“I see it!” Craig answered. “Don’t run. She doesn’t look like she wants to shoot.”
The girl seemed dazed. She made no effort to cover them with the rifle. She stared around her at the destruction the flash of lightning had wrought, then dropped to the ground, and came toward the two men.
“Are—are they dead?” she faltered.
“Every one, Craig answered. “Thank God!” the girl exclaimed. She dropped the rifle and began to sob.
Craig calmly stepped forward and picked up the rifle. She made no effort to stop him. “All right,” he said. “Let’s see you trick us again.”
“Please, Señor Craig, I was never’ tricking you. What I did, I had to do.”
“No doubt,” the flier said. He had bitter memories of this girl and no inclination to trust her.
“I mean it,” she sobbed. “If I had not done what I did, I would have been killed. When I came to you in your hotel, I lied to you. I admit it. I had no choice. Please believe me, Señor.”
“Poppycock!” Craig snorted. “Who was threatening you?”
He didn’t believe a word she had said.
“Fifth columnists,” she said.
“What?”
“It’s true. I admit I was one of them for a while, but I realized they were wrong and tried to get out. They wouldn’t let me, especially since I had given them a copy of the map to this place. Believe me, Señor, what they wanted was your plane and the gold. They were already searching here for the gold, but the map wasn’t enough. They have a secret radio here and they radioed one of their men in Lima to get the little jaguar, which they had decided, from a study made here, was the key to the hiding place. If they found the gold, they were going to use your plane to fly it up the Amazon to the east coast. From there it would have been flown to Africa and from there to Europe. Believe me, Señor Craig, when I tell you that the Nazis were seeking this gold to build up their war chest”
Incredulously Craig listened. Was this girl telling the truth? It sounded plausible. There was a war going on in the world and gold was a vital weapon. The Nazis would certainly stop at nothing to get the gold they needed so badly. And, given a good plane, it was possible to fly the gold from the Andes to Europe, in a few hops. Commercial planes, bombers, were making the trip every day.
“I don’t believe it,” Craig said. “No one was threatening you when you came to my hotel in Callao and gave me that sob story. You’re still lying.”
“I was being threatened,” Lolita Montez insisted. “By Pedro. If I had made one wrong move, he would have driven his knife into me.”
“By Pedro!” Craig gasped. “That Indian—”
“He isn’t an Indian and his name isn’t Pedro,” the girl said. “He’s a Nazi and his real name is Hans Ullner. He was in disguise. If you don’t believe me, rub some of that paint off of him and see for your own self.”
“A German in disguise!” Craig echoed. “I still don’t—” Abruptly he stopped speaking and walked to where the fallen Indian lay. He began to rub at the dead man’s skin.
The brown color was caused by a stain. It rubbed off in the flier’s fingers, revealing a white skin underneath.
“Holy jumping catfish!” Bat Randall gasped. “He’s a spy. And we didn’t know it. He was the big shot who was running the whole shebang all the time!”
“I’m sorry, Miss Montez,” Craig choked. “I didn’t know—”
“You can apologize when you have filled your big plane with gold and flown it—and all of us—back to Callao,” the girl said. For the first time since Craig had met her she seemed to smile without any fear of the consequences.
SANDED IN SAN DIEGO, by Johnston McCulley
Originally published in Top-Notch Magazine, July 30 1914.
CHAPTER I
JOKE, OR NO JOKE?
Standing back against the wall, the end of his red Mephistopheles cloak thrown over his right shoulder, and his arms folded beneath it, Roger Catlin watched the girl in Spanish costume approach.
He knew by the way she acted that she intended speaking to him; and he wondered why she appeared to be so timid about it, since this was a masquerade ball of the invitation sort where every one was supposed to know every one else, and both he and the girl were masked. Yet she had started in his direction twice, and both times had turned aside as others came near. Perhaps, Catlin thought, she didn’t want any one else to hear what she had to say to him. And now, when she was but half a dozen paces away, a tall cavalier came by with a Dutch girl on his arm, and the Spanish girl disappeared in the crowd again.
