The H. Bedford-Jones Pulp Fiction Megapack

by H. Bedford-Jones

  The pinched features of the fiddler passed from astonishment into admiring perplexity.

  “Ah, have ye now!” said O’Sullivan. “And who’d be blaming you, sir? Sure, the lady has the starlight in her eyes, and ceol sidhe in the sweet voice of her—”

  “Devil take ye!” muttered Desmond angrily. “Listen to me, will you? Have ye seen any signs that the lad’s had a kind spot in her heart for me?”

  “And who wouldn’t, sir? Where’s the colleen would not listen to the likes of you now? If there’s any finer, handsomer gentleman on this side the world that—”

  “Thunder o’ Finn! Shut your face and go to bed!” roared Desmond, turning out the lamp to cover his mingled anger and confusion. He rolled in for his first real nights sleep in some time and managed to forget his troubles in the arms of Morpheus.

  With the morning, he was amazed and overjoyed to find that the sky was clear. Around the breakfast table were gathered the entire party, Doña Juliana met him with a smiling greeting and a warm handgrip, while she and Rosemonde had plainly adjusted all differences.

  “Spendin’ the night together did them good, for they’re thick as thieves this morning,” he reflected. “But whether it did me any good is another question.”

  The resident, who with his clerical assistants comprised almost the entire French group in the city, devoted himself to his guests. Rosemonde and Doña Juliana spent the day shopping with Madame Jacquard, while Desmond and O’Sullivan accompanied their host upon a rickshaw tour of the place.

  Somewhat to his surprise, Desmond discovered that this unknown city of Faifoo possessed not only antiquity, but history, having been conquered both by Chinese and Japanese. The fiddler, however, took but small interest in ancient temples and ruins, and at the Nippon bashi decided to return to the Résidence and make some obscure and vague repairs to his fiddle case. Desmond acquiesced, for he guessed that O’Sullivan was uneasy about leaving the ironwood treasure box alone.

  Upon returning home with the resident however, Desmond went at once to his room and was astonished not to find O’Sullivan there. Before he had time to call one of the native boys, Monsieur Jacquard appeared at the door, looking much perturbed.

  “Monsieur Desmond! I—ah—your friends request your presence in the garden,” he exclaimed with some hesitation. “There appears to be unhappiness in the air, alas! Me, I confide it to you, I find there is always lack of ease where the ladies are concerned and—”

  Desmond was finding the same thing He sought the little garden around which the Résidence was built, and there discovered Michael Terence O’Sullivan and Doña Juliana. Desmond stifled a groan, for Juliana had plainly been weeping, and the fiddler looked extremely disconcerted.

  “Me voici, as the divil said to Faust,” greeted Desmond with forced lightness. “Well, my friends? And what’s been bringing the tears to your sweet eyes, Miss Juliana? Has this wild fellow been giving you any of his blather—”

  Doña Juliana held out her hand, her eyes meeting the gaze of Desmond with a misty tenderness.

  “Dear Mr. Desmond!” she said quietly. “I have never thanked you for all your kindness and help—but believe me, I am not ungrateful! What with the danger and grief for my poor father—”

  “Ah, don’t worry yourself with little things, sweet lady!” said Desmond quickly and lifted her hand to his lips. “The honor of serving you is enough to make any man happy, and it’s proud I am of the honor.”

  “Thanks and friendship are so little to give in return for such help as yours!” said Juliana, a faint smile lighting through her tears. “It seems now like some awful dream, and you and Mr. O’Sullivan have been such good angels that I shall pray for you always—and please, please be kind to me in your thoughts.”

  Disengaging her hand, Juliana turned away swiftly and departed.

  Desmond watched after her until she was gone; then he whirled. O’Sullivan met his eyes with an obvious uneasiness.

  “Well?” said Desmond. “And what’s the meanin’ of all this, if you please? What’s been botherin’ Miss Juliana, anyhow?”

  “I was doin’ me best for you, sir,” said the fiddler anxiously.

  “What’s that? What d’ye mean?”

  “Well, I minded what ye said to me last night about the lady an’ all, so I did be puttin’ in a good word for ye, sir. How was I to know it ’u’d bring the tears to her sweet face now? And the more I said—”

  “Oh, the divil—” Desmond gasped, wordless for a moment. Before the anger that swept into his face poor O’Sullivan turned him about and fled incontinently.

