Then, abruptly, in the sunlight-flooded clearing around my house, I saw that for which I had been watching and waiting!
CHAPTER IX
I Meet John Talkso
In plain sight of me, walking out across the open space toward my house, was a man. He carried a bucket in one hand, and a basket in the other hand. These he set down at the veranda steps, and then turned, scrutinizing the lake and shore. His face showed clearly.
A low word escaped me as I watched. I recognized that face on the instant; he was no other than the enemy of John Balliol, the man whom I had met at McGray’s Tavern—the man with the queer name of John Talkso! An instant later he had vanished inside the house.
“Now,” I said to myself, “here’s one mystery about to be solved in a hurry!”
A moment longer I waited. Talkso appeared again, stooped over the basket he had been carrying, and then went around to the front of my house; when he did there, I could not see. He reappeared, took up both bucket and basket, and went into the house.
I started for the house with the gun under my arm, both barrels loaded.
When I got safely over the gate and into the yard, I knew that I had my man this time; there was going to be an explanation! To judge from his attire when I had seen him at McGray’s Tavern, this Talkso had money—and he was going to settle what he owed me, chiefly in the matter of tires. What he was doing in my house was another thing. And if he had fired that bullet at me from the hills—
At that juncture I heard the telephone ringing. The kitchen windows were open and I stole toward the back entrance. An instant later, I heard a man speaking at the telephone; Talkso was answering the call! His infernal imprudence made me chuckle, for at the instrument he must be standing with his back to the door. He was playing directly into my hand!
“He’s not here—out fishing,” I heard him say. Somebody, obviously, was asking for me. “Who’s this? Oh, hello! This you, Sheriff West?”
There was a moment of silence, during which time I gained the back door and paused. Talkso was standing at the telephone, right enough, entirely unconscious of my presence.
“The hell you say!” he exclaimed suddenly, a snarling intonation in his voice. “None of your cursed business what I’m doing here, Mr. West! What? You come out here if you want to—I’ll be gone by then.”
Again he paused, and again made angry response to the sheriff.
“Nonsense! You’ve nothing on me—don’t try bluffing me, Mr. West! You can’t do it. That shot? Go ahead and tell Desmond all you want! You know damned well you can’t prove anything on me, and I know it too! I’ll have Desmond out of here inside of a week—oh, I won’t, eh? Much you know about it!”
With a snarling oath, he slammed the receiver on the hook.
As he did so, I pushed open the screen door and stepped inside. Talkso caught the squeak of the door, and whirled about like a cat.
“I guess the sheriff was right, Talkso,” I said cordially, over the sights of my shotgun. “Hoist your hands—thank you; that’s the way it’s done in the films. So the sheriff’s coming out here, eh? Good thing. He can take you back with him, unless we come to terms.”
Talkso stood perfectly motionless, his hands slightly raised. The surprise of my appearance had confounded him; but now passionate rage convulsed his swarthy features, and in the snaky blackness of his eyes flicked a scornful hatred. The contempt expressed in his eyes rendered me uneasy.
“You!” he uttered, flinging the word at me in almost inarticulate fury. “What d’you think you’re doing, anyway?”
“I don’t think,” I assured him. “I’m perfectly confident about it, my friend. By the way, did you fire a shot at my car the other day, mistaking me for Balliol?”
“I wish to hell the bullet had got you!” he foamed.
“You’re a charitable cuss. And since then, you’ve given me a lot of tire trouble, to say the least. What’s the idea, anyhow? What’s back of the feud between you and Balliol?”
He seemed to take no notice of the question.
“You poor fool!” he said scornfully. “I could have killed you any time in the past day or two—”
“Well, you didn’t,” I chipped in. “Come ahead and loosen up! Let’s have an explanation!”
To my horror, I realized that he was coming at me; he had the silky, invisible movement of a snake. To blast the life out of his with that shotgun was impossible. He seemed to be leaning forward, leaning toward me, farther and farther—and then he was in the air and on me.
