by Otto Penzler
“But I treat my visitors with every consideration,” said the general in his most pleasant manner. “They get plenty of good food and exercise. They get into splendid physical condition. You shall see for yourself tomorrow.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’ll visit my training school,” smiled the general. “It is in the cellar. I have about a dozen there now. They’re from the Spanish bark Sanlucar, which had the bad luck to go on the rocks out there. An inferior lot, I regret to say, and more accustomed to the deck than the jungle.”
He raised his hand and Ivan brought thick Turkish coffee. “It is a game, you see,” pursued the general blandly. “I suggest to one of them that we go hunting. I give him three hours’ start. I am to follow, armed only with a pistol of smallest calibre and range. If my quarry eludes me for three whole days, he wins the game. If I find him”—the general smiled—“he loses.”
“Suppose he refuses to be hunted?”
“I give him the option. If he does not wish to hunt I turn him over to Ivan. Ivan once served as official knouter to the Great White Tsar, and he has his own ideas of sport. Invariably they choose the hunt.”
“And if they win?”
The smile on the general’s face widened. “To date I have not lost.”
Then he added, hastily: “I don’t wish you to think me a braggart, Mr. Rainsford, and one did almost win. I eventually had to use the dogs.”
“The dogs?”
“This way, please. I’ll show you.”
The general led the way to another window. The lights sent a flickering illumination that made grotesque patterns on the courtyard below, and Rainsford could see a dozen or so huge black shapes moving about. As they turned towards him he caught the green glitter of eyes.
“They are let out at seven every night. If anyone should try to get into my house—or out of it—something regrettable would happen to him. And now I want to show you my new collection of heads. Will you come to the library?”
“I hope,” said Rainsford, “that you will excuse me tonight. I’m really not feeling at all well.”
“Ah, indeed? You need a good restful night’s sleep. Tomorrow you’ll feel like a new man. Then we’ll hunt, eh? I’ve one rather promising prospect—”
Rainsford was hurrying from the room.
“Sorry you can’t go with me tonight,” called the general. “I expect rather fair sport. A big, strong black. He looks resourceful—”
The bed was good and Rainsford was tired, but nevertheless he could not sleep, and had only achieved a doze when, as morning broke, he heard, far off in the jungle, the faint report of a pistol.
General Zaroff did not appear till luncheon. He was solicitous about Rainsford’s health. “As for me,” he said, “I do not feel so well. The hunting was not good last night. He made a straight trail that offered no problems at all.”
“General,” said Rainsford firmly, “I want to leave the island at once.”
He saw the dead black eyes of the general on him, studying him. The eyes suddenly brightened. “Tonight,” said he, “we will hunt—you and I.”
Rainsford shook his head. “No, General,” he said, “I will not hunt.”
The general shrugged his shoulders. “As you wish. The choice rests with you, but I would suggest that my idea of sport is more diverting than Ivan’s.”
“You don’t mean—” cried Rainsford.
“My dear fellow,” said the general, “have I not told you I always mean what I say about hunting? This is really an inspiration. I drink to a foeman worthy of my steel at last.”
The general raised his glass, but Rainsford sat staring at him. “You’ll find this game worth playing,” the general said, enthusiastically. “Your brain against mine. Your woodcraft against mine. Your strength and stamina against mine. Outdoor chess! And the stake is not without value, eh?”
“And if I win—” began Rainsford huskily.
“If I do not find you by midnight of the third day, I’ll cheerfully acknowledge myself defeated,” said General Zaroff. “My sloop will place you on the mainland near a town.”
The general read what Rainsford was thinking.
“Oh, you can trust me,” said the Cossack. “I will give you my word as a gentleman and a sportsman. Of course, you, in turn, must agree to say nothing of your visit here.”
“I’ll agree to nothing of the kind.”
“Oh, in that case—but why discuss that now? Three days hence we can discuss it over a bottle of Veuve Cliquot, unless—”
The general sipped his wine.
