Collected Fiction (1940-1963)

by William P. McGivern

  “Yes,” Phillip sighed. “I’ll take care of him.”

  The details were arranged and in an hour Porthos stood outside the jail with Phillip and D’Artagnan, a free man.

  “Well,” D’Artagnan said, “that is over. And now I am hungry and thirsty. Let us forget our troubles with a bottle of wine. Mon Dieu, it seems ages since my palate has welcomed a cooling draught of burgundy.” Porthos shook his head sadly.

  “My appetite and thirst are gone forever, I think,” he said. “I want to get away from all this strange civilization and think.”

  Phillip realized that he too was hungry. And if ever a man needed a drink he was that person.

  He hailed a cab and gave the driver the address of his boarding house. Turning to Porthos, he said, “This cab will take you home. Aramis and Athos are there and they are worried about you. Tell them D’Artagnan and I will be along soon.”

  Porthos nodded and climbed into the cab. When it had pulled away from the curb, Phillip turned to D’Artagnan.

  “Now for that drink,” he said.

  CHAPTER VII

  PHILLIP led D’Artagnan to a swanky bar in one of the downtown hotels. For some reason he felt like celebrating. He knew that the next day he would have to start thinking seriously about finding another job, but today he refused to let that worry him.

  They had barely given their order to a waiter when D’Artagnan grabbed his arm excitedly.

  “Look!” he said. “At the table on the other side of the room.”

  Phillip looked and saw a beautiful, young red-haired girl sitting with an impeccably clad, middle-aged man who wore a gleaming monocle over one eye.

  “What about them?” Phillip asked blankly.

  “It is the girl,” D’Artagnan said excitedly. “The girl I saw on the street car this morning. She was in trouble. How could you forget that face?”

  Phillip looked again and saw that D’Artagnan was right. The man with whom she was seated was tall and lean, with cold blue eyes and slightly graying hair. There was a saber scar on his cheek that pulled his mouth into a faint, perpetual sneer.

  “What luck!” D’Artagnan cried, springing to his feet.

  “Wait a minute,” Phillip said; “you can’t go over there.”

  “Why not?’

  “She is with a man. Such things just aren’t done.”

  “Bah! It is about time they were, then,” D’Artagnan said, grinning. “Excuse me.” He bowed and strode across the floor to the girl’s table. Nervously, Phillip followed, thinking he might be able to smooth over the situation.

  D’Artagnan bowed to the girl with a flourish.

  “This is such a great and unexpected pleasure that I am overwhelmed. I feared this morning that I might never see you again, but the gods are kind.” He pulled up a chair and sat down.

  The red haired girl looked at him and there was relief in her eyes.

  “It is nice to see you again,” she said warmly. “I hardly had time to thank you this morning. I see you have changed your costume.”

  D’Artagnan glanced down at his tweeds and smiled.

  “Yes, I was becoming somewhat conspicuous.”

  The girl turned to her companion. “Major Lanser, this is the young man I told you about.”

  Major Lanser inclined his head briefly toward D’Artagnan and then turned to the girl. A humorless smile touched his thin lips and the saber scar on his cheek twisted.

  “How interesting,” he murmured. “Will you be good enough to tell him we are busy?”

  “Oh, but we aren’t too busy to talk to gallant young rescuers,” the girl said, laughing. But there was a strange, odd note to her laughter, as if it were close to hysteria.

  “How kind of you,” D’Artagnan said. His eyes were watching Major Lanser with quiet speculation. There was a tension at the table that was smoulderingly tangible.

  D’Artagnan suddenly grinned disarmingly and pulled up another chair to the table and waved to Phillip to sit down.

  “My friend,” he explained, “I hope you won’t mind.” He smiled at the girl. “It will be someone for the Major to talk to.”

  The Major’s lean, bard face flushed red as Phillip settle himself cautiously at the table. Phillip felt the peculiar tension that seemed to crack across the table, and when he looked into the Major’s ice-blue, slate-hard eyes he felt a strange prickling of fear.

  The Major put his hand on the girl’s arm.

  “I think you must bid your friends good-bye,” he said quietly. “It is time for us to leave.”