He gripped me and the gun together, and we struggled for it. I was ready enough to drop the gun and slam into him with my fists, but I saw no use in letting him perforate me with my own gun. So I hung on, and we fought it out by arm-power.
In the middle of it, we lost balance and went to the floor—and the shotgun went off with a deafening explosion, between us.
I realized quickly enough that I was not hurt, and rolled backward, leaping to my feet. Both barrels had exploded, sending both charges into the telephone, which hung wrecked and useless against the wall. Talkso was not hurt either. First thing I knew, he was up and coming at me with a yell, brandishing the shotgun like a club.
According to jiu-jitsu experts, the easiest thing in the world is to lay out a man bearing down on you with a club. As it happens, I am not a jiu-jitsu expert.
Talkso had been an easy mark in the road by McGray’s, but he was something else now. He shoved the butt of the gun into my stomach, and when I doubled over, he slammed me over the skull with the barrel. Then he swung up the gun for a finishing stroke.
By this time I was just beginning to realize that it was me for swift action or the count, and I came out of my dream. To be candid, it was only in books that two men get into a hot mix-up and follow the Queensberry rules with meticulous chivalry; in a real scrap of real men, it’s hit hardest with anything that will count!
I followed the most natural rules, and being backed against the stove, I went for Talkso with an iron skillet that was handy. I ducked the gun in a hurry, and to even matters I dropped the skillet and began to finish off his education.
He knew something about fighting, and he tried to fight, but that skillet had him groggy from the start. In about two minutes he was trying to get through the door, so I let him out—and hopped right after him. I caught him by the pump, and laid him out finely.
When he came to himself, I had him tied wrists and ankles with dust-cloths from the car, and was wasting good mineral water pumping over his torso. In spite of all my kindness, however, he would do nothing except splutter curses at me, so finally I tired of trying.
“Very well, then, lie there and talk to yourself!” I stated in disgust. “When the sheriff gets here, maybe we’ll learn a few things.”
I was dead right about that, too!
CHAPTER X
I Build a Wall
On the morning after my encounter with John Talkso, I was working like a beaver on the skull wall in front of my house. I had been working there since dawn.
In front of the wall, I had a solid framework of staked boards, edge to edge, six inches from the wall’s face. The end spaces were closed with other boards. From the shore I had toted barrow-loads of sand until my palms were blistered, and from the barn behind the house I had brought a couple of sacks of cement which had lain there unmolested. For lack of a mixing bed I was utilizing a depression in the rock at the head of the path. Boulders of all sizes were handy, and with these I had partially filled the space in front of the wall, enclosed by the boards.
I mixed my concrete rapidly and after four or five batches had been shoveled into the gap, my work was done. The former face of the wall, together with the protruding skulls, was nicely buried behind six inches of concrete.
I was lighting my pipe and vastly admiring my handiwork, when I heard a voice.
“Mercy! What on earth is the matter with your telephone? Here I’ve walked all the was over here just to see if the pterodacty
l had eaten you up—”
It was Martha J. Balliol, flushed and laughing.
“Hurray!” I exclaimed. “I’ve been building a wall—sure, the phone is wrecked! But I have a few things to show you; important things, too! Come up to the veranda and sit down while I explain.”
“But are you a mason?”
“No,” I said. “I’m a pterodactyl—and I can prove it.”
When she was sitting in one of my porch chairs, which I placed in the middle of the veranda floor, I excused myself and got the bucket and basket which John Talkso had left behind after departing on the previous afternoon.
“Now shut your eyes, Miss Balliol! Promise not to peep.”
“Cross my heart,” she returned gaily.
I slowly crossed the floor to her, then stepped away a pace or two.
“Open!”
Her wondering gaze fell upon the concrete floor. From the door of the living room to the side of her chair extended a line of fresh, muddy pterodactyl tracks! She almost jumped, then her blue eyes went to me.