Then a business-like air animated him. “Ivan,” he said, “will supply you with hunting clothes, food, a knife. I suggest you wear moccasins; they leave a poorer trail. I suggest, too, that you avoid the big swamp in the southeast corner of the island. We call it Death Swamp. There’s quicksand there. One foolish fellow tried it. The deplorable part of it was that Lazarus followed him. You can’t imagine my feelings, Mr. Rainsford. I loved Lazarus; he was the finest hound in my pack. Well, I must beg you to excuse me now. I always take a siesta after lunch. You’ll hardly have time for a nap, I fear. You’ll want to start, no doubt. I shall not follow until dusk. Hunting at night is so much more exciting than by day, don’t you think? Au revoir, Mr. Rainsford, au revoir.”
As General Zaroff, with a courtly bow, strolled from the room, Ivan entered by another door. Under one arm he carried hunting clothes, a haversack of food, a leathern sheath containing a long-bladed hunting knife; his right hand rested on a cocked revolver thrust in the crimson sash about his waist….
—
Rainsford had fought his way through the bush for two hours, but at length he paused, saying to himself through tight teeth, “I must keep my nerve.”
He had not been entirely clear-headed when the château gates closed behind him. His first idea was to put distance between himself and General Zaroff and, to this end, he had plunged along, spurred by the sharp rowels of something approaching panic. Now, having got a grip on himself, he had stopped to take stock of himself and the situation.
Straight flight was futile for it must inevitably bring him to the sea. Being in a picture with a frame of water, his operations, clearly, must take place within that frame.
“I’ll give him a trail to follow,” thought Rainsford, striking off from the path into trackless wilderness. Recalling the lore of the fox-hunt and the dodges of the fox, he executed a series of intricate loops, doubling again and again on his trail. Night found him leg-weary, with hands and face lashed by the branches. He was on a thickly wooded ridge. As his need for rest was imperative, he thought: “I have played the fox, now I must play the cat of the fable.”
A big tree with a thick trunk and outspread branches was near by, and, taking care to leave no marks, he climbed into the crotch and stretched out on one of the broad limbs. Rest brought him new confidence and almost a feeling of security.
An apprehensive night crawled slowly by like a wounded snake. Towards morning, when a dingy grey was varnishing the sky, the cry of a startled bird focussed Rainsford’s attention in its direction. Something was coming through the bush, coming slowly, carefully, coming by the same winding way that Rainsford had come. He flattened himself against the bough and, through a screen of leaves almost as thick as tapestry, watched.
It was General Zaroff. He made his way along, with his eyes fixed in concentration on the ground. He paused, almost beneath the tree, dropped to his knees and studied the ground. Rainsford’s impulse was to leap on him like a panther, but he saw that the general’s right hand held a small automatic.
The hunter shook his head several times as if he were puzzled. Then, straightening himself, he took from his case one of his black cigarettes; its pungent incense-like smoke rose to Rainsford’s nostrils.
Rainsford held his breath. The general’s eyes had left the ground and were travelling inch by inch up the tree. Rainsford froze, every muscle tensed for a spring. But the sharp eyes of
the hunter stopped before they reached the limb where Rainsford lay. A smile spread over his brown face. Very deliberately he blew a smoke ring into the air; then he turned his back on the tree and walked carelessly away along the trail he had come. The swish of the underbrush against his hunting boots grew fainter and fainter.
The pent-up air burst hotly from Rainsford’s lungs. His first thought made him feel sick and numb. The general could follow a trail through the woods at night; he could follow an extremely difficult trail; he must have uncanny powers; only by the merest chance had he failed to see his quarry.
Rainsford’s second thought was more terrible. It sent a shudder through him. Why had the general smiled? Why had he turned back?
Rainsford did not want to believe what his reason told him was true—the general was playing with him, saving him for another day’s sport. The Cossack was the cat; he was the mouse. Then it was that Rainsford knew the meaning of terror.
“I will not lose my nerve,” he told himself, “I will not.”
Sliding down from the tree, he set off into the woods. Three hundred yards from his hiding-place he stopped where a huge dead tree leaned precariously on a smaller, living one. Throwing off his sack of food, he took his knife from its sheath and set to work.
