`Look! The Bowl! It’s open – and empty!’
In the center of the room stood a strange black cylinder, nearly four feet in height, and perhaps three feet in diameter at its widest circumference, which was halfway between the top and bottom. The heavy carven lid lay on the floor, and beside it a hammer and a chisel. Demetrio looked inside, puzzled an instant over the dim hieroglyphs, and turned to Conan.
`Is this what you came to steal?’
The barbarian shook his head.
`How could I bear it away? It is too big for one man to carry.’
`The bands were cut with this chisel,’ mused Demetrio, `and in haste. There are marks where misstrokes of the hammer dented the metal. We may assume that Kallian opened the Bowl. Someone was hiding nearby – possibly in the hangings in the doorway. When Kallian had the Bowl open, the murderer sprang on him – or he might have killed Kallian and opened the Bowl himself.’
`This is a grisly thing,’ shuddered the clerk. `It’s too ancient to be holy. Who ever saw metal like it in a sane world? It seems less destructible than Aquilonian steel, yet see how it is corroded and eaten away in spots. Look at the bits of black mold clinging in the grooves of the hieroglyphics; they smell as earth smells from far below the surface. And look – here on the lid!’ The clerk pointed with a shaky finger. `What would you say it is?’
Demetrio bent closer to the carven design.
`I’d say it represents a crown of some sort,’ he grunted.
`No!’ exclaimed Promero. `I warned Kallian, but he would not believe me! It is a scaled serpent coiled with its tail in its mouth. It is the sign of Set, the Old Serpent, the god of the Stygians! This Bowl is too old for a human world – it is a relic of the time when Set walked the earth in the form of a man! The race which sprang from his loins laid the bones of their kings away in such cases as these, perhaps!’
`And you’ll say that those moldering bones rose up and strangled Kallian Publico and then walked away, perhaps,’ derided Demetrio.
`It was no man who was laid to rest in that bowl,’ whispered the clerk, his eyes wide and staring. `What human could lie in it?’
Demetrio swore disgustedly.
`If Conan is not the murderer,’ he snapped, `the slayer is still somewhere in this building. Dionus and Arus, remain here with me, and you three prisoners stay here too. The rest of you search the building. The murderer could only have escaped – if he got away before Arus found the body – by the way Conan used in entering, and in that case the barbarian would have seen him, if he’s telling the truth.’
`I saw no one but this dog,’ growled Conan, indicating Arus.
`Of course not, because you’re the murderer,’ said Dionus. `We’re wasting time, but we’ll search the building as a formality. And if we find no one, I promise you shall burn! Remember the law, my black-haired savage – you go to the mines for killing a commoner, you hang for killing a tradesman, and for murdering a rich man, you burn!’
Conan answered with a wicked lift of his lip, baring his teeth, and the men began their search. The listeners in the chamber heard them stamping upstairs and down, moving objects, opening doors and bellowing to one another through the rooms.
‘Conan,’ said Demetrio, `you know what it means if they find no one?’
`I didn’t kill him,’ snarled the Cimmerian. `If he had sought to hinder me I’d have split his skull. But I did not see him until I saw his corpse.’
`I know that someone sent you here tonight, to steal at least,’ said Demetrio. `By your silence you incriminate yourself in this murder as well. You had best speak. The mere fact of your being here is sufficient to send you to the mines for ten years, anyhow, whether you admit your guilt or not. But if you tell the whole tale, you may save yourself from the stake.’
`Well,’ answered the barbarian grudgingly, `I came here to steal the Zamorian diamond goblet. A man gave me a diagram of the Temple and told me where to look for it. It is kept in that room -‘ Conan pointed – `in a niche in the floor under a copper Shemitish god.’
`He speaks truth there,’ said Promero. `I’d thought that not half a dozen men in the world knew the secret of that hiding place.’
`And if you had secured it,’ asked Dionus sneeringly, `would you really have taken it to the man who hired you? Or would you have kept it for yourself?’
Again the smoldering eyes flashed resentment.
`I am no dog,’ the barbarian muttered. `I keep my word.’
`Who sent you here?’ Demetrio demanded, but Conan kept a sullen silence.
The guardsmen were straggling back from their search.
`There’s no man hiding in this building,’ they growled. `We’ve ransacked the place. We found the trap-door in the roof through which the barbarian entered, and the bolt he cut in half. A man escaping that way would have been seen by the guards we posted about the building, unless he fled before we came. Then, besides, he would have had to stack tables or chairs or cases upon each other to reach it from below, and that has not been done. Why couldn’t he have gone out the front door just before Arus came around the building?’
`Because the door was bolted on the inside, and the only keys which will work that bolt are the one belonging to Arus and the one which still hangs on the girdle of Kallian Publico.’
`I’ve found the cable the murderer used,’ one of them announced. `A black cable, thicker than a man’s arm, and curiously splotched.’
`Then where is it, fool?’ exclaimed Dionus.
`In the chamber adjoining this one,’ answered the guard. `It’s wrapped about a marble pillar, where no doubt the murderer thought it would be safe from detection. I couldn’t reach it. But it must be the right one.’
He led the way into a room filled with marble statuary, and pointed to a tall column, one of several which served a purpose more of ornament to set off the statues, than of utility. And then he halted and stared.
`It’s gone!’ he cried.
`It never was there!’ snorted Dionus.
`By Mitra, it was!’ swore the guardsman. `Coiled about the pillar just above those carven leaves. It’s so shadowy up there near the ceiling I couldn’t tell much about it – but it was there.’
`You’re drunk,’ snapped Demetrio, turning away. `That’s too high for a man to reach; and nothing but a snake could climb that smooth pillar.’
`A Cimmerian could,’ muttered one of the men.
`Possibly. Say that Conan strangled Kallian, tied the cable about the pillar, crossed the corridor and hid in the room where the stair is. How then, could he have removed it after you saw it? He has been among us ever since Arus found the body. No, I tell you Conan didn’t commit the murder. I believe the real murderer killed Kallian to secure whatever was in the Bowl, and is hiding now in some secret nook in the Temple. If we can’t find him, we’ll have to put the blame on the barbarian to satisfy justice, but – where is Promero?’
They had returned to the silent body in the corridor. Dionus bellowed threateningly for Promero, and the clerk came suddenly from the room in which stood the empty Bowl. He was shaking and his face was white.
`What now, man?’ exclaimed Demetrio irritably.
`I found a symbol on the bottom of the Bowl!’ chattered Promero. `Not an ancient hieroglyphic, but a symbol recently carved! The mark of Thoth-amon, the Stygian sorcerer, Kalanthes’s deadly foe! He found it in some grisly cavern below the haunted pyramids! The gods of old times did not die, as men died – they fell into long sleeps and their worshippers locked them in sarcophagi so that no alien hand might break their slumbers. Thoth-amon sent death to Kalanthes – Kallian’s greed caused him to loose the horror – and it is lurking somewhere near us – even now it may be creeping upon us-‘
`You gibbering fool!’ roared Dionus disgustedly, striking him heavily across the mouth. Dionus was a materialist, with scant patience for eery speculations.
`Well, Demetrio,’ he said, turning to the Inquisitor, `I see nothing else to do other than to arrest this barbarian-‘
The Cimmerian cried out suddenly and they wheeled. He was glaring toward the door of a chamber that adjoined the room of statues.
`Look!’ he exclaimed. `I saw something move in that room – I saw it through the hangings. Something that crossed the floor like a long dark shadow!’