The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume Four (45 page)

And the grapevine of the Orient was at work, with stories from all the Near East drifting here. To a man who knew his way around, things were to be learned in the bazaars.

Ponga Jim went on to Port Said, flying over and later flying back. At four in the afternoon, he presented himself at Skelton’s office.

He was admitted at once. Demarest, Kernan, Arnold, Woodbern, and Skelton himself were there.

“Glad you dropped in, Mayo,” Skelton said abruptly. “I was about to send for you. Our destroyers wirelessed that they could find only wreckage. Two more destroyers coming up from Aden effected a junction with the same report. What have you to say to that?”

“The warship could have hidden,” Ponga Jim said quietly. “You would scarcely expect it to wait for you.”

“Hidden? In the Red Sea?” Skelton smiled coldly. “Captain Mayo, a warship could not be concealed in the Red Sea. No ship could be.”

“No?” Ponga Jim smiled in turn.

“No,” Skelton said. “Furthermore, Captain Mayo, I have deemed it wise to order your ship interned until we can investigate further. I am a little curious as to those guns you carry. I also hear you carry a pocket submarine and an amphibian plane. Strange equipment for an honest freighter.”

“The spoils of war,” Mayo assured him, still smiling. “I captured them and have found them of use. And I hate to disappoint you, Skelton, but I’m afraid if you expect to intern the
Semiramis
you are a bit late.”

“What do you mean?” Skelton snapped.

“The
Semiramis,
” Ponga Jim said softly, “finished discharging shortly after daybreak this morning. She left port immediately!”

“What!”

Skelton was on his feet, his face white with anger. The other men tensed. But out of the corner of his eye, Ponga Jim could see a twinkle in General Kernan’s eyes.

“No doubt you’ll find the
Semiramis,
” Ponga Jim said coolly, “since you say no ship can be concealed in the Red Sea. Good hunting, Skelton!”

He turned and started for the door.

A
BUZZER SOUNDED
, and behind him he heard Skelton lift the phone.

“What?” Skelton shouted. “Both of them?” The telephone dropped back into the cradle. “Gentlemen,” Skelton said sharply, “the destroyers sent from this base to investigate Captain Mayo’s report have both been sunk. A partial message was received, telling how they had been attacked. Captain Mayo, you are under arrest!”

“Sorry, gentlemen,” Mayo said, “but I can’t wait!”

He swung the door open and sprang into the hall.

“Stop him!” Skelton roared.

A burly soldier leaped from his position by the wall, grabbing at Mayo with both hands. Ponga Jim grabbed the big man by the wrist and hurled him over his back in a flying mare that sent the big fellow crashing into the opposite wall. Then he was down the hall, out into the street, and with one jump, was into the crowd.

Another soldier rushed from the building and started down the steps close on Ponga Jim’s heels. A Herculean black man, lounging near the door, deftly thrust his foot in the way, and the soldier spilled head over heels into the crowd at the foot of the stone steps.

Rounding a corner, Ponga Jim slipped into a crowded bazaar. He stopped briefly at a stall, and when he left he was wrapped in a long Arab cloak, or aba, and on his head was a headcloth bound with an aghal. With his dark skin and his black hair he looked like a native.

He walked on, mingling with the people of the bazaar. Twice soldiers passed him, their eyes scanning the bazaar, but none looked at him.

But as Ponga Jim drifted slowly from the bazaar and out into the less crowded streets, a slim, hawk-featured man was close behind. And a little further back, Big London, his mighty muscles concealed by his own aba, trailed along, watching with jungle-trained cunning the two men in the crowd ahead.

CHAPTER IV

The marketplaces of the East teem with gossip, and stories are told over the buying of leather or the selling of fruit or in the harems.

To hear them, many an intelligence officer would pay a full year’s salary.

During the morning, Ponga Jim had heard much. Now, in his simple disguise and with his easy, natural flow of Arabic, he heard more. A discreet comment or two added to his information.

Several points held his interest. If the Nazis were behind the mysterious killings of the key men who had been murdered here, and if they owned the mystery warship, why had Ambrose Carter been killed, known as he was to favor Hitler? And what had he been doing in Egypt?

