E. Hoffmann Price's Exotic Adventures Page 3

  And then Kane heard a sound that froze his blood, and made his brain explode in a red flare…

  He dashed like a madman across the rocky waste, leaving his exhausted followers far behind him. As he ran, he cursed in panting gasps, jerked his pistol from its holster, and hoped that he had misinterpreted what he had heard.

  Great God! It couldn’t be—

  The sounds now seemed to come from the oasis, and not from the central tent. He tried to tell himself that it must be his own panting breath that he heard as he forced himself onward. But as he reached the edge of the camp fire glow, Kane was beyond reason.

  Without waiting for his men to catch up, he recklessly bounded toward the middle tent, tore aside the flap. He had no ears for pounding footsteps of the followers he had outdistanced, and he did not hear the yell that came from the oasis. He was aware of nothing but the occupants of the tent.

  He could not see the girl’s face, but her bare legs and arms gleamed white in the glow of the camp fire. The American girl! She was sobbing and moaning, but she clung to the Arab who had her in his arms…

  Kane’s pistol snapped into line. He had never shot a man in the back, but it was a good time to start. Yet despite his wrath, he restrained himself: the heavy .45 slug would kill the girl as well as her assailant.

  And then the seemingly deserted camp flared into an uproar. Shouting men charged from the oasis to meet Kane’s squad. Pistols crackled. As Kane bounded forward, the Arab tore himself from the girl’s embrace. His bearded face was clawed to mincemeat, and his flowing djellab was torn to ribbons. The blast of Kane’s .45 shook the tent, but the Arab, seasoned to surprie attack, ducked and scooped up the pistol that lay at the edge of the rug.

  “You damn’—!” raged Kane, jerking another shot. The Arab recoiled, fired wildly. Kane’s weapon snapped back into line. It jammed; but the American’s wrathful charge carried him inside the enemy’s guard. Dropping his useless automatic, he snatched the armed wrist, wrenched it, and bodily flung the Arab crashing against the heavy tent pole.

  And then from without came an ear-shattering blast, the scream of iron fragments, a howl of dismay. A grenade had cut loose. Pistols chattered. Another bomb shook the encampment.

  Kane, ignoring the battle, leaped forward to pin his enemy to the earth; but as he closed in, he saw that the Arab lay in a grotesque huddle, his head lolling at an unnatural angle, his face distorted, his eyes staring.

  “Broken neck,” growled Kane. “He had it coming.”

  He turned to the girl. Sitti Ayesha! Recognition was mutual.

  “Thank God—but where did you learn to speak English?” she gasped. Then she remembered that he had arrived too late, and tried to rearrange the few sorry tatters of silk that still clung to her.

  “In a convent,” Kane bitterly answered. “So you’re the American girl I heard? Circassian, hell! If you hadn’t pulled this flim-flam game, you wouldn’t have—”

  He spat disgustedly and prodded Nuri Sultan with his boot.

  Sitti Ayesha, née Burns, had no chance for words. Kane’s city Arabs came bursting into the tent, Aunt Fatimah at their heels. The show was over. The survivors of Nuri Sultan’s gang were dashing across the desert, on foot. Aunt Fatimah eyed the girl, the dead bandit chief, and Harrison Kane’s grim face.

  “Oh, I wish I was dead,” sobbed Sitti Ayesha.

  “Don’t be foolish,” consoled Aunt Fatimah. “There may be things worse than death, but so far, I doubt it—”

  Sitti Ayesha through her tears regarded her maid and saw that she also had been thoroughly pawed.

  “Oh, did they—”

  Aunt Fatimah nodded and said, “Well…yes…but—”

  Kane, noting her contented sigh, recognized a philosopher. He helped Sitti Ayesha to her feet. She was bedraggled, but nevertheless…

  “I still don’t know what your idea was, posing as a Circassian,” he said, “but let’s go back to town and talk this over.” Then eyeing the dead bandit, he added, “After all, consoling widows is a white man’s duty.”

  GAMBLE WITH THE GODS

  Originally published in Top-Notch, September/October 1937.

  One Hindu priest murdered ; one Chinese temple burned; a Buddhist pagoda stoned; five small riots, and then some really first-class street fighting. Just about that time, the Moulmein Times hinted that the authorities were disturbed by an outbreak of what seemed to be religious conflicts.

