Slaves of Sleep, Page 3

  "Be quiet or people will hear you," said Jan, cooled a little by the sight of that knife. "You can leave now and nothing will have happened."

  Frobish was quick to sense the change. He reached out and shoved Jan away from him to whirl and again pry at the stopper.

  Jan seized hold of his shoulder and spun him about. "You're insane! This is my house and that jar is mine. You have no right, I tell you."

  Savagely Frobish struck at him and Jan, catching the blow on the point of his chin, dropped to the floor, turned halfway about. Groggily, he shook his head, still unwilling to believe that Frobish could fail to listen to reason, unable to understand that he was dealing with forces and desires greater than he could ever hope to control.

  Once more Frobish flung him away and would have followed up, but behind him there sounded a thing like escaping steam. He forgot Jan and faced the jar to instantly stumble back from it. Jan remained frozen to the floor a dozen feet away.

  Black smoke was coiling into the dark shadows of the ceiling, mushrooming slowly outward, rolling into itself with ominous speed. Frobish backed against a chair and stopped, hands flung up before his face, while over him like a shroud, the acrid vapors began to drop down.

  Jan coughed from the fumes and blinked the tears which were stung from his eyes. The stopper was not wholly off the jar and stayed on the edge, teetering until the last of the smoke was past, when it dropped with a dull sound to the floor.

  The smoke eddied more swiftly against the beams. It became blacker and blacker, more and more solid, drawing in and in again and finally beginning to pulsate as though it breathed.

  Something hard flashed at the top of it and then became two spiked horns, swiftly accompanied by two gleaming eyes the size of meat platters. Two long tusks, polished and sharp, squared the awful cavern of a mouth. Swiftly then the smoke became a body girt with a blazing belt, two arms tipped by clawed fingers, two legs like trees ending in hoofs, split-toed and as large across as an elephant's foot. The thing was covered with shaggy hair except for the face and the tail which lashed back and forth now in agitation.

  The thing knelt and flung up its hands and cried, "There is no God but Allah, the All Merciful and Compassionate. Spare me!"

  Jan was frozen. The fumes were still heavy about him but now there penetrated a wild animal smell which made his man's soul lurch within him in memory of days an eon gone.

  Frobish, recovered now and seeing that the thing was wholly on the defensive, straightened up.

  "There is no God but Allah. And Sulayman is the lord of the earth!"

  "Get up," said Frobish. "We care less than nothing about Allah, and Sulayman has been dead these many centuries. I have loosed you from your prison and in return there are things I desire."

  The Ifrit's luminous, yellow eyes played up and down the Puny mortal before him. Slowly an evil twist came upon the giant lips. A laugh rumbled deep in him like summer thunder-a laugh wholly of contempt.

  "So, it is as I thought it might be. You are a man and you have loosed me. And now you speak of a reward." The Ifrit laughed again. "Sulayman, you say, is dead?"

  "Naturally. Sulayman was as mortal as I."

  "Yes, yes. As mortal as you. Man who freed me, you behold before you Zongri, king of the Ifrits of the Barbossi Isles. For thousands of years have I been in that jar. And would you like to know what I thought about?"

  "Of course," said Frobish.

  "Mortal man, the first five hundred years I vowed that the man who let me free would have all the riches in the world. But no man freed me. The next five hundred years I vowed that the man who let me out would have life everlasting even as I. But no man let me out. I waited then for a long, long time and then, at long last, I fell into a fury at my captivity and I vowed-you are sure you wish to know, mortal man?"

  "Yes!"

  "Then know that I vowed that the one who let me free would meet with instant death!"

  Frobish paled. "You are a fool as I have heard that all Ifrits are fools. But for me you would have stayed there the rest of eternity. Tonight I had to break into that man's house to loose you. It is he who has held you captive, who would not let you go."

  "A vow is never broken. You have freed me and therefore you shall die!" A thunderous scowl settled upon his face and he edged forward on his knees, unable to stand against the fourteen foot ceiling.

  Frobish backed up hastily.

  The Ifrit glanced about him. Near at hand were the Malay krisses and upon the largest he fastened, wrenching it from the wall and bringing the rest of the board down with a clatter. The great executioner's blade looked like a toothpick in his fist.

