Anne Carsten
There was some slight solace to that, and he found himself looking forward to seeing the girl—if and when—he ever got out. He began to dwell upon her beauty, upon the kindness of her eyes. He realized, then, that this was the girl he had always hoped to meet. His luck to meet her when he had to depart so abruptly. Sailor’s luck!
He could not fathom Lin Wang’s determination to keep him away from the Shanghai authorities. The fact was ominous. If Lin Wang merely wanted to do away with Kurt Reid, it would be more quickly done over the bar of justice—God knew that Justice had enough against the bucko mate.
He tried to piece together all he knew about Lin Wang, but that did him little good. Lin Wang was a general of high repute, shouting for China’s freedom and waving flags and putting up a great show. China’s traitors, so boasted Lin Wang, did not live long at the hands of his picked executioners, the Death Squad.
Lin Wang had long called down the ancient curses upon the head of invading Japan.
But Kurt Reid had no definite answer and when the month was out, curiosity overcame the fear of his first meeting with Lin Wang.
The soldiers in black came one morning and led him away. Between their files he was not much to look upon. His clothes were dirty and worn, he needed a shave, his hair was long and unkempt, but he walked with erect head and something of arrogance in his stride. He was thrust through the door of a small hut and made to sit in a chair against the wall. Men passed ropes through his arms and about his body and lashed him there.
For an hour he waited and then, amid great clamor, the door was flung back and Lin Wang came in.
One glance at the man sent a shudder of repulsion through Kurt. Lin Wang was small, hunched to one side, with a twisted back. He did not seem to have any neck muscles; his head sat rigidly upon his shoulders, pulled to one side. His face was deeply pocked, covered with yellowish scales which might come from some leprosy. Several great wrinkles lay like old scars against the cruel visage like ravines in a relief map. The wrinkles were filled with ancient poisonous dirt.
Lin Wang’s hands were held up from his body as though he could not drop them. The fingers dangled limply, fleshless and thin, clattering nervelessly when Lin Wang moved.
But the eyes were the worst. They were not black, they were an unhealthy, mud blue color, like bichloride of mercury. The lids were half lowered over the protruding pupils.
“Kurt Reid, isn’t it?” said Lin Wang with a rattle in his voice.
Kurt drew back a little and said nothing.
“Ah, so you do not like to look at me. No one likes to look at Lin Wang. But for all my looks, women sometimes smile. Could you smile, bucko mate, watching a beheading sword?”
“I’m laughing out loud,” said Kurt, teeth displayed by his taut upper lip. “What do you want with me?”
“I will show you that, but first allow me to ask you a question.” Lin Wang settled himself behind the crude desk and popped three black opium pills into his mouth, lowering his hands and letting the clattering fingers droop, eyeing Kurt with a twisted glance.
“You are very good-looking,” commented Lin Wang. “The women, I presume, love a man as good-looking as you. Perhaps Anne Carsten, for instance. I have a feeling that it might give me pleasure to spoil those handsome features of yours, Kurt Reid, but nevermind, perhaps that will come later.”
“What’s the idea of bringing me here?” demanded Kurt. “You could have saved yourself the trouble by tipping off the officials over in the Foreign Concessions.”
“Ah, you refer to that incident aboard the Rangoon, eh? With regard to that, Kurt Reid, allow me to state that I have gone to no little trouble for you. I have solved the murder aboard the Rangoon.”
“What the hell?”
“You see? We might even be friends. But tell me, are you the Kurt Reid who spent his life here in China and Japan? Was your father a certain Frank Reid, a soldier of no little reputation?”
“That’s right.”
“I had hoped that I would not be in error. Then you speak several dialects of Chinese and Japanese as well?”
“I do,” said Kurt.
“And you’re the bucko mate with the quick temper?”
“I suppose so.”
“Very well,” said Lin Wang, with an air of finality. He turned to the black-uniformed Yang, captain of the Death Squad. “Bring that seaman in here, Captain Yang.”