It was a brilliant sight that the casino of the Hotel del Coronado presented: masked and costumed men and women were in the maze of the dance; thousands of electric bulbs glowed through the decorations; naval officers in dress uniforms, and society women who had retained their evening gowns instead of donning masquerade clothes mingled in the throng.
Outside the great windows was the broad walk, with its promenading lovers, and beyond was the wide beach, the Pacific Ocean dancing in the moonlight, and, in the distance, two giant cruisers of the Pacific fleet. One of them flashed a searchlight now across the tumbling sea toward Point Loma and the lighthouse, Fort Rosecrans, and the entrance to San Diego Bay, and now over the hotel gardens and the boulevards surrounding them. It was a picturesque scene outside and a brilliant one within, and it was all new to Roger Catlin, for this was his first visit to San Diego. Talk and laughter and merrymaking and the music of the excellent orchestra struck his ears. Yet he was not enjoying himself.
“I’ve got important business,” McHugh had said that afternoon over at his own hotel in the city. “Here’s a card for the great season-end masquerade at Hotel del Coronado. You get a costume and go, Catlin, and I’ll meet you there and see you are introduced to some nice people.”
So here he was, standing against a wall, impatient and exasperated with Donald McHugh, who had not appeared. He wanted to dance, but he was afraid he’d not be able to find McHugh by unmasking time, and he didn’t want the San Diego beauties and the women guests of the resort hotel to learn, then, that they had been dancing with a stranger.
He looked for the Spanish girl again, but could not see her. The cavalier came back, however, and paused before Catlin. “You’re not dancing much,” the cavalier said.
“No; I’m trying to find a friend.”
“May you fail to find your—friend,” said the other, and moved on.
Catlin was staggered a bit; then chuckled, thinking he had been mistaken for another. He walked along the wall until he stood beneath the balcony, his back to a mass of foliage and bloom, behind which there was a divan. To his ears came a whisper:
“Mephisto! Listen, but do not turn around! You are attracting attention because you do not dance. They may suspect you. Go ahead and dance; we’ll find you if we want you. There is no news yet, but we have hope.” The whispering ceased. Catlin whirled around and stepped to the end of the mass of plants. He was in time to see a woman dressed in white going back into the crowd…
Her words puzzled him. Again he decided he had been mistaken for another. Yet, even so, what he had heard smacked of mystery. “Something up!” he thought. “‘No news yet, but we have hope,’ eh? Yep—something going on! Unless—Great Scott! Why didn’t I think of it before? So McHugh is up to his practical jokes again, is he? He’ll remain in hiding and send his friends around with peculiar messages and try to get me to fall for it, will he? Still the same old boy he was at college! Well, two can play at that game! When the next one—”
The near approach of another woman interrupted his train of thought. She was walking along the wall, as far from the edge of the crowd as possible. At a window within half a dozen paces of Roger Catlin, she stopped. For a moment she stood looking out at the sea, then turned her head slightly. Her eyes met Catlin’s, and her he
ad moved slightly again, motioning him to approach.
Here was another of the jokers, Catlin thought. He walked forward slowly until he stood beside her. “Fairy Princess, suppose we enjoy this waltz?” he said.
She answered in a whisper: “What is it? You have discovered something? What do you wish me to do? I just wanted to tell you that I’m afraid you are being watched.”
“Yes, I have discovered something,” replied Catlin, laughing. “I’ve discovered your little game. Fairy Princess. And I wish you to dance with me, because the music is great, and your appearance pleases me, and I’ll bet we’ll make such a pretty couple every one will be watching us.”
“Why do you talk that way? I don’t understand,” she whispered.
“Let’s drop the game and enjoy ourselves,” he insisted. “I can’t keep my feet still with that music going.”
She drew away from him quickly, and her eyes seemed to flash behind the mask. “Drop the game? Enjoy ourselves?” she said. “How—how can you talk that way? How can you talk of music and dancing, when—when you—”
“When what?” asked Catlin, laughing again. He would nail this joke now, he promised himself, and turn the laugh on McHugh.
