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

by Robert E. Howard

  Ahmed dropped Marianne sprawling on the floor and turned to the stair door, drawing a pistol. An instant later Bull Davies, plunging through the stair-door, brought up short at the threat of that black muzzle. In an instant the five Orientals who were tumbling down the stair after him had fallen on him from behind, borne him to the floor, and had him bound hand and foot. Swift hands ransacked his garments, and then Jum Chin looked at Ahmed and shook his head. Ahmed turned on Marianne, who rose from the floor, rubbing her hip.

  “You slut! You said he had it!” Ahmed grabbed a pink-white shoulder and squeezed viciously.

  “Wait!” she begged, assuming a Venus de’ Medici pose as he started to go even further in his third-degree methods. “He must have hidden it!”

  This was going to be just too bad for Davies, she knew, but it was his hide or hers. Maybe she’d get a chance to slip away while they were giving him the works.

  At a word from Ahmed, Jum Chin ripped Davies’ shirt off. A Malay applied a lighted match to his hairy breast. A faint smell of singed hair arose and Davies bellowed like a bull.

  “I tell von I ain’t got it! She’s lyin’! I dunno where it is!”

  “If he’s lying, we’ll soon know,” rasped Ahmed. “We’ll try a test that will unlock the jaws of the stubbornest. If he still persists, we must conclude that he’s telling the truth, and the girl’s lying.”

  Jum Chin stripped off the prisoner’s socks, and Davies broke into a sweat of fear. Intent on the coming torture, Ahmed relaxed his grip on Marianne’s wrist — or maybe it was a trick to trap her into a false move.

  As his fingers relaxed, she jerked loose and darted into the outer room. He was after her in an instant, and just as she reached the door that opened into the alley, his fingers locked in her hair. But that door burst suddenly inward.

  A BIG form loomed in the door and an arm shot out. There was a crack that sounded as if Ahmed had run his face into a brick wall. But it was a massive fist he had run into, and the impact stretched him groaning on the floor. His conqueror swooped on the pistol that flew from his victim’s hand, and Ahmed’s henchmen, rushing from the inner room, checked at the menace of the leveled Luger, their hands shooting ceilingward.

  “Clanton!” panted Marianne. He refused to look at her. With six desperate men before him, he couldn’t risk being demoralized by the spectacle of loveliness her unclad figure presented.

  “Put on some clothes!” he snapped. “And you, Ahmed, get up!”

  Ahmed staggered up, a ghastly sight, minus three teeth and with his nose a gory ruin. Clanton grinned pridefully at the sight of his handiwork; few men could have done so much damage with only one clout. He profanely silenced Ahmed’s impassioned ravings, and backed all his prisoners into the inner room, whither Marianne followed, having salvaged the table cloth which she wrapped rather sketchily, sarong-fashion, about her.

  Briefly she explained the situation to Clanton, and he ordered the men to lie on their bellies and put their hands behind them, while she tied their wrists and ankles with their belts and turbans. He watched her in ecstatic silence while she was thus employed. The improvised sarong was something more than revealing, as she moved about, allowing glimpses of sweet contours that sent the blood to his head.

  WHEN she had finished the job, he inspected each man, grunting his approval of her technique, and searching them for weapons. He lingered longer over Jum Chin, and when he rose, she was amazed to see a grey pallor tinging the Chinaman’s face. Yet Clanton had done nothing to hurt him.

  Clanton then untied Davies, and growled: “I ought to bust your snoot for pullin’ off Miss Allison’s clothes and throwin’ her in that cellar, but I’m lettin’ you off, considerin’ what Ahmed did to you. Get out!”

  “I’ll get even with somebody, I bet!” sniveled Mr. Davies, and departed hastily, aided in his exit by the toe of the Clanton boot. When his lamentations had faded in the night, Clanton addressed his glowering prisoners.

  “We’re leaving. I’ll send back a coolie to untie you. Ahmed, you better forget what’s happened tonight. The dragon’s gone. Only Ram Lal knew what became of it, and he’s dead. And if the British find out you killed him, they’ll hang you, sure as hell! You let us alone, and keep your mouth shut, and we’ll keep ours shut.”

  Fear gleamed in Ahmed’s one good eye at the mention of hanging. He was sullenly silent as Clanton followed the girl into the outer room and closed the door behind them.

