The Complete Adventures of Hazard & Partridge (29 page)

Read The Complete Adventures of Hazard & Partridge Online

Authors: Robert J. Pearsall

Tags: #Action and Adventure

I saw that the girl’s eyes were riveted, not on Rambeau, but on the effigy, whose life-like Chinese countenance, inscrutable as the night itself, began to be slowly revealed. I saw that the effigy, which I had supposed to be standing, was really sitting in a great Chinese chair, the broad back of which, six feet across, paralleled the wall. I saw also that from the polished surface of that effigy the slowly increasing candlelight was flung back in a sort of green radiance.

As for me, with the suggestion of that green radiance upon me—what does a green polished surface always suggest in the Orient?—my breathing was now becoming very short and quick, so that I had hard work to keep it inaudible. I was tense with the mental throes of a new idea. In the fresh light of the few words I had heard pass between Rambeau and the girl I had suspected of baseness, I was swiftly, and with a sense of shame, reconstructing my ideas. Stupidly, stupidly I’d skimmed the surface of fact; I’d followed the obvious; I had not been able to imagine.

“Oh!” cried the girl, bending toward the effigy with intense and avid curiosity. “It is— Or is it—”

I had not been able to imagine the depths of Rambeau’s crafty nature nor another tale than the true one of the imminent Lolo raid which he might easily frame to lure the girl that night wherever he would—a tale which he told the next moment in a single word.

“Jade!” he cried, pretended enthusiasm struggling with caution in his voice. “Worth, as I told you, a fortune—in fact, priceless.”

What had not that tale meant to the girl, bound to the deadly life of Ning-Po by the sordid chains of poverty—that tale of wealth unknown even to the villagers themselves, of a thing worth a king’s ransom standing there within reach, unguarded? What wonder the secret conferences, the secret glances, the fear of interference in the plan to which she had been tempted?

“Ah!” she breathed in sheer delight, stepping closer to the effigy. “A fortune! It’s worth something just to see it.”

Laughing a little in a half-hysterical fashion, she patted the effigy with her hands.

“I told you you’d be glad you came,” said Rambeau stupidly, his voice husky with guilt-inspired fear, his frame trembling with some other emotion which seemed to brook repression no longer.

“But it’s here,” Miss Martin’s voice sank discouragedly. “It’s too big to carry away. I don’t see how— You wouldn’t tell me—”

“Ah, Sybil, no,” Rambeau rejoined hoarsely. “I didn’t tell you because— But I’ve planned a way. And it’s tonight! Tonight, Sybil!”

“I don’t understand,” she said, recoiling from him a little. “Tonight?”

It was plain she didn’t understand. She’d been tempted to fly with him—indeed, she was a partner in the crime of theft; but, as Rambeau suddenly began to pour out in a burning rhapsody the passion he had so long repressed, she shrank away from him and lifted up one hand in a warning gesture.

She was amazed, but I was not, for a sudden change from the posture of imploring lover to zealous protector would suit his plan well. By all evidence the Lolo attack should soon develop. His plan was to help her escape—just how wasn’t yet clear—to hide her somewhere, to find himself a pretext that would enable him to go to the Lolo
nzemo
and receive the reward for his treachery, then to return to Sybil Martin and take her—well, somewhere. Black depths yawned beneath the girl and very grateful indeed I was that I had come to Ning-Po.

False as he was, at least Rambeau’s madness for the girl was genuine; it set his face working convulsively and narrowed his eyes like a cat’s; it swirled through his brain and out of his mouth in words that were no make-believe. I waited a minute while the girl stood as if stunned, but presently she drew back yet another step.

“No, no!” she cried with absolute avoidance and horror. “No, no!”

“But I love—”

That was a lie; he did not love her. I thought it my moment to interfere and, with my revolver ready, I stepped out of the darkness.

“You choose,” I said rather prosily, “a queer moment to protest what should be a divine truth.”

V

CONSIDERING everything, it would be hard to imagine a happening more embarrassing and frightening than my unexpected appearance must have been to Rambeau. Perhaps it was a certain hardihood and the realization of the necessity for quick thinking that held him for a moment in his tracks, motionless and silent, but more likely he was simply struck stiff and dumb by absolute terror. As for Miss Martin, the cry she uttered was a curious mixture of astonishment, relief and anger.

