Tiger Milk

by David Garth

  “I suppose,” said Berkeley, nodding, “he has gone to blow up the Pacific fleet.”

  Linda paused in the act of taking a cigarette from a small silver box on the desk. And again her eyes with their strange hard greenish quality rested on her in a long studied glance. The girl was standing behind a chair, both hands resting on the back, and there was a dash of hell-for-leather insouciance about her, something in the soft mocking curve of her mouth and the hatred in her eyes. A woman facing a firing squad might have looked the same.

  “He has gone,” said Linda measuredly, “to greet a building inspector. You may be an amateur, Berkeley, but in this game only one rule applies to professionals and amateurs alike. Anywhere in the world, when your number comes up you’re on your own.”

  She turned leisurely toward the door, then. Berkeley followed the direction of her eyes and suddenly the drum beats of a wild hope began to sound—for the lean form of Robert Luce was swinging into the room. There were two men escorting him, that blond man who had been in the room before, and a stockier, compact man with grizzled hair. Behind them came Dr. Bittner.

  Luce looked at Berkeley and the rigid line of his jaw relaxed somewhat. “They haven’t touched you, have they?” he said quickly. “You’re all right?”

  “Yes,” said the girl. “But, oh, my God, I’m sorry they got you.”

  “And so the mouse walks into the trap,” commented Linda. “Hello, Luce.”

  He looked at Linda long and hard. The two men who had escorted him dropped back near the door and Dr. Bittner stood to one side.

  “So it’s you,” Luce said finally. “Linda Baker. And I’ve been looking for a man—”

  “Only natural,” said Linda.

  “I wish,” he said slowly, “I had known on the Clipper what I know now.” He turned to Berkeley. “Look at her,” he requested tersely. “Did you ever hear of Fraulein Doktor of Antwerp, the great woman agent of the last World War? Well, she would sit at the feet of this woman.” He swung back to Linda Baker. “I’ve known about you for some time. Oh, not who you were—Good Lord, not even that you were a woman—but about the Nazi agent whose work in Poland and France had been so deadly. The skilled operative, graduate of the special secret section of international psychology of the military intelligence in Berlin.” He nodded his dark head. “In the last days of fading France the Deuxième Bureau in Paris was nearly crazy trying to trace the defections in high office and key personnel, and all the time a woman was studying music in Paris—right under their noses—a woman pretending to a career as a concert pianist.”

  Linda watched him through the curling smoke of a cigarette.

  “And so, having decided who I was, you walked right into the Mayhew Foundation posing as a city building inspector,” she queried. “Knowing, as you must have known, that we had spotted you.”

  That was what struck Berkeley, too. It was a tenuously thin chance he had taken. He must have known the cards were heavily stacked against him. Why had he barged in headlong? Flow had he even happened to know, but, having known, squandered his knowledge?

  “I just wanted to determine whether my guess was right,” said Lucian Rhodes. “And as soon as I felt a gun in my back I knew it was.”

  “That must have been the gun of the man your aunt knew as Edward,” commented Linda, and nodded toward the bond man standing silently near the door. “We had him raking leaves for your aunt awhile. That was when we were keeping an eye on a little matter of two million dollars of ours.”

  “Yours, hell,” said Rhodes. “No more yours than the Czech gold on the Almaric.”

  Linda Baker did not change her expression. But there was repressed fury in the way she mashed out her cigarette.

  “That Almaric,” she said smoothly. “Touché, Rhodes. A body blow. But it first raised doubts that Lucian Rhodes was dead. Lucian Rhodes had known about that gold shipment. I had never seen him. So I had Edward obtain a picture of you and you can imagine my reaction when I found it to be that of the man I had known as Robert Luce.

  “Your face is known all over the country now, I assure you. Winters had a chance to get you in New Orleans, but somehow the fool bungled it. Still, the blowing up of that freighter was worth it in a way—it led to my nailing you.”

  There was a silence in which the ticking of the little traveling clock on her desk was boldly predominant. Berkeley looked over at Rhodes. So he had sent that gold shipment down, the brass-knuckle wallop of which she had heard Carney speak.

