Chapter II
KÁLI
BURTON VAN DEAN had certainly changed the atmosphere of the Abbey. In the spacious library with its panneled walls and oak beamed ceiling, the influence of the American Orientalist manifested itself in the form of numberless Eastern relics and curiosities, which seemed strangely out of place; for memories of the monastery clung more tenaciously to this room than to any other in the old Abbey.
At about the time that Paul Harley was passing the lodge, Mrs. Moody sat in the library, knitting. Her expression was as sweet and as restful as usual, as she bent over her work, so that no one could have suspected the gray-haired old lady of any thought more important than the number of her stitches. But Mrs. Moody was a conscientious housekeeper. Actually, she was listening for some sound which should enable her to locate the whereabouts of Parker, the new gardener. Guests were expected to dinner; and cook had forgotten to arrange with Parker about the fruit salad. There came a discreet rap upon a door.
“Come in,” said Mrs. Moody.
A tall, handsome Oriental entered and inclined his turbaned head in a a salute at once dignified and respectful.
“Parker is not in the orchard, Memsahib,” he reported.
“Oh dear,” said Mrs. Moody. “How annoying. Do you know where Miss Joyce is?”
“I will inquire,” replied the dignified servant; and, repeating his curiously Eastern salute, he turned and left the library. This was Mohammed Khán, the Indian butler, and one of the several innovations introduced by Burton van Dean.
Mrs. Moody sighed gently and resumed her knitting. She had only taken up two or three stitches when a girl crossed the terrace and came into the library, pulling off thick gardening gloves. She was good looking in her open-air, English fashion, fresh complexioned and bright eyed. Her brown hair was as the wind had left it, and she had a swinging carriage which was nearly but not quite aggressive.
“Hullo, Mumsie!” she called, and running down the steps she perched on the side of the chair and threw her arms around Mrs. Moody. “Stop knitting and tell me how to get rid of Jim. He's become a perfect pest.”
“What's that?” inquired a drawling voice.
Both the ladies turned their heads as a tall, athletic looking young man, the habitual expression of whose tanned face was one of great gloom, came slowly down the steps into the library. His hands were thrust deep in the pockets of his dazzling golf knickers.
Mrs. Moody laid her knitting aside.
“Is Joyce being rude to you again, Jim?” she asked sympathetically.
“Rude!” echoed Jim. “Well, rather! I've been trying to talk seriously to her. What with chaps dying in the shrubbery, and all that sort of thing, it seems to me there's something funny about the house. Old Inspector Gorleston has got a yarn about a monk, or something or other.”
“Don't be funny, Jim,” admonished Joyce.
“I don't know about funny,” drawled Jim. “It's my belief that old Van Dean, with his funny servants and squatting idols and what not, is haunted.”
“Jim, dear!” exclaimed Mrs. Moody. “Haunted!”
“He's a haunted man,” persisted Jim. “There are lots of haunted houses; why not a haunted man?”
“Poor Jim!” muttered Joyce.
A muffled sound of barking proclaimed the presence in the house of a dog somewhere quite near. Jim glanced guiltily in the direction of a door approached by a short open stair in the fashion of the Tudor period of architecture.
“Good dog!” he muttered.
“You see, Mumsie,” explained Joyce, who was Mrs. Moody's stepdaughter, “Jim brought Rex over from the Warren.”
The sound of barking was renewed.
“Oh, Lord!” muttered Jim. “Shall I let him out, Joyce?”
“Well, not unless I can find a key,” was the reply; and Joyce crossed to a writing table and began to search among the many objects which littered it.
Mrs. Moody, who had been looking from one to the other, round-eyed, expressed her gentle remonstrances.
“Surely, Jim,” she said, “you haven't locked a dog in Mr. Van Dean's study?”
“Well,” replied Jim, standing first on his right foot and then on his left, “old Rex kicked up such a row when we bumped into the livestock”
“Which means,” interrupted Joyce, “that Rex took fright when he met Mr. Van Dean's tame cheetah in the grounds and so we had to lock him up to keep him quiet. No, no key here.”
Composedly she crossed and rang a bell beside the deepset fireplace.
“But, my dear!” murmured Mrs. Moody, “in the study! Mr. Van Dean's new book is there, a frightfully important book. Suppose the dog has eaten it!”
