Lord John in New York

by C. N. Williamson; A. M. Williamson

"I do not know," said the landlord. "It was one of the rooms taken by the party. We do not pry into the arrangements of a family when they are clients for a night."

I divined from his manner, despite an assumed carelessness, that on the night in question something had happened to set that night apart from other nights: so I carried on my catechism. I learned that the travelling company had consisted of two Egyptian women, one possibly a maid, under the protection of an elderly, bearded man who was in bearing and speech a gentleman though his costume was that of a well-to-do Bedouin; a long cloak and hood such as Arab camel-leaders wear. His face had hardly been visible. Food had been sent to his room, also to the women, one of whom seemed to be weak and ill. They were both veiled and cloaked. She who was ill had not spoken. She had been helped into the house by her companion. There had been a scream, and some commotion in the night caused no doubt by the illness of this lady. The landlord had been out attending to a sick camel in the fondouk, and returning he saw the shutters of a window thrown back. The window itself was open, and this mad mehari was staring in. Then the window had been suddenly closed, in the camel's face. The creature had seemed frightened, and had galloped wildly about the courtyard, refusing to rest in the fondouk with its fellows, even when food was offered as an inducement. It had returned again and again to the same window, as if determined to look through the shutters. Early in the morning, the travellers had made ready to start. The sick lady had been worse. The old gentleman and his servants, of whom there were several, all negroes, had to make a kind of couch for her on the mehari's back, but the brute kept jumping up and refusing to be touched. At last the old gentleman grew angry and struck the animal on the head and face. It "went for" him furiously, and had to be caught and chastised by the negroes. No further attempt was made to use it after that. The leader of the caravan bought a good, steady pack-camel from the landlord, and left the white aristocrat at the borg. At first the proprietor thought that he was in luck to come into possession of such a fine creature, but it soon proved worse than useless. It refused food: it would not sit down. It was constantly at the window into which it had previously stared, or else at the gate trying to escape. After a day or two the Arabs employed about the fondouk said it was accursed, and asked the patron to get rid of the brute, lest misfortune fall upon the place. Accordingly the once valuable mehari was driven out into the desert, disappearing in the distance. But apparently it had not gone far. Since then it had returned several times with caravans, entering the courtyard with them, and walking at once to the window in which it was so strangely interested. "That is why," explained the landlord, "I now keep the shutters closed. I fear this accursed animal may break the glass before we have time to drive it away. There is not much travel at this time of year, and we have plenty of other rooms."

"All the same I should like to be put into that room to-night," I said. "And as you tell me the white mehari is not wicked, there can be no danger in your letting it stay in the courtyard till morning. I'm curious about the creature, and should like to see what it will do."

The man tried to persuade me that there was nothing in the seeming mystery. He had rooms more comfortable than the one with the closed shutters. That had not been properly cleaned since the last occupation. As for the white camel, it would probably roar and make a disturbance in the night. I silenced these objections, however, in the one effectual and classic way: and I refused to wait for the room to be swept and dusted. I wished to go in immediately, I said, and later the bed could be got ready while I dined. Reluctantly the landlord gave his consent to this arrangement, and himself escorted me to the room in question, bringing my bag and a lighted lamp. I watched him as we entered, and noticed that he glanced about anxiously as if he feared I might see something which it would be better for me not to see. But, either he found nothing conspicuously wrong, or else he decided that it was a case of "kismet."

When he had gone, I didn't open the shutters at once. I wanted to have a look round, unobserved. Indeed, I took the precaution of stuffing paper into the keyholes of the two doors: one which opened into the corridor; another which communicated with the next room.

I knew it would be useless to ask the fellow whether the room had been occupied since the departure of the caravan which first brought the white camel. He would lie if it suited him to lie: and if there were anything to find out, I must find it out for myself. Never in my life, however, had I felt so strong an impression as I felt now that Maida's wish, Maida's prayers, had brought me to this place. I was certain that she had at last suspected treachery in the woman she had worshipped: that she had prayed I might follow and search for her: that she had made friends with the white camel in order to add a souvenir of herself to his neck-adornment: that she had some reason to hope he might be left behind at this desert borg when she continued her journey: that she had been in this room (where I seemed distinctly to feel her presence) and that something had happened there which the landlord either knew or suspected. Anyhow, the white camel knew, and I said to myself that I would give all I had in the world if the animal's half-crazyed intelligence could communicate its knowledge to me.

This borg, like most crude desert halting-places for men and beasts, was a one storey building which enclosed a large courtyard on three sides. The fourth side of the yard was composed of an ordinary wall nearly as high as the roof of the house. One wing of the latter contained a row of bedrooms for travellers, each room having a window that looked on the court. The middle part, or main building, consisted of dining-room and kitchens: the remaining wing was the dwelling-place of the landlord's family, and at the end had a large open shed for camels and horses. My room, therefore, was on the ground floor. It was roughly paved with broken tiles, and had in front of the bed a strip of torn Spanish matting with a pattern of flowers splashed on it in black and red. There was very little furniture: a tin wash-hand stand: a deal table: an iron bedstead: and two chairs; but what there was had been left in a state of disorder since the flitting of the last occupant. Both chairs had fallen: the table, which had evidently stood in the middle of the room, was pushed askew, its cotton covering on the floor, its legs twisted up in a torn woollen rug: and—significant sign of a struggle—a curtain of pink mosquito netting had been wrenched from its fastenings and hung, a limp rag, at the side of the window.

The wretched paraffin lamp served only to make darkness visible; but taking it in my hand I walked round, examining everything: and my heart missed a beat as I saw that, among the scarlet flowers on the matting, were spots of brownish red—that tell-tale red which cannot be mistaken. They were few and small, and therefore had passed unnoticed, perhaps, by the landlord: yet to me they cried aloud. I tried to tell myself that the stains might be old: that I had no reason to connect them with danger for Maida: that as she had been brought so far, doubtless there was a further destination to which it was intended to take her. But as I finished my examination of the disordered room, turned out the light, and threw open the shutters my soul was sick.

"What happened here?" I asked myself for the twentieth time; and as if in answer to my question the white camel came glimmering towards me through the dusk. It stopped at my window, and thrusting its neck through the opening, stared into the room. The faint light gleamed in its yellow eyes, and gave the illusion that they moved as if following with emotion something they saw. The creature paid no attention to me, though it could have seen me standing near the window. Even when I spoke, coaxingly, it did not turn its head; and when I walked back and forth, it remained indifferent. Its gaze concentrated on that part of the room nearest the door leading to the corridor; and a shiver ran through my nerves to see the white head float from right to left on its long neck, as though eagerly watching a scene to me invisible. I felt the impulse to chase the beast away, but I checked myself. I had a queer conviction that what it could see I ought to see also: that if it remained it might make me see.

I turned up the wick of the lamp, and walked slowly towards the door, glancing back to see what the camel would do. Its head was poked far into the room. It looked like a queer white ghost, with glinting eyes. For the first time they seemed to meet mine, and I felt that the animal had become conscious of my presence in the picture its memory constructed. Close to the door, in a crack between red tiles, I saw something round and white which I took for a button; but picking it up, it proved to be an American ten cent piece. Not far off lay an Egyptian piastre, but it was the "dime" which thrilled me. The tiny silver coin proved that an occupant of this room had lately come from the United States. A little farther away I discovered broken bits of a small bottle, with a torn label. Matching scraps of paper together I made out part of a word which told its own sinister story. "Morph": the missing syllable was not needed. And the label had the name—or part of the name—of a New York druggist: