Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US

by Max Brand

  “I’ll do that. Will you sleep, Lafferty?”

  “Sure — I’ll sleep!” muttered Lafferty. There was no need to telephone. A moment later word came that Hanlon was in the reception room, and Kildare went down to him at once. The big fellow looked old and tired.

  “How’s Lafferty, doc?” he asked.

  “He’s going to get well, Pat, I think. And by the way, he wanted me to tell you or McGuire that everything is all right.”

  “He wanted you to tell us what?” asked Hanlon with a sudden booming in his voice.

  “That everything is all right. He seemed to want you and McGuire to know that he was getting well, when he found out that you and I are friends.”

  “Ah! Is that it?” said Hanlon. He leaned heavily on Kildare’s shoulder.

  “What’s the matter, Pat, old fellow?”

  “Nothing,” breathed Hanlon. “But if it’s that way — there’s someone outside in my car. She’s crying a good deal, doc. Would you step out a minute?”

  “Crying?” said Kildare. And he went quickly out the main entrance and down to the curb, where the car waited. He pulled open the rear door and saw her in the darkness like an image in a well.

  “Jimmy — Jimmy!” said her broken voice.

  He sat down on the floor of the car and looked up at her. “I think I understand,” he said. “It was an operation. You had to cut me out of your life. But your hand shook a little. Was that it?”

  “Are you forgiving me?” she asked.

  “A right sort of patient has to trust his doctor,” said Kildare. “And I’m glad I’ve heard your voice again. It’s a sweet voice, Meg, and it will never get out of my ears as long as I live.”

  “God bless you, Jimmy, and good-by,” she said.

  He got up from the car. Rain made a trembling halo around the street lamp and showed Hanlon patiently waiting.

  “All right, doc?” he asked.

  “All right,” said Kildare.

  THE END

  Tizzo the Firebrand Series

  Max Brand’s office

  The Firebrand (1934)

  In this series of novels featuring Tizzo the Firebrand, Max Brand wrote in the historical adventure genre. He was not new to the swashbuckling theme – his first attempt, published as George Challis, featured Ivor Kildare, an ancestor of the more famous twentieth-century doctor. Brand retained the “George Challis” pseudonym for his Firebrand stories. In Tizzo, Brand also exploited his love of Italy, where he holidayed annually. Brand set the stories in sixteenth century Italy, which provided local colour for the adventures of Tizzo – a young street urchin with fiery red hair, who is taken in by Lugi Falcone and raised as a page.

  Schooled in the classics, Tizzo is equally dexterous with a sword and leaves Falcone in order to serve Baron Henry of Montrose, an Englishman with whom he shares many hair-raising adventures. All this is recounted in the first story in the series, The Firebrand (1934), in which Tizzo joins Montrose and falls in love with the lady Beatrice (the subject of several daring rescue attempts) and finally receives a startling revelation about his origins.

  This formula of daring adventure, maidens in distress and colourful historical detail was continued in six further tales: The Great Betrayal, The Storm, The Cat and the Perfume, Claws of the Tigress, The Bait and the Trap and The Pearls of Bonfadini – all of which appeared as serials or single-issue novelettes in The Argosy throughout 1935.

  The Argosy, November 24 1934, which carried the first instalment of ‘The Firebrand’

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  The Argosy, August 24 1935, which carried the final Firebrand story

  CHAPTER 1

  LUIGI FALCONE AT fifty-five had lost some hair from his head and some speed from his foot, but his shoulders were as strong and his hands almost as quick as in those days when he had been famous with spear and sword. Now, stepping back with a wide gesture of both sword and small target, he cried out, “Tizzo, you are asleep! Wake up! Wake up!”

  Tizzo, given the name of Firebrand because his hair was flame red and his eyes were flame blue, looked up at the blue Italian sky and then through the vista of the trees toward Perugia which in the far distance threw up its towers like thin arms.

  “Well, the day is warm,” said Tizzo, and yawned.

  But Tizzo himself was not warm. All the exercise of wielding the target and the long, heavy sword had hardly brought a moisture to his forehead or caused him to take a single deep breath, partly because he had been stepping through the fencing practice so carelessly and partly because — though he was neither tall nor heavy — he was muscled as supple and smooth as a cat.

  “The day is warm but you are not warm, Tizzo!” exclaimed Falcone. “God has given you nothing but a pleasant sort of laughter. You lack two inches of six feet. I could button you almost twice inside of one of my jackets. Nothing but skill can make up for the lack of weight in your hand; and here I am giving you my time, teaching you my finest strokes, and yet you sleep through the work! If you could touch me twice with the point or once with the edge, I’d give you whatever you ask.”

  Tizzo stopped yawning and laughed that pleasant laughter which had commended him to the eye of rich Falcone fifteen years before when Luigi rode through the street of the little village. Through a swirl of fighting, scrambling lads he had heard screaming and laughter. The screaming came from a lad who had been cornered against a wall. The laughter came from a redheaded youngster who was pommeling the bigger boy.