  “No,” the girl said. Her eyes met D’Artagnan’s in a mute appeal. “I’m—I’m not ready to leave yet.”

  “I think you are, my dear,” the Major said. His fingers closed over the girl’s arm and the knuckles of his hand suddenly whitened. “You wouldn’t want to cause your friends any—er—inconvenience, would you?”

  THE girl’s eyes closed and her face was gray.

  “No, you mustn’t—” she said. “I’ll come with you.” The last words were a bare whisper.

  D’Artagnan’s keen eyes flashed like the glinting blade of a rapier, as he studied Major Lanser’s coldly expresssionless face.

  “Major Lanser,” he said softly, “the young lady obviously would rather stay and finish her drink. But you mustn’t let that keep you.” He emphasized the last word carefully.

  The Major looked at him for an instant and the silence was tense and charged. Then he shrugged and his hand released the girl’s arm. He stood up and smiled down at the girl.

  “You will find my way would have been wiser,” he murmured. He turned slightly to face D’Artagnan and the smile was gone from his lips. “I hope we meet again,” he said.

  When he had gone, D’Artagnan turned impulsively to the girl.

  “Forgive me, but I do not like your friend,” he said. “Can’t you tell me what is troubling you? It would make me very happy to be able to help you.”

  “You mustn’t see me again,” the girl said. “I have already allowed you to place yourself in a very dangerous position. If you ever see Major Lanser again, keep well out of his way.” She smiled and stood up. “You have done me a great service and I will always be grateful. Good-bye.”

  Before D’Artagnan could speak the girl moved swiftly away from the table. D’Artagnan sprang to his feet, but the girl, by that time, had disappeared through a door that led to the lobby of the hotel.

  “This time I shall not stand like a stupid clod,” D’Artagnan said. “Hurry, there is still time for us to catch her. She needs our help.”

  Phillip paid the waiter. His thoughts were wheeling nervously.

  “You’ve got to be careful,” he said worriedly to D’Artagnan; “that Major Lanser is dangerous. I could tell that from his eyes. They were as cold as the eyes of a snake.”

  “But that girl needs help,” D’Artagnan said impatiently. “Come along. If the Major proves troublesome it will be most unfortunate—for the Major.” With Phillip pattering at his heels he strode across the floor to the lobby. Except for a few men reading newspapers, the room was deserted.

  “Possibly she took a cab,” Phillip suggested.

  Grimly, D’Artagnan shoved through the revolving door to the street. He grabbed the doorman by the arm.

  “Did you see a young lady leave here a moment ago? A tall, red-haired girl?”

  “I called a cab for her,” the doorman answered.

  “Was she alone?”

  “Yes, she was alone when she got into the cab, but a man stepped in after her before the cab started. They left together.”

  “What did the man look like?” D’Artagnan demanded.

  The doorman frowned. “I didn’t get a good look, but I noticed he seemed pretty well dressed. And, let me see, he wore a monocle. I think he had a scar on his face, but I’m not sure.”

  “Did you hear the address they gave the driver?” Phillip asked.

  “I think he said Mannerly Towers,” the doorman answered.
r />   “Call us a cab,” D’Artagnan said. “What do you intend to do?” Phillip asked nervously.

  “Follow them, of course. We may already be too late.”

  “But if this girl is in trouble,” Phillip said, “it’s a matter for the police. You don’t know what you might be sticking your neck into. Let me call the station and have a squad of men sent over to the Mannerly Towers.”

  D’Artagnan shook his head. “The gendarmes have an unhappy faculty of making a supreme mess of anything that requires tact and diplomacy. We must handle this ourselves. But you are right in one respect. We may need help. Call your room and tell Aramis. Porthos and Athos that I need them and give them the address of Mannerly Towers. Tell them to come there as quickly as possible. I would rather have them at my side than all the gendarmes in the city.”

  Phillip did as he was directed and when he returned to the sidewalk a cab was waiting and D’Artagnan was waiting impatiently.

  Phillip crawled into the cab beside D’Artagnan and sank back against the cushions as it pulled away from the curb with a roar.

