Chapter XIX: The Horus Stone

An hour later Phadrig, the poor curio dealer, had disappeared, and Mr Phadrig Amena, the wonder-working Adept, clad in evening clothes and a light overcoat, alighted from a hansom at the great entrance to the Royal Court Mansions. The huge, gorgeously uniformed guardian of the Gilded Gates was saluting at his elbow in an instant, for a friend of Princes is a very great man in the eyes of even such dignitaries as he.

“The Prince expects you, sir,” he said, loud enough to make the title heard by those who were standing by. “Will you be good enough to walk in? I will discharge the cab.”

He stood aside with a bow and another salute, and Phadrig walked lightly up the broad steps. Peter Petroff opened the door of the flat, bowing low, and conducted him to his master’s sanctum. Evidently he was expected, for the coffee apparatus stood ready on the Moorish table beside the cosy chair which he was wont to occupy. The Prince, who was standing on a white bear’s skin by the mantel, motioned him to it, saying:

“Ah, Phadrig, my friend, punctual, of course; and equally, of course, you have something important to impart. Your wire just caught me in time to put off an engagement which, happily, is of no great consequence. There’s the coffee, and you’ll find the cigars you like in the second drawer. Now, what is the news?”

His guest filled a cup of coffee and took a cigar and lit it before he replied. Then, turning to the Prince, he said in his usual slow, even tone:

“Highness, I regret to say that my news is both urgent and bad.”

“It would naturally be urgent,” said the Prince, turning quickly towards him, “but bad I hardly expected. Well, all news cannot be good. What is it?”

“I fear that my warning was even more urgent than I thought it myself--I mean, in point of time. Your Highness is already being watched.”

“What! A Prince of the Empire, the man whom they call the Modern Skobeleff, an intimate of Nicholas! What should I be watched for?” exclaimed the Prince, half angry and half astonished. “The thing is ridiculous; another of your dreams!”

“Ridiculous it may be, Highness,” replied Phadrig, quite unruffled, “but it is no dream; and, moreover, the eyes which are watching you are keen ones--and they are everywhere. You are under the surveillance of the International Police.”

These were not words which even a Prince of the Holy Russian Empire cared to hear. Oscarovitch was silent for a few moments, for the earnestness, and yet the calmness, with which they were spoken made it impossible for him to doubt them. As he had asked, what could such a man as he be watched for by this thousand-eyed organisation of which he himself was one of the supreme Directors? It was impossible that these people could suspect his great scheme of treachery and self-aggrandisement. That was known to only three persons in the world--himself, Phadrig, and the Princess Hermia; and the Princess, the woman who had willingly sacrificed her brilliant young husband to her guilty love and her boundless ambition--no, she could be no traitress. It must be something else: and yet what?

He took two or three rapid turns up and down the room, chewing and puffing at his cigar, until he stopped before Phadrig, and said quietly, but with angry eyes:

“Very well, we will grant that I am watched by the International. Tell me how you came to know it.”

The Egyptian took a few sips of his coffee, and then related almost word for word his interview with Josephus. He ended by saying:

“Your Highness may believe or not now as you please, but I presume you will when you read in your paper to-morrow morning of the suicide of a respectable Hebrew merchant named Isaac Josephus at the address which I have mentioned.”

Oscarovitch had pretty strong nerves, and he was well accustomed to regard any kind of crime as a quite proper means of furthering political ends: but there was something in this man’s utter soullessness and the weird horror of the crime which he had just accomplished--for by this time his victim would be already lying self-slain on the floor of his own spider’s lair--that chilled him, cold-blooded as he was. He looked at him lounging in his chair and calmly puffing the smoke from his half-smiling lips as though he hadn’t a thought beyond the little blue rings that he was making.

“That was a devilish thing to do, Phadrig!” he said, a little above a whisper.

“Devilish, possibly, Highness, but necessary, of a certainty,” was the quiet reply. “You will agree with me that Nicol Hendry is a dangerous antagonist even for you, and as for me--no doubt he thinks that he can crush me under his foot whenever he chooses to put it down. I should like to know his feelings as he reads of his spy’s suicide when he had only just got to work.”

“It will certainly be somewhat of a shock to him and his colleagues, and for that reason I am inclined, on second thoughts, to agree that it was necessary, and ghastly, as I confess; it seems to me, I think, that you took the best means to give them a salutary warning. After all, the life of an individual, and that individual a Jew, does not count for much when the fate of empires is at stake. What puzzles me is how these fellows came to suspect me, and what do they suspect me of. I suppose you have no idea on the subject, have you?”

He looked at him keenly as he spoke, but he might as well have looked at the face of a graven image. Then, like a flash of inspiration, the Zastrow affair leapt into his mind. Had his connection with that, by any extraordinary chance, come to the knowledge of the International? The thought was distinctly disquieting. Phadrig had helped in this with his strange arts. He would discuss this phase of the matter with him afterwards.

