by Don Wilcox
CHAPTER IX
Firelight and Spotlight
Katherine Knight wired that she would come by plane as soon as she could wangle a day off, and two weeks later she made ft.
“That letter of yours got me,” she said, as they taxied up the Rocky Hill Drive. “I couldn’t take it—you falling in over your head that way—all those superstitions, I mean. We’ve got to talk it out, Yolanda.”
But at first Yolanda was too excited over Seeing Katherine again to hear what she was saying.
“How you’ve changed!” She exclaimed it several times in the course of their taxi ride. This new Katherine Knight, the daringly beautiful, confident dancer, was like something out of a surprise package.
That evening in the big living room of the Rocky Hill mansion they sat around the fireplace, keeping up a lively chatter, steering their talk away from things that mattered. The mansion could never be the same with Jolly John How gone.
A shutter rattled.
A nervous old uncle trudged through the hallway, muttering that he had seen the face of the devil peering in at the south porch window, and he was going to bed before he started seeing blue snakes.
Katherine laughed, saying that Yolanda’s eccentric relatives were always seeing things; then the two girls began recalling the childish stories they used to believe about ghosts and goblins.
Another shutter squeaked, and Yolanda drew herself up sharply.
“There could be someone spying on us, you know.”
She saw that her fright was only amusing to Katherine. She sat down again and resolved to dismiss her apprehensions.
“That comes from taking your superstitions seriously,” Katherine laughed.
They drew closer to the dark glowing fireplace, and Yolanda waited silently for what she knew was coming.
“I couldn’t believe it when you wrote me those things,” Katherine said presently. “All those coincidences about the accidents that happen to your paper dolls and to the people they represent. Some folks might be led to kid themselves about such things. But you—”
Yolanda could not take her eyes off the fire. There were mighty secrets in her heart. It would have helped so much if she could only talk them to Katherine. But the barrier was growing formidable between them.
Then, too, there could be ears listening from the dark hiding places. “If the lawyer became a success because you put him in a gold frame,” said Katherine, “I’ve no doubt you have all your paper dolls in gold frames by now, you’re so good-hearted.”
Yolanda nodded.
“If it would only work,” she mused, “think what I could do for people.”
“Gee, you’re all serious down in your heart, aren’t you?” said Katherine. She drew a deep breath. “Listen, pal, I’ve changed since the days I was scared to tell you I knew how to dance: now I’m looking the world in the eye. I know a plenty about a lot of things. I see a lot of these mind readers and fortune tellers, and so on.”
“I’m not a fortune teller. I’m just—wondering if I can give a little boost to lots of people.”
“Look, kid, you’ve told me that when something funny happens to your paper doll originals, that something happens to the person himself. Isn’t that fortune telling? That’s your angle, isn’t it?”
“I suppose—”
“Well, of all the mindreaders and fortune tellers, do any of them go around saving the world? And the astrologers: do they stop wars and accidents and floods and fires?”
“They try to warn people of dangers. I’d do it too if I had a premonition that a lot of people were in trouble. Wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t you prevent it if you could?”
“Maybe, when you put it that way,” said Katherine. “But what I’m saying is, you’re not cut out for a racket like that. Because folks don’t live by giving away free warnings. They live by renting themselves a hole in the wall and nailing up a shingle and ballyhooing for business. Maybe I’m looney, but I claim you’re too much of an artist to fall for that line. So what are you going to do?”
“You’re the one giving the free warnings,” Yolanda said, smiling “What do you advise?”
“I’ll hatch up something. As soon as I get in a bigger show I’ll pull you in to design the stage. Honest, if I could just get a break, I’d work up some sort of doll dance, and have you fix up the set with a thousand cut-outs, all colors.”
Katherine’s daydream grew bright. The fire was dying, and now most of the light came from the glow of a picture at the rear of the living room, with an electric lamp bordering the upper edge of the frame.
Katherine noticed it for the first time and gave an amused ejaculation.
“Yolanda! It’s a paper doll of me! All in a big frame under a floodlight. Whatever made you—”
“Like it?” Yolanda asked quietly. “I think it looks well in this big room.”
“Gee.”
“You do like it, don’t you!” Yolanda watched the curious expressions of delight play over Katherine’s attractive face.
“You are serious about this thing!” Katherine gasped. “You’re trying to do something big for me . . . I wish—”
“What?”
“That you wouldn’t. It’s swell of you and all that, but you’re on the skids for big disappointments. I mean, if you think you can go on this way controlling people’s lives. . . . Yolanda, do you remember the old paper doll you made of a boy that came from China to visit you one time—years ago when we were kids?”
“Carter O’Connor? Of course. Whatever made you think of it?”
“I still have it,” said Katherine. “I thought you ought to know, seeing that you’re so much in earnest about all this.”
“But you lost it.”
“Yes—and found it again—and never told you. I don’t know why. Maybe it was because we had quarreled over him.” Katherine’s lively expression was lost in a mood of unusual gravity. Her voice was sympathetic, now, and contrite. “I’m sorry, Yolanda. It seemed a little thing at the time.”
