by Otto Penzler
“You see,” Deen explained, “it is very simple. The jewels are stolen in India by hired dacoits. Then, securely wrapped, they are placed in food which is swallowed by the pythons immediately prior to shipment. Since a big snake takes ten to eighteen days to assimilate and digest its food before throwing off waste, the seven-day sea trip to London is completed within that time. When the snakes arrive, they are killed and the jewels recovered from the stomach!”
“Amazing!” breathed the commissioner. “We’ll arrest them at once!”
“No.” Deen’s voice was clear and firm. “You must not arrest them yet. You must help me. We will need evidence—the Kubij opal, perhaps. And I have a simple plan.”
Maxie Gorgan eyed John Wilkins thoughtfully as the latter paced the floor of the House of Kaa in Rokor Street. Wilkins was highly excited and nervous. He had been smoking incessantly.
“You’re acting like a kid,” Gorgan muttered.
“I can’t help it, Maxie,” Wilkins said. “This thing’s getting my goat. First you knock off Lane—”
“Keep your mouth shut!”
“Aw, no one can hear us. Anyway, Lane dies first. Then Kirk, after dumping him, is found dead right outside with one of those damned poisoned darts in his throat. I wouldn’t give a hang, Maxie, if it weren’t for that Cobra story that Lane told us before you rubbed him out.”
“You’re getting scared over nothing,” Gorgan said. “Suppose this guy who calls himself the Cobra is on to us. What of it? He’s outside the law, isn’t he? And he’s a lone wolf, isn’t he? And above all, remember, he’s a man—a single man. And he’ll have to come to us. He can’t go to the police. One man. I can handle him, Wilky.”
Wilkins shook his head.
“I’m leery. Suppose they’re on to the shipment we got today. The pythons. They’re here, aren’t they?”
“Yeah,” Gorgan growled. “And when you lose those jitters, we’ll go down and get the Kubij opal.”
“I don’t like it, Maxie,” Wilkins protested. “The whole organization is shot. With Kirk gone, who’s going to fence the jewels after we melt them down? With Lane gone—who’s going to take over the Bombay end of the business?”
The doorbell at the front of the house jingled stridently.
A deep pall of silence covered the office. Gor-gan’s hand crept inside his coat and brought out an ugly automatic. He waved Wilkins away and went to the window.
A solitary man was standing before them. A tall, gaunt man with piercing black eyes. No one else was in sight.
“Let him in,” Gorgan said curtly. “Keep him covered all the time. Lock the door after you. Hurry!”
Wilkins complied nervously and went downstairs.
He presently reappeared behind Deen Bradley who entered the office smoking a cigarette, that same peculiar green holder held tightly between his teeth. He bowed to Gorgan.
“Sit down,” Maxie said, nodding to a chair.
Deen seated himself and smiled mirthlessly. “You may remove that finger from the trigger of your gun,” he purred. “I am unarmed.”
Gorgan flushed guiltily and his eyes narrowed. He lifted the pistol from his pocket and laid it on the desk in front of him, his right hand still curled around it.
“Frisk him, Wilky,” he said.
“I did before,” Wilkins replied. “No gun, Maxie.”
Gorgan nodded. He said, “Okay, then. What do you want?”
Deen shifted the cigarette holder to the corner of his mouth. “I know you killed Lane,” he said quietly.
Instantly Maxie Gorgan hurled himself to his feet and glowered at the American, the heavy Luger held tensely in his hand and aimed point-blank at Deen’s skull.
“No need to fire,” Deen said jocosely. “I could never prove it.”
Gorgan hesitated, eyeing Deen warily. He sat down and fingered the trigger of the gun longingly.
“Who in hell are you?” he spat, “and what do you want? You’d better get down to business, mister. You’re due for a slug.”
“My name is Sam Trent,” Deen replied. “I want to cut in.”
“Cut in?”
“I know that Lane and Kirk were cogs in your jewel-smuggling organization,” Deen said. “Since they are defunct, the necessity of engaging a capable man to assume charge of the Bombay headquarters is imminent. I learned all this from Lane. I saw, in India, that his courage was dissipating, that he would attempt to withdraw, so I followed him to London. Zah! There you have it. You need a man. I am he.”