“You! What are you doing—”

“Pardon me, Miss Martin,” I said bowing. “I know this seems to need explanation—my following you here. Here is a partial explanation.”

I shifted the revolver in my hand until I was gripping it by the muzzle and, keeping my eyes upon Rambeau, struck the forehead of the effigy hard with the butt of it. The green tiling—very much like glass—of which the whole effigy was composed, shattered under the blow. Fragments of it flew everywhere. Swiftly I struck again and this time the blow broke clear through the empty shell.

Rambeau started toward the candles. I jerked the gun back, reversing it with the same movement, and covered him again.

“That’s a parable,” I said easily, nodding toward the effigy. “Or rather, it’s a symbol—false and hollow like your protestations and broken—like your plans.”

“What do you mean?” rasped Rambeau.

“Why,” I said, “love’s neither insult nor attempted ruin. As for your plans— Have you an idea yet,” I asked the girl, “why he brought you here tonight?”

“Why, he said—” she began confusedly.

“I know what he said, but—” suddenly I turned savagely upon Rambeau. “What time’s the Lolo attack to begin?” I snapped.

At that his face became distorted with an entirely overmastering fear. Until then I had been merely a dangerous disturber of his schemes; now I was full-fledged Nemesis. I was the messenger of a dreadful doom; I must have suggested to him the fate that might be his if I had told the Chinese all that my question indicated that I knew. He gripped at himself with his will, but the betraying panic that was in him could not be downed.

“Attack! What attack? I don’t know—”

“Oh, pshaw!” I put his reply aside. “Do you suppose I’d be here if I didn’t know your scheme? Didn’t know that—”

I’d noticed that the force of my two skull-shattering blows had cracked the effigy in another place, just below the chin. It wouldn’t do now to take my gun off Rambeau, but I lifted my left arm and struck the forehead again—a hard, swinging blow. At that the clay-and-fiber compound which reinforced the tiling parted and the battered head went backward until it struck the wall behind. In the gaping orifice in the throat of the effigy appeared something very like the flaring end of a metal trumpet.

Rambeau shivered and the girl cried out inarticulately, but I went on:

“Do you suppose I don’t know that for a month you’ve planned to sell the village of Ning-Po—men, women and children, body and soul—to the slave-driving Lolos? And, incidentally, to abduct Miss Martin while making sure that her father died? Why it was plain to me almost from the first time I heard of this dead man’s voice. What could it be but a trick, worked as we now see it was worked? Merely a speaking-tube running—well, say to some house just outside this
yamen,
where one of your hired Chinese assistants—traitors to their people—talked your commands into the other end of it.”

By the look of desperation on his face I knew my easy guess had hit the truth, but with a sudden revival of defiance he snarled:

“What in —— does that speaking tube prove? Even if I worked it, which I don’t admit, what could I do to—”

“The changed watchers at the gate,” I said steadily. “All unreliable men, men that could be bought, as I discovered—”

“Oh!” gasped the girl in an extremity of horror and fear. “I see it now. He—”

“—— you and your guesses!” cried Rambeau in a burst of not altogether hopeless rage. “If you finish as brilliantly as you’ve begun—”

“I’ll have the whole truth,” I interrupted him. “But—”

“I want to go to my father,” Miss Martin suddenly moaned. “I thank you, I thank you, but I want to go to my father.”

“Perhaps,” I hesitated, “you’d better wait until—”

Of course I would have been glad to have her go—glad to have her escape from this scene, had it not been for the confusion that I felt sure would presently ensue in the streets of Ning-Po. I suppose neither she nor Rambeau had noticed it, but the subdued murmuring, stirring, breathing, shuffling, as of watching men, that had, up to a few minutes before, faintly penetrated the walls of the
yamen,
had now entirely died away.

This could indicate only one thing—a tension so great as almost to suspend animation. It was the pause before the encounter. The force which Li Sing had promised me should be on top of the wall to negative the faithlessness of the watchmen, should my suspicions prove correct, had at last sighted the stealthy approach of the Lolos. No, it was not a moment for Miss Martin to leave the
yamen
alone, and, as for me, I had a fancy to keep Rambeau there a little longer.

