E. Hoffmann Price's Exotic Adventures
Page 7
“Find my father. Oh—they’ve killed him. I knew they would—”
That was Win Hampton. Ward now knew that instead of going back to her hotel, she had turned out the Moulmein police in force.
“They didn’t,” said Ward from the floor. “You must be mistaken, Miss Hampton. Your father isn’t in this place at all. I came here to get the Vishnu temple loot from the man who had it.”
And that English speech, coming from a battered Arab, won him the center of interest, until a Sikh caught the gleam of rubies near the man he was trying to boot to his feet.
“My word!” groped the sergeant, and it was echoed by a deputy commissioner’s secretary. “That is the statuette that—”
Then Ward went into his dance. For lack of another few seconds, he had lost his prize. He laughed wryly as he concluded his story of having come from Penang to gamble his head against the chance of finding the treasure whose loss was keeping Moulmein a hotbed of racial and religious animosities.
“I had it,” he concluded, “when Mahmud, the thief, was cut down by a servant of Tsang Li. But the dying Arab told me that his daughter’s life depended on giving this bit of cut glass to the Hindus who had her prisoner, and I couldn’t let her face the music.”
“Too bad, Ward,” consoled the secretary. “We’re not authorized to pay you any reward, though I personally think you deserve it, even if your methods are—ah—highly irregular. And you may be sure the priests of Vishnu won’t.”
“Probably not.” He grimaced, glanced about, and wondered why Aminah, whose ankles had been unbound, was so intently regarding him over the edge of her improvised veil. But he knew why Win Hampton’s glance blended penitence and gratitude. “I’m holding the bag—a very empty one. But aside from thanks—which I might save up and find useful the next time I’m in a corner—I wish some one would tell me how those lads with Vishnu’s hash mark on their foreheads fit into this, and why they’re putting them in irons for trying to rescue their own property.”
“I don’t mind telling you,” explained the secretary, “that this is more important than you realize. This Vishnu cult has for months been suspected of being hand in hand with that uncommonly troublesome Gadar group in India—the Independence party, you know. They need revolution money, and from Miss Hampton’s remarks when she asked us to save her father, I’d judge that Vishnu’s own priests were selling the god’s jewels in what they considered a sacred cause.”
That cleared up a lot. No wonder the priests of Vishnu had secretly conferred with Hampton in Penang. No wonder they had claimed the treasure had been stolen. That was a plausible way to account for the loss of the emerald Vishnu; though such a story would arouse his outraged worshipers to rioting, it at least would not expose the true motive. And Mahmud, seizing the god, had made their false story all too true!
“Denis,” said Win Hampton, while the police were waiting to take him to headquarters for an official checking of his story, “I’m so sorry I spoiled your game. Will you ever forgive me?”
“Think nothing of it,” Ward said with a blitheness he did not feel. “Aminah crabbed the business before you did.”
The Arab girl, innocent of her father’s crimes, was not a prisoner, though she also was bound for headquarters. Yet on the plea of thanking her benefactor, the man who had heard her father’s last words, she approached Ward just as Win Hampton turned to rejoin the secretary.
“Sahib,” she said, fingering a golden chain at her throat, “let me give you a present. Whatever my father said, we were not poor.”
Ward could not wound Arab pride by refusing. “Damn it,” he said in English, being somewhat embarrassed by a gift he did not want to take, “I guess I’ve got to.”
“Right,” said the white police officer, who had understood the girl’s plea. “Why not?”
Aminah fumbled the chain. Ward stooped to pick it from the floor. As he rose, he felt her hand brush his pocket. The gesture, serpent swift and between them, could not have been seen by any of the spectators. He stepped back, held the golden links in his two hands, and commended her father to the mercy of Allah. Then he went with the police.
And it was an hour or two later before he learned what she had slipped into his pocket; her real gift, the one which she had not dared to keep to offer him later on.