“You know a helluva lot for a stranger,” Gorgan exclaimed belligerently, both disturbed and interested. “Maybe—since you’re so smart— you also know the code word?”
Gorgan expected to catch Deen there. He paused triumphantly and his gun rose to a level with Deen’s chest.
“But, of course,” Deen said mildly. “Home of Kaa.”
Wilkins leaped to his feet like a shot. He cried, “Kaa! He knows it, Maxie. He must be straight. Lane would never have trusted him. How else could he have gotten hold of that? Kirk didn’t even know. It was between Lane and you and me. For telegraphic correspondence to assure identification.”
“So Lane told you, eh?” Gorgan mused.
“Yes.”
“You know about the—business, too?”
“You refer to the shipping of the jewels in the pythons—”
“Okay.” Maxie held up his hand. “You know all right.” He turned to Wilkins. “This may be a cross. I don’t see how, but it may be. Better check him.”
Deen smiled. “And how do you ‘check’ me?”
Gorgan regarded him coldly. “Lane told us more than once about a Yankee dick at the Bombay office who was always asking questions. We anticipated the guy might try something. His name is Deen Bradley. Maybe you’re on the level. Maybe you’re not. Wilkins—check those fingerprints he just left on the chair.”
Deen frowned as Wilkins hurried forward and sprinkled a quantity of grayish powder on the spot where his hand had rested.
“You see,” Gorgan said, grinning evilly, “Lane sent me a copy of that Yank dick’s prints from India. We were taking no chances.”
Deen’s lips were a thin, bloodless line. The green cigarette holder stiffened between his teeth. Wilkins opened a file drawer and brought out two photographs. Carefully he compared them with the marks on the arm of the chair.
“The same, Maxie!”
Gorgan sighed, relieved. “I thought so. I thought if I prattled on a little, he’d leave his prints somewhere. So you’re Deen Bradley, the famous Bombay operative, eh?” His voice snapped into a vicious snarl. “Well, you’re on your last case! You’re through. What do you think we are—pulling a raw stunt like this?”
Wilkins was trembling with excitement.
“What are we going to do, Maxie?” he demanded.
Gorgan smiled without humor.
“We’ll take him down into the snake room. We’ll put him in the pit and let him make friends with the big boy. The thirty-foot constrictor. The one we haven’t fed for three weeks. Let’s see how a rat can fight a python. And then we’ll get the Kubij opal from the new shipment and take it on the lam. This business is all washed up, Wilky. We’ve made enough out of it.”
Gorgan rose, his pistol ominously steady in his hand. “Okay, Deen,” he growled. “Keep ahead of me. If you make any funny moves, this lead bites you instead of the snake.”
Deen rose silently, his immobile face void of expression. He left the office, Gorgan’s automatic prodding painfully into his back. They descended the stairs.
The descent took them into the cellar of the house, which, Deen noted, was not damp at all, the floors being amazingly desiccated. Before a huge metal door, the two men stopped him. Wilkins accepted the proffered pistol while Maxie unlocked the door. It swung open. Gorgan snapped on the lights. They entered, leaving the metal door unlocked behind them.
Deen stared in astonishment at the room. It was enormous, the entire breadth of the house abov
e. In the center of the room was a pit, about twenty feet deep. It was lined with opaque glass and was empty. An iron railing surrounded it. Near the railing, on the far side, was a large packing case.
“A pretty showroom, isn’t it?” Gorgan leered. “Watch!”
Deen gazed into the bottom of the pit, fascinated. Gorgan went to the wall and pulled down a short lever. The glass partition on one side began to rise. Instantly there was a sickening slithery scrape. The macabre head of a huge serpent slid out of the compartment in the wall to wind a path across the bottom of the pit, shaking the kinks and curls out of its great length. It was orange-brown and repugnantly thick. It raised its terrible snout, hungrily searching.
“He wants living food,” Gorgan growled alarmingly.
He moved threateningly on Deen while Wilkins still held the pistol in Deen’s back.
