THE QUEST OF MOHAMMED'S SACRED SLIPPER SERIES.
V. THE LIGHT OF
EL-MEDINEH.
BY BAKE ROHMER.
(Continued from yesterday.)
(COPYRIGHT, 1916.)
Wherein.theguardian of the sacred slipper is mysteriously transported to the abods of Hase of Aleppo and receives farther avidmen of the ömné, science of the Hashishin and the futi- lity of trying to conceal the rede frem their vigilance.
"The detective of Sction would be hard at work on this case, now," said Mr. Bristol, of New Scotland Yard, smiling, "but I don't even pretend to -be. I am at a standstili and I don't
care who knows it."..
*You have absolutely no clue to the whereabouts of Earl Dexter?"
"Not the slightest, Mr. Cavanagh: You hear a lot about the machinery of the law, but as a matter of fact, koking for a clever man hidden in London is a good deal like looking for a needie in a haystack. Then, he may have been bluing when he told you
just reseated when there came a very soft rapping at the outer door!
ROMANCES OF CRIME.
AMAZING DRAMAS OF THE “ COURTS.
2
THE SECRET OF THE BEADS.
זי
THE CHINA MAIL.
her? These were the next questions murder. And yet, conclusive of guilt the police set themselves to answer, as it appeared to be, at the trial, After long and fruitless inquiries it which was one of the most sensation was discovered that the visitor, was | al and dramatic. in, the annak of the one Herbert John Bennett, a young law, évidence was prodiced" which man employed at a Woolwich factory; seemed just as conclusively to show and by slow degrees his history was that Bennett could not possibly have brought to light.
been guilty of the crime of which he Some years earlier, it was found, was accused. when Bennett was a grocer's assis- tant, he had lost his heart to a girl
An Ex-Official of Scotland Yard
The case for the prosecution was I stole quietly into the passage.writes in Reynold's Nesespaper the
presented with great skill; and, as was in darkness. How odd it is that following account of one of the most of seventeen, from whom he was witness followed witness, the net was in moments of donor instinctively one sensational and mysterious of crime taking music lessons, and had marri-drawn so completely round the pri ed her, although he himself was soner that there seemed to be no shuns the dark and seeks the light. dramas.
A glorious moming in late Sep-barely out of his teens. In some possible loophole for escape from its I pressed the switch lighting the hall lamp and stood looking at the closed tember. The rays of the rising sun mysterious way by selling sham meshes. Indeed, when the last wit are tinting with gold the white-capped antique violins, it was said he hadness left the bax Bennett appeared Why should this late visitor have breakers, rolling on to a far-reaching procured sufficient money to take his to be a doomed man, if ever there rapped in so uncanny a fashion in pre-expanse of yellow sand. A scene of young wife for a holiday trip to South was one; and, as he stood in the peace and solitude, broken only by Africa, a trip on which, significantly, dock, white-faced and cowering, he lerence to ringing the be?
1 stepped back to my table and the huddled form of a woman, whosef they travelled as Mr. and Mrs. Hood, } looked as if the hangman's noose
still, upturned face the sun's rays On their return to England they was already about his neck. flush fato a semblance of life and
door.
slipped a revolver into my pocket.
The muffed rapping was repeated. As I stood in the study doorway 1 saw the lap of the letter-box slowly
raised!
Instantly 1 extinguished both lights. A faintly luminous stir in the door showed me that the flap was now fully Then quite silently the Hap was lowered. Came the soft rapping again.
raised.
.
"Who's there?" I cried. No one answered, The silence remained unbroken for Then again dirty seconds or more, it was disturbed by that ghostly, muf- fled rapping.
ཟ་
beauty.
In the distance appears a dark, quick-moving spot, the figure of a man proceeding to his early work on the seashore. As he draws rapidly near, his eyes are drawn to the pros- He pauses, glances rate figure. carelessly at it, and is about to pass on. Some holiday-maker, he thinks having an early sun-bath. A second glance, however, causes him to halt. He approaches the figure, stoops down, touches the face and, draws back in horror.