  “Mannerly Towers!” D’Artagnan snapped. “Quickly!”

  CHAPTER VIII

  D’ ARTAGNAN and Phillip stepped from the cab before the imposing facade of the Mannerly Towers. The building was located at the near North side and it had only taken them a few minutes to reach it, but D’Artagnan had fidgeted all the way.

  When Phillip paid the driver he strode toward the main entrance.

  “Don’t you think we’d better go around the back way?” Phillip said. “There’s no point in advertising our entry.”

  “There is no time for such maneuvering,” D’Artagnan said. “We must depend on the surprise value of a frontal attack.”

  The desk clerk looked inquiringly at them.

  “We wish to see Major Lanser,” Phillip said. “What is his suite number?”

  “Thirteen-forty,” the clerk answered, “but is the Major expecting you?”

  “Yes!” D’Artagnan snapped.

  Phillip led the way to the elevators. The elevator operator shot them up to the thirteenth floor, deposited them and started back down.

  The corridor was carpeted with a luxurious gray rug that muffled their footsteps as they moved along the hall to a gleaming white door bearing the number 1340.

  “This is it,” Phillip said in a whisper, “but don’t you think we’d better wait until Athos and the others get here?”

  “I don’t know,” D’Artagnan frowned.

  He stopped speaking as the door in front of them opened and the tall figure of Major Lanser appeared in the doorway.

  “A pleasant surprise,” the Major said quietly. “Did you forget that the desk clerk would inform me that you were on your way up?”

  Looking over the Major’s shoulder, Phillip saw a long, empty room, furnished in quiet good taste.

  “What is it you wanted?” the Major asked. His face was set in hard, expressionless lines, but his eyes were as dull and cold as death.

  “The girl,” D’Artagnan said, meeting his gaze squarely. “We know that she accompanied you here and it is to be our pleasure to relieve her of your unpleasant company.”

  “So?” the Major smiled. “You are still playing the role of gallant rescuer, are you? I am sorry to disappoint you. The girl is not here. You are welcome to look, if that will ease your mind.”

  He stepped aside and bowed mockingly.

  D’Artagnan regarded him coolly for an instant, then stepped past him into the long room. Phillip followed hesitantly. The Major closed the door and strolled to the center of the room, his thin face cynically amused.

  “Are you satisfied?” he said softly.

  “No,” D’Artagnan said. He glanced about the room with narrowed eyes. He noted a set of fencing foils above the mantle, a picture of the Major in uniform, but nothing to indicate the presence of the red-haired girl.

  “There are other rooms, are there not?” he asked.

  The Major smiled. “I was hoping you would have enough sense to be satisfied, but obviously you haven’t.” He raised his hand in a signal and a door at the end of the room opened. A squat man with a gun in his hand stepped into the room and moved to the side wall, where his gun covered D’Artagnan and Phillip.

  Phillip swallowed nervously and he could hear the terrified thudding of his heart in the sudden stillness of the room.

  Another man stepped through the doorway, but he was not alone. At his side was the red-haired girl. Her eyes were enormous pools in the whiteness of her face. Phillip saw that her wrists were taped together behind her.

  “Oh, you shouldn’t have followed me,” she said, her voice breaking. She glanced swiftly, imploringly at Major

  Lanser. “Please don’t hurt them. Let them go. They don’t know a thing. I give you my word.”

  “Your solicitude is very touching,” Major Lanser said. “But, unfortunately, I can’t do as you suggest. It would be very foolish of me to let them go now. They have already seen too much. No, I am sorry, but they must be disposed of as soon as possible.”

  PHILLIP was standing beside a table on which a heavy metal ashtray rested. He was about six feet from the man who held the gun. Almost of its own volition his hand moved slowly to the ashtray and closed over it. His heart was hammering frantically. All of his cautious, common sense instincts were demanding that he put his hand back to his side and forget the wild idea in his head. But instead he lifted the ashtray slowly from the table. No one was watching him. No one saw him move until he turned and threw the heavy weight squarely at the closely cropped head of the squat little man with the gun.

