“So there’s a guard on the cliff,” muttered Spar. “Thank you, Saint, perhaps I’ll strangle you after all.”
The quiet intensity of his voice made Peg wince. But she moved closer to him, rested her hand on his shoulder, and looked down at the torches that danced like fireflies over the island.
“What happened?” said Peg.
“I killed my guard and they found the body before I could rescue you.”
“You killed a man?”
“You don’t call these beasts men, do you? Wait a bit. Maybe we can get out.” And then it was Spar’s turn to wince. Propped against the wall, tied with a sling and belt, Peg Mannering’s guard was certain to be discovered before the night was out. That would direct them straight to her door. Nothing would stop them. In their haste they had overlooked him once. They wouldn’t make the same mistake on closer inspection.
“We’ve got to get to the Venture,” said Spar. “They’ll know I’m here.”
“But can’t we take the others with us?”
“The others? I’m not interested in the others. I’ll send the navy back for them.” Spar looked at her with a frankness born of danger.
She backed away from him. “But you must!”
“You and I have a chance to get out. We can’t get out with Felice Bereau and that drunkard to give us away. They aren’t worth it.”
With a certain hauteur, she said, “You forget that I am engaged to marry Tom.”
“You had almost forgotten it. Forget it again. I’ve known from the moment I set eyes on you that someday I would tell you that I love you. I’m telling you now. I can get the two of us out, but not four. You are the one I take. Let Tom Perry rot.”
Stiffly, she replied, “I have given my word that I would marry him. I do not go back on my word. Do you take me for some street gamine?”
“I take you for a woman who will not listen to her own heart. You pretend that you are afraid of me, that you think me beneath you. Perhaps I am. But don’t forget that the Saint is watching you. Don’t forget that you are not choosing between Tom Perry and Captain Spar. You are choosing between Captain Spar and the Saint.”
“Count Folston . . . the Saint?”
“Yes, the Saint. You’ve heard of him, I see. If your choice is not correct, you’ll hear more of him, much more.”
“You take a great deal for granted, Captain Spar,” she replied. “Such vanity should be rewarded. And are you implying that you are so lacking in gallantry that you require me to buy my freedom with my hand?”
Spar looked at her uncertainly for a moment and then abruptly laughed. “We are both being very noble. You are taking the side of a worthless, drunken wretch and I am taking the part of a half-mad convict. Perhaps it would be better if we were to consider the best for everyone concerned. I can get out of here with you only. Four cannot move as quickly or as silently as two. We must do something. And the best we can do is to get aboard the Venture and sail for Martinique, to bring the French authorities here.”
“But wouldn’t they . . . ?”
“Yes, they’d send me back. But you are thinking of your promise, and, strangely, so am I. I can do nothing. I might as well do the only decent thing. I killed those two men in Martinique, not Tom.”
“You?”
“Yes, Folston pinned it on Tom to get him here. It was all planned. I was to be the corpse, but I let two killers substitute for me. I’ll see to it that everything goes off like clockwork. All shipshape. Come on, we haven’t much time.”
He started to the door, but she snatched at his arm and held him back. “No, no. That is not a good plan. Can’t we hide on the island for a time, let Folston do what he wants, and get away by stealing some small boat? You can’t give yourself up!”
Spar faced her, looked into her eyes and saw there the expression ladies reserve for the man they love. Suddenly he swept her into his arms and kissed her. She offered no resistance for a moment, and then she pushed him away.
“No,” she said, “I’m the one who is half-mad. We must get Tom out of here, no matter what it costs. I have given my promise.”
Spar unbarred the door. The stairway was empty and so, apparently, was the great hall beyond. Closely followed by Peg, he went slowly down, listening at each step.
A shot rapped outside, swallowed instantly by a chorus of yells and another report.
“They’re shooting at shadows,” whispered Spar. “They’ve forgotten they need a captain.”
