Delphi Works of Robert E. Howard (Illustrated) (Series Four)

by Robert E. Howard

  I says: “Them amusements is low. The first thing I am goin’ to do is to go and sock Ace Barlow on the nose. When I was in port six months ago somebody drugged my grog and lifted my wad, and I since found out it was him.”

  “Good,” said Bill. “I don’t like Ace neither and I’ll go along and see it’s well done.”

  So we went down to the Three Dragons Saloon and Ace come out from behind the bar grinning like a crocodile, and stuck out his hand and says: “Well, well, if it ain’t Steve Costigan and Bill McGlory! Glad to see you, Costigan.”

  “And I’m glad to see you, you double-crossin’ polecat,” I says, and socked him on the nose with a peach of a right. He crashed into the bar so hard he shook the walls and a demijohn fell off a shelf onto his head and knocked him stiff, and I thought Bill McGlory would bust laughing.

  Big Bess, Ace’s girl, give a howl like a steamboat whistle.

  “You vilyun!” she squalled. “You’ve killed Ace. Get out of here, you murderin’ son of a skunk!” I don’t know what kind of knife it was she flashed, but me and Bill left anyway. We wandered around on the waterfront most of the day and just about forgot about Ace, when all of a sudden he hove in view again, most unexpectedly. We was bucking a roulette wheel in Yin Song’s Temple of Chance, and naturally was losing everything we had, including our shirts, when somebody tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around and it was Ace. I drawed back my right mauler but he said: “Nix, you numb-skull — I wanta talk business with you.”

  His nose was skinned and both his eyes was black, which made him look very funny, and I said: “I bet you went and blowed your nose — you shouldn’t never do that after bein’ socked.”

  “I ain’t here to discuss my appearance,” he said annoyedly. “Come on out where we can talk without bein’ overheard.”

  “Foller you out into the alley?” I asked. “How many thugs you got out there with blackjacks?”

  At this moment Bill lost his last dime and turned around and seen Ace and he said: “Wasn’t one bust on the snoot enough?”

  “Listen, you mugs,” said Ace, waving his arms around like he does when excited, “here I got a scheme for makin’ us all a lot of dough and you boneheads stand around makin’ smart cracks.”

  “You’re goin’ to fix it so we make dough, hey?” I snorted. “I may be dumb, Ace Barlow, but I ain’t that dumb. You ain’t no pal of our’n.”

  “No, I ain’t!” he howled. “I despises you! I wisht you was both in Davy Jones’s locker! But I never lets sentiment interfere with business, and you two saps are the only men in Shanghai which has got guts enough for the job I got in mind.”

  I looked at Bill and Bill looked at me, and Bill says: “Ace, I trusts you like I trusts a rattlesnake — but lead on. Them was the honestest words I ever heard you utter.”

  Ace motioned us to foller him, and he led us out of the Temple of Chance into the back of his grog-shop, which wasn’t very far away. When we had set down and he had poured us some licker, taking some hisself, to show us it was on the level, he said: “Did you mutts ever hear of a man by the name of John Bain?”

  “Naw,” I said, but Bill scowled: “Seems like I have — naw — I can’t place the name—”

  “Well,” said Ace, “he’s a eccentric milyunaire, and he’s here in Shanghai. He’s got a kid sister, Catherine, which he’s very fond of—”

  “I see the point,” I snapped, getting up and sticking the bottle of licker in my hip pocket. “That’s out, we don’t kidnap no dame for you. C’mon, Bill.”

  “That’s a dirty insult!” hollered Ace. “You insinyouatin’ I’d stoop so low as to kidnap a white woman?”

  “It wouldn’t be stoopin’ for you,” sneered Bill. “It would be a step upwards.”

  “Set down, Costigan,” said Ace, “and put back that bottle, les’n you got money to pay for it... Boys, you got me all wrong. The gal’s already been kidnapped, and Bain’s just about nuts.”

  “Why don’t he go to the police?” I says.

  “He has,” said Ace, “but when could the police find a gal the Chineeses has stole? They’d did their best but they ain’t found nothin’. Now listen — this is where you fellers come in. I know where the gal is!”

  “Yeah?” we said, interested, but only half believing him.

