Even in this side-turning to which moonlight did not penetrate I could see the flash of her eyes.
“I am listening,” growled.Beecher.
“This is a gentleman’s agreement and I have two gentlemen with me. You and your boys just cover us. Leave the rest to me and my friends.”
“But where in hell are we going?” growled Beecher. “Tell me and I’ll make arrangements.”
“We are going right to Santurce, and we are moving fast. Do you know the home that used to belong to Weisman, the engineer they fired from the Canal service—eh?”
“Sure I know it.”
“That is where we go.”
“It was hired to somebody else.”
“Somebody else we are looking for.”
Then, Nayland Smith and a police driver in front and I and Flammario at the back, we set out through a velvety tropical darkness sharply cut off where a brilliant moon splashed it into silver patches. Santurce, as a residential suburb, I had deliberately overlooked in my recent quest for the shop of Zazima, so that soon, leaving more familiar parts of Colon behind, I found myself upon strange ground Flammario clutched my arm, pressed her head against my shoulder and poured out a torrent of words.
“It is Paulo who finds him. Paulo can find anyone or anything in the Canal Zone. But Paulo is of the Si-Fan. You understand—eh?”
“Yes. I expected it.”
“Although he would do anything for me, he is terrified of them. Why does he run away tonight? Where do those two thugs go? What do you think?”
“I think he gave them the information.”
“It seems that way to me.” She nestled closer. I was aware of a musky perfume. “You are right about your girl friend. He has her locked up. But give Lou time and he sets an iceberg on fire. No, please, do not be angry. I tell you. I can overlook so much—why not? But all the town knows he leave me flat—me, Flam-mario. Queer, eh, how a woman feels about a thing like this? Just as hard as I used to love-him—I hate him now.” She slipped a bare arm about my shoulder. “You will kill him, won’t you?”
With a sincerity which was not assumed, I replied: “Given half a chance, I absolutely undertake to do so.”
Flammario’s heavily painted lips were pressed to my left ear.
On the corner of a street in which there were detached villas, each surrounded by its own garden, a big black saloon car was drawn up with no lights on. We passed it and swung into a street beyond.
A moment later we too pulled up. I had now quite lost my bearings. White-fronted houses with their shuttered windows, young palms shooting slender masts out of banks of foliage, made a restful picture in the tropical moonlight, a picture bearing no relation to the facts which had brought us there. As we scrambled out, Flammario ahead of all, a police officer detached himself from the shadows of a high wall.
“Squad all ready,” he reported. ‘“What orders?”
“Do nothing until we are in,” Smith replied rapidly, “and keep well out of sight. The signal will be a blast on my police whistle—or shooting. The men are standing by?”
“In the big saloon, back there. Captain Beecher worked fast. Making for their posts right now.”
Flammario already was running ahead.
“One thing is important,” said Smith insistently. “Grab anyone that comes out.”
We overtook Flammario racing up a tree-shaded path towards a green-shuttered house from which no lights shone.
“How do we get in?” she panted. “Have you figured that out?”
“I have figured it out,” Smith replied, and I observed for the first time that he was carrying a handbag.
The front of the house was bathed in moonlight, but dense shrubbery grew up to it on the left and here I saw a porched door. We pulled up, watching and listening.
“Listen,” said Flammario. “This house is planned by an architect with a one-track mind. He does most of the building around here. Can you count on the police? Because when we break in, if I know Lou he will run for it.”
“The place will be surrounded in another minute,” snapped Smith irritably. “This door here in the shadow; does it lead to the kitchen?”
“Yes. And that is our way in. It is half glass. Smash it, and if the key is inside, we are through.”
“We could try,” muttered Smith.
We advanced, always in shadow, to the porch.
“Show a light, Kerrigan,” said Smith.
I shone the ray of a torch upon the door—then caught my breath. The glass panel was shattered to fragments, the door half open.
“My God!” groaned Smith, “we’re too late!”
* * *
The kitchen quarters showed no evidence of disturbance.If utensils recently had been in use, someone had cleaned and put everything away. There was a spotless, white-tiled larder. In that immaculate domestic atmosphere the barbaric figure of Flammario, wrapped in her sables, those jungle eyes flashing from point to point, struck a note truly bizarre.
“They are here ahead of us,” she began, in a hoarse whisper. “That mongrel Paulo—”
“Quiet!” Smith said, imperatively yet in a low voice. “I want to listen.”
All the three of us stood there, listening.
Very remotely, sounds from the Canal reached me; shipping sounds which transported my thoughts to the early stages of this ghastly business which had led me to Colon. But immediately about us and inside the house was complete silence. I was about to speak when: “SshF whispered Smith.
Tensely I listened—and presently I heard the sound which had arrested his attention. It was a very faint creaking, and it came from somewhere upstairs.
“They are still here!” exploded Flammario. “Have your guns ready!”
With that she raced out of the kitchen into a passage beyond, switching up the lights as she went—a feat which surprised me at first, until I recollected her words about the architect with a one-track mind. I found myself in a dining-room very simply furnished. The curtains were drawn along the whole of one side and to these Flammario darted, wrenching them apart. I saw a garden dappled with molten silver where the moon poured down upon it. There was a terrace outside with cane chairs and tables; but there was no one there.
The atmosphere smelled stale as that of a room unused; and for some reason, in an automatic way, I unfastened the catch of one of the French windows and pulled it open. The perfume of some night-scented flower was borne in upon a light breeze. Even as I did so, I recognized that I was acting irrationally, that the place would be filled with nocturnal insects, and so reclosed the window.
“There it is again!” said Smith.
We fell silent, listening. Unmistakably, there was a sound of movement upstairs.
Smith was already dashing for a door at the other end of the room. Flammario overtook him and switched up a light in a square lobby. He started up a short flight of carpeted stairs so rapidly that I made a bad third. On the landing, the light of which was subdued, three doors offered—and they were all locked.
“This is where we want the copper!” said Flammario, huskily. ‘“Blow that whistle of yours.”
“Quiet!”
I could hear her rapid breathing as she stood beside me in semi-darkness; for the only light was a sort of shaded lantern. One, two, five, ten seconds we waited; but the silence remained unbroken. I pictured Ardatha gagged and bound—I pictured her dead. I think in all my quest of her since she had revealed to me the truth of her slavery to Dr. Fu Manchu, I had experienced no keen sense of longing to hear her voice, of terror that I should never hear it again.
“Blowing a lock out is not so easy in fact as in fiction,” said Smith. “But these are not the good old-fashioned kind of doors—just matchwood and three-ply. See what a hundred and seventy pounds can do with that one, Kerrigan. I’ll tackle this.”