“Of course . . . But I’m glad you told me. I don’t know whether he’s living or dead. I was wondering the other day.”
“You supposed him dead because his doll had been lost?”
“Yes.”
Another silence.
“Anyway,” Katherine concluded, “I still have the doll in my scrapbook. It’s yours. I’ll give it back to you this very hour. I’ll call a taxi—”
The ring of the telephone interrupted.
It was a long distance from New York. The operator was trying to locate Katherine Knight.
Katherine took the receiver.
“Yes? . . . What? . . . The International Theatrical Circuit?” Katherine was breathless. “Yes . . . Yes . . . The salary? . . . At least two hundred a week? . . . Of course, those details can be worked out later . . . Two weeks on the West Coast? . . . Yes, and then? . . . Hawaii, Manila . . .”
Yolanda did not hear all of the conversation, for the shutter caught her attention again, and this time she saw a man’s face peering in through the frosty window. The face jerked away.
She crossed to a library table, opened a drawer, closed her hand over a small black pistol.
Slowly she advanced to the front door, carefully opened it, and gazed out into the darkness across the dim snow. The eavesdropper had trampled a path along the windows. Now he was making a swift retreat, marked by a slight flurry of snow down around the east side of the house toward the driveway.
She watched until the dark form melted into the blackness a block away, out of range of the streetlight. Trembling, she returned to Katherine.
Katherine was dancing, laughing, squealing in a sort of dizzy, hilarious rhapsody.
“I’ve made it, Yolie! I’ve made it! The International Circuit! I’m in!” Yolanda tried to get a grip on herself. Her fingers were quivering as she quickly replaced the pistol in the drawer.
But Katherine was too intoxicated with elation to notice.
“It’s the break
of a lifetime, Yolie! In two weeks I’ll sail for the Orient. All those swanky theaters—Singapore—Bangkok—everywhere! It’ll be your chance too, Yolie! I’ll make them give me a stage designer.”
“I knew you’d make it, Katherine.”
“Gee, I’ve done it. It was just a matter of hard work—”
“Hard work,” Yolanda echoed. “And a break now and then, the same as anyone gets. And keeping myself under the spotlight.”
Yolanda nodded; but she couldn’t say anything now.
Then she saw that Katherine was looking toward the end of the room where the light shone down on a dancing doll in a massive picture frame.
In that moment the glorious triumph in Katherine’s eyes gave way to a look of confusion. Her voice was tense with excitement, but the laughter had chilled.
“I’ve got to celebrate, Yolanda. I’ll fly back to New York tonight. They’ll all want to hear the big news. Get a taxi for me, Yolanda. I’ll go back at once. You’ll be hearing from me, pal. And—take it easy on those phoney ideas.”
CHAPTER X
Tolozell Sets a Trap
Tolozell paced the wide carved steps of the Temple.
In the polished green marble at either end of the curved ascent he would catch a green reflection of himself; and the pleasure he derived from the sight kept him roving from one side of the portico to the other.
Jeff Cotton came up from the rickshaw path.
“Aren’t they through with their damned pounding yet? They were supposed to have this Temple Hotel in running order by today.”
“Operation begins,” said Tolozell, “whenever guests arrive. I am a guest. You are the proprietor. The Temple Hotel is running.”
“I’ll be one hell of a proprietor,” Jeff growled, “having to run to you for all decisions. We’ll be lucky if the civil authorities don’t get onto us and nose us out before there’s time to do any good.”
“Peace, Jeff Cotton. We’re as solid as this marble. The Chiams don’t know us. Your old-time Nazi connections have been lost in the dust of time. You wear a good American name. You’ve just come from overseas with a wad of dough—”
“It’s damned little I’ve seen of it so far.”
“And you’ve planted yourself here to run a hotel for show people. I’m a showman. I pay rent on your swankiest suite—”
“It’ll be a hot day in the Arctic when you pay rent,” said Jeff Cotton; but for all his growling he was very much a part of Tolozell’s frame up.
“And so,” Tolozell went on, “you are sitting pretty in a fine prosperous business all your own.”
“With you over my shoulder every time I ring the cash register.”
“The guests who come and go will remark what a handsome proprietor you are—how tall and blond and stately.”
“Just so none of ’em recognize me as a former handbill man.”
“And when you tell them farewell with your politest bow, and call a rickshaw for them and wish them godspeed, they’ll never guess that your station in life is that of a hypnotist’s attendant.”
“Oh, shut up. Give me a rest, will you? Have they finished installing my private bath? I’m wringing with sweat. I’ll never get used to this sultry country.”
“This sultry country,” said Tolozell, pausing to admire his reflection, “holds much for you and me. Don’t get restless and fly the coop like your old thorn- in-the-flesh, George Wilmington.”
“Don’t worry. I’m not fool enough to play lone wolf. He can shoot the rapids in a barrel if he wants to, but—”
“But he’ll end up by getting himself shot,” Tolozell added with crisp finality. He walked down the steps and out into the garden.
Jeff Cotton followed after him.
“Have you found a man for the job?”
“Not yet,” said Tolozell. “Wait till your hotel business starts. There’ll be a handy man around every few minutes.”
