A blue automatic materialized in Pâwang Ali’s hand, and he added, “Hoist your carcass upright, instantly, brother of a pig!”
Yut Lee raised his hands and slowly rose from his chair.
“Now turn around!” commanded Pâwang Ali, intending to lash the elevated hands, then bind Yut Lee and hold him for future reference; but Pâwang Ali was caught off guard.
Yut Lee obeyed; but his fingers plucked one of the cords that descended from the lantern that hung from the ceiling, directly above his chair. The gesture registered an instant after its completion, but that split second was too long. Pâwang Ali’s pistol smacked down, driving Yut Lee to the floor; but before he could follow through, something soft and silky, like a gigantic spider web dropped from above, enveloping Pâwang Ali and entangling him in treacherous, clinging folds. His struggles served only further to enmesh him. He saw the stirring of a drape at the farther side of the room. He jerked a shot, heard a low, triumphant chuckle, and knew that he had missed. And before he could pick another target, someone yanked the draw cord of the silken net, dragging Pâwang Ali into an alcove.
“Shall we kill him now?” queried a voice.
“No,” replied Yut Lee, recovering from the glancing blow of Pâwang Ali’s pistol. “The great lord will want to speak to him. It is odd that he comes at this time to call on Li Fat.”
“But that other person we expect? Shall I replace the net?”
“No. Listen, and I will tell you how to handle him.”
And Pâwang Ali, netted like a fly in a spider’s web, knew that he had fallen into the trap designed for the impostor who would present the credentials of the American who was beheaded near Moulmain Road. Thus far, Pâwang Ali had not been recognized; but he had little doubt as to the identity of that person they called the “great lord,” who would want to question him. The Dragon’s claws had unwittingly closed about Pâwang Ali; and his silken bonds foreshadowed an iron doom.
CHAPTER IV
Shortly before Pâwang Ali and Inspector Kemp met beside the headless corpse at the junction of the Balestier and Moulmain Roads, a battered, disheveled white man watched for an instant three Malays run cursing and yelling into the darkness. Instead of pursuing them, he retrieved his bedraggled hat, scooped a sheaf of loose papers from the highway, thrust them into his pocket, and stretched long legs out the Moulmain Road. He was broad-shouldered and solid, but surprisingly agile for his bulk, else he would not have survived the dog fight he had precipitated. He covered his first hundred yards in a flat ten seconds, then swung left and headed for town at a pace that would have won him credit in any quarter-mile track event. When he finally glanced over his shoulder and saw that the three Malays had not rallied to pursue him, he slackened his gait to a fast walk. His coat was blood-drenched and slashed to ribbons; his hat brim had been shorn by the hissing blade of a parang; his face was battered and crisscrossed with cuts, and his knuckles lacerated from the bone-crushing blows with fists that had started empty, but had ended armed with a yard-long Malay kris that gleamed as venomously as a writhing serpent suddenly frozen into steel.
He halted, stared at the blade of the weapon he still gripped, and saw that half its length was dark and dripping. His grim face wrinkled in a grin.
“I’ll be pluperfectly double damned! Old man Rankin’s youngest son with a Malay Excalibur—Huh! No wonder they scattered before they finished the job of making me look like a platter of kalter-ab-schnitt. I must have got mad and hurt someone in the fracas.”
His arm shot out, sending the blade whirring into the darkness.
“Look awkward, running around town with a dohickey like that.”
Rankin resumed his brisk walk, quite unaware that if he had taken the shortest road to town instead of blundering pell-mell into the bundoks, he would have met Pâwang Ali and Inspector Kemp, two persons more than eager for a word with him. And quite as unconcerned as though faultlessly dressed for any occasion, Rankin picked his way southward through the Asiatic quarter, headed down the padang toward Hotel de l’Europe, where he had registered two days previously. He ignored the icy disapproval of the correct persons lounging in the arcade and lobby, and hastened to his room.
Rankin grimaced wryly at the battered, craggy face that mocked him from the mirror, winked a mirthfully-twinkling blue eye at his reflection, and reached for a pint flask of brandy. He lowered the level by a generous three fingers, smacked his lips, and planted himself in a chair. Then he dug a sheaf of papers from his pocket and inspected the contents, sheet by sheet.