  Without doubt, both of Moulmein’s newspapers knew the truth, but the district commissioner did not encourage engaging frankness. Yet his reticence had not handicapped Denis Ward. As that American’s rickshaw pulled away from the jetty on Tiger Street—he had hurried from Penang by speed boat—he heard shouts and shrieks from the Dawezu Bazaar. He was not too late; the difficulty hadn’t been settled. Then he shook his head, and thrust the Moulmein Times to the cushion. “Why the hell don’t they admit that some one looted the Vishnu Temple on Washerman Street?”

  They might as well have, though Ward did not expect the papers to give the name of the thief and the exact location of the little green image of Vishnu. That would leave him nothing to do.

  Though it would not much more than fill a cigar box, Vishnu’s statuette was encrusted with splendid, emeralds and ancient, blazing rubies. This was rich loot, and its return should net him a neat reward. As for the risk of being knifed or taken to pieces, by hand, before he could convince the priests that he intended to surrender the image—well, a lot of people had made a glaring failure of vivisecting Denis Ward, freelance adventurer.

  He was somewhat larger than Ling Fu, the valet whose rickshaw was some paces to the rear. Denis was wiry and inconspicuous, with a face that was indefinite except when it became squarish and grim. His eyes were somewhat bluish, with hints of gray, and his hair had never decided whether to be sandy, straw-colored, or brown. No one ever noticed Ward.

  The rioting at the Dawezu Bazaar was improving every moment. From the post office, where Ward pulled up, the view was inspiring. Hysterical Hindus, chattering Chinese, bearded Arabs, and coal-black Tamil coolies were mixing it up. Staves thwacked; knives flashed. Women and bareheaded Buddhist monks fled from the disturbance—and then a squad of turbaned Sikhs approached at the double.

  They impartially booted, thumped, clubbed the rioters, and, in doing so, completed the destruction of the market stalls where fruit and fish and sandals were trampled under foot with pots of pungent sauces and freshly baked chupattis.

  “Pretty, eh, Ling Fu?” said Ward, as his valet pulled up alongside.

  “Impressive,” agreed the little Cantonese. He could, in a pinch, press his master’s tropical ducks, and he could, likewise, handle a razor—but Ward shaved himself. Ling Fu’s use of edged tools was much better in a hand-to-hand, with all rules suspended.

  “Very religious town,” continued Ling Fu, effortlessly shifting just enough to duck a durian that a rioter had hurled at a policeman. And, always statistically inclined, he added, “Twenty monasteries—nine Mohammedan mosques—two Chinese temples—six Hindu shrines—”

  But before he enumerated the fifteen sectarian schools and calculated the religion per capita in a town of sixty thousand, Ward roared, “Hey—cut that out—”

  Ling Fu looked pained. The master usually liked to learn things wherever they went. Then he saw that Ward was bounding toward a tangle on Dawezu Street.

  It centered about a ghari. The shaggy pony was squealing and kicking. The red-faced man in the solar topee was turning purple and cursing in a foghorn voice as he tried to ward off the staves wielded by four Hindus. And the blond girl in the blue silk print screamed and tried to take cover by crouching against the dashboard of the ghari. It was her lovely, frightened face that drew Ward into the fracas.

  And as he tackled an oily Hindu, tumbling him headlong into a heap of offal, Ward decided that he wanted a look at the g
irl when she wasn’t screaming and trying to dodge clubs. Then the red-faced man was jerked to the street. Ward plowed in, and his fists reddened from the teeth and noses he hammered out of line. A knife slashed his white coat from shoulder to hem. He wrenched the fellow’s wrist and booted him over backward.

  But Ling Fu’s flank attack turned the tide. The frail Chinaman had a knack of laying large people out with torturing twists. And the arrival of the Sikhs cleared the deck, though they did not take any prisoners. They were too busy helping the red-faced sahib to his feet, and wondering whether Ward’s scratches were serious. Fie said, “Tell the lady the fun’s over.”

  But the lady knew that, and as she tried to pat her disheveled hair and ruined hat into shape, she smiled dazzlingly and said, “I do believe you enjoyed it! But thanks—”

  “Save some for Ling Fu,” said Ward. “He dissects them by hand when it’s not tactful to use his carving set.”

