Lord John in New York

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

The girl recalled how, according to John Hasle's advice (brought by his messenger), she and the Head Sister had exchanged their grey costumes for blue ones, with veils hanging from neat bonnets. They had done this in the closed motor according to instructions, and they had gone on board the ship to bid John Hasle good-bye. There instead of finding him they had found a second letter, written as before on his hotel paper. It said that the plot against Maida was even more serious than he had supposed. At the last moment he had been obliged to stop in New York, and appeal to the police to help him thwart it. Her life was in danger if she returned to Long Island, or even to the city, before the enemy had been caught. There was every prospect that he would be caught in a few days, after which John Hasle would sail for Egypt as he had meant to do, and there unravel the whole mystery. The vendetta which had cursed Maida's life, and her mother's before her, would be ended. She might come into a fortune in her own right, instead of depending upon money given by the Odells. He implored her to be brave and take passage on the ship for Naples, though no doubt the Head Sister would oppose the idea. The Head Sister had not opposed it. She had read John Hasle's letter, and had offered to be the girl's companion to Naples, to take her on to Egypt if necessary. Once, she had not liked John Hasle; but she was obliged to agree with his opinion. She believed that he was right about Maida's danger: things she had found out in her researches convinced her that it existed. The ship would not sail for an hour or more. The chauffeur was bidden to take a letter from Maida to John Hasle at the Hotel Belmont, to bring one if he were there, and also clothing necessary for the journey, of which the Head Sister made a hurried list.

A letter had come back—a hasty scrawl in John Hasle's handwriting—to express joy in Maida's decision, and to tell her that the mummy in its case would go with her on the ship, addressed to his name.

Maida remembered how ungrateful she had thought herself in doubting the Head Sister's intentions. She had tried not to doubt, for so far in her experience she had received only kindness and sympathy from that wonderful friend. Wonderful indeed! Everything the Head Sister did was magnetic and wonderful, like her whole personality. This sudden decision to go abroad for Maida's sake was no more extraordinary, perhaps, than things she had done to help others. She said that she would wire the woman who stood second in authority over the Grey Sisterhood, and explain that, for excellent reasons, she had determined to visit the lately established branch in Cairo (Maida had heard of it and had subscribed, for its object was an excellent one: the rescue of European girls stranded in Egypt); she would add that she might not return for many weeks.

Maida felt that she ought never to have doubted. As for the letters from John Hasle, the handwriting seemed unmistakable; they could not be forgeries: the idea was ridiculous. She remembered how she had argued this in her mind, and how she had tried not to think of herself as helpless. She was doing what she wished to do! And yet, when she had asked "What else could I do, if I didn't wish to do this?" the answer was disquieting. Short of making a scene on shipboard and appealing to the captain, it was difficult to see how she could go against the Head Sister's urgent advice. She did not try to go against it; and after sailing, two or three wireless messages signed John Hasle brought her comfort. It was a coincidence that there should be a band of nurses on board the ship, with costumes almost precisely like hers and the Head Sister's, chosen apparently at random by John Hasle: but then, after all, there was a strong resemblance in the dresses of all nurses, provided the colours happened to be the same.

Even more clearly than the days on shipboard, Maida remembered arriving at Naples, and being met by an Englishman who introduced himself as an agent of John Hasle. He had a long comprehensive telegram to show, purporting to come from his employer in New York. This announced that John Hasle had not been able to obtain leave as soon as he expected, but that he had learned the "whole secret of the past." Miss Odell was to put herself in the hands of his agent who would conduct her and her companion to Egypt and there to a house where all mysteries would be cleared up. She would find herself in charge of important persons, old acquaintances of her parents, who would watch over her interests and explain everything connected with her family. All trouble and danger would be over for ever. Her brother Roger with his wife, Grace, having just returned to New York from the Argentine, would sail with John Hasle a few days after the sending of the telegram, to join Miss Odell and bring her home by way of France and England.

Maida recalled with a dull aching of heart and head her disappointment, her uneasiness; how she had insisted upon sending telegrams to her adopted brother, and to John Hasle, in New York, waiting for answers before she would consent to go on. The answers came, apparently genuine, and she had gone on. There had been two days in Cairo, at the house of a rich, elderly man who called himself French, but looked like a Turk or Egyptian. He stated that he was a friend of Maida's grandfather who was, he said, a general in Ismail's service. He had done a great wrong to a noble family of ancient Egyptian aristocracy, who had sworn revenge, and had taken it for several generations. But now all its members were dead except one aged woman who wished to see and atone to Maida for the cruel punishment inflicted on her people. The mummy which had been stolen many years ago was to be given back; and in return Maida would not only learn a great secret, but receive a great fortune. The house was in the country, and could be reached by a short desert journey after travelling to Asiut by rail. In order to escape the surveillance of the British authorities, so strict in war time, she and her faithful friend the Head of the Grey Sisterhood, were advised to travel in the costumes of Egyptian women.

All this seemed hundreds of years ago to Maida, as she relived incident after incident. Everything was far in the background of a night in the desert inn when she had seen—or thought she had seen—a face which had been the terror of her life. Since her earliest childhood she had seen it in dreams, and sometimes—she believed—in reality. It was as like the face of the mummy in the painted mummy-case as a living face could be, except that the expression of the mummy was noble and even benign, whereas that of the dream-face—the living face—was malevolent. The hood of the caravan leader had been blown aside by the fierce desert wind in a sand-storm, and a pair of terrible eyes had looked at her for an instant before the hood was drawn close again; and, after that—but Maida could remember nothing after that, except a struggle and a sudden blotting out of consciousness.

She was afraid to wake fully lest she should find herself again in the desert inn where it seemed that something hideous had happened. But the room there had been shabby. This room in which she opened her eyes was beautiful, far more beautiful than any in the house at Cairo. It was soothingly simple, too, in its decorations, as the best Eastern rooms are. The walls were white, ornamented with a frieze of arabesques. There were one or two large plaques of lovely old tiles let into this pure whiteness, and a wonderful Persian rug in much the same faded rainbow hues hung between two uncurtained windows with carved, cedarwood blinds. The ceiling also was of carved cedar, painted with ancient designs in rich colours. There was very little furniture in the room, except the large divan-like bed on which Maida was lying; but on a fat embroidered cushion squatted a girl wearing the indoors dress of an Egyptian woman—a girl of the lower classes. She sat between Maida and the windows, so that her figure was silhouetted against the light: and outside the windows was a glimpse of garden: a tall cypress and a palm with a rose bush climbing up the trunk: dully, Maida thought that it must be an inner patio, such as her room had looked out upon in the house at Cairo.

"Where is the white camel?" she heard herself say, aloud: and it seemed that her voice was tired and weak, as if she had been ill.

The girl who was embroidering looked up. Her face was very brown, and the eyes were painted. She wore a dark blue dress, which was a lovely bit of colour against the white wall. Smiling at the invalid as at a child, she went to the door, and called out something in a language Maida could not understand. Then she effaced herself respectfully, stepping into the background, and the Head Sister came in—the Head Sister, just as she used to be at the Sisterhood House far away on Long Island. She wore a grey uniform and the short veil with which her face had always been covered in the house.