  Frobish strove to dash out of the room but the Ifrit raked out with his claws and snatched him back, holding him a foot from the floor.

  "A vow," uttered Zongri, "is a vow." And so saying he released Frobish who again tried to run.

  The blade flashed and there was a crunching sound as of a cleaver going through ham. Split from crown to waist, Frobish's corpse dropped to the floor, staining the carpet for a yard about.

  Jan winced as something moist splashed against his hand and swiftly he scuttled back. The movement attracted the Ifrit's atten足tion and again the claws raked out and clutched. Jan, assailed by fuming breath and sick with the sight of death, shook like a rag in a hurricane.

  The Ifrit regarded him solemnly.

  "Let me go," said Jan.

  "Why?"

  "I did not free you."

  "You kept me captive for years. That one said so."

  "You cannot," chattered Jan, "you cannot kill a man for let足ting you free and then kill another for... for not letting you free."

  "Why not?"

  "It... it is not logical!"

  Zongri regarded him for a long time, shaking him now and then to start him shivering anew. Finally he said, "No, that is so. It is not logical. You did not let me free and I said no vow about you. You are Mohammedan?"

  "N... n... no!"

  "Hm." Again Zongri shook him. "You are no friend of Sulayman's?"

  "I... n-n-no!"

  "Then," said the Ifrit, "it would not be right for me to kill you." He dropped him to the floor and looked around. "But," he added, "you held me captive for years. He said you did. That cannot go unpunished."

  Jan hugged the moist floor, waiting for doom to blanket him.

  "I cannot kill you," said Zongri. "I made no vow. Instead ... instead I shall lay upon you a sentence. Yes, that is it. A sentence. You, mortal one, I sentence," and laughter shook him for a moment, "to Eternal Wakefulness. And now I am off to Mount Kaf!"

  There was a howling sound as of wings. Jan did not dare open his eyes for several seconds but when he did he found that the room was empty.

  Unsteadily he got to his feet, stepping gingerly around the dead man and then discovering to his dismay that he himself was now smeared with blood.

  The executioner's knife had been dropped across the body and, with some wild thought of trying to bring the man back to life, Jan laid it aside, shaking the already cooling shoulder.

  Realizing that that was a fruitless gesture he again got to his feet. He did not want to be alone for the first time in his life. He wanted lights and people about him. Yes, even Green or Thompson.

  He laid his hand upon the door but before he could pull, it crashed into his chest and he found himself staring into a crowd in the hall.

  Two prowler car men, guns in hand, were in front. A servant stood behind them and after that he could see the strained faces of Aunt Ethel and Thompson and Green.

  A flood of gladness went through him but he was too shocked to speak. Mutely he pointed toward Frobish's body and tried to tell them that the Ifrit had gone through the window. But other voices swirled about him.

  "Nab him, Mike. It's open and shut," said the sergeant.

  Mike nabbed Jan.

  "Deader'n a door nail," said Mike, looking at the bisected corpse. "Open and shut." He took out a book and flipped it o
pen. "How long ago did you do it?"

  "About five minutes!" said Thompson. "When I first heard the voices in here and sent for you, I didn't expect anything like this to happen. But I heard the sound of the knife and then silence."

  "Five minutes, eh?" said the sergeant, wetting the end of his pencil and writing. "And what was this all about, you?"

  Jan recovered his voice. "You... you think I did this thing?"

  "Well?" said Mike. "Didn'tcha?"

  "No!" shouted Jan. "You don't understand. That jar..."

  "Fell on him, I suppose."

  "No, no! That jar..."

  Intelligence flashed in Aunt Ethel's needle-point eyes. She flung herself upon Jan, weeping. "Oh, my poor boy. How could you do such an awful thing?"

  Jan, startled, tried to shake her off, urgently protesting to the sergeant all the while. "I told him not to but he broke through the window and pried at the stopper..."

  "Who?" said Mike.

  "I'll handle this," said the sergeant in reproof.

  "He means Professor Frobish, his guest," said Thompson. "The professor came to see him about an Arabian ship model this afternoon."

  "Huh, murdered his guest, did he? Mike, you hold down here while I send for the homicide squad."

  "Don't!" shouted Jan. "You've got it all wrong. Frobish broke in here to let..."

