The Mystery Megapack

her that? She isn’t your aunt.”
    “There, there!” Margaret said mockingly. “Mustn’t be cross.” Her eyes sobered. “My mother died when I was three. My father had been away from America so long that he’d lost touch with what few relatives he had here. He was away in the interior a lot and during those absences he left me in the care of Lord and Lady Lertine. They were his closest friends. Lord Lertine was an official of the British Government. They had no children and became attached to me. Before his death, my father appointed Lord and Lady Lertine my guardians. They were wonderful to me and I always looked on them, and spoke of them, as my uncle and aunt. In deference to my father’s wishes, they brought me to an American boarding school when I was fourteen. While I was at school, Lord Lertine lost his life in a hunting accident. After school I returned on a visit to India. Lady Lertine had lost all balance after the death of her husband. She became fascinated by Ishan Das Babaji and was completely dominated by him. Nothing else seemed to matter to her. She gave up everything for his sake. I returned to America to enter college. I wasn’t surprised to hear soon after that Lady Lertine had married Ishan Das Babaji. Then Ishan Das Babaji ran afoul of the British Government. Fomenting a native uprising, or something. He fled to America with Aunt Elizabeth.
    “If I leave them before twenty-three, it might cost me my fortune. If Aunt Elizabeth were not so completely dominated by the Bengali, I’m sure she would consent to our marrying at once. She won’t admit it, but it’s he who is raising the objections to our marriage.”
    “Well, so far as money goes, we don’t need that,” Roy said. “You’re going to stew yourself into a nervous collapse if you stay there another ten months.”
    “Oh, it’s not just that, Roy. In a way, I still love Aunt Elizabeth. I’m frightened for her.
    Something is going to happen at that house. I must stay there and try to protect her. She was wonderful to me when I was a youngster. She was a mother to me. If you had known her then you’d feel different. And anyway, I’m an American girl, and we’re in America. I don’t intend to let any Hindu beat me out of the money my father killed himself to earn for me! And that’s what I believe Ishan Das Babaji is trying to do!”
    “What makes you think that?” Roy asked quickly.
    “Well, already he’s trying to influence me through my aunt. She’s always talking to me about one of those crazy Hindu religions. She’s doing that on the promptings of Ishan Das Babaji. I loathe that man!”
    “If you must go back there, promise to let me know every day what goes on there,” Roy begged.
    Margaret laughed brittlely. “‘What goes on there!’ That’s what I’ve been trying to find out for the last six months. Sometimes I wake in the night with the feeling that something awful is happening around me. At first I thought it was nightmares, or my imagination. But lately the thing has been growing on me. I have got up in the middle of the night and prowled through the house. But most of the doors are kept locked and I can hear nothing. Roy, why are so many of those rooms walled with steel plate?”
    Roy shook his head. He tensed and leaned across the table! “Marge, that place fascinates me. I’m going to look it over tonight!”
    “I don’t want you to do that,” Margaret said quickly. “The instant I find out something definite, I’ll tell you. And if ever I feel in danger, I’ll get word to you somehow. And now you may escort me to my charming home,” she said dryly.
    * * * *
    Despite Margaret’s wishes to the contrary, Roy determined to do some investigating that night. Shortly before midnight he was in the alley that passed
    the rear of the Bengali’s back yard. He wore a dark flannel shirt, a blue suit and cap, and in his pocket he felt the reassuring bulk of a .38 revolver. Roy moved along the alley until he reached the high brick wall that surrounded the house. He tied a large, black silk handkerchief over his face. Gripping the top of the wall, Roy pulled himself up until he could see over. A careful scrutiny revealed no one about the garden. He climbed the wall and dropped to the ground.
    Roy crouched close to the wall and waited. There was no sign of life in the garden and the big brownstone house was totally dark. Warily, avoiding the gravel paths, Roy made his way toward the house. He stood