Collected Fiction (1940-1963)

by William P. McGivern

  Neal threw the window open wider, but before he could clamber out his intended victim scrambled to his feet and darted down the steps. Neal had one quick look at the man’s dark terrified features before he disappeared.

  Wheeling from the window, Neal stepped quickly across the room and closed the door that he had forced. He groped about until he found a lamp and switched it on. He knew there would be no chance of catching the native who had fled down the fire escape, and the girl might be seriously hurt. She was lying on the floor next to a sofa, unconscious. There were angry red marks on her throat, but he could see the rise and fall of her breast under the light flimsy dressing gown she was wearing-

  He lifted her carefully in his arms, stretched her on the sofa and rubbed her hands anxiously. After a moment or so her eyelids flickered and he noticed a touch of color returning to her cheeks. With her long, fine hair framing her white face she looked more like an angel than a human being.

  She was breathing more normally now, Neal noticed. He poured a glass of water from a pitcher on the coffee table, tilted her head slightly and poured some of its contents down her throat.

  She coughed weakly and opened her eyes. For an instant she stared blankly at him, and then, as recognition came to her, she smiled tremulously.

  “I was afraid you wouldn’t come,” she murmured. Her hands moved slowly to her throat, touched the abrasions on her skin.

  “Don’t talk if it hurts,” Neal said, concerned. “What you need is rest.”

  “It doesn’t hurt,” the girl assured him. “I’m still a little frightened, that’s all. Silly of me. I should be getting used to it by now.”

  “You mean this has happened before?” Neal asked incredulously.

  The girl was silent an instant, and then she turned her eyes full on Neal. In them was mirrored the tragic finality of despair.

  “I was wrong to involve you in my troubles,” she said brokenly. “Please go now while there is still time. I—it may be dangerous for you to stay another minute.”

  Neal grinned cheerfully and tossed his hat onto an empty chair. He lighted a cigarette and blew a cloud of smoke toward the ceiling expansively.

  “You can’t get rid of me that easily,” he chuckled.

  “Oh please,” the girl said miserably. “You think it’s something of a lark, something amusing. Can’t you see I’m serious?

  Neal’s face sobered.

  “The cute little chap who was trying to strangle you was serious too,” he said drily. “That’s why I’m sticking around until I know what’s up. Funny streak in me. I dislike seeing young girls murdered. I don’t know why. But everybody has their peculiarities and that happens to be mine.”

  “Would you like me to start at the beginning?” she asked abruptly.

  “Now you’re talking,” Neal grinned. “I may not be of any help, but I’m in your corner from now on.”

  The girl relaxed as if a heavy weight had been removed from her shoulders.

  “Thank you,” she said simply. She was silent for a few seconds before resuming.

  “MY name is Jane Manners,” she said quietly. “My father was a well-known archaeologist. When he died several years ago he left me a manuscript which contained a map and directions for reaching a city somewhere in the Egyptian desert. He had visited the city years before and it had been his consuming ambition to return there before he died. His last wish was that I would go there and complete the archaeological work he had begun. I didn’t have the necessary funds so I put the trip off. Then I received an offer of help. It came from an Austrian, Max Zaraf, who said that he had known my father in Egypt.”

  “Was he the gent I met today?” Neal interrupted.

  “Yes. He financed the expedition. At first I was delighted by the assistance, but things have happened which make me believe I made a very serious mistake.”

  “What sort of things?” Neal asked. “In the first place,” Jane answered, “he insisted that I let him keep the map. I gave it to him without hesitation. That same night I was almost killed by a heavy piece of iron that dropped from the deck above me. The officers on the boat were unable to explain the accident. Again, three nights later, I was almost killed by a knife hurled through my porthole. It missed me by inches.”

  Neal whistled silently.

  “Why didn’t you ask Zaraf to return the map to you and call the whole deal off?”

  Jane shook her head miserably.

  “I wasn’t sure he had anything to do with it. I’m not yet, for that matter. And if I back out I may never get another opportunity to carry out Dad’s last wishes.”