  So Falcone, stopping the fight, asked questions. The sound of that laughter had reminded him of his own childless years and empty, great house on the hill. To most Italians red hair and blue eyes would not have been attractive, but Falcone was one who always chose the unusual. That was why he had taken Tizzo home with him. The boy had no other name. Mother and father were unknown. He had simply grown up in the streets like a young wolf running along with many others of the same unmothered kind; they were the brood of war which was scattered up and down Italy.

  He had been a page, a valet, and then like the rightful son of the house of Falcone he had been educated with all care. Falcone, turning from war to the adventures of the study and the golden mines of Greek literature which were dazzling the wits of the learned throughout the Western world, had Tizzo trained in the same tongues which he himself had mastered. He was very fond of the slender youth, but that fire which had flamed in the lad when he ran wild through the streets of the village had grown dim. What he did was done well, without effort, without enthusiasm. And the big, headlong nature of Falcone was disgusted by that casual response, that ceaseless indifference.

  Now, howeve
r, that old shimmer of flame blue glanced in the eyes of Tizzo as it had not shone for years.

  “Shall I have the rest of the day to go where I wish and do what I please?” he asked. “If I touch you twice with the point or once with the edge, shall I have that gift?”

  Falcone stared.

  “What would you do with so many hours?” he asked. “You could not travel as far as Perugia in that time. What would you do?”

  Tizzo shrugged his shoulders.

  “But you have what you please and a horse to take you on the way,” said Falcone, “if you touch me — edge or point — a single time!”

  Tizzo laughed and threw the target from his arm. “What? Are you giving up before you begin?” demanded Falcone.

  “Why should I have that weight in my hand?” asked Tizzo. “Now — on your guard—”

  And he came gliding at Falcone.

  In that day of fencing, when men were set to ward off or deliver tremendous thrusts or sweeping cuts that might cleave through plate armor, there was generally a forward posture of the body, both arms thrust a little out. This caused stiffness and slowness, but it braced a man against every shock. It was in this manner that Falcone stood, scowling out of his years of long experience, at that flame-headed lad who came in erect and swift and delicately poised, like a dancer.

  Falcone feinted with the point and then made a long sweeping cut which if it had landed, in spite of the blunted edge of the sword, certainly might have broken bones.

  But the sword whirred through the empty air. Tizzo had vanished from its path. No, he was there again in flesh and laughter on the right. Falcone, growling deeply in his throat, made a sudden attack. Strokes downright and sidewise, dangerous little upcuts, darting thrusts he showered at Tizzo.

  Sometimes a mere touch of steel against steel made the ponderous stroke of Falcone glance past its target, a hair’s breadth from head or body. Sometimes a twist of the body, a short, lightning pass of the feet deceived the sword. Falcone, sweat streaming down his face, attacked that laughing shadow with redoubled might and in the midst of his attack felt a suddenly light pressure against his breast. He could hardly be sure for an instant. Then he realized that Tizzo had stepped in and out, moving his whole body more swiftly than most men could move the hand.

  It was a touch, to be sure — with the point and exactly above the heart!

  Luigi Falcone drew back a little and leaned on his blade.

  “Quick! Neat! A pretty stroke! And worth not a straw against a man in armor.”

  “In every armor there are joints, crevices,” said Tizzo. “Where is there armor through which a wasp cannot sting, somewhere? And where a wasp can sting the point of a sword can follow!”

  “So?” said Falcone, through his teeth. He was very angry. He had a dim suspicion that for years, perhaps, this pupil of his had been playing idly through their fencing bouts. “Now, try again—”

  He fell on guard. There would be no rash carelessness, now. His skill, his honor, almost his good name were involved in keeping that shadow dancer from touching him with the sword again. Well and warily, with buckler and ready sword, he watched the attack of Tizzo.

  It was a simple thing. There was no apparent device as Tizzo walked straight in toward danger. But just as he stepped into reaching distance his sword — and his body behind it — flickered to this side and to that. A ray of sunlight flashed into the eyes of Falcone. Something cold touched him lightly in the center of the forehead. And Tizzo stood laughing at a little distance again.

  Falcone wiped his forehead and looked at his hand as though the touch of the sword point must have left a stain of blood. His hand was clean, but his heart was more enraged.

  “Have you been making a fool of me?” he shouted. “Have you been able to do this for years — and yet you have let me sweat and labor and scold? Have you been playing with me like a child? Take your horse and go. And stay as long as you please! Do you hear? As long as you please! I shall not miss you while you are away. Cold blood never yet made a gentle knight!”

  He had a glimpse of Tizzo standing stiff and straight with the look of one who has been wounded deeply, near to the life.