  A groan broke from Desmond as he realized that the blundering O’Sullivan had entirely misunderstood their talk of the previous evening. He started wrathfully after the fiddler, then checked himself. The dumb reproach of O’Sullivan’s eyes smote him.

  “Thunder o’ Finn!” he exclaimed in dismay. “Now he’s put me into hot water and no mistake; there’s no tellin’ what the honest fool has been sayin’ to her. But it’s me own fault for not makin’ the matter clear to him; he meant it for me own good, bless his floundering heart! I can’t find it in me soul to be chiding him.”

  Accordingly he sought his room, and at sound of his cheerful whistle the fiddler’s pinched features assumed a grin of delight that all was well. Nor could Desmond bring himself to tell O’Sullivan the disturbing truth.

  CHAPTER XIII

  PERSONALLY CONDUCTED

  Dinner was just being concluded that evening when Monsieur Jacquard was summoned from the coffee and cigars with word that a gentleman wished to speak to him on business.

  The ladies had departed to the parlor. Desmond and O’Sullivan smoked for a few minutes, when their host reappeared, bringing with him a Chinese clad in spotless flannels, whose French was better than that of Desmond.

  “This is Monsieur Mow Jung, of Tourane,” and at the resident’s introduction Mow Jung bowed and shook hands. “He arrived here this afternoon on his way north and chanced to hear about the arrival of your party. As he is going on to Tourane tonight he has most kindly offered to place his craft at your disposal. This is naturally a question for your decision.”

  Desmond, of course, had no earthly suspicion that any other survivors of the San Gregorio had reached Faifoo. He had been perfectly willing to break into his packages of bank notes in order to secure a general passage home.

  This courtly offer of a passage up to Tourane surprised and gratified him, not for the slight savings in money, but because the French coasters were not elegant boats; besides, it offered another day of intimacy with Rosemonde, which would have been hard to find aboard a coaster.

  Therefore he considered the matter. Monsieur Mow Jung was very urbane and smiling and made himself distinctly agreeable; his boat was a schooner operating under power, and the party could have the entire rear cabins to themselves. The resident knew of Mow Jung as a merchant of Tourane and believed him to be reliable.

  Desmond led the way to the parlor and put the case before Rosemonde and Doña Juliana. They promptly seized the chance to avoid the publicity of the steamer trip the more so as Mow Jung seemed to be very much a gentleman. He offered to delay starting until sunrise and promised to land them in Tourane in time for luncheon. And upon this his kindness was warmly thanked and his offer accepted Monsieur Jacquard undertook to set the party aboard the schooner before seven in the morning, and Mow Jung, with many bows, took his leave.

  The resident now summoned O’Sullivan to the music room, while his wife departed with Rosemonde and Doña Juliana to get their packing done and secure a good night’s rest. Desmond, after vainly endeavoring to tempt Rosemonde into a stroll in the garden, bade them good night and settled himself moodily by the piano with a cigar.

  Halfway through the first selection, O’Sullivan broke a string. Monsieur Jacquard left off playing until the fiddler had tuned up, and O’Sullivan, while testing his new string, evoked a cadence that drew a cry of applause from their host. But O�
�Sullivan lowered his violin with a white look about his lips.

  “What the divil be makin’ me play that now?” he exclaimed.

  “Again!” cried Monsieur Jacquard and seated himself at the piano “Ah—a gigue—” and he began an accompaniment. O’Sullivan tucked the fiddle under his chin and played for an instant then shook his head.

  “Tell him that it’s a bad tune to be playing now,” he implored Desmond. “Bad luck to it! Whatever drove it into me head I can’t see.”

  “What was it, then?” demanded Desmond laughing as he checked Monsieur Jacquard.

  “It was the caoine o’ the banshee, if ye must know,” said O’Sullivan sourly. “And it’s bad luck for me, if not for you.”

  Their host shrugged his shoulders when Desmond had interpreted, and without protest swung into a lilting air that made O’Sullivan forget all about his banshee music for the remainder of the evening. Nor did the fiddler make further reference to it at the time.

