The Best of Robert E. Howard Volume One: Crimson Shadows Page 29

  He catapulted out of the black alley mouth head on into Patrolman Hogan who had heard his urgent bellow and was coming on the run. The breath went out of the patrolman in an agonized gasp, and the two hit the sidewalk together.

  Harrison did not take time to rise. Ripping the Colt .38 Special from Hogan’s holster, he blazed away at a shadow that hovered for an instant in the black mouth of the alley.

  Rising, he approached the dark entrance, the smoking gun in his hand. No sound came from the Stygian gloom.

  “Give me your flashlight,” he requested, and Hogan rose, one hand on his capacious belly, and proffered the article. The white beam showed no corpse stretched in the alley mud.

  “Got away,” muttered Harrison.

  “Who?” demanded Hogan with some spleen. “What is this, anyway? I hear you bellowin’ ‘Hogan!’ like the devil had you by the seat of the britches, and the next thing you ram me like a chargin’ bull. What–”

  “Shut up, and let’s explore this alley,” snapped Harrison. “I didn’t mean to run into you. Something jumped me–”

  “I’ll say somethin’ did.” The patrolman surveyed his companion in the uncertain light of the distant corner lamp. Harrison’s coat hung in ribbons; his shirt was slashed to pieces, revealing his broad hairy chest which heaved from his exertions. Sweat ran down his corded neck, mingling with blood from gashes on arms, shoulders and breast muscles. His hair was clotted with mud, his clothes smeared with it.

  “Must have been a whole gang,” decided Hogan.

  “It was one man,” said Harrison; “one man or one gorilla; but it talked. Are you coming?”

  “I am not. Whatever it was, it’ll be gone now. Shine that light up the alley. See? Nothin’ in sight. It wouldn’t be waitin’ around for us to grab it by the tail. You better get them cuts dressed. I’ve warned you against short cuts through dark alleys. Plenty men have grudges against you.”

  “I’ll go to Richard Brent’s place,” said Harrison. “He’ll fix me up. Go along with me, will you?”

  “Sure, but you better let me–”

  “What ever it is, no!” growled Harrison, smarting from cuts and wounded vanity. “And listen, Hogan–don’t mention this, see? I want to work it out for myself. This is no ordinary affair.”

  “It must not be–when one critter licks the tar out of Iron Man Harrison,” was Hogan’s biting comment; whereupon Harrison cursed under his breath.

  Richard Brent’s house stood just off Hogan’s beat–one lone bulwark of respectability in the gradually rising tide of deterioration which was engulfing the neighborhood, but of which Brent, absorbed in his studies, was scarcely aware.

  Brent was in his relic-littered study, delving into the obscure volumes which were at once his vocation and his passion. Distinctly the scholar in appearance, he contrasted strongly with his visitors. But he took charge without undue perturbation, summoning to his aid a half course of medical studies.

  Hogan, having ascertained that Harrison’s wounds were little more than scratches, took his departure, and presently the big detective sat opposite his host, a long whiskey glass in his massive hand.

  Steve Harrison’s height was above medium, but it seemed dwarfed by the breadth of his shoulders and the depth of his chest. His heavy arms hung low, and his head jutted aggressively forward. His low, broad brow, crowned with heavy black hair, suggested the man of action rather than the thinker, but his cold blue eyes reflected unexpected depths of mentality.

  “‘–As I died in the sand,’” he was saying. “That’s what he yammered. Was he just a plain nut–or what the hell?”

  Brent shook his head, absently scanning the walls, as if seeking inspiration in the weapons, antique and modern, which adorned it.

  “You could not understand the language in which he spoke before?”

  “Not a word. All I know is, it wasn’t English and it wasn’t Chinese. I do know the fellow was all steel springs and whale bone. It was like fighting a basketful of wild cats. From now on I pack a gun regular. I haven’t toted one recently, things have been so quiet. Always figured I was a match for several ordinary humans with my fists, anyway. But this devil wasn’t an ordinary human; more like a wild animal.”

  He gulped his whiskey loudly, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and leaned toward Brent with a curious glint in his cold eyes.

  “I wouldn’t be saying this to anybody but you,” he said with a strange hesitancy. “And maybe you’ll think I’m crazy–but–well, I’ve bumped off several men in my life. Do you suppose–well, the Chinese believe in vampires and ghouls and walking dead men–and with all this talk about being dead, and me killing him–do you suppose–”

  “Nonsense!” exclaimed Brent with an incredulous laugh. “When a man’s dead, he’s dead. He can’t come back.”

