The Sins of Séverac Bablon Read online

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  THE SINS OF SEVERAC BABLON

  By Sax Rohmer

  CASSELL AND COMPANY, LTD London, New York, Toronto & Melbourne

  First published _January 1914_. Popular Edition _February 1919_.

  CONTENTS

  1. TO INTRODUCE MR. JULIUS ROHSCHEIMER

  2. "THIRTY MEN WHO WERE ALL ALIKE"

  3. MIDNIGHT--AND THE MAN

  4. THE HEAD OF CAESAR

  5. A MYSTIC HAND

  6. THE SHADOW OF SEVERAC BABLON

  7. THE RING

  8. IN THE DRESSING-ROOM

  9. ES-SINDIBAD OF CADOGAN GARDENS

  10. KIMBERLEY

  11. MR. SANRACK VISITS THE HOTEL ASTORIA

  12. LOVE, LUCRE AND MR. ALDEN

  13. THE LISTENER

  14. ZOE DREAMS

  15. AT "THE CEDARS"

  16. THE LAMP AND THE MASK

  17. THE DAMASCUS CURTAIN

  18. A WHITE ORCHID

  19. THREE LETTERS

  20. CLOSED DOORS

  21. A CORNER IN MILLIONAIRES

  22. THE TURKISH YATAGHAN

  23. M. LEVI

  24. "V-E-N-G-E-N-C-E"

  25. AN OFFICIAL CALL

  26. GRIMSDYKE

  27. YELLOW CIGARETTES

  28. AT THE PALACE--AND LATER

  CHAPTER I

  TO INTRODUCE MR. JULIUS ROHSCHEIMER

  "There's half a score of your ancestral halls," said Julius Rohscheimer,"that I could sell up to-morrow morning!"

  Of the quartet that heard his words no two members seemed quitesimilarly impressed.

  The pale face of Adeler, the great financier's confidential secretary,expressed no emotion whatever. Sir Richard Haredale flashed contemptfrom his grey eyes--only to veil his scorn of the man's vulgaritybeneath a cloud of tobacco smoke. Tom Sheard, of the _Gleaner_, drewdown a corner of his mouth and felt ashamed of the acquaintance. Denby,the music-hall comedian, softly whistled those bars of a popular balladset to the words, "I stood in old Jerusalem."

  "Come along to Park Lane with me," continued Rohscheimer, fixing hisdull, prominent eyes upon Sheard, "and you'll see more English nobilitythan you'd find inside the House of Lords!"

  "What's made him break out?" the comedian whispered, aside, to Adeler.For it was an open secret that this man, whose financial operationsshook the thrones of monarchy, whose social fetes were attended by thesmartest people, was subject to outbursts of the kind which now saw himseated before a rapidly emptying magnum in a corner of the greatrestaurant. At such times he would frequent the promenades ofmusic-halls, consorting with whom he found there, and would display thegross vulgarity of a Whitechapel pawnbroker or tenth-rate variety agent.

  "'S-sh!" replied the secretary. "A big coup! It is always so with him.Mr. Rohscheimer is overwrought. I shall induce him to take a holiday."

  "Trip up the Jordan?" suggested Denby, with cheery rudeness.

  The secretary's drooping eyelids flickered significantly, but no otherindication of resentment displayed itself upon that impassive face.

  "A good Jew is proud of his race--and with reason!" he said quietly."There are Jews and Jews."

  He turned, deferentially, to his employer--that great man havingsolicited his attention with the words, "Hark to him, Adeler!"

  "I did not quite catch Mr. Sheard's remark," said Adeler.

  "I merely invited Mr. Rohscheimer to observe the scene upon his right,"explained Sheard.

  The others turned their eyes in that direction. Through a screen of palmleaves the rose-shaded table lights, sparkling silver, and snowy coversof the supper room were visible. Here a high-light gleamed upon a bareshoulder; there, a stalwart male back showed, blocked out in bold blackupon the bright canvas. Waiters flitted noiselessly about. The drone ofthat vocal orchestra filled the place: the masculine conversation, thebrass and wood-wind--the sweeter tones of women, the violins; theirlaughter, tremolo passages.

  "I'm observing it," growled Rohscheimer. "Nobody in particular there."

  "There is comfort, luxury, there," said Sheard.

  The financier stared, uncomprehensively.

  "Now look out yonder," continued the other.

  It was a different prospect whereto he directed their eyes.

  The diminuendo of the Embankment lamps, the steely glitter of the watersbeyond, the looming bulk of the bridge, the silhouette shape of the Onmonolith; these things lay below them, dimly to be seen from thebrilliant room. Within was warmth, light, and gladness; without, a coldplace of shadows, limned in the grey of discontent and the black of wantand desolation.

