E. Hoffmann Price's Pierre d'Artois: Occult Detective & Associates Read online

  Contents

  COPYRIGHT INFO

  A NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER

  INTRODUCTION, by Alexander Kreitner

  THE WORD OF SANTIAGO

  THE PEACOCK’S SHADOW

  THE BRIDE OF THE PEACOCK

  THE RETURN OF BALKIS

  LORD OF THE FOURTH AXIS

  THE DEVIL’S CRYPT

  SATAN’S GARDEN

  QUEEN OF THE LILIN

  ONE ARABIAN NIGHT

  SILVER PEACOCK

  THE KING’S PEACOCK

  TRIANGLE BY ARRANGEMENT

  SCARLET RENDEZVOUS

  TREASURE FROM KURDISTAN

  CHASTE GODDESS

  DOUBLE CATSPAW

  PIT OF MADNESS

  PALE HANDS

  LIVE BAIT

  THE CROOKED SQUARE

  The MEGAPACK® Ebook Series

  COPYRIGHT INFO

  E. Hoffmann Price’s Pierre d’Artois: Occult Detective & Associates MEGAPACK® is copyright © 2017 by Wildside Press, LLC. All rights reserved.

  * * * *

  The MEGAPACK® ebook series name is a trademark of Wildside Press, LLC. All rights reserved.

  * * * *

  “The Word of Santiago” was originally published in Weird Tales, February 1926. Copyright © 1926, renewed 1953 by Weird Tales.

  “The Peacock’s Shadow” was originally published in Weird Tales, November 1926.

  “The Bride of the Peacock” was originally published in Weird Tales, August 1932. Copyright © 1932, renewed 1960 by Steinberg Press.

  “The Return of Balkis” was originally published in Weird Tales, April 1933. Copyright © 1933, renewed 1961 by Blanchard Press, Inc.

  “Lord of the Fourth Axis” was originally published in Weird Tales, November 1933. Copyright © 1933, renewed 1961 by Blanchard Press, Inc.

  “The Devil’s Crypt” was originally published in Strange Detective Stories, January 1934.

  “Satan’s Garden” was originally published in Weird Tales, April 1934.

  “Queen of the Lilin” was originally published in Weird Tales, November 1934.

  “One Arabian Night” was originally published in Spicy-Adventure Stories, November 1934.

  “Silver Peacock” was originally published in All Detective Magazine, May 1933.

  “The King’s Peacock” was originally published in Clues Magazine, December 1933. Copyright © 1933, renewed 1961 by Street & Smith Publications.

  “Scarlet Rendezvous” was originally published in Spicy-Adventure Stories, April, 1936, under the pseudonym “Clark Nelson.”

  “Triangle by Arrangement” was originally published in Spicy-Adventure Stories, May 1936.

  “Treasure from Kurdistan” was originally published in Spicy-Adventure Stories, August 1936, under the title “No Questions Asked” under the pseudonym “Ralph Carle.”

  “Chaste Goddess” was originally published in Spicy-Adventure Stories, October 1936.

  “Double Catspaw” was originally published in Spicy-Detective Stories, December 1936.

  “Pit of Madness” was originally published in Spicy Mystery Stories, April 1936.

  “Pale Hands” was originally published in The Magic Carpet Magazine, October 1933.

  “Live Bait” was originally published in Alibi, April 1934.

  “The Crooked Square” was originally published in Strange Detective Stories, February 1934.

  A NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER

  I’m pleased to present another collection of E. Hoffmann Price’s stories for your reading pleasure, this one devoted to the occult detective Pierre d’Artois (along with some similar stories featuring other heroes). Please leap ahead to the introduction by Alexander Kreitner for all the details. And special thanks to editor Shawn Garrett for putting it together so well.

  Enjoy!

  —John Betancourt

  Publisher, Wildside Press LLC

  www.wildsidepress.com

  ABOUT THE SERIES

  Over the last few years, our MEGAPACK® ebook series has grown to be our most popular endeavor. (Maybe it helps that we sometimes offer them as premiums to our mailing list!) One question we keep getting asked is, “Who’s the editor?”

