Rick Brant 8 The Caves of Fear

by John Blaine

  Rick turned in the direction from which the voice had come. He guessed that the speaker was in the stern, although it was hard to tell which was which. Then he saw a few lights along the shore change position and knew they were moving.

  For no reason, he had a sudden impulse to jump back on the pier. He took Scotty’s arm. “We’re moving!”

  “I know it. And I don’t like it.” Scotty’s voice sounded grim.

  Zircon, a huge bulk in the darkness, leaned close to them. His usually booming voice was barely audible. “Stand back to back, the three of us making a triangle. Then feel around on deck and try to find something to use as a club. I agree with Scotty. Something is very fishy here. If Chahda’s anywhere within reach, he could have come himself. He wouldn’t just send someone.”

  The boys whispered agreement. They turned, so that Rick felt Scotty’s arm on his left side and Zircon’s on his right. He stooped and pawed through the clutter on the deck. His groping hand found a slender piece of wood that he rejected at first. Then, when he failed to find anything else, he groped around and found it again. At best, it was a poor weapon.

  They settled down to wait. The junk was just barely making headway, and as they stood waiting, their vision cleared a little. Or perhaps distant lights on the shore provided faint illumination. Rick could make out two men poling the junk from the stern.

  Far out on the water came the sound of a fast-moving craft of some sort, then a searchlight probed the water briefly. From aft came a muttered exclamation, then rapid orders in liquid Cantonese.

  Scotty’s elbow dug into Rick’s back. “They’re coming,” he said tensely.

  Dark figures hurtled at the three.

  A flying body slammed into Rick, smashing him to the deck. He lost his stick, but struck out with his fists. He heard Zircon roar like a wounded bull.

  Rick fought valiantly. Two men were on him, struggling to tie him with lengths of rope. Once he felt the rope pulled across his cheek, leaving a burning sensation. He sensed rather than heard the crashing and shouting around him. Then he wriggled out from under his assailants and staggered to his feet. Instantly one of the men was upon him again.

  “Fall flat!” Zircon bellowed.

  Rick did so, on the instant. There was the sound as of a baseball bat smacking a steer and for an instant the deck was miraculously clear. Zircon had found a piece of two-by-four lumber about eight feet long, and he was swinging it like a flail.

  The accented voice called, “Drop it or we shoot!”

  A figure swung upright next to Rick and threw something. There was a grunt and a crash as the man who had called went down.

  “Got him,” Scotty said with satisfaction.

  A voice rattled orders in Cantonese. The polers from the stern advanced, their long poles held out like lances. Zircon was their target.

  Scotty whispered, “Let ‘em get close. You take the left and I’ll take the right. Go under the poles.”

  For a heartbeat there was quiet. Rick divined the strategy. The polemen would lunge at Zircon, then the rest would leap. He didn’t know how many there were of the enemy. He thought there must be at least seven. He flattened out, eyes on the left poleman, ready to spring. The poles came nearer, one was over him.

  “Now,” Scotty hissed.

  Rick went forward, scrambling, legs driving. It was football, but easier. His shoulder caught the poleman in the stomach, and he lifted. The man went flying. Next to him he heard a dull thud, then he saw Scotty stand up, looming large in the darkness.

  But the rest of the crew had charged. For a moment Zircon’s lumber wreaked havoc, then he struck a part of the junk and the two-by-four splintered. He let out a yell of rage and flung himself on the nearest man, lifted him bodily and threw him at the others.

  Yellow light pierced the darkness from the direction of the shore. A voice screamed, “Yanks! Over the side! Swim here!”

  “Get going,” Zircon howled. “I’ll cover you!”

  Rick took heart. He ran to the side and jumped feet first. Scotty came within a hair of landing on top of him. From overhead came cries of rage, then another bellow from Zircon. In the next instant the scientist plunged into the water with them.

  “Swim for it,” he commanded. He rose high out of water and yelled, “Out with those lights!”

  The automobile lights that had illumined the scene blinked out. The voice called back, “Hurry! The junk is putting about!”