  Strangely enough, she felt no surprise. That rangy man with the duelist’s eyes and mind like a war map was capable of any bold, ruthless move like that. He had fought a terrible battle. Now he sat in this studio under the watchful eyes of those two men near the door, standing with their right hands resting ominously in their coat pockets.

  “I should have guessed what you were being sent here to do,” he said. “In Berlin I heard several times that America could have all the oceans she wanted, all the navies and planes and guns, because there were cracks internally that could be widened. Yes, plenty. Hit us through our weak spots—through a grafting political machine, through a labor war, through the Lord knows what else. Get this country pithy inside and then put on the pressure. It’s the work for a genius in propaganda and psychology. Well, you had good training in Poland and France. I recognize the technique. And you’re the genius to work it here.”

  Berkeley listened to him and knew that everything he had said was true, but why was he saying it? Did he not realize that they were trapped here? He was talking more than she had ever heard him before. And then—how she realized it she did not know, but a tingling racing thought struck her—he must be talking for a purpose. He might be taking up time! She had the strangest idea that it might not be they who were trapped, but Linda Baker!

  Linda looked at him and spoke briefly. “Most complimentary,” she said. “And most conversational.”

  Berkeley cast around her desperately for some way to fend off those unsheathing claws. Her eyes alighted on Dr. Bittner, standing to one side, passive, restrained, and abruptly she had her cue. Forthwith she flung herself into the breach.

  Springing to her feet she strode up and down before the keen eyes of the woman who lounged on a corner of the desk.

  “And masquerading behind music,” she burst out. “That is the crudest joke of all. Music which is the great international language of harmony and culture. A music motif to treachery.” Her words came tumbling in a torrent. She swept an arm around her. “Look at those pictures—Brahms, Mozart, Chopin, Beethoven—masters of music. And this place has made a mockery of them—this Mayhew Foundation that once served a great and useful purpose and now is a headquarters for directing a subversive campaign, with a window-dressing of canned music lessons and a few stooge pupils.”

  Lucian Rhodes was listening to her, one arm looped over the back of his chair, his thin mouth half smiling. Linda Baker was not even looking at her. She was studying Rhodes.

  Berkeley tried to drive ahead on her subject, but Linda stopped her with an upraised hand.

  “Keep quiet,” she ordered. “Kovacs, see that she keeps quiet.” The stocky man drifted over toward the girl.

  Linda Baker still was regarding Rhodes with amber glance. “Rhodes,” she said shortly, “there are two things I want from you. That leather music roll—and two million dollars. I’ve warned Berkeley about her father. Let me remind you of your aunt. Is she worth two million dollars to you, for example.”

  “She’s worth the entire world dream of the German Reich,” said Lucian. “But I would like to remind you that Lucian Rhodes is officially dead. And he always will be. Instructions about that part of his estate are in Miss Melissa Rhodes’ hands. She will know what to do with it. You will never see it, Linda, just as you’ll never see the ten millions in gold concentrates at the bottom of the harbor of Mecupan.”

  “I think,” said Linda deliberately, “that you can change those instructions. And I think that you will.
Two million dollars will be a cheap price to avoid what will happen.”

  Lucian Rhodes shook his head slowly. “Utter ruthlessness where the Reich’s interests are concerned?” he said. “Don’t I know the creed? Those instructions to all members of the Auslands—‘You must nourish your hearts and minds on tiger milk where the welfare of the Reich demands.’” His black eyes fixed her stonily. “Take out ‘where the welfare of the Reich demands’ and substitute ‘where love of country demands’ and we’ll match you. Hell, a stand has to be made somewhere. It isn’t a question of two million dollars or of a person beloved to me. It’s a question of raising the highest possible standards to meet the highest possible challenge. Berkeley can speak for herself.”

  The girl looked past that crouching little ivory tiger to the woman standing behind it. In that moment of taut silence a person could feel the sheer crushing weight of the forces that waited for the motive spark, the work of this great agent.