  “I guess likely I’m the only white man in Shanghai what does,” he said. “Now I ask you — are you thugs ready to take a chance?”

  “On what?” we said.

  “On the three-thousand-dollar reward John Bain is offerin’ for the return of his sister,” said Ace. “Now listen — I know a certain big Chinee had her kidnapped outa her ‘rickshaw out at the edge of the city one evenin’. He’s been keepin’ her prisoner in his house, waitin’ a chance to send her up-country to some bandit friends of his’n; then they’ll be in position to twist a big ransome outa John Bain, see? But he ain’t had a chance to slip her through yet. She’s still in his house. But if I was to tell the police, they’d raid the place and get the reward theirselves. So all you boys got to do is go get her and we split the reward three ways.”

  “Yeah,” said Bill bitterly, “and git our throats cut while doin’ it. What you goin’ to do?”

  “I give you the information where she is,” he said. “Ain’t that somethin’? And I’ll do more — I’ll manage to lure the big Chinee away from his house while you go after the gal. I’ll fake a invitation from a big merchant to meet him somewheres — I know how to work it. An hour before midnight I’ll have him away from that house. Then it’ll be pie for you.”

  Me and Bill meditated.

  “After all,” wheedled Ace, “she’s a white gal in the grip of the yeller devils.”

  “That settles it,” I decided. “We ain’t goin’ to leave no white woman at the mercy of no Chinks.”

  “Good,” said Ace. “The gal’s at Yut Lao’s house — you know where that is? I’ll contrive to git him outa the house. All you gotta do is walk in and grab the gal. I dunno just where in the house she’ll be, of course; you’ll have to find that out for yourselves. When you git her, bring her to the old deserted warehouse on the Yen Tao wharf. I’ll be there with John Bain. And listen — the pore gal has likely been mistreated so she don’t trust nobody. She may not wanta come with you, thinkin’ you’ve come to take her up- country to them hill-bandits. So don’t stop to argy — just bring her along anyhow.”

  “All right,” we says and Ace says, “Well, weigh anchor then, that’s all.”

  “That ain’t all, neither,” said Bill. “If I start on this here expedition I gotta have a bracer. Gimme that bottle.”

  “Licker costs money,” complained Ace as Bill filled his pocket flask.

  “Settin’ a busted nose costs money, too,” snapped Bill, “so shut up before I adds to your expenses. We’re in this together for the money, and I want you to know I don’t like you any better’n I ever did.”

  Ace gnashed his teeth slightly at this, and me and Bill set out for Yut Lao’s house. About half a hour to midnight we got there. It was a big house, set amongst a regular rat-den of narrow twisty alleys and native hovels. But they was a high wall around it, kinda setting it off from the rest.

  “Now we got to use strategy,” I said, and Bill says, “Heck, there you go makin’ a tough job outa this. All we gotta do is walk up to the door and when the Chinks open it, we knock ’em stiff and grab the skirt and go.”

  “Simple!” I said sourcastically. “Do you realize this is the very heart of the native quarters, and these yeller-bellies would as soon stick a knife in a white man as look at him?”

  “Well,” he said, “if you’re so smart, you figger it out.”

  “Come on,” I said, “we’ll sneak over the wall first. I seen a Chinee cop snoopin’ around back there a ways and he give us a very suspicious look. I bet he thinks you’re a burglar or somethin’.”

  Bill shoved out his jaw. “Does he come stickin’ his nose into our business, I bends it into a true-lov
er’s knot.”

  “This takes strategy,” I says annoyedly. “If he comes up and sees us goin’ over the wall, I’ll tell him we’re boardin’ with Yut Lao and he forgot and locked us out, and we lost our key.”

  “That don’t sound right, somehow,” Bill criticized, but he’s always jealous, because he ain’t smart like me, so I paid no heed to him, but told him to foller me.

  Well, we went down a narrow back-alley which run right along by the wall, and just as we started climbing over, up bobbed the very Chinese cop I’d mentioned. He musta been follering us.

  “Stop!” he said, poking at me with his night-stick. “What fella monkey- business catchee along you?”

  And dawgoned if I didn’t clean forget what I was going to tell him!

  “Well,” said Bill impatiently, “speak up, Steve, before he runs us in.”

