The Feathered Serpent

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

WHAT annoyed Peter Dewin most, as it would have annoyed any properly constituted reporter, was what he called the mystery-novel element in the Lane case.

A real good crime story may gain in value from a touch of the bizarre, but all good newspaper men stop and shiver at the mention of murder gangs and secret societies, because such things do not belong to honest reporting, but are the inventions of writers of best or worst sellers.

Did not McCarthy of the Star drop the Reid kidnapping case like a hot brick the moment he learnt of the Blue Circle painted on Lawrence Reid's door? And of course he was right, for the Reid baby was 'kidnapped' by his wife's maid, who had a weakness for sensation.

In Peter Dewin, the first mention of the Feathered Serpent got a laugh. When he heard of it again, he sneered. Such things, he said, belonged to the theatre, and, rightly speaking, it was in a theatre that the extraordinary story of the 'Feathered Serpent' starts...

THE APPLAUSE from the big audience was a deafening blast of sound that roared up to the Moorish roof of the Orpheum and came down again to the packed house like the reverberations of thunder.

Ella Creed came tripping back from the wings, a dainty figure in white and diamanté, flashed a smile at her admirers, kissed both hands ecstatically and went off with a little curtsy, only to be recalled again.

She shot one glance at the watchful conductor whose baton went up and fell as the orchestra crashed once more into the opening bars of 'What I like, I like,' that most banal of airs. Ella took centre stage, the chorus came jigging into view for the encore, and for three minutes Ella's shapely limbs were moving with the dazzling rapidity her eccentric dance demanded. She made her exit in a storm of hand-clapping and squawks of joy from the cheaper parts of the house.

She stood for some time, panting, by the stage manager's little desk.

'I want that third girl from the end fired—she's overworking and trying to take it all from me. And what's the idea of putting a blonde in the front row, Sager? If I've told you once, I've told you twenty times, I want brunettes behind me—'

'I'm very sorry, Miss Creed'—the stage manager had a wife and three children and was humble—'I'll see that the girl gets her notice to-day—'

'Fire her—never mind about notice,' snapped Ella. 'Give her a month's money and clear her out.'

She was very pretty in a small, pinched way; not quite as ethereal as she appeared from the front of the house: the lips were straight under the red cupid bow which a lipstick had drawn.

Ordinary actresses would have waited for the finale, but Ella had a supper engagement and would not line up with the rest of the principals when the curtain rang down—and she was no ordinary actress. She was indeed the proprietor of the theatre in which she acted, the tyrant of a little kingdom which did homage to her nightly and at those matinees where she condescended to appear.

She walked through the chorus and they made way for her. A favoured few greeted her with sycophantic smiles, and were rewarded with bare recognition.

Her dressing-room with its silk-panelled walls and shaded lights was a place of luxury. Two women dressers unfastened her flimsy garment; she slipped into a silken kimono and fell back into a chair, submitting to the process of having her make-up removed. Her face was shining with cold cream when there came a knock at the door.

'See who it is,' Ella said impatiently. 'I can't see anybody.'

The woman came back from the little lobby outside the door. 'Mr. Crewe,' she said in a hushed voice.

Ella frowned.

'All right— bring him in. And when my face is finished you can go, both of you.'

Mr. Crewe came in with a little smile. He was a tall, thin man with a hard, wrinkled face; his locks were scanty, and would have been grey if nature had had its way. He was in evening dress, and in the bosom of his white shirt three diamonds glittered.

'Wait till I'm finished,' she begged. 'You can smoke, Billy— give Mr. Crewe a cigarette, one of you. Now hurry up.'

Mr. Crewe, seated on the arm of a big chair, watched the business of changing the make-up of the stage for the make-up of the street without any visible interest or curiosity. Presently Ella rose and disappeared behind the silk curtain which covered a recess. He heard sharp words of reproof and warning: Ella was not in her best temper to-night, he reflected. Not that her moods caused him the slightest perturbation. Very few things disturbed the serenity of this successful stock-jobber; but one of those few things had happened that morning.