  “He said it as well as I could,” she said in a low tone. Her voice seemed to catch in her throat.

  Dr. Ernst Bittner eyed her strangely. His hands were jammed in the pockets of his sack suit and his distinguished face was tilted to one side as though he was trying to get every last word that was said.

  That little buzzing sound again interrupted the silence. Linda reached into her desk drawer and took out the house phone. For a moment she held it to her ear and then without a word replaced it.

  Immediately she crossed the studio to the piano and, seating herself, struck a chord. Her swift fingers flashed up the keys in an expert arpeggio. Then she swayed closer to the keyboard and launched into a strange, soft rhythm with a recurring motif, a piece that Berkeley had never heard before, but music that had the same general theme development as the famous Bolero.

  Dr. Bittner’s throat worked spasmodically. He took a hall step and raised one hand almost as if in appeal.

  As swiftly as she had begun, Linda Baker ceased. She swung around from the piano.

  “Dr. Bittner, get down to the office and front as you never did before.” Her voice was strident with the whiplash of command. “Go on!”

  The head of the Mayhew Foundation turned blindly and half ran from the studio. Linda was back at her desk. Before their very eyes she opened a panel in the top and took out a square, loose-leaf folio of music sheets.

  “You made the game rather close, Rhodes,” she said rapidly. “But not quite close enough. I’ll take this and anything else they find here they can have.”

  Rhodes was on his feet, his eyes alight, his body balanced as a swordsman. “The Department men!” he said in a low tense voice. “Here! Now!”

  Linda Baker ignored him. “Max,” she said curtly, and the blond man they had known as Edward locked the studio door and dashed into the living room of the suite, a revolver with silencer appearing in his grip like sleight-of-hand. Every approach to this studio was being covered apparently.

  Berkeley swung around just in time to see Linda reach for that little ivory talisman and with the hurried gesture all the hatred she felt for it burst loose. Leaping forward, she snatched it out of those reaching fingers and hurled it blindly to the far side of the room. She saw Linda hesitate, then spin and speed after it.

  The girl heard Lucian Rhodes shout just a split second before the man, Kovacs, surged for her. He caught her around under the chin with a tightly pressed forearm, his free hand holding a silencer swinging to cover Rhodes.

  Berkeley was nearly lifted from her feet by the merciless leverage of that strangling forearm. With a frantic outburst of strength she managed to twist sideways, aided by the thickness of her turned up coat collar, flailing at that revolver arm, hearing her own voice in an incoherent screamed warning on the heels of the deadly spurt of the silencer.

  But her wild plunging struggle had unsteadied Kovacs just enough. In the next instant Lucian Rhodes was on the man with a crashing impact that sent them all hurtling across that little writing desk which went over as if it had been a toy.

  Berkeley was flung clear and came to one knee, half stunned, her breath just about jolted out of her. For a moment she could not seem to focus—the room was swirling crazily around as she strove to shake off the dizzying shock of that crash. Kovacs was fighting to get his wrist free to bring the silencer back into action. But there was hell-fire in the whipcord man fending it off. His face twisted with the awakened pa n in his side still injured from a New Orleans bullet, Lucian Rhodes met him with a burst of alley fighting—an elbow drawn back and riveted straight into his assailant’s mouth, a ripping knee slashed into the stomach, rolling over and kicking himself loose from the gasping Kovacs, bending that murder-filled wrist back at an agonizing angle.

  Berkeley pulled herself to her feet, all dizziness gone. That New Concerto—Linda Baker was carrying dynamite with her. She was carrying the whole soul of this deadly Mayhew Foundation in a loose-leaf folio of sheet music.

  “Lucian!” she cried wildly. “She’s carrying war right in her hands!”

  The New Concerto—she dashed into the middle of the studio and poised, looking about her swiftly. What appeared to be a closet door in the corner behind the piano was just swinging shut. Berkeley raced toward it and yanked it open.