  * * * *

  With daybreak the hospitable Jacquards provided an excellent breakfast, together with a basket of luncheon in case the arrival at Tourane was delayed, and insisted upon accompanying their guests to the wharf. The farewells were brief, for Mow Jung was impatient to get under way. A handshake, an exchange of Gallic embraces, and the lines were cast off.

  The boat proved to be a delightful surprise in that she was clean and free of the myriad pests of the nautical tropics. Besides Mow Jung, four men were visible, the engine was churning away, and at a good clip the schooner passed the river bar, rounded the head land, and struck out for the north with a flood of sunrise gold transforming her into a craft of faerie.

  “We’re off on the last lap!” exclaimed Desmond, but none too cheerfully, as they headed north. “Will you show us to the cabins, Monsieur Mow Jung? The ladies might like to open their effects.”

  O’ Sullivan had long since vanished below in the wake of the ironwood box, to which he clung like a burr. Mow Jung stepped to the companionway and, with a smiling caution to the ladies to mind the ladder, passed downward. Doña Juliana followed, but as Rosemonde set foot on the ladder, Desmond touched her arm.

  “Rosemonde, will ye give me half an hour in private? I want to speak to you out on the deck under the white sunlight, fairy mistress. It’s the last chance I’ll have, mostlike—”

  For a long moment she met the level gaze of his blue eyes, and a smile crept into her face. But Desmond could not interpret this smile.

  “Surely, Monsieur Desmond, you have deserved that slight favor. If you think Doña Juliana will not be jealous at least.”

  “Plague take it!” muttered Desmond. “I wish she’d think more of herself and less of Miss Juliana! And it’s remarkable what friends they are now, those two—”

  He broke off to follow the others.

  Gaining the passage below, he found Mow Jung ushering the two ladies into a stern cabin, cramped in space, but lit by the deck skylight into cheerful seeming. The urbane Celestial turned to Desmond with a smile.

  “Your friend, I think, is in the other cabin—the door to your left. I regret that we have so little space to offer, but since the journey will be so short, perhaps that will not be an inconvenience.”

  To Desmond, as he turned toward the indicated door, it occurred that Mow Jung’s smile was a trifle too urbane, too suave—as though the smooth words concealed some cunning double entendre. But he laughed at the thought, telling himself that of late he had grown too suspicious, and flung open the door.

  Of what then occurred he had only a very vague notion. A flaming report burst out in front of him; a crushing weight seemed to strike through his chest with agony, and the acrid fumes of powder gripped his throat. He felt himself falling helplessly, and his last thought was a wonder whether O’Sullivan had murdered him for the sake of the ironwood chest. At the thought he tried to laugh in dumb misery—and knew no more.

  * * * *

  “Couldn’t take no chance with him, huh?” A huge figure stooped above Desmond’s body. “Open up that port an’ let some light in here.”

  A port was opened, lighting the darkened cabin. Balderson straightened up above the prostrate Desmond, the latter’s automatic in his crimsoned hand.

  “He’s done, huh? Where’s the box?”

  In the light were disclosed the shapes of Balderson, his two remaining comrades, and Prince Chan; no others had been able to crowd into the little cabin. Upon the lower of the two bunks against the wall lay Michael Terence O’Sullivan, firmly bound and gagged; above the rag that gagged him his dark eyes gazed in lurid horror upon the scene.

  “Where’s the box, huh?” repeated Balderson.

  Prince Chan had been drawing something from beneath the bunks; it was the ironwood chest. About it was a rope which O’Sullivan had tied to replace the burst lock.

  “All correct, I think,” said the Manchu unexcitedly. “Have you a knife?”

  At the sound of a stifled scream from somewhere aft, Balderson half turned to the door.

  “The women! Mebbe we’d better see to them first—”

  “My friends have already attended to them,” and Prince Chan laughed smoothly.

  “Aw, hell!” broke in one of Balderson’s men. “Make sure o’ the coin, first, you fool!”

  Balderson stroked his yellow beard with his bloody paw and nodded. His third man had already passed a knife to the Manchu, who stooped and cut the line that held the box. Crowding in upon him, the others pressed him close as they hurled up the lid.

  The ironwood box was empty.

  With a roaring oath of wild fury, Balderson swung up the automatic which he still held. Prince Chan was staring at the empty box stupefied; the giant’s weapon brained him before he had dreamed of treachery. As his body tumbled across the box the two men whirled on Balderson.