When the job was finished, he threw himself down behind a fallen log a hundred feet away. He did not have to wait long. The cat was coming back to play with the mouse.
Following the trail with the sureness of a bloodhound came General Zaroff. Nothing escaped those searching black eyes, no crushed blade of grass, no bent twig, no mark, no matter how faint, in the moss. So intent was the Cossack on his stalking that he was upon the thing Rainsford had made before he saw it. His foot touched the protruding bough that was the trigger. Even as he touched it, the general sensed his danger, and leaped back with the agility of an ape. But he was not quite quick enough; the dead tree, delicately adjusted to rest on the cut living one, crashed down and struck the general a glancing blow on the shoulder as it fell; but for his alertness he must have been crushed beneath it. He staggered but he did not fall; nor did he drop his revolver. He stood there, rubbing his injured shoulder, and Rainsford, with fear again gripping his heart, heard the general’s mocking laugh ring through the jungle.
“Rainsford,” called the general, “if you are within sound of my voice let me congratulate you. Not many men know how to make a Malay man catcher. Luckily for me I, too, have hunted in Malacca. You are proving interesting, Mr. Rainsford. I am now going to have my wound dressed; it is only a slight one. But I shall be back. I shall be back.”
When the general, nursing his wounded shoulder, had gone, Rainsford again took up his flight. It was flight now, and it carried him on for some hours. Dusk came, then darkness, and still he pressed on. The ground grew softer under his moccasins; the vegetation grew ranker, denser; insects bit him savagely. He stepped forward and his foot sank into ooze. He tried to wrench it back, but the mud sucked viciously at his foot as if it had been a giant leech. With a violent effort he tore his foot loose. He knew where he was now. Death Swamp and its quicksand.
The softness of the earth had given him an idea. Stepping back from the quicksand a dozen feet, he began, like some huge prehistoric beaver, to dig.
Rainsford had dug himself in, in France, when a second’s delay would have meant death. Compared to his digging now, that had been a placid pastime. The pit grew deeper; when it was above his shoulders he climbed out and from some hard saplings cut stakes, sharpening them to a fine point. These stakes he planted at the bottom of the pit with the points up. With flying fingers he wove a rough carpet of weeds and branches and with it covered the mouth of the pit. Then, wet with sweat and aching with tiredness, he crouched behind the stump of a lightning-blasted tree.
By the padding sound of feet on the soft earth he knew his pursuer was coming. The night breeze brought him the perfume of the general’s cigarette. It seemed to the hunted man that the general was coming with unusual swiftness; that he was not feeling his way along, foot by foot. Rainsford, from where he was crouching, could not see the general, neither could he see the pit. He lived a year in a minute. Then he heard the sharp crackle of breaking branches as the cover of the pit gave way; heard the sharp scream of pain as the pointed stakes found their mark. Then he cowered back. Three feet from the pit a man was standing with an electric torch in his hand.
“You’ve done well, Rainsford,” cried the general. “Your Burmese tiger pit has claimed one of my best dogs. Again you score. I must now see what you can do against my whole pack. I’m going home for a rest now. Thank you for a most amusing evening.”
At daybreak Rainsford, lying near the swamp, was awakened by a distant sound, faint and wavering, but he knew it for the baying of a pack of hounds.
Rainsford knew he could do one of two things. He could stay where he was. That was suicide. He could flee. That was postponing the inevitable. For a moment, he stood there thinking. An idea that held a wild chance came to him, and, tightening his belt, he headed away from the swamp.
The baying of the hounds drew nearer, nearer. Rainsford climbed a tree. Down a watercourse, not a quarter of a mile away, he could see the bush moving. Straining his eyes, he saw the lean figure of General Zaroff. Just ahead of him Rainsford made out another figure, with wide shoulders, which surged through the jungle reeds. It was the gigantic Ivan and he seemed to be pulled along. Rainsford realized that he must be holding the pack in leash.