  “Gimme time,” I said snappishly, “don’t rush me — lemme see now — Yut Lao boards with us and he lost his key — no, that don’t sound right—”

  “Aw, nuts!” snorted Bill and before I could stop him he hit the Chinee cop on the jaw and knocked him stiff.

  “Now you done it!” said I. “This will get us six months in the jug.”

  “Aw, shut up and git over that wall,” growled Bill. “We’ll git the gal and be gone before he comes to. Then with that reward dough, I’d like to see him catch us. It’s too dark here for him to have seen us good.”

  So we climbed into the garden, which was dark and full of them funny- looking shrubs the Chineeses grows and trims into all kinds of shapes like ships and dragons and ducks and stuff. Yut Lao’s house looked even bigger from inside the wall and they was only a few lights in it. Well, we went stealthily through the garden and come to a arched door which led into the house. It was locked but we jimmied it pretty easy with some tools Ace had give us — he had a regular burglar’s kit, the crook. We didn’t hear a sound; the house seemed to be deserted.

  We groped around and Bill hissed, “Steve, here’s a stair. Let’s go up.”

  “Well,” I said, “I don’t hardly believe we’ll find her upstairs or nothin’. They proberly got her in a underground dunjun or somethin’.”

  “Well,” said Bill, “this here stair don’t go no ways but up and we can’t stand here all night.”

  So we groped up in the dark and come into a faintly lighted corridor. This twisted around and didn’t seem like to me went nowheres, but finally come onto a flight of stairs going down. By this time we was clean bewildered — the way them heathens builds their houses would run a white man nuts. So we went down the stair and found ourselves in another twisting corridor on the ground floor. Up to that time we’d met nobody. Ace had evidently did his job well, and drawed most everybody outa the house.

  All but one big coolie with a meat cleaver.

  We was just congratulating ourselves when swish! crack! A shadow falling acrost me as we snuck past a dark nook was all that saved my scalp. I ducked just as something hummed past my head and sunk three inches deep into the wall. It was a meat cleaver in the hand of a big Chinee, and before he could wrench it loose, I tackled him around the legs like a fullback bucking the line and we went to the floor together so hard it knocked the breath outa him. He started flopping and kicking, but I would of had him right if it hadn’t of been for Bill’s carelessness. Bill grabbed a lacquered chair and swung for the Chinee’s head, but we was revolving on the floor so fast his aim wasn’t good. Wham! I seen a million stars. I rolled offa my victim and lay, kicking feebly, and Bill used what was left of the chair to knock the Chinaman cold.

  “You dumb bonehead,” I groaned, holding my abused head on which was a bump as big as a goose-egg. “You nearly knocked my brains out.”

  “You flatters yourself, Steve,” snickered Bill. “I was swingin’ at the Chinee — and there he lays. I always gits my man.”

  “Yeah, after maimin’ all the innocent bystanders within reach,” I snarled. “Gimme a shot outa that flask.”

  We both had a nip and then tied and gagged the Chinee with strips tore from his shirt, and then we continued our explorations. We hadn’t made as much noise as it might seem; if they was any people in the house they was all sound asleep. We wandered around for a while amongst them dark or dim lighted corridors, till we seen a light shining under a crack of a door, and peeking through the keyhole, we seen what we was looking for.

  On a divan was reclining a mighty nice-looking white girl, reading a book. I was plumb surprised; I’d expected to find her chained up in a dunjun with rats running around. The room she was in was fixed up very nice indeed, and she didn’t look like her captivity was weighing very heavy on her; and though I looked close, I seen no sign of no chain whatever. The door wasn’t even locked.

  I opened the door and we stepped in quick. She jumped up and stared at us.

  “Who are you?” she exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”

  “Shhhhh!” I said warningly. “We has come to rescue you from the heathen!”

  To my shocked surprise, she opened her mouth and yelled, “Yut Lao!” at the top of her voice.

  I grabbed her and clapped my hand over her mouth, whilst goose-flesh riz up and down my spine.

  “Belay there!” I said in much annoyance. “You wanta get all our throats cut? We’re your friends, don’t you understand?”

