They had
come in steamships, apparently tramp freighters, and had been
unloaded by stealth on moonless nights in rowboats which stole under
a certain wharf and followed a hidden canal and house Malone could
not locate, for the memories of his informants were exceedingly
confused, while their speech was to a great extent beyond even the
ablest interpreters; nor could he gain any real data on the reasons
for their systematic importation. They were reticent about the exact
spot from which they had come, and were never sufficiently off guard
to reveal the agencies which had sought them out and directed their
course. Indeed, they developed something like acute fright when
asked the reason for their presence. Gangsters of other breeds were
equally taciturn, and the most that could be gathered was that some
god or great priesthood had promised them unheard-of powers and
supernatural glories and rulerships in a strange land. The attendance of both newcomers and old gangsters at Suydam's
closely guarded nocturnal meetings was very regular, and the police
soon learned that the erstwhile recluse had leased additional flats
to accommodate such guests as knew his password; at last occupying
three entire houses and permanently harboring many of his queer
companions. He spent but little time now at his Flatbush home,
apparently going and coming only to obtain and return books; and his
face and manner had attained an appalling pitch of wildness. Malone
twice interviewed him, but was each time bruskly repulsed. He knew
nothing, he said, of any mysterious plots or movements; and had no
idea how the Kurds could have entered or what they wanted. His
business was to study undisturbed the folk-lore of all the immigrants
of the district; a business with which policemen had no legitimate
concern. Malone mentioned his admiration for Suydam's old brochure
on the Kabbalah and other myths, but the old man's softening was only
momentary. He sensed an intrusion, and rebuffed his visitor in no
uncertain way; till Malone withdrew disgusted, and turned to other
channels of information. What Malone would have unearthed could he have worked continuously on
the case, we shall never know. As it was, a stupid conflict between
city and Federal authority suspended the investigation for several
months, during which the detective was busy with other assignments. But at no time did he lose interest, or fail to stand amazed at what
began to happen to Robert Suydam. Just at the time when a wave of
kidnappings and disappearances spread its excitement over New York,
the unkempt scholar embarked upon a metamorphosis as startling as it
was absurd. One day he was seen near Borough Hall with clean-shaved
face, well-trimmed hair, and tastefully immaculate attire, and on
every day thereafter some obscure improvement was noticed in him. He
maintained his new fastidiousness without interruption, added to it
an unwonted sparkle of eye and crispness of speech, and began little
by little to shed the corpulence which had so long deformed him. Now
frequently taken for less than his age, he acquired an elasticity of
step and buoyancy of demeanor to match the new tradition, and showed
a curious darkening of the hair which somehow did not suggest dye. As the months passed, he commenced to dress less and less
conservatively, and finally astonished his few friends by renovating
and redecorating his Flatbush mansion, which he threw open in a
series of receptions, summoning all the acquaintances he could
remember, and extending a special welcome to the fully forgiven
relatives who had lately sought his restraint. Some attended through
curiosity, others through duty; but all were suddenly charmed by the
dawning grace and urbanity of the former hermit. He had, he
asserted, accomplished most of his allotted work; and having just
inherited some property from a half-forgotten European friend, was
about to spend his remaining years in a brighter second youth which
ease, care and diet had made possible to him. Less and less was he
seen at Red Hook, and more and more did he move in the society to
which he was born. Policemen noted a tendency of the gangsters to
congregate at the old stone church and dancehall instead of at the
basement flat in Parker Place, though the latter and its recent
annexes still overflowed with noxious life. Then two incidents occurred--wide enough apart, but both of intense
interest in the case as Malone envisaged it. One was a quiet
announcement in the _Eagle_ of Robert Suydam's engagement to Miss
Cornelia Gerritsen of Bayside, a young woman of excellent position,
and distantly related to the elderly bridegroom-elect; whilst the
other was a raid on the dance-hall church by city police, after a
report that the face of a kidnapped child had been seen for a second
at one of the basement windows. Malone had participated in this
raid, and studied the place with much care when inside. Nothing was
found--in fact, the building was entirely deserted when visited--but
the sensitive Celt was vaguely disturbed by many things about the
interior. There were crudely painted panels he did not like--panels
which depicted sacred faces with peculiarly worldly and sardonic
expressions, and which occasionally took liberties that even a
layman's sense of decorum could scarcely countenance. Then, too, he
did not relish the Greek inscription on the wall above the pulpit; an
ancient incantation which he had once stumbled upon in Dublin college
days, and which read, literally translated: "O friend and companion
of night, thou who rejoicest in the baying of dogs and spilt blood,
who wanderest in the midst of shades among the tombs; who longest for
blood and bringest terror to mortals, Gorge, Mormo, thousand-faced
moon, look favorably on our sacrifices!" When he read this he shuddered, and thought vaguely of the cracked
bass organ-notes he fancied he had heard beneath the church on
certain nights. He shuddered again at the rust around the rim of a
metal basin which stood on the altar, and paused nervously when his
nostrils seemed to detect a curious and ghastly stench from somewhere
in the neighborhood. That organ memory haunted him, and he explored
the basement with particular assiduity before he left. The place was
very hateful to him; yet after all, were the blasphemous panels and
inscriptions more than mere crudities perpetrated by the ignorant? By the time of Suydam's wedding the kidnapping epidemic had become a
popular newspaper scandal. Most of the victims were young children
of the lowest classes, but the increasing number of disappearances
had worked up a sentiment of the strongest fury. Journals clamored
for action from the police, and once more the Butler Street station
sent its men over Red Hook for clues, discoveries, and criminals. Malone was glad to be on the trail again, and took pride in a raid on
one of Suydam's Parker Place houses.