They would be on him at any moment now. His mind worked frantically, and he thought of a native trick he had learned in Uganda. Sliding down the tree, he caught hold of a springy young sapling and to it fastened his hunting knife, with the blade pointing down the trail. With a bit of wild grape-vine he tied back the sapling…and ran for his life. As the hounds hit the fresh scent, they raised their voices and Rainsford knew how an animal at bay feels.
He had to stop to get his breath. The baying of the hounds stopped abruptly, and Rainsford’s heart stopped, too. They must have reached the knife.
Shinning excitedly up a tree, he looked back. His pursuers had stopped. But the hope in Rainsford’s brain died, for he saw that General Zaroff was still on his feet. Ivan, however, was not. The knife, driven by the recoil of the springing tree, had not wholly failed.
Hardly had Rainsford got back to the ground when, once more, the pack took up the cry.
“Nerve, nerve, nerve!” he panted to himself as he dashed along. A blue gap showed through the trees dead ahead. The hounds drew nearer. Rainsford forced himself on towards that gap. He reached the sea, and across a cove could see the grey stone of the château. Twenty feet below him the sea rumbled and hissed. Rainsford hesitated. He heard the hounds. Then he leaped far out into the water.
When the general and his pack reached the opening, the Cossack stopped. For some moments he stood regarding the blue-green expanse of water. Then he sat down, took a drink of brandy from a silver flask, lit a perfumed cigarette, and hummed a bit from Madame Butterfly.
—
General Zaroff ate an exceedingly good dinner in his great panelled hall that evening. With it he had a bottle of Pol Roger and half a bottle of Chambertin. Two slight annoyances kept him from perfect enjoyment. One was that it would be difficult to replace Ivan; the other, that his quarry had escaped him. Of course—so thought the general, as he tasted his after-dinner liqueur—the American had not played the game.
To soothe himself, he read in his library from the works of Marcus Aurelius. At ten he went to his bedroom. He was comfortably tired, he said to himself, as he turned the key of his door. There was a little moonlight, so before turning on the light he went to the window and looked down on the courtyard. He could see the great hounds, and he called: “Better luck another time.” Then he switched on the light.
A man who had been hiding in the curtains of the bed was standing before him.
“Rainsford!” screamed the general. “How in God’s name did you get her
e?”
“Swam. I found it quicker than walking through the jungle.”
The other sucked in his breath and smiled. “I congratulate you. You have won the game.”
Rainsford did not smile. “I am still a beast at bay,” he said, in a low, hoarse voice. “Get ready, General Zaroff.”
The general made one of his deepest bows. “I see,” he said. “Splendid. One of us is to furnish a repast for the hounds. The other will sleep in this very excellent bed. On guard, Rainsford….”
—
He had never slept in a better bed, Rainsford decided.
Rogue: Four Square Jane
Four Square Jane
EDGAR WALLACE
IN THE “EDITOR’S NOTE” for the first edition of Four Square Jane (1929), the only book devoted to the young rogue’s exploits, the “heroine” is described as an “extremely ladylike crook, an uncannily clever criminal who exercises all her female cunning on her nefarious work, makes the mere male detectives and policemen who endeavor to be on her tracks look foolish.”
Jane is pretty, young, slim, and chaste, and leaves her calling card at the scene of her robberies: a printed label with four squares and the letter “J” in the middle. She makes sure to do this so that none of the servants will be accused of the theft. She has a coterie of loyal associates on whom she calls as they are needed.
During the height of his popularity in the 1920s as the most successful thriller writer who ever lived, Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace (1875–1932) is reputed to have been the author of one of every four books sold in England. After dropping out of school at an early age, he joined the army and was sent to South Africa, where he wrote war poems and later worked as a journalist during the Boer War. Returning to England with a desire to write fiction, he self-published The Four Just Men (1905), a financial disaster, but went on to produce 173 books and 17 plays.
Wallace’s staggering popularity assured a market for anything he wrote and the top magazines competed for his work, paying him princely sums, but the stories in Four Square Jane appear to have been written directly for the book, with no prior periodical appearance. None of the stories has a title.
