CHAPTER IV
MADAME SABINOV
MADAME SABINOV lay prone upon a divan, white elbows buried in the cushions, chin resting in upturned palms. Her glance strayed idly about the singular apartment; and she smiled as if in mockery of her exotic surroundings.
Certainly it was a fantastic, an extravagant room. The floor was of delicate mosaic, reconstructed from Carthaginian fragments, from those fragments which in unskilful hands crumble to dust as soon as their beauty is revealed, and almost in the moment when the protecting mantle of the desert is stripped from them. In the depths of a marble pond shimmering golden fishes passed like streaks of fire, above its placid surface leapt a faun clutching a straining nymph. She held to her bosom a lotus flower, and from its petals slender threads of water fountained out, descending in streams of diamonds to the pool of the golden carp.
The centre of the roof was a turquoise dome diffusing an artificial Eastern moonlight. Chinese tapestry masked the rest of the ceiling, being draped, tentwise, from the margin of the dome to the four walls. The latter were of flat gold with arabesques in relief, rising above a dado inlaid irregularly with soft mother-o'-pearl and the midnight blue of lapis lazuli, with ruby reds like stains of blood and harsh outstanding splashes of absinthe-green; rarer specks of violet there were, purely coloured as that lost lacquer of Old Japan. In deep recesses, Byzantine fashion, chryselephantine statuettes gleamed amid purple shadows.
There were skins of beasts, yellow and black, strewing the floor; rugs from Ispahan, Shiraz, and the subtle looms of China. Four tenuous pillars of gold supported the dome, ascending spirally, like fanned flames, from the edge of the pool to the moonlight vault. In a jewelled tripod, on a fire of charcoal, burned little blocks of perfume composed of juniper berries, galangal root, black grapes, and sap of Nile rushes soaked in red wine and stiffened to a paste with mastic, myrrh, and the deadly honey of Trebizond.
Through the burner's perforated lid slender pencils of smoke bore waveringly upward the fragrance of a magical past; of an incense once sacred to Isis—a perfume of power competent to play strange tricks with the reason.
It was a fantastic, an extravagant room, a casket for passion or laughter—the cruel laughter of Arabian legend; and indeed it was no less than a reproduction of an apartment in the harem of the bloodiest tyrant who ever ruled Baghdad as "Commander of the Faithful."
Only a woman of unusual beauty could have triumphed in such a setting; yet the ultimate note of this sensuous scheme was struck by the figure of Madame Sabinov. The cushions on which she lay were set in a low divan. This was panelled with sandalwood curiously carved. It possessed four posts each crowned with a miniature peacock fashioned of semi-precious stones. Madame was wrapped in a single garment of some fleecy material resembling swansdown, which completely concealed her shape. Her hair, which was dressed in the fashion of the dancing girls who pose for ever upon the Egyptian monuments, and which is preserved in life to this day by the ghawâzi of Keneh, rendered her conspicuous wherever she appeared; for it was as white as virgin snow. This singularity was reputed to be due not to nature but to the art of a famous Parisian beauty specialist. Sans doute, it was vastly becoming, and in Paris had created a vogue. It lent an effect of dazzling youth to Madame's piquant beauty for the reason that it so palpably was not due to age. Her eyes appeared even more lustrous, her delicate colouring assumed an added delicacy, because of it.
Now she stirred languidly, and finally sat upright, raising her slender arms over her head, and seeming to resent some duty which must be performed. The fleecy garment extended nearly to her feet, upon which she wore sandals clasped about her ankles by emerald buckles. She looked around her and laughed contemptuously, as a clever actress weary of a farcical part. Then she became silent; a haunted expression stole into those beautiful eyes in which some men had found rapture, others sadness, and others again ravenous cruelty. In this moment of awakening, another woman looked out almost timidly, surely a stranger to every one of the many who had courted the lovely Madame Sabinov.