“Too bad about Milton Farley Osborne, Esquire. But since someone had to shoot him, I might as well get a break.”
Rankin’s eyes narrowed as he studied the papers. He began to understand things that had puzzled him. The recent sourness of the Sultan of Johore was no longer the mystery it had been. Rankin frowned, jerked his chair aside, and fairly bounded to the bathroom. When he emerged, his sun-tanned face was still far from decorative, and his muscular body was awkwardly swathed in bandages made of tropical underwear torn into suitable strips; but Rankin was good for more. He hastily donned a fresh suit, stuffed the credentials of the late and headless Milton Osborne into his pocket, and stepped into the hall. His right hip pocket sagged slightly from the weight of an automatic pistol.
Rankin hailed the first ghari and directed in passable Malay, “Li Fat’s house, and shake it up!”
He realized that he might be riding toward something worse than what he had left; but after having followed Milton Osborne about Singapore all day, it was too late to retreat. He was certain that Osborne, who had arrived from the States that morning, could not yet be known to Li Fat other than by name, and it should be fairly simple to impersonate him and thus trip the sultan’s financial secretary into some compromising revelations.
“Wait till that Chinese begins to explain how the sultan is going to railroad us small plantation owners to make way for Osborne’s boss to gobble up every mining and rubber concession in Johore!”
Rankin grinned, leaned back against the cushions, and struck light to a cigarette; and then, to express enthusiasm rather than impatience, he commanded, “Jalan lekas! And that means take up the double time!”
The driver flicked his whip. The shaggy pony’s hoofs clattered out Orchard Road. Presently he pulled up before an estate that was enclosed by a tall palisade. Rankin leaped to the ground, noted a rickshaw coolie squatted near the gate, sound asleep beside his vehicle.
“Hmm—Li Fat’s entertaining, eh? Oh, well—” Rankin cleared the open gate and took the steps two at a time.
“Looking for Li Fat,” he explained to the servant who opened the door before he could reach for the brazen knocker. The coal-black Tamil, without a word, led Rankin down a passage that ran toward the rear. He paused at the door at the end, murmured a few words, then stepped aside to admit Rankin.
A moon-faced Chinese dignitary in a silken jacket sat behind a rosewood desk; not Li Fat, but Yut Lee, who had trapped Pâwang Ali and was waiting for further game.
“I have been expecting you, Mr. Osborne,” greeted Yut Lee in English so perfect that it hurdled the “r” without perceptible effort.
Rankin seated himself in the chair Yut Lee indicated, jerked it to the corner of the desk, and planted his one hand palm down on the rosewood. The other rested on his thigh, within easy reaching distance of his automatic. Osborne’s death had made him wary.
“Mighty kind of you to receive me at this hour, Mr. Li,” beamed Rankin.
They exchanged compliments and inquiries as to each other’s health. Rankin did well for an American. Finally Yut Lee edged around to the point, and began to speak of his Majesty, the Sultan of Johore.
“Before we go any further, Mr. Li,” interpolated Rankin, preparing to add the touch that would make his imposture more convincing, “let’s come to a confidential understanding.
“How much
will you turn back as my cut for purchasing these mines and plantations from the Sultan of Johore instead of negotiating in Terengganu? My orders are to bid four million United States dollars, on behalf of Clayton Industries. But if things were suitably arranged, I could stretch a point and go as high as five million. That would give you and me five hundred thousand apiece, as commission.”
“His majesty’s ministers are incorruptible,” was the uncompromising reply.
“Mmmm—well, I’ll take three hundred thousand; you take seven.”
“The sultan is shrewd, and his wrath is disagreeable.”
“Give me two fifty?” proposed Rankin.
“You interest me, but it is dangerous, Mr. Osborne.”
And that meant that Rankin’s cut would be an even two hundred thousand, were he actually the person he claimed to be. He had bargained only to pave the way for the real object of his visit. It was now time to introduce that subject.
“Before I put any cash on the line, I have to be assured that Clayton Industries won’t be stuck with a white elephant. Eight?”
“Oh, quite, Mr. Osborne. Very much so. But before we go any further, may I—purely as a matter of form—inspect your credentials?”
