’s a fine way to treat a pal!”

      He added in the coaxing lower tone, “All right, I’m going to try it. Be ready to move when I light my cigarette.”

      He fished a soiled package of Gold Flakes from his pocket and put one in his mouth. Ennis waited, every muscle taut.

      The inspector, his red, oily face still injured in expression, struck a match to his cigarette. Almost at once there was a loud oath from one of the shabby loungers outside the front of the building, and the sound of angry voices and blows.

      The patrons of Chandra Dass looked toward the door, and one of the Malay waiters went hastily out to quiet the fight. But it grew swiftly, sounded in a moment like a small riot. Crash—someone was pushed through the front window. The excited patrons pressed toward the front. Chandra Dass pushed through them, issuing quick orders to his servants.

      For the time being the back of the café was deserted and unnoticed. Campbell sprang to his feet, and with Ennis close behind him, darted through the black curtains. They found themselves in a black corridor at the end of which a red bulb burned dimly. They could still hear the uproar.

      Campbell’s gun was in his hand, and the American’s in his.

      “We dare only stay here a few moments,” the inspector cried. “Look in those rooms along the corridor here.”

      Ennis frantically tore open a door and peered into a dark room smelling of drugs. “Ruth!” he cried softly. “Ruth!”

      CHAPTER 2

      Death Trap

      There was no answer. The light in the corridor behind him suddenly went out, plunging him into pitch-black darkness. He jumped back into the dark corridor, and as he did so, heard a sudden scuffle further along it.

      “Campbell!” he exclaimed, lunging forward in the black passageway. There was no answer.

      He pitched forward through stygian obscurity, his hands searching ahead of him for the inspector. In the dark something whipped smoothly around his throat, tightened there like a slender, contracting tentacle.

      Ennis tore frenziedly at the thing, which he felt to be a slender silken cord, but he could not loosen it. It was choking him. He tried to cry out again to Campbell, but his throat could not emit the sounds. He thrashed, twisted helplessly, hearing a loud roaring in his ears, consciousness receding. Then, dimly as though in a dream, Ennis was aware of being lowered to the floor, of being half carried and half dragged along. The constriction around his throat was gone and rapidly his brain began to clear. He opened his eyes.

      He found himself lying on the floor of a room illuminated by a great hanging brass lamp of ornate design. The walls of the room were hung with rich, grotesquely worked red silk Indian draperies. His hands and feet were bound behind him, and beside him, tied in the same manner, lay Inspector Campbell. Over them stood Chandra Dass and two of the Malay servants. The faces of the servants were tigerish in their menace, but Chandra Dass’ face was one of dark, impassive scorn.

      “So you misguided fools thought you could deceive me so easily as that?” he said in a strong, vibrant voice. “Why, we knew hours ago that you, Inspector Campbell, and you, Mr. Ennis, were coming here tonight. We let you get this far only because it was evident that somehow you had learned too much about us, and that it would be best to let you come here and meet your deaths.”

      “Chandra Dass, I’ve men outside,” rasped Campbell. “If we don’t come out, they’ll come in after us.”

      The Hindoo’s proud, dark face did not change its scorn. “They will not come in for a little while, inspector. By that time you two will be dead and we shall be gone with our captives. Yes, Mr. Ennis, your wife is one of those captives,” he added to the prostrate young American. “It is too bad we cannot take you and the inspector to share her glorious destiny, but then our accommodations of transport are limited.”

      “Ruth here?” Ennis’ face flamed at the words, and he raised himself a little from the floor on his elbows.

      “Then you’ll let her go if I pay you? I’ll raise any amount, I’ll do anything you ask, if you’ll set her free.”

      “No amount of money in the world could buy her from the Brotherhood of the Door,” answered Chandra Dass steadily. “For she belongs now, not to us, but to They Beyond the Door. Within a few hours she and many others shall stand before the Door, and They Beyond the Door shall take them.”

      “What are you going to do to her?” cried Ennis. “What is this damned Door and who are They Beyond it?”

      “I do not think that even if I told you, your little mind would be able to accept the mighty truth,” Chandra Dass said calmly. His coal-black eyes suddenly flashed with fanatic, frenetic light. “How could your poor, earth-bound little intelligences conceive the true nature of the Door and of those who dwell beyond it? Your puny brains would be stricken senseless by mere apprehension of them, They who are mighty and crafty and dreadful beyond anything on earth.”

      A cold wind from the alien unknown seemed to sweep the lamplit room with the Hindoo’s passionate words. Then that rapt, fanatic exaltation dropped from him as suddenly as it had come, and he spoke in his ordinary vibrant tones.

      “But enough of this parley with blind worms of the dust. Bring the weights!”

      The last words were addressed to the Malay servants, who sprang to a closet in the corner of the room.

      Inspector Campbell said steadily, “If my men find us dead when they come in here, they’ll leave none of you living.”

      * * * *

      Chandra Dass did not even listen to him, but ordered the dark servants sharply, “Attach the weights!”

      The Malays had brought from the closet two fifty-pound lead balls, and now they proceeded quickly to tie these to the feet of the two men. Then one of them rolled back the brilliant red Indian rug from the rough pine floor. A square

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