Solomon's Stone

Chapter VIII.

Nash stopped for brunch on his way to the sultan's without much gastronomic success. His throat was still too sore for him to enjoy solid food, and between the nippings of his conscience in the matter of the message, and uneasiness over his coming battle of wits with Arslan, he did not have much appetite. Common sense told him that he would need physical fortification, wherefore he doggedly forced a pint of milk into his queasy stomach.

The sultan's demesne was impossible to miss: it occupied a whole block around which ran a moat and a formidable wall. Flags bearing a black crescent on a yellow field flapped at the corners. Over the wall could be seen the top of a great cluster of pastel-shaded domes and spikes, like a colossal piece of costume jewelry.

The drawbridge was down and guarded by a couple of Moorish-looking individuals like the sextet Nash had fought on his first day on the astral plane.

The act had better be good, thought Nash. To be convincing he should combine the arrogance of a cavalier with the leisurely assurance of a high-ranking bureaucrat. When he got to know Arslan he could gradually drop this uncongenial role and be his amiable self.

With a final twirl to the spikes of his mustache he clattered over the drawbridge and dismounted just as the guards began to lower their pikes. He tossed the reins to one, not even bothering to see whether they were caught, and told the other in a coldly impersonal tone: "Inform the sultan that de Nêche of the Comptroller's Office is here, please."

It worked. In five minutes he was being conducted into an oriental fairy tale of a palace whose contours stirred memories; something from boyhood or early adolescence, but he could not quite locate the source—

"You wish to see the wazir, effendi?" said a gold-spangled flunky."If you will graciously condescend to wait—"

"Not the wazir, the sultan," Nash corrected.

"But the wazir handles all financial transactions—"

"The sultan, Arslan Bey," repeated Nash firmly.

"His magnificence is at lunch," said gold-leaf."If you will accompany me, I will inform him of your desire." The person led Nash to a gorgeous but chairless anteroom and left him standing there.

Nash walked slowly about the room, hands behind his back, plotting. A guard in the doorway stared woodenly at an invisible point straight in front of his eyes.

Nash's feet began to complain; he must have been pacing for an hour. These birds probably sat cross-legged on pillows, and it would be doubtful etiquette to demand a chair—

There was the sound of motion, and the guard moved aside. Instead of the sultan there entered a bejeweled eunuch and a pair of half-naked fellows Carrying an open chest slung from a pair of poles. The chest was full of gems that flashed until they swam before the eyes.

The fat eunuch bowed to Nash and squeaked: "Ah, M. de Nêche, but a short while and his magnificence will grant you audience, as a most gracious condescension on his part. These"—he waved a deprecating hand at the chest—"are a few of our lord's jewels, which have become soiled through wear. He has ordered them thrown away, wherefore I am on my way outside to scatter them where the poor can find them. Allah be with you, effendi." And out went the procession.

When Nash recovered from his astonishment, it occurred to him that this was nothing but a transparent gag to impress him. What if he had cried: "Hey, how about giving me some—" But no, that would have spoiled the impression that he in his turn was trying to build up.

This business of making him stand and wait by the hour was probably cut from the same cloth. Well, the answer was: "I wish a chair, you!"

The guard withdrew in his turn. Instead of a chair he brought back the spangled usher. This glittering being said: "Will you accompany me to the audience chamber, sir? His magnificence will join you as soon as he finishes his siesta."

At one side of the chamber was a raised section of flooring on which stood a large sofa. On the rest of the floor several hassocks were scattered. The idea, thought Nash, was that even though the ruler sprawled in oriental indolence on the sofa, he would still be higher than his interviewers. In the West you stood up, or used to, in a ruler's presence; in the East you sat or groveled. Two methods of putting a feeling of inferiority into hoi polloi; the Eastern, being aimed at the psyche rather than at the feet, was subtler.

Nash became uncomfortably aware of the fixed regard of this room's guard.

As he returned the stare with a puzzled frown, the guard strode toward him and burst out: "I know you, dog of a Frank! You are the panty-waist who slew two of us on the water front yesterday!" The guard's arm flashed up and back, and hurled his pike straight at Nash's throat.

Nash had just enough warning to twist sideways and down. The pike whizzed over his shoulder, struck the onyx wall behind him, and clattered to the floor. The guard's scimitar had just cleared its scabbard when Nash's rapier ran him through the body.