  “Do you think he’ll drop the matter?” she asked nervously. “I can’t afford to have this story get in the papers.”

  “No, you can’t,” he agreed. “Theft, murder, torture, bribin’ a thief like Ram

  Lal and a pirate like me — it would ruin any debutante. Best thing you can do is to get out of Singapore as quick as you can. Ahmed won’t forget this. He’ll work under cover to get us, if he can. I ain’t afraid of him, but you better take the first ship back to the U.S.A.”

  “But I’ve got to have that dragon!” She was almost frantic.

  Then her eyes dilated as he took something from his pocket — an ivory dragon, not so yellow nor so exquisite as the other she had seen.

  “The Kao Tsu dragon!” She snatched at it but he withheld it.

  “You wait a minute!” He fumbled with the pot-belly for a moment, and then a section of it swung open. He drew out a strip of parchment, which had been rolled in the interior. One end remained fastened in the belly. The parchment was covered with tiny Chinese characters.

  “Then you knew!” She was considerably agitated.

  “I knew you wasn’t any art collector, and I found out that the dragon Ram Lal gave me for you was the genuine Kao Tsu. So I did some sleuthin’ and found out plenty. You wanted this for your old man, and he sent you after it because you’re smarter than anybody workin’ for him.

  “That writin’ is an agreement signed by the Chinese war-lord they call General Kai, givin’ your old man an option on an important oil concession. He gave it to your old man a few years ago, in a moment of generosity, and like a Chinaman, rigged the agreement up in the belly of this dragon, which is a clever copy of the original Kao Tsu. Your old man thought all the time it was the Kao Tsu, and that’s what you come after.

  “BECAUSE a few months ago your old man decided to develop that concession so’s to recoup his stock market losses, but General Kai had changed his mind. He wanted to give that concession to another firm. But if he refused in the teeth of his own signed agreement, he’d lose face. So he had it stolen from your old man meanin’ to destroy the agreement and then claim he never made it, but Shareef Ahmed, who don’t overlook many bets, had it stolen from Kai’s agent. He already had the original Kao Tsu.

  “Then Ahmed offered it to the highest bidder. Your old man had lost so much money in the stock market crash he was afraid General Kai would outbid him, so he sent you to steal it. General Kai also had his agents after it, Bull Davies bein’ one of ‘em. Ram Lal stole both dragons. He gave you the real Kao Tsu, but he kept the one with the contract in it, and was goin’ to sell it to General Kai’s agent. You know the rest.”

  “But the dragon—” she exclaimed bewilderedly. “That one. I mean!”

  “Easy!” he grinned. “Jum Chin had it all the time. He killed Ram Lal and must have found the dragon on him before Ahmed got there. Ahmed trusts Jum Chin so it didn’t occur to him to suspect him. An Arab’s no match for a Chinaman in wits. I found it on Jum Chin when I searched him. He won’t dare tell Ahmed we’ve got it because that’d betray his own treachery. I sneaked back when they quit chasin’ me and was waitin’ outside for a break. Well, I got it.”

  “Give the dragon to me!” she exclaimed. “It’s mine! I paid you!”

  “You paid me for the genuine Kao Tsu,” he said, his eyes devouring a sleek thigh the sarong left bare. “You got it. This comes extra.”

  “How much?” she demanded sulkily.

  “Money ain’t everything,” he suggested.

  Suddenly she
smiled meltingy and came up to him laying a slender hand on his arm. Her nearness made him dizzy, and she did not resist as he passed an arm about her waist.

  “I understand,” she breathed. “You win. Give me the dragon first, though.’’ Trustingly he placed it in her hand — and quick as a cat she plucked the pistol from his belt and smashed him over the head with the barrel. The next instant she was streaking for the door. But she underestimated the strength of his skull. To her dismay he did not fall. He staggered with a gasping curse, then righted himself and leaped after her. He caught her as she grasped the knob, slapped the pistol out of her hand and spun her back into the room, crushing her wrists in one hand as she tried to claw his eyes out.

  “You little cheat!” he snarled. “You’ve never kept a bargain yet! Well, you’re goin’ to keep this one! You’ve got what you want, and I’m goin’ to get what I want! And you can’t squawk, because you can’t have the world knowin’ about this night’s work!”

