“What about yourself? Your name’s in his book, too.”
“Never mind me,” Harrison growled pugnaciously. “I reckon I can take care of myself.” He looked capable enough, with his cold blue eyes, and the muscles bulging in his coat. He had shoulders like a bull.
“This wing’s practically isolated from the rest of the building,” he said, “and you’ve got the third floor to yourself?”
“Not only the third floor of the wing,” she answered. “There’s no one else on the third floor anywhere in the building at present.”
“That makes it fine!” he exclaimed irritably. “Somebody could sneak in and cut your throat without disturbing anyone. That’s what they’ll try, too, when they realize the cigarettes didn’t finish you. You’d better move to a hotel.”
“That wouldn’t make any difference,” she answered, trembling. Her nerves obviously were in a bad way. “Erlik Khan would find me, anywhere. In a hotel, with people coming and going all the time, and the rotten locks they have on the doors, with transoms and fire escapes and everything, it would just be that much easier for him.”
“Well, then, I’ll plant a bunch of cops around here.”
“That wouldn’t do any good, either. Erlik Khan has killed again and again in spite of the police. They do not understand his ways.”
“That’s right,” he muttered uncomfortably aware of a conviction that to summon men from headquarters would surely be signing those men’s death warrants, without accomplishing anything else. It was absurd to suppose that the dead Mongol fiend was behind these murderous attacks, yet — Harrison’s flesh crawled along his spine at the memory of things that had taken place in River Street — things he had never reported, because he did not wish to be thought either a liar or a madman. The dead do not return — but what seems absurd on Thirty-ninth Boulevard takes on a different aspect among the haunted labyrinths of the Oriental quarter.
“Stay with me!” Joan’s eyes were dilated, and she caught Harrison’s arm with hands that shook violently. “We can defend these rooms! While one sleeps the other can watch! Do not call the police; their blunders would doom us. You have worked in the quarter for years, and are worth more than the whole police force. The mysterious instincts that are a part of my Eastern heritage are alert to danger. I feel peril for us both, near, creeping closer, gliding around us like serpents in the darkness!”
“But I can’t stay here,” he scowled worriedly. “We can’t barricade ourselves and wait for them to starve us out. I’ve got to hit back — find out who’s behind all this. The best defense is a good offense. But I can’t leave you here unguarded, either. Damn!” He clenched his big fists and shook his head like a baffled bull in his perplexity.
“There is one man in the city besides yourself I could trust,” she said suddenly. “One worth more than all the police. With him guarding me I could sleep safely.”
“Who is he?”
“Khoda Khan.”
“That fellow? Why, I thought he’d skipped months ago.”
“No; he’s been hiding in Levant Street.”
“But he’s a confounded killer himself!”
“No, he isn’t; not according to his standards, which means as much to him as yours do to you. He’s an Afghan who was raised in a code of blood-feud and vengeance. He’s as honorable according to his creed of life as you or I. And he’s my friend. He’d die for me.”
“I reckon that means you’ve been hiding him from the law,” said Harrison with a searching glance which she did not seek to evade. He made no further comment. River Street is not South Park Avenue. Harrison’s own methods were not always orthodox, but they generally got results.
“Can you reach him?” he asked abruptly. She nodded.
“Alright. Call him and tell him to beat it up here. Tell him he won’t be molested by the police, and after the brawl’s over, he can go back into hiding. But after that it’s open season if I catch him. Use your phone. Wire may be tapped, but we’ll have to take the chance. I’ll go downstairs and use the booth in the office. Lock the door, and don’t open it to anybody until I get back.”
When the bolts clicked behind him, Harrison turned down the corridor toward the stairs. The apartment house boasted no elevator. He watched all sides warily as he went. A peculiarity of architecture had, indeed, practically isolated that wing. The wall opposite Joan’s doors was blank. The only way to reach the other suites on that floor was to descend the stair and ascend another on the other side of the building.
As he reached the stair he swore softly; his heel had crunched a small vial on the first step. With some vague suspicion of a planted poison trap he stooped and gingerly investigated the splintered bits and the spilled contents. There was a small pool of colorless liquid which gave off a pungent, musky odor, but there seemed nothing lethal about it.