With a lightning blow, Deen twisted around and cracked Wilkins on the side of the jaw with fearful strength. The punch clipped the man cleanly, eliciting a resounding crack. Wilkins fell like an ox. The pistol dropped from his nerveless hand as a red welt flamed on his chin.
Deen dived for the gun, conscious of Gorgan behind him.
He felt a ringing blow on his head, as Gorgan slashed down his clenched fists like a lunatic. It stunned him momentarily. He fell dazedly on his side and struggled courageously for the pistol.
Maxie Gorgan reached it first. He lifted it and fired.
The slug ripped through Deen’s coat and buried itself in the opaque glass of the snake pit behind the detective.
Painfully, Deen strove to raise himself, hanging precariously to the iron railing at his back.
Gorgan raised the gun quickly for a second shot.
“Wait!” Deen called breathlessly.
Gorgan hesitated, then relaxed his trigger finger still holding the heavy automatic at Deen’s head. “What do you want? Talk fast!”
Deen nodded dejectedly.
“I admit defeat,” he said in a low voice. “I have failed and therefore deserve to die. But before you kill me, I have one last request to make.”
“What is it?” Gorgan snapped.
“I would like to smoke a last cigarette,” Deen replied. “Surely you can not deny a doomed man that courtesy?”
A crafty look narrowed Gorgan’s eyes as he threw a surreptitious glance at the glass pit and the huge python. He lowered the gun and nodded.
“Okay,” he said. “Go ahead.”
Deen rapidly felt in his pockets for his odd greenish cigarette holder. He found it and placed it between his teeth. Then he found a cigarette and started to make a pretense of lighting it.
Simultaneously, Gorgan sprang forward when Deen’s head was slightly turned, and with almost preternatural strength, shoved the detective through the railing, hurling him cruelly into the glass pit.
Deen turned a complete somersault and landed thuddingly on his feet at the bottom. He turned. The regal serpent was not three feet away from him, its elliptical eyes regarding him with sinister austerity.
Meanwhile, Gorgan, certain that the detective was safely in the python pit, turned savagely to John Wilkins who had recovered from Deen’s furious blow and was struggling to regain his feet.
“Your ace is in!” Gorgan snarled at him. “You’re through, Wilky. This is just the chance I’ve wanted. Lane dead. Kirk dead. The dick with the python. And now—you! There’ll be no split on the jewels. They’re all mine, mine!”
Crackling like a madman, he aimed the deadly Luger.
Wilkins gaped at him in horror and shrilly screamed.
Crack! Crack!
Jagged blue holes appeared in Wilkins’ forehead as red blood poured copiously down his neck where the two bullets ripped his skull to pieces on the way out.
His legs collapsed suddenly, even while his eyes rolled sightlessly at Gorgan’s smoking gun. He fell—right into the glass pit and on top of the python’s back!
The great reptile reared up in pain and shock. Its terrible head slashed around in a razorlike strike and knocked Wilkins’ dead body clear across the bottom of the pit from the force of the blow. The curved rows of fangs bit into Wilkins’ clothes. They were not venomous but chewed into the cadaver viciously.
The two crushing loops of the serpentine phantasmagoria fell over the dead man, encircled him, and began to contract, the muscles rippling comberlike beneath the scaly skin.
It was a horrid spectacle—a python crushing a dead man.
Deen stood by, unhurt, watching the gruesome scene in lethargic fascination.
Suddenly, above him, he heard a harsh, bitter cry. Gorgan had watched his plans go awry. Wilkins’ corpse had diverted the snake from the detective. The snake would try and swallow the cadaver but would get no further than the head, since it is impossible for any living constrictor to gulp down a man because of the width of the shoulders. He would have to kill Deen himself.
Bestially, Gorgan flung up the pistol.
Deen was taken almost unawares. He saw the ugly black nozzle of the automatic draw a bead on his eyes. With the alacrity of a bullet, he hurled himself to the floor of the pit. Simultaneously, the gun spat flame and death.
The slug tore Deen’s coat and crashed against the glass of the pit, crumbling the glass and leaving irregular footing against the side of the wall.
