Delphi Works of Robert E. Howard (Illustrated) (Series Four)

by Robert E. Howard

  “No, I don’t want any help. Your flat-feet are more of a hindrance than a help in a job like this. You stay here with Willoughby. Keep men upstairs as well as down. Don’t let Willoughby open any packages that might come, don’t even let him answer a phone call. I’m going to Hopkins’ vault, and I don’t know when I’ll be back; may roost out there all night. It just depends on when — or if — they come for the corpse.”

  A few minutes later he was speeding down the road on his grim errand. The graveyard which contained the tomb of Job Hopkins was small, exclusive, where only the bones of rich men were laid to rest. The wind moaned through the cypress trees which bent shadow-arms above the gleaming marble.

  Rollins approached from the back side, up a narrow, tree-lined side street. He left the car, climbed the wall, and stole through the gloom, beneath the pallid shafts, under the cypress shadows. Ahead of him Job Hopkins’ tomb glimmered whitely. And he stopped short, crouching low in the shadows. He saw a glow — a spark of light — it was extinguished, and through the open door of the tomb trooped half a dozen shadowy forms. His hunch had been right, but they had gotten there ahead of him. Fierce anger sweeping him at the ghoulish crime, he leaped forward, shouting a savage command.

  They scattered like rats, and his crashing volley re-echoed futilely among the sepulchers. Rushing forward recklessly, swearing savagely, he came into the tomb, and turning his light into the interior, winced at what he saw. The coffin had been burst open, but the tomb itself was not empty. In a careless heap on the floor lay the embalmed corpse of Job Hopkins — and the lower jawbone had been sawed away.

  “What the Hell!” Rollins stopped short, bewildered at the sudden disruption of his theory. “They didn’t want the body. What did they want? His teeth? And they got Richard Lynch’s teeth—”

  Lifting the body back into its resting place, he hurried forth, shutting the door of the tomb behind him. The wind whined through the cypress, and mingled with it was a low moaning sound. Thinking that one of his shots had gone home, after all, he followed the noise, warily, pistol and flash ready.

  The sound seemed to emanate from a bunch of low cedars near the wall, and among them he found a man lying. The beam revealed the stocky figure, the square, now convulsed face of a Mongol. The slant eyes were glazed, the back of the coat soaked with blood. The man was gasping his last, but Rollins found no trace of a bullet wound on him. In his back, between his shoulders, stood up the hilt of a curious skewer-like knife. The fingers of his right hand had been horribly gashed, as if he had sought to retain his grasp on something which his slayers desired.

  “Running from me he bumped into somebody hiding among these cedars,” muttered Rollins. “But who? And why? By God, Willoughby hasn’t told me everything.”

  He stared uneasily at the crowding shadows. No stealthy shuffling footfall disturbed the sepulchral quiet. Only the wind whimpered through the cypress and the cedars. The detective was alone with the dead — with the corpses of rich men in their ornate tombs, and with the staring yellow man whose flesh was not yet rigid.

  “You’re back in a hurry,” said Hoolihan, as Rollins entered the Willoughby study. “Do any good?”

  “Did the yellow boys talk?” countered Rollins.

  “They did not,” growled the chief. “They sat like pot-bellied idols. I sent ’em to the station, along with Harper. He was still in a daze.”

  “Mr. Willoughby,” Rollins sank down rather wearily into an arm-chair and fixed his cold gaze on the philanthropist, “am I right in believing that you and Richard Lynch and Job Hopkins were at one time connected with each other in some way?”

  “Why do you ask?” parried Willoughby.

  “Because somehow the three of you are connected in this matter. Lynch’s death was not accidental, and I’m pretty sure that Job Hopkins was poisoned. Now the same gang is after you. I thought it was a body-snatching racket, but an apparent attempt to steal Richard Lynch’s corpse out of the morgue, now seems to resolve itself into what was in reality a successful attempt to get his teeth. Tonight a gang of Mongols entered the tomb of Job Hopkins, obviously for the same purpose—”

  A choking cry interrupted him. Willoughby sank back, his face livid.

  “My God, after all these years!”

  Rollins stiffened.

  “Then you do know Yarghouz Barolass? You know why he’s after you?”

  Willoughby shook his head. “I never heard of Yarghouz Barolass before. But I know why they killed Lynch and Hopkins.”