Yang’s great bulk filled the doorway as he went out. Presently a hulking seaman was goaded through the door at the point of bayonets. The man was thick of body and small-headed. His face was unclean, and matted dark hair clung stickily to his half-naked body.
“Bonner!” exclaimed Kurt Reid, recognizing one of the Rangoon’s seamen.
“Bonner is right,” said Lin Wang. “Then my men were not in error. I might mention, Kurt Reid, that I had a friend in the crew of the Rangoon who was willing to sell me this information at a price.”
Bonner glowered at Lin Wang, and then saw Kurt Reid. He growled a curse and said, “What the hell do you want with me?”
Lin Wang smiled and the chasms in his face opened. A thin scale dropped from his face and he picked it up from the desk, breaking it with his finger nails.
“Bonner,” said Lin Wang. “I believe you murdered the captain of the Rangoon and took a few things from the safe. My men found those things in your baggage when you jumped ship in Hong Kong.”
“So that’s where they went! Well, listen, yellow-belly—”
“I am doing the talking,” said Lin Wang. “If you care to give me a written confession, you can remain alive. Otherwise—”
“Go to hell,” said Bonner.
“Yang,” said Lin Wang, “pin his body in a chair and bring me a pair of pliers. Any pair of pliers will do.”
Bonner swore, but strong hands bent him into the chair and strong ropes held him down. He tried to twist free, but the black-uniformed men were stronger.
The pliers came. Kurt Reid watched with wide open eyes. Lin Wang rattled the metal in his shaking hand.
“Spread out his fingers,” said Lin Wang, smiling.
Yang spread the man’s hand flat against the arm of the seat. Lin Wang’s smile broadened. The muddy blue eyes lighted up. A desire of cruelty, heightened by the fact that he was a crossbreed between some unknown race and Chinese, made Lin Wang chuckle.
The pliers swept down with a click and fastened upon Bonner’s index fingernail. The pliers jerked back, blood spouted. Lin Wang dropped the nail to the floor.
Bonner writhed and turned white, moaning through set lips. Lin Wang ripped out another fingernail. Bonner screamed.
“Will you sign that confession?” said Lin Wang.
“No!” roared Bonner.
The pliers came down slowly this time. Bonner flinched. Lin Wang smiled and jerked back. Once more the pliers descended.
“I’ll sign!” cried Bonner.
The pliers came down slowly this time. Bonner flinched.
Lin Wang smiled and jerked back. . . .
“I’ll sign!” cried Bonner.
They unfastened his right hand and slid a board under his arm. They thrust a pen between his shaking fingers. From his left hand blood dripped slowly to the floor.
Bonner wrote what Lin Wang dictated.
I, George Bonner, do hereby confess to the murder of Captain Randolph for the purposes of robbery aboard the SS Rangoon off the Coast of China. I murdered Captain Randolph with a belaying pin, crushing his skull, found the combination to the safe among his papers and extracted the loot. On request, the money and certificates are waiting at the shop of Loi Chung—Nanking Road.
Signed: George Bonner
Witness: Yang Ch’ieu
Lin Wang read the paper over, watched by Bonner’s pain-deadened eyes.
“You did kill him, didn’t you?” said Lin Wang, affably.
Bonner gave him a sick nod.
Lin Wang reached into his desk and extracted a German automatic pistol.
“Any prayers, my good Bonner?”
“Jesus! You’re not going to—”
The concussion of the shot boomed through the small room. Blue smoke eddied about Bonner’s chair. Lin Wang fired again. Bonner slumped, a bullet between his eyes.
“Take him out,” said Lin Wang with an airy wave of his dangling hand. He blew the smoke out of the muzzle and placed the automatic back in his desk.
“This confession,” said Lin Wang, “is valid and perfectly satisfactory to authorities. Had I turned you over to them, they might have cleared you and that would have been that. But now, Kurt Reid . . . ”
“What’s your game?” demanded Kurt.
“Game? That suggests hunting, doesn’t it? Then, Kurt Reid you are going hunting.”
“You’re insane!”
