The Spicy-Adventure

by Robert Leslie Bellem

  * * * *

  Drexel, president and general manager of the Consolidated in Chicago, looked up sourly at Cliff Downey. “A helluva fine private dick you turned out to be!” he said ironically. “Who cares whether you brought Muller back to the bulls? We were after Vandervort’s diamonds—and an Argus Agency operative beat you to ’em! I just heard that Argus has turned the stones over to Vandervort. They’re going to collect that ten grand reward in the morning.”

  “Oh, no they aren’t!” Downey grinned and ran a hand through his crisp red hair. “We—Consolidated—are gonna collect that ten grand. You see, I knew from the start that Muller never had a daughter. So I figured that he’d picked up this yellow-haired dame somewhere. But she was too classy-looking a skirt to play traveling companion to anybody; therefore, I reasoned, she must have had a reason for hanging up with Muller.

  “The only reason I could see was the Vandervort diamonds. But who’d know he had ’em? Nobody but the cops—or a private dick. And when you cabled me that Argus had an operative on the job, I pegged this dame right away. She was the Argus operative. She’d been laying up with Muller, waiting for a chance to grab the Vandervort ice. I broke in before she had a chance to get them from him.

  “Muller was a sap. He thought the dame was just another pickup—he never realized she might be a private detective. So, when he handed the ice to me to throw me off his trail, he sent her out to get the swag back from me. She certainly put on a good act, too,” Downey added softly.

  “Yeah. And she got the rocks off you, too.”

  “Like hell. What she got was the paste replicas! I pretended to fall for her line and let her get away with the booty—”

  “But why should you take a chance like that?”

  “Because I know the Argus crowd. If they thought I had the stuff, they’d have bumped me off in a minute and stolen it from me. By allowing this dame to swipe the paste jewels, I was sure I wouldn’t be bothered by any of the Argus outfit on the way back to the States. As long as they thought they had the diamonds, they didn’t give a damn if I had Muller. So I got safely back to Chi. And here”—he dumped a chamois bag on Drexel’s desk—“here are the Vandervort gaudy-gaudies. Now go out and glom onto that ten grand reward.” He paused, then grinned. “And if you see a yellow-haired skirt looking forlorn around the Argus office, that’ll be Operative Slade. Just give her my address and tell her to come up an’ see me some time!”

  BLACK MURDER, by Carl Moore

  Originally Published in Spicy Adventure, April 1935.

  Thunder rumbled and crashed, reverberated across white topped, distant mountains. Lightning streaked and crackled across the skies. Darkness came with the abruptness of a drawn shade—the sudden, inkpot darkness of tropical Haiti. Martin lighted a lamp, a worried frown on his high forehead. He closed the door and the windows against the storm; the heat was stifling. Like a sick man he leaned wearily against the closed, barred door, fists clenched, eyes shut tightly to the outward tumult. Even through the thunder of the elements he was aware of the dull boom! boom! boom! of tom-toms, distant voodoo drums, throbbing and pulsing out their messages in those far off mysterious hills. Madly he flung open the door, rushed out into the enveloping blackness. The thick scent of bougainvillea slapped at his face like a wet hand. In the blackness he panted for breath.

  Back in the room the lamp flickered and went out. He cursed.

  Boom! Boom! Boom! The tom-toms in the hills!

  Hands outstretched he stumbled back into the stifling room.

  “Martain!—Martain!” a crooning, throaty voice. His outstretched hands encountered a yielding body—Intoxicating musk—odorous—fragrant—soft as an opiate—trembling in his nostrils—Vibrant life flowed from pulsing flesh—into his own flesh. He stood stock still, as if transfixed—unable to move!

  Boom! Boom! Boom! The tom-toms.

  “Martain—Martain—Martain—Martain!” the soft, sibilant voice, rhythmic and caressing—always in his ear. Soft hands passed over his body, into his shirt, beneath his damp undershirt. Two lips were against his ear, across his cheek, leaving intoxicating dampness, against his own lips, an insatiable tongue—hands that darted—breasts that somehow found their way into his moist palms—With a little sigh of surrender, a sigh of resignation, he buried his face in the musky blackness of scented hair—his hands groped, pressed, strained flesh to his own flesh. On stumbling feet he followed his Fate into the inkpot blackness.