  “Then you’d better spill the works,” advised Rollins. “We’re working in the dark as it is.”

  “I will!” The philanthropist was visibly shaken. He mopped his brow with a shaking hand, and reposed himself with an effort.

  “Twenty years ago,” he said, “Lynch, Hopkins and myself, young men just out of college, were in China, in the employ of the war-lord Yuen Chin. We were chemical engineers. Yuen Chin was a far-sighted man — ahead of his time, scientifically speaking. He visioned the day when men would war with gases and deadly chemicals. He supplied us with a splendid laboratory, in which to discover or invent some such element of destruction for his use.

  “He paid us well; the foundations of all of our fortunes were laid there. We were young, poor, unscrupulous.

  “More by chance than skill we stumbled onto a deadly secret — the formula for a poisonous gas, a thousand times more deadly than anything yet dreamed of. That was what he was paying us to invent or discover for him, but the discovery sobered us. We realized that the man who possessed the secret of that gas, could easily conquer the world. We were willing to aid Yuen Chin against his Mongolian enemies; we were not willing to elevate a yellow mandarin to world empire, to see our hellish discovery directed against the lives of our own people.

  “Yet we were not willing to destroy the formula, because we foresaw a time when America, with her back to the wall, might have a desperate need for such a weapon. So we wrote out the formula in code, but left out three symbols, without any of which the formula is meaningless and undecipherable. Each of us then, had a lower jaw tooth pulled out, and on the gold tooth put in its place, was carved one of the three symbols. Thus we took precautions against our own greed, as well as against the avarice of outsiders. One of us might conceivably fall so low as to sell the secret, but it would be useless without the other two symbols.

  “Yuen Chin fell and was beheaded on the great execution ground at Peking. We escaped, Lynch, Hopkins and I, not only with our lives but with most of the money which had been paid us. But the formula, scrawled on parchment, we were obliged to leave, secreted among musty archives in an ancient temple.

  “Only one man knew our secret: an old Chinese tooth-puller, who aided us in the matter of the teeth. He owed his life to Richard Lynch, and when he swore the oath of eternal silence, we knew we could trust him.”

  “Yet you think somebody is after the secret symbols?”

  “What else could it be? I cannot understand it. The old tooth-puller must have died long ago. Who could have learned of it? Torture would not have dragged the secret from him. Yet it can be for no other reason that this fellow you call Yarghouz Barolass murdered and mutilated the bodies of my former companions, and now is after me.

  “Why, I love life as well as any man, but my own peril shrinks into insignificance compared to the world-wide menace contained in those little carven symbols — two of which are now, according to what you say, in the hands of some ruthless foe of the western world.

  “Somebody has found the formula we left hidden in the temple, and has learned somehow of its secret. Anything can come out of China. Just now the bandit war-lord Yah Lai is threatening to overthrow the National government — who knows what devilish concoction that Chinese caldron is brewing?

  “The thought of the secret of that gas in the hands of some Oriental conqueror is appalling. My God, gentlemen, I fear you do not realize the full significance of the matter!”

  “I’ve got a fai
nt idea,” grunted Rollins. “Ever see a dagger like this?” He presented the weapon that had killed the Mongol.

  “Many of them, in China,” answered Willoughby promptly.

  “Then it isn’t a Mongol weapon?”

  “No; it’s distinctly Chinese; there is a conventional Manchu inscription on the hilt.”

  “Ummmmmm!” Rollins sat scowling, chin on fist, idly tapping the blade against his shoe, lost in meditation. Admittedly, he was all at sea, lost in a bewildering tangle. To his companions he looked like a grim figure of retribution, brooding over the fate of the wicked. In reality he was cursing his luck.

  “What are you going to do now?” demanded Hoolihan.

  “Only one thing to do,” responded Rollins. “I’m going to try to run down Yarghouz Barolass. I’m going to start with River Street — God knows, it’ll be like looking for a rat in a swamp. I want you to contrive to let one of those Mongols escape, Hoolihan. I’ll try to trail him back to Yarghouz’s hangout—”

  The phone tingled loudly.

  Rollins reached it with a long stride.

  “Who speaks, please?” Over the wire came a voice with a subtle but definite accent.

  “Brock Rollins,” grunted the big dick.