The woman is not sleeping she is dead! There are marks of bruises on
had taken lodgings at Plumstead,
where they seem to have led a rather turbulent life together.
}
A DRAMATIC CHANGE. And it was at this stage that à According to the evidence of their highly dramatic change came over landlady they frequently quarrelled, the trial with the appearance of the and on one occasion, she had heard first witness for the defence, the Mrs. Benacit say to her husband, "I daughter of Mrs. Radrom, at whose shall follow you for the child's sake, house Mrs. Bennett had spent the and unless you are careful I will get last few days of her life.
On the night before the day of the you fifteen years.". To which Bennett tragedy. Miss Rodrum testified, she angrily retorted, "I wish you were was looking out of an open window dead, and unless you are careful you when she saw, a short distance away, soon will be.”
Mrs. Bennett standing under a neigb- bouring arch. She could see no other person, but she heard a man's voice, obviously addressing her, say, You understand, don't you? I am
Equipped with this Information the police considered that they were justified in arresting Bennett and in November he was lodged in prison
I advanced a step nearer to the her cheeks; around her neck is a on the charge of having murdered; laced in an awkward position."
door.
Who's there?" I cried loudly What do you want?" The flap of the letter box began" to move, and I formed a sudden deter- Making no sound in my mination.
knees.
bootlace tightly drawn. She has been the victim of foul play. In his terror he rashes wildly hack to the Leighbouring town to tell the grim story of his discovery to the police.
Such was the opening scene, a few
his wife. When he was arrested beAfter that, said the witness. I affected the greatest surprise and heard the sound of a kiss, but I indignation. I don't know what could not see the man,"
The effect of this evidence was you mean." be said to the officers,
I have never been at Yarmouth in considerable, for it proved that on my life, and I have not lived with the Friday night, the night before the
he had the Prophet's slipper. He's heelless Turkish shippers, 1 crept close years ago of a drama of crime and my wife since last January. I found į murder which, it was known, Bennett) already had his hand cut off through up to the door and dropped upon my mystery which caused almost waa lot of letters in her pocket from had spent at Woolwich, his wife was paralleled excitement and interest another man. It was one thing conversing on intimate terms and interfering with the beastly thing, and
Thereupon the flap became fully throughout the United Kingdom, and; however to arrest Bennett! it was kissing ardther man who might quite | I really can't believe he would take
from where I crouched which for many months baffied all quite another to prove his guilt. further chances by keeping it is his lifted, but
Still more sensational evidence possession. Nevertheless I should beneath it I was unable to see who the efforts of the police to find the But the police were satisfied that conceivably have been the murderer. or what was looking in yet I hesinted / key to it. Seldom has a crime pre- they had got the right man, and followed when the next witness 'was · dical problem; proceeded confidently to draw the called a man named Douglas who like to find him.”
more ingenuity and scarcely ever has the problems been net of conviction round him.
He leaned back against the mantle-no longer. I suddenly raised myself piece, scratched his head perplexedly, and thrust the revolver barrel through In this perplexity he had my sym the opening pathy. No such pursuit, I venture "Who are you?" I cried.
** AB-
to say, had ever before been required|swer or I fire and along the barrel
of Scotland Yard as this of the slip-I peered on to the landing. per of the Prophet. That an organiza-
able.
sented such a
Eved at Hither Green and who told solved with
A VALUABLE. CLUE,
the following remarkable story: On dogged tenacity.