Deen had lifted himself on his hands, half-kneeling. The peculiar green cigarette holder was between his teeth again. It was held taut, stiff against his gleaming white teeth.
Gorgan was pulling the trigger of the pistol frantically but the lead was going wild, breaking down the glass of the pit.
There was a piercing, whistling hiss like that of an angry, hooded hamadryad.
Gorgan was suddenly transfixed. His eyes bulged maniacally. A purplish cyanotic color pervaded his flesh. His lips moved jabberingly but uttered no sound. A thin trickle of blood coursed slowly down from his throat, from a minute hole directly above his jugular vein. A tiny black hole—a dart-hole.
Gruesomely, Maxie Gorgan fought against the powerful nerve-destroying cobra venom which was seeping through his blood stream and tearing the vortex of his vasomotor system and lungs to shreds. His breath came in agonizing, sobbing gulps and each one was filled with inhuman pain. His face slowly grew black as the toxin destruction grew greater.
For a second, his voice gained audibility.
“You—” he rasped, a death rattle sounding in his throat— ”the Cobra….”
He fell forward into the pit, smashing down on his face and rolling over on his back, dead.
Deen climbed out of the pit where the python had swallowed the head of Wilkins and was fighting to engulf the man’s shoulders, an impossibility. He stepped on the scant indentations of broken glass which the bullets had created.
The sound of axes tearing wood floated down to the cellar. He glanced at his watch. True to the hour, the police—as he had outlined in his plan with Ryder and Marshall—were raiding the gloomy House of Kaa.
Inspector Ryder burst into the pit-room, almost at the same instant, service revolver in hand. He surveyed the wreckage of the pit and whistled in horror. Quickly he put a hot bullet through the skull of the regal python. He gazed down and saw the noxious dart imbedded in the upturned throat of Maxie Gorgan.
“The Cobra!” Ryder exclaimed.
“Yes,” Deen said. “The Cobra saved my life. Quick, may I have your revolver?”
Ryder regarded Deen keenly. The green cigarette holder in Deen’s hand caught his eye. For the time being, he said nothing. He handed his gun over.
Deen went around the pit to the packing case which stood next to the railing. He found a hammer and ripped the top unceremoniously off the base. There were three more pythons within, all small specimens, from six to ten feet in length.
One had a small white piece of adhesive tape on the back of its head.
Fearlessly, Deen reached in and yanked the snake out with both his hands. Holding one hand behind the neck, he laid the sn
ake on the floor, placed the gun against its brain and pulled the trigger. The snake thrashed slightly and was still.
Then, opening a knife, the detective slit open the belly, cut away the fatty tissues and lacerated the stomach.
When Deen stood up, a gleaming, dazzling flash of red fire struck Inspector Ryder in the eyes.
“The Kubij Opal!” he cried.
“Exactly,” Deen murmured. “The case is over.”
Ryder eyed the green cigarette holder in the detective’s other hand.
“But what of the Cobra?” he asked.
Deen hastily pocketed the holder. His eyes twinkled.
“The Cobra disappeared just before you came in.”
The Invisible Millionaire
Leslie Charteris
IT IS ALMOST impossible to measure the success of Leslie Charteris’s famous creation, Simon Templar, better known as the Saint.
The Saint is anything but. He is an adventurer, a romantic hero who works outside the law and has grand fun doing it. Like so many crooks in literature, he is imbued with the spirit of Robin Hood, which suggests that it is perfectly all right to steal, so long as it is from someone with wealth. Most of the more than forty books about the Saint are collections of short stories or novellas, and in the majority of tales he also functions as a detective. Unconstricted by being an official policeman, he steps outside the law to retrieve money or treasure that may not have been procured in an honorable fashion, either to restore it to its proper owner or to enrich himself.
“Maybe I am a crook,” Templar once says, “but in between times I’m something more. In my simple way I am a kind of justice.”
In addition to the many books about the Saint, there were ten films about him, mainly starring George Sanders or Louis Hayward; a comic strip; a radio series that ran for much of the 1940s; and a television series starring Roger Moore, an international success with 118 episodes.
Leslie Charteris (1907-1993), born in Singapore, became an American citizen in 1946.