The House of Strange Secrets Part 22

"Of course, my absence had been noticed, as had that of Aubrey.

Hurriedly deciding my course of action, I craved an interview with the commanding officer, Sir Bromley Lestrange, who had always been most kind and sympathetic to me in the matter of my love affairs, concerning which I had told him all.

"My first idea was to invent some satisfactory explanation of my absence, making no reference to my discovery of Aubrey's dead body, or to the fact that I had laid myself open so indiscreetly to infection.

"To a stranger I might have been able to invent a tissue of lies, but to a friend, no. Accordingly, in the privacy of his own chamber, I told Sir Bromley the whole story. His horror on learning my news was as great as mine had been on perceiving how I had been ensnared by the girl Lilla, and more so when I made the gruesome discovery in the empty room.

"'We must hush this up--that's quite clear,' said Sir Bromley; 'it would never do to publish these facts abroad. Young Aubrey was no doubt drawn to the opium den by the same devilish means as those employed in your case. It will be a lesson to you, Carrington. But of that more anon.

First we must recover poor Aubrey's body, and have it decently buried.

Then we must do all in our power to have the wretches in the den handed over to justice. I think I can manage this quietly. Leave me now, and I will arrange the best I can. I am sorry for you, truly sorry, Carrington, but you might have expected it.' I knew that in his last sentence he referred to the paragraph in the _Times_, for I had not withheld any of the facts from him.

"I took my departure shortly after, first explaining the exact locality in which the opium den was to be found.

"My misconduct was never known to anyone but Sir Bromley. Consequently, it was with unusual regret I learned a year or so back that the General had died suddenly of heart disease in India. I left the regiment shortly after, under circ.u.mstances I will proceed to explain, and never saw Lestrange again, but I cherish the memory of his kindness and leniency to this day.

"I subsequently learned that a police raid had been made on the premises of the opium den, when the body of Lieutenant Aubrey was found, and secretly returned to the barracks. I forget exactly how his death was explained, but as we had one or two cases of fever in the hospital about that time, I presume his relatives were led to believe that the young man succ.u.mbed to that disease.

"Of course, on discovering that I had escaped, or, perhaps, immediately after robbing me of all I possessed, the proprietors of the opium den decamped.

"But the corpse of my unhappy fellow-officer afforded a distinct clue to the clever, but lazy, native police. Aubrey had been slain by Phansigars, or, as they are better known to the world, Thugs!

"The police were able to inform us, from my description, that Lilla was a well-known 'sotha,' or entrapper. How many victims she had secured for her terrible gang the police did not know, but she was considered a queen among her people--a position she owed to the fact that she had bewitched and ensnared more victims than any other candidate for the nominal honour. The old Chinese woman, her mother, was a 'guru,' or teacher, her occupation being the instructing of children in the art of Thugee--the so-called religion of Kalee, the G.o.ddess of scientific murder. The giant Hindoo, who was the husband of Lilla, combined the callings of 'bhuttote,' which means strangler with the noose, and 'lughaee' (grave-digger). There were several other members of the gang, which subsisted entirely on plunder.

"Once on the track of these inhuman scoundrels, the police quickly managed to effect the arrest of the whole gang, with the single exception of Lilla (or the girl I knew by that name). The latter was never captured.

"Exactly what punishment was meted out to the captives I never learned.

I feel sure, though, that the death sentence was pa.s.sed upon them, for the treatment of Thugs is very severe in India, as it necessarily should be.

"The strangest part of my story still remains to be told.

"A few months later I was walking down an almost deserted street in Madras, when my attention was arrested by a roll of thin yellow parchment lying in the pathway, and on which was written my own name!

"Very naturally I picked up the sheet, and, unrolling it, was astounded to read the following message in Hindustani:--

"'My baby was born nine days ago. Siva (the husband of Kalee) has decreed that it should be a male. My vengeance will be slow. The boy shall be brought up as an expert "Phansigar" (another name for "Strangler") until he shall have reached manhood in five-and-twenty years. He shall be taught to avenge his father, and, as his father's and mother's son, shall give his life for that purpose and the fraternity. I am dying, but my mother will bring him up, and, after eight years, sixteen years, and four-and-twenty years, shall inform you of his progress, lest you forget the day when you despised Lilla, the "sotha."

When five-and-twenty years shall have pa.s.sed away, your doom shall be sealed by Lilla's gift to the world. If you are dead, then shall the doom descend upon your dear ones. The curse of Devi (another name for Kalee) be upon you, but not until five-and-twenty years have pa.s.sed. In those years all that you shall do will prosper, but there shall be no peace for you, for the doom of Kalee and Siva shall rest upon you and your seed until that which I have prophesied shall have come to pa.s.s.'

"To say that I was frightened by the words in this strange letter would be to exaggerate my feelings. In those days I did not know what I do now about the Thugs and their so-called religion, or I should have given more heed to the warning. One thing I did, that was to lay the letter before Sir Bromley, who took a very grave view of it.

"'Those Thugs,' he said, with an ominous shake of his head, 'are devils.

No other word can be so aptly applied to them. I have made a study of their art, for such it is, and I can say that there are thousands of authentic cases in which they have done marvels--really marvels--of brutality. Beware, my boy! If I were you I would try to change my regiment, and get out of the country as quickly as possible. Murder is not as uncommon in this part of the Queen's Empire as you might think; and the relatives of these captured Thugs would consider that they had done a good deed if they were able to put an end to your existence.'