  Rick was swimming at his best speed, head down in a powerful crawl, but he took time to look back over his shoulder. The junk was turning! He knew with despair that it could run them down easily. The shore was a long distance away. “Spread out,” he called. “Then they can’t get all of us.” He put his head down and cut through the water like a fish. If only there were time to undress! But he didn’t dare pause even long enough to untie his shoes.

  The swim was a nightmare. Every few moments the auto lights blinked briefly as their unknown friend gave them a course to steer by. Rick looked back once and the junk had straightened out and was gaining on them. He redoubled his efforts. Scotty was even with him, but Zircon was pulling ahead.

  He heard voices close behind and cast a glance back. The junk with the purple sails was perilously close. He drew new strength from somewhere and forged ahead.

  The swimmers had closed the distance rapidly. The next time the lights blinked Rick could make out two figures standing next to the car. He could hear the creaking of gear on the junk and the grunts of the pole-men, and the sounds were close! He lifted his voice in a cry for help. “They’re on top of us!”

  The car lights blinked on, and held the junk in their glare. A gun fired once from the shore. Rick saw the orange spurt. Then he heard a cry from almost overhead and the junk veered sharply.

  “Angle right,” Scotty called, and Rick saw that they were almost at the tip of the pier. He put on a last spurt, caught a pile, and pulled himself up by its lashings. In a moment all three of them were running down the pier toward the waiting car.

  The lights came on and a British voice called, “In the car. Hurry!”

  “It’s the bank clerk!” Scotty gasped.

  It was. Ronald Keaton-Yeats ran to meet them. “Do hurry!” he exclaimed. “We think someone from this end has gone for reinforcements for your friends yonder.” The three followed him to the car, a touring sedan of British make. Rick sensed that someone was behind him and started to turn, but a soft voice whispered in his ear.

  “Keep looking ahead. Get to your hotel and wait there for a phone call.”

  They piled into the car, wet clothes and all. Keaton-Yeats ran around to the driver’s seat, then stopped. “I say! Where did that other chap go to?”

  “What other?” Zircon asked.

  “A Eurasian. He’s the one who led me here, and who fired that shot. Dashed uncivilized, but I guess it saved your bacon, rather. No matter. He’s vanished and that’s an end to it.” The young Englishman had been peering into the shadows. “We’ll be on our merry way and leave him to his own devices.”

  Rick started to mention the message that had been whispered in his ear, then decided not to, although he couldn’t have explained why.

  The car roared into life. Keaton-Yeats spun the wheel and they raced up the street, the buildings magnifying the sound of their passing into thunder. Not until they were on the main street was there quiet enough for conversation, then Zircon demanded, “Would you mind giving us an explanation? Naturally, we’re interested.”

  “Rather!” Keaton-Yeats said. “I met Brant and Scott this afternoon when they inquired from me the way to a Golden Mouse. I’d never heard of the creature, as I told them, and they rejected my offer of some other sort of animal. Haw! But after they had gone, I made inquiries. I learned that this Golden Mouse was a dive of the most unsavory character.”

  He steered around a group of rickshaws and Rick clutched the back of the front seat. He was having a fine case of jitters, because the Englishman was
driving on what appeared to Rick to be the wrong side of the road. Even when he realized that left-hand driving was the rule in Hong Kong, dodging cars on the wrong side left him rattled!

  “I worried a bit,” Keaton-Yeats went on. “Even made a phone call or two. Discovered Brant and Scott were registered at the Peninsular Hotel. But by the time I phoned there, they had gone out. Having no engagements, I decided to look up this Golden Mouse place and at least add another soul to the party for safety’s sake, so to speak. However, I never got in, for just as I turned into the proper alley, after a bit of searching, this Eurasian chap jumped on my running board. He asked did I care to help out three Americans who were in trouble. I assured him that it would be a pleasure, but I was already committed to two Americans, in a manner of speaking. He demanded names. I gave him the two I knew. He said you were mixed up in this affair in which he was taking a hand. I told him to get aboard and he did so. We tore around odd streets for some time. My nose is insulted from the things I’ve smelled tonight, I assure you. We were about to throw in our cards, then, as luck would have it, we spotted three rickshaw coolies, and blessed if they didn’t turn out to be yours. We sped down that Blind Fisherman Street just in time to hear the most infernal commotion out in the bay. The rest you know.”