“Exhibit A!” I said, holding up the bucket of muddy water, and in the other hand the plaster-of-Paris cast which had made the tracks. “John Talkso was here yesterday. So was the sheriff. Talkso left these things behind—and he’s not coming back.”
Her face sobered.
“What do you mean, Mr. Desmond?”
“Well,” I explained, “this Talkso was an educated chap. He knew what a pterodactyl was, you see—and he knew that other men knew! Then he left some other things. Typical of them was a set of twelve pieces of round, crimson glass; these, placed in the eyes of those skulls, made a fine crimson effect when seen from the lake. You get the idea?”
Her eyes widened.
“Talkso? That man? But what about my brother—”
“I’m coming to that. Between the sheriff and Talkso, we got the whole thing straightened out yesterday afternoon.”
After telling her something of what had happened, I explained.
“Your brother, Miss Balliol, had peculiar notions of what to do with Indian relics. In building this house, he uncovered the so-called graves of the former chiefs of the Indian tribe which inhabited this valley—and which still inhabit it in places. Your brother used the skulls for decoration, and once set in that concrete, the skulls could not be removed without destroying the foundation wall of the house. You see?”
She nodded, watching me with eager absorption.
“Well,” I pursued, “this John Talkso found out about it. He came after your brother in a rage and there was a fight on the spot, in which Talkso got worsted. Then he set to work to drive your brother off.
“He invented some very clever stage stuff, such as the pterodactyl tracks and the red glass in the skull-sockets; he also had some other tricks in his basket, and all of them clever. He had managed to make everyone believe that this house was haunted. He had once or twice attempted your brother’s life—”
“But why?” broke in the girl, astounded. “Whatever made the man act so? Was he mad?”
“Not a bit of it! He was sane. He was also well educated. But—mark this—he was not a white man; he was a halfbreed Indian, and he was the last of the Indian chiefs in this particular valley. He had all the Indian’s sense of outrage at seeing the skulls of his forefathers ornamenting this house. So, naturally, he tried to drive out the desecraters—your brother and me.
“He did not go in for murder in cold blood. Yesterday he merely entered the room behind you and gave you a shove, for example. In general, he contented himself with such things. But when I met him at McGray’s Tavern and beat him up, he lost his head. He hiked over another road from McGray’s, a shorter road east of the river, and got here ahead of me. But the sheriff and another man were hunting, and they saw Talkso deliberately ambush my car. It was assault with intent to kill, right enough, and it meant the coop for Mr. Talkso.”
“But that wall you were building!” exclaimed Martha Balliol.
“That’s the sheriff’s idea; our sheriff is a bright man,” I returned laughing. “The skulls, you note, are now buried completely, yet the foundation of the house is not damaged. Thus the feelings of John Talkso have been smoothed over, particularly as he faced the penitentiary if they were not smoothed over! He and his family are rich ranchers across the lake, and beyond having him bonded to keep the peace, I’ll not punish him further.”
“Then you think—”
“Sure! Everything’s all right!”
* * * *
A little later that day, Martha Balliol was bidding me farewell. There was nothing to keep her here further, she said; at least, she knew of nothing. Nor did I, unhappily. She would go back East and take up the broken threads again.
“But,” I proffered, “will you not let me take you as far as Lakeport?”
“It will be very kind, Mr. Desmond. Of course!”
“It’s a promise?” I anxiously inquired. “Word of honor?”
“Eh?” The blue eyes inspected me with surprise. “Why, of course it is!”
“Good!” I lighted my pipe and puffed contentedly. “To tell the truth, the car is useless—I failed to fix my tires efficiently. There’s no gas to run the launch on; I forgot to fill up when we left Lakeport, I was so excited over your arrival! Naturally, we do not want to walk; so, Miss Balliol, we must go by canoe.”
“By canoe?” she echoed. “Why—Lakeport is miles and miles away! And I can’t paddle a stroke. We’d never get there!”
“Well?” I said inquiringly.
She met my eyes. Slowly a rosy glow crept into her cheeks; then she turned—and passed toward the canoe.
