The strange deeds of Antony Ferrara, as herein related, are intended to illustrate certain phases of Sorcery as it was formerly practised (according to numerous records) not only in Ancient Egypt but ...

Robert Cairn looked out across the quadrangle. The moon had just arisen, and it softened the beauty of the old college buildings, mellowed the harshness of time, casting shadow pools beneath the clois...

A week later Robert Cairn quitted Oxford to take up the newspaper appointment offered to him in London. It may have been due to some mysterious design of a hidden providence that Sime phoned him early...

Half-Moon Street was very still; midnight had sounded nearly half-an-hour; but still Robert Cairn paced up and down his father’s library. He was very pale, and many times he glanced at a book which la...

Dr. Bruce Cairn swung around in his chair, lifting his heavy eyebrows interrogatively, as his son, Robert, entered the consulting-room. Half-Moon Street was bathed in almost tropical sunlight, but alr...

Cairn stepped out of the lift, crossed the hall, and was about to walk out on to Piccadilly, when he stopped, staring hard at a taxicab which had slowed down upon the opposite side whilst the driver a...

Sixteen hours had elapsed and London’s clocks were booming eleven that night, when the uncanny drama entered upon its final stage. Once more Dr. Cairn sat alone with Sir Michael’s manuscript, but at f...

When a substantial legacy is divided into two shares, one of which falls to a man, young, dissolute and clever, and the other to a girl, pretty and inexperienced, there is laughter in the hells. But, ...

Lord Lashmore was a big, blonde man, fresh coloured, and having his nearly white hair worn close cut and his moustache trimmed in the neat military fashion. For a fair man, he had eyes of a singular c...

There was a silence of some minutes’ duration. Lord Lashmore sat staring straight before him, his fists clenched upon his knees. Then: “It was after death that the third baron developed⁠—certain quali...

Lady Lashmore proved to be far more beautiful than Dr. Cairn had anticipated. She was a true brunette with a superb figure and eyes like the darkest passion flowers. Her creamy skin had a golden quali...

The exact manner in which mental stress will effect a man’s physical health is often difficult to predict. Robert Cairn was in the pink of condition at the time that he left Oxford to take up his Lond...

Above the palm trees swept the jewelled vault of Egypt’s sky, and set amid the clustering leaves gleamed little red electric lamps; fairy lanterns outlined the winding paths and paper Japanese lamps h...

This sudden and appalling change of weather had sadly affected the mood of the gathering. That part of the carnival planned to take place in the garden was perforce abandoned, together with the firewo...

Dr. Bruce Cairn stepped into the boat which was to take him ashore, and as it swung away from the side of the liner sought to divert his thoughts by a contemplation of the weird scene. Amid the smoky ...

A man mentally overtired sleeps either dreamlessly, or dreams with a vividness greater than that characterising the dreams of normal slumber. Dr. Cairn dreamt a vivid dream. He dreamt that he was awak...

“We must find that house, find the sarcophagus⁠—for I no longer doubt that it exists⁠—drag it out, and destroy it.” “Should you know it again, sir?” “Beyond any possibility of doubt. It is the sarcoph...

Saluting each of the three in turn, the tall Egyptian passed from Dr. Cairn’s room. Upon his exit followed a brief but electric silence. Dr. Cairn’s face was very stern and Sime, with his hands locked...

Rekka was a mile behind. “It will take us fully an hour yet,” said Dr. Cairn, “to reach the pyramid, although it appears so near.” Indeed, in the violet dusk, the great mastabah Pyramid of Méydûm seem...

“There is no one here!” Sime looked about the place excitedly. “Fortunately for us!” answered Dr. Cairn. He breathed rather heavily yet with his exertions, and, moreover, the air of the chamber was di...

To Robert Cairn it seemed that the boat-train would never reach Charing Cross. His restlessness was appalling. He perpetually glanced from his father, with whom he shared the compartment, to the flyin...

Half-Moon Street was bathed in tropical sunlight. Dr. Cairn, with his hands behind him, stood looking out of the window. He turned to his son, who leant against a corner of the bookcase in the shadows...

Myra Duquesne came under an arch of roses to the wooden seat where Robert Cairn awaited her. In her plain white linen frock, with the sun in her hair and her eyes looking unnaturally large, owing to t...

Dr. Cairn walked to the window, with its old-fashioned leaded panes. A lamp stood by the bedside, and he had tilted the shade so that it shone upon the pale face of the patient⁠—Myra Duquesne. Two day...

Dr. Cairn led the way into the library, switching on the reading-lamp upon the large table. His son stood just within the doorway, his arms folded and his chin upon his breast. The doctor sat down at ...

Not the least of the trials which Robert Cairn experienced during the time that he and his father were warring with their supernaturally equipped opponent was that of preserving silence upon this matt...

For close upon an hour Robert Cairn sat at his writing-table, endeavouring to puzzle out a solution to the mystery of Ferrara’s motive. His reflections served only to confuse his mind. A tangible clue...

As Robert Cairn hung up the receiver and found himself cut off again from the outer world, he realised, with terror beyond his control, how in this quiet backwater, so near to the main stream, he yet ...

The breakfast-room of Dr. Cairn’s house in Half-Moon Street presented a cheery appearance, and this despite the gloom of the morning; for thunderous clouds hung low in the sky, and there were distant ...

Robert Cairn entered a photographer’s shop in Baker Street. “You recently arranged to do views of some houses in the West End for a gentleman?” he said to the girl in charge. “That is so,” she replied...

At dusk that evening, Dr. Cairn, his son, and Myra Duquesne met together in the library. The girl looked rather pale. An odour of incense pervaded the house, coming from the doctor’s study, wherein he...

The mists of early morning still floated over the fields, when these two, set upon strange business, walked through the damp grass to the door of the barn, where-from radiated the deathly waves which ...

“It seems exceedingly probable that⁠ ⁠… the mummy-case (sarcophagus), with its painted presentment of the living person, was the material basis for the preservation of the⁠ ⁠… Khu (magical powers) of ...