The Mystery Queen

by Fergus Hume

"Oh! then your Sumatra cousin is now in England?"

"Yes! Otherwise, I should not have asked you to come."

"Are we to meet him here?" questioned Dan, glancing round curiously. "No. We can go to him in a taxi. I thought of the tube first, but we can get to our destination quicker in a motor. Come!" and Penn, leading the way, ascended the stairs, down which Halliday had lately come. "Where are we going to?" asked Dan, but the secretary, being some distance ahead, either did not hear the question, or did not desire to reply to the same. "I suppose," added Halliday, as the two stood once more in the foggy upper-world, "that your cousin wishes to see Mrs. Jarsell?"

"My cousin doesn't know Mrs. Jarsell, neither do I," retorted Penn sharply. "Curious that she should possess the perfume," murmured Dan sceptically, "and one which you say is unique."

"In England that is," said the secretary, as they stepped into a taxi-cab which evidently was waiting for them, near the Trafalgar Square lions, "but, this lady whose name you mention may know someone in Sumatra also, and in that way the perfume may have come into her possession."

"Ah!" Dan made himself comfortable, while Penn pulled up the windows of the taxi, so as to keep out the damp air, "the long arm of coincidence?"

"The improbable usually occurs in real life and not in novels, Mr. Halliday." Dan laughed and watched the street lights flash past the blurred windows as the taxi turned up the Haymarket. He wondered where they were going, and as he believed that Penn would not give him any information he carefully watched to see the route. His companion adjusted his silk muffler well over his mouth, with a murmured explanation about his weak lungs, and then held out a silver cigarette case to Dan, clicking it open as he did so. "Will you smoke, Mr. Halliday?"

"No, thank you," replied the other cautiously, "for the present I don't care about it," and Penn shrugged his shoulders, evidently understanding that Dan did not trust him or his gifts. After a time he took out a cigarette and lighted a match. "These cigarettes are of a particular kind," he remarked, and blew a cloud of smoke directly under Halliday's nose, after which he readjusted the muffler, not only over his mouth, but over his nose. Dan started, for the whiff of smoke filled the close confinement of the taxi with the well-known flavor of the Sumatra scent. He was about to make a remark when the scent grew stronger as the cigarette burned steadily with a red, smoldering tip, and he felt suddenly faint. "Pull down the window," he gasped, and leaned forward to do so himself. For answer, Penn suddenly pulled the young man back into his seat, and enveloped him in a cloud of drowsy smoke, keeping his own mouth and nose well covered meanwhile with the silk muffler. Halliday made a faint struggle to retain his senses and the control of his muscles, but the known world receded rapidly from him and he seemed to be withdrawn into gulfs of utter gloom. The last coherent thought which came into his mind was that the pretended cigarette produced by Penn was a drugged pastil. Then an effort to grasp the undoubted fact that he had been lured into a skilful trap which had shut down on him, used up his remaining will-power, and he remembered no more. Whither he went into darkness, or what he did, Dan never knew, as there seemed to be no break in the time that elapsed from his becoming unconscious in the taxi and waking with the acrid smell of some reviving salts in his nostrils. He might have been on earth or in sky or sea; he did not know, for he opened his eyes languidly in a dense gloom. "Where am I?" he asked, but there was no reply. His senses came back to him with a rush, owing perhaps to the power of the stimulant applied to bring him round. He sat up alertly in his chair, and felt immediately that his arms were bound tightly to his sides, so that he could not use his revolver, or even strike a match. He certainly would have done this latter, had he been able to, for he greatly desired to be informed as to the quality of his surroundings. He presumed that he was in a large room of some kind, and he became convinced by his sixth sense that the room was crowded with people. When fully himself Dan could hear the soft breathing of many unseen beings, but whether they were men or women, or a mixture of the sexes, he could not say. Even when his eyes became accustomed to the gloom he could discern nothing, for the darkness was that of Egypt. And the silence, save for the steady breathing, was most uncanny. Dan felt it incumbent on him to make some attempt towards acquiring knowledge. "What is the meaning of this outrage?" he demanded loudly and in a resolute tone. "I insist upon knowing!" From the near distance came a whispering voice, which made him shiver. "No one insists here," said the unknown speaker, "all obey."

"Who is it that all obey?" demanded the prisoner undauntedly. "Queen Beelzebub!" murmured the voice, soft and sibilant. There flashed into Dan's mind some teaching, secular or sacred--he could not tell which at the moment--relative to a deity who had to do with flies. A Phœnician deity he fancied, but surely if his memory served him, a male godling. Beelzebub, the god of Flies! He remembered now, and remembered also the trade-mark of the mysterious society formed for the purpose of murdering various people for various reasons, known and unknown. "So you have got me at last," he said aloud. "I might have guessed that Penn would trap me."

"No names," said the unseen speaker coldly; "it will be the worse for you if you mention names."