The Slayer of Souls | Page 7

tore the bedclothes from the bed.
A little yellow snake lay coiled there.
He got as far as the telephone, but could not use it. And there he fell heavily, shaking the room and dragging the instrument down with him.
There was some excitement. Cleves and Selden in their bathrobes went in to look at the body. The hotel physician diagnosed it as heart-trouble. Or, possibly, poison. Some gazed significantly at the naked knife still clutched in the dead man's hands.
Around the wrist of the other hand was twisted a pliable gold bracelet representing a little snake. It had real emeralds for eyes.
It had not been there when Gutchlug died.
But nobody except Sanang could know that. And later when Sanang came forth and found Gutchlug very dead on the bed and a policeman sitting outside, he offered no information concerning the new bracelet shaped like a snake with real emeralds for eyes, which adorned the dead man's left wrist.
Toward evening, however, after an autopsy had confirmed the house physician's diagnosis that heart-disease had finished Gutchlug, Sanang mustered enough courage to go to the desk in the lobby and send up his card to Miss Norne.
It appeared, however, that Miss Norne had left for Chicago about noon.

CHAPTER III.
GREY MAGIC
To Victor Cleves came the following telegram in code:
"Washington,
"April 14th, 1919.
"Investigation ordered by the State Department as the result of frequent mention in despatches of Chinese troops operating with the Russian Bolsheviki forces had disclosed that the Bolsheviki are actually raising a Chinese division of 30,000 men recruited in Central Asia. This division had been guilty of the greatest cruelties. A strange rumour prevails among the Allied forces at Archangel that this Chinese division is led by Yezidee and Hassani officers belonging to the sect of devil-worshippers and that they employ black arts and magic in battle.
"From information so far gathered by the several branches of the United States Secret Service operating throughout the world, it appears possible that the various revolutionary forces of disorder, in Europe and Asia, which now are violently threatening the peace and security, of all established civilisation on earth, may have had a common origin. This origin, it is now suspected, may date back to a very remote epoch; the wide-spread forces of violence and merciless destruction may have had their beginning among some ancient and predatory race whose existence was maintained solely by robbery and murder.
"Anarchists, terrorists, Bolshevists, Reds of all shades and degrees, are now believed to represent in modern times what perhaps once was a tribe of Assassins--a sect whose religion was founded upon a common predilection for crimes and violence.
"On this theory then, for the present, the United States Government will proceed with this investigation of Bolshevism; and the Secret Service will continue to pay particular attention to all Orientals in the United States and other countries. You personally are formally instructed to keep in touch with XLY-371 (Alek Selden) and ZB-303 (James Benton), and to employ every possible means to become friendly with the girl Tressa Norne, win her confidence, and, if possible, enlist her actively in the Government Service as your particular aid and comrade.
"It is equally important that the movements of the Oriental, called Sanang, be carefully observed in order to discover the identity and whereabouts of his companions. However, until further instructions he is not to be taken into custody. M.H. 2479.
"(Signed)
"(JOHN RECKLOW)"
The long despatch from John Recklow made Cleves's duty plain enough.
For months, now, Selden and Benton had been watching Tressa Norne. And they had learned practically nothing about her.
And now the girl had come within Cleves's sphere of operation. She had been in New York for two weeks. Telegrams from Benton in Chicago, and from Selden in Buffalo, had prepared him for her arrival.
He had his men watching her boarding-house on West Twenty-eight Street, men to follow her, men to keep their eyes on her at the theatre, where every evening, at 10:45, herentr'acte was staged. He knew where to get her. But he, himself, had been on the watch for the man Sanang; and had failed to find the slightest trace of him in New York, although warned that he had arrived.
So, for that evening, he left the hunt for Sanang to others, put on his evening clothes, and dined with fashionable friends at the Patroons' Club, who never for an instant suspected that young Victor Cleves was in the Service of the United States Government. About half-past nine he strolled around to the theatre, desiring to miss as much as possible of the popular show without being too late to see the curious little entr'acte in which this girl, Tressa Norne, appeared alone.
He had secured an aisle seat near the stage at an outrageous price; the main show was still thundering and fizzing and glittering as he entered the