Nash held his breath, listening. Gosh, wasn't there any way to get along on this plane without killing people, which he loathed? What would he do with the body? Yes, there were footsteps, growing louder—

His horrified glance returned to the corpse—or at least to its recent site. The body itself had disappeared, leaving a pile of white garments and a steel helmet with fine chain mail attached to its brim. The footsteps came closer.

Nash wiped and sheathed his blade, scooped up the late guard's costume, and stuffed it down behind the royal settee. He tiptoed over to the pike and leaned it in a corner, and was strolling about with an innocent expression when his magnificence, Sultan Arslan Bey, arrived amidst a herd of eunuchs.

The sultan answered Nash's cavalier bow with a minute nod. When Nash straightened up and got a good look at the tyrant, he almost fell over.

Despite his more powerful build—that was to be expected—and the little black beard, shaped like the head of a battle-ax with its edge down, there was no doubt that Arslan Bey was the astral body of Nash's mundane friend Robert S. Lanby, ascetically inclined Y. M. C. A. clerk.

As the full implications struck him, Nash forgot about his latest homicide in the necessity of keeping a straight face. Pious, mousy little Bob Lanby really imagining himself a rip-snorting, infidel, polygamous despot! And the nervously withdrawn Alice Woodson, with her fear of the hairy and snorting male, planning to marry R. S. Lanby.

The sultan settled himself on the sofa; a dark boy took up a lace beside the sofa and waved a long-handled fan, though the room was, if anything, cool.

"We greet you, M. de Nêche," growled Arslan."Do we infer correctly that you come to see about... ha!" The sultan eyed Nash's rapier, then switched to the gold-speckled usher, who turned from mahogany to walnut.

"This," said the sultan heavily, "is the second time yon Nasr has admitted a guest without doing him the courtesy of relieving him of his weapon."

"I... I forgot, your magnificence—"

"Off with his head!" thundered the sultan. The eunuchs opened out, and a pair of huge bare-chested blacks pounced on the usher. One spread a small dark-red rug and forced the victim to kneel on it; the other hefted a two-handed curved sword.

"Wait!" said the sultan, "We do not wish to offend the sensibilities of our guest. The screen!"

A screen was brought and set up between Nash and the sultan on one hand and the cast of the execution on the other.

"Now," said Arslan cheerfully, "we can proceed with more agreeable matters—if you will hand your sword to Salah here, who replaces Nasr as usher. Be seated, m'sieur. Fetch coffee, knaves!"

Nash avoided a shudder as the executioner's blade swung high over the edge of the screen, then down with a chug. When the screen was removed the body of Nasr was already gone, leaving his glittering robe behind.

"Is that the usual penalty for that sort of thing?" asked Nash.

"Of course. Why?"

"It seems a little drastic, your magnificence, that's all."

Arslan snorted."He was but a soulless one, so what is the difference? He was created when we were, and forthwith acknowledged himself our slave."

Nash said thoughtfully: "I once read a book by Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac, in which one of his characters argued that it was a much worse crime to kill a cabbage than to kill a man."

"How so?"

"Well, the character argued, if a man has an immortal soul, when you kill him you don't put an end to him, you just change his form. On the other hand, when you kill a cabbage, which has no soul, you end its poor little life for good."

"A silly theory," snorted Arslan."If we ever catch your man Bergerac, we will give him to Kulu to play with."

"He was just being satirical," said Nash hastily, for the sultan had a dangerous look in his eye.

"That does not excuse it. Some of our soulless ones might take it seriously, and then where would we be? Are you much of a reader?"

"Not as much as I'd like to be," said Nash."I read de Bergerac when I was in college."

"It is the same with us," said the sultan gravely."We pride ourselves that our little state here is the perfect democracy, but it does take all our free time."

"Excuse me, what did you call your state?"

"The perfect democracy. Any one of our subjects, even the humblest, can have audience with us at any time. Of how many of the governors and presidents of your so-called republics can that he said? Eh?"

"Well—"

"Of course," Arslan added, "we do have to cut the heads off a few of the more importunate petitioners now and then, or we should have no peace at all. But the principle remains the same, does it not?"

"Well—"

"Of course it does. Ah, the coffee!"