  Neal glanced down at his knuckles. “Did it occur to you that it was too late to back out? That is, if Zaraf is the little dark boy in the woodpile. If he made two attempts on your life he certainly wouldn’t give you back the map now and let you walk out on him at this late date. If you tried you’d just be sealing your own death warrant.”

  “I thought of that,” Jane answered. “There wasn’t anything to do but go along with him and hope for the best.”

  “Which won’t be any too good, if I’m any judge of character,” Neal said drily. “But what about the knife you got at the curio shop? How does that fit into the picture?”

  “I don’t know,” Jane answered, frowning. “In Dad’s manuscript he made it very clear that before starting the trip I should stop here in Cairo and pick up that knife. He left it here on his last trip. It must be important or he wouldn’t have been so insistent about it. The shopkeeper knew him and had promised to keep the knife until he returned for it, or sent for it. The paper which I showed the shopkeeper was written by Dad and was a sort of a claim-check on the knife.”

  “One more question,” Neal grinned. “How did you happen to pick me for a Boy Scout?”

  The girl smiled slightly.

  “Maybe,” she answered, “because you look like a Boy Scout. I scribbled my address on a piece of paper while you and Max were glaring at each other in the curio shop. Afterward I told myself that I had acted foolishly, that you’d never bother to investigate a silly, impulsive gesture like that.”

  “That was a serious mistake in judgment,” Neal told her lightly.

  As he finished speaking a hinge creaked faintly behind him. Then a suave icy voice said:

  “A very serious mistake, indeed!”

  NEAL didn’t turn. Instead he watched Jane Manners. Her eyes looking over his shoulders were filled with a sudden, shocked fear.

  “Max!” she whispered.

  Neal stood up and turned slowly. Unconsciously his big hands tightened into hard, blocky fists. In the doorway, smiling without humor, stood Max Zaraf. The trailing smoke from the cigarette in his hand curled up past his lean, saturnine face, dimming slightly the cold, deadly glitter of his eyes. But Neal, watching the man closely, was sure there was disappointment in those eyes. Disappointment and a slight trace of uncertainty.

  “Are you all right, my dear?” Zaraf asked softly, ignoring Neal.

  Neal grinned, a tight mirthless grin. Zaraf acted as if he hadn’t been expecting to find things quite as they were.

  “Why shouldn’t she be?” Neal asked, before Jane could answer.

  Zaraf shrugged and stepped into the room. His eyes flicked meaningly to the shattered lock of the door.

  “Logical question, isn’t it?” he asked silkily. “Door forced open. Room upset. A tempestuous young American violating the privacy of a young woman’s room. It all adds up, does it not?”

  “Max!” Jane said sharply. “You’re being insulting.

  “You’re also being very careless of your health,” Neal said pointedly.

  Zaraf turned slightly and looked straight at Neal. The slight smile vanished from his features. Neal saw a new, wary look creep into Zaraf’s cold eyes, and he realized that the man had just recognized him as the American he had encountered at the curio shop.

  “What is your game, my young friend?” he asked coolly. “This couldn’t possibly be a coin
cidence. If it is, let me assure you that it might be a most unlucky one—for you.”

  “It is not a coincidence,” Jane said quietly. “I asked Mister—” she faltered, and Neal realized that he hadn’t told her his name.

  “Kirby,” he said quickly. “Neal Kirby. You must have forgot.”

  “Thank you,” Jane said gratefully. “I asked Mr. Kirby to come here,” she resumed, “because I thought I might need him.”

  “For what?” Zaraf asked.

  Neal wondered what reason the girl would give for asking him here. To tell the truth would reveal to Zaraf her suspicions concerning him. He looked at her, and her eyes met his in an imploring glance, before she faced Zaraf. Her slender body stiffened and her chin raised slightly as she said:

  “I have hired Mr. Kirby,” she said clearly, “as consulting archaeologist. He will leave with us tomorrow morning.”

  ZARAF’S steely calm was shaken. “Are you out of your mind?” he asked hoarsely.