Rankin’s left hand reached for his inside coat pocket. Things had gone a bit too smoothly. Something warned him that he was bucking a frozen deck. The demand for credentials should have come before any discussion of the amount that was to stick to the fingers of the agents who were swinging the deal. For an instant Rankin’s eyes covered three corners of the room; then he produced the documents.
Yut Lee—impersonating Li Fat—reached for the sheaf; but as he did so, he made a flickering gesture with his left hand. The gesture was not alarming, but the sudden change of his slanted eyes warned Rankin. He still did not suspect the imposture, but the fate of the man he was impersonating had sharpened his wits.
But things happened faster than Rankin’s senses could assimilate, or his brain interpret. He moved by instinct, ducking as the entire room flared to life with a burst of deadly motion. A shimmering tongue of silver flame hissed through Rankin’s sandy hair. The blade had been hurled over the self-styled Li Fat’s shoulders as he bent forward to his desk. And when Rankin hit the floor, his pistol was chattering like a riveting hammer. Bronze clanged, shards of pottery tinkled to the floor. A Malay in a purple sarong pitched headlong into a corner, his glittering parang skating across the floor.
Lacquer screens were kicked aside. Brown men and yellow Chinese armed with every edged weapon that promotes murder in Malaya swarmed from concealment.
Smack-smack-smack! Rankin’s pistol coughed screaming slugs. A man dropped his kampilan and clutched his stomach. The coal-black Tamil staggered and fled howling into the hall. The others ducked for cover.
“Kill him!” cackled Yut Lee from the shelter of Li Fat’s desk. “Rush him, you fools!”
The back of the chair behind which Rankin had slid deflected a whistling trail of trenchment steel. Another shot. Another man. But Rankin’s pistol was nearly empty, and his last bullet would be followed by a charge en masse instead of blades hurled from shelter. He ducked a sizzling kris, and felt another bite into his leg. He jerked his pistol into line to make a desperate last-minute shot at what should have been his first target—the lamp that glowed over the rosewood desk.
“Hold it, you idiot!” roared a commanding voice. Rankin did not hold it, but his fire went wild. And despite his peril, Rankin stared for a precious instant at the tawny apparition that had emerged from the hallway leading to the rear. A steady drumming of pistol fire shook the room, then was drowned by a confusion of yells and a crashing of furniture.
A lithe, tigerish man wearing a red skull cap and a sarong that was a blistering medley of colors zigzagged dizzily across the room, firing as he bounded right and left. Pâwang Ali, loose, and on the warpath. In one fluent sweep he hurled his emptied pistol, snatched a kris from the floor, slipped beneath a shearing stroke, and slashed upward with his salvaged blade. Rankin was forgotten in the confusion that accompanied the dancing, slaying madman whose erratic, uncanny leaps and flickering strokes were simultaneously defense and attack.
Rankin snatched a chair, ducked a hurled vase, and heard wood splinter over Yut Lee’s head; but before he picked a second target, he saw that the room was clear, and heard the survivors howling as they ran down the hall and into the grounds.
He lowered his chair, and eyed the lithe, muscular fellow who remained coolly in command. And then Rankin shivered as he realized that he faced a man who could smile whimsically even while his dark eyes blazed with slaying wrath. His long, slender hand gripped a blade that dripped blood.
“If you’d shot that light out,” said Pâwang Ali, “I might have—well, opened you by mistake. And then the police inspector could hardly question you in connection with Mr. Osborne, who recently lost his head near Moulmain Road. Straight ahead, please.”
Rankin’s chin sagged to his chest. “Is this a pinch?” he finally demanded. “What the hell—you a cop?”
Pâwang Ali was for a moment baffled by the idiom; then he answered, “Ask the inspector.”
“Tickled silly,” affirmed Rankin. “Only put that damned knife away. It makes me nervous. But listen—that chink started the show, though I guess there will be the devil to pay, with the sultan’s paymaster with a busted skull.”
“That,” said Pâwang Ali, “will be the least of your troubles. That Chinese gentleman you brained is not Li Fat, the sultan’s financial secretary. I was in an awkward position myself, neatly tangled in a net. But your arrival pulled the guards from me to prepare for disposing of you, and while they were waiting for the signal to cut you down, I did some cutting myself. With an undersized knife they hadn’t bothered to look for.