  Knowledge that this was true pepped up her struggles, but to her dismay she found them useless against the strength of her irate captor. All her kicking and squirming accomplished was to disarrange the sarong, and he caught his breath at the sight of all the pink and white curves displayed.

  “You don’t dare!” she gasped, as he drew her roughly to him. “You don’t dare—”

  Bill Clanton didn’t even bother to reply to her ridiculous assertion....

  IT WAS some time later when he grinned at her philosophically. He stooped and kissed her pouting mouth. “Maybe that’ll teach you not to associate with people like me,” he said.

  Her reply was unprintable, but the look in her eyes contradicted her words as she took his arm and together they went out to the street.

  Comedy Stories

  LIST OF STORIES

  WEST IS WEST

  AHA! OR THE MYSTERY OF THE QUEEN’S NECKLACE

  THE SHEIK

  UNHAND ME, VILLAIN!

  HALT! WHO GOES THERE?

  AFTER THE GAME

  SLEEPING BEAUTY

  WEEKLY SHORT STORY

  THE THESSALIANS

  YE COLLEGE DAYS

  THE REFORMATION: A DREAM

  WEST IS WEST

  Published in The Tattler (Brownwood High School paper), December 22, 1922

  “GET ME,” I told the foreman of the ranch where I was spending my vacation, “a tame and peaceful bronc, for I would fain fare forth among the hills to pursue the elusive bovine and, as thou knowest I have naught of riding skill, therefore I wish a quiet steed and if it be aged I care not.”

  The foreman gazed at me thoughtfully.

  “I have just the cayuse for you,” he said.

  “Hi Alkali! Bring forth Whirlwind!”

  “Nay, nay!” I said hastily, “for doubtless he is a veritable whirlwind and such I will not mount.”

  “Not so,” quoth the foreman, “he is named thus in delicate sarcasm, for he is lazy as a tenderfoot and as gentle as a kitten.”

  Alkali led the horse out, Utah Jack, the top hand, Two-Gun Ghallihan, and all the rest of the disreputable gang following. The steed was a shabby, sleepy, mild appearing buckskin of no great size. He dozed as he stood and slumbered as I saddled him.

  The saddle was a high, double-rigged affair with a bulging fork and before I swung into it, the foreman tied a coiled lariat to it. Then, solemnly he buckled about my waist a belt from which swung a long, black holster in which reposed a single action Colt .44-40.

  “For rattlers,” he explained, solemnly.

  I mounted. My noble steed stood still, slumbering. I invited him to go forward. He remained stationary. I touched him tentatively with my spurs. He turned his head and gazed at me strangely. Indignant I jabbed him viciously with the spurs, at the same time using words.

  That brought results! I thought at first that a cyclone had hit me but it was only the kittenish pranks of my gallant charger. He bucked. He pitched. He sun-fished. He swapped ends. He rose on his hind legs and danced. He rose on his front legs and capered. He placed his hind and fore feet together and spun around and around with such rapidity that I was dizzy. He leaped high in the air and came down stiff-legged with a force that jolted my very intellect. He seemed to be changing the whole landscape.

  How did I stay on? There was a reason. Not my fault that I stayed on. I wanted off as bad as he wanted me off. I felt as if my bones were falling apart. I could scarcely hear the delighted yells of the cowpunchers. Yet I stayed. Even when my steed dashed at full speed under a tree limb which just cleared the saddle horn. I remained but the branch did not. I remained even when my frolicsome charger lay down and rolled on the ground in spite of my protesting screams. He arose and began to do some entirely new tricks when something snapped. It was the two girths breaking simultaneously. I described a parabola and landed on my head some twenty yards away with the heavy saddle on top of me. My erstwhile steed emitted a paean of victory, danced a scalp-dance on my prostrate frame and galloped away over the horizon.

  “General Jackson fit the Injuns” remarked the foreman as he helped me up. “You’re the ridin’est critter I ever see. They ain’t another guy on the ranch that coulda stayed on Whirlwind that long.”

  Shaking off his hand, I staggered up and drew the gun he had given me. “For rattlers!” I gasped and if he hadn’t fled and I hadn’t missed and the gun hadn’t been loaded with blanks anyway, I’d have massacred him.