  “Martain! Martain! Martain!” crooned the throaty voice.

  Boom! boom! boom!—tom-toms in a tropical storm.

  * * * *

  Morning found John Martin alone, weak and repentant. He cursed himself over and over again for the fool he was. Three months in this land of black magic with never a single mistake—never a single misstep. Other men might do those things—but never John Martin. Until last night—

  She brought him hot water, laid out his razors, his toiletries. Padding around the room on noiseless feet she scarcely glanced in his direction. Her solitary garment accented the feline grace of her dusky body. Her steps were those of a jungle beast, soft, sliding, gliding and sure. Her breasts were peaked and pointed, mauve shadowed, full and free, moving sensuously, licentiously beneath their scarce concealing covering.

  He ate his solitary breakfast in silence, still cursing himself, still cursing the woman—but most of all cursing Haiti. Presently Peraulte, his foreman, rode into the little clearing. As a man in a dream John Martin heard himself giving instructions for the day. The griffe foreman listened in blasé silence.

  “You go to town—yes?” inquired Peraulte.

  Martin was vaguely conscious of a presence in the room behind him. Even more than before it was as if another man spoke, like a third person, lying, making lame excuses. “No, Peraulte, I’ve got a little touch of sun, I guess. I’m going to stick close to the house to-day. You’ll get along all right!”

  Was there wisdom in Peraulte’s black eyes, sardonic wisdom in his yellow toothed smile as he rode away? Martin passed his hand over his throbbing forehead, wandered back uncertainly into the thick coolness of the shadowed room.

  On the table sat an empty tumbler, and a brown bottle. Beside them lay a red, red flower. Nervously he sat down, groped for the bottle with palsied fingers. When she came into the room with noiseless, lissome, animal stride she also had a crimson blossom in her black hair. No word was spoken. It seemed to Martin that in some infinite distance tom-toms still throbbed, pulsed and boomed. Magic was in her sloe eyes—ageless, mysterious eyes. Magic was in the crimson gash of her red, red lips—and magic in her quivering breasts. Her flesh burned in his faltering hands. Her fingers swept over him like flame—her eyes held him—drew him on—and on… Fighting himself all the way he followed her across the room on staggering legs—struggling, fighting himself—he followed her to the curtained corner. With a little sigh his hands found the fevered fullness of her body. The tropics had won. John Martin was part of the black throbbing heart of Haiti.

  * * * *

  A year later, almost to the day, a squad of gendarmerie, the native police of Haiti, escorted a white man and white woman to the same clearing. Now, however, the glade was rampant with undergrowth. The yellow bloom of the cotton tree hung over all, mixed with the pale lavender of the flowering bougainvillea. Overhead, glimpsed occasionally through the scalloped leaves of the breadfruit trees the sky was blue, like indigo in wash water. St. Remy, the smart young commander of the troop, saluted in farewell.

  “Monsieur Martin,” he said ceremoniously, “it is only because duty calls me to Fort Capois that I leave you, even for the short space of a few hours!” His eyes were boldly on the white woman, although he spoke to the man. “Here,” he waved his hand at the deserted house, “dwelt your brother, and here you may find some reward for your search. I leave you two men, Dumonnier and Manbran, for your protection, and God willing,
we will return before morning. I bid you goodbye, Monsieur—and you, Mam’selle.” He bowed over her hand.

  Smartly the troop turned, marched down the jungle path, leaving Don Martin, younger brother of the former inhabitant, and Wynne Dana, John Martin’s fiancée together with their bodyguard of two griffes. Young Martin looked about helplessly. The white woman started toward the house. “Amuse yourselves,” Martin told the two soldiers stiffly, “but don’t be far away.”

  The man and woman conversed but little on the pathway. Once inside the door, shielded from prying eyes, he opened his arms. She came to them hungrily. For a long minute they stood there, bodies fused, her lips restlessly on his, his arms encircling and crushing her loveliness. She sighed in rapture as his arms fell away. Guiltily they stared at each other.

  “And for this,” said Don Martin bitterly, “we came to Haiti!”

  She answered defiantly. “Things like this are larger than we are, Don! Surely we aren’t to blame. I simply thought I loved John, when all the time it was you—and you alone!”