It was Marley Hampton’s wallet, blood-smeared, knife-slashed, and stuffed with a bale of large bills. Hampton’s coat, torn and cut, had, during his break for the window, fallen near Aminah. That was what she had tried to offer Ward, and he had mistaken her cry and gesture for a plea for escape. A sahib’s wallet, even though glimpsed by match light, had appealed to her quick eye as a rich find, though she could hardly have realized just how much it did contain.
“If I kept it all, it’d teach him a lesson.” Ward grinned, heading for his hotel. “Gambling with the gods takes an expert. And he’d have been in a pretty mess, if he’d been nailed with temple loot in his hands.”
Then he remembered that he had a dinner engagement with Win Hampton; so he compromised by deducting only his usual fee for getting a wandering deity back to his shrine.
KISS OF DEATH
Originally published in Spicy-Adventure Stories, November 1937, under the pseudonym “Hamlin Daly.”
A courier had carried the letter on foot through the Malay jungle to the Tuan Besar mine. Ken Hartley’s grey eyes narrowed as he recognized the familiar script and the New York postmark. His glance shifted to the photograph on the living room wall.
Why the devil was Irene Byrne writing now, after all these months? Why had they quarreled in the first place? Each time he tried to destroy her picture, those smiling eyes reminded him of kisses by moonlight. He cursed wrath-fully and opened the letter.
Irene, he read, had for the past year been secretary to Carlton Forest, vice-president of Transpacific Industries, Incorporated.
“…Forest is on his way to the Malay States to corner all the little mining concessions and plantations. I don’t know how he’s going to do it, but be on guard…”
She still cared enough to warn him—but not enough to hint that he could stage a comeback.
The snarl of the dogs brought him to his feet. He heard a woman in the compound, breathless and terrified. Ali, the labor foreman, was trying to question her in Malay. Hartley seized a flashlight and bounded to the veranda.
The girl was uncommonly lovely, a glamorous, dark-eyed creature. A crepe slip hung in tatters to a slender, amber-tinted body. Her black hair streamed to her hips, half veiling pert breasts that peeped from the remains of her only garment. She was barefooted.
Hartley’s long months of loneliness claimed their tribute. His blood raced at the sight of those sleek hips and shapely legs.
“Bandits!” she gasped. “Benson’s plantation—!”
Ali stepped aside. The girl crumpled, a pathetic huddle of thorn-raked flesh. Hartley carried her into the house. She was warm and soft and clinging. It was all he could do to keep his mind on his neighbor’s peril. A slug of brandy gave her command of herself. She was Dolores Wong, Mrs. Benson’s Eurasian maid: a new one, he thought, though he rarely saw his distant neighbors.
“They raided the plantation—I escaped to get help—hurry—!”
“Ali, saddle up! Turn out the mine crew!” commanded Hartley. Then, to Dolores, “I know the way. You’ll be safe here.”
He thrust on his boots, seized cartridge belt and rifle, and bounded across the compound. There he mounted his long-limbed chestnut and galloped down the wagon trail that wound through the jungle.
Half an hour later he reined his winded horse at the crest of a knoll. Down in the valley he saw a lurid glow.
The planter’s house was ablaze. The whiplash crackle of a sporting rifle answered the boom of muzzle-loading jezails. A horde of dark figures was swarming toward the palisade that surrounded the house.
The raiders were rushing the compound gate. Benson had run out of ammunition.
A woman screamed, just once. Hartley savagely spurred his chestnut gelding. Leaning across the beast’s neck, he hosed the straggling bandits with lead. They wheeled to return his fire.
Slugs nicked him, spears raked him, but he was going through. There might be a chance. Then his horse wavered, pitched in a heap—dead. Hartley flung himself clear. His pistol was empty. He jerked his carbine from its holster. He fired from the shelter of his dead beast. Seeing that he was alone, the bandits closed in.
