The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Original)

by Unknown

  Captain Malta took a chair, sighing quietly, his face looking most indulgent despite the reverses. “Then MacFerson is really gone, Hugh? And Miss Wilson with him?”

  “All signed out. They left in a private ambulance which was waiting down in the emergency courtyard.”

  “Hand me the phone, please, Hugh.… You can have it when I’m finished, Adams.”

  Captain Malta telephoned Central Police station and asked to have the ambulance checked. He sent two men over to the Cardwell Institute labs. Dr. Hollister looked amazed. “Now,” Malta said quietly, still holding the phone, “what did your snobbish colonel look like, Hugh?”

  Hollister began an elaborate description, which proved to be unnecessary, for even from the briefest details, Nick recognized the fellow as the same pink-skinned gentleman who had visited him at the Royal Hawaiian, posing as John Venner. He considered the man’s efficiency, for if the impostor had managed to sign out MacFerson only an hour before, he had still been able to pop in on Nick and explain that the case was closed. The man had cold nerve. Malta said into the phone: “Yes, it’s Zeller again. You’ve got to find him. I’d report it to Intelligence also, since we’re more interested in him than they are.… Yes … Yes, in thirty minutes or so, I’ll be there. Good-bye.” He hung up.

  Nick said: “You know the man?”

  “Yes. Fritz Zeller, a German agent. Intelligence knows him a bit better and would like to nip him. It’s a firing squad when they do. He’s a damned clever lad. You wished to call Cameron, didn’t you?”

  “Yes,” Nick said. He took the telephone, got through to Paul Cameron at his home. “Paul,” he said, “did you sign credentials acknowledging that a patient from the Stafford named Robert MacFerson was to be treated and admitted to the C.I. labs?”

  Dr. Cameron was silent a moment. “Say it again, Nick.”

  After he had repeated it, Cameron said, perplexed: “I’m afraid not, Nick. I didn’t know what the devil you were talking about for a moment. You sound rather perturbed.”

  “There’s been a forgery then,” Nick said. “That’s all. I’ll explain it all later, Paul. Good-night.” He hung up. He sighed heavily. “You can assume the worst,” he murmured.

  “I already had,” Captain Malta replied dryly. “And you needn’t look so pop-eyed, Hugh.”

  “I think you’re both quite mad,” said Dr. Hollister, awed. “A touch of sun?”

  “Johnny Venner is dead, murdered,” Captain Malta said. “And don’t ask me for explanations. You ponder it and it ought to explain our behavior here.”

  “Are you sure the charts are gone?” Nick asked desperately.

  “Yes, she took them with her— Murdered? John murdered?”

  “Let’s get out of here,” Captain Malta said. “This chap will hold us for hours asking details. Read the newspapers, Hugh, and thanks for all the help.”

  They went downstairs. Nick said, in admiration: “You’ve done a good job on this thing, Captain.”

  “Not at all,” Captain Malta said. “This has all been routine. Don’t be impressed. Actually it has accomplished little. As for my having covered so many details, remember I’ve been at it longer than you, ever since we found Venner’s body at Maili by the tracks of the Oahu railroad. He was found shot through the head, stark naked, all identification removed. I recognized him of course. He was not meant to be found so soon, being in a stream. There were some chains still on one leg, but the heavier weights had dropped off. Where did you plan on going now?”

  “To Schofield Barracks,” Nick said. “To find Sergeant Woolton.”

  “I’ll save you the trip,” said Captain Malta. “He’s not there.”

  “Not there? Where is he?”

  “I wish I knew. If he is still alive, I think he may be hiding out. Possibly he wishes to reach you, since he must have known that Venner had wired you. I would like you to go back to town. I want you to be convenient for Woolton to find.”

  Nick had a cold thought. “The weights and chains might have hung onto him. He could be at the bottom of the ocean.”

  “Anything is possible,” said Captain Malta, his white bushy brows jerking as he moved them. “We should try to be optimistic. It’s the least we can do. Come along, Adams, I’ll drive you back to town myself. I’d like you to meet the man I’ve put on you, for safety’s sake. His name is Crowell. He’s a nice fellow, seen service in New York’s finest.”

  Sergeant Crowell was waiting in the lobby downstairs. He was a cheerful soul, moon-faced, and with a glistening gold tooth in the front of his mouth.

