The Mystery Megapack

bedside. “Margaret! Margaret!” His hand clutched her wrist. Her pulse was resolute. Roy jerked the torch from his pocket. He snapped on the switch and turned the light full on her eyes. She lay back silent, deep in a drugged sleep.
    Roy turned away from the bed. His torch swept over the room. Pinned to the rope near the radiator Roy saw a white sheet of paper. There was a message on the paper:
    *
    “Roy darling: Terribly sleepy. Believe I am drugged. Lowering rope now at eleven-twenty. If it is not discovered and you find this, get police. Margaret.”
    *
    Roy dropped the note into a pocket. He drew his revolver, left the room and descended the stairs to the ground floor of the house.
    The stairs led to the reception hall. So far Roy was on familiar ground. Passing the portières of the drawing room, he continued toward the rear of the house. A chill gripped him as he heard the faint outcries of a girl. The sound came from above and Roy retraced his steps and ran lightly up the stairs. He tried the door of every room on the second floor, but could gain admittance to none except Margaret’s.
    Roy listened at every door. This part of the house seemed deserted. He returned to the ground floor and stole to the end of the reception hall, where, cautiously pushing aside the heavy drapes, he passed into a room of oriental splendor, lighted by many naked oil lamps. Roy was making his way toward an open door at the far end of the room when he heard the notes of subdued, low-pitched music. The music was weirdly barbaric and was accompanied by muffled drumbeats.
    The music stirred something remote and primitive within Roy. He listened for a moment spellbound before continuing toward the open door. The door consisted of a panel of steel that slid up and down, and worked, apparently, by means of a counterweight and inlaid rollers, which, when the door was open, were visible.
    From beyond came the sound of chanting voices accompanied by the low-pitched music. Roy could see only a corner of the room from which the notes issued. A thick carpet of rich purple covered the floor and the walls were hung with velvet drapes of the same color. The drapes hung loosely and reached to the floor. They offered a fair chance of concealment. Roy stepped cautiously to the threshold of the door, jumped into the room and behind the end of a drape.
    He waited for the cry that meant his discovery, but the chanting and music continued. Working his way along the wall, Roy came to a place where two of the drapes overlapped. Here he paused and drawing the drapes slightly apart, looked out upon a scene that amazed him.
    The room was a large and lofty one. Its occupants were grouped at the opposite end. Three of the Hindu servants comprised the primitive orchestra. They played before a huge and hideous idol.
    The idol reached to a height of about twelve feet and was the figure of a woman. She was black, with a great outpointed tongue of flaming red that extended to her waistline. Venomous teeth glistened against the black background of her face, and around her neck was a string of skulls. From her shoulders extended four arms of startling size; two were extended in a gesture of welcome; the third held a great and awesome sword, and from the fourth there hung the severed head of a mighty giant.
    The awful idol touched on a chord of memory and Roy recalled the circumstances. It was while in Calcutta on a world tour with his father that he had made a pilgrimage to the temple at Kali-Ghat, a short distance from Calcutta. The three-hundred-year-old temple was not, as Roy recalled it, an impressive affair. It was the hideous atrocities perpetrated in the name of worship that left an indelible imprint on his mind, for here was worshipped the terrifying goddess, Kali, “Kali, the Divine Mother!”
    Kali, Roy remembered as a savage virago who demanded great quantities of blood from her worshippers under pain of pestilence and famine. Her worship was accompanied by self-inflicted tortures. Her votaries ran sharply-pointed canes through their muscles and tongues, and in excesses of devotion, caused themselves to be swung on high while suspended by iron hooks passed through the muscles of the back.
    This hideous monster is worshipped at midnight throughout Bengal as a great warrior, the giver of victory, and the protector and avenger of her people. Bloody sacrifices of animals are made daily at her altar, while, a few generations ago, Roy knew, the sacrifices