  The MEGAPACK® ebook series (except where specifically credited) are a group effort. Everyone at Wildside works on them. This includes John Betancourt (me), Carla Coupe, Steve Coupe, Shawn Garrett, Helen McGee, Bonner Menking, Sam Cooper, Helen McGee and many of Wildside’s authors…who often suggest stories to include (and not just their own!)

  RECOMMEND A FAVORITE STORY?

  Do you know a great classic science fiction story, or have a favorite author whom you believe is perfect for the MEGAPACK® ebook series? We’d love your suggestions! You can post them on our message board at http://wildsidepress.forumotion.com/ (there is an area for Wildside Press comments).

  Note: we only consider stories that have already been professionally published. This is not a market for new works.

  TYPOS

  Unfortunately, as hard as we try, a few typos do slip through. We update our ebooks periodically, so make sure you have the current version (or download a fresh copy if it’s been sitting in your ebook reader for months.) It may have already been updated.

  If you spot a new typo, please let us know. We’ll fix it for everyone. You can email the publisher at [email protected] or use the message boards above.

  INTRODUCTION, by Alexander Kreitner

  Welcome to E. Hoffmann Price’s Pierre d’Artois: Occult Detective & Associates MEGAPACK®! Wildside Press, in association with Mr. Price’s heirs, are dedicated to making the extensive body of work of this pulpsmith extraordinaire accessible once again to the public through our line of MEGAPACK® collections.

  Edgar Hoffman Price (July 3, 1898–June 18, 1988) was a prolific pulp writer who got his start writing for Weird Tales and became a peripheral member of the Lovecraft Circle of weird fiction writers. He served in the military during World War I and his time overseas and love of adventure and martial feats flavored his later pulp writings; an interest that was not at all hypothetical as his life story can attest. He started out as a hobbyist, selling two stories to Weird Tales in 1924, but after leaving his job at the Union Carbide Corporation in 1932, Price became a professional “fictioneer” as he called it, writing extensively for the pulps until they began to fold in the early 1950s. His biggest claim to fame was being the only individual who personally met the “triumvirate” of Weird Tales authors: H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, and Clark Ashton Smith, all of whom he corresponded with for many years.

  This collection contains all the stories featuring Price’s swashbuckling, French occult detective Pierre d’Artois, as well as the adventures of Glenn Farrell, a character who is a compatriot of d’Artois. Price patterned his d’Artois character after a fencing instructor he knew (real name withheld to avoid comparisons to Price’s creation). Sadly, because Pierre d’Artois and Jules de Grandin—Seabury Quinn’s own French occult detective—premiered in Weird Tales at almost the same time, many came to believe that Price had copied Quinn’s character. In order to avoid that impression, Price withdrew his character after only nine stories were published. As an interesting side note, the d’Artois story “Lord of the Fourth Axis” (not included here due to copyright issues) inspired Price’s fourth-dimensional ideas that went into his initial draft of what became his collaboration wi
th Lovecraft, “Through the Gates of the Silver Key” (available in The 11th Golden Age of Weird Fiction MEGAPACK®: E. Hoffmann Price). Also of note, this package contains the story “One Arabian Night,” wherein d’Artois & Farrell enter another of Price’s series milieu, the world of Ismeddin (if you enjoy that story, check out E. Hoffmann Price’s Fables of Ismeddin MEGAPACK® for more of the series.)

  It would be fair to say that Price’s character Glenn Farrell is a fictional stand-in for Price himself: a world-wise, rough-and-tumble lover of exotic women. He also visits many of the foreign lands that Price was so fascinated with and, in the case of Bayonne, France (where d’Artois lives), Price actually served there in the military (along with a brief stint in the Phillipines, another of Price’s favorite locales). Many of Price’s later detective, adventure, and “spicy pulp” heroes bear a striking resemblance to Farrell and take place in similar locales and this pulp-friendly personality is what kept Price in business for so many years, eventually publishing—by his own calculations—over 500 stories for various pulp and slick magazines. Wildside Press is proud to make his work available again to readers. Due to the inaccessibility of much of Price’s work (he kept no manuscript archive and so we must resort to those original publication copies we can track down) we have decided to package the material into themed Megapacks, highlighting specific genres he worked in. Later volumes will be released as we gather further material (any collectors interested in aiding our endeavors by supplying photocopies from their collections are urged to contact Wildside through our website: http://wildsidepress.com/).