  “A friend speaks, Detective,” came the bland voice. “Before we progress further, let me warn you that it will be impossible to trace this call, and would do you no good to do so.”

  “Well?” Rollins was bristling like a big truculent dog.

  “Mr. Willoughby,” the suave voice continued, “is a doomed man. He is as good as dead already. Guards and guns will not save him, when the Sons of Erlik are ready to strike. But you can save him, without firing a shot!”

  “Yeah?” It was a scarcely articulate snarl humming bloodthirstily from Rollins’ bull-throat.

  “If you were to come alone to the House of Dreams on Levant street, Yarghouz Barolass would speak to you, and a compromise might be arranged whereby Mr. Willoughby’s life would be spared.”

  “Compromise, Hell!” roared the big dick, the skin over his knuckles showing white. “Who do you think you’re talking to? Think I’d fall into a trap like that?”

  “You have a hostage,” came back the voice. “One of the men you hold is Yarghouz Barolass’s brother. Let him suffer if there is treachery. I swear by the bones of my ancestors, no harm shall come to you!”

  The voice ceased with a click at the other end of the wire.

  Rollins wheeled.

  “Yarghouz Barolass must be getting desperate to try such a child’s trick as that!” he swore. Then he considered, and muttered, half to himself: “By the bones of his ancestors! Never heard of a Mongolian breaking that oath. All that stuff about Yarghouz’s brother may be the bunk. Yet — well, maybe he’s trying to outsmart me — draw me away from Willoughby — on the other hand, maybe he thinks that I’d never fall for a trick like that — aw, to Hell with thinking! I’m going to start acting!”

  “What do you mean?” demanded Hoolihan.

  “I mean I’m going to the House of Dreams, alone.”

  “You’re crazy!” exclaimed Hoolihan. “Take a squad, surround the house, and raid it!”

  “And find an empty rat-den,” grunted Rollins, his peculiar obsession for working alone again asserting itself.

  Dawn was not far away when Rollins entered the smoky den near the waterfront which was known to the Chinese as the House of Dreams, and whose dingy exterior masked a subterranean opium joint. Only a pudgy Chinaboy nodded behind the counter; he looked up with no apparent surprise. Without a word he led Rollins to a curtain in the back of the shop, pulled it aside, and revealed a door. The detective gripped his gun under his coat, nerves taut with excitement that must come to any man who has deliberately walked into what might prove to be a death-trap. The boy knocked, lifting a sing-song monotone, and a voice answered from within. Rollins started. He recognized that voice. The boy opened the door, bobbed his head and was gone. Rollins entered, pulling the door to behind him.

  He was in a room heaped and strewn with divans and silk cushions. If there were other doors, they were masked by the black velvet hangings, which, worked with gilt dragons, covered the walls. On a divan near the further wall squatted a stocky, pot-bellied shape, in black silk, a close-fitting velvet cap on his shaven head.

  “So you came, after all!” breathed the detective. “Don’t move, Yarghouz Barolass. I’ve got you covered through my coat. Your gang can’t get me quick enough to keep me from getting you first.”

  “Why do you threaten me, Detective?” Yarghouz Barolass’s face was expressionless, the square, parchment-skinned face of a Mongol from the Gobi, with wide thin lips and glittering black eyes. His English was perfect.

  “See, I trust you. I am here, alone. The boy who let you in said that you are alone. Good. You kept your word, I keep my promise. For the time there is truce between us, and I am ready to bargain, as you suggested.”

  “As I suggested?” demanded Rollins.

  “I have no desire to harm Mr. Willoughby, any more than I wished to harm either of the other gentlemen,” said Yarghouz Barolass. “But knowing them all as I did — from report and discreet observation — it never occurred to me that I could obtain what I wished while they lived. So I did not enter into negotiations with them.”

  “So you want Willoughby’s tooth, too?”

  “Not I,” disclaimed Yarghouz Barolass. “It is an honorable person in China, the grandson of an old man who babbled in his dotage, as old men often do, drooling secrets torture could not have wrung from him in his soundness of mind. The grandson, Yah Lai, has risen from a mean position to that of war-lord. He listened to the mumblings of his grandfather, a tooth-puller. He found a formula, written in code, and learned of symbols on the teeth of old men. He sent a request to me, with promise of much reward. I have one tooth, procured from the unfortunate person, Richard Lynch. Now if you will hand over the other — that of Job Hopkins — as you promised, perhaps we may reach a compromise by which Mr. Willoughby will be allowed to keep his life, in return for a tooth, as you hinted.”