An examination of his rooms. September 22 (the day of the Who was this strange woman who furnished them with a valuable clue tragedy) he was taking a stroll after
found 'thus
dead-foully
was
"The prisoner" said
murdered on the Yarmouth beach to the motive for the crime; for in business. He had passed through Still no one answered. But some-in the peace and beauty of that addition to certain jewellery and a Eltham between five and six o'clock, tion founded in 1090, which had made thing impalpable, powder September morning? She was wear receipted bill from Yarmouth hotel, when he was overtaken by a stranger a science of assassination, which pour-to this hour I do not know whating a skirt of dove colour, with a they found a bundle of letters from a (who was beyond doubt the man in through the centuries bad perfected-enveloped me with its nauseading white-braided coat. Her hair, which girl called Alice Meadows." This the dock), who asked him for a light the malign arts, which lingering on in fumes; was puffed fully into my face had been dyed. was golden. Her girl, who proved to be a respectable for his cigarette. a dark spot in Syria, had suddenly My eyes, my mouth, my nostrils be-death, so the doctors declared, was servant, on being questioned, declar-M. Douglas supplied the light, migrated and established itself in Lon-came choked up with a deathly stifling due to strangulation by the bootlace; ed that she had been introduced to and the two men continued their
and the bruises on her face and body Bennett by a mutual friend; that she walk together. don, is a proposition almost unthink-perfume.
Wildly, feeling that everything could not, they said, have been had no idea he was a married man; the witness, told me, among other and that she had spent the previous things, that he was a draughtsman "Yet I knew that such a society, about me was shipping away, that I cansed by herself. She had, beyond Bank Holiday with him at Yarmouth at Woolwich, and that he had In June be had asked her to marry lived at Bexley Heath. When we ruled by the lineal descendant of its was sinking into a void, for aught dontt, been done to death.
him, and she had consented.
came to Let I invited him to have Founder, Hassan of Aleppo, Sheik of knew that of dissolution, I pulled the the Assassins, was in our midst, hot trigger once, rice, thrice ....
drink with me at the Tiger, and My God! The words choked in upon the track of those who had looted |
as we were about to enter the inn the holy slipper from the East. I
he drew my attention to a sign over knew that ghastly crimes already stood to the credit of the fashishin group:
shop next door, and, pointing to the name, Bennett said. I knew that poor Professor Deeping
namesake of mine." had died by the hand of one of the uncanny creatures of the band.
my throat and I reeled back to the pessage, it's not loaded 1"
I threw up my arms to save myself, turched, and fell forward into what seemed a boromless pit.
When I opened my eyes it was to
THE LAUNDRY MARK To her identity there was no clue, Two days before the Yarmouth unless it were contained in the laundry tragedy on Thursday, September 20, mark "599" found on a petticoat--a Bennett had told Alice Meadows that clue so faint as to be almost hopeless he was sorry he would be unable to It was not long, however, before it meet her, as arranged, on the follow: was discovered that a visitor to ing Sunday, as his grandisther was Yarmouth was missing. Her name was dying, and he must go to see him.
Mrs. Hocd. She had been lodging And in a letter posted at Woolwich with some people called Rudrum, and two days later he wrote
a
That's a
The most searching cross-examina.
A POWERFUL ALIEL
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SUPERSTITIONS;
WISHBONES.
evidence. He had no doubt, what- It was hard to believe that the dar a conviction that I dreamed I lay
tion failed to shake the witness ing American cracksman, Earl Dexter, upon a cushioned divan in a small had disappeared mysteriously on the "I shall be glad when this writing ever, that prisoner was the man. should have ventured to touch that apartment which I find difficuk ade- very night of the beach tragedy. On business ends, so that I can have you He was certain of the date Septem the previous day she had received a to welcome me in my own home." Iber 22) because on the previous and bloodstained relic of the Prophet, that quately to describe. he should have snatched it away from It was a yellow room, its four walls letter on bluish-grey paper, the en- am very sorry not to be able to see the following Saturday he had, as beneath the very eyes of the fanatics being hung with yellow silk, its Boor velope of which bore the Woolwich you, dear, but I will make up for it was his custom made a note that who fiercely guarded it. What be entirely covered by a yellow Persian postmark. Mrs. Rudrum, the land when I do see you. Your most loving he was potting plants at the time, whereas on the 22nd no such note hoped to gain by his possession of the carpet. One lanp, burning'in a frame lady, had no difficulty in identifying and affectionate Herbert."