  Ling Fu beamed, and assured Win Hampton that he was a Christian Chinaman. That gave Ward time to notice the thin, hook-nosed Arab who, from a distance of some paces, was smiling ironically and stroking his beard. His narrowed black eyes missed nothing, but despite his interest, he had not taken sides.

  “Seeing as you’re new in Burma,” began Ward, after acknowledging Marley Hampton’s thanks, “you and your daughter might—”

  “And how do you know we’re new?” Win Hampton interrupted.

  “Papa’s sun helmet just fresh from Chow Kit’s, in Penang”—Ward grinned, offering the retrieved headgear—“doesn’t prove a thing. But you’ve not developed a sun squint, and who ever saw a complexion like yours in Moulmein?”

  “I’m so glad you like me!” she mocked. Then her blue eyes became somber, and for a perceptible pause she scrutinized his face, as if wondering whether its squareness was a reflection of the man behind it. “And I’d love to have you call at the Winthrop for tea—”

  “That’s handy,” he cut in. “I’m staying there myself.”

  He wondered at the sudden tension of the slim hand she had offered as she leaned from the ghari and added, “Tomorrow?”

  Ward watched the Hamptons drive away. If they were sight-seers, he was a Buddhist monk! Marley Hampton looked like money; so did his daughter, if one had an eye for costly simplicity. But while the girl had quickly recovered from the shock, uneasiness had surged back in a wave that mirrored her father’s perturbed expression.

  * * * *

  But Ward, once in his room at the Winthrop, had to get back to this matter of the Vishnu temple loot. He was not taking the obvious course of interviewing the priests. Detective routine was not his game, and, moreover, it was not working. The reticence of the papers proved that. But Ling Fu’s hints in Penang had given him his plan.

  That evening, he called on a man on South Pagoda Road, a Chinese merchant who owned an interest in an opium shop. And there were things about Tsang Li that were not so commonly known: such as his reputed membership in the secret society of the Sa Tiam a guild of thieves who would not consider an old pair of shoes too small, or a war elephant in full regalia too large to steal.

  Ward did not assume that the Sa Tiam had had a hand in the looting; but very little can happen without the Chinese underworld getting word of it. The only catch was interviewing members of that society. To get a word with Tsang Li required a fine hand.

  A touch at least as smoothly silken as the servant who did not blink an eye when Ward addressed him in Mandarin; as delicate as the compliments which Ward exchanged, some moments later, with the frail little man whose dove-gray tunic rustled as he bowed, clasped his own two yellow hands, after courteously removing his spectacles.

  “The high-minded and resplendent excellence of Tsang Li,” began Ward, “has aroused this dull person’s admiration to the point of unwarranted intrusion.”

  “This uncouth dealer in cheap commodities is embarrassed by undeserved honor,” asserted Tsang Li.

  “Precious commodities,” countered Ward, “seem cheap to a superior person, especially when he has them in dazzling profusion. I am abashed—”

  He fumbled with a small parcel, glanced down as if dazzled by the fine old lacquer and porcelain that enriched the room. “This trifle is not a worthy gift.”

  As a matter of fact, the tiny bowl of jade was of that rare, true green that made it worth more than its weight in gold to a Chinese connoisseur. A mandarin would have coveted it.

  Tsang Li’s smooth flow of honorifics did not falter when he saw the three brass coins that were in the bowl. But when he resumed the courteous cross examination that included queries as to Ward’s age income, and health, he said, “Where are you from?”

  “From the east,” answered Ward.

  “Has your mother any old iron?” Tsang Li’s voice took on an edge as curious as the question itself.

  This was ticklish ground. Few white men knew the complete ritual of any Chinese society, and Ward was not one of them. His answer seemed to satisfy the Honorable Tsang though his host would not be discourteous enough to correct him, then and there. Later, perhaps, a knife would remind Ward that less than a hundred percent was a fatally low score.

  And in response to an inquiry as to his caller’s business, Ward answered, “I am looking for rare bits of Hindu art. Even if the Honorable Tsang cannot be bothered with such trifles, this illiterate person would appreciate exalting advice.”