This was a syrupy-sweet liquid served in one-jigger cups. Nash inferred that he was expected to sip slowly and talk persiflage for half an hour before getting down to business. That was all right with him, since his object was to stall along until he had a chance to carry out his mission. With luck he might be able to wangle an invitation to stay overnight. If he could somehow get the dead guard's clothes on Alicia—

The sultan shooed most of his attendants out, and said: "Very well, M. de Nêche, let us talk business... yes?"

This was directed at a long-whiskered man robed in splendor exceeded only by that of the sultan. Arslan said brusquely: "M. de Nêche, our wazir. Wazir, M. de Nêche. What is it, Kerbogha?"

"Your splendor," said the wazir, "I tremble to report that the royal counterfeiting machine has broken down, and the royal mechanic avers that he is unable to repair it."

"Give him twelve hours; after that—kh!" Arslan drew a finger across his throat."And now—let me see; with these interruptions we have lost the thread of our discourse. Fetch more coffee!"

The whole procedure was begun again. When the conversation once more settled on business, Nash heard another person approach through the door behind him. Thinking it undignified to squirm around on the hassock with every interruption, Nash kept his eyes front until the rattle of a light chain was followed by something sniffing at his back, and not through human nostrils.

The sniff, he quickly learned, came from an immense tawny feline with a short tail like a lynx and a pair of six-inch saber-shaped upper canines that extended down on each side of its lower jaw.

"Don't flinch, for God's sake," Nash told himself, and, like the Roman, Fabricius, when Pyrrhus suddenly confronted him with an elephant, he managed to regard the monster with an expression of mild interest accompanied by a suggestion of a sneer.

"What ails our little Smiley?" growled Arslan.

The man who was leading the saber-tooth on a chain explained: "He has not been taking his blood as is his wont. Today he has drunk but two quarts of his proper six."

"Write a stiff note to the slaughterhouse," commanded Arslan."But methinks the real trouble is that he needs another kill. That fellow whom we caught trying to sneak into the harem faded out ere he was half eaten. We should have saved that rascal Nasr for Smiley. If we could only catch the villain who slew a brace of our guards—" (Wish he wouldn't look at me like that, thought Nash. ) "However, mayhap the royal mechanic will serve the purpose. Here, what is this?"

The saber-tooth dragged its keeper forward to the royal sofa, and began sniffing loudly around the edges thereof. The sultan pulled himself back among the cushions in frank alarm."By Allah," said he, "one would think that our royal couch harbored the evidence of recent bloodletting!"

"Maybe Nasr's execution—" suggested Nash.

"That could be, m'sieur. Take him away. And now... but ere we discuss business we must have some coffee!"

Nash remembered now the scene of which Sultan Arslan's stronghold was a paraphrase: the Caliph's palace in the old silent movie, "The Thief of Bagdad," starring Douglas Fairbanks, which, from what he remembered of it, Nash preferred to its showier but less coherent remake with sound and color. In the original "Thief" the Caliph's gardens had been guarded by a tiger and an ape; Bob Lanby had merely gone United Artists one better.

"—so you see," explained Nash, "the city will issue you this block of stock—"

"But," complained Arslan, "we do not want stock! Nothing less than a first mortgage on the City Hall will satisfy us!"

"Well, gosh, your magnificence, the stock will be convertible into debentures—"

"Debentures, hm-m-m? That might be managed—if the city would give me three members of the Board of Estimate as security."

"Would you settle for a couple of Tammany councilmen?"

Arslan laughed deeply."You are a financial spider, M. de Nêche. For an hour you have been spinning the most subtle snares for us. What would you say if we offered you Kerbogha's post as wazir? We could use a man of your talents."

"I'd have to think it over."

The haggling went on. Whenever the sultan showed signs of giving in, Nash was careful to bring in some new political or financial condition, thus keeping agreement dangling just out of Arslan's reach.

"To Jahannum with your quibbling!" roared Arslan Bey at last."Hither, Peroz! Prepare to draft an agreement between us as sultan and M. de Nêche as representative of the City of New York! We accept his proposals as they stand. Quickly, now, ere he thinks up another clause!"

Nash gasped a little; he felt like a trout fisherman who has hooked a whale. He had won an agreement that ought to square him with City Hall in case they were looking for him as a deserter. But he had lost his main excuse for hanging around the palace.