To the girl's amazement, however, appeared. slipper was not evident, but the fact of some lemon-coloured wood and the dead woman as her missing remained that, if he could be believed, having its openings filled with green lodger; and she noticed that a long when she was walking with a friend be had it, and, provided Scotland glass, flooded the place with a ghastly gold chain which Mrs Hood was in Hyde Park on the Sunday she Yard's information were accurate, he illumination. The lamp hung by gold wearing when she started on her last suddenly met her fiance, at the very. Never, if the witness was to be time when she naturally thought be believed and Mr. Douglas was a man still lurked in hiding somewhere in chains from the ceiling. which was walk was missing.
Several low tables of the yellow.
There could thus be no doubt was at the bedside of his dying of irreproachable respectability and London.
"My theory is," said Bristol, light- same lemon-hued wood as the lamp that the murdered woman could be grandfather. When she expressed character has an alibi bean more ing a cigarette, that even Dexter's frame stood around; they were inlaid no other than Mrs. Hood, the mis her surprise at meeting him he an- conclusively proved; for if Bennett cleverness has failed to "save him. in fanciful designs with gleaming sing visitor; and it now remained to swered. "Oh! I'm just on my way was at Lee after six o'clock in the discover who she was and who was there. You see, some of my rela- evening, it was impossible that bei He's probably a dead man by now green stones. which accounts for our failing to find There was a niche framed about her murderer-a task which for tions are with the old man, I hear, could be at Yarmouth in distant
defy was to
all the so I didn't see any need to Norfolk at the time the crime was him; and Hassan of Aleppo has re- with yellow wood, behind the divan months
The excitement in court produced povered the shipper and returned to upon which I lay. In it stood a gold-ingenuity and resources of the hurry." And the following day she committed the same sight.
cleverest detectives. To the mur received a letter from him from the East taking his gruesome company en bowl and a tall por of yellow derer there was no clue whatever, Woolwich, in which he told her that by this sensational evidence,, was / following picturesque account of the be the first man who passes in und with him-God knows how! But celain; I lay amid yellow cushions
The sea monster has been wholly that accounts for our failing to find having golden tassels. Some of them although he had probably been seen by his grandfather was dead, adding: carried to a still higher pitch when were figured with vivid green devices. a young Yarmouth man called Mason, I shall be, indeed, glad, may darling, the next witness for the defence, I stood up rather.wearily. Although
is not likely to breathe its last on shore To contemplate my surroundings who, when he heard of the tragedy, when you don't have to leave me at was summoneda stationer from poor Deeping had appointed me legal assuredly must be to court madness. told the police the following story all-With fondest love and kisses, Lowestoft, named O'Driscoll who conscious for the last 48 hours, and
your most loving and affectionate told the following startling, story: SOUNDS OF A QUAKEEL.
the until speared. It has appeared myste guardian of the relic, and although I Ne door was visible, no window:
crime he was in his shop when riously, and the marvel is that though could render but a poor account of nothing but silk and luxury, yellow
a stranger entered hurriedly and ask-looking sick and sorry it is alive and my stewardship, let me confess that and green and gold.
him. "
"
About a quarter to eleven on 'the night of the tragedy-Saturday,
Herbert."
CLOSING IN.
On the Wednesday
after
STRANDED NEAR BOMBAY,
The Bombay Chronicle gives the
monster-
MOUTH THREE FEET DEZP.
Almost everybody has, at son time in his life, broken a wishbone "see who gets his with"; or placed of up over the door if the conjurer
a gid, because she had heard that ti one she was destined to marry won
it. It is probably because of this l times known as the merry-thought superstition that the wishbone is so
The wishbone is the clavicle, collar-bone, which in fowls and bi
mentioned are the most common
is united in one forked structure wh has a keel-bike bons at the place juncture called the "hypoclidium. Į The pet of conviction was now ed for a paper containing an account keenly sensitive to the interest taken wishing two persons grasp with thr I was anxious to take that comforting To crown all, the air. was beavy September 22-Mason and bis sweet-
and forefinger cach a pring of theory to my bosom. I would have with a perfume wholly gamistakable heart were sitting on the South Beach, closing rapidly round Bennett. It of the Yarmouth murder. He was a in its unfamiliar position.