  “As I hinted?” exclaimed Rollins. “What are you driving at? I made no promise; and I certainly haven’t Job Hopkins’ tooth. You’ve got it, yourself.”

  “All this is unnecessary,” objected Yarghouz, an edge to his tone. “You have a reputation for veracity, in spite of your violent nature. I was relying upon your reputation for honesty when I accepted this appointment. Of course, I already knew that you had Hopkins’ tooth. When my blundering servants, having been frightened by you as they left the vaults, gathered at the appointed rendezvous, they discovered that he to whom was entrusted the jaw-bone containing the precious tooth, was not among them. They returned to the graveyard and found his body, but not the tooth. It was obvious that you had killed him and taken it from him.”

  Rollins was so thunderstruck by this new twist, that he remained speechless, his mind a tangled whirl of bewilderment.

  Yarghouz Barolass continued tranquilly: “I was about to send my servants out in another attempt to secure you, when your agent phoned me — though how he located me on the telephone is still a mystery into which I must inquire — and announced that you were ready to meet me at the House of Dreams, and give me Job Hopkins’ tooth, in return for an opportunity to bargain personally for Mr. Willoughby’s life. Knowing you to be a man of honor, I agreed, trusting you—”

  “This is madness!” exclaimed Rollins “I didn’t call you, or have anybody call you. You, or rather, one of your men, called me.”

  “I did not!” Yarghouz was on his feet, his stocky body under the rippling black silk quivering with rage and suspicion. His eyes narrowed to slits, his wide mouth knotted viciously.

  “You deny that you promised to give me Job Hopkins’ tooth?”

  “Sure I do!” snapped Rollins. “I haven’t got it, and what’s more, I’m not ‘compromising’ as you call it—”

  “Liar!” Yarghouz spat the epithet
like a snake hissing. “You have tricked- -betrayed me — used my trust in your blackened honor to dupe me—”

  “Keep cool,” advised Rollins. “Remember, I’ve got a Colt .45 trained on you.”

  “Shoot and die!” retorted Yarghouz. “I do not know what your game is, but I know that if you shoot me, we will fall together. Fool, do you think I would keep my promise to a barbarian dog? Behind this hanging is the entrance to a tunnel through which I can escape before any of your stupid police, if you have brought any with you, can enter this room. You have been covered since you came through that door, by a man hiding behind the tapestry. Try to stop me, and you die!”

  “I believe you’re telling the truth about not calling me,” said Rollins slowly. “I believe somebody tricked us both, for some reason. You were called, in my name, and I was called, in yours.”

  Yarghouz halted short in some hissing tirade. His eyes were like black evil jewels in the lamplight.

  “More lies?” he demanded uncertainly.

  “No; I think somebody in your gang is double-crossing you. Now easy, I’m not pulling a gun. I’m just going to show you the knife that I found sticking in the back of the fellow you seem to think I killed.”

  He drew it from his coat-pocket with his left hand — his right still gripped his gun beneath the garment — and tossed it on the divan.

  Yarghouz pounced on it. His slit eyes flared wide with a terrible light; his yellow skin went ashen. He cried out something in his own tongue, which Rollins did not understand.

  In a torrent of hissing sibilances, he lapsed briefly into English: “I see it all now! This was too subtle for a barbarian! Death to them all!” Wheeling toward the tapestry behind the divan he shrieked: “Gutchluk!”

  There was no answer, but Rollins thought he saw the black velvety expanse billow slightly. With his skin the color of old ashes, Yarghouz Barolass ran at the hanging, ignoring Rollins’ order to halt, seized the tapestries, tore them aside — something flashed between them like a beam of white hot light. Yarghouz’s scream broke in a ghastly gurgle. His head pitched forward, then his whole body swayed backward, and he fell heavily among the cushions, clutching at the hilt of a skewer-like dagger that quivered upright in his breast. The Mongol’s yellow claw-like hands fell away from the crimsoned hilt, spread wide, clutching at the thick carpet; a convulsive spasm ran through his frame, and those taloned yellow fingers went limp.