Part 10 (1/2)

He led the way into a room filled with marble statuary, and pointed to a tall column, one of several which served a purpose more of ornament to set off the statues, than of utility. And then he halted and stared.

”It's gone!” he cried.

”It never was there!” snorted Dionus.

”By Mitra, it was!” swore the guardsman. ”Coiled about the pillar just above those carven leaves. It's so shadowy up there near the ceiling I couldn't tell much about it but it was there.”

”You're drunk,” snapped Demetrio, turning away. ”That's too high for a man to reach; and nothing but a snake could climb that smooth pillar.”

”A Cimmerian could,” muttered one of the men.

”Possibly. Say that Conan strangled Kallian, tied the cable about the pillar, crossed the corridor and hid in the room where the stair is. How then, could he have removed it after you saw it? He has been among us ever since Arus found the body. No, I tell you Conan didn't commit the murder. I believe the real murderer killed Kallian to secure whatever was in the Bowl, and is hiding now in some secret nook in the Temple. If we can't find him, we'll have to put the blame on the barbarian, to satisfy Justice, but where is Promero?”

They had returned to the silent body in the corridor. Dionus bellowed threateningly for61.Promero, and the clerk came suddenly from the room in which stood the empty Bowl. He was shaking and his face was white.

”What now, man?” exclaimed Demetrio irritably.

”I found a symbol on the bottom of the Bowl!” chattered Promero. ”Not an ancient hieroglyphic, but a symbol recently carved! The mark of Thoth-amon, the Stygian sorcerer, Kalanthes' deadly foe! He found it in some grisly cavern below the haunted pyramids! The G.o.ds of old times did not die, as men died they fell into long sleeps and their wors.h.i.+ppers locked them in sarcophagi so that no alien hand might break their slumbers. Thoth-amon sent death to Kalanthes Kallian's greed caused him to loose the horror and it is lurking somewhere near us even now it may be creeping upon us ”

”You gibbering fool!” roared Dionus disgustedly, striking him heavily across the mouth.

Dionus was a materialist, with scant patience for eery speculations.

”Well, Demetrio,” he said, turning to the Inquisitor, ”I see nothing else to do than to arrest this barbarian ”

The Cimmerian cried out suddenly and they wheeled. He was glaring toward the door of a chamber that adjoined the room of statues.

”Look!” he exclaimed. ”I saw something move in that room I saw it through the hangings.

Something that crossed the floor like a long dark shadow!”

”Bah!” snorted Posthumo. ”We searched that room ”

”He saw something!” Promero's voice shrilled and cracked with hysterical excitement. ”This place is accursed! Something came out of the sarcophagus and killed Kallian Publico! It hid from you where no human could hide, and now it is in that room! Mitra defend us from the powers of Darkness! I tell you it was one of Set's children in that grisly Bowl!” He caught Dionus' sleeve with claw-like fingers. ”You must search that room again!”

The prefect shook him off disgustedly, and Posthumo was inspired to a flight of humor.

”You shall search it yourself, clerk!” he said, grasping Promero by neck and girdle, and propelling the screaming wretch forcibly toward the door, outside of which he paused and hurled him into the room so violently the clerk fell and lay half-stunned.

”Enough of this,” growled Dionus, eyeing the silent Cimmerian. The prefect lifted his hand, Conan's eyes began to burn bluely, and a tension crackled in the air, when an interruption62.came. A guardsman entered, dragging a slender, richly dressed figure.

”I saw him slinking about the back of the Temple,” quoth the guard, looking for commendation. Instead he received curses that lifted his hair.

”Release that gentleman, you bungling fool!” swore the prefect. ”Don't you know Aztrias Petanius, the nephew of the city's governor?”

The abashed guard fell away and the foppish young n.o.bleman brushed his embroidered sleeve fastidiously.

”Save your apologies, good Dionus,” he lisped affectedly. ”All in line of duty, I know. I was returning from a late revel and walking to rid my brain of the wine fumes. What have we here?

By Mitra, is it murder?”

”Murder it is, my lord,” answered the prefect. ”But we have a man who, though Demetrio seems to have doubts on the matter, will doubtless go to the stake for it.”

”A vicious looking brute,” murmured the young aristocrat. ”How can any doubt his guilt? I have never seen such a villainous countenance before.”

”Yes, you have, you scented dog,” snarled the Cimmerian, ”when you hired me to steal the Zamorian goblet for you. Revels, eh? Bah! You were waiting in the shadows for me to hand you the goblet. I would not have revealed your name, if you had given me fair words. Now tell these dogs that you saw me climb the wall after the watchman made the last round, so that they'll know I didn't have time to kill this fat swine before Arus entered and found the body.”