"It was not for this reason, though, that I returned to England shortly after. The fact was, I learned, about this time, that a man in London, for whom I had once been able to do a good turn, had recently died, bequeathing to me a sum of money which would, at any rate, make it unnecessary for me to work for my daily bread. 'Ah!' I thought, when I heard the good news, 'if only Edith had waited a few months longer!'"

CHAPTER x.x.x

THE SQUIRE'S STORY (CONCLUSION)

"And so it came about that I returned to the old country, and, out of mere politeness, discovered old Colonel Rawson's address, and called one afternoon. I was ushered into the drawing-room, where sat a lady, whom I at once recognised as my beloved Edith.

"'Harold!' she cried, as she sprang forward.

"I looked at her left hand. There was no ring on the third finger!

"It was, as you, my son, may have suspected, all a mistake (how costly a one you have yet to learn) on my part. The Edith Rawson who had married was not even any relative of my Edith.

"Within three months, though, the latter was a bride.

"In the midst of all my happiness there was one troubling thought that disturbed me more than anyone knew.

"The prophecy contained in the parchment was coming true!

"I mean that prosperity had been promised me for the five-and-twenty years that would elapse before the child which, according to the message sent me in so mysterious a fas.h.i.+on, had then just been born should reach what was evidently considered by his people his majority. Had I not experienced that prosperity in receiving the unexpected legacy and winning for my wife the woman whom I had believed to have proved false to me? But I felt that twenty-five years was a long time. It was no use worrying about a possible calamity in the distant future. And so I forgot the weird prophecy and my connection with India, and settled down to the four years of bliss that were my portion before you, my son, were born, and my darling, in giving you birth, sacrificed her own dear life.

"That was not prosperity, you will say; and I agree to a certain extent.

But if she had not died perhaps I might, and then--if there was anything in the prophecy--the doom of the girl Lilla might have fallen upon her instead of upon me. But to proceed with my actual narrative.

"It was nearly four years after my Edith's death when I received a letter bearing an Indian stamp and a blurred postmark that I was unable to decipher. It was addressed to me at the War Office, with instructions to be forwarded, in a shaky handwriting--the work, probably, of an old man; and the sheet contained in the dirty, thin envelope bore the single word--'Remember!'

"My feelings on receiving this epistle from a world that I had come to hope was dead to me were indescribable. I had learned from Sir Bromley some years before that the police believed Lilla was dead, since another queen had been appointed for the district over which my enchantress had held nominal sway, and thus I had put less belief in the prophecy contained in the parchment letter; but now, with the knowledge that my existence had not been forgotten by the Thugs, a great fear for my life came upon me.

"It was impossible for me to change my name, as my friends would have required some explanation of my conduct, and such explanation I should not feel inclined to give. One thing I could do--I could become a civilian, and give up all connection with the army. This I accordingly did. I took the Manse at Northden, in Yorks.h.i.+re, managed to persuade people to call me and address me as Squire instead of Major Carrington, dropped the latter t.i.tle altogether, and as my friends died or were lost sight of, I found as years went by that my connection with the Indian Army or any other army was unknown, or, at any rate, forgotten. The name Carrington I knew was no rare one, and I accordingly hoped that I should never be recognised as the Major Carrington who had visited the Madras opium den, and fallen a victim to the charms of the queen of the Thugs.

"Eight years pa.s.sed after the receipt of the letter from India; then one day I caught sight of a paragraph in the agony column of the _Telegraph_, which caused me to shudder and dream of all manner of horrible things for months. The paragraph consisted only of a couple of words, and, I found, it had appeared for a week in every London paper.

"This was it--'Carrington, remember!'

"For fear of revealing my ident.i.ty I took no steps to inquire at the offices of the newspapers whence the instructions for the insertion of the message had come. I should probably have done myself no good by making such inquiries.

"I knew well what those harmless-looking words meant. Sixteen years had pa.s.sed since I had found the parchment in the deserted roadway. Only nine remained.

"From that day forward I have had no real peace of mind. Perhaps I have appeared harsh to you, my boy. Have I not had cause enough to make me irritable? I have made a point of never mentioning your mother to you, for several reasons. In the first place, it would be most painful for me to do so. In the second, you might have discovered that Miss Edith Rawson (had I told you your mother's maiden name) had married a Major Carrington. An explanation would then have been necessary, and I had no wish to burden you with the secret which has ruined my life.

"The third message from across the seas reached me a few months ago, and was the cause of all the precautions I adopted. It was, as before, a paragraph in the agony column of the leading London newspapers, and ran--'Carrington, the bhuttote (strangler) left Madras to-day.'

"Possibly, those who had heard the queer name were puzzled by the message. You will understand how plain it was to me. It meant that my doom was sealed; that from that day forward I was in the position of a hunted criminal--to be hunted down by a more tireless, more terrible sleuth-hound than any that Scotland Yard possesses.

"The rest you know, or most of it. How the son of 'Lilla' found me out I cannot say. As I have stated, the marvellous powers possessed by these Thugs are terrible, beyond the realisation of the ordinary European.

That he has done so you know. Now you know, too, why I would tell you nothing about my secret, why I would not a.s.sist you in your investigations, why I would not allow a detective to enter my house.

What good would a hundred detectives do when this creature is so determined to slay me at any cost? The attack on the moor is known to you. It is but a few hours since that happened. I am writing these words in the full antic.i.p.ation of their being perused by you, my son, within a few days, though I have requested that this book shall not be opened until after my death. Thank G.o.d, I have never been coward enough to take my life, and lay you open to the attack of the avenger. If you have ever wondered whether my secret in any respect concerned your dear mother or your birth, set your mind at rest, and do not despise

"YOUR LOVING FATHER."