  "Every seat there," continued Sheard, as the company gazed vaguely fromthe window, "has its burden of hopelessness and misery. Ranks ofhomeless wretches form up in the arch yonder, awaiting the arrival ofthe Salvation Army officials. Where, in the whole world, can misery inbulk be found thus side by side with all that wealth can procure?"

  There was a brief silence. Sheard was on his hobbyhorse, and there werefew there disposed to follow him. The views of the _Gleaner_ are noteverybody's money.

  "What sort of gas are you handing us out?" asked Rohscheimer. "Thoselazy scamps don't deserve any comfort; they never worked to get it! Thepeople here are moneyed people."

  "Just so!" interrupted Sheard, taking up the challenge with true_Gleaner_ ardour. "Moneyed people! That's the whole distinction in twowords!"

  "Well, then--what about it?"

  "This--that if every guest now in the hotel would write a cheque for anamount representing 1 per cent. of his weekly income, every man, woman,and child under the arch yonder would be provided with board and lodgingfor the next six months!"

  "Why do it?" demanded Rohscheimer, not unreasonably. "Why feed 'em up onidleness?"

  "Their idleness may be compulsory," replied Sheard. "Few would employ astarving man while a well-nourished one was available."

  "Cut the Socialist twaddle!" directed the other coarsely. "It gets on mynerves! You and your cheques! Who'd you make 'em payable to? Editor ofthe _Gleaner_."

  "I would suggest," said Sir Richard Haredale, smiling, "to SeveracBablon."

  "To who?" inquired Rohscheimer, with greater interest than grammar.

  "Severac Bablon," said Sheard, informatively, "the man who gave ahundred dollars to each of the hands discharged from the Runek Mill,somewhere in Ontario. That's whom you mean, isn't it, Haredale?"

  "Yes," assented the latter. "I was reading about it to-day."

  "We had it in this morning," continued Sheard. "Two thousand men."

  "Eh?" grunted Rohscheimer hoarsely.

  "Two thousand men," repeated Sheard. "Each of them received notes to thevalue of a hundred dollars on the morning after the mill closed down,and a card, 'With the compliments of Severac Bablon.'"

  "Forty thousand pounds!" shouted the millionaire. "I don't believe it!"

  "It's confirmed by Reuter to-night."

  "Then the man's a madman!" pronounced Rohscheimer conclusively.

  "Pity he doesn't have a cut at London!" came Denby's voice.

  "Is it?" growled the previous speaker. "Don't you believe it! A maniaclike that would mean ruination for business if he was allowed to getaway with it!"

  "Ah, well!" yawned Sheard, standing up and glancing at his watch, "youmay be right. Anyway, I've got a report to put in. I'm off!"

  "Me, too!" said the financier thickly. "Come on, Haredale. We're overdueat Park Lane! It's time we were on view in Park Lane, Adeler!"

  The tide of our narrative setting in that direction, it will be well ifwe, too, look in at th
e Rohscheimer establishment. We shall findourselves in brilliant company.

  Julius's harshest critics were forced to concede that the house in ParkLane was a focus of all smart society. Yet smart society felt oddly illat ease in the salon of Mrs. Julius Rohscheimer. Nobody knew whether theman to whom he might be talking at the moment were endeavouring toarrange a mortgage with Rohscheimer; whether the man's wife had fallenin arrears with her interest--to the imminent peril of the familynecklace; or whether the man had simply dropped in because others of hisset did so, and because, being invited, he chanced to have nothingbetter to do.

  These things did not add to the gaiety of the entertainments, but oftheir brilliancy there could be no possible doubt.

  Jewish society was well represented, and neither at Streeter's norelsewhere could a finer display of diamonds be viewed than upon one ofMrs. Rohscheimer's nights. The lady had enjoyed some reputation as ahostess before the demise of her first husband had led her to seekconsolation in the arms (and in the cheque-book) of the financier. Sothe house in Park Lane was visited by the smartest people--to the mutualsatisfaction of host and hostess.

  "Where's the Dook?" inquired the former, peering over a gildedbalustrade at the throng below. They had entered, unseen, by a privatestair.

  "I understand," replied Haredale, "that the Duke is unfortunatelyindisposed."

  "Never turns up!" growled Rohscheimer.

  "Never likely to!" was Haredale's mental comment; but, his situationbeing a delicate one, he diplomatically replied, "We have certainly beenunfortunate in that respect."