He leaped up, firing from his hip. The hail of slugs beat them back; but he had no time to shove home a second clip. A long parang whistled down to split his skull. He struck it aside with the smoking barrel. He whirled the carbine, smashing the butt across a bandit’s head. It became a desperate slaughter by torchlight—
And then Ali and his men emerged from the clearing, yelling and shooting. That turned the tide. Hartley brushed the blood from his eyes and leaped into the compound. The raiders were in full flight. The Malays were cutting down the stragglers.
Hartley found Benson and his wife. The planter was hacked to pieces. The blonde woman near him still held an emptied pistol. Her other hand was clenched as if still trying to pluck the spear that projected from her breast. She was young, and shapely…like Irene…though Hartley had never seen as much of Irene as he now saw of that woman whose gauzy night gown was blood-stained and smoke-soiled. Horror mocked beauty.
Hartley carried the victims out into the open. It was only then he noticed that the raiders were Chinese. And when his victorious men returned to plunder the fallen looters, the tragic evening presented another riddle.
Each bandit carried with him three brass coins wrapped in red paper, and a square of red silk inscribed in Chinese.
Hartley mounted a laborer’s pony. Ali followed, bringing the bodies of the planter and his wife on a bamboo litter.
They had scarcely reached the mine when the earth shook, pitching Hartley’s nag to its knees. There was a heavy, sullen rumbling. Flame and nitrous fumes poured from the shaft. A blast had demolished the mine entrance. Falling rock spattered about him.
He dismounted at the powder magazine. The lock had been broken. It was empty.
“Good God!” he groaned. “That’s curtains!”
Unless Hartley could prove that the blast had not been the result of storing illegal quantities of dynamite in the drifts, the Warden of Mines would have to cancel his lease. But how prove his case? The ruin spoke for itself.
Asia was in revolt. First a planter, then a miner.
Once in the living room, he slumped into a chair and poured himself half a tumbler of brandy. His head was whirling. He ached from a dozen raking cuts.
He heard a stirring behind him. He turned. Dolores was emerging from the hall. She smiled somberly and said, “I heard. But you tried to save them.”
Hartley laughed bitterly.
Dolores seated herself on the arm of his chair. She wore borrowed Malay finery now, and her hair was piled high on her head.
“There’s something odd about that raid.” He caught her arm. “Tell me—did Mr. Benson have any trouble with Chinese laborers? What are these red silk tickets and coins?”
She shook her head.
Could this be part of Forest’s campaign to rout out small concessions?
“Did anyone try to buy Mr. Benson’s plantation?”
“How should a servant know his business?”
He poured himself another drink. The brandy burned into his black mood. He began to remember that a man’s life wasn’t made up entirely of mining. The woman who leaned against him was young and fragrant. She was half white, at least; and Hartley was beaten and lonely.
He drew her closer. Her gasp forced her breasts against him. They were firm and vibrant, reminding him of Irene, of what the jungle isolation had withheld.
For a moment her eyes widened. She tried to evade his embrace. But when he kissed her full on the mouth, she relaxed. Her lids drooped. He felt the sudden pounding of her heart. Her lips were warm and hungry now. The next kiss was long and clinging. She was trembling, and her breath came in short gasps…
Dolores slipped to her feet and took his hand. She knew her way about the house. But Hartley carried her in his arms.
* * * *
Dawn, and the splashing of water ladled from the earthen jar in an adjoining bathroom awakened Hartley. Presently Dolores entered his room, fresh and radiant. By daylight he could see more clearly where her soft flesh had been raked by thorns as she fled from the plantation.
Dolores had arrived barefooted—yet her feet were not marred or bruised!
He caught her arm, wrenched her bodice half off.
“Damn funny the thorns skipped all the soft spots! And your feet—they’re too small for any ayah that runs around without shoes.”
Her color faded. She ran to the door. There she halted, tense and desperate.
“By Allah, tuan!” rasped Ali, bounding from the living room. “Thou hast sharp eyes—”
Dolores screamed. Hartley leaped to the doorway. Ali was reaching for his heavy knife. No chance to stop him.