“Oh! What sort of man: are you?” she said. “Perhaps—perhaps I’ve made a mistake.”
She almost ran from him, to lose herself in the crowd. Catlin noticed that several near had witnessed the scene, and were laughing now, and his face grew hot. He inspected the gentlemen standing near, but none of them had the height or breadth of shoulder of his friend, Donald McHugh.
Catlin turned away from the window and started to walk toward the balcony again. Then, almost before he realized it, she was facing him—the girl in Spanish costume. “Quick!” she whispered. “Take me in your arms and whirl me out on the floor. Get into the crowd with me, and dance toward the entrance.”
“I’m only too glad!” cried Catlin, and did as she asked.
She danced as well as he had imagined she could, but he no sooner had begun to feel the joyous thrill of the waltz, than she called him back to earth. “To the entrance!” she was whispering. “I think I’ve got it! Oh, if we can outwit him now, at almost the last hour!”
“Very interesting,” commented Catlin. “If you’ll please tell me what ‘it’ is—”
“It isn’t necessary to play a part now,” she interrupted. “It is in his apartment, here at the hotel.”
“Whose apartment?”
“Hargrove’s, stupid! Now do you know I’m not an impostor? He has his rooms open, and is serving refreshments and showing his curios. I watched him as much as I dared with out making him suspicious. He went into a rear room, and I looked through the crack of the half-opened door. I think we can get it—we must get it! Oh, if we should fail—”
“Failure is bad business at any time,” said her partner vaguely. He was smiling behind his mask. She was going to lead him to McHugh, he supposed—they were near the climax of the joke. Well, she wouldn’t thrill him with her mysterious statements.
“Swing toward the door—there,” she went on. “We’ll step out, and I’ll take your arm and we’ll walk up the stairs. That’s the best way, and will cause the least comment. Almost every apartment in the hotel is keeping ‘open house’ tonight, of course. I’ll tell you more up the stairs.” They had reached the entrance. Determined to see the joke to its conclusion, Catlin bowed and offered his arm, and she took it, and they walked down the broad corridor, hung with famous paintings and curios of old mission days, to the main lobby. Here were scores of masqueraders in fantastic costumes, and their sudden appearance from the casino excited no comment. They started up the wide stairs, walking slowly.
She began whispering to him again: “I have the automobile on the boulevard at the edge of the gardens. When we get it, we’ll get down the stairs as quickly as we can, and hurry out of the door at the rear of the office—the one that opens directly into the gardens. Then a dash along the walk to the machine—and we’re away! Heaven grant we do not fail!”
“Very pretty plot,” he commented: “And just where does Donald McHugh come in?”
She stopped and faced him, and her answer almost took his breath away: “Donald McHugh! You’re a man, aren’t you? If Donald McHugh interferes, drive your fist between his eyes—he deserves it! And remember this—Hargrove is the man to fear!”
CHAPTER II
FOUGHT FOR A PIGEON.
The two masqueraders reached the second floor. Four or five persons, masked, laughing and chatting, came down the hall toward them, and the Spanish girl turned from Catlin and led the way, half a pace ahead of him.
It was fortunate for him that his face was hidden behind a mask, for there was a peculiar expression on it. What did the girl mean? Why had she spoken that way of Donald McHugh? Who on earth was this Hargrove she mentioned? And what, in the name of Heaven, was “it”? Was it a joke, or had he stumbled upon some other man’s business, been taken for another man? He remembered what the cavalier had said: “May you fail to find your friend.” He remembered the girl behind the mass of foliage and bloom, and the one by the window, and remembered how this one had approached him and asked him to dance and leave the casino with her, and told himself it could be nothing except a joke. The idea that it could be a serious matter, at such a place and at such a time, was absurd.
She led the way until they had passed the others, then stepped back and took his arm again. “Considering how important this is, I suppose you are prepared to fight, if necessary?” she asked.