Peroz the scribe finished transcribing the agreement, handed Nash one copy, and proceeded to read the other aloud so that Nash could check their identity. Any discrepancies Nash would have overlooked, as he was really thinking up the next act of his performance as ye compleat sponge.

Sultan Arslan thrust out a large paw."Congratulations, M. de Nêche, and bear in mind our offer! We have a curious feeling that we have known you for a long time. We will see you out—"

"Your splendor," said Nash on a sudden inspiration, "isn't it true that you're a keen chess player?"

"Why, yes, that is so. Though I find few who can give me a stiff game. Why, would you care to try me?"

"Yes, if you'd like."

Arslan settled back on his cushions and bellowed for a chessboard, and more coffee. He took white as a matter of course, opened with queen's pawn, and followed through with a headlong attack that pinned Nash behind his pawns. Bob Lanby's method was to stick to his pet Petroff's defense and to aim at staving off inevitable defeat as long as possible. Hence the sultan's assault took Prosper by surprise—though, he realized, it should not have. Nash put up a good defense, and deliberately dawdled over each move. The lamps had been lit when he was finally checkmated.

Arslan sighed gustily."We suppose you have a dinner-engagement, monsieur?"

"No, sir."

"Good." The sultan clapped his hands and roared his order. The meal consisted of a gigantic lamb stew eaten with the fingers.

Arslan belched and commented: "That was a good game, de Nêche. More and more we see that you are just the man for our service. It is hard to find a player who is neither so weak as to bore us nor so strong as to humiliate us. You no doubt heard what befell Thomas Alekhin Saito, who was so tactless as to mate us in seven moves? Ts, ts, a sorry thing. But he brought it on himself by insulting us to boot."

"What did he do?" asked Nash, wondering how to learn the location of and access to the harem.

"Asked after the health of our womenfolk," said Arslan, licking his fingers."We expect our guests to refrain even from thinking about such things, let alone coming right out and mentioning them. We hope you like our yoghurt."

This was a junketlike pudding. Nash did not like it at all, but choked it down with a glassy smile. Afterward he pulled on the spare mouthpiece of the sultan's nargileh. He learned that this contraption had to be smoked with deep diaphragmatic gasps; the first one drew smoke into sections of his lungs theretofore unsullied, and sent him into a coughing spasm. The sultan laughed and pounded him on the back, and took a draft from the nargileh that made the apparatus quiver with the violence of its bubbling.

"More chess? Good!" This time Nash knew better what to expect; but Arslan likewise adapted his attack to Nash's defense. The game lasted till nine, with much the same result as before.

Sultan Asian Bey yawned, rose, and kicked aside the taboret on which the board rested, knocking half the pieces to the floor."That," he said, "is that. We will assign a couple of stout fellows to ride home with you."

Nash was panicky; if he was kicked out now he would have no chance to rescue Alicia, and besides another of the guards might recognize him as Eleanor Berry's protector.

"Your magnificence, I don't need—"

"Nonsense; we insist. Some thief of a giaur might steal your copy of our agreement else."

"To tell the truth," explained Nash, "I haven't any home right now." And he told of Judge O'Hara's closing of the Dumas Club.

Arslan's heart, if he had one, was not melted by this pathetic tale. He merely gruff ed: "Pick your own hostelry, then," and whistled for his new usher.

Nash swore mentally, and contemplated harebrained schemes for killing Arslan the minute his rapier was handed to him. For the sultan was quite evidently determined to send him packing before retiring to the quarters of wife No. 307; and Arslan's palace was so overrun with servitors and retainers that Nash despaired of ever getting an unsupervised minute. Right now the room contained two guards and two slaves, all alert and ready to pounce if he made a false move.

After the usher came a boy with Nash's hat, cloak, and sword. The youth stopped at such a distance from the sultan that Nash had to move well away from the despot to take his things; the guards quietly closed in to flank their lord. It was all done very smoothly, and Nash reflected that his host was a pretty shrewd rascal as well as a hearty one.

In a minute, now, he'd be out in the cold. The loan agreement in his money belt would be all very nice, but it was no recompense for:—

Wham! The slam of a rifle swept into the audience room; then another, and another, and swift crackle of reports.

"Allah!" shouted Arslan."What is this?"

As if in answer, a guard hurled himself into the chamber."Master! We are being attacked by Romans and Arvans!"