Who was the man who had been shot aboard the
Semiramis
? Where had he obtained the scarab ring? Why did he want to talk to Ponga Jim and no one else? And what was his connection with the girl, Zara Hammedan?

And last but not least, what could Ponga Jim Mayo possibly know that the enemy might fear?

Whatever it was, it had to be something he had known before he left Africa, several years before. There seemed only one answer to that. He would have to go over all his African experience in his mind, recalling each fact, each incident, each person. Somewhere he would find a clue.

In the meanwhile, he would have to avoid the police and even more, the killers who would be sure to be on his trail. The card that had been found on the dead man, the card bearing the name of Zara Hammedan, was the only good lead Ponga Jim had, and to Zara Hammedan he would go.

He had already learned that she lived in the Ramleh section of Alexandria. So at eight o’clock, moving up through the trees, Ponga Jim looked up at the Moorish palace that was Zara Hammedan’s home. There were no windows on the lower floor; just a high, blank wall of stucco. Above that, the second floor projected over the narrow alley on either side of the house, and there were many windows, all brilliantly lighted.

A limousine rolled up to the entrance, and two men in evening dress got out. For an instant the light touched the face of one of them. He was Nathan Demarest!

As other cars began to arrive, Ponga Jim studied the house thoughtfully. Had there been no crowd he would have shed his disguise, approached the house, and sent his own name to the lady. But now—

Keeping under the cypress trees, he worked down along the alley. At one place the branches of a huge tree reached out toward the window opposite it. Ponga Jim caught a branch and swung himself into the tree with the agility of a monkey. Creeping out along the branch, he glanced through the window into a bedroom, obviously a woman’s room. At the moment, it was empty.

The window was barred, and the heavy bars were welded together and set into steel slides in the window casing. Ponga Jim crept farther along the branch, a big one that had been cut off when it touched the house. Balancing himself, he tested the bars. Almost noiselessly, they lifted when he strained.

They wouldn’t weigh a bit under eighty pounds, and it was an awkward lift. Looking about, he found a fair-sized branch and cut it off with his seaman’s clasp knife. Then, leaning far out, he worked the set of bars up and propped the stick beneath them.

It was quite dark, and in the dim light Ponga Jim could see nothing beneath him. Once, he thought he detected a movement, but when he waited, there was no more movement, no sound. He pushed the window open with his foot and slipped through the window.

Below, in the darkness, the jungle-keen ears of Big London, who had been watching Ponga Jim slowly working the bars up, had heard a soft step. He faded into the brush as softly as a big cat. A man slid slowly from the dark and glanced around, trying to place the black man, and then slid a knife from his sleeve. And as Ponga Jim leaned far out toward the window, he drew the knife back to throw.

A huge black hand closed around his throat, and he was fairly jerked from his feet. Struggling, he tried to use the knife, but it was plucked from his nerveless fingers by the big black. Before the man knew what was happening, he was neatly trussed hand and foot and then gagged.

Ponga Jim gently closed the window behind him and glanced around. There was a faint perfume in the room. He crossed to the dressing table and slid open a drawer. Inside were some letters. He had started to glance over them when a voice in the hall startled him. Instantly, he dropped the packet into the drawer and stepped quickly across the room and into a closet.

The door opened and a woman came in. Or rather a girl, followed by a maid. Her hair was black, and her eyes were large, and slightly oblique. Her white evening gown fitted her like a dream and revealed rather than concealed her slender, curved figure.

She wore a simple jade necklace that Ponga Jim could see was very old. Standing in the darkness, he watched through the crack of the closet door, fearful that the maid might come to the closet.

Zara Hammedan, for it was obviously she, glanced up once, straight at the door behind which he stood. Then the maid started across the room toward him.

“No, Miriam,” Zara said suddenly, “just leave the things. I’ll take care of them. You may go now. If anyone asks for me, tell them I’ll be down shortly.”

The maid stepped from the room and drew the door closed. Zara touched her hair lightly and then put her hand in a drawer and lifted a small, but businesslike automatic. Then she looked at the closet door.

“You may come out now,” she said evenly, “but be careful! You should clean the sand from your shoes.”

Ponga Jim Mayo pushed the door open and stepped out, closing it behind him.

“You,” he said smiling, “are a smart girl.”

“Who are you?” she demanded. Her face showed no emotion, but he was struck again by its vivid beauty.

