Page:Weird Tales Volume 5 Number 6 (1925-06).djvu/33

 So you see, my master, a great danger has been lifted from our shoulders'.

"Weeks later we were back in Simla, or rather, I should say I arrived at an inferno, for I have never known a happy moment since the Buddha has been in my possession. Sometimes I seem to see the bloated, ghastly corpses of the old men floating on that ancient river in Tibet. And the thongs that bind them together have bound my happiness as well. I have been a slave to that idol more truly than any lama ever was. Always I have had the fear of retribution hanging over me. I have been a hunted thing, always watching for the grim, gaunt emissaries who must surely be relentlessly seeking me out.

"I used to live with Nona at Cresco, but we fled when some suspicious looking gipsies came and camped within half a mile of our house. I was afraid. Fear is a terrible thing. To be hunted like a wild thing is dreadful. But to be tormented by one's conscience is even worse.

"Sometimes at night I feel as if my mind is breaking. A sudden impulse overcomes me and I race out into the night over the crooked winding roads until I return absolutely exhausted and sleep from utter weariness.

"That Golden Buddha hypnotized me. I longed to get rid of it, yet I could not throw it away. My hands were tied. I have been under a spell. But now the spell has been lifted, for the lamas have gotten back their sacred idol after a relentless pursuit that lasted more than ten years."

and Nona were mar-ried early the next week and they left at once for a quiet honeymoon in New York City.

"I haven't been in New York for years," said Nona, "and I could not take a trip anywhere I would enjoy more."

As the train sped down through the mountains, Stark Laurier said thoughtfully, "I have been thinking a great deal about the disappearance of the Golden Buddha and I have come to the conclusion that the Tibetans did not again secure possession of it as your father imagined."

"I thought," she drawled, "I had married a novelist, and now to my surprize I find I have married a detective. What is your theory?"

"I think," he told her, "in fact I am almost certain that Sig took the golden idol when he ran away. He was an ex-convict and undoubtedly realized that the little statue was of great value because it was made of pure gold."

"That is splendid," she asserted, "as far as it goes, but like most deductions it doesn't go far enough."

As she spoke she opened her black over-night bag and drew from it the Golden Buddha.

"You see," she went on wickedly, "you have married a scoundrel, because it was I who stole the Golden Buddha. It was I who turned off the electric lights and then opened the window to give the affair an uncanny appearance. For I realized that the Golden Buddha was wrecking my father's life, driving him mad. He was fleeing from pursuers that did not exist. I do not believe that a single soul is following him. I knew he wished to get rid of the statue but did not have the strength nor courage to destroy it himself. Now we must carefully dispose of it so he will never see it again."

Stark Laurier was amazed, but he was also delighted with her stratagem.

"A moment ago," he said, "you stated that you had married a detective as well as a novelist, but you were wrong. You married only a novelist."