“Some damned Oriental perfume Joan dropped, I reckon,” he decided. He descended the twisting stair without further delay and was presently in the booth in the office which opened on the street; a sleepy clerk dozed behind the desk.
Harrison got the chief of police on the wire and began abruptly.
“Say, Hoolihan, you remember that Afghan, Khoda Khan, who knifed a Chinaman about three months ago? Yes, that’s the one. Well, listen: I’m using him on a job for a while, so tell your men to lay off, if they see him. Pass the word along pronto. Yes, I know it’s very irregular; so’s the job I hold down. In this case it’s the choice of using a fugitive from the law, or seeing a law-abiding citizen murdered. Never mind what it’s all about. This is my job, and I’ve got to handle it my own way. All right; thanks.”
He hung up the receiver, thought vigorously for a few minutes, and then dialed another number that was definitely not related to the police station. In place of the chief’s booming voice there sounded at the other end of the wire a squeaky whine framed in the argot of the underworld.
“Listen, Johnny,” said Harrison with his customary abruptness, “you told me you thought you had a lead on the Kossova murder. What about it?”
“It wasn’t no lie, boss!” The voice at the other end trembled with excitement. “I got a tip, and it’s big! — big! I can’t spill it over the phone, and I don’t dare stir out. But if you’ll meet me at Shan Yang’s hop joint, I’ll give you the dope. It’ll knock you loose from your props, believe me it will!”
“I’ll be there in an hour,” promised the detective. He left the booth and glanced briefly out into the street. It was a misty night, as so many River Street nights are. Traffic was only a dim echo from some distant, busier section. Drifting fog dimmed the street lamps, shrouding the forms of occasional passers-by. The stage was set for murder; it only awaited the appearance of the actors in the dark drama.
Harrison mounted the stairs again. They wound up out of the office and up into the third story wing without opening upon the second floor at all. The architecture, like much of it in or near the Oriental section, was rather unusual. People of the quarter were notoriously fond of privacy, and even apartment houses were built with this passion in mind. His feet made no sound on the thickly carpeted stairs, though a slight crunching at the top step reminded him of the broken vial again momentarily. He had stepped on the splinters.
He knocked at the locked door, answered Joan’s tense challenge and was admitted. He found the girl more self-possessed.
“I talked with Khoda Khan. He’s on his way here now. I warned him that the wire might be tapped — that our enemies might know as soon as I called him, and try to stop him on his way here.”
“Good,” grunted the detective. “While I’m waiting for him I’ll have a look at your suite.”
There were four rooms, drawing room in front, with a large bedroom behind it, and behind that two smaller rooms, the maid’s bedroom and the bathroom. The maid was not there, because Joan had sent her away at the first intimation of danger threatening. The corridor ran parallel with the suite, and the drawing room, large bedroom and bathroom ope
ned upon it. That made three doors to consider. The drawing room had one big east window, overlooking the street, and one on the south. The big bedroom had one south window, and the maid’s room one south and one west window. The bathroom had one window, a small one in the west wall, overlooking a small court bounded by a tangle of alleys and board-fenced backyards.
“Three outside doors and six windows to be watched, and this the top story,” muttered the detective. “I still think I ought to get some cops here.” But he spoke without conviction. He was investigating the bathroom when Joan called him cautiously from the drawing room, telling him that she thought she had heard a faint scratching outside the door. Gun in hand he opened the bathroom door and peered out into the corridor. It was empty. No shape of horror stood before the drawing room door. He closed the door, called reassuringly to the girl, and completed his inspection, grunting approval. Joan La Tour was a daughter of the Oriental quarter. Long ago she had provided against secret enemies as far as special locks and bolts could provide. The windows were guarded with heavy iron-braced shutters, and there was no trapdoor, dumb waiter nor skylight anywhere in the suite.
“Looks like you’re ready for a siege,” he commented.