“I am a man who found another man murdered in his cabin,” Ponga Jim said quietly, “and that man had your name written on a card that was in his pocket. So I came to you.”

“You choose an odd way of presenting yourself,” Zara said. “Who was this man?”

“I do not know,” Jim said. “He came to see me, and in his pocket was a ring with an emerald scarab.”

She caught her breath.

“When did this happen?”

“Shortly after midnight. The man was shot by someone using a silencer from across the street. So far the police know nothing about the murder. Or about the ring or your name.”

“Why did I not know of this?” she asked. “It seems—”

“One of your present guests knows,” Ponga Jim said. “Nathan Demarest.”

“He?” She stared at him wide-eyed. “But who are you?”

He smiled. “I’m Jim Mayo,” he said.

“Oh!” she rose. “I have heard of you. You came here, then, to learn about the murdered man?”

“Partly.” He sat down and took off the headcloth. “The rest is to find what he wanted to tell me, where he got that ring, and what you know about a certain warship now in the Red Sea. Also, what there is to this Moslem movement you’re heading.”

She smiled at him. “What makes you think all of these questions have anything to do with me?”

“I know they have,” he said. “And I’ve got to know the answers, because somebody’s trying to kill me. I was attacked last night, shoved in the harbor by a killer.”

“You?” she exclaimed. “Was it a man with a scar across his nose?”

“Sure,” Ponga Jim said. “That’s him.” He took a cigarette from a sandalwood box and lit it. Then he handed it to her. “A friend of yours?”

“No!” The loathing in her voice was plain. “But the man was a pearl diver from Kuwait. I don’t see how—”

“How I got away? I’ve done some diving myself, lady, and a lot of fighting. Now give. What’s this all about?”

“I can’t tell you,” Zara said. “Only—if you want to live, take your ship and leave Egypt, and don’t ever come back!”

“That’s not hospitality,” he said, grinning, “especially from a beautiful girl. No, I’m not leaving. I’ve been warned before and threatened before. I’ve as healthy a respect for my own hide as the next man, but never have found you could dodge trouble by running. My way is to meet it halfway. Now somebody wants my hide. I’d like to see the guy. I’d like to see what he wants and if he knows how to get it.”

“He does. And I’ll tell you nothing but this—the dead man was Rudolf Burne, and you are marked for death because of three things. You beat a man playing poker once who never was beaten before or since, you know where the emerald ring came from, and you know where the warship is!”

“
I
do?” Ponga Jim stared. “But—”

“You’ll have to go now!” Zara said suddenly, her eyes wide. “Quick! There’s someone coming!”

He hurried to the window. She stood behind him, biting her lip. Suddenly he realized she was trembling with fear.

“Go!” she insisted. “Quickly!”

“Sure.” He slid open the window and put a leg over the sill. “But never let it be said that Jim Mayo failed to say good-bye.” Slipping one arm around Zara’s waist, he kissed her before she could draw back. “Goodnight,” said Ponga Jim. “I’ll be seeing you!”

As the steel grate slid into place, he heard the door open. Then he was back in the foliage of the tree and in a matter of seconds had slid to the ground.

“Now,” he told himself, “I’ll—”

At a movement behind him he whirled, but something crashed down on his head with stunning force. There was an instant of blinding pain when he struggled to fight back the wave of darkness sweeping over him, then another blow, and he plunged forward into a limitless void.

CHAPTER V

When Ponga Jim’s eyes opened he was lying on his back in almost total darkness. A thin ray of light from a crack overhead tried feebly to penetrate the gloom. He tried to sit up, only to find he was bound hand and foot and very securely.

His head throbbed with agony, and the tightly bound ropes made his hands numb. After an instant of futile effort, he lay still, letting his eyes rove the darkness. The place had rock walls, he could see—one wall at least. There seemed to be some kind of inscriptions or paintings on the wall, but he couldn’t make them out.

The air was dry, and when he stirred a powdery dust lifted from the floor.

Lying in the darkness he tried to assemble his thoughts. Most of all there hammered at his brain the insistent reminder that he, himself, knew the answers to the puzzling questions that had brought him to this situation. Zara had told him that he knew the man behind the scenes, where the ship was, and where the ring had come from.