  “Highly pleased to make your acquaintance, sir,” he said, shaking hands.

  “We’re going back together,” Malta said. “You follow. Nothing on the way out?”

  “No one followed him, Captain.”

  “Very good. Keep a weather eye on the doctor. I have a feeling he’s going to be worth his weight in gold before long.”

  Nick was gloomy. “It will have to be before long. It’s nearly eight o’clock. That gives us a solitary day, according to Venner’s own time limit. Not many hours, Captain.”

  “True,” Malta said. His voice was low but his eyes were hard. “Still, empires have vanished in less time. We’ve a chance, we’ve a chance.” But he did not sound enthusiastic.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE EMPTY CARTON

  here had been no calls for him at the hotel. No Woolton, to his intense disappointment. While he was still at the desk, he saw Dr. Cameron come in. He glanced at his wristwatch, saw it was only a few minutes past eight. He joined Cameron.

  “Paul,” he said. “It may be a hit-and-run meal. I’m expecting a very important call and I can’t risk missing it.”

  “That’s all right, Nick,” Cameron said, his voice cool. “Although I did want to tell you a personal decision I made today.”

  “We’ll have time for that, surely,” Nick said. “Go ahead. I’ll tell them at the desk that I’m inside and if there are any calls they can page me there. I’ll eat with you and then go up to my room and change my things.”

  He joined Paul Cameron at a table a few moments later.

  Nick turned to Cameron, who did not look well, nor did he look ill. His cheeks were very hollow, and his color was not good, and from the twitching of his fingers, he seemed to be tense and nervous. “What was your news, Paul?” Nick said.

  “I’ve tendered my resignation from the Institute,” Cameron said. “Effective immediately.”

  “What?” Nick exclaimed sharply. “Your resignation? Have you gone crazy, Paul?”

  “I put it in writing by mail, but I also cabled the New York office of my decision,” said Cameron, his voice dead.

  “But Paul, in the name of heaven—”

  “I had an offer from the University of Southern California, a doctor of pathology there, my own department, much free time for any experimentation I desire. In other words, a free hand. So I’ve accepted. I’m tired of malaria. I’ve done all I can do with it. I want a go at the lepra bacilli. I’m going to try and find the way the blight is communicated.”

  “I’m terribly disappointed,” Nick said gravely. “It’s such a poor time to lose a man like you.”

  “Very kind of you, Nick.”

  “Oh, the hell with kindness—you’ve spoiled the night for me. They’ll have a struggle getting another fellow like you.”

  “There are better than I,” Cameron said. His eyes were abnormally bright, and he could not sit still.

  “That’s not true. I can’t believe it still.”

  “Its causes are not easily explained, Nick. They’re bound up in my own life. Tonight I am finishing here a task I dedicated myself to many, many years ago when I was very young. Tomorrow I will start on a new task, and a new dedication, and perhaps my life will not be, in the future, the inhibited turmoil it has been in the past.”

  Nick shrugged. “I don’t know what you mean, but of course you know what you’re doing.”

  “Out of the
whole thing, I’m grateful for your friendship, Nick.”

  “You sound as if you were resigning from that too.”

  A waiter stopped by and bowed politely. “Telephone call for doctor, please.”

  “Which doctor?” Nick said, starting to rise.

  “Dr. Cameron, tuan.”

  Cameron rose. He seemed relieved. “Be right back.” He left.

  Cameron returned in a few moments, his face somber. “I’m very sorry, but I’ll have to run. I know you’re busy, Nick, too, so suppose you come to the labs tomorrow?”

  “Very well,” Nick said. “See you tomorrow.”

  “Good-night, Nick.”

  “ ’Night, Paul.”

  Almost instantly, the waiter came over again. “Pardon. Dr. Adams? You are wanted at the front desk, sir.”

  Nick signed the check hurriedly and walked out briskly. At the front desk, the clerk said: “The telephone call you were expecting, Doctor.”

  “Good!” Nick said, elated. “I’ll take it up in my room. Tell the gentleman to hold on.”

  “Very well, Doctor. And just a moment. Your friend, Dr. Cameron, dropped this package as he was leaving. Will you be able to return it to him?”

  Nick took the small carton, about the size of a toothpaste tube box, nodded, said he would return it to Cameron, and then ran for his room.