WRITTEN IN RED
Kohler greeted me with a cigar and a document bearing red ideographs. At the end was a seal, in the usual Chinese fashion, but not a usual seal. To my eye it looked more like a pair of crossed compasses than anything else; it might have been a square and compass.
“Sit down, Breck,” he said. “That’s a letter of credit which will be honored for any sum by any Shansi banker in China. Stick it in your pocket and listen to me.”
I obeyed. The old-style native banks, named from the fact that every last man in them is a Shansi man, cover China like a network. I knew Kohler was hand in glove with them.
James Sze Kohler was one of the wealthiest men in China, and certainly was the most extraordinary. Only twenty-five, he was the son of a Manchu princess and an American legation guard. Enormously wealthy, he had done some curious and interesting things.
He brought me from Manila to be managing editor of his Tientsin paper, the Republican. He owned a string of papers up and down the coast, and often shifted his men from paper to paper. I had built up the Tientsin property in good shape, so when he called me over to his office in Bristow road, with the curt message that I was fired, I was not greatly concerned about it. I hoped he would send me to Shanghai.
He was alone in his office when I arrived. To all appearance, Kohler was as American as I was. We had both been through Dartmouth, except that he came out top honor man and I did not. He was slender, wide of shoulder, firm of neck, with not a sign of the Eurasian about him except a high arched eyebrow. Even his nails and eyes were clear. Perhaps Manchus are Caucasian after all—I don’t know.
His face was at first glance effeminate, as was his voice. Unless one knew him well, it was extremely hard to credit that this slim young chap controlled great financial and industrial enterprises and was rumored to have at his fingers’ ends a remarkable secret-service system which covered half China.
Kohler leaned back in his chair, took a cigar and lighted it, and surveyed me.
“George, do you believe in luck?”
“As a wild, harum-scarum goddess of chance, no,” I said. “As a combination of circumstances, yes!”
He chuckled at that.
“Combination of circumstances is right. They do combine in mighty queer ways for some people. Just now they have combined to offer you a job, Breck. I’m
going to let everyone know that you’re on that job in my behalf. That means that you’ll run a risk of getting bumped off. It’s more than a risk; it’s a probability, in fact! Naturally, high risk implies high pay. If you pull it off, there’s a fee of fifty thousand, gold, and a ten-thousand-dollar job on my private staff for you.”
He was silent for a moment, studying his cigar. I said nothing.
It was characteristic of Kohler that he took for granted my acceptance of the job, and he was right. The Big Chance had come my way; the thing of which every white man in the East dreams, although not one dream in ten thousand ever comes true.
Stories were afloat, however; I knew with whom I was dealing. Blair, away over in Shensi, had pulled off a deal for Kohler and had gone home rich. Jim Hancy, down in Yunnan, owned a silver mine. Herb Moore tackled a Kweilin mountainside at the risk of his life, and operated a huge inland coal industry for Kohler. George Breck was not going to pass up a good thing because of the danger involved!
But why was he going to let everybody know that I was working for him? This was a new wrinkle. Usually, nobody knew just who was working for Kohler and who was not. That was one of the secrets of his amazing success, I believe.
“Know anything about the lacquer industry down south, in Fuchow?” he asked suddenly.
“Something. It was started a couple of years ago to buck the Japanese monopoly, a revival of the old Chinese lacquer work. I hear they went at it right, too; turned out high-grade stuff, sent a commercial traveler to America, and made a strong effort to establish lacquer as a commercial art product. Couldn’t be done, from what I hear; the cheap ten-cent-store Jap product forced ’em to slow down and quit.”
“Not altogether,” said Kohler quietly, but with a gleam in his eye. “Japanese influence in Fukien province was one thing that made ’em quit. Well, Breck, I’ve bought out the works. Inside the next year, if you don’t come a cropper, I’ll be shipping lacquer ware to America that’ll make the market sit up and take notice.
The H. Bedford-Jones Pulp Fiction Megapack Page 9