I had a vague hope that the problem of his disposition might possibly solve itself, for that was still a problem. Well as he deserved any punishment the Chinese might conceive, I had a prejudice against surrendering him to them. There’s a sort of race feeling about such matters. In general, it’s not good that white men should be punished by any other than their own laws. An accident might easily happen, and, besides, there was one thing yet I didn’t understand.

Rambeau had undoubtedly brought the girl here that he might spirit her away from the Lolos. How had he hoped to get her away? I would stay until I had learned that, but Miss Martin was insistent.

“Oh, I must go. I must—” she cried distractedly.

And, suddenly breaking into sobs, she covered her face with her hands and started to rush past me.

Just then by what seemed merely a dramatic accident—for Rambeau had, of course, known the exact moment the Lolos would appear at the gate and had planned his rendezvous with Miss Martin accordingly—that for which I had been waiting happened. A single guttural shout split menacingly through the absolute stillness of the night. It was followed instantly by the thin rattle of the nondescript Chinese firearms and a burst of those shrill yells and dreadful maledictions with which fighting Chinese always stimulate their sluggish nerves and work up their slow but maniacal courage to the sticking point.

Miss Martin would have gone on in spite of that outburst, but I stepped in front of her, still keeping my pistol extended toward Rambeau.

“You can’t go now. The streets—”

“But I must. My father—”

I was glad to hear the anguish with which she pronounced those last two words.

“Your father is quite safe,” I assured her. “I’ve seen to that. There’s no danger from the Lolos.”

Indeed, that was certain, for the sound of the firing all came from the top of the wall and outside there was merely confusion. The Lolos had evidently crept close to the gate in a mass, leaving their horses at a distance to insure secrecy of approach. This formation would have served well, had the gate been opened to them as they had expected, but the change in program made it disastrous. Their cries were of consternation, while the cries of the Chinese became increasingly furious.

Perhaps Miss Martin sensed something of that, or perhaps it was only my words that reassured her, but she stopped, hesitated and then, her strength seeming to leave her, groped backward toward the wall of the
yamen
and leaned against it weakly.

“As for you,” I began, turning my attention to Rambeau.

I stopped, checked by an inexplicable look of hope I saw in his eyes and by the fact that, during my words with Miss Martin—although I had had him covered all the time—he had managed to edge away from me until his left arm almost touched the broad back of the chair which supported the disfigured effigy. I stared at him, wondering what was in his mind and subconsciously realizing something else, too—that a group of the defeated and disconcerted Lolos was coming down outside the village wall, toward the
yamen.

That latter fact was but natural, for the Lolos must have instantly realized that the wall under which they were huddled was to some extent a protection from the fire above and that their best chance lay in scattering along the bottom of it before breaking away into the open. And I think that, even before Rambeau made his next move, I had the glimmering idea of a connection between that approaching rush of those who had been his allies and his muscles tensed for instant action.

But what was that connection? What could he do? The Lolos were outside the village wall, which was outside the wall of the
yamen.
Rambeau was within both and in order to join them….

But while I doubted Rambeau acted. Suddenly he sprang sidewise, behind the back of the effigy’s chair, jamming himself in between that chair and the
yamen
wall.

He was out of my sight but an instant, not long enough for him to draw, and springing forward, I jerked my revolver down upon him. It was darker where he was, struggling frantically in the close embrace of stone wall and immovable chair, but I could have shot him easily—too easily. It was not, however, his grotesque helplessness that made me pause, nor was it altogether the inhibiting influence of a theory I’ve long held that the plans of villains of his type have usually within themselves the elements of annihilation. Mainly, I think, it was the noise of the panic-stricken Lolos coming down outside the wall that held my finger loose on the trigger.

So Rambeau would escape into their arms! Well, then, let him!

The next moment he had disappeared, as if the wall of the
yamen
had opened to receive him. He had indeed passed through that wall, into this avenue of flight evidently planned beforehand. And, still with that queer feeling upon me of an inevitable retribution toward which he was hurrying, I squeezed after him into the cramped space between chair and wall.

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