Part 10

“Excuse me, please!” she cried, coming swiftly toward him. “But your expression was so funny—as if I had stuck a pin into you. These hidden panels and underground corridors make you nervous, don’t they, Commander?”

At Don’s warning, “Sh-h-h!” Lotus shook her head.

“It’s all right, if we speak very low,” she reassured him. “I disconnected the dictaphone at the other end. Besides, there’s no one trying to listen now. Cho-San has other fish to fry just at this moment.”

“What’s that?” Don asked quickly. “A moment before you came in a buzzer sounded and he acted as if it were a fire alarm!”

“It was a sort of alarm,” the girl replied, seating herself in one of the deep arm chairs. “Dr. Skell got a telephone message from the garage. It seems that two of our city agents caught someone snooping about the place, and wanted to know what to do with him. Not that it matters much, but Cho-San will probably want to look him over.”

* * * * *

It mattered a great deal to Red Pennington, however, that he had let himself be caught by such a simple trick. As he sat now in the back of a strange car, under the muzzle of a thug’s pistol he understood only too well what had happened.

His captors, doubtless in the employ of Scorpia, had simply threatened or bribed his own taxi driver to clear out. The two cars looked much alike in the dark, and Red had been too unsuspecting to notice the difference, until a gun poked him in the face. As he sat there fuming at his own stupidity, the second plug-ugly came back from across the street.

“I phoned de house an’ asked wot ta do wid him,” the fellow reported. “De guy I talked to said ta leave him in de garage tied up, and turn off de lights.” “Okay!” grunted the second mobster. “I guess the big shots wanna give him the once-over. If he’s one of them Navy Intelligence ducks they’ll prob’ly bump him off, or burn him in their Chinese torture room. Anyhow, it ain’t none of our business.... Come on, you punk! Git out an’ put your hands behind you!”

The last words were addressed to Red, and emphasized by a wicked jab of the pistol barrel that raised a welt along the young officer’s jaw. Pretending to be frightened speechless. Red obeyed, but his brain was working at top speed to figure out a break.

At the first touch of the gangster’s rope, Red’s crossed wrists flew apart. Sweeping up, his hands caught his enemy by the head. With a powerful forward heave he hurled the thug’s body over his shoulder, then whirled to grapple the second man.

A pistol barked, its bullet grazing Red’s arm. The next instant he had wrenched the weapon away by a swift jiu-jitsu trick, sending its owner reeling with a right hook.

“Now we’ll see who’s runnin’ this party!” he growled. “Hands up or I’ll—”

WHAP!

A blackjack wielded by the first mobster slapped Red’s unprotected head. The bulky officer collapsed without a groan.

“Tha fat spy! I hope ya killed him!” rasped the man whose jaw Red had cracked. “He made my teeth ache right down to my heels!”

“Shut up and grab hold of his legs, Gimpy!” the other retorted. “If I did kill him, we got an alibi. He was threatenin’ us with your gun! Anyway, we’ll shove him in the garage and let the big shots worry about wakin’ him up.”

To carry Red’s limp body across to the warehouse and through a small door at one side was a short job. A second telephone call completed the business. Immediately the pair of mobsters drove away, the bigger one still groaning about his sore jaw.

* * * * *

Meanwhile, in the living room of the comrades’ quarters, Don Winslow was getting the real story of the beautiful Scorpion spy, Lotus. The girl had thrown away all pretense. She said she hated Scorpia and its evil plots to stir up war among the nations.

As for her own part in it, ever since she had been old enough to know right from wrong, her girlish instincts had rebelled against a life of spying and deceit. Yet her fear of Cho-San, and especially of that mysterious personage who called himself the Scorpion, had forced her to obey their orders. Even if she had dared to break with their dreaded organization, she had nowhere to go, no one to protect her from the vengeance of Scorpia.

At least, Lotus intimated, that was the situation until she had met Count Borg. André was not the criminal type she had known. He never spoke of his past life, even after she came to know him well, but he had evidently been a man of honor and high culture until joining the ranks of Scorpia.

The lonely girl had fallen desperately in love with him, though he had never acted as anything more than a kind friend to her. Whenever she whispered to him her longing to be free from Scorpia, André would show only a passing interest. Once he had half promised to take her away from Cho-San’s jealous guardianship, but it never came to anything.

“And now that André is no longer one of Scorpia, he has forgotten me!” Lotus finished tearfully. “Now I will never be free, for there is no one who will help me!”