Hartley lunged for his pistol. The blaze of powder blended with the flash of steel. The knife was blasted from the wrathful Malay’s grasp!
“She’s worth more alive than dead!”
Hartley slapped her into a corner. “Who sent you to trick me away from the mine?”
She lay huddled on the floor, moaning and quivering. “Can’t talk, eh? All right, Ali. Maybe you were right. But take her outside to do the job. Don’t want blood on the floor.”
The hard-bitten Malay grinned, and retrieved his knife.
“Don’t let him kill me!” she pleaded. “It’s the Triad Society—trying to force mine and plantation owners out of the country—so an American—Carlton Forest—can buy up all the properties—they abandon. Those red silk squares are membership certificates.”
Hartley saw how he had been tricked.
But for hard riding, he would not even have had a chance to fire those futile shots in defense of the besieged planter. Dolores had skillfully timed her arrival so that the other party of raiders could stealthily destroy a place they could not capture by force.
His only move was to go to Singapore and convince the Warden of Mines that the blast had not resulted from criminal carelessness. Then land on Forest!
“Ali, pack up at once. This woman is going along.”
* * * *
It was forty miles to the head of the highway, and the village where Hartley had stored his car. That meant two days wallowing through the jungle.
At the end of the first day’s march, Ali led Dolores to Hartley’s tent. She could not escape, alone and barefooted, into the jungle.
“Allah forgive me, tuan,” he apologized. “But she has hounded me all day. And you forbade me to slice her lengthwise.”
She was an Eurasian, scorned alike by European and full-blooded native. The world forced her kind into trickery. Hartley was half sorry for her.
“All right?” he snapped. “Now what?”
“The Triad Society will kill me, even if I am in the hands of the police.”
“Am I supposed to cry about it?”
“Ken—I’m terribly sorry. I didn’t know they were going to murder those people. I didn’t know you—that I’d like you the way I do—.”
Her penitence was getting under his skin. He remembered those kisses and soft whispers in the dark. “I can’t let you get away with it. That makes me an accessory after the murder.”
“But you could forget it until we get to Singapore. You’re
the only one who’s ever been nice to me.”
“Well…” He hesitated.
She turned toward the lamp and blew it out. She fingered the edge of her sarong. It seemed to slip, then lingered, but it would take little to make it cascade about her ankles. He could just distinguish her warm contours in the gloom. Her bosom was a shapely blur and her legs gleamed in a vagrant moonbeam…
He tried to thrust her away, but a resilient curve tricked him. He cursed his folly, and drew her closer.
If she insisted on his being affectionate though she knew he had full knowledge of her treachery, then putting her under guard in the morning—
“I love you.” She laced her arms about him. “They’ll kill me, anyhow. I only wish…”
“Yes?” He could no longer fight off this jungle madness, with her fluttering breath so warm on his face.
“I wish…you could kiss me to death…” she murmured.
He’d never heard of such a sentence, but he tried…
* * * *
Later she smiled and nestled close for a moment in parting.
“Tell Ali the prisoner is ready. Didn’t I promise you I’d not try to beg off?”
He rode at the head of the wagon train. He wanted to get as far from her as he could.
His problem, however, was solved that evening. Dolores was gone. On the bottom of the baggage cart was Hartley’s penknife, and the withes she had clipped from her ankles and wrists.
“The damn’ little tramp!” he growled. “That’s why she wanted to be kissed to death!”
And when he checked up he found that the brass coins and squares of red silk were gone. Not a bit of evidence to back his theory! He now had a pretty story to tell the Warden of Mines! With Forest’s powerful opposition, Hanley was well out on a limb.
Instead of resting in the village, he removed his car from storage and began the long drive to the railway.
* * * *
Upon arriving in Singapore he made a rapid tour of the leading hotels. Forest was at the Wellington. Hartley registered there, then called on the Warden of Mines.