“Of course,” said Lin Wang. “I find it most pleasant. You are supposed to be a fighter and you can get by where a Chinese could not. This confession I keep here with me, in my jacket. When you have killed your game, bring back its scalp and you shall have the confession.”
“You mean I’ve got to buy that with murder?”
“Precisely, Kurt Reid. You are a very intelligent gentleman, I must say. I shall make very sure that you do not escape. In fact, I shall lend you Captain Yang Ch’ieu and six members of the Death Squad.
“I choose you because you may escape unscathed in the Japanese lines. Yes, the Japanese lines. You are to proceed to Kalgan on the Great Wall, there find one they call Takeki, the Courageous, a notorious spy, very harmful to the peace of China, one who is responsible for much of this Autonomy move. You will kill this Takeki, and when you have brought me evidence that you have done so, you shall have this confession. Then you will be a free man.
“But if you do not kill this Takeki, through Captain Yang I will inform the authorities where you may be apprehended and I shall have men appear at your trial as witnesses against you, thereby making it certain that you die a criminal. There is no escape for you.
“And if you go too wrong in this, you saw what happened to this man Bonner. Perhaps I would not trust the authorities. But however that may be, Kurt Reid, kill Takeki and you are a free man.”
“So that’s why you did all this.”
“Of course. But do not make the mistake of thinking that this Takeki is anything less than a demon. He may try you very much before you finish with him. My own men could not approach him at all, but you, as a white man, speaking their language, should be able to do it and escape.
“I might remind you, Kurt Reid, that something of the fate of China rests on your shoulders.”
“You went far enough around to put it there,” snapped Kurt. “All right. I’ll try it. Let me up from here.”
Captain Yang unlashed him and pulled him to his feet. Although Kurt was tall, Captain Yang loomed over him like a mountain which has a summer house at its summit.
Captain Yang said, “I think we will have a very enjoyable trip, bucko mate.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Danger in Kalgan
IT was a very different looking Kurt Reid who arrived one night on the Peking-Suiyuan Railway in Kalgan. He stepped from the train in the company of a gigantic merchant who had six servants unload their baggage.
Kurt Reid was dressed in a well-tailored dark suit and wore a pearl gray hat. He was clean shaved again and looked as much unlike the bucko mate as had the prisoner of Lin Wang. His clear black eyes searched through the crowd as do those of men about to hang, and he found no friendship or promise of rescue. Yang Ch’ieu nudged him, as a signal to move along.
They picked their way through littered streets toward a small hotel. Japanese soldiers were in evidence everywhere, dressed in mustard-colored uniforms, officers marked by red cap bands. Guards with fixed bayonets stood before many entrances. Japan was about to take over North China, and Kalgan, near the Great Wall, was the jumping off place.
Kurt Reid felt very tired and down in the mouth. He had been unable to locate Anne Carsten in Shanghai, although he had tried his best to find her at the risk of his own liberty. And he had approached the puzzle of Lin Wang’s move no further.
On the surface, it would appear that Lin Wang was fighting to retain North China, and to do so, Lin Wang considered it vital that this Takeki person, supposed to be a Japanese spy, be killed. But the closer Kurt Reid came to it, the more convinced he was that killing a Japanese spy in the Japanese lines was an impossibility.
But with that confession of Bonner’s as a lure and with Yang here beside him, Kurt knew he would try.
As they rounded a corner and pressed their way through a camel caravan which had stopped in the street, Kurt drew a sudden breath of surprise, causing Yang to look down at him quickly.
Kurt walked on calmly enough although he was certain that he had seen a familiar face in the crowd. Maybe all White Russians looked alike, and maybe there was more than one fur hat and coat like that in China, but something more than sight had given him his information.
Varinka Savischna was here! He had seen her entering a shop.
That bothered him more than a little, and heartened him a great deal. On one hand he hated to see Varinka in a Japanese town, but on the other, her presence might be an omen of good luck. If he could see her, maybe he would be able to find out where this Takeki might be found.