  And then it was too late for anyone to do anything about it. For the ashtray caught the man directly between the eyes and he fell forward on his face without a whimper.

  But then everybody in the room seemed to galvanize into action.

  The man beside the girl lunged forward, but she tripped him with her foot as he passed, sending him sprawling to the floor. Major Lanser wheeled and leaped toward the mantle. His hand closed over a slim, deadly fencing foil and, with an oath, he whirled to face D’Artagnan.

  But the musketeer had moved, too. With a lithe sidestep he evaded the Major’s savage lunge and leaped for the other foil. With it gleaming in his hand, he swung to meet Major Lanser, a grim smile on his face.

  Major Lanser moved forward, catlike, the sword in his hand twitching like a snake about to strike.

  “This will be interesting,” he murmured. Over his shoulder he snapped to the man who had tripped over the girl’s foot, “Watch the others. I will handle our collegiate Don Quixote.”

  “No!” the girl cried. “It isn’t fair. He hasn’t a chance against you.”

  “I will be gentle with him,” Major Lanser smiled. He moved forward in a lithe deadly fencer’s crouch. “I will not kill him quickly.”

  “You fiend!” the girl cried. She tried vainly to jerk loose from the man who held her. “Don’t duel him!” she cried, struggling to face D’Artagnan. “Don’t you see, he’s planning to cut you to ribbons?”

  D’Artagnan was leaning against the mantle, almost lazily, but his narrowed eyes watched Lanser’s every move.

  “Save your sympathy for the Major,” he murmured. “He is more likely to have need of it. I am not exactly unaccustomed to the sport of fencing.”

  “This is not going to be a sporting contest,” the Major said grimly. With a sudden feint he lunged to the right, then crossed back to the left and his sword flashed at D’Artagnan.

  Philip cried out involuntarily, but D’Artagnan’s sword had somehow sprung magically to meet the Major’s, and steel crashed unavailingly against steel.

  “A good defense,” the Major said, breathing through stiff lips.

  “Let us test yours,” D’Artagnan said cooly.

  His sword seemed to flash with the speed of light. His lean body shifted forward.

  A hoarse shuddering gasp broke from the Major’s throat.

>   The point of D’Artagnan’s blade was touching his shirt and D’Artagnan was poised to lunge, a grim, merciless smile hovering about his lips.

  The Major’s sword was at his side. He had been caught completely off guard by the speed and skill of D’Artagnan’s thrust.

  His breathing was ragged as he waited for the cold steel to drive forward into his body. But D’Artagnan stepped back and raised his sword.

  “En guarde!” he cried. “You wanted time to kill me slowly and I shall give you all the time you need.”

  Major Lanser raised his sword and stepped back, watching D’Artagnan with nervously flickering eyes. The stiff hard lines of his face were dissolving into a mask of fear. He wet his thin, lips with his tongue as D’Artagnan moved slowly toward him.

  “It is not really fair for me to use my right arm,” D’Artagnan murmured, almost to himself. “Athos, himself, has trouble with my right arm.”

  With a smile he shifted the foil to his left hand. “This should give you a better chance, Major Lanser.”

  MAJOR LANSER lunged forward savagely, his face twisted with an insane rage. There was a blazing light of anticipated triumph in his eyes.

  “No man alive can stand against me with his left hand,” he cried.

  D’Artagnan parried the thrust with a turn of his wrist, without shifting the position of his body.

  “There is always the first time for such things,” he said.

  Lanser lunged forward again, his breath coming raggedly, and D’Artagnan slipped to one side with the ease of a shadow moving against a wall. His blade flashed down in a spinning arc. Steel rang against steel as Lanser’s blade flew from his hand and fell to the floor a dozen feet from where he stood.

  “You seem to have lost something, Major,” D’Artagnan murmured. His blade was resting lightly in his hand and the Major stared at it as if it were something bewitched.

  “You—you devil!” he cried hoarsely. “Who are you?” His face was flushed and there was a flicker of foam on his lips. With a sudden movement he sprang back and shouted to the man who was holding the red haired girl.

  “Cover him. Drop him if he takes a step toward me.”