XXIX
THE WRATH OF CHO-SAN
Feet stamped and flashlights blazed through the office building of thelocal Intelligence Bureau. Above the sounds of disciplined search,Michael Splendor's great voice could be heard roaring questions andorders.
There had been two or three minutes time, however, between the momentthe lights went out and the organization of a flashlight brigade. Inthat brief space the emissaries of Scorpia had pulled off theircarefully planned raid and departed. As souvenirs of their visit theyhad left two drugged and unconscious detectives outside an upper floorroom.
Count Borg had vanished, snatched from under the noses of Hammond's bestmen; and no one had seen him go. The fact was a stunning blow to theBureau chief; but to Splendor, it was just one more challenge to fight.
"Find out how many men ye've got here now, Hammond!" he bellowed downthe corridor. "Bring them back to the main office so I can look themover. If I spot no spies among them, we'll start at once."
The office lights were still out, but darkness was no obstacle to thegray-haired cripple. Holding an electric torch in his teeth, hepropelled his wheel chair through the door and around the long oak tablewhich ran almost the length of the room. Satisfied that no prowlerslurked in the shadows, he took his place beside the single entrance andwaited.
Moments later, Hammond finished rounding up his force of deputies. As heled them down the corridor toward the main office Splendor's bull voicehailed him.
"Stand opposite me, Hammond," the veteran ordered, "and let your menpass between us one by one. That way we'll be sure there's no traitoramong them!"
As he spoke there was a sudden stir among the group of men outside. Itended briefly with a cry of discovery.
"I've got him, sir!" cried one of the deputies. "This fellow didn't wantto stand inspection, I guess. I caught him trying to slip away!"
Spotlighted by a score of torch beams, the culprit was pushed forward tothe door. In his light topcoat he looked like a slim boy, hanging hishead as if in shame.
A flick of Hammond's hand knocked off the low pulled fedora and broughta gasp from every onlooker. The youthful face, under a mass of tightlywound hair, was Mercedes Colby's.
"I don't care--I'm going with you anyway!" the girl exploded, turningupon Michael Splendor. "I'm no fluffy, helpless child to be sent to bedwhen there's a real job of work to do! If a man with no legs can riskhis life to help Don Winslow, so can a girl. And you're not going tostop me!"
Throwing off the borrowed topcoat, Mercedes stood there slim and defiantin her boyish flying togs. Her clear eyes glowed like battle lanterns inthe light of Splendor's torch beam. Before the veteran could frame areply, a voice outside in the corridor drew everyone's attention.
"Good for you, Mercedes!" cried Don Winslow, striding up the corridorwith Red at his heels. "You're not the only woman who's risking her lifetonight in the cause of humanity. When he knows the truth, even Mr.Splendor won't try to keep you back!"
Don's arrival acted like a powerful stimulant to the spirits of everyonethere. What had seemed a dangerous duty to most of Hammond's hard-boileddeputies, now took on the color of high adventure. There was somethingin the young Commander's presence which always fired men to eagerloyalty, and they expressed it now in a muffled cheer.
Briefly Don outlined the situation up to the moment he and Red had leftSuzette. In return Hammond told him of Count Borg's disappearance, andthe preparations made up to then.
Each deputy, the Bureau chief explained, was armed with two pistols.Half of them carried Thompson submachine guns and the rest a supply oftear gas bombs. There were extra weapons and gas masks in the office, hesaid, from which Don and Red could choose.
"I can't see that there's any need to wait, then," said Don. "As soon asMr. Splendor has finished his inspection, we can start!"
For weapons, both the Navy officers selected regulation Enfield rifles,which could be used as terrible clubs in hand-to-hand fighting.Mercedes, still insistent on going along, was fitted out with abulletproof vest under her light topcoat. Her weapons consisted of apair of automatics, one loaded with tear gas cartridges. The three ofthem were the last to pass Michael Splendor's swift inspection.
At his own signal, the veteran was lifted pickaback to the shoulders ofa powerful deputy, and carried at the head of his fifty men to the carswaiting outside. With a few low spoken words, the deputies jammed intothe vehicles. Doors slammed, starters whirred, and the raiding party wason its way, speeding through the foggy streets.
Twenty minutes later, the leading car braked to a stop in front ofCho-San's darkened shop. As the others lined up behind it, the crippledbut dauntless leader headed the silent rush of fighting men across thestreet.
At the shop door Don and Red caught up with him. The knob turned easilyat the young Commander's touch. An instant later ten flashlight beamspicked out the small figure of Suzette, waiting in the center of theroom.
"Thank Heaven you are arrive, _Messieurs_!" the girl exclaimed. "Thelittle Lotus still lives, and they have just brought in Count Borg.Follow me quickly if you would save them!"
* * * * *
Deep under the fortresslike mansion of Cho-San, a huge room had beenhollowed out of the native earth and rock. Across one end of itstretched a platform, equipped with lights to produce every sort ofstage effect. The room's main floor space was filled with regulartheater seats enough to accommodate two hundred persons.
At present more than half of the seats were occupied. Men and women ofall nationalities sat conversing in twenty different tongues anddialects. As if to add drama to the scene, each appeared in his nativecostume, however outlandish it happened to be. There were dark men fromIndia, Morocco, and the South Sea Islands; black men from Africa, andyellow men from the Far East. Mingled with these were fair-skinned womenfrom North and South America and from the glittering capitals ofEurope--a strangely varied and colorful assembly!
Yet for all their differences of age, sex and race, these people had onetrait in common. It was an expression of reckless cruelty, like a brandburned deep into their very souls.
There was nothing strange about that, of course, for these were the keymen and women of Scorpia, the chief spies and agents of a world-widecrime club. Success for them meant always disaster for civilizednations--revolutions, wars, and bloody conquests, from which theScorpion's brood could pick their illegal wealth.
The sound of hard-voiced laughter and conversation died suddenly. Weirdmusic throbbed out from some hidden source. Slowly the great curtain ofpurple velvet rolled back upon a scene of medieval horror.
Three spotlights threw a merciless radiance upon the darkened stage. Inthe center stood Cho-San, robed in the rich silks of Ancient China, hishands clasped under loose sleeves. Motionless as a statue, his hugefigure dominated the scene.
At Cho-San's right a second spotlight circled a great wooden wheel, towhose spokes had been lashed the body of a girl. Still clad in her whitesatin evening gown, Lotus' young beauty was in tragic contrast with herstiff, tortured pose.
The third part of the gruesome tableau was a heavy wooden stretcher, orrack, to which a man was bound by hands and feet. So taut were the ropesthat another turn of the machine's windlass would have jerked his jointsapart.
All this the audience took in before the first gasp of astonishmentescaped their lips. Like a wind through dry branches a harsh whisperswept across the room:--
"The Lotus! Count Borg! _What does it mean, Cho-San?_"
The whisper died into silence. Openmouthed the assembled agents ofScorpia sat staring at the terrible, unspoken wrath of Cho-San. As theywatched, the towering figure of the Chinese seemed to swell andpalpitate with voiceless fury.
When it came, his first word rolled out like an organ's shuddering bass.
"Treason!" he thundered. "Treason to the power of Scorpia! These two,about to die in torment, dared to defy the Master;
and I, Cho-San,accuse them before you all!"
Don Winslow of the Navy Page 29