Quickly the mask was resumed, and Madame clapped her hands sharply together. A curtain of black and gold draped in a pointed doorway was drawn aside, and two little Nubian girls ran in, standing right and left of the door, like twin ebony statuettes, and each holding back a corner of the curtain, which was divided in the centre. Their immature black shapes were innocent of clothing.
Madame rose languidly, a slender, mysterious figure, and, silent in her thin sandals, moved toward the pointed doorway.
***
Almost at the same moment a Farman car came throbbing impressively past Albert Gate. It had the powerful, destroyer-like lines which distinguish these French monsters of the road; it was coloured an unusual shade of electric blue and possessed a low-pitched limousine back. It might have reminded one of a strange and formidable beetle as it swung to the left, slowed, and halted before a large, old-fashioned mansion. The street was deserted at the time and curiously still, except for the mournful howling of a dog in some neighbouring house. A footman seated beside the chauffeur leapt down and opened the door of the car.
A man alighted wearing a French cape with a deep velvet collar, the cape fastened by an antique clasp. Apparently he was otherwise in correct evening dress, except that in lieu of the conventional silk hat he wore a soft black sombrero. An ivory cane was suspended by a loop from his wrist. He stood for a moment looking up at the house, and the light of a street lamp shone down upon a face notable for its pallor—but not alone for this.
The visitor, whilst of no more than average height, possessed a depth of chest and span of shoulders eloquent of physical strength. His feet, however, were daintily small and his hands unexpectedly slender. His hair, which had been permitted to grow so low upon the cheekbones as narrowly to escape classification as whiskers, was crisply curly and of a dull red colour. When, presently, he removed his hat, his head, covered with close, tense curls and set upon a powerful neck, resembled the head of Nero.
His footman, who wore an unusual and conspicuous uniform, having closed the door of the car, ran up the steps and rang the bell. Immediately, the door was opened-by invisible agency; for no servant appeared. The footman stood aside, bowing, and the visitor entered, the door closing behind him.
He found himself in a square lobby illuminated by a single silver mosque lamp swung from the ceiling, its many-coloured panes diffusing a dim religious light. A great bowl of red roses stood upon an Arab table, and the perfume of the flowers filled the air with sweetness. There was a low-set cushioned divan on the left, and upon the polished floor before it a deep red rug. Beyond, a staircase of black marble, having a finely wrought-iron balustrade, led up to a balcony where four globular lamps on silver pedestals cast down into the hallway a cold radiance like that of the moon.
To the right were cavernous shadows, in which, dimly perceptible, hung a purple curtain before an archway. Out from these shadows to greet the visitor came a white-clad Egyptian servant, who saluted him ceremoniously; and, speaking in Arabic:
"My lady requests you to wait and will not keep you long," he said.
Drawing the purple curtains aside, he disclosed a curiously furnished room; curious, because the few ornaments which it contained were unique objects of art such as at some time might have graced a palace, and curious because of its funereal appointments which were entirely of black and gold. The carpet was of unrelieved black, and the furniture of ebony; and the room derived light from a black standard lamp supporting an octagonal ebony frame in which were amber panels.
A heavy sweet perfume was perceptible, resembling that associated with Russian leather; and as the visitor entered, from a nest of yellow cushions a lithe shape leapt up. Warningly came a high, angry snarl, glittering of white fangs; and an African civet cat, around whose throat a gold collar was clasped, sprang to the carpet, turned, and snarling again fiercely at the intruder, merged, junglewise, into the shadows beyond the doorway.
The caller showed his small, even teeth in a cynical smile, glancing aside at the Egyptian servant. The latter did not speak, but, bowing low, retired.
For a moment, the newly arrived stranger paused, looking after him; then, turning, he unclasped his cape and threw it upon a chair with his hat and ivory cane. A virile, Neroian figure, he strode to the farther end of the room, and stood there watching the draped doorway. His glance was commanding, proprietorial. Upon his slender right hand, with which, ever and anon, he removed an ivory cigarette-holder from between his lips, gleamed a peculiar, talismanic ring.