Phadrig replied, returning his glance:

“Highness, I have only one explanation to offer, and that you have already refused. Were I to speak of any other it would only be vain invention.”

“You mean about Professor Marmion and his mathematical miracles?” said the Prince somewhat uneasily.

“I do,” replied the Egyptian firmly. “I say now what I thought when I saw him work them. I did not believe that any man could have done what he did unless he had attained to what we styled in the ancient days the Perfect Knowledge, or, as they term it to-day, passed the border between the states of three and four dimensions. If Professor Marmion has achieved that triumph of virtue and intelligence--and in the days that I can remember there were more than one of the adepts who had done so--then Your Highness’s Imperial designs must be as well known to him as to yourself: nay, better, for, while you can see only a part, the beginning and a little way beyond, he can see the whole, even to the end; for in that state, as we were taught, past, present, and future are one. Now, only three persons know of the project, and treason among them is not within the limits of reason, wherefore I would again ask Your Highness to believe that such information as the International may have has been given them directly or indirectly by Professor Marmion.”

“But,” said the Prince, who was now evidently wavering in his scepticism, since Phadrig’s explanation of the mystery really seemed to be the only feasible one, impossible as it looked to him, “granted all you say, what possible interest could Professor Marmion, whether he’s living in this world or the one of four dimensions, have in interfering in such a project, even if he did know all about it, especially as every educated Englishman admits that the state of affairs in Russia could hardly be worse than it is? I cannot see what conceivable interest he can have in the matter.”

“But, Highness, his interest may be a private and not a public one.”

“What do you mean by that, Phadrig?” asked the Prince sharply.

“As I have said,” replied the Egyptian slowly, “it may be that his daughter, who was once the Queen, has also attained to the Knowledge. In that case the love which Your Highness so suddenly conceived for her would instantly bring you within the sphere of his and her influence and power. Now, she, as Nitocris Marmion, the mortal, is betrothed to the English officer, Merrill. She loves him, and therefore, since you are great and powerful in the earth-life, your ruin, or even your death, might seem necessary to remove you from her path.”

Oscarovitch shivered in spite of all his courage and self-control. The idea of fearing anything human had never occurred to him after his first battle; but this, if true, was a very different matter. To be threatened with ruin or death by a power which he could not even see, to contend against enemies who could read his very thoughts, and even be present in a room with him without his knowing it--as Phadrig had assured him more than once that they could be--was totally beyond the power of the bravest or strongest of men. No, it was impossible: he could not, would not, believe that, such a thing could be. His invincible materialism came suddenly to his aid, and saved him from the reproach of fear in his own eyes.

“No, Phadrig,” he said, with a gesture of impatience, “that is not to be credited. To you it may seem a reality: to me it can never be anything more than a phantasy of intellect run mad on a single point--which, I need hardly remind you, is a by no means uncommon failing of the greatest of minds. Another reason has just occurred to me which would need no such fantastic explanation.”

“And that, Highness?” queried Phadrig, looking up with an almost imperceptible shrug of his shoulders.

“The Zastrow affair. Unlikely as it seems, it is not impossible that there has been treason there. I have many enemies in both Russia and Germany, and it is well known that Zastrow and I were rivals once. Yes, that is it: it must be so, and therefore we must prepare to fight the International; and with such weapons as you are able to use there is not much reason why we should fear them.”

He dismissed the subject with an imperious wave of his hand, and continued in an altered tone:

“And now, àpropos of your weapons. Tell me something about this wonderful gem with which you hypnotised the Jew.”

“I will not only tell you about it, Highness, I will show it to you, if you desire to see it,” replied Phadrig, who now fully recognised the hopelessness of overcoming the blind materialism which was, of course, inevitable to the life-condition in which the Prince had his present being.

“What! you have brought it with you! Excellent! Now I think we shall be able to talk on pleasanter subjects than conspiracies and such phantasms as the Fourth Dimension!” exclaimed Oscarovitch, who, like all Russians, was almost passionately fond of gems. “Fancy asking a Russian if he desires to see such a thing as that!”

“Your Excellency must be careful not to look at it too long or closely,” said Phadrig, putting his hand down inside his waistcoat and drawing out a wash-leather bag. “As I have told you, it possesses certain qualities which are not to be trifled with. You are, of course, aware that many Eastern gems are credited with hypnotic powers. This one undoubtedly has them.”

As he spoke he drew out the emerald, and held it by the clasp under a cluster of electric lights.

“What a glorious gem!” exclaimed the Prince, starting forward to look at it more closely. “There is nothing to compare with it even among the Imperial jewels of Russia.”

“Have a care, Highness,” said the Egyptian, raising his left hand, “unless you wish to fall under its influence. Once it seized your gaze you could not withdraw it without the permission of its possessor, and meanwhile he would have complete mastery of you. I am your faithful servant, and therefore I warn you.”