“I am. I have canned goods laid away to last for weeks. With Khoda Khan I can hold the fort indefinitely. If things get too hot for you, you’d better come back here yourself — if you can. It’s safer than the police station — unless they burn the house down.”
A soft rap on the door brought them both around.
“Who is it?” called Joan warily.
“I, Khoda Khan, sahiba,” came the answer in a low-pitched, but strong and resonant voice. Joan sighed deeply and unlocked the door. A tall figure bowed with a stately gesture and entered.
Khoda Khan was taller than Harrison, and though he lacked something of the American’s sheer bulk, his shoulders were equally broad, and his garments could not conceal the hard lines of his limbs, the tigerish suppleness of his motions. His garb was a curious combination of costume, which is common in River Street. He wore a turban which well set off his hawk nose and black beard, and a long silk coat hung nearly to his knees. His trousers were conventional, but a silk sash girdled his lean waist, and his foot-gear was Turkish slippers.
In any costume it would have been equally evident that there was something wild and untamable about the man. His eyes blazed as no civilized man’s ever did, and his sinews were like coiled springs under his coat. Harrison felt much as he would have felt if a panther had padded into the room, for the moment placid but ready at an instant’s notice to go flying into flaming-eyed, red-taloned action.
“I thought you’d left the country,” he said.
The Afghan smiled, a glimmer of white amidst the dark tangle of his beard.
“Nay, sahib. That son of a dog I knifed did not die.”
“You’re lucky he didn’t,” commented Harrison. “If you kill him you’ll hang, sure.”
“Inshallah,” agreed Khoda Khan cheerfully. “But it was a matter of izzat — honor. The dog fed me swine’s flesh. But no matter. The memsahib called me and I came.”
“Alright. As long as she needs your protection the police won’t arrest you. But when the matter’s finished, things stand as they were. I’ll give you time to hide again, if you wish, and then I’ll try to catch you as I have in the past. Or if you want to surrender and stand trial, I’ll promise you as much leniency as possible.”
“You speak fairly,” answered Khoda Khan. “I will protect the memsahib,and when our enemies are dead, you and I will begin our feud anew.”
“Do you know anything about these murders?”
“Nay, sahib. The memsahib called me, saying Mongol dogs threatened her. I came swiftly, over the roofs, lest they seek to ambush me. None molested me. But here is something I found outside the door.”
He opened his hand and exhibited a bit of silk, evidently torn from his sash. On it lay a crushed object that Harrison did not recognize. But Joan recoiled with a low cry.
“God! A black scorpion of Assam!”
“Aye — whose sting is death. I saw it running up and down before the door, seeking entrance. Another man might have stepped upon it without seeing it, but I was on my guard, for I smelled the Flower of Death as I came up the stairs. I saw the thing at the door and crushed it before it could sting me.”
“What do you mean by the Flower of Death?” demanded Harrison.
“It grows in the jungles where these vermin abide. Its scent attracts them as wine draws a drunkard. A trail of the juice had somehow been laid to this door. Had the door been opened before I slew it, it would have darted in and struck whoever happened to be in its way.”
Harrison swore under his breath, remembering the faint scratching noise Joan had heard outside the door.
“I get it now! They put a bottle of that juice on the stairs where it was sure to be stepped on. I did step on it, and broke it, and got the liquid on my shoe. Then I tracked down the stairs, leaving the scent wherever I stepped. Came back upstairs, stepped in the stuff again and tracked it on through the door. Then somebody downstairs turned that scorpion loose — the devil!! That means they’ve been in this house since I was downstairs! — may be hiding somewhere here now! But somebody had to come into the office to put the scorpion on the trail — I’ll ask the clerk—”
“He sleeps like the dead,” said Khoda Khan. “He did not waken when I entered and mounted the stairs. What matters if the house is full of Mongols? These doors are strong, and I am alert!” From beneath his coat he drew the terrible Khyber knife — a yard long, with an edge like a razor. “I have slain men with this,” he announced, grinning like a bearded mountain devil. “Pathans, Indians, a Russian or so. These Mongols are dogs on whom the good steel will be shamed.”