  We hope you enjoy these occult adventures. Here is a list of other collections of Price’s work in the MEGAPACK® series (some already available, others out shortly):

  E. Hoffmann Price’s Two-Fisted Detective MEGAPACK®

  E. Hoffmann Price’s War And Western Action MEGAPACK®

  E. Hoffmann Price’s Exotic Adventures MEGAPACK®

  The 11th Golden Age of Weird Fiction MEGAPACK®: E. Hoffmann Price

  E. Hoffmann Price’s Fables of Ismeddin MEGAPACK®

  E. Hoffmann Price’s Pierre d’Artois: Occult Detective & Associates MEGAPACK®

  The E. Hoffmann Price Spicy-Adventure MEGAPACK®

  THE WORD OF SANTIAGO

  Originally published in Weird Tales, February 1926.

  In a sombre, black-tapestried room of a château perched high on a Pyreneean crest overlooking both France and Spain, was an altar, a block of teakwood whose thirty-three grotesquely carved panels depicted the thirty-three strange diversions of gods and men: age-old monstrosities, bold in their antique frankness; unsavory survivals of primitive fancies; the materialized visions of unhallowed Asian mysteries.

  On either side of this altar stood the silver effigy of a peacock, whose outspread fan rose, and, drooping forward, joined that of its mate so as to form a canopy, a miniature shrine. Before this shrine smoldered two brazen censers whose pale fumes serpentined caressingly about the slim, three-edged épée whose keen point was embedded in the teakwood pedestal. The bell guard and grip of the blade were severely plain; but the pommel was crowned with the tiny image of a silver peacock whose painted fan was star-dusted with pale sapphires, cool emeralds, flaring rubies, and fiercely glittering diamonds. Such was the shrine, and such the deity thereof.

  The heavy door of the room opened silently, admitting into the sombre twilight the tall, black-robed figure of Don Santiago, the acolyte of that strange altar. Moving as one who walks in a dream, the Spaniard advanced and struck light to the thirty-three black tapers about the altar. Their red, wavering flames filled the room with a flickering, sinister glow, revealing groups of grotesques embroidered in silver thread upon the room’s black, silken draperies, each group marking one of the four cardinal points of the compass.

  Retreating a pace, the Spaniard, arms extended, faced the four points, before each inclining his head as in salutation. Last of all he bowed low before the shrine, its silver peacocks, and slender, frosty white blade.

  “I prefer Cain to Abel, and Nimrud to Javeh,” he intoned sonorously; “I prefer Esau to Jacob and Iblis to Allah; and Thee, Malik Taûs, I exalt above gods and all powers; and to Thee, Omnipotent Rebel, I raise my prayer and lift my eyes.”

  He paused, touched with his fingertips first his temples, then his lips; then, crossing his arms on his breast, the Spaniard made obeisance once more before that gleaming shrine.

  “Lord of the Outer Marches, Prince of the Borderland, hear my prayer and grant my desire! Grant me victory over the arrogant one, grant me the defeat of him who mocks at Thy servants, of him who made of me a show and a mockery. Thou who rulest the world, Thou who hast made the world Thine own, hear me, Malik Taûs, Lord Peacock, hear me and give me the strength to prevail over him who holdeth Thee in scorn, him who hath offended Thy servant. Hear me, High Sovereign, Rebel Prince, Dark Lord! Thou who art power made absolute, Thousand-Eyed Malik Taûs, hear me and grant me victory!”

  The flickering tapers rose to tall, sinuous flames; the censers fumed in heavy, twining serpents. With a final obeisance, Don Santiago turned from the altar. But ere he could gain the door, it opened to admit an intruder.

  “And what may be your pleasure?” demanded Don Santiago, confronting his visitor.

  Somewhere, at some time, he had seen those lean, haughty features, those cold, relentless eyes, that tall, erect form.

  The intruder smiled with the cool reserve of the superior person in the presence of one almost his equal, then, looking the Spaniard squarely in the eye, made a curious, fleeting gesture with his left hand, as with his right he flung aside a fold of his cape.