  There was no adequate way of thanking Keaton-Yeats. Without his kindly interest in two strangers, they would doubtless have lost their lives. But when they told him as much, he laughed it off.

  “Oh, I’m sure that’s overdoing it a bit. What that crew was probably after was a bit of ransom. Pirates are still something of a problem around here, you know. We’ve had regular ocean-going craft picked off by them and held. I’ve enjoyed it immensely, and if thanks are due, I’ll give them to you. Life was getting to be a bit of a bore.”

  And that settled it, so far as Keaton-Yeats was concerned. He drove them to the Kowloon ferry, but suggested that they take a walla-walla in view of their disreputable appearance. As they shook hands all around, he said, “Oddest thing. To me, the most curious business was that chap who watched us. Not the Eurasian. Another one. It was because of him that we suspected new recruits for our pirate friends were on the way.”

  “What did he look like?” Rick asked.

  “Can’t say. We never did see his face. Or any of him, for that matter. Somewhere up the alley was an open door, and he was standing in it, against the light. At least I believe that was the case, for all we saw was his shadow. A most unusual shadow, at that. It was so long and thin that it looked like a pole with a head and limbs. Our Eurasian friend was a bit disturbed by it, too, for he mumbled something about blowing the creature’s head off if he stepped out of his doorway.”

  “But you didn’t see anything except the shadow?” Scotty asked.

  “Not a blessed thing. There was just that form, outlined in light, stretching clear across the alley. It was uncanny, because to cast a shadow such as that the bloke must have been ten feet high and no thicker than a pencil!”

  They had found the Golden Mouse. Now another bit of Chahda’s cable had come to life. Rick’s lips formed the words.

  “Long Shadow!”

  CHAPTER VIII

  Long Shadow

  “Wheels within wheels and all of them turning merrily,” Zircon said. “I am absolutely appalled at how little we know of what is going on.”

  The three of them, refreshed by showers, were in the hotel dining room having a late snack.

  “Anyway, we have friends working for us,” Scotty pointed out. “I think our British pal did just as he said. He found out that the Golden Mouse was not the sort of place for a couple of American tourists and decided to go there in case we needed help.”

  Rick agreed. “And thank heaven he did. But I have a couple of questions, besides the biggest one of all.”

  “The biggest one being: Where is Chahda?” Scotty added.

  “Right. Also, I want to know why that motorboat appearing on the scene and flashing a searchlight made the junk gang jump us.”

  “I’m only speculating,” Zircon replied, “but mightn’t that have been a police boat on regular patrol? The junk gang would know it, I presume, and they might decide to get us tied up and under cover, just in case the police came too close.”

  “That’s reasonable,” Rick agreed. “We’ll probably never know for sure, and that’s as good an answer as any. Now, my next question is: Who was the Eurasian who got together with Keaton-Yeats?”

  “You don’t suppose it was Chahda?” Scotty suggested.

  “Couldn’t have been,” Zircon replied. “Chahda wouldn’t have faded away as soon as we got to shore. I can’t imagine who the stranger was, except that he apparently was a friend. Also, I think it’s clear that Canton Charlie certainly is not a friend, since our asking for Chahda resulted in our being kidnaped, or close to it.”

  Rick nodded. “Clear as air. Anyway, Bert’s prediction was wrong. We didn’t get our throats cut in Charlie’s.”

  “He could have been only too right,” Scotty reminded. “If we had gone there alone and hung around until the mob got wilder, it could have happened. What a wonderful crew of cutthroats! And they were on the way to getting set for a few fights among themselves when we left.”

  Rick glanced at big Hobart Zircon. “Having the professor along probably helped, too. Even the toughest thug would think twice before tackling him.”

  Zircon chuckled. “I must admit I’ve found it some advantage to be so sizable. What do you boys think of this strange shadow?”

  “Strange is right.” Rick stifled a yawn. “Keaton-Yeats thought he was unfriendly, and so did the Eurasian. But he didn’t do anything very unfriendly, I guess. He just stood in a doorway.”