  "Save it for the sergeant and the boys," said Mike, shaking him to quiet him down.

  Jan glared at those around him. Thompson was looking at him in deep sorrow. Aunt Ethel was wiping her eyes with the hem of her dressing gown. And all the while Nathaniel Green was pacing up and down the room, squashing fist into palm and muttering, "A murder. A Palmer, a murderer. Oh, how can such things keep happening to me? The publicity-and just when the government was offering a subsidy. I knew it, I knew it. He was always strange and now, see what he's done. I should have watched him more closely. It's my fault, all my fault."

  "No, it's mine," wept Aunt Ethel. "I've tried to be a mother to him and he repays us by killing his guest in our house. Oh, think of the papers!"

  It went on and on. It went on for the benefit of the news足papermen which came swarming in on the heels of such a name as Palmer. It went on to the homicide squad. Over and over until Jan was sick and wobbly.

  The fingerprint men were swift in their work. The photog足raphers took various views of the corpse.

  And then an ambulance backed up beside the Black Maria and while Frobish was basketed into the former, Jan, under heavy guard, was herded into the latter.

  And as they drove away, the last thing he heard was Aunt Ethel's wail to a late-coming newsman that here was gratitude after all that she had done for him too, and wasn't it awful, awful, awful? Wasn't it? Wasn't it? Wasn't it?

  eternal wakefulness

  Jan was too stunned by the predicament to protest any further; he went so willingly-or nervelessly-wherever he was shoved that the officers concluded there was no more harm left in him for the moment. Besides, a gang of counterfeiters was occupying the best cells and so a little doubling was in order. Jan found himself thrust into a cubicle, past a pale, snake-eyed fellow, and then the door clanged authoritatively and the guard marched away.

  Seeing the cell and the cellmate and believing it was a cell and a cellmate were two entirely different things. Jan sat down on a bunk and looked woodenly straight ahead. He was in that frame of mind where men behold disaster to every side but are so thoroughly drenched with it that they begin to discount it. It was even a somewhat solacing frame of mind. Nothing worse than this could possibly happen. Unlucky Fate had opened the bag and pulled out everything at once and so, by lucid reason, it was impossible for said Unlucky Fate to have any further stock still hidden.

  "That's my bunk," snarled the cellmate.

  Jan obediently moved to the other berth to discover that it was partly unhinged so that a man had to sleep with his head below his feet. Further, the cellmate had robbed it of blankets to benefit his own couch and so had exposed a questionable mattress.

  Jan's deep sigh sucked the smell of disinfectant so deeply into his lungs that he went into a spasm of coughing.

  "Lunger?" said the cellmate indifferently.

  "Beg pardon?"

  "I said have y'got it inna pipes?"

  "What?"

  "Skiput."

  "Really," said Jan, "I don't understand you."

  "Oh, a swell, huh? What'd they baste you wit'?"

  "Er..."

  "How's it read? What's the yarn? What'd they book you for?" said the fellow with great impatience. "Murder? Arson? Bigamy?..."

  "Oh," said Jan with relief. "Oh, yes, certainly." And then the enormity of the error came back to him, and he grew agitated. "I'm supposed to have murdered a man but I didn't do it!"

  "Sure not. Hammer, lead or steel?" Hastily to clarify himself. "How'd you do it?"

  "But I didn't!" said Jan. "It's all a horrible mistake."

  "Sure. Was it a big shot?"

  "There wasn't any shooting. It was an executioner's sword."

  "Exe... Say! You do things with a flare, don'cha?"

  "But I didn't do it!"

  "Well, hell, who said you did? What was the stiffs name?"

  "Stiff? Oh... Professor Frobish of the University."

  "Brain wizard, huh? Never liked 'em myself. How come the slash party in the first place. I mean, how'd it happen?"

  "That's what's so terrible about it," said Jan, so deep in misery that he did not fully comprehend what he was saying. "I had a copper jar in my room and Frobish insisted upon opening it and when I refused him he returned in the night and pried the stopper out of it because he knew it might contain an Ifrit." Mistaking the pop-eyes for sympathy, Jan went on. "And it did contain an Ifrit that Sulayman had bottled up and when the thing came out it took down a sword and killed Frobish and when the police got there they didn't give me a chance to explain. They thought I did it and so, here I am!"