wishbone and, as silently formu given much to know beyond any, pos-by one acquainted with Egypt's ruling when another couple approached and was proved that, while bis wife "superior, well spoken man," said sibility of doubt that the accursed slip-vice. It was the reek of smouldering seated themselves some thirty yards was still living the wife whom he Mr. O'Driscoll, "who might have
Some people-Europeans in partia wish, pull, until the bone bre Soon. Mason said." they had threatened to murder he was been an engineer." He was tall and per and its bloodlustful guardian were hashisha stench that seemed to take away. far away from England!
me by the throat, a vapour, damnable began to talk loudly, almost as if they, engaged to marry another woman dark, and dressed in a dark suit. His cular-preferred to recognise in the The person to whose prong"
were quarrelling. I heard the woman with whom he was evidently deeply face bore traces of scratches, one of monster an Indian fin-whale, but severed bona the hypochdim ad "Then you think." I said, "that and unclean. I saw that a little cen-
There are other superstitions the English phase of the slipper's his- ser, golden in colour and inset with call out Mercy, mercy! and then I in love. It was discovered that he his boots was unlaced, and he was obviously it is nothing of the sort. geta his wish. tory is closed? You think that Dex- emeralds, stood upon the furthermost heard a sound of meaning,. At this had given her costly presents, includ- in a state of great excitemental This evil-looking monster measures, as
it lies stranded, 254 feet from "stern nected with the wishbone but the rer, minus his right band, has eluded corner of the yellow carpet. From it point my sweetheart and I got up ing one of Mrs. Bennett's own most incoherent, in fact.
"I handed him the paper," said to stem." British law that Hassan and Com- arose a faint streak of vapour; and and moved off. We passed close by brooches. He had arranged to marry
followed the course of the sickly scent. the couple. The man raised his head her at Christmas, and had taken a the witness, and pointed out the
The huge face bas something of the and they go back to the days
the Roman angurs, from “signs" pany have craded" retribution?"..
"I do!" said Bristol grimly, "anded smoke upward through the still air and looked up at me; but it' was so house for this purpose at Charlton. account of the muder, He almost human in it. The mouth runs in- afthough that means the biggest fai-1 until in vily spirals it lost itself near dark that I could not see his features, 'It was found, too, that the letter matched the paper from my hands, wards for over three feet, and the dy-birds "signs ex-avibus-
and I couldn't possibly identify him received by "Mrs. Hood' "a few at the same time making a sort of
the recrets of destiny. These lure in my professional career, I am to the yellow ceiling.
if I saw him again."
hours before her death, was written groaning sound. While he was well-preserved rows of teeth" are as For some time I lay endeavouring glad-demned glad!”**
It was thus clear that the only on paper identical with that he was reading it the paper trembled, and he sharp as spikes. Should the mouth be were in the flight, and cries of in the condition of their entra Shortly afterward he took his deto regain command of myself, to hope of the police was to trace in the habit of using.
turned round and caught me looking full open it would probably disclose a the action of fowls and in the cas parture and I leaned from the window pare to face again that scene which Mrs. Hood" through the Landry It still remained, however, to trace at him, whereupon he clutched the capacity to swallow three men at a of the bones of birds and fowls! watching him pass along the court had something horrifying in its yellow.