  Tsang Li delicately fingered the ends of his wispy mustache and said, “To speak in haste betokens ignorance. I will ponder.”

  Then he called a servant, who presently returned with an exquisite lacquer casket about the size of a cigar box. He handed it to the master, who presented it to Ward, all the while deploring its crudity and flaws. In truths it easily matched the American’s jade bowl. And when the servant wrapped it in a large red silk kerchief, Tsang Li called for tea.

  He noted, without seeming to do so, which of the several cups Ward selected from the peculiarly arranged set, and how his fingers were placed. And when Ward left, Vishnu had not been directly mentioned.

  But some street vendor might accost hint that night, or the following day.

  His speculations, however, were abruptly ended as he passed Malay Street, near the Mayongon Bazaar. Its odors, blending with those of the water front, were compelling. But even more overwhelming was the solid thump against the top of his rickshaw.

  Unfortunately for the man who had dropped down from an overhanging balcony, Ward understood the process, having seen several unwary travelers thus knifed in Singapore. He hurled himself forward in time to avoid the downward-licking blade.

  The entire balance of the fragile vehicle having been upset, the assailant was spilled backward. Ward whirled, groping for a conveniently loose cobblestone, but the rickshaw coolie caught him about the knees, and down they went.

  “There it is!” yelled the coolie, as Tsang Li’s gift spilled from the tipped vehicle.

  The man with the short, deadly kurki lunged for the prize. Ward heaved the stone, but missed. Yet even in the half gloom, he saw that the man who seized the parcel was a Hindu. And having his prize, he did not stay to fight.

  He vanished toward the water front just as Ward kicked the struggling coolie into the gutter. But the fall had wrenched his leg and before he was fairly under way, Ward knew that he had not a chance of overtaking the thief. When he retraced his steps, the coolie was gone.

  “Anyway”—Ward chuckled—“I owe him for the fare. And I bet that Hindu’s going to look sour when he finds out that Vishnu isn’t in that package.”

  At the best, this was no more than a hunch. But Ward’s welcome to Moulmein had contained too many elements that fitted too well for coincidence. And the attack on the Hamptons was one of them.

  Chapter II

  The attack by the Hindu, Ward reasoned, could very well arise from resentment caused by his interfe
rence in favor of Win Hampton and her father; but the seizure of Tsang Li’s gift gave the encounter an added significance. The parcel was large enough to have contained the image of Vishnu.

  “The priests think I got the loot from Tsang Li,” Ward told himself as he prudently walked down the center of the street. “I’m on the right track.”

  That the police had made absolutely no progress in tracking down the thief was not amazing. The devotees of the god would purposely withhold information, so that they themselves could execute vengeance. Ward shivered. Now that he was a suspect, death lurked in every shadow. The priests would hardly strike in person, but there were men of all races who would wield a knife for gold from Vishnu’s vaults.

  Gold? He chuckled grimly at the thought of such extravagance. A few rupees would buy a man’s life. From behind barred doors he heard the coin-hungry voices of gamblers. They were playing main po and fan-tan by the flickering flames of peanut-oil lamps. And a gambler always needs money. In the next block he caught the pungent scent of cooking opium—the reek of hashish. A man who needed a few silver pieces to buy his day’s drugs would kill though he knew not even the name of the god whose wrath he served.

  A drunken Malay reeled down a dark alley. The tang of arrack lingered. And a Mohammedan low enough to defile himself with forbidden liquor would slay for another drink—

  Then Ward laughed softly, and devils gleamed in his eyes. “Hell—this’ll be fun—finding a kidnapped god to save my own neck!”

  The round-faced Bengali clerk at the desk offered a servile salutation as Ward entered the lobby and felt a fictitious coolness of muggy air stirred by the long-bladed, lazily whirling ceiling fans.

  The lift carried him to the third floor. He had scarcely covered half the distance to his room when a door opened, letting a muffled rumble of voices swell into an angry rumble. A lean Arab came catapulting out. He landed against the opposite wall, almost at Ward’s feet. His mouth sagged, his eyes were glassy, and one thin, muscular hand twitched, making fumbling, futile motions toward his belt. This was the bearded man who had so intently watched the mob close in on the Hamptons, at the Dawezu Bazaar.