  “Chahda’s cable said to beware of the long shadow,” Scotty remembered.

  “Which is a good reason to think that the man who cast the shadow is an enemy who now knows of our presence in Hong Kong,” Zircon added. He glanced at his watch. “It’s getting late. If the phone call our unknown friend mentioned to Rick doesn’t come soon, it’ll find me asleep when it does.”

  “Same here,” Rick agreed. “Let’s go up to bed.”

  Zircon paid the check and they took the elevator. As they walked down the long corridor to their room, Scotty scratched his head. “Mighty funny how everything was arranged for us at Canton Charlie’s, wasn’t it? We drop in, ask for Chahda, wait a while, get a note, and walk right into the arms of a reception committee. That’s mighty good organization.”

  “They had plenty of time to get the junk ready for us,” Rick pointed out. “We sat in Charlie’s and cooled our heels for a long while.”

  “We should have had knives a foot long.” Zircon smiled. “Then we could have given ourselves a manicure, like the Portuguese who left right after we arrived.” He put his key in the lock and pushed the door open.

  Rick had a confused impression of wild sounds, then something crashed into him and he landed flat on his back. As he scrambled to his feet, plaster showered down on him, and his ear separated the sounds. From within their room, a voice screamed, “Watch out! Take cover!” There was a blurred racket, as though a giant was running a stick along a monster picket fence at jet speed. Scotty was yelling something and Zircon was bellowing with rage. Then the thunderous stitching noise stopped.

  All three of them started into the room at the same time, and Rick reached the door first. It was dark in the room, but in the faint light from the hallway he saw two figures struggling. He acted without thought. On a dresser just inside the door he had left a big flashlight. He grabbed it, jumped into the fray, and brought it down on the head of the man on top. The man slumped.

  With a catlike twist the man who had been underneath wriggled free. Rick started to say, “What’s going . . .” Then an open hand drove into his face and pushed him backward into Scotty and Zircon. The three of them fought for balance as Rick’s assailant ran to the window, leaped out on to the fire escape, and was gone.

  Sco
tty snapped on the light just as the man Rick had slugged staggered to his feet, blinking. He was of medium height, with a thin, dark face. He was dressed like a seaman, and apparently he was a Eurasian. Black eyes blazed at the three of them.

  “Shut that blasted door! And bolt it!” the man commanded.

  Zircon bellowed, “Don’t be giving us orders! Explain . . .”

  “I’m Carl Bradley,” the man said.

  Rick swallowed. Of the two men in the room, he had lowered the boom on the wrong one!

  Scotty shut the door and threw the bolt.

  “I’ve got to talk fast,” Bradley said. “The hotel people will be up here in a few seconds and I don’t want them to find me. It would mean too many explanations, and the police would want a statement I’d rather not have to give.”

  He straddled a chair. “I suppose you’ve guessed that I was the Eurasian with the young Englishman. It was just luck I picked him up, and more luck that we found your rickshaw coolies. Long Shadow’s men had you, and Long Shadow was watching. That’s why I faded when you got ashore. I intended following him, for once, instead of being followed myself. About the only thing I don’t know about him is his secret headquarters. I didn’t think I’d be able to get here, so I whispered to one of you that I’d phone. Well, Long Shadow led me here, up the fire escape. We came by a rather roundabout route, stopping while he ate. I suspected it was your room, but I didn’t know for sure. He came in. I crouched on the fire escape. Didn’t know what would happen, of course. Then we heard voices. I say we- he didn’t know I was here, of course. He hauled a Schmeisser machine pistol from tinder his coat and slipped a clip in. There was just enough light for me to see the outline. It’s distinctive.”

  A queer little shudder zipped down Rick’s spine. A Schmeisser! It was the pistol known as the “burp gun,” that sprayed slugs like a hose. No wonder he hadn’t recognized the sound! He kept his eyes on Bradley, intent on what the slender JANIG man had to say.

  “I yelled out a warning,” Bradley went on, “and jumped through the window at him. Didn’t dare take time to draw my gun. I kept yelling, hoping one of you would give me a hand. He’s wiry as a thuggee bandit. Only I got a lump on the head instead.”