  Nick unlocked the door and went in. The moonlight through the window looked very beautiful. The telephone was ringing. He hurried to the phone without turning on the lights, and sat on the edge of the bed as he answered it.

  “Hello?”

  “Nicholas?”

  “Hello, Eddie.” Nick’s voice dropped in disappointment.

  Eddie Wing sounded serene, as was his way. “Sweetheart, I would appreciate the pleasure of your company this evening for the dropping of a few pearls of wisdom and the eating of some poi.”

  “Eddie—thanks, but you know—”

  “Huapala—I insist.” Eddie was firm. “I have a friend here who is most anxious to meet you. In fact, visiting me might coincide perfectly with your plans for the night.”

  Nick began to warm. “This friend wouldn’t be a denizen of Brooklyn by any chance?”

  Eddie Wing said whimsically: “I do believe he mentioned the fact. We may expect you then, Nicholas?”

  “Yes,” Nick said. “Bless your heart, Eddie.”

  “Bless my foot!” Eddie said. “Come on over.”

  “At once.”

  Nick hung up. Sergeant Woolton had been found! Dr. Venner’s aide-de-camp was at Wing’s house! It was marvelous good luck, and Nick began to feel the pulse of optimism in his veins. He started for the door hastily, not bothering to change, but hearing a faint click behind him, he paused at the door, his back against it. There was an amused chuckle in the dark. Nick’s heart jumped. He reached for the light—hesitated.

  A voice as liquid as oil said: “Please, sah, forgive me, but you may turn on the light.”

  Nick flipped the switch. When the room blazed, he found Mr. H. H. Sze lying on the bed. Mr. Sze was not reclining exactly. He was half erect, his shoulders against the headboard, a pillow under them, and his knees were high against his chest. He was dangling his pistol carelessly, his index finger crooked under the trigger guard. “Good evening, sah,” he said, his face with less expression than a judge’s. “Forgive this worthless one such informality.” He rose mockingly to his feet and bowed.

  “Well, Mr. Sze,” Nick said. He halted, at a momentary loss for words. “We meet again. I had high hopes I’d avoid another visit from you.”

  “Forgive me,” said Mr. Sze, “but your so clever escape at Waiana was so very much a challenge to me. You are armed, sah?”

  “No.”

  “Forgive me, sah, if I make certain for myself.” Gracefully he moved behind Nick. Nick stood stock-still while those long fingers probed his person for a gun, and found none. “You have something of great importance in your hand, sah?”

  “Since I haven’t seen it yet, I wouldn’t know,” Nick said.

  “Forgive me, sah, I will see for myself.”

  Mr. Sze took Cameron’s carton from Nick and opened it. He did not just rip it open. He inserted one of his long index fingers under the flap and very evenly raised the flap. There was nothing inside. The carton was empty.

  r. Sze looked at the thing blankly. It could not have meant anything to him, but with his lack of facial expression, Nick wasn’t able to make any guesses. Mr. Sze shrugged. “So very sorry, sah.” He dropped the carton on the bed.

  “Quite all right,” Nick said. “I’m sorry I don’t have a lot of personal papers you could peruse. It would probably do your heart good. Or can you read, Mr. Sze?”

  Mr. Sze’s eyes glittered. “Forgive me, Doctor, but this witless one has earned the accomplishment. This humble one is aware that he would normally be your inferior.” He drew himself erect. “But a pistol, sah, is the great equalizer. One man, yellow or white, is as good as another.”

  “Ah,” Nick said, stalling, “a philosopher.”

  “Forgive me, sah, but you are right. I am a philosopher. But this poor one is also a realist. You are my prisoner, if you please, and this time you must not escape, you must not offer resistance, Doctor, because this time—forgive me—I will take no chances.”

  “What are your plans for me?” Nick said heavily. He was not afraid, his voice was quite steady, and he felt very cool.

  “Forgive me, sah, this unfortunate one does not make the plans. If it were left to me to make the plans, you would be fermenting in Waiana, sah, for when a man is considered dangerous to a cause, there is no wise recourse but to slay him. To do otherwise is to be careless, sentimental, or merciful, none of which are compatible with destiny. Forgive me, it is un-Christian, but this realist belives that the meek will inherit only the grave.

