Then, just as he was on the verge of announcing his intention of returning to the Palace Nocturne to search for the professor, there were footsteps in the corridor. A key rattled in the lock, and a visibly agitated Debara burst into the room.
His mustache was aquiver with excitement and the black eyes behind the heavy lenses were almost glittering. He left the door ajar in his anxiety.
“Celia!” he cried out emotionally. “My dear child, are you quite all right? I hurried as fast as I could.”
There was a strangeness in his manner that was unusual and which had its effect on every one of them. What could he know of late events?
“Certainly she is all right, professor,” said Martin, studying the man keenly. “Why do you ask that question, sir?”
The Brazilian pierced the speaker with a quick glance.
“Cavassier told me that you had interfered in affairs which do not concern you, señor,” he answered chillingly. “I must ask you for an explanation.”
“And I must ask you for the same thing,” retorted Martin grimly. “Will you kindly sit down and compose yourself?” The man bristled up at once. Celia started to her feet to calm him. He waved her back to her chair. Then he slowly advanced from his position near the door. He eyed the American coldly. He had a queer, dampening effect — more so than his usual aloof manner.
“Professor Debara,” Martin said sharply, “it is after one o’clock. Why are you so long getting home?”
“I fail to see that it is any of your business, señor.”
“On the contrary, it is very much my business. You will answer my questions — or face a police investigation for your actions to-night. What were you doing at the Palace Nocturne?”
The Brazilian seemed to wilt at this threat.
“I went there in my attempt to trace the man who had Cavassier call your paper that afternoon. I was anxious to learn why I had been implicated in the affair.”
“Why were you so late getting home after your daughter left?”
“I — there seemed to be some sort of excitement after you departed. There were revolver shots. It was rumored that there had been a robbery or a shooting affair of some kind.
“The doors were locked and no one was allowed to leave until they had been passed by the manager of the place and a quiet little man I took to be a detective. As soon as possible, frantic about my daughter’s safety, I hurried here.”
“You don’t know who this quiet little man was?”
“I do not, señor.”
“He was the owner of the casino. Did you see any one else there who impressed you in any way? Did you find out anything about the man you are looking for?”
“I did not. Do you know anything about him?”
“I do, professor,” responded Martin grimly. “Suppose we sit down instead of standing and glaring at each other like a pair of fighting cocks? I shall tell you who he is, and then I want you to tell me who he is. A game of ping-pong, in a way.”
Debara, still muffled in his outer garments, hands still gloved, hat still pulled down over his forehead, merely stared a long moment at the reporter.
“You know something,” he said. “Let us lay our cards on the table, señor, as you suggest. You tell me all you know, and I will tell you what you wish to know.”
“Agreed,” said Martin, seeing a chance to retrieve himself in the eyes of MacCray providing Debara knew anything about his fellow countryman.
The professor turned his back and removed his outdoor garments. He placed a chair somewhat apart from the others and seated himself.
“Pray, proceed with your story, señor,” he said.
“The man you are seeking is called Dr. Dax. He is from Brazil, like yourself. He was a fairly well-known physician in your country. Here he is unknown. But I know him to be a super-hypnotist and the murderer of Lillian Hollisworth.”
“Then Hollisworth did make a statement before he died,” said Debara sharply. “You did not write the truth in your paper.”
“I did not. Why should I send Dr. Dax a public message that I was after him? Hollisworth told me that I would likely find the man at the Palace Nocturne. That was why I was there to-night. Through Cavassier you learned the same thing.
“Now I can safely tell you that your enemy is Dr. Dax. He is the man we are both after. Celia — Señorita Debara, thought the name familiar and that you might be able to shed some light on the matter now that I can name the man.
“You told me since that first brief interview between us that you had known Hollisworth in Brazil. Now tell me if you knew Dax in Brazil.”
“Quite well, indeed.”
“Well?” demanded the reporter eagerly as the other paused. “What do you know about him?”
“More, I should say, than any other person. I know, also, that you are a very meddlesome young man whose activities, unless terminated now, would be ruinous to me.”
A deadly something had leaped from obscurity into the atmosphere. The identical feeling of malignancy which had all but overpowered him in the actual presence of Dr. Dax at the Palace Nocturne smote Martin. It alarmed him. But such an emotion was impossible here.
“Just what do you mean, sir?” he gritted harshly. “Is this a threat?”
“In a way you can consider it so,” nodded the other pleasantly. “For I, you see, am Dr. Dax.”
With a swift motion he raised his hands to his face and tore the mustache and heavy spectacles from his countenance. The features of Xanthus Agosto Debara had become the features of a Satanically smiling, clean-shaven stranger.
It needed not the man’s assertion to establish his declared identity. For the first time in his life Martin was face to face with this sinister being without a mask.
But the lean, dark features, the compelling glitter of those black eyes, the long, slender hands, the no longer concealed and unrepressed magnetism of the man shrieked aloud that this indeed was Dr. Dax.
Celia Debara started up with a wild scream. She cried out only once in horror; and then crumpled to the floor in a swoon. Señora Inez rushed from her corner and knelt beside the body of her mistress.
She raised her head and released a torrent of Portuguese at the metamorphosed professor and father. He replied harshly in the same language, and she cowered fearfully at his words.
Martin was stunned at this appalling turn of events. Who on earth could have foreseen this? Belatedly he leaped to his feet and snatched furiously at his automatic.
His fingers had just gripped it firmly when there was an explosion of light at the back of his head, and everything went black before him. His last conscious thought was of a black and gold chair that leaped into the air and struck down victims of its own accord.
Chapter XLVII
“Come with Me!”
Bells — brazen-toned bells, soft-chimed bells, temple bells. Lights — softly flickering lamps in a medieval palace, swinging hurricane lamps on a ship at sea, sharply piercing beams from the shaft of a lighthouse, the ghastly fluttering of a mercury arc.
Voices — whisperings of meaningless phrases, mocking voices, weeping voices, shouting voices, leering voices. And then silence and dark.
A dim glow succeeded the blackness of eternal night, a phosphorescent light that came from nowhere and filled all space. Twilight in purgatory! Alone in illimitable space, surrounded and besieged by legions of unborn phantasms! Lost in the depth of the universe without a guiding spirit!
At thought of a celestial cicerone there loomed out of the distance ahead a vast shape of nebulous matter which grew in size until it appeared like a great mountain which dwarfed the tiny figure on the plain before it.