  “That’s what I’ve always thought,” muttered Harrison. “But what the devil did he mean about me feeding him to the vultures?”

  “I will tell you!” A voice hard and merciless as a knife edge cut their conversation.

  Harrison and Brent wheeled, the former starting out of his chair. At the other end of the room one of the tall shuttered windows stood open for the sake of the coolness. Before this now stood a tall rangy man whose ill-fitting garments could not conceal the dangerous suppleness of his limbs, nor the breadth of his hard shoulders. Those cheap garments, muddy and bloodstained, seemed incongruous with the fierce dark hawk-like face, the flame of the dark eyes. Harrison grunted explosively, meeting the concentrated ferocity of that glare.

  “You escaped me in the darkness,” muttered the stranger, rocking slightly on the balls of his feet as he crouched, catlike, a wicked curved dagger gleaming in his hand. “Fool! Did you dream I would not follow you? Here is light; you shall not escape again!”

  “Who the devil are you?” demanded Harrison, standing in an unconscious attitude of defense, legs braced, fists poised.

  “Poor of wit and scant of memory!” sneered the other. “You do not remember Amir Amin Izzedin, whom you slew in the Valley of the Vultures, thirty years ago! But I remember! From my cradle I remember. Before I could speak or walk, I knew that I was Amir Amin, and I remembered the Valley of Vultures. But only after deep shame and long wandering was full knowledge revealed to me. In the smoke of Shaitan I saw it! You have changed your garments of flesh, Ahmed Pasha, you Bedouin dog, but you can not escape me. By the Golden Calf!”

  With a feline shriek he ran forward, dagger on high. Harrison sprang aside, surprizingly quick for a man of his bulk, and ripped an archaic spear from the wall. With a wordless yell like a warcry, he rushed, gripping it with both hands like a bayonet. Amir Amin wheeled toward him lithely, swaying his pantherish body to avoid the onrushing point. Too late Harrison realized his mistake–knew he would be spitted on the long knife as he plunged past the elusive Oriental. But he could not check his headlong impetus. And then Amir Amin’s foot slipped on a sliding rug. The spear head ripped through his muddy coat, ploughed along his ribs, bringing a spurting stream of blood. Knocked off balance, he slashed wildly, and then Harrison’s bull-like shoulder smashed into him, carrying them both to the floor.

  Amir Amin was up first, minus his knife. As he glared wildly about for it, Brent, temporarily stunned by the unaccustomed violence, went into action. From the racks on the wall the scholar had taken a shotgun, and he wore a look of grim determination. As he lifted it, Amir Amin yelped and plunged recklessly through the nearest window. The crash of splintering glass mingled with the thunderous roar of the shotgun. Brent, rushing to the window, blinking in the powder fumes, saw a shadowy form dart across the shadowy lawn, under the trees, and vanish. He turned back into the room, where Harrison was rising, swearing luridly.

  “Twice in a night is too danged much! Who is this nut, anyway? I never saw him before!”

  “A Druse!” stuttered Brent. “His accent–his mention of the golden calf–his hawk-like appearance–I am sure he is a Druse.”

  �
�What the hell is a Druse?” bellowed Harrison, in a spasm of irritation. His bandages had been torn and his cuts were bleeding again.

  “They live in a mountain district in Syria,” answered Brent; “a tribe of fierce fighters–”

  “I can tell that,” snarled Harrison. “I never expected to meet anybody that could lick me in a stand-up fight, but this devil’s got me buffaloed. Anyway, it’s a relief to know he’s a living human being. But if I don’t watch my step, I won’t be. I’m staying here tonight, if you’ve got a room where I can lock all the doors and windows. Tomorrow I’m going to see Woon Sun.”

  II

  Few men ever traversed the modest curio shop that opened on dingy River Street and passed through the cryptic curtain-hung door at the rear of that shop, to be amazed at what lay beyond: luxury in the shape of gilt-worked velvet hangings, silken cushioned divans, tea-cups of tinted porcelain on toy-like tables of lacquered ebony, over all of which was shed a soft colored glow from electric bulbs concealed in gilded lanterns.