He went halfway across the great hall before he saw the guard at the door. The ex-convict, naked to the waist and gripping a rifle barrel, was staring out at the courtyard as though anxious to be in on the excitement and perhaps have the pleasure of killing Spar.
Spar held Peg back, mutely pointing. Then, cat-footed, he went forward, rifle ready. Some sixth sense, possessed by jungle cats and criminals alike, must have warned the sentry of his danger. When Spar was still ten feet from him, the man whirled about, open-mouthed in his surprise. Then in the same second he dropped into a crouch and swiftly whipped up his weapon. A shark was facing the wolf.
Spar held Peg back, mutely pointing. Then, cat-footed,
he went forward, rifle ready.
Spar had also stopped, realizing the bridge was too wide to traverse in the instant still remaining to him. His rifle butt dropped in a blur, described a half circle and, speeding forward like a javelin, streaked toward the sentry’s chest.
The man tried to dodge, but he was blinded by the light he faced and paralyzed by the suddenness of the move. The steel-shod butt caught him in the ribs and he dropped with a hoarse groan.
Spar turned and took Peg by the hand. He led her over the inert body, stooped and retrieved his rifle, and then went on into the courtyard.
Another shot beat through the roar of the surf and the shouts. Spar instinctively ducked and then stood up when he realized that a shadow had been the target.
“I’d rather be the quarry than a searcher,” muttered Spar. “They’re like the gingham dog and the calico cat. They’ll eat each other up.”
Peg, small in his big shadow, looked inquiringly at him, mystified by a man who could kill and quote child’s poetry in the same breath. She began to realize that man is, at best, a predatory beast and that, in civilization as in the Ice Age, killing is sometimes necessary. She saw things clearly, without any distortion, for the first time in her life. And seeing life so cheaply bought, she responded with an atavistic disregard for anything which might interfere with their safety.
Spar flanked the trail, going through the thin brush. Once he stopped and crept ahead. When he returned to her and led her forward, she saw a smoking torch, fallen from an outstretched, slowly contracting hand. She did not wince.
With shouts on every side of them, with lights bobbing all about them, they came to the top of the cliff trail. Once more, Spar left her to crouch in the shelter of a rock.
He groped forward, feeling for the guard he knew to be there. Inch by inch, stone by stone, he made his way down the trail, striving to pierce the gloom.
Ahead he heard a sharp tinkle of metal against metal. A man had moved somewhere close to him. Spar went more slowly than before, hands describing a slow arc all about him.
Suddenly he touched cloth. In the same instant the guard jerked down with the rifle butt and caught Spar across the face. The rifle rose for a second blow, but Spar went in under it and reached for the throat.
Caught in each other’s sinewy embrace, they rocked on the edge, each one trying to throw the other to one side. The guard was strong, almost too strong. Spar closed in, tighter, more relentlessly.
The guard screamed for help. Screamed again. Spar picked him bodily from the cliff face and dropped him into space. The scream went on for a long, long time, growing less and less. Then the greedy sucking of the surf in the rocks gobbled the sound.
Shouts came in a medley from above. Spar was certain that Peg would be caught before he could get back to her. But an ins
tant later he felt a cool hand groping for his own and they started down, recklessly, sliding over loose stone, scrambling along a steep trail they could not see.
Men were coming down from above. Debris slithered over the edge and dropped about the two. Torches lined the top like a string of electric lights at a carnival.
Spar and Peg came to the landing stage. Spar dropped the girl into the boat and slid behind the wheel. He started the engine and slipped the gears into reverse. They went rocketing out into the swell, pitching. He turned and sent the launch bucking toward the lights of the Venture.
Rifle shots pounded behind them, sending long streamers of phosphorescence through the depths of the harbor. Spar was grinning. “Presently, presently,” he said. “They have no other boat.”
They curved in alongside the gangway and, tossing the painter to a dark figure on the deck, Spar helped the girl up the ladder ahead of him.
Puffing, feeling very satisfied with himself, he reached the deck. “Well, we’re safe,” he said.