  Neal stared at Jane in amazement. It was preposterous, out of the question, completely unthinkable. He didn’t know a thing about archaeology in the first place, and secondly, why should he be wandering over the desert looking for lost cities? It didn’t make sense.

  Then he looked at Jane, and suddenly it did make sense. For some crazy reason it became the most logical thing in the world for him to go anywhere, do anything this girl wanted. She was looking at him beseechingly, hope and confidence shining in her eyes.

  He turned to Zaraf, smiling faintly at the man’s obvious consternation.

  “That’s right,” he said cheerfully. “I’m the new archaeologist. I’m not such a hot archaeologist, but I’m a pretty good shot and I hear the desert is just full of snakes and rats.”

  Zaraf struggled to restrain his anger. His cheeks were touched with red and his cold eyes were twin pools of hate. But his voice was as soft as silk as he said:

  “You have to shoot a snake before it stings you. Remember that my young friend.” He turned then, and with a mocking bow to the girl, left the room.

  “Lovely fellow,” Neal murmured.

  “He’s dangerous and cruel,” Jane said worriedly. “I—I shouldn’t have gotten you into this. I have a terrible feeling that I’ll hate myself for it. If anything should happen to you, I’d feel as if it were my fault.”

  Neal picked up his hat and smiled down at her.

  “Forget it,” he said. He sauntered to the door, and grinned back at her. “I wasn’t kidding, you know, when I told our chum that I was a pretty good shot. The fact is I’m a damn good shot. See you tomorrow.”

  THE tiny caravan of four camels and three attendants wound its way from Cairo the following day, as the blazing morning sun served notice that the day would be scorching hot.

  Each camel carried a passenger, and was led by a native attendant at the end of a stout rope. The fourth camel carried huge leather sacks of water. It was roped to the last camel in the train and clumped awkwardly along, apparently unimpressed by the fact that it carried the most precious commodity of the desert—water.

  On the lead camel rode Max Zaraf. Behind him rode Jane Manners and bringing up the rear was Neal Kirby, swaying awkwardly o n h i s lurching steed, and feeling uncomfortable and strange in his pith helmet and breeches and boots.

  Zaraf had the map in his possession and gave the directions of travel to the native guides. For two days the trip was monotonously uneventful, varying little in detail from hour to hour. They traveled for the most part in the cool of the morning and evening and laid up during the blistering heat of the day. The terrain was endlessly unchanging. Slight rises of sand gave way to sloping valleys that led only to still another hill.

  On the evening of the third day Zaraf waved them to a stop and Neal climbed stiffly from his camel, glad to ease his muscles after a hard four-hour stretch. He walked through the soft sifting sand and assisted Jane Manners to alight. Zaraf was walking back toward them from his camel. They had stopped just below the summit of a rather high hill, and the fine top sand was blowing down on them in swirling, uncomfortable clouds.

  “We stop here,” Zaraf announced, coming up to them.

  “Here?” Neal echoed. “Let’s go over the hill to the valley. We’ll get out of this wind that way.”

  The native drivers, dark-skinned and inscrutable, waited stolidly for orders. They were a proud, silent breed of men, neither volunteering information, nor expecting it. As long as they received their money for the day’s work, it didn’t matter what their white-skinned masters did.

  Zaraf glared bale fully at Neal.

  “I have said we will stop here,” he repeated angrily. “I’m deciding on our course and if I decide to stop here it’s because I have excellent reasons for doing so.”

  Neal shrugged. It seemed a small matter to argue about. Maybe Zaraf did have a good reason for stopping here.

  “Okay,” he said, “if you can stand the sand I guess Jane and I can put up with it.”

  Zaraf turned without a word and walked back to his camel. The natives went to work building a shelter, and preparing the evening meal. The camels, relieved of their packs, settled placidly down on their haunches, like so many quiet cows.

  Darkness fell swiftly. Neal said good-night to Jane and turned in early. The fires burned out in a few hours and before the moon came up the tiny camp was slumbering.