“Then you have thrown our scheme open to the Jap Imperialists?”
Tolozell turned on Jeff Cotton with sullen anger.
“Who do you think has backed us all these years? How do you think we slipped through the Chiam authorities to grab this temple for ourselves? I’ve told you all along that this is no private deal.”
Jeff Cotton lashed back with venom. “No, Tolo. I’ve seen you shake down too many customers to believe you’ll let a treasure slip through your fingers. And if you think that I’m going to sit by—”
He cut short, for Tolozell’s right hand doubled into an ugly fist, and the tic of his left hand was working at high speed.
“To spare the hotel a proprietor with a black eye,” the Siamese hypnotist spat, “I restrain myself. Haven’t I told you a hundred times that there’s enough of the stuff to swim in if we can only find it?”
An angry silence held between the two men for several minutes. Tolozell moved on through the garden grounds, stopping to feign a dainty attention upon each separate flower.
Jeff Cotton followed along after him. There was-much more that Jeff would have said if he had dared. He filled with rage when he thought how Tolozell’s promises of wealth had shattered out.
Once in America they had been hot on the trail, it seemed. They had found the old Chinese who was famous for his having re-hidden the Chiam treasure. And when they lifted the map he carried, the precious gems were all but spilling down over their fingers.
But that innocent dumbbell, the second attendant, had flown the coop and snitched the map on the fly.
Did Tolozell have that map memorized? Were its details clear enough that he had been able to freeze onto its landmarks?
Jeff Cotton couldn’t be sure. There had been time for only a few hours of concentrated study, and Tolozell had acted none too well satisfied.
But that didn’t mean anything, for Tolozell was always acting.
The map had flown, John How had died, and Tolozell had utterly failed to win any hypnotic power over the girl who was John How’s confidante.
But Jeff Cotton knew that he had likewise failed in one of his maneuvers:
That wintry night when he had spied on Yolanda Lavelle, he had expected her to betray to her dancer friend all that she knew of John How’s secrets.
She had betrayed nothing. Nothing but her impractical superstitions about paper dolls, and her very practical boldness in handling a pistol.
Jeff Cotton didn’t like pistols. J He didn’t mind being Tolozell’s front man, to shake the hands of prospective victims and ring the cash registers; but he wanted no messing with gunfire.
He had never reported to Tolozell that he had been scared away from the Rocky Hill mansion by a gun. He had only given an account of Yolanda Lavelle’s silly superstitions and Katherine Knight’s promotion to the International Circuit.
Those items had been enough to restore Tolozell’s hopes.
“Another year and we’ll be swimming in rubies,” Tolozell had said.
“You’ll not forget that I jerked the wire on the sledge hammer,” Jeff Cotton had mentioned, not too discreetly.
“How could I forget?” Tolozell had retorted.
With the map and John How both gone, Tolozell and Jeff had hastened back across the Pacific to keep guard over the likely crossroads of treasure hunters. When they succeeded in pulling the wool over the eyes of the civil authorities, Tolozell again became optimistic.
“Sooner or later they’ll find their way to us,” Tolozell would say in his moments of confidence. “We’ll erase Wilmington and embrace the girl.”
Now as Jeff Cotton tagged along through the temple garden, observing the subtle mockery in the hypnotist’s attention to the flowers, he was aware that the sound of hammers from inside the Temple Hotel had ceased. The plumbers and carpenters had been ordered to silence their work if any customers should arrive on the premises.
He looked back to see an American girl getting out of a rickshaw.
One of the attendants came running out to him.
“Mr. Cotton, yo
ur honor, there is a lady, Miss Katherine Knight, to see you.”
CHAPTER XI
Katherine Walks into the Web
The Temple Hotel, thought Katherine Knight, was the most exotic and therefore the most thrilling hotel she had ever seen.
The service was a trifle slow now and then, for the place was comparatively new, she had been told.
She and the other guests from the International Circuit troupe had their dinner out in the garden where they could see the full view of the temple reflected in a crystal pool.
Spaced through the garden were dainty little pagodas and curious Siamese statuary. The dinner party talk ran to speculations regarding the fabulous wealth of this great country in the years before the second world war.
Everyone agreed that all the modernizing was a blessing to the cosmopolitan world of tourists and business. Any ornamental temple was a more delightful place when turned into suites of rooms with baths.
The group laughed to discover that their talk struck one of the waiters as indecent blasphemy. But his rude anger was cut short by a cuff from the big yellow-haired hotel proprietor.
Katherine caught her breath. She kept telling herself that she had seen that proprietor before.
An impressive silence came over the dinner party presently. Across the crystal pool a very distinguished-looking Oriental seated himself. His heavy, brutal face turned neither to the right nor the left.
“That’s Tolozell, the famous Siamese hypnotist,” someone at Katherine’s table whispered.
“This hotel does attract famous people,” said another. “I’d give anything to meet him.”
Katherine reached for her purse impulsively and scribbled on a note pad.
Mr. Tolozell—This is a pleasure to dine within view of the famous showman who started me on my dancing career.—Katherine Knight.