But Peg did not seem to hear him. She stopped at the top, rigid with surprise.
Spar walked straight into an unwavering rifle muzzle, and saw other rifles ready and waiting, beyond.
Chacktar’s smiling mask was thrust toward them. Chacktar stepped out of his crowd of men and bowed, mockingly, borrowing his manner from the Saint.
“Welcome aboard, Captain,” said Chacktar. “Welcome aboard, Miss Mannering. Would you like to go to your cabins immediately, or shall I have tea served upon the sun deck?”
Spar drooped, his bloodied face sagging into weariness.
“Pierre!” said Chacktar. “Take the launch back to the Saint. Tell him I have received a return radio from Perry stating that the deed is made out, only waiting for Count Folston’s signature. He will doubtless wish to sail instantly.”
Peg Mannering, unsteadily stepping to one side, clutched at Spar’s sleeve. Very quietly, she fainted.
Spar took her up and carried her to the bridge, conscious of Chacktar’s knowing leer, conscious of a dozen unwavering muzzles, conscious of extreme defeat.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Branded with Murder
IT was night. The sullen black bulk of Martinique rose up on the port bow of the anchored Venture. A few lights glittered in the fishing village just north of Fort-de-France, and sent their long streamers like silver swords into the gentle surf.
The group on the darkened bridge were silent. They stood apart from one another, waiting patiently, oppressed by the presence of armed men. Felice Bereau whimpered softly to herself. Peg Mannering kept her eyes on Spar’s back. Tom Perry muttered obscene phrases helplessly, knowing that he was fated for ill, in spite of the fact that he was drunk.
The Saint came up to them and pointed at the launches in the water. “The ladies had better stay here. Never fear that I will be back. Spar and Perry are coming with me.”
Spar’s voice was metallic, toneless. “I would suggest that you take the ladies with you. You cannot trust these men.”
Folston shrugged. “Perhaps that is true. That is very well. Come along, good people. I have a party planned.”
They went down into the boats in a silent file and were presently ashore, standing on the deserted sand. Armed men stood silently about, watchful, waiting for orders.
Spar nervously glanced back at the Venture from time to time and licked his dry lips.
They went by jungle trail up through the steep hills, making their way to the Perry plantation without entering Fort-de-France. Spar, as minute followed minute, hoped that customs men would see them and stop them. Even though that meant his own recapture, it was preferable to the role he knew he would be forced to play.
They came in the darkness to the house, and the men scouted the place with great caution. The Saint was seeking to locate Perry and murder him before the servants could scatter out and warn the police. In fact, he hoped that the killing would be so silent that the servants would not at all be aware of it.
Presently his scouts came back with doleful tidings. This was Saturday night. The one night the Saint should not have picked. And all his plans seemed doomed to fall because of that unwitting choice.
“Saturday night,” rasped the Saint. “They’re at the Bal Ludu! And Perry? Where is Perry?”
“That I do not know,” said Chacktar.
The Saint thought for several minutes and then, with a brightening manner, said, “Very well, it is better that way. Chacktar, your staying here would excite no suspicion. Very well, we enter the place.”
They went into the glittering living room and from there into Perry’s office. The Saint, drawing on a pair of rubber gloves in case the police should look for fingerprints, began to rip files from their racks, papers from the drawers, until he had made a fine clutter on the floor. Then he knelt before the safe and proceeded to open it, referring from time to time to a paper he held, using the numbers he had often watched Perry use.
In the safe he found the made-out partnership deed. He found another paper giving details which were unpleasant to him. This he destroyed. He pocketed the deed to half the moneymaking plantation and then rose up with a smile.
“Chacktar, place young Perry and Captain Spar in a good, solid room. It is close to midnight now. Perry will soon be home. Chacktar, when Frederick Perry enters the house, slit his throat, toss down the knife and fade away. We will go back to the Venture.”