  NEAL awoke the following morning as the first rays of the rising sun slanted into his eyes. He blinked sleepily and yawned. His first thought was of water. Every morning he awoke thirsty, for the desert’s searing heat dried out the moisture in his body as he slept. He climbed to his feet, stuck his feet into his boots and pulled on his shirt. Then he crawled out of the narrow pup tent, straightened up and looked around.

  For an instant he stared about unbelievingly. The camels and the native guides were nowhere in sight. The black ashes of the evening’s fire still showed as cancerous spots against the whiteness of the sand, but the natives’ sleeping gear and packs—and more vital, the camels—w ere vanished as completely as if the earth had opened and swallowed them.

  For seconds Neal was too stupefied to act. All he could do was stare in numbed bewilderment at the bleak expanse of the desert.

  When his dazed senses finally recovered, he wheeled and charged toward the other two sleeping tents.

  “Zaraf! Jane!” he shouted. “On your feet. Our guides have pulled a fade-out with the equipment and camels.”

  He was so excited that he did not notice the abysmal silence that seemed to stretch over the desert like a Vast tight blanket.

  Reaching Zaraf’s tent he jerked open the flap. He opened his mouth but the excited words on his lips died there. For Zaraf’s sleeping pad was undisturbed. It had obviously not been used that night.

  Neal felt the cold of panic close over his heart. For a silent, timeless instant he stared incredulously at Zaraf’s empty tent—then he was racing madly through the thick sand toward Jane’s tent. He shouted her name wildly and the hills threw back the mockery of an echo.

  He ripped open the flap without waiting for an answer to his shout. One glance showed him it was empty. The sleeping pad had been used, for it was twisted and tossed into a jumbled heap. Neal’s eyes picked quickly about the interior, noticing the generally disarrayed condition of the sleeping articles and clothes. One corner of the tent sagged drunkenly inward, and he could see that the rope and peg had pulled out of place. Everything pointed to a struggle or rough house of some sort. Neal stood up, a frantic fear clawing at his attempted calmness. As far as his eye could reach, the desert sands spread in a never-varying, never-ending expanse of sun and heat.

  “Jane!” he shouted desperately.

  “Jane! . . . Jane!”

  The echo mocked him.

  Neal peered into Jane’s tent again. A comb and hair brush were lying on the canvas floor, along with her wrist watch and a ring she usually wore. Neal’s frown deepened. Jane wouldn’t have left things like tha
t if—if—

  One inevitable conclusion forced itself on him. Zaraf had taken Jane by force, and with the camels and water, deserted in the dark of the night. There was no other conclusion possible. Neal realized then, with sickening abruptness, that in all probability this had been in Zaraf’s mind from the outset.

  NEAL rested on his haunches in Jane’s tent and thought carefully for a few moments. He had no water, no food and no means of transportation. His revolver had three shots left in it. The rest of the ammunition was in the camel packs. Except for the sun he had not the slightest means of gauging direction or ascertaining a definite course even if he had one to follow.

  Approximately, he had thirty-six hours to live.

  “Okay,” he muttered to himself. The pleasantness had gone from his features; leaving his face a stiff, expressionless mask. “It’s a slim chance, but I’ll take it. I may not find you, Max Zaraf but God help you if I do!”

  He was crawling from Jane’s tent when his hand touched the rent in the canvas. It was an inch-long rip close to the flap opening.

  Obeying a strange impulse, Neal examined it closely. He shoved his finger through the tear and wiggled it about in the warm sand beneath the flooring. Suddenly his finger touched something that was not sand. Something that was as cool and hard and smooth as—steel!

  Quickly Neal ripped the canvas flooring aside and dug into the sand with both hands. A second later he drew from the sand a glittering object which he recognized instantly.

  It was the be-jeweled knife which he had accidently stumbled on in the curio shop in Cairo. He recognized it instantly by the handle, formed as a human torso, and the human head which topped it. The flashing necklace of diamonds scintillated brilliantly in the dim light of the tent.

  Neal laughed bitterly and shoved it into his pocket. It was worth a great amount of money, men had probably fought and died over it, but it couldn’t buy him a drop of water now.