  The door opened on a little private stairway, one that might have once been the service stairway in this former fine old residence. And even then she could hear the swift soft tread of footsteps ahead of her.

  Berkeley raced down in pursuit, swinging around the small landings, hurtling on with reckless breakneck abandon. And then she saw that slim green form ahead of her at a door at the foot of the stairs. She had whirled and was standing with her back to it and a little silver-plated revolver winked evilly in her hand. Berkeley’s momentum carried her down several more steps before she checked herself and hovered there between the landing above and the woman at the foot.

  Her heart was pounding in her throat and something seemed to tell her that this was it—this was the way it happened. You found yourself hanging on the blunt-nosed end of a revolver on a narrow staircase and felt that the sands of the hourglass were through.

  But you might as well go out in motion instead of being picked off like a shooting gallery duck. And so she poised herself to leap headlong. Her hand tightened briefly on the banister—and then the reverberation of a revolver thundered in that narrow service staircase.

  Berkeley caught herself quickly, clinging to the banister with both hands. A shot, yes—but it had come from behind her! Linda Baker stared past her for a second, then without a word buckled as if an ankle had been turned and pitched to the floor. She lay there motionless, crumpled.

  From behind her! Berkeley spun to look back over her shoulder. A distinguished-looking man, with small brown Van Dyke and little blue eyes and thinning hair—Dr. Ernst Bittner. Dr. Bittner standing there on the landing above with a revolver in his hand.

  “I, too, am American by citizenship,” he said huskily. “And German by blood. And music has been my life and this country my home. You are right—you must take a stand somewhere. God forgive me for having been afraid.”

  Berkeley continued to stare at him thunderstruck. He looked down at the revolver in his hand and then dropped it as though it had been a poisonous thing.

  “Yes, you were right,” he repeated numbly. “A traitor to both my music and my country—God help me, I was afraid for my beloved ones abroad. You remember when she played Tiger Serenade just now, her own piece, it was a signal—it was amplified all over the Foundation. It meant to prepare the way for her escape. And if she had won clear you never would have caught her—not that brilliant agent.” He passed a hand over his high forehead and closed his eyes. “And there would have been murder in my Foundation—my American countrymen—”

  His voice trailed off in an agonized whisper. Berkeley turned slowly and looked down at the foot of the stairs. By about two seconds her life had been preserved from a second deadly attack by that woman. A woman, who no
t so long ago, attractive, smiling, in white evening gown, had turned from the bar of the little hotel in Valleron and companionably congratulated her for refusing an invitation to dine with a Nazi officer. A woman who only a few days later had tried to kill her with the ruthlessness of the cause she served. Tiger milk—a heart and mind nourished by tiger milk… her dark eyes widened suddenly.

  For it was lying there—Linda Baker’s luck—lying in plain sight, that little ivory tiger crouching as if for its spring, as if still defiant, threatening.

  Suddenly something gave way within her, a stout prop that had been holding her qualities of courage and steadiness high. She slumped down against the banister, clinging to it with both hands, her shoulders shaking hysterically, as she buried her face in the crook of her arm.

  She was not conscious of people pounding down the stairs behind her, of a tall white-faced man stopping to seize her shoulders and call her name, of another man, a silent capable specimen in fawn-colored topcoat who swung down those stairs and knelt beside the inert figure, made a brief examination, and then removed a loose-leaf folio from under one arm.

  Lucian Rhodes could not make her dislodge her grip on the banisters. But she did raise her head, the pale curving smoothness of her cheeks streaked with tears and her curling lashes wet and heavy.

  “My God,” she whispered, “to be without fear again—to know people who really are what they seem—”

  Lucian started to bend close to her and speak. Then his eyes alighted on the Department of Justice agent. Several more government men were pounding down the stairs. For a moment his mouth twisted and then slowly he straightened up, resting a hand on her shoulder.

  “It’s all over, Berkeley,” he said. “All over.”

  CHAPTER 23

  It was considerate of the Department of Justice to settle Berkeley in the privacy and comfort of a suite in a Philadelphia hotel while they took her statement.