  “What? Am I then unknown to you, Don Santiago?”

  Don Santiago started, blinked in amazement, then bowed low in recognition of the gesture and of the peacock that flamed on the stranger’s breast.

  “Welcome, Lord and Master! And my prayer… Will it be granted?”

  “Don Santiago,” began the Spaniard’s visitor, “you have served me well, and I am appreciative. But your request passes the limits of reason. This one prayer I can not grant. You have challenged d’Artois to meet you in secret, by moonlight at the Spring of St. Leon, to engage in mortal combat; and now you pray for victory. Know then that this d’Artois serves me well, and as truly as you do; and I can not permit you to slay him.”

  “Serves you?” queried the Spaniard in amazement. “Master, he is not of the elect; he serves your Adversary, the Nazarene whom we defy and scorn.”

  The Master smiled sardonically.

  “Nonsense, Santiago! Was it not once said by the Adversary, ‘All that take the sword shall perish by the sword’? And has not this d’Artois fought several duels, in each meeting slaying his opponent, so that it is now unlawful for him to fight a duel in France? Now were I to permit him to fall by your hand, would I not be testifying to the truth of that which was spoken in Galilee a very long time ago?”

  “But,” protested Santiago, “d’Artois always has a just cause, defending that to which you are opposed. He is a true servant of the Nazarene.”

  The Lord Peacock smiled scornfully.

  “It is also written, ‘And to him that striketh thee on one cheek, offer also the other.’ And therefore, d’Artois, though he never met me face to face as you have, yet serves me well; for instead of offering his other cheek, he draws a keen blade which he handles with a skill that even I could envy.

  “Santiago,” continued the Master, with a half-sorrowful, half-quizzical smile, “how I am misunderstood, even by my servants! Do you not yet know that all the strong, the proud, the haughty and willful serve me, whether or not they acknowledge me? Do you not know that many a man who leads a life of magnificent vice and monumental folly, instead of serving me, serves the Nazarene instead, seeing that he is an example whereof the priests avail themselves to seduce the world from me? And do you not know that those who forsak
e their luxurious sins to follow the Nazarene serve me best of all, since they, in telling of their redemption, entice those who dare sin only after having been assured of the efficacy of repentance, and of eventual forgiveness? Have you ever thought that this Nazarene in his humility is more arrogant than I in my colossal pride, which led me to prefer elemental fire and abysmal darkness to servitude and bondage? Santiago, even you, the most faithful and talented of my servants, do not understand me.”

  Malik Taûs sighed as does one burdened with the cares of a universe.

  “No, Santiago, I can not turn against him who, though unwittingly, serves me as well as you. In a word, I forbid this meeting; for d’Artois is the more skilful, and will surely slay you. Nor can I let you slay him; for in either case, I lose, and my empery is diminished. In these degenerate days when civilization has nearly outlawed dueling, should I not prize those rare few who love the sword, and contrive to use it well?”

  “But, Master,” persisted the Spaniard, “I have given my word; I can not withdraw my challenge. Is then your promise of success in all my ventures thus to be canceled in my hour of need?”

  “You can and you shall withdraw, Santiago,” commanded the Master sternly, his dark eyes gleaming menacingly. “You shall not keep this rendezvous. I forbid it.”

  The Spaniard glared defiantly into the cold, fierce eyes of the Master.

  “Malik Taûs, my word is good, even though you fail in yours. And therefore do I deny and disown you, and defy you to the uttermost. For whatever may be the penalty, in this world or the next, my word freely given must and shall be kept.”

  “And I, Don Santiago,” came the cool response, “shall devise so that you shall not keep it. Therefore accept my warning, and beware my wrath. Vaya con Dios,” he concluded with a mocking smile.

  And with a courtly bow the Master turned and departed.

  “Fraud! Impostor!” snarled Don Santiago.

  Seizing from the tapestried wall an ancient battle-ax, he battered beyond all recognition the silver peacocks, and utterly defaced the obscenely carved altar of teak. But the slim sword remained true and straight and faultless, resisting his efforts to snap it across his knee.