Introduction

Hark! The Rattle!

WE SAT in the Purple Lily—Tain Dirk, that far too handsome young man, with me.

I drank coffee; Tain Dirk drank liquor—secretly and alone. The night was drenched with sweating summer heat, but I felt cold as ice. Presently we went up to the Palm Grove Roof, where Bimi Tal was to dance.

“Who is this Bimi Tal, Hammer?” Dirk asked me, drumming his fingers.

“A woman.”

“You’re a queer one, Jerry Hammer!” said Dirk, narrowing his cold yellow eyes.

Still he drummed his blunt fingers. Sharp—tat! tat! tat! Something deep inside me—my liver, perhaps—shivered and grew white at hearing that klirring sound.

I didn’t answer him right away. Slowly I sent up smoke rings to circle the huge stars. We sat in a cave of potted palms close by the dancing floor. Over us lay blue-black night, strange and deep. Yellow as roses were the splotches of stars swimming down the sky.

“It shows you’ve been away from New York, Dirk, if you don’t know Bimi Tal. She’s made herself more famous as a dancer than ever was Ynecita. Some mystery is supposed to hang about her; and these simple children of New York love mysteries.”

“I’ve been away three years,” said Dirk sulkily, his eyes contracting....

“That long? It was three years ago that Ynecita was killed.”

“Well?” asked Dirk. His finger-drumming droned away.

“I thought you might have known her, Dirk.”

“I?” His wide, thin lips twitched. “Why, Ynecita was common to half New York!”

“But once,” I said, “once, it may be assumed, she was true to one man only, Tain Dirk.”

“I’m not interested in women,” said Dirk.

That was like him. He drank liquor only—secretly and alone.

“I was interested in Ynecita, Dirk. We used to talk together—”

“She talked to you?” repeated Dirk.

“Strange how she died! No trace, no one arrested. Yet she’d had her lovers. Sometimes I think, Dirk, we’ll find the beast who killed Ynecita.”

Tain Dirk touched my wrist. His blunt fingers were cold and clammy. Incomprehensible that women had loved his hands! Yet they were artist’s hands, and could mold and chisel. Wet clay, his hands!

“What makes you say that, Hammer?”

I looked up at the stars. “It was a beast who killed Ynecita, Dirk. Some vile snake with blood as cold as this lemon ice. Those marks of teeth on her upper arm! Deep in, bringing blood![54] What madman killed that girl? Mad, I say!”

Dirk twisted. He wiped his brown forehead, on which sweat glistened in little beads like scales. “Too hot a night to talk about such things, Hammer. Let’s talk of something else. Tell me about this Bimi Tal.”

“You’ll see her soon enough,” I said, watching him. “A girl of about your own age; you’re not more than twenty-four, are you?”

“Born first of January, ’99.”

“And famous already!”

“Yes,” said Tain Dirk. “I guess you’ve heard of me.”

“Oh, I’ve heard lots of you,” I said; and saw he didn’t like it.

“You’ve heard I’m fast with women, eh?” asked Dirk, after a pause.

“But Ynecita—”

“Why do you talk of her?” asked Dirk, irritably. “I never knew her.”

“Those marks of teeth on Ynecita’s arm—two sharp canines, sharp and hooked; barely scratching the skin—like fangs of a snake, Dirk—”

Tain Dirk’s hand crept to his lips, which were thin, red, and dry. The light in his eyes darkened from yellow to purple. Softly his blunt fingers began to drum his lips. Tat! tat! tat! But silent as a snake in grass.

“A curious thing about teeth, Dirk—you’re a sculptor; maybe you’ve observed it—a curious thing that no two are quite alike. We took prints, Dirk, of those marks in the arm of Ynecita—”

Dirk’s thin lips opened. His coarsely-formed, but marvelously sensitive, fingers felt the hardness of his teeth. That gesture was sly. At once he knew I’d seen him. He crouched back in his chair, his strong, broad head drawn in between his shoulders.

“Who are you?” he hissed.

Again the klirring of his fingertips—a dusty drumming.

“Why, I am only Jerry Hammer—a wanderer, and a soldier of bad fortune.”

“Who are you!”

“Brother of Stella Hammer, who was known as Ynecita, the dancer.”

Upon the Palm Grove Roof, beneath those gigantic stars the orchestra began to play. A brass and cymbal tune. The air was hot. From far in the pit of streets rose up the noises of the city. Loud! Discord shot with flames. I trembled.

Tain Dirk’s fingers drummed. His head commenced to sway.