  "What," said the cellmate, "is an Igpit? Do you eat it or spend it?"

  "An Ifrit? Oh. Why, an Ifrit is a demon of the tribes of the Jinn. Some people call them Jinni or genii. They seem to have vanished from the earth although there is evidence that they were once very numerous."

  "What... what do they look like?"

  "Why, they're about fifteen feet tall and they've got horns and a spiked tail..."

  "A sniffer."

  "What?"

  "I said I didn't think you looked like a sniffer when I first seen you."

  "I don't understand."

  "Sure. Well, go on, don't let me stop you," he said indulgently. "Fifteen feet tall with horns and a spiked tail..."

  Jan frowned. "You don't believe me."

  "Sure I believe you. Hell, who wouldn't believe you? Why I seen worse than that before I finally yanked myself up on the wagon. Once I lamped a whole string of such things. They was hangin' to each other's tails with one hand and carrying purple sedans in the other. And..."

  "You doubt my word?"

  "Hell, no, buddy. Just sit down and be calm. No use frettin' about a little thing like that, see? Sure. I know all about these here... what did you say you called 'em?"

  "Ifrits!"

  "Sure, that's right. You've been done dirt, that's sure. But all you gotta do is tell the truth to the judge and he'll do the rest."

  "You think I've got a chance?"

  "Listen, pal, I'm in here for shaking down a gent for eight hundred bucks. That's what they say I did. I didn't, of course. But if I think I've got a story lined up ... geez, you must be a genius."

  The other's volunteered information brought Jan slightly out of himself, enough to realize that his cellmate was also answering to the law. With this in common, Jan took interest in him.

  "They arrested you, too?"

  "Hell, no, buddy, I use this for a hotel. Look, I don't know where they dug you up or who you are . . ."

  "My name is Jan Palmer."

  "Okay, your name is Jan Palmer. Fine. But woul
d you please tell me how a gent can live all his life in these United States with足out finding out a thing or two. Palmer, I hate to say it, but unless you smarten up you ain't got an onion's chance in Spain. Me, I know the ropes. There ain't nobody in the racket that knows more about what's what than Diver Mullins. Now listen to me. You give this cockeyed yarn of yours the bounce and think of somethin' logical. Otherwise, my innercent pal, they'll swing you by the neck until you're most awful dead."

  Jan was jolted. He peered nearsightedly at his cellmate, see足ing him truly for the first time. There was no mistaking the evil in that face. It was narrow as a ferret's and of an unhealthy pallor. The eyes flicked up and down and around and about in incessant sentinel duty. Shabby and wasted though he was, there was still a certain vitality in the fellow.

  "But . . . but," said Jan, "I told you the truth. An Ifrit came out of the jar . . ."

  "Look, pal," said Diver Mullins, "I ain't doubtin' your word. I believe every syllable. But I ain't the judge and when you spin that cockeyed story before a jury they'll laugh at you. Now, take me. I ain't in here for the first time. No sir! I know my business. I was located in possession of eight hundred smackers that a sap lost. That's an insult. If I'd have taken it off'n him in a crowd, do you suppose he ever would have knowed about it?"

  "'You mean you had another fellow's money," decoded Jan.

  "Go to the head of the class. Now another gent would say he found it on the sidewalk or someplace and get himself laughed at. But not me. Another fellow would say he didn't know how it got in his pocket. But not me! Them dodges has mildew on 'em. Now I figger..."

  But Jan had relapsed into his own woes and scarcely heard Diver Mullins' plot to put the entire blame upon another pick足pocket and place himself in a savior light. Jan, accountably weary, lay back on the tipsy bunk and gave himself over to dreary speculation.

  He retraced the activities of the night and found them to be anything but reassuring. And, to dodge away from their damning possibilities, he dwelt upon the inconsequentialities. He was, for instance, almost certain that Zongri had spoken in Arabic. He, Jan, spoke no Arabic so far as he knew. Of course Frobish would understand the language but how could it be that Jan had come into the sudden possession of such knowledge. Perhaps it wasn't really Arabic. Jan knew not enough to be certain on that score, just as he was too hazy to analyze the Ifrit's "Eternal Wakefulness."