  Steve Harrison’s massive shoulders were as incongruous among those exotic surroundings as Woon Sun, short, sleek, clad in close-fitting black silk, was adapted to them.

  The Chinaman smiled, but there was iron behind his suave mask.

  “And so–” he suggested politely.

  “And so I want your help,” said Harrison abruptly. His nature was not that of a rapier, fencing for an opening, but a hammer smashing directly at its objective.

  “I know that you know every Oriental in the city. I’ve described this bird to you. Brent says he’s a Druse. You couldn’t be ignorant of him. He’d stand out in any crowd. He doesn’t belong with the general run of River Street gutter rats. He’s a wolf.”

  “Indeed he is,” murmured Woon Sun. “It would be useless to try to conceal from you the fact that I know this young barbarian. His name is Ali ibn Suleyman.”

  “He called himself something else,” scowled Harrison.

  “Perhaps. But he is Ali ibn Suleyman to his friends. He is, as your friend said, a Druse. His tribe live in stone cities in the Syrian mountains–particularly about the mountain called the Djebel Druse.”

  “Muhammadans, eh?” rumbled Harrison. “Arabs?”

  “No; they are, as it were, a race apart. They worship a calf cast of gold, believe in reincarnation, and practice heathen rituals abhorred by the Moslems. First the Turks and now the French have tried to govern them, but they have never really been conquered.”

  “I can believe it, alright,” muttered Harrison. “But why did he call me ‘Ahmed Pasha’? What’s he got it in for me for?”

  Woon Sun spread his hands helplessly.

  “Well, anyway,” growled Harrison, “I don’t want to keep on dodging knives in back alleys. I want you to fix it so I can get the drop on him. Maybe he’ll talk sense, if I can get the cuffs on him. Maybe I can argue him out of this idea of killing me, whatever it is. He looks more like a fanatic than a criminal. Anyway, I want to find out just what it’s all about.”

  “What could I do?” murmured Woon Sun, folding his hands on his round belly, malice gleaming from under his dropping lids. “I might go further and ask, why should I do anything for you?”

  “You’ve stayed inside the law since coming here,” said Harrison. “I know that curio shop is just a blind; you’re not making any fortune out of it. But I know, too, that you’re not mixed up with anything crooked. You had your dough when you came here–plenty of it–and how you got it is no concern of mine.

  “But, Woon Sun,” Harrison leaned forward and lowered his voice, “do you remember that young Eurasian Josef La Tour? I was the first man to reach his body, the night he was killed in Osman Pasha’s gambling den. I found a note book on him, and I kept it. Woon Sun, your name was in that book!”

  An electric silence impregnated the atmosphere. Woon Sun’s smooth yellow features were immobile, but red points glimmered in the shoe-button blackness of his eyes.

  “La Tour must have been intending to blackmail you,” said Harrison. “He’d worked up a lot of interesting data. Reading that note book, I found that your name wasn’t always Woon Sun; found out where you got your money, too.”

  The red points had faded in Woon Sun’s eyes; those eyes seemed glazed; a greenish pallor overspread the yellow face.

  “You’ve hidden yourself well, Woon Sun,” muttered the detective. “But double-crossing your society and skipping with all their money was a dirty trick. If they ever find you, they’ll feed you to the rats. I don’t know but what it’s my duty to write a letter to a mandarin in Canton, named–”

  “Stop!” The Chinaman’s voice was unrecognizable. “Say no more, for the love of Buddha! I will do as you ask. I have this Druse’s confidence, and can arrange it easily. It is now scarcely dark. At midnight be in the alley known to the Chinese of River Street as the Alley of Silence. You know the one I mean? Good. Wait in the nook made by the angle of the walls, near the end of the alley, and soon Ali ibn Suleyman will walk past it, ignorant of your presence. Then if you dare, you can arrest him.”

  “I’ve got a gun this time,” grunted Harrison. “Do this for me, and we’ll forget about La Tour’s note book. But no double-crossing, or–”

  “You hold my life in your fingers,” answered Woon Sun. “How can I double-cross you?”

  Harrison grunted skeptically, but rose without further words, strode through the curtained door and through the shop, and let himself into the street. Woon Sun watched inscrutably the broad shoulders swinging aggressively through the swarms of stooped, hurrying Orientals, men and women, who thronged River Street at that hour; then he locked the shop door and hurried back through the curtained entrance into the ornate chamber behind. And there he halted, staring.

