Part 14 (2/2)

She sat staring out through the open window into the humming traffic of St. Anne's Court.

”It's Kari again,” she said slowly.

”Kari?” I glanced at the door of the opposite room, but the maid was not in sight. A year ago Martha had toured and visited the various beauty spots of the West Indies. And it was somewhere in Jamaica that she had found Kari, who was still living a life steeped in the black rites her slave trade ancestors had brought from Africa.

She was on obea woman, a performer of obi, that sorcery still practiced by inland West Indian Negroes, which the most rigid British law enforcement has failed to suppress. I had heard of this weird form of black magic before, had read somewhere how the unfortunate victims would fall into a morbid state which would finally terminate in a slow unexplain able death, or how the obea woman would reveal the events that awaited on in the future.

For some reason Martha had been attracted to Kari there in Jamaica. Her heart had gone out to the Negro girl when she saw the squalor and superst.i.tion under which the poor creature was living, and when she had returned to England, she had contrived to take Kari along as her maid.

I remembered the day Martha had first brought the young dark-faced woman forward and smilingly introduced me to her.

”The poor thing's life would have been a sordid thing,” Mar that had said. ”I couldn't bear to leave her there to practice her evil wors.h.i.+p.”

But she hadn't made a perfect maid. Although Martha had drilled her in the customs of European etiquette, Kari still clung to her black background. Several times she had given in to her inborn desire for mumbled incantations, and several times she had persisted in foretelling events of the future.

In this respect, I confess my skepticism regarding such matters suffered a severe blow. On three occasions, once in my presence, the Negro girl had seemed to throw herself into a trance and slowly chanted a prophecy of what lay ahead.

And strangely enough, three times she had been correct almost to every detail.

”What has she told you now?” I asked Martha.

For a moment the girl who was to be my wife said nothing. Then she sketched briefly Kari's latest psychic introspection.

At intervals during the train ride from Ches.h.i.+re, the Negro girl had lapsed into fits of crying and had begged Martha to exercise the utmost caution in everything she did for the next few days. The immediate future, she declared, was very black, and a terrible misfortune lay in store for both of them.

”You shouldn't let such throwbacks to superst.i.tion bother you,” I said.

”They mean nothing at all.”

”There was a time when I would have thought the same,”

she answered slowly, ”but youa”you don't know Kari. Some times I almost believe obi to be an actual power, something fundamental and primitive which we can not understand.”

I talked to destroy her fears, and in the end we left for my apartment, where I was anxious to show her the powers of Farber's strange invention.

While we walked I enumerated the compositions I had written in the past few days and waxed enthusiastic over them separately. The strange instrument I described in detail.

Finally we reached the door of my study. I thrust it open and strode ahead toward the table. Two feet away I stopped.

The piano was gone! Only empty s.p.a.ce on the walnut table met my eyes.

For a moment I stood there, motionless, disappointment sweeping over me. Then I saw the slip of paper lying on the floor where the draft had evidently blown it, and picking it up, I read the following: Bancroft: I am very sorry, but the changes I have planned to include in the piano are almost ready, and I shall have to take the instrument back sooner than I expected. I trust that in the short time you have had it, you have found it the means of bringing forth some excellent compositions. If they are favorably received, remember your promise to give the piano its full credit. Possibly when the new additions are fully completed, I may permit you to operate it again.

Wilson Farber The adventure was at an end. Those hours which had seemed like an excerpt from the Arabian Nights had run to their close. Well, at least I had not wasted the opportunity. Through the instrument's powers I had finished my Sonata in B Flat Minor.

An urgent request that I go to Chatham Downs to the country manor of my old friend, Major Alden, and play for a group of weekend guests came early the next morning. Alden was prominent behind one of the largest music-publis.h.i.+ng houses in all Britain. To strain his friends.h.i.+p, if only from a monetary standpoint, would be foolhardy. I telephoned Martha and caught the first train.

Three days later, bored with an interlude of playing before an audience that thought more of cricket than of music, and horribly lonesome, I arrived back in London. But the instant I stepped into the station, tragedy fell upon me.

Even after its full significance had been brought to me by the pages of the Times, I found myself walking the streets sick with despair, helpless as to what I should do next.

The disappearance of Martha Fleming caused a furor in music circles. A member of the Sat.u.r.day Musicale and the Etude Society, she had countless friends who were shocked at the thought that anything had happened to her. Scotland Yard raced to the case.

From the landlord of her apartment building I gathered only the feeblest of information. Martha had left her rooms about eight o'clock in the evening, apparently bound for the little sweet shop around the corner. The landlord had noticed her exit on this evening because of the strange action of Kari, her West Indian Negro maid. Scarcely had the street door closed behind Martha, he said, when the Negro girl slipped stealthily down the hall and followed her.

The two of them had failed to return!

As my bewilderment slowly settled into cold reasoning I became frantic for Martha's safety. I questioned the other occupants of the building. I searched her apartment trying to find some clue. But I found nothing. Nor did Scotland Yard have any better results. Martha and her Negro maid had disappeared as completely as if they had fallen into another dimension.

I paced along the night streets, searching the face of every pa.s.serby.

Hopelessly I offered a reward for information as to her whereabouts.

There seemed no reason. If it had been kidnapping, there would have been a ransom note; and if murdera”I shuddereda”some traces of the crime. There was nothing, nothing save Kari's black prophecy to stand out in an otherwise clueless mystery.

At last one night I returned to my study, utterly discouraged.

I sat there slumped in the chair, brooking with my thoughts. Then, as if to add to my unpleasantness, came- Wilson Farber.

He entered my apartment without knocking, and almost before I was aware of it, he was pus.h.i.+ng me out of the door and into the hallway.

”I tell you I'm not interested in your piano,” I said.

”I don't care how much you've improved it. I have other things on my mind. Please go away and leave me alone.”

”I know, Bancroft,” he said. ”But I must have a man who is musically trained inspect the instrument in its new form.

”Get someone else, then,” I snapped. ”You can throw the thing into the Thames for all I care.”

”You are the only man I can trust, Bancroft, the only one I've told my secret. Come. It can do not harm.

Perhaps it may freshen your mind and give you new vigor in continuing your search.”

Almost as in a dream I permitted Farber to lead me into a waiting cab. Then once again I was gliding toward that fantastic room in Milford Lane.

I found that wild music chamber with its note decorations, aged instruments and black drapes the same as before.

But I looked vainly for the midget piano. The operating table was empty. Then, following Farber's gaze, I saw the thing.

It was mounted on a small extending shelf high up on the right wall at a point just below the ceiling. And as I looked upon it, there came that same feeling that it was watching me.

”I have placed the instrument up there,” explained Far her, ”because I find it is more susceptible to the thought waves if at a higher position than the level of the operator's eyes. Now your full attention, please, while I adjust its tuning.”

He propped a chair against the wall, stood on it and began to turn the little dial on the instrument panel.

Five seconds later I saw the little bulb within glow cherry red and the black liquid in the gla.s.s tube bubble and mount slowly upward.

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