At that last remark, a faint smile twitched Spar’s lips. But he was hurried away with Tom to a bedroom. The shutters were barred, the door was locked upon them, and they were left alone.
“Remember, I shall be watching for you,” said Chacktar from the garden.
They heard the Saint say, “Come, ladies, we go a-sailing once more.”
An instant later they heard the sound of an engine coming up the hill. Perry was returning!
The Saint’s clear tones were heard again, as though he spoke into a telephone. “Police?” he said in patois. “M’sieu Perry is dead! Yes, yes! Dead! Come instantly!” The phone clicked.
Footsteps sounded and then, except for the roar of the approaching engine, all was silence.
Perry sank down upon the bed, moaning, “They’ll get me now! They’ll get me! They’ll think I killed my father. They’ll put me in jail for killing those men. They’ll hang me! And nobody will believe a word I say.”
Spar was suffering the same thoughts, but he did not voice them. Added to his misery was the fact that Peg Mannering would be lost to him forever. Folston was faultless in his plotting. The police would come, recognize two men they already knew to be criminals, and refuse to believe a word told them.
A corpse, two men, an opened safe, and the conclusions would be perfectly drawn. And Folston would present his deed in due course, claim the other half by partnership laws, and reign supreme.
It was all so neat, so flawless. The car was stopping. The police were already on their way. But nothing could be worse, thought Spar. Even his own death.
He aimed a solid kick at the shutter. It shivered and remained intact.
“Why do that?” moaned Tom Perry. “Folston will be gone in the Venture before anyone could stop him. Even if . . .”
Yellow so-and-so, thought Spar. Not even worried about his own father’s imminent death.
The shutter caved suddenly. Spar leaped through and hit the ground on his hands and knees. He scrambled up.
He saw Chacktar standing in the headlights, automatic raised, aiming at the occupant of the machine. Spar sprinted forward, yelling as he went.
Chacktar twisted about, undecided, two tasks suddenly confronting him. Spar raced in under the gun just as it fired. The flaming powder scorched his cheek. He struck solidly and sent Chacktar reeling back.
Spar aimed a second blow and missed. Chacktar hammered down with the automatic barrel, kicking and squirming to get away. His eyes flashed white.
Then Spar’s hands went in through the guard. Spar’s fingers closed on
Chacktar’s windpipe. Chacktar threshed helplessly in the grip.
Little by little, his life ebbed out. Spar dropped him with a feeling of disgust.
Other cars were coming. It was all up, thought Spar. But perhaps it had been worth it, even though he went back to the prison camps. The penal colony could hold no terrors now.
Frederick Perry ran forward, crying, “What’s this? What’s this?”
Spar faced him. “Your son is in that house. You’d better get him out. The police are coming.”
“My son? But I thought—”
“Don’t think, act!” rapped Spar impatiently.
But it was already too late. Cars drew up and belched forth men. The gendarmes clustered about the two, throwing out a barrage of questions.
“There is no corpse,” said Spar.
“No corpse?” cried the chief. “Name of a cat! Is all this some joke, hein?
Gendarmes had gone into the house and were now calling for the chief. Taking the two with him, the chief entered. Young Perry was standing in the center of the living room, shaking with terror.
The gendarmes recognized him instantly with glad shouts, but Spar’s voice broke through the babble.
“Listen,” said Spar, “the yacht Venture, if I am not mistaken, has just sunk three miles north of Fort-de-France. A great criminal and many armed men are there on the beach. I would advise that you telephone the colonial barracks and have the people rounded up. It is of the utmost importance.”
“What’s this?” cried the chief. “What’s this? How do you know?”
“Because, on my last trip into the engine room, I opened two seacocks. The Venture has been filling up for hours and she must have gone down by this time. The men left aboard have not intelligence enough to shut them off.”
“Wait!” said the chief, pulling his black mustache, “I know you. I have lately received your description from French Guiana. You are Captain Spar. Aha, my fine jailbird, so you think to so escape us.”