  “I am not of those meek, sah, forgive me the personal mention. This person believes you should have perished in Malacca. This person believes that you should perish now. But others have seen fit to forbid imperiling your life. And elaborate precautions have thus been taken for your safety. Indeed, sah, the star which blessed your birth will take you from this city tonight, for which, Christianly, you should offer your gratification to the Deity. Those who are left in Oahu on the morrow will not offer prayers to the Deity this side of hell.”

  Nick felt the goose pimples studding his flesh. He managed to ask: “And these precautions, Mr. Sze?”

  “Forgive me, sah, I have the drug herewith. You are to drink a glass of water in which is dissolved two tablets from this bottle. I have been given to understand that they will render you unconscious within a brief time. When you recover your senses, sah, you will be enroute south by small boat to Lanai, properly warned that should you show yourself in this locality again, immediate death would result. Forgive me, sah.”

  “For God’s sake,” Nick said huskily. “I forgive thee. Don’t keep saying that. What guarantee have I that the drug isn’t nitric acid or the like?”

  “None, sah.”

  Nick walked to the bed and sat down and put his head in his hands. “And if I refuse, you shoot?”

  “Forgive, sah,” Mr. Sze said, eyes inflexible, “but that would be my pleasure.”

  Nick raised his head. He dropped his eyes to the carton on the bed, the empty carton which the clerk had given him. He could just see the legend on the face of the box. The drug had a Cardwell Institute label on it, a number, and the words Haffkine Vaccine.

  Five silent seconds passed while his brain absorbed the words. They transfixed him. He went rigid, his mouth agape, his eyes dilated, his face paling. It struck home, the whole rotten terrifying business hit into the pit of the stomach with force which stiffened his muscles and knotted a nausea in his throat. The realization welled up in his mind in a roaring crescendo, and he saw the past flit by in rapid succession, from the second century through the twentieth, in the twinkling of an eye. Here was a plot he would not have bel
ieved possible, a plot where artificiality was almost fantastic, and yet the simple legend on the carton, like a thunderbolt, declaimed the fact. All at once, the pieces fitted together, the entire jigsaw puzzle coincided its multitudinous parts perfectly.

  In the lightning swift procession of the past, he saw Imperial Rome decimated, the houses filled with dead, the streets with funerals, the air with lamentations. He saw the Italian boot gripped in the thing, Genoa, Siena, Pisa prostrated, nearly all the population struck down, the city of Florence taken in storm, perishing in the twinkling of an eye. He saw the Channel crossed, and London blighted and seventy thousand men and women dying swiftly and terribly. He saw the red crosses on the doors of Drury Lane and the words Lord Have Mercy on Us inscribed thereon, as Samuel Pepys had seen. He saw the dancing rats, red-eyed, sick and dying, coming down the centuries, to Hong Kong, Manila, Bombay. He saw the flea, Pulex cheopis, and the cry echoed in his mind like the beat of a kettle drum: Plague, PLAGUE, PLAGUE!

  All this from the simple legend on the carton. The two words Haffkine Vaccine explained so much. Back in time, recent enough to be called contemporary, a professor named W. M. Haffkine of Bombay had developed a vaccine for bubonic plague which aroused the immunity forces of an individual against the Black Death, although the time of immunity was extremely brief. Nick had used it often, injecting himself before going into plague foci to stamp out the pestilence. A man like Cameron, working in Honolulu where plague was not endemic, could never have had a sane reason for such an injection unless he was working with plague.

  It raced through Nick’s mind, feverishly, as he sat on the bed, all in brief seconds, for Mr. Sze did not seem aware of any prolonged stalling. Disaster imminent in forty-eight hours. MacFerson must have been part of the plot, come down with the buboes, and in his dying terror, had blurted it all out to Colonel Venner.

  It was madness, he would not have believed it could be handled artificially, and yet, of them all, it was the surest and most sweeping pestilence. It was the sort of thing which could decimate half of the entire garrison of the island, make the naval base almost uninhabitable, the crowded native sections a pyre of dead, wipe out the manpower in the military barracks. It was difficult to control when it erupted, naturally. Artificially begun, with varied and numerous foci, with thousands of rats and fleas—the image stunned him. The Black Death was omega; there was scarcely any survival if you were struck. You could bury a man in the morning and be buried yourself that evening.