  Haredale--one of the best-known men in town--worked as few men work tobring the right people to the house in Park Lane (and to save hiscommission). This arrangement led Mr. Rohscheimer to rejoice exceedinglyover his growing social circle, and made Haredale so ashamed of himselfthat, so he declared to an intimate friend, he had not looked in amirror for nine months, but relied implicitly upon the good taste of hisman.

  "Come up and give me your opinion of the new waistcoats," saidRohscheimer. "I don't fancy my luck in 'em, personally."

  Following the financier to his dressing-room, Haredale, as a smart maidstood aside to let them pass, felt the girl's hand slip a note into hisown. Glancing at it, behind Rohscheimer's back, he read: "Keep him awayas much as ever you can."

  "She has spotted him!" he muttered; and, in his sympathy with thedifficulties of poor Mrs. Rohscheimer's position, he forgot,temporarily, the difficulties of his own.

  "By the way," said Rohscheimer, "did you bring along that late editionwith the details of the Runek Mill business?"

  "Yes," said Haredale, producing it from his overcoat pocket.

  "Just read it out, will you?" continued the other, "while I have a rubdown."

  Haredale nodded, and, lighting a cigarette, sank into a deep arm-chairand read the following paragraph:

  "A FAIRY GODMOTHER IN ONTARIO

  "(_From our Toronto Correspondent_)

  "The identity of the philanthropist who indemnified the ex-employees of the Runek Mill still remains a mystery. Beyond the fact that his name, real or assumed, is Severac Bablon, nothing whatever is known regarding him. The business was recently acquired by J. J. Oppner, who will be remembered for his late gigantic operation on Wall Street, and the whole of the working staff received immediate notice to quit. No reason is assigned for this wholesale dismissal. But each of the 2,000 men thus suddenly thrown out of employment received at his home, in a plain envelope, stamped with the Three Rivers postmark, the sum of one hundred dollars, and a typed slip bearing the name, 'Severac Bablon.' Mr. Oppner had been approached, but is very reticent upon the subject. There is a rumour circulating here to the effect that he himself is the donor. But I have been unable to obtain confirmation of this."

  "It wouldn't be Oppner," spluttered Rohscheimer, appearing, towel inhand. "He's not such a fool! Sounds like one of these 'Yellow' fables tome."

  Haredale shrugged his shoulders, dropping the paper on the rug.

  "A man at once wealthy and generous is an improbable, but not animpossible, being," he said.

  Rohscheimer stared, dully. There were times when he suspected Haredaleof being studiously rude to him. He preserved a gloomy silencethroughout the rest of the period occupied by his toilet, and in silencedescended to the ballroom.

  The throng was considerable, and the warmth oppressive at what time Mrs.Rohscheimer's ball was in full swing. Scarcely anyone was dancing, butthe walls were well lined, and the crush about the doors suggestive of acup tie.

  "Who's that tall chap with the white hair?" inquired Rohscheimer fromthe palmy corner to which Haredale discreetly had conveyed him.

  "That is the Comte de Noeue," replied his informant; "a distinguishedmember of the French diplomatic corps."

  "We're getting on!" chuckled the millionaire. "He's a good man to have,isn't he Haredale?"

  "Highly respectable!" said the latter dryly.

  "We don't seem to get the dooks, and so on?"

  "The older nobility is highly conservative!" explained Haredaleevasively. "But Mrs. Rohscheimer is a recognised leader of the smartset."

  Rohscheimer swayed his massive head in bear-like discontent.

  "I don't get the hang of this smart set business," he complained."Aren't the dooks and earls and so on in the smart set?"

  "Not strictly so!" answered Haredale, helping himself tobrandy-and-soda.

  This social conundrum was too much for the millionaire, and he lapsedinto heavy silence, to be presently broken with the remark:

  "All the Johnnies holding the wall up are alike, Haredale! It's funny Idon't know any of 'em! You see them in the sixpenny monthlies, with thegirl they're going to marry in the opposite column. Give me their names,will you--starting with the one this end?"

  Haredale, intending, good-humouredly, to comply, glanced around thespacious room--only to realise that he, too, was unacquainted with thepossibly distinguished company of muralites.

  "I rather fancy," he said, "a lot of the people you mean areDiscoveries--of Mrs. Rohscheimer's, you know--writers and painters andso forth."

  "No, no!" complained the host. "I know all that lot--and they all knowme! I mean the nice-looking fellows round the wall! I haven't beenintroduced, Haredale. They've come in since this waltz started."

  Haredale looked again, and his slightly bored expression gave place toone of curiosity.