Presently Ella emerged. She was wearing a flame-coloured evening gown; about her throat was a rope of pearls, and across her breast a big bar of emeralds that would have been worth a small fortune had the stones been all they seemed.

'Got everything on except the kitchen stove,' said Mr. Crewe pleasantly, when the dressers had made a hurried retreat. 'You're a fool to go out with all that stuff on you—'

'Props,' interrupted the girl nonchalantly. 'You don't suppose I'd run around with twenty thousand pounds' worth of property, do you, Billy? What do you want?'

The last brusquely. He ignored the question.

'Who is the innocent victim?' he asked, and she smiled.

'He's a young fellow from the Midlands; his father has ten mills or something. They are so rich that they don't know what to do with their money. What did you want to see me about, Billy?— this fellow will be here in a minute.'

Mr. Leicester Crewe took from his pocket a note-case. Out of this he drew a card. It was the size of a lady's visiting card and bore no name. Stamped on the centre and in red ink was a curious design— the figure of a feathered serpent. Beneath were the words:

'Lest You Forget.'

'What's this— a puzzle?' she asked, frowning. 'What is it—a snake with feathers...?'

Mr. Crewe nodded.

'The first one came by post a week ago— this one came this morning. I found it on my dressing-table when I got up.'

She stared at him.

'Well, what is it— an advertisement?' she asked curiously.

Leicester Crewe shook his head.

'"Lest you forget",' he read the line again. 'I've got an idea this is a sort of warning— you didn't send it for a joke!'

'Me!' she scoffed. 'What sort of a fool am I? Think I've got nothing better to do than play monkey tricks? And what do you mean by "warning"?'

Crewe scratched his chin thoughtfully.

'I don't know...it kind of gave me a start—'

Ella laughed shrilly.

'Is that what you came round for? Well, Billy, you can hop! I've got to meet this boy—'

Ella stopped talking abruptly. She had opened her little gold bag and was searching for a handkerchief, and he saw her face change. When her fingers came from the bag they were holding an oblong strip of cardboard—an exact replica of that which he held in his hand.

'What's the idea?'

She was scowling at him suspiciously.

Crewe snatched the card from her. There was the sign of the Feathered Serpent, and no word other than the inscription beneath.

'It wasn't in there when I came into the theatre,' she said angrily, and rang the bell.

One of the dressers came.

'Who put this in my bag?' demanded Ella. 'Come on— I want to know who's the joker. Either one or both of you are going to get the sack to-night.'

The dresser protested her innocence, and the second woman, called to explain, could offer no solution.

'I can't fire them because they're useful,' said Ella when they had been dismissed; 'and anyway, it's nothing to lose my head about. I suppose it's an ad. for a film, and we'll see the placards plastered all over London next week. Billy, my boy's waiting.' With a flourishing farewell she was gone.

She had supper at the Café de Rheims, a dancing floor surrounded by expensive menus and London's latest rendezvous. The dull young wool merchant who had escorted her would have seen her home at two o'clock in the morning, but Ella had a perverted sense of propriety and declined his escort. She rented a small and beautiful house in St. John's Wood, 904, Acacia Road, and, like most of its fellows, it was approached by way of a door set in a high garden wall. Beyond, a flagged and glass-covered pathway led to the front door proper.

She said good night to the chauffeur, passed through and closed the outer door. One glance up at her lighted window told her that her maid was waiting for her, and she took two steps towards the door...

'If you scream, I'll choke you!'

The words were hissed in her ear, and she stood paralysed with fear and horror. Out of the dark bushes that fringed the path a black figure had emerged, tall, broad-shouldered, menacing.'

She could not see the face half covered with a black handkerchief, but, staring past him, she saw a second shape, and her knees gave beneath her.

She opened her mouth to scream, but a big hand closed on her face.

'...d'ye hear? I'll throttle you if you make a noise!'

Then everything went dark. Ella Creed, who had simulated faintness so often, had genuinely fainted for the first time in her life.

When she came to her senses, she found herself propped against her own front door. The men had disappeared, and with them her emerald bar and pearls. It would have been a commonplace holdup but for the card which she found hanging about her neck, attached by a piece of string. And the card bore the symbol of the Feathered Serpent.