“Oh, yes—yes,” answered Catlin.
“We’ll walk into his apartments, get a sandwich and a glass of punch, and mingle with the crowd just as if we were Hargrove’s friends. Hargrove himself is unmasked, but he does not expect that of his guests, so we’ll be safe. We’ll try to walk out in an ordinary manner after we have it, but be ready to make a dash if we are discovered. We must not fail!”
“Certainly not! Failure is an unknown word this evening,” responded Catlin.
“Careful now! Here we are!” She began talking of other things then, and laughed a bit. They came to a suite with its doors wide open, where the rooms were crowded with maskers, where there was a buffet heaped with sandwiches, and a great punch bowl at which a man was serving.
“Hargrove is at the punch bowl,” the girl whispered. “We’ll have to take punch to appear natural, but be careful he doesn’t recognize you.”
Behind his mask, Catlin smiled again. It would be highly unusual for Hargrove to recognize him, since they never had met before. This must be a great game McHugh was playing! He stepped up to the punch bowl, the Spanish girl still clinging to his arm. Hargrove, a cup of punch in one hand, looked up and saw them, and handed the cup to the girl. He served another, and, as he extended it toward Catlin, his eyes met those of the masquerader squarely. “What particular devil are you?” he asked, laughing, but with a peculiar expression in his face.
“I’m the personal devil you hear and read so much about,” Catlin answered. “You’d better be on your good behavior; I might be your personal devil.”
The expression in Hargrove’s face changed; he appeared relieved. “‘Get thee behind me, Satan,’” he quoted. “You’ll find the sandwiches there.”
Catlin laughed again, and led the girl toward the buffet. With their backs to the others, they raised their masks enough to eat and drink. “That was splendid—splendid,” the girl murmured. “Follow me slowly now, and try to act in a natural manner.”
They turned away from the buffet, bowed to another couple approaching, and went into the adjoining room. It was a sort of den, with books and restful corners, and tall cases filled with curios gathered from all parts of the world. Hargrove was famous as a collector of curios. Catlin had not known that, but one glance at the cases told him as much.
He followed the girl slowly, looking into the cases, and they talked of ordinary things as they brushed elbows with others. In time they were at the other end of the room, near a half-open door. “Appear to be looking at this case,” she whispered. “Now, glance through the door without lifting your head. That is Hargrove’s bedroom. That case against the wall—see it?”
“Yes,” he answered.
“On the top shelf—there it is.”
“I see nothing.”
“In the pigeon—the iron pigeon,” she whispered, speaking swiftly. “I watched him through the door. The iron pigeon is hollow, and he has put it in there. I saw him take it out, look at it, then put it back. Oh, the irony of it! To have it there, when we have hunted every place else—in his office, in his safe, even in his safety-deposit box by the aid of our friends. In an iron pigeon!”
“What manner of man keeps an iron pigeon in his room?”
“Oh, it’s a small curio he has picked up in some corner of the world. It has a history, I suppose. It was clever of him to put it in the pigeon, of course. Nobody would have thought of looking there for it. I just happened to be watching him, or I’d never have suspected. And at almost the last hour, too!”
“Pardon me, but you appear to be talking in circles,” he told her.
“I beg your pardon. There is no time to waste, you are right. I’ll stand here. You slip inside quickly, open the case, and get it.”
“The iron pigeon?” he asked.
“Of course. There’s some trick about opening it—we’ll have to take the pigeon and break it open afterward. Hurry, for Heaven’s sake! Oh, if we should fail! Get it—put it under your cloak—”
“Steal it?” asked Catlin.
“Hasn’t he stolen it? Please—please hurry! Oh, if we should fail!”
Her hand rested on his arm and he turned to look into her eyes. He could read no expression there, but there had been a new note in her voice—something that told of a nearness to despair. Catlin hesitated for a moment; perhaps, thought he, this was some serious business in which he had no right to meddle. Yet, if this were the case, he had come thus far under false colors, and he had no right to quit now.
The Adventure Novella MEGAPACK® Page 5