“Well,” grunted Harrison. “I’ve got an appointment that’s overdue now. I feel queer walking out and leaving you two to fight these devils alone. But there’ll be no safety for us until I’ve smashed this gang at its root, and that’s what I’m out to do.”
“They’ll kill you as you leave the building,” said Joan with conviction.
“Well, I’ve got to risk it. If you’re attacked call the police anyway, and call me, at Shan Yang’s joint. I’ll come back here some time before dawn. But I’m hoping the tip I expect to get will enable me to hit straight at whoever’s after us.”
He went down the hallway with an eerie feeling of being watched and scanned the stairs as if he expected to see it swarming with black scorpions, and he shied wide of the broken glass on the step. He had an uncomfortable sensation of duty ignored, in spite of himself, though he knew that his two companions did not want the police, and that in dealing with the East it is better to heed the advice of the East.
The clerk still sagged behind his desk. Harrison shook him without avail. The man was not asleep; he was drugged. But his heartbeat was regular, and the detective believed he was in no danger. Anyway, Harrison had no more time to waste. If he kept Johnny Kleck waiting too long, the fellow might become panicky and bolt, to hide in some rat-run for weeks.
He went into the street, where the lamps gleamed luridly through the drifting river mist, half expecting a knife to be thrown at him, or to find a cobra coiled on the seat of his automobile. But he found nothing his suspicion anticipated, even though he lifted the hood and the rumble-seat to see if a bomb had been planted. Satisfying himself at last, he climbed in and the girl watching him through the slits of a third-story shutter sighed relievedly to see him roar away unmolested.
Khoda Khan had gone through the rooms, giving approval in his beard of the locks, and having extinguished the lights in the other chambers he returned to the drawing room, where he turned out all lights there except one small desk lamp. It shed a pool of light in the center of the room, leaving the rest in shadowy vagueness.
“Darkness baffles rogues as well as honest men,” he said sagely, “and I see like a cat in the dark.”
He sat cross-legged near the door that let into the bedroom, which he left partly open. He merged with the shadows so that all of him Joan could make out with any distinctness was his turban and the glimmer of his eyes as he turned his head.
“We will remain in this room, sahiba,” he said. “Having failed with poison and reptile, it is certain that men will next be sent. Lie down on that divan and sleep, if you can. I will keep watch.”
Joan obeyed, but she did not sleep. Her nerves seemed to thrum with tautness. The silence of the house oppressed her, and the few noises of the street made her start.
Khoda Khan sat motionless as a statue, imbued with the savage patience and immobility of the hills that bred him. Grown to manhood on the raw barbaric edge of the world, where survival depended on personal ability, his senses were whetted keener than is possible for civilized men. Even Harrison’s trained faculties were blunt in comparison. Khoda Khan could still smell the faint aroma of the Flower of Death, mingled with the acrid odor of the crushed scorpion. He heard and identified every sound in or outside the house — knew which were natural, and which were not.
He heard the sounds on the roof long before his warning hiss brought Joan upright on the divan. The Afghan’s eyes glowed like phosphorus in the shadows and his teeth glimmered dimly in a savage grin. Joan looked at him inquiringly. Her civilized ears heard nothing. But he heard and with his ears followed the sounds accurately and located the place where they halted. Joan heard something then, a faint scratching somewhere in the building, but she did not identify it — as Khoda Khan did — as the forcing of the shutters on the bathroom window.
With a quick reassuring gesture to her, Khoda Khan rose and melted like a slinking leopard into the darkness of the bedroom. She took up a blunt-nosed automatic, with no great conviction of reliance upon it, and groped on the table for a bottle of wine, feeling an intense need of stimulants. She was shaking in every limb and cold sweat was gathering on her flesh. She remembered the cigarettes, but the unbroken seal on the bottle reassured her. Even the wisest have their thoughtless moments. It was not until she had begun to drink that the peculiar flavor made her realize that the man who had shifted the cigarettes might just as easily have taken a bottle of wine and left another in its place, a facsimile that included an unbroken seal. She fell back on the divan, gagging.
Delphi Works of Robert E. Howard (Illustrated) (Series Four) Page 390