“Rough on me, Mumsie,” retorted Joyce; “considering I typed it!”
Mohammed Khán entered, inclining his head in dignified salute.
“Mohammed,” cried Joyce, “will you go up to my sitting-room and see if I've left a key on my desk.”
The butler bowed, turned, and was approaching the door when there came hurrying in from the terrace a gaunt-faced man, He wore hornrimmed glasses, and a Stetson hat with the brim pulled down over his eyes. His tweed suit was untidy, as was his whole appearance; and there was something at once furtive and nervous in his manner,
Jim Westbury saw him first, and, “Oh, Lord!” he muttered, “Here's old Van Dean!” and glanced guiltily in the direction of the study door.
Van Dean, however, had his glance fixed on Mohammed Khán.
“Mohammed!” he called sharply.
Mohammed Khán turned.
“Sahib.”
“Make an early inspection of the grounds, tonight. Test all the connections and report to me with the keys before dinner. That clear?”
“I understand, Sahib.” He saluted and went out.
Jim exchanged a significant glance with Joyce. Then, “Anything wrong, Van Dean?” he asked. “You look hot and bothered.”
“No, no!” The famous American traveler threw his hat upon a settee and going to a side table poured out a glass of water. “Nothing to worry about. My nerves aren't too good these days.”
His hand shook as he raised the glass to his lips.
“Haunted!” whispered Jim, intending the words for Joyce's ears alone. “I knew it!”
“Well,” declared Mrs, Moody, “I must say, Mr, Van Dean, that I have a dreadful sensation, sometimes, of being watched.”
“Nonsense, Mumsie,” said Joyce, sitting on the arm of her chair and taking her hands. “Don't say you're going to get nervy, too. You've been so wonderful.”
Jim, who had been curiously watching Van Dean, now took him aside.
“What's up, Van Dean?” he asked.
Burton van Dean glanced in the direction of the two women.
“I thought I heard a faint voice a while ago as I came through the shrubbery,” he replied in a low tone,
“Near where the dead man was found?” said Jim.
“Yes, Say no more about it. It was probably imagination.”
He turned, staring hard in the direction of a strange looking jade image, on a carven pedestal, which stood immediately to the right of the French windows.
“Mrs, Moody,” he called, “do you know why no one has come to remove this thing?” `
“No,” replied Mrs, Moody, “I understood they were coming this afternoon.”
“I wish they had!” cried Joyce. “The horrible thing gives me the creeps. But, oh!” She hesitated. “I'm giving away secrets!”
“No, no, Miss Gayford,” protested Van Dean. “You are not. You have been an ideal secretary. But—” his nervousness became more apparent—“I feel I owe your mother an explanation. I had hoped it might not have been necessary. Tonight I know it is. Mrs, Moody, when I leased the Abbey, I knew my life was in danger.” He turned, almost pathetically to the elder lady.
“Then why,” she exclaimed mildly, “did you allow Joyce and myself to remain?”
“Because your brother made it a condition of the lease, a condition I have never regretted. But I think you ought to know that before I came here I had been in the East for close on seven years. I was reported missing, counted as dead. Your daughter knows where I was. There is no further reason why you should not know also. I was away up on the borders of Tibet. It was there I learned—” he pointed to the jade image—“what that stands for. I blundered onto a secret up there beyond Khatmandu. A horror! A thing which—you” His voice broke. “Well, I got away,” he added, “maimed, but alive. Here in the heart of peaceful Norfolk I thought I should be safe.”
Mrs. Moody's eyes were growing more and more round.
“Safe! From what?” she asked.
“From the Voice of Káli!” he replied, but in so low a tone that the words were barely audible,
“But,” exclaimed Jim, “I can't cope with the thing! What has the voice of Káli got to do with this funny looking image?”
“And what is the Voice of Káli?” asked Mrs. Moody.
“It is a summons,” replied Van Dean, “used by an organization which regards the days of the world's white races as numbered!”
“A summons to what?” asked Joyce eagerly,
“To death!” replied Van Dean.
The two women stared at him, expressions of horror growing on their faces. Jim continued to regard the image on the pedestal, And then, “What is this thing, Van Dean?” he demanded.
“The emblem of the Indian goddess Káli!”