Chapter 12 - In the Ghost Mosque

AN OPEN stone stairway built around the interior wall, afforded a means of reaching the platform of the minaret from that point of entrance to which Nayland Smith had directed me. There was an inner gallery high above my head, to which formerly the mueddin had gained access from a chamber of the mosque.

My footsteps as I clambered upward, breathing hard, echoed around the shell of that ancient tower in a weird, uncanny tattoo. It may seem to have been a bad time for thought, but my brain was racing faster than my feet could carry me.

Some dawning perception of the means by which poor Van Berg had been assassinated was creeping into my mind. In some way the acrobatic murderer had swung into the room, probably from one of the windows of the mosque. The hooks which he still clasped in his hands had afforded him a grip, no doubt, and earlier had been hitched to the handles of the iron box which had been swung to its destination in the same way.

But remembering the slender line—resembling a violin string—which we had found attached to those hooks, I met with doubt again. The thing was plainly impossible.

I reached the opening into the gallery and paused for a while. This gallery extended, right, into darkness which the ray of my torch failed to penetrate. Before me was a low, narrow door, giving access to a winding wooden stair which would lead me to the platform above.

The idea of that passage penetrating into the darkness of the haunted mosque was definitely unpleasant. And casting one final glance along it, I resumed my journey. I stumbled several times on those stairs, which were narrow and dilapidated, but presently found the disk of the moon blazing in my face and knew that I had reached the platform.

“Greville!” came in Nayland Smith’s inimitable snappy voice.

“Yes, Sir Denis.”

I came out and stood beside him. It was a dizzying prospect as one emerged from darkness. The narrow street upon which our house faced looked like a bottomless ravine. I could see right across the roof of the mosque on one hand, to where Ispahan, looking like a city of mushrooms from which tulip-like minarets shot up, slumbered under a velvet sky, and, left, to the silver river. Then, my attention was diverted.

A dark shape lay almost at my feet, half hidden in shadow. I drew back sharply, looking down; and: “Damned unfortunate, Greville,” said Nayland Smith rapidly.

He was standing near the door out of which I had come, a tall, angular figure, flooded by moonlight on the right, but a mere silhouette on the left. He wore a loose black gibbeh which I thought I recognized as the property of Ali Mahmoud. The angularity of his features was accentuated, and the one eye which was visible shone like polished steel. He glanced down.

“I used an extemporized sandbag from behind,” he explained, “and I’m afraid I hit too hard. I’m not masquerading, Greville—” indicating his black robe. “I borrowed this to help me to hide in the shadows. Is the other Negro dead?”

“Yes, he dashed his brains out against the wall of the mosque.”

“Damnably unfortunate!” Nayland Smith jerked. “I have no personal regrets, but either would have been an invaluable witness. There was a third on the roof of the mosque. His job was to keep a lookout. I missed him twice, but hit him the third time. He managed to get away, nevertheless. But I’m hoping he can’t escape from the building.”

Dimly, from far below, rose a murmuring of approaching steps and voices. Nayland Smith’s shots had awakened the neighborhood.

“Damn it!” he rapped. “If a crowd gathers, it may ruin everything.”

He stooped and removed a loop of that strange, tenuous line from a projection of the ornamental stonework decorating the railing of the balcony.

“Look!” he said, and held it up in the moonlight. “It doesn’t seem strong enough to support a kitten. Yet the black murderer and the iron box were swung from window to window upon a carefully judged length of it.” He thrust the line into his pocket. “I came prepared for wire,” he added grimly, and exhibited an implement which I recognized as part of Sir Lionel’s kit: a steel wire cutter.

“For heaven’s sake, what is it?” I asked. Even now, I found difficulty in believing that a line no stouter than sewing thread could carry a man’s weight.

“I haven’t the slightest idea, Greville. But it’s tremendously tough. It took a mighty grip to cut through it. Suspended from this balcony, you see, its length carefully estimated, it enabled one of these acrobatic devils to swing from a window of the mosque right onto a corresponding window of the house opposite. It also enabled him to swing the iron box across. But there’s work for us!”

He pushed me before him in his impetuous fashion; and:

“There was a fourth in the game, Greville,” he added . . . “perhaps a fifth. He, or they, were stationed behind the window of the mosque. The controlling influence—the man we’re looking for—was there!”

I started down the wooden stair, Nayland Smith following hard behind me; until: “One moment!” he called.

I paused and turned, directing the ray of my torch upward. He was fumbling in a sort of little cupboard at the head of the steps, and from it he presently extracted his shoes, and proceeded to put them on, talking rapidly the while.

“It was touch and go when that black devil came up, Greville. I also was black from head to feet; black robe, black socks, and a black head cover, made roughly from a piece of this old gibbeh, with holes cut for eyes and mouth! He didn’t see me, and he couldn’t hear me. I dodged him all round the gallery like a boy dodging around the trunk of a tree! When he made fast the line, on the end of which I could see two large iron hooks, and lowered it, I recognized the method.”

He had both his shoes on now and was busily engaged in lacing them.

“It confirmed my worst suspicions—but this can be discussed later. Having lowered it to its approved length, he swung it like a pendulum; and presently it was caught and held by someone hidden behind a window of the mosque. You will find, I think, that there is a still lighter line attached to the hooks. This enabled the Negro, having swung across from the mosque to the house, to haul the pendulum back until the box was safely disposed of. It was as he swung across in turn, that I got busy with the wire cutter.”

He came clattering down, and: “Left!” he said urgently—“into the mosque.”

I found myself proceeding along that narrow, mysterious passage.

“Light out!”

As I switched the torch off, he opened a door. I was looking along a flat roof, silvered by moonlight—the roof of the mosque.

“I hit him just before he reached this door. There’s a bare chance he may have left a clue.”

“A clue to what?”

A considerable group of people had collected in the street, far below, including, I thought, Armenians from across the river, as many excited voices told me. But I was intent upon the strange business in hand; and:

“The sound!” said Nayland Smith; “that damnable, howling sound which was their signal.”

No torch was necessary now. The roof was whitely illuminated by the moon. And, stooping swiftly:

“My one bit of luck to-night,” he exclaimed. “Look!”

Triumphantly, for I could see his eyes gleaming, he held up an object which at first I was unable to identify, I suppose because it was something utterly unexpected. But presently recognition came. It was a bone . . . a human frontal bone!

“I’m afraid,” I said stupidly, “that I don’t understand.”

“A bull-roarer!” cried Nayland Smith. “Barton can probably throw light upon its particular history.”

He laughed. A length of stout twine was attached to the bone, and twisting this about his fingers he swung the thing rapidly round and round at ever increasing speed.

The result was uncanny.

I heard again that awesome whining which had heralded the death of Van Berg, which I had thought to be the note of some supernatural nocturnal creature. It rose to a wail—to a sort of muted roar—and died away as the swing diminished. . . .

“One of the most ancient signaling devices in the world, Greville—probably prehistoric in origin. Listen!”

I heard running footsteps, many running footsteps, in the street below—all receding into the distance. . . .

Sir Denis laughed again, shortly.

“Our bull-roarer has successfully dispersed the curious natives!” he said.