  But what I did not tell him was that my gun belt got hung over the saddle horn and the lasso came loose and tangled me up so I was tied to the saddle and couldn’t get off to save my life till the saddle came too.

  AHA! OR THE MYSTERY OF THE QUEEN’S NECKLACE

  Published in The Tattler (Brownwood High School paper), March 1, 1923

  HAWKSHAW, the great detective, was smoking a stogy reflectively when the Colonel burst into the room.

  “Have you heard—” he began excitedly, but Hawkshaw raised his hand depreciatingly.

  “My dear Colonel,” he said. “You excite yourself unduly: you were about to tell me that the Queen’s necklace, valued at fifteen million shillings, was stolen from her boudoir and that so far Scotland Yard has found no trace of the thief although they have ransacked London.”

  “You are a wonder, Hawkshaw,” exclaimed the Colonel admirlingly. “How did you know that?”

  “Deduction, my dear Colonel,” replied Hawkshaw, surreptitiously concealing the newspaper in which was a full account of the robbery.

  “Have you been to the palace?” he asked.

  “I have,” was the reply. “And I brought the only clew to be found. This cigar stub was found just beneath the palace window.”

  Hawkshaw seized the stub and examined it carefully.

  “Aha!” he exclaimed. “The man who stole the necklace was a very tall, lank, gangling person, with very large feet and cross-eyed. He wears a number 5 hat.”

  “Wonderful!” exclaimed the Colonel, “and how may I ask do you deduce that? How do you even know that a person who smoked that cigar stole the necklace?”

  “The stub is flattened on one side. That proves that its smoker had a large foot. He stepped on it and it would take a great deal of weight to even dent a cigar like that. I know that its smoker is the thief because it is a long stub and anyone who could stand one whiff of that cigar would smoke it entirely up. He would be that kind of man. He evidently dropped it in his haste to make his getaway.”

  “But that hat? And his tallness and cross-eyes?”

  “Any man that would smoke a cigar like that would wear about a number 5 hat. As for the tallness and cross-eyes I will explain later.”

  Just then there came a tap at the door. The Colonel opened it and an old man entered. He wore large green glasses, was a great deal stooped and had white hair and a long white beard.

  “You are the famous detective?” he addressed Hawkshaw. “I believe I have a clew to this theft. I passed along the opposite side of the street about the time the robbe
ry was supposed to have taken place. A man jumped out of the palace window and walked rapidly up the street.”

  “Umhum,” remarked Hawkshaw, “what kind of man was this?”

  “He was about five feet tall and weighed perhaps three hundred lbs.,” was the reply.

  “Umhum,” commented Hawkshaw, “would you mind listening to my theory?”

  “I would be delighted,” answered the old man as he seated himself in the best chair.

  “Well, then!” began Hawkshaw, rising and walking to the middle of the room so that he could gesture without knocking the table over. “At the time of robbery was committed a man was returning home from a fishing trip on the Thames. He carried a fishing pole on his shoulder and as he walked along he looked into the windows of houses he had passed while seemingly gazing straight ahead for he was very cross-eyed.” (Here the visitor started.) Hawkshaw went on, “The gentleman at last arrived in Windsor and passing the palace saw the necklace lying on the mahogany table. The window was open and though it was high off the ground he saw a way to get it. He was (and is) a very tall man and he had a long rod and line. Standing on tiptoes he made a cast through the window as if casting for trout. He hooked the necklace at the first throw and fled, dropping his cigar in his flight. He also stepped on the cigar. He eluded the police easily and thought to elude me by coming to me in disguise and seeking to divert suspicion in another direction.”

  And with that Hawkshaw leaped upon the old man and gripped him by the beard and gave a terrific jerk. The old man gave a yell as he was jerked erect and yanked across the floor. Hawkshaw turned pale. He had made a mistake in identity? He placed a foot against the old gentleman’s face and grasping the beard firmly in both hands gave another jerk. Something gave way and Hawkshaw and his victim sprawled on the floor, Hawkshaw holding in his hands the false beard and wig. While the impostor was trying to rise, encumbered by his long coat the detective sprang nimbly up and with great dexterity kicked the huge green glasses from his face.