The Augurs having cast the g below and out under the arch into ness, touched with the green and gold, mark on her petticoat-a clue so his movements on the Saturday of paper in both hands and hurried out." time.
slight that it semed to hold scarly the murder. Inquiry at Woolwich
TERRIFYING GROANS. And when finally I reopened my any promise of success, for it might revealed the fact that be had left his
of prophecy over fowls and In the face of such cumulative From the head to a quarter-way interior arrangements the eyes, I sat up with a suppressed sy easily involve inquiry at thousands work at one o'clock os that day, and sive. A sort of steaming mist seeth For a tall figure in a yellow robe from cf laundries scattered all over the' at three o'clock he had been seen evidence which seemed to establish down the body it is symetrically shape of the wishbone made it railway time-table. that Bennett could not possibly hare bed, & dozen ribs of two inches each popular among the proletart beneath which peeped yellow slippers, country. But the task, formidable consulting
in the evening been at Yarmouth at the time the being visible. The monster has quite purposes of divination; a poly
public crime was committed, that there was A
another man in the case who at unscaly surface of dull black. It which it still maintains, there It was that of a majestic old man, search was made-hundreds of house at Yarmouth, in the white bearded, with aquiline, sose, laundries were visited, until after company of a woman who was might equally well have been Mrs, sports & solitary fin, according to what once proud seimos of the * Ad
His Bennett's murderer, and, that the can be seen of its unfortunate position, had been relegated for nesto and the flerce eagle eyes of a fanatic many weeks of fruitless search, their identified as "Mrs. Hood."
landlay declared that he did not agitated stranger of the Lowestoft and is evidently in pain. It groans thousand years to learned tod set upon me sternly, reprovingly. pertinacity was rewarded.
With-folded arms he stood watching At Bexley Heath the petticoat return to his lodgings until late on stationer's shop, whose appearance occasionally sufficiently loud to strike classical dictionaries, me, and I drew a sharp breath and marked 599" was recognised, as Suhday The next day, Monday, he and manner were so suspicions, was terror into the hearts of the spectators
having belonged to a Mrs. Bennett, had shown her a suit, on which were certainly not the prisoner one would surrounding it. The last stroke of the cathedral bell rose slowly to my feet.
Its small twinkling eyes resemble yOUR boy is alwas getting died away. Oker more distant bell There amid the yellow and green who had lived there for some time some dark stains, due, he explained, have thought a verdict of "Guilty" and gold, amid the abominable reek of with ber baby, and was often visited to the breaking of a bottle contain was impossible. The jury, however, burning hashish I stood and faced Has by a young men. And to remove ing dine in his pocket. On the declined to be influenced by the those of an elephant, and likewise its or cat or healsed. Bockies they always will. Get a JOE all doubt, the photograph of the following Wednesday he had paid evidence, strong as it was, for fin the ear of an elephant. The fisher-upda have healed wil right in -30-unusual-sound now disturbed the n-of Aleppo!..
No words came to me; I was con- murdered woman was identified as £4 -10%-to-be released from the the defence. Bennett was found men in the neighbourhood and a great Oberlain's Pain Balra, and at archaic peace of the court.
that of Mr Bennett.
temancy of the house occupied by "Guilty and he paid the supreme many others are superstitiously in every injury cared for huny founded.
his wife at Bealey, a penalty of the law without gratifying clined towards the appearance of the You can get nothing better, and But who was Mrs. Bennett, and Seldom has evidence seemed more the curiosity of a perplexed world by monster. They believe it is an omen for sale or all Opening and Sp
of dire portion. who was the young man who visited damning against a man charged with a ward of confession.
Fleet Street.
The heat to-night was very oppres
ed to rise from the court and no cool,
ing breeze entered my opened win
dows. The clamour of the traffic in
Fleet Street came to me but remote-
ly. Big Ben began to strike midnight,
So far as I could see, residents or
the other stairs were all abed and a
velvet shadow carpet lay unbroken across three parts of the court.
still were sounding dimly, but save
Lor the ceaseless bum of the traffic,
I returned to my table, for during
a figure crowned with a green turban,ast: was, did not daunt the police. At ten o'clock stood in the centre of the apartment From end to end of England the he
Voice
the time that had passed I had badly Hassan spoke in that gentle neglected my work and now muat which I had heard only once before. often Libour Jaf into the night "I've}
(To be condoned;}
TRACKING DOWN.-
*WAS
in - Been
THE JUXY DECIDE.
2
"A PARENT'S DUTY
polaou is too dangerous a disajika