Part 35 (1/2)

He did.

The Stetson appeared from the window, and a pair of keen grey eyes fixed themselves upon the door wherein Sheard was lurking.

A rapid calculation showed the pressman where lay his best chance.

Darting across the road, he dived, rabbit-like, into the burrow of the Tube, got his ticket smartly, and ran to the stairway. With his head on a level with the floor of the booking-offices he paused.

An instant later the canoe-shaped brogues came clattering down from above. The American took in the people in the hall with one comprehensive glance, got a ticket without a moment's delay, and jumped into a lift that was about to descend.

Two minutes afterwards Sheard was in a cab bound for the house of Severac Bablon. The New Journalism is an exciting vocation.

He discharged the cabman at the corner of Finchley Road, and walked along to No. 70A.

Opening the monastic looking gate, he pa.s.sed around a trim lawn and stood in the porch of one of those small and picturesque houses which survive in some parts of red-brick London.

A man who wore conventional black, but who looked like an Ababdeh Arab, opened the door before he had time to ring. He confirmed Sheard's guess at his Eastern nationality by the manner of his silent salutation.

Without a word of inquiry he conducted the visitor to a small room on the left of the hall and retired in the same noiseless fas.h.i.+on.

The journalist had antic.i.p.ated a curious taste in decoration, and he was not disappointed. For this apartment could not well be termed a room; it was a mere cell.

The floor was composed of blocks--or perhaps only faced with layers of red granite; the walls showed a surface of smooth plaster. An unglazed window which opened on a garden afforded ample light, and, presumably for illumination at night, an odd-looking antique lamp stood in a niche.

A littered table, black with great age and heavily carved, and a chair to match, stood upon a rough fibre mat. There was no fireplace. The only luxurious touch in the strange place was afforded by a richly Damascened curtain, draped before a recess at the farther end.

From the table arose Severac Bablon, wearing a novel garment strangely like a bernouse.

”My dear Sheard,” he said warmly and familiarly, ”I am really delighted to see you again.”

Sheard shook his hand heartily. Severac Bablon was as irresistible as ever.

”Take the arm-chair,” he continued, ”and try to overlook the peculiarities of my study. Believe me, they are not intended for mere effect. Every item of my arrangements has its peculiar note of inspiration, I a.s.sure you.”

Sheard turned, and found that a deep-seated, heavily-cus.h.i.+oned chair, also antique, and which he had overlooked, stood close behind him. An odd perfume hung in the air.

”Ah,” said Severac Bablon, in his softly musical voice, ”you have detected my vice.”

He pa.s.sed an ebony box to his visitor, containing cigarettes of a dark yellow colour. Sheard lighted one, and discovered it possessed a peculiar aromatic flavour, which he found very fascinating. Severac Bablon watched him with a quizzical smile upon his wonderfully handsome face.

”I am afraid there is opium in them,” he said.

Sheard started.

”Do not fear,” laughed the other. ”You cannot develop the vice, for these cigarettes are un.o.btainable in London. Their history serves to disprove the popular theory that the use of tobacco was introduced from Mexico in the sixteenth century. These were known in the East generations earlier.”

And so, with the mere melody of his voice, he re-established his sovereignty over Sheard's mind. His extraordinary knowledge of extraordinary matters occasioned the pressman's constant amazement. From the preparations made for the reception of the Queen of Sheba at Solomon's court in 980 B.C. he pa.s.sed to the internal organisation of the Criminal Investigation Department.

”I should mention,” said Sheard at this point, ”that an attempt was made to follow me here.”

Severac Bablon waved a long white hand carelessly.

”Never mind,” he replied soothingly. ”It is annoying for you, but I give you my word that you shall not be compromised by _me_--come, luncheon is waiting. I will show you the only three men in Europe and America who might a.s.sociate the bandit, the incendiary, with him who calls himself Severac Bablon.”