  Her reply was to bite me so viciously that her teeth met in my thumb. I yelped involuntarily and let her go, and Bill caught hold of her and said soothingly, “Wait, Miss — they’s no need to be scared — ow!” She hauled off and smacked him in the eye with a right that nearly floored him, and made a dart for the door. I pounced on her and she yanked out my hair in reckless handfuls.

  “Grab her feet, Bill,” I growled. “I come here to rescue this dame and I’m goin’ to do it if we have to tie her hand and foot.”

  Well, Bill come to my aid and in the end we had to do just that — tie her up, I mean. It was about like tying a buzz-saw. We tore strips offa the bed-sheets and bound her wrists and ankles, as gentle as we could, and gagged her likewise, because when she wasn’t chawing large chunks out of us, she would screech like a steamboat whistle. If they’d been anybody at large in the house they’d of sure heard. Honest to gosh, I never seen anybody so hard to rescue in my life. But we finally got it done and laid her on the divan.

  “Why Yut Lao or anybody else wants this wildcat is more’n I can see,” I growled, setting down and wiping the sweat off and trying to get my wind back. “This here’s gratitude — here we risks our lives to save this girl from the clutches of the Yeller Peril and she goes and bites and kicks like we was kidnappin’ her ourselves.”

  “Aw, wimmen is all crazy,” snarled Bill, rubbing his shins where she had planted her French heels. “Dawgone it, Steve, the cork is come outa my flask in the fray and alt my licker is spillin’ out.”

  “Stick the cork back in,” I urged. And he said, “You blame fool, what you think I’d do? But I can’t find the cork.”

  “Make a stopper outa some paper,” I advised, and he looked around and seen a shelf of books. So he took down a book at random, tore out the fly-leaf and wadded it up and stuck it in the flask and put the book back. At this moment I noticed that I’d carelessly laid the girl down on her face and she was kicking and squirming, so I picked her up and said, “You go ahead and see if the way’s clear; only you gotta help me pack her up and down them stairs.”

  “No need of that,” he said. “This room’s on the ground floor, see? Well, I bet this here other door opens into the garden.” He unbolted it and sure enough it did.

  “I bet that cop’s layin’ for us,” I grunted.

  “I bet he ain’t,” said Bill, and for once he was right. I reckon the Chinee thought the neighborhood was too tough for him. We never seen him again.

  We took the opposite side from where we come in at, and maybe you think we had a nice time getting that squirming frail over the wall. But we finally done it and started for the old dese
rted warehouse with her. Once I started to untie her and explain we was her friends, but the instant I started taking off the gag, she sunk her teeth into my neck. So I got mad and disgusted and gagged her again.

  I thought we wouldn’t never get to the warehouse. Tied as she was, she managed to wriggle and squirm and bounce till I had as soon try to carry a boa- constrictor, and I wisht she was a man so I could sock her on the jaw. We kept to back alleys and it ain’t no uncommon sight to see men carrying a bound and gagged girl through them twisty dens at night, in that part of the native quarters, so if anybody seen us, they didn’t give no hint. Probably thought we was a couple of strong-arm gorillas stealing a girl for some big mandarin or something.

  Well, we finally come to the warehouse, looming all silent and deserted on the rotting old wharf. We come up into the shadder of it and somebody went, “Shhhh!”

  “Is that you, Ace?” I said, straining my eyes — because they wasn’t any lamps or lights of any kind anywheres near and everything was black and eery, with the water sucking and lapping at the piles under our feet.

  “Yeah,” came the whisper, “right here in this doorway. Come on — this way — I got the door open.”

  We groped our way to the door and blundered in, and he shut the door and lit a candle. We was in a small room which must have been a kind of counting or checking room once when the warehouse was in use. Ace looked at the girl and didn’t seem a bit surprised because she was tied up.

  “That’s her, all right,” he says. “Good work. Well, boys, your part’s did. You better scram. I’ll meet you tomorrer and split the reward.”

  “We’ll split it tonight,” I growled. “I been kicked in the shins and scratched and bit till I got tooth-marks all over me, and if you think I’m goin’ to leave here without my share of the dough, you’re nuts.”

  “You bet,” said Bill. “We delivers her to John Bain, personal.”

  Ace looked inclined to argy the matter, but changed his mind and said, “All right, he’s in here — bring her in.”