  The younger Martin paced the dim room. “It’s this cursed country, Wynne, this cursed country! It does something to you, gets into your blood! Ever since we landed—” his voice broke “Look what it did to John—swallowed him up completely, without a trace! Now look what it’s doing to us! You, my brother’s promised bride—and I—blood of his blood! Yes I love you—God knows I love you! And at the cost of playing Judas to my own brother! Oh we’re mad, all of us, utterly mad!”

  Was it imagination that made him start at the seeming sound of sinister laughter? Suspecting one of the guards of prying he rushed into the next room. Only empty nothingness met his angry eyes. Dust was over all—no trace even of former occupants. No trace of John Martin, who, just as the younger brother, had lived and loved in this very room.

  He sank down at the dirt covered table, drew a frayed letter from his wallet, read the faded lines. “I can’t seem to help myself,” he read aloud. “Donald, I don’t seem to want to help myself! It’s Haiti—” Wynne stood beside him.

  “Don’t hate me, Don! I tell you we aren’t responsible for this thing! I never lied to John! I loved him—then! Now it’s you, and you alone!”

  The man looked up at her, agony in his eyes. More than anything else he wanted this woman—his brother’s woman. “Wynne, Wynne,” he whispered, “we mustn’t, we mustn’t. We’ve started out to find him—let’s go through with it! You’re his and I mustn’t touch you!”

  “No!” she breathed. “Not his—yours!” His questing hands sought her soft body, her searching lips found his again.

  Was that a ripple of laughter, demoniac laughter?

  * * * *

  An hour later it began to rain. Footsteps pattered across the porch; the two soldiers, Manbrun and Dumonnier entered unceremoniously, dripping wet. Together, the four stood near the door, watching the heavy rain drop in torrents. A dull throbbing came from the far off hills.

  Boom! Boom! Boom! The inevitable tom-toms of Black Haiti.

  The gendarmes glanced at each other uneasily.

  “What is it?”

  “Tom-toms!” Manbrun spoke in patois. “Either cacos—bandits, or—” his voice trailed away, the whites of his eyes glittered in the dusk—“bandits—or voodoo. Maybe they’re dancing tonight!”

  “Who’s dancing?” Wynne Dana cradled in the right arm of her lover was lazily curious.

  “Voodoo, mam’selle!” responded Dumonnier shortly. He stepped out on the porch, his companion following, as if they were unwilling to continue the talk.

  Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! There was mystery, black mystery in the air. Black mystery and death! Something intangible, but there, nevertheless.

  Boom! boom! boom! in the far off distance. Rain swished and rattled on the roof.

  “Don!” Wynne’s voice was softly at his ear again. He turned, saw the shadowy outline of her rounded, perfect body—his aching arms reached out. He buried his face in her blonde loveliness. Desire crept into his blood. Her flesh was redolent, firm but yielding beneath his hands. Madly her tongue darted against his lips—just as madly his fingers tore the thin dress from her shoulder. Staggering in his passion he picked her up, started in the general direction of the corner. He tore aside the flimsy curtain, dropped her pulsating loveliness onto the bed. She screamed in sudden agony!

  Again she screamed, fell to the floor on her knees, leaped up and ran for the door. Manbrun appeared, flashlight in hand.

  “Mam’selle? M’sieu?” he quavered.

  “On the bed, on the bed!” moaned Wynne, holding her right hip. “There’s something alive!” The trembling finger of light sought the curtain recess. There, in the hollow made by Wynne Dana’s soft hips was the small image of a woman—a white woman, modeled painstakingly from some light colored clay! The figurette was unmistakable—it was Wynne Dana herself, entirely nude, with white jutting breasts, tipped and pointed. The head was lowered over a long, shiny pin that transfixed the left breast!

  “Mother of God!” muttered Manbrun, “Mother of God!”

  “What is it, man? What does it mean? Don’t stand there shaking. Tell us!”

  Donald Martin’s voice was edged and serrate in the strained excitement.

  Boom! Boom! Boom! the tom-toms.

  “Voodoo!” gasped the frightened gendarme. “Death!” In a trembling voice he explained that Wynne Dana was thus marked—the figurette represented her own white body—the transfixing steel pin, her death.