“Li Fat—that is, the real Li Fat—is in the other room, with his throat cut. And your troubles will consist of convincing the inspector that you didn’t kill that Mr. Osborne you so nicely impersonated.”
As he concluded his remarks, Pâwang Ali retrieved the credentials which had been scattered in the battle. Then he marched Rankin back to town. Neither the rickshaw nor ghari had waited for passengers.
CHAPTER V
Pâwang Ali marched his prisoner into the office of Inspector Kemp, where he rendered a terse, uncolored account of the battle at Li Fat’s house.
“I would suggest,” he concluded, “that you notify the sultan of his secretary’s death—and, meanwhile, investigate the sultan’s private activities. Find out how he stands on the Asia for Asiatics question.”
“More dragons!” growled Kemp. Then he turned to Rankin and demanded his story.
“I came from Johore to Singapore,” began the American, “to find out whether the sultan has been intimidating my coolies to freeze me out of my plantation. While investigating, I got an eyeful of Milton Osborne, representing Clayton Industries, Incorporated. I’d heard they were attempting to buy up every mine and plantation in Johore. So I followed Osborne all day, trying to learn what I could from checking his moves.
“Out on Balestier Road a crew of natives ganged up on Osborne. He was shot and dragged out of his rickshaw. And while I had no damn use for his corporation, he was a white man. I grabbed a hunk of timber and piled in. My rickshaw man checked out, as I expected.
“When the fracas busted up, I saw Osborne was as dead as Julius Caesar—No, his head wasn’t chopped off. Anyway, I went through his pockets to get his papers, figuring that if I impersonated him quickly enough, I could put one over on Li Fat and find out whether the sultan was freezing me out on account of Clayton Corporation. And believe it or not, I didn’t kill Osborne.”
But before the inspector could digest the story, Pâwang Ali saw how it dovetailed with his own observations.
“It’s all clear now,” he said. “When the assassins recovered from their panic, they returned
and found Osborne’s papers gone. So they removed all identification, including his head. I learned from my assistants that Hajara Singh, the policeman who reported the murder, had been talking to Osborne at the bank giving him directions to a few places. Thus Hajara Singh could have identified the body. Therefore he had to die so that identification would be delayed.
“Mr. Rankin, they reasoned, would not have taken Osborne’s credential unless he understood their significance and intended to use them. So they arranged for a reception committee for him. Yut Lee had time. My car was wrecked halfway down Jalan Besar. Rankin was on foot and Li Fat’s house was his logical destination.
“And while I think of it, Mr. Rankin—what kind of hat did Osborne wear while you were trailing him around town during the day?”
“Hat?” Rankin regarded him sharply. Then he grinned and answered, “Hell, I didn’t notice what he wore until he ducked into Little’s and bought a sun helmet, like every other newcomer.”
“And that, Mr. Inspector,” declared Pâwang Ali, “proves what I claimed in the first place—that he was killed by order of the Father of Dragons.”
“Rot!” scoffed the inspector. His jaw set grimly, and he continued, “Pâwang Ali, I want to forget this drool about dragon’s parents. It’s idiotic. It’s a hashish dream. I don’t mind your smoking it in your spare moments, though I don’t approve of the stuff, but by heavens, I’ll have none of it in official dealings. Is that plain?”
“That, tuan-besar, is all too plain. Nevertheless, the footprints and other marks in the road, as well as the reports of my assistants, confirm Mr. Rankin’s story. Do you wish to detain him?”
“Have it your own way!” grumbled, the inspector. “Mr. Rankin, while your actions have been highly irregular, I will prefer no charges. But do not attempt to leave Singapore until further notice. And I think, Pâwang Ali, that you would do well to find out who killed Osborne. It is quite plain that the decorative seal that accompanied Hussayn’s head merely indicates that he ran afoul of the Chinese Society of Heaven and Earth, or something of the sort—purely private vengeance, and nothing to do with the sultan’s dealings with Osborne.”
E. Hoffmann Price's Two-Fisted Detectives Page 25