first of
the party to enter the vault. It was laden with chemical fumes....

He found there an aged Chinaman, dead, seated by a stove in which the
fire had burned very low. Sprawling across the old man's knees was the
body of a raven. Lying at his feet was a woman, lithe, contorted, the
face half hidden in masses of bright red hair.

"End case near the door!" rapped the voice of Kerry. "Slides to the
left!"

Seton Pasha vaulted over the counter, drew the shelves aside, and
entered the inner room.

By the dim light of a lantern burning upon a moorish coffee-table he
discerned an untidy bed, upon which a second woman lay, pallid.

"God!" he muttered; "this place is a morgue!"

"It certainly isn't healthy!" said an irritable voice from the floor.
"But I think I might survive it if you could spare a second to untie
me."

Kerry's extensive practice in chewing and the enormous development of
his maxillary muscles had stood him in good stead. His keen, strong
teeth had bitten through the extemporized gag, and as a result the
tension of the handkerchief which had held it in place had become
relaxed, enabling him to rid himself of it and to spit out the fragments
of filthy-tasting wood which the biting operation had left in his mouth.

Seton turned, stooped on one knee to release the captive... and found
himself looking into the face of someone who sat crouched upon the divan
behind the Chief Inspector. The figure was that of an oriental, richly
robed. Long, slim, ivory hands rested upon his knees, and on the first
finger of the right hand gleamed a big talismanic ring. But the face,
surmounted by a white turban, was wonderful, arresting in its immobile
intellectual beauty; and from under the heavy brows a pair of abnormally
large eyes looked out hypnotically.

"My God!" whispered Seton, then:

"If you've finished your short prayer," rapped Kerry, "set about my
little job."

"But, Kerry--Kerry, behind you!"

"I haven't any eyes in my back hair!"

Mechanically, half fearfully, Seton touched the hands of the crouching
oriental. A low moan came from the woman in the bed, and:

"It's Kazmah!" gasped Seton. "Kerry... Kazmah is--a wax figure!"

"Hell!" said Chief Inspector Kerry.

CHAPTER XLII. A YEAR LATER

Beneath an awning spread above the balcony of one of those modern
elegant flats, which today characterize Heliopolis, the City of the Sun,
site of perhaps the most ancient seat of learning in the known wo