  “Rot!” Donald laughed tremulously.

  Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! That same demoniac laughter—from the veranda! They ran to the door. Manbrun cast the rays of the flash into the darkness. Dumonnier, the other trooper, sprawled at full length on the rotten boards, his hat missing, his sightless eyes staring straight ahead, his bloodless lips grinning and mocking. His head was split open as if from the blow of a great axe! Wynne Dana fainted into the arms of her lover.

  Boom! boom! boom! went the tom-toms.

  * * * *

  How long he crouched there with the unconscious form of Wynne Dana in his arms Donald Martin never knew. Rain continued to drive in torrents, wind roared and howled like a thousand devils about his ears.

  Off in the hills the tom-toms continued their boomings, and before his very eyes Martin saw a man go mad! The trooper, Manbrun, began to shake. The dead body of his comrade seemed to exert a terrible fascination for him. Time and time again, impervious to Martin’s commands, he staggered drunkenly to the edge of the porch, stared down at the corpse with fascinated eyes. Sweat gleamed on his brow, saliva drooled from his thick lips. Suddenly he peered into the torrent, threw back his head and howled like a dog!

  Boom! Boom! Boom! From the distance.

  He howled again. An answer came—from the far off hills. The trooper crouched like a huge ape, glared at the whites with reddened eyes.

  Martin had pulled Wynne’s dress from her shoulders, was trying to revive her by massage. Life pulsed but faintly beneath his probing fingers. Slowly the huge Manbrun crept toward them, hands outstretched, his glaring eyes fixed on the fair white mounds. Martin scrambled to his feet, ready to fight. Almost to them, Manbrun laughed madly, howled again. Again the darkness tossed back a mocking answer. The carbine crashed to the floor—the trooper careened madly off into the storm, his footsteps sloshing away into the darkness.

  Wynne moaned—sat up.

  Silently they crouched there in the darkness, driving rain about them, waiting for they knew not what. The house behind them seemed to echo with haunting laughter. “We’ll go mad if we stay here!” groaned Wynne. Without a word Martin grasped the carbine. “Come!” he said grimly, shortly, and led the way into the black rain, seeking the faint trail they had traversed that afternoon.

  Wet fronds, slimy vegetation, rotten undergrowth tore at them, clutched at them with hideous fingers. Sicken
ing stenches came to their nostrils, horrible, unspeakable things slapped wetly across their terrified faces. Before they had covered a full hundred yards Wynne’s dress beat about her knees in tatters. Martin’s arms were cut and bleeding from razor-edged thorns, sharp branches. She began to sob crazily, steadily. Lightning flashes that occasionally split the blackness only proved they were undeniably lost.

  For a few seconds they huddled in the half shelter of a flowering bush, and Martin tried vainly to shelter her trembling body with his own. “Don’t cry, don’t cry!” he kept repeating over and over. “St. Remy will find us soon, St. Remy will find us soon!” In his heart he knew the only chance was to fight clear of this jungle blackness, someway, somehow to get clear of this undergrowth.

  Boom! Boom! Boom! The tom-toms seemed somehow nearer. A jagged flash of lightning revealed a rocky pathway straight ahead; they struggled up and on in the blackness. Something exploded inside Martin’s head—it was as if a great flash of light sprang up—dazed he fell to his knees.

  A club descended again on his bowed head. He lost consciousness.

  The inevitable throb of tom-toms! Light became perceptible, awakening him. He was lying on his side, hands bound tightly behind his back. With a great effort he turned his aching head, realized he was somewhere in the shadows of a great cave. The light was green, only a tiny flame from a small fire flickering before a large stone altar. A black something lay atop that altar. Something red, warm and sticky dripped from it to the back of Martin’s hand. All that remained of Manbrun, the mad trooper!

  Slowly Martin’s eyes became more accustomed to the dim, flickering light. A figure seemingly half man, half god, hove into view. Voodoo! A voodoo priest! A puff of wind cleared the smoke from the cave momentarily, and before his startled eyes, not twenty feet distant, he saw the white, emaciated body of his brother, John Martin, clad only in a breech clout, his hands bound behind him as he sat against the far wall. From the mouth of the cave came the sound of a clear, resonant voice, chanting in rhythm to the tom-toms.