  Smoke curled up in a blue spiral from a satin divan, and on that divan lounged a young woman–a slim, dark, supple creature, whose night-black hair, full red lips and scintillant eyes hinted at blood more exotic than her costly garments suggested. Those red lips curled in malicious mockery, but the glitter of her dark eyes belied any suggestion of humor, however satirical, just as their vitality belied the languor expressed in the listlessly drooping hand that held the cigaret.

  “Joan!” The Chinaman’s eyes narrowed to slits of suspicion. “How did you get in here?”

  “Through that door over there, which opens on a passage which in turn opens on the alley that runs behind this building. Both doors were locked–but long ago I learned how to pick locks.”

  “But why–?”

  “I saw the brave detective come here. I have been watching him for some time now–though he does not know it.” The girl’s vital eyes smoldered yet more deeply for an instant.

  “Have you been listening outside the door?” demanded Woon Sun, turning grey.

  “I am no eavesdropper. I did not have to listen. I can guess why he came. And you promised to help him?”

  “I don’t know what you are talking about,” answered Woon Sun, with a secret sigh of relief.

  “You lie!” The girl came tensely upright on the divan, her convulsive fingers crushing her cigaret, her beautiful face momentarily contorted. Then she regained control of herself, in a cold resolution more dangerous than spitting fury. “Woon Sun,” she said calmly, drawing a stubby black automatic from her mantle, “how easily, and with what good will could I kill you where you stand. But I do not wish to. We shall remain friends. See, I replace the gun. But do not tempt me, my friend. Do not try to eject me, or to use violence with me. Here, sit down and take a cigaret. We will talk this over calmly.”

  “I do not know what you wish to talk over,” said Woon Sun, sinking down on a divan and mechanically taking the cigaret she offered, as if hypnotized by the glitter of her magnetic black eyes–and the knowledge of the hidden pistol. All his Oriental immobility could not conceal the fact that he feared this young pantheress–more than he feared Harrison. “The detective came here merely on a friendly call,” he said. “I have many friends
among the police. If I were found murdered they would go to much trouble to find and hang the guilty person.”

  “Who spoke of killing?” protested Joan, snapping a match on a pointed, henna-tinted nail, and holding the tiny flame to Woon Sun’s cigaret. At the instant of contact their faces were close together, and the Chinaman drew back from the strange intensity that burned in her dark eyes. Nervously he drew on the cigaret, inhaling deeply.

  “I have been your friend,” he said. “You should not come here threatening me with a pistol. I am a man of no small importance on River Street. You, perhaps, are not as secure as you suppose. The time may come when you will need a friend like me–”

  He was suddenly aware that the girl was not answering him, or even heeding his words. Her own cigaret smoldered unheeded in her fingers, and through the clouds of smoke her eyes burned at him with the terrible eagerness of a beast of prey. With a gasp he jerked the cigaret from his lips and held it to his nostrils.

  “She-devil!” It was a shriek of pure terror. Hurling the smoking stub from him, he lurched to his feet where he swayed dizzily on legs suddenly grown numb and dead. His fingers groped toward the girl with strangling motions. “Poison–dope–the black lotos–”

  She rose, thrust an open hand against the flowered breast of his silk jacket and shoved him back down on the divan. He fell sprawling and lay in a limp attitude, his eyes open, but glazed and vacant. She bent over him, tense and shuddering with the intensity of her purpose.

  “You are my slave,” she hissed, as a hypnotizer impels his suggestions upon his subject. “You have no will but my will. Your conscious brain is asleep, but your tongue is free to tell the truth. Only the truth remains in your drugged brain. Why did the detective Harrison come here?”

  “To learn of Ali ibn Suleyman, the Druse,” muttered Woon Sun in his own tongue, and in a curious lifeless sing-song.

  “You promised to betray the Druse to him?”

  “I promised but I lied,” the monotonous voice continued. “The detective goes at midnight to the Alley of Silence, which is the Gateway to the Master. Many bodies have gone feet-first through that gateway. It is the best place to dispose of his corpse. I will tell the Master he came to spy upon him, and thus gain honor for myself, as well as ridding myself of an enemy. The white barbarian will stand in the nook between the walls, awaiting the Druse as I bade him. He does not know that a trap can be opened in the angle of the walls behind him and a hand strike with a hatchet. My secret will die with him.”