With springier stride he followed Yang into the hotel and registered. The six servants, hiding their warlike faces under their hats, made their way back to the lesser ground floor quarters.
Kurt’s room was a small affair, boasting only a bed and a chair and a picture of the Mikado, put up by the hotel keeper, doubtless, to show Japan that he had their cause at heart.
Yang had gone to his own room, and for a moment Kurt fondled the idea of getting out and away. But when he looked down into the street he saw one of the six slowly puffing a cigarette at the hotel entrance. The man was armed, and even though a street fight might give away their identity, these guards knew what to expect from Lin Wang as the price of failure.
A man in a blue gown thrust his head into the doorway and said, “Everything all right, sir?”
“Yes,” said Kurt. “Quite all right.”
But the small yellow-faced man did not go away. He entered and patted the bedspread smooth and adjusted the pillow. “Anything I might tell the gentleman?” he said.
“No,” replied Kurt.
“Pardoning your honor, but this one is a good guide. He knows all things.”
Kurt studied the man for a moment and then said, “You can tell me something, if you promise to forget the question immediately. Where can I find this one known as Takeki?”
The other shook his head. “I do not know.” He went out.
Kurt stretched himself on the bed and thought for a long time. He wondered how he was going to find this Japanese spy in the first place. Perhaps the spy would come to see him. That was a plan. If Kurt let it be known that he had some vital information about South China, the spy might present himself. Distasteful as the job was, it had to be done.
He wondered for a long time why Varinka was here, and how he could find her again. But then Kalgan was not so big and Varinka’s exotic beauty was easily spotted in an Oriental crowd. Odd that he had crossed her track again.
His ponderings were interrupted by a knock on the door. Without knowing quite why he did so, Kurt glanced out of the window and saw that the guard was gone.
He opened the door and fell back. A Japanese officer and a squad of infantrymen blocked the passage. Their dark faces were set in a military glower and their caps sat precisely upon the tops of their heads. Their blued bayonets shimmered dully.
The officer said, “You are under arrest. Quietly come with us.”
No man is fool enough to launch himself against eight bayonets. Kurt picked up his hat, set it on the back of his head and fell in between the files.
Yang burst out of his room and stood gaping at the squad. Then, startling in his iron face, two great
tears welled up out of his eyes and ran down his cheeks. Yang was an excellent actor.
Yang fell upon Kurt and wept loudly. “Do not take him, taicho. He is my friend!” wailed Yang, shaking like a mountain in an earthquake. But under cover of the sobs he whispered in a voice like a saw, “Keep your mouth shut, fool. Killing will be too good for you.”
The captain pried Yang away and pushed him back against the wall. Yang submitted tearfully, and Kurt was led away.
The squad marched him through the crowded street. People paused to stare and point. Little children, faces round and mouths filled with jeers, ran on either side of the files.
“It is some great traitor,” ran the whisper. “They are going to execute him!”
Kurt watched the cloth shoes going up and down on either side of him. He was unable to account for this sudden turn of events and he looked bleakly ahead to even a worse fate than that promised by Yang.
They went into a big stone house which served as Japanese headquarters and Kurt was left standing before a rough desk. The man who sat there was small and wiry. His eyes were hidden behind plate-glass spectacles which made him look like a submarine monster. His hair stood straight up, like a pig-bristle brush.
Kurt saw another beside the desk, a small man in a blue gown. The man he had taken for a bellhop at the hotel.
“Is this the man?” said the officer at the desk.
“Yes, sir. He asked me about Takeki, sir.”
The officer nodded and peered nearsightedly at Kurt. “Why did you ask that question? What is your name?”
“My name is Smith,” said Kurt. “I was merely curious, that is all.”
“Please do not lie to me,” said the officer, rubbing his hands thoughtfully together. “Your name is Kurt Reid. Now go on.”
Kurt blinked. It seemed that he was fated to be known mysteriously by everyone. How had this information come to this Japanese headquarters?
“Why, yes, so it is,” said Kurt. “But I was still curious about Takeki. I have some information for him.”