Part 14 (1/2)
”Show us this sarcophagus,” commanded Demetrio, and Promero hesitantly led the way. All followed, including Conan, who was apparently heedless of the wary eye the guardsmen kept upon him and seemed merely curious.
They pa.s.sed through the torn hangings and entered the room, which was more dimly lit than the corridor. Doors on either side gave into other chambers, and the walls were lined with fantastic images, G.o.ds of strange lands and far peoples. Promero cried out sharply.
”Look! The bowl! It's open-and empty!”
In the center stood a strange black cylinder, nearly four feet in height and perhaps three feet in diameter at its widest circ.u.mference, which was halfway between the top and the bottom. The heavy, carven lid lay on the floor, and beside it a hammer and a chisel. Demetrio looked inside, puzzled an instant over the dim hieroglyphs, and turned to Conan.
”Is this what you came to steal?”
The barbarian shook his head. ”How could one man bear it away?”
”The bands were cut with this chisel,” mused Demetrio, ”and in haste.
There are marks where misstrokes of the hammer dinted the metal. We may a.s.sume that Kallian opened the bowl. Someone was hiding nearby-possibly in the hangings of the doorway. When Kallian had the bowl open, the murderer sprang upon him-or he might have killed Kallian and opened the bowl himself.”
”This is a grisly thing,” shuddered the clerk. ”It is too ancient to be holy. Whoever saw metal like that? It seems harder than Aquilonian steel, yet see how it is corroded and eaten away in spots. And look-here on the lid!” Promero pointed a shaky finger. ”What would you say that was?”
Demetrio bent closer to the carven design. ”I should say it represented a crown of some sort,” he grunted.
”No!” exclaimed Promero. ”I warned Kallian, but he would not believe me! It is a scaled serpent coiled with its tail in its mouth. It is the sign of Set, the Old Serpent, the G.o.d of the Stygians! This bowl is too old for a human world-it is a relic of the time when Set walked the earth in the form of a man. Perhaps the race that sprang from his loins laid the bones of their kings away in such cases as this!”
”And you'll say that those moldering bones rose up, strangled Kallian Publico, and then walked away?”
”It was no man who was laid to rest in that bowl,” whispered the clerk, his eyes wide and staring. ”What man could lie in it?”
Demetrio swore. ”If Conan is not the murderer, the slayer is still somewhere in this building. Dionus and Arus, remain here with me, and you three prisoners stay here, too. The rest of you, search the house!
The murderer -if he got away before Arus found the body-could only have escaped by the way Conan used in entering, and in that case the barbarian would have seen him-if he is telling the truth.”
”I saw no one but this dog,” growled Conan, indicating Arus.
”Of course not, because you're the murderer,” said Dionus. ”We're wasting time, but we'll search as a formality. And if we find no one, I promise that you shall burn! Remember the law, my black-haired savage: For slaying an artisan you go to the mines; a tradesman, you hang; a gentleman, you burn!”
Conan bared his teeth for answer. The men began their search. The listeners in the chamber heard them stamping upstairs and down, moving objects, opening doors, and bellowing to one another through the rooms.
”Conan,” said Demetrio, ”you know what it means if they find no one.”
”I did not kill him,” snarled the Cimmerian. ”If he had sought to hinder me I'd have split his skull; but I did not see him until I sighted his corpse.”
”Someone sent you here to steal, at least,” said Demetrio, ”and by your silence you incriminate yourself in this murder as well. The mere fact of your being here is enough to send you to the mines, whether you admit your guilt or not. But, if you tell the whole tale, you may save yourself from the stake.”
”Well,” answered the barbarian grudgingly, ”I came here to steal the Zamorian diamond goblet. A man gave me a diagram of the Temple and told me where to look for it. It is kept in that room,” Conan pointed, ”in a niche in the floor under a copper Shemitish G.o.d.”
”He speaks truth there,” said Promero. ”I thought not half a dozen men in the world knew the secret of that hiding place.”
”And if you had secured it,” Dionus sneered, ”Would you really have taken it to the man who hired you?”
Again the smoldering eyes flashed resentment. ”I am no dog,” the barbarian muttered. ”I keep my word.”
”Who sent you here?” Demetrio demanded, but Conan kept a sullen silence. The guardsmen straggled back from their search.
”There's no man hiding in this house,” they said. ”We've ransacked the place. We found the trap door in the roof through which the barbarian entered, and the bolt he cut in half. A man escaping that way would have been seen by our guards, unless he fled before we came. Besides, he would have had to stack furniture to reach the trap door from below, and that has not been done. Why could he not have gone out the front door just before Arus came around the building?”