Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 143: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

_ ‘MYSTERY OF VOODOO MANOR. told of his visit to the shop before the knife had been pawned.- Nor did he know how closely he had missed finding it there. So cunningly had he carried out his scheme for exacting the death penalty that he felt very sure we had no knowledge of how the mysterious crime had been committed. “ Confidently and securely he came to the auction, as I felt sure he would. And when he felt certain that the bidding had stopped, he insolently and haughtily bid in the sacred property of the Piuchis. This movement on his part placed him just where I wanted him. And you know the rest.” “Nancy,” 1 asked eagerly, “ why did this man turn poor Miss Loring’s body face downward the night he bound us? Did he still expect to fmmd the dagger about her? For he must have been greatly mystified when he saw it no longer in its accustomed place that fatal night.” “No,” she answered, “1 think not. Undoubtedly, to this particular sect such an act represents the consummation of all indignities toward death, especially toward the demise of one whuik enEY thought had defiled their sacred dagger.” She now turned to the Hindu. you anything to say?” Slowly he lifted his finely featured face. The great gleaming eyes of fanaticism and accomplished purpose smoldered there. Al- most proudly, yet with supreme hauteur and resignation, he raised his head. The singsong voice spoke again for the first time since he had uttered the momentous and fateful bid for the lethal weapon. ‘A priest of the sacred Piuchis neither explains nor denies. It is for the Occidental race of blasphemers and infidels to take their will on his defenseless body.” He stared out with bright eyes upon the gray day which had settled down hke the cloak of doom about his incarceration in the house where he had wrought the death will of his peculiar cult. At a nod from Nancy he was taken away. As the monotonous falsetto of the Hindu again fell upon my ears, I realized my error in inferring that such a voice had been as- sumed for the purposes of disguise. From Nancy’s insistence in ascertaining the char- acteristics of the peculiar voice, I felt sure * Have 613 that she had long ago suspected that the peddier was an avenging Hindu—that the bearded man who searched Solomon Isaacs’s shop in vam for the dagger was undoubtedly the same Hindu. And she had been further convinced of the fact when she herself had heard the voice the night when he returned for his knife. I also knew perfectly well that with this premise Nancy had sensed fhe true identity of the man with the patch as Blanche Pembroke’s accomplice, whose voice had actually been disguised by the use of an expressionless tone. How plain it all was now! When the tramping footsteps had died away on the “gravel walk Nancy turned to me. * ‘Now, what is it you wish explained, oh, eternally vigilant interrogation mark?” she asked whimsicaily, although the shad- ows of the tragedy were still-over her face. “What was it you discovered among Miss Loring’s papers in her desk that you wouldn’t tell me?” I began promptly. “The record and bill of sale on the knife with the opal eye—the Evil Eye of the Piuchis.” “And the little brown book?” “Miss Loring’s diary for that year, which she kept according to her custom. Now listen to what she wrote under the same date as set down on the bill of sale: “ To-day, after much patient waiting, I buy that consummation of all evils, the wicked eye oi the Piuchis. The Hindu shopkeeper wagged his head soberly and with fatalistic wisdom. what a cost this knife left its native temple — and lands. You little guess its bloody history and the dire deeds with which it has been . I took it under protestation, For the reckless ‘concerned. knowing its evil lineage. Englishman who sold it to me seemed glad © enough to be free of it, for a poor pittance far less than it was worth. And I, on my part, am glad to be rid of such a luckless and ill- famed relic, I destroy all papers concerning it. But I warn you that it is the symbol of — evil. Beware!’ ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘you little know at “ But,” went on Nancy, “ Miss Loring — evidently forgot all about the danger of buying such a thing after so long. She forgot that the sleeping Hindu gods of fanatical justice work exceedingly slow, = NOOlKS (@) ‘ 2 com (E@) m .