  “Good Lord, Baldy!” cried one, aghast. “He ain’t double crossed us. It was this harp that come with the box. Now them chinks will croak us—”

  Balderson roared with mad laughter, born not of mirth, but of fury unutterable.

  “Did ye think he was goin’ to let us live, huh?” he snarled. “Now we got to clean out the chinks—all of ’em—then take this blasted hooker and head south. We can foller the coast to the Bangkok River, and once in Siam, we’re safe. Get me? Safe with the opium an’ all. Dump this chink under the bunk—”

  Taking heart from his wild exuberance, they rolled the dead prince under the bunk and concealed his body by means of the box and O’Sullivan’s fiddle case.

  “But what about the yeller skipper?” demanded the man King. “There’s him and his four and the six others.”

  “I’ll bring in the skipper now and settle him,” said Balderson. “Then we’ll make this mick talk, huh? The four men on deck are safe until we want to tackle ’em. Two o’ this feller’s men are down for’ard, they’re safe, too. There’s four with the women; we’ll clean them out first an’ take the others as they come down the companion to see what the shooting’s about. Huh?”

  “Good enough!” exclaimed King, and the third man nodded.

  Balderson strode to the door, left it ajar, and vanished. Two minutes later he came into sight again, and this time Mow Jung accompanied him. As the yellow skipper entered the cabin, King drove forward with his knife. Mow Jung, a smile still on his lips, slipped quietly to the floor and was with his ancestors.

  “Hell of a lot o’ loot you get!” and Balderson kicked the body aside. “Or us, either, huh? Haul out that man.”

  O’Sullivan was dragged from his berth and the gag stripped from him. Balderson looked down at him with a jeer and planted a boot in his ribs.

  “Where’s the stuff that was in the box, huh?”

  But the fiddler, gasping from that one kick, fell back limply. From the corner of his contorted lips trickled a thin stream of red.

  “Let him lay and settle them chinks,” said King with an oath. “The stuff’s here, that’s sure. All we got to do is to look for it.�
�

  “King’s right,” assented the other nervously. “Do it, Baldy. We got to handle them chinks ’fore they get wise and do for us.”

  Balderson towered over them for a moment then nodded heavily.

  “Good!” he muttered. “Leave the mick tied up; we’ll make him tell later. Come on and see to them four aft, make sure the women are safe, too. No more didoes like we had aboard the San Gregorio, huh? That’s what come o’ bein’ gentle.”

  The three left the cabin, slamming the door behind them.

  Desmond opened his eyes, and weakly surveyed the gruesome scene before him. What had taken place he had no means of knowing; the bound and senseless figure of the fiddler, however, together with the dead Mow Jung, gave him a hint. Then his amazed and staring gaze fell upon the face of Prince Chan beneath the bunks, disclosed to view when O’Sullivan had been dragged out. This was a much more tangible clue, and Desmond’s eyes widened in comprehension.

  He tried to lift himself, and failed dismally. The swift pain of the effort made him bring his hand to his side; it came away crimsoned.

  “Thunder o’ Finn! I’m lyin’ here with a bullet in me! Michael Terence, me lad! Is it a dead man ye are?”

  O’Sullivan stirred a little at the voice. Desmond called again. The fiddler’s eyes opened and gazed vacuously around, then struck on Desmond with recognition.

  “Well, Michael Terence!” said the latter whimsically. “The top of the mornin’ to ye, lad! Here’s hopin’ to meet ye in purgatory—”

  “The money!” gasped O’Sullivan, reverting to the amazing loss. “It’s gone, sir—”

  “To be sure it is,” came Desmond’s faint voice. “Since I put it in the pockets of that new overcoat I bought, and the overcoat’s lyin’ in the top bunk yonder! And I’m gone, too, more by token. Who was it shot me, Michael Terence?”

  “Balderson. Him and his men and Prince Chan were aboard here, the murderin’ blackguards! Now they’ve turned on the yellow divils, and—but—”

  The fiddler seemed to realize for the first time that Desmond lay shot before him. He began to cough terribly; when the paroxysm passed he got his bound feet against the fiddle case and managed to shove it toward Desmond.