  But the anger of Falcone endured for a long time. It made him stride up and down through his room, glowering out the window, stamping as he turned in the corner. Now and again he knit his great hands together and groaned out with a wordless voice.

  And every moment his rage increased.

  He had rescued a nameless child from the streets. He had poured out upon the rearing of the youngster all that a man could give to his own son. And in return the indolent rascal had chosen to laugh up his sleeve at his foster father!

  Falcone shouted aloud. A servant, panting with fear and haste, jumped through the doorway.

  “Tizzo! Bring him to me! On the run!” cried Falcone.

  The broad face of the servant squinted with a malicious satisfaction. He was gone at once, and Falcone continued his striding with his rage hardening, growing colder, more deadly, every moment.

  It was some time before the servant returned again, this time sweating with more than fear. He had been running far.

  “He is not in his room,” reported the man. “He is not at the stables or practicing in the field at the ring with his lance. He has not even been near his favorite hawk all day. He was not with the woodmen, learning to swing their heavy axes — a strange amusement for a gentleman! I ran to the stream but he was not there fishing. I asked everywhere. He has not been seen since he was fencing in the garden—”

  Falcone, raising his hand, silenced this speech, and the fellow disappeared. Then he went to the room of Tizzo to see for himself.

  The big hound rose from the casement where it was lying, snarled at the intruder, and crossed to the high-built bed as though it chose to guard this point most of all. Falcone, even in his anger, could not help remembering that Tizzo could make all things love him, men or beasts, when he chose. But how seldom he chose! The old master huntsman loved Tizzo like a son; so did one or two of the peasants, particularly those woodsmen who had taught him the mastery of their own craft in wielding the ax; but the majority of the servants and the dependents hated his indifference and his jests, so often cruel.

  Falcone saw on the table in the center of the room — piled at either end with the books of Tizzo’s study — a scroll of cheap parchment on which beautiful fresh writing appeared.

  In the swift, easy, beautiful smooth writing of Tizzo, he read,

  Messer Luigi, my more than father, benefactor, kindest of protectors, it is true that I have no name except the one that I found in the street. And yet I feel that my blood is not cold —

  Falcone, lifting his head, remembered that he had used this phrase. He drew a breath and continued.

  — and I have determined to take the permission which you gave me in your anger today. I am going out into the world. I think this afternoon I may be close to an opportunity which will take me away — in a very humble service. I shall stay in that service and try to find a chance to prove that my blood is as high as that of an honest man. If my birth is not gentle, at least I hope to show that my blood is not cold.

  The wine and the meat of your charity are in themselves enough to make me more than a cold clod. If I cannot show that gentle fare has made me gentle, may I die in a ditch and be buried in the bellies of dogs.

  Kind Messer Luigi, noble Messer Luigi, my heart is yearning, as I write this, to come and fling myself at your feet and beg you to forgive me. If I laughed as I fenced with you, it was not that I was sure of beating you but only because that laughter will come sometimes out of my throat even against my will.

  Is there a laughing devil in me that is my master?

  But if I came to beg your forgiveness, you would permit me to stay because of your gentleness. And I must not stay. I must go out to prove that I am a man.

  Perhaps I shall even find a name.

  I shall return with honor or I shall die not wort
hy of your remembering. But every day you will be in my thoughts.

  Farewell. May God make my prayers strong to send you happiness. Prayers are all I can give.

  From a heart that weeps with pain, farewell!

  Tizzo

  There were, in fact, a number of small blots on the parchment. Falcone examined them until his eyes grew dim and the spots blurred. Then he lifted his head.

  It seemed to him that silence was flowing upon him through the chambers of his house.

  CHAPTER 2

  AT THE VILLAGE wineshop, which was also the tavern, a number of ragged fellows were gathered, talking softly. They turned when they saw one in the doublet and hose and the long, pointed shoes of a gentleman enter the door; and they rose to show a decent respect to a superior. He waved them to sit again and came down the steps to the low room with his sword jingling faintly beside him.

  Now that he was well inside the room and the sunlight did not dazzle the eyes of the others, they recognized Tizzo.

  They remembered him from the old days, as keen as a knife for every mischief. They remembered that he had been one of them — less than one of them — a nameless urchin on the street, a nothing. Chance had lifted him up into the hall of the great, the rich Luigi Falcone. And therefore the villagers hated him willingly and he looked on them, always, with that flame-blue eye which no man could read, or with that laughter which made both men and women uneasy, because they could never understand what it might mean.

  Now he walked up to the shopkeeper, saying: “Giovanni, has that stranger, the Englishman, found a manservant that pleases him? One that is good enough with a sword?”

  Giovanni shook his head.

  “He put them to fight one another. There were some bad cuts and bruises and Mateo, the son of Grifone, is cut through the arm almost to the bone. But the Englishman sits there in the back room and laughs and calls them fools!”