“Nonsense,” exclaimed Don gruffly, trying to hide the feelings her story had roused in him. “Listen, Miss Lotus! You have a lot more real friends than you ever had before. I’m one of them, and I know of another right here in this underground stronghold of Scorpia. When you get clear, there’ll be others—Uncle Sam’s trusted officers and agents, men and women—who’ll stand ready to protect you until we’ve wiped the Scorpion and Cho-San off the slate. You’ll pick up your friendship with Count Borg on better terms than before. He’ll be needing _you_ this time, Miss Lotus—needing someone who really cares!”

“Don Winslow,” answered the girl solemnly, “you’ve given me a hope to live for. That’s something so priceless, something so far beyond any thanks, that I won’t try to say more. Except that you’re going to stop calling me _Miss_. Promise me that, Commander!”

“Plain Don, to you!” amended the young officer, gripping the strong little hand she offered him. “All right, Lotus; we’re shipmates from now on. In the name of the United States Navy, I welcome you to the ranks of peace. But remember this, always:—_The things worth living for are also the things worth dying for!_ You and I and Suzette—yes, she’s a shipmate, too!—may have to give our lives this very night for the cause of world peace!”

The young girl’s smile was as fearless as the light that shone in her dark eyes.

“I am ready, Don Winslow!” she said calmly. “You can count on me to help or to suffer, as the need may be. Even the tortures of Cho-San’s Lantern Room could not terrify me now. Am I glad that Suzette....”

As if in answer to her spoken name, the little French maid appeared from behind the carved Chinese screen. Impulsively she seized her mistress’ hands and squeezed them.

“Suzette is glad also, Mademoiselle!” she exclaimed earnestly. “But, _hélas_! There is no time to speak of that. I have bad news for Commander Winslow!”

XXVI

THE ROOM OF A THOUSAND TORMENTS

Before Don could frame a question, the little French-woman caught his arm.

“_Écoutez!_” she cried in a husky undertone. “Do you know a man about twenty-six year old, with big, thick chest and red hair dyed black?”

“Yes, yes!” Don whipped back. “Go on! Tell me what you mean! They haven’t caught him?”

“But they have, Monsieur!” replied Suzette. “Ah, I had the fear it might be one of your men! They have just brought him in, unconscious, and Cho-San is very much excited. I hear him say, 'Now I shall grind the truth out of that clown who calls himself Count Borg. But first, I’ll burn this dog with dyed hair until he howls all he knows!’”

“It’s Red!” Don groaned, his fists knotting at his sides. “You mean, Suzette, that they’ve got him in the torture room? Merciful heavens! I’d rather be there in his place—but, quick! Tell me what we can do to get him away?”

“There is nothing, Don!” wailed Lotus, wringing her hands in distress. “Once they have gotten your friend in the Lantern Room, there’s no way of rescuing him except by a trick. The place is too well-guarded....”

“A trick!” exclaimed Suzette excitedly. “Let me think jus’ a moment I believe there is a way....”

“There’s got to be!” grated Don. “Even if we lose a chance of trapping the Scorpion’s whole bunch, we’ve got to get Red out of this. He’s my shipmate, and....”

_“Mais, oui!”_ cried the little maid. “We will do it with the help of _le bon Dieu_! Only first, you and Mademoiselle must be in the Lantern Room. You must pretend not to care how much they torture your poor friend. You must not let Cho-San see that you know him at all. Then, when the chance have arrive, the lights will go out. Your friend must be quickly freed, and then _Ps-st_!”

At Suzette’s hissed warning, Lotus broke into rapid speech.

“I understand, my little maid!” she said loudly, with a wink at the Frenchwoman. “You think you must play the chaperon whenever I am with Count Borg. That is why you are always sneaking into the room! Now, let me tell you this....”

“Stop your chatter, girl!” rasped the voice of Cho-San behind them. “I have something of importance to tell your André; so be silent or leave the room! Count Borg, it appears that our task of laying hands on Don Winslow may be unexpectedly simplified!”

“Really, Cho-San!” shrugged Don indifferently. “Did you think it was going to be difficult? I imagine if you used a large enough mob to seize him....”

“Will you never be serious?” spat the Chinese. “To put it bluntly, in elegant words such as you can understand, we have nabbed a guy who looks like one of Winslow’s pals. _Now_ do you understand?”

“Oh, I say! That’s luck, you know! Really!” exclaimed Don, acting his part in spite of inward anxiety. “You mean we can use this man as bait to trap Winslow? Have the fellow write a note to his Commander, or something?”

“_Or something!_” the Oriental mimicked him grimly. “I can think of something even simpler than a written note, my dear Count. With the information I can get from this Navy spy, by the use of a little pain.... But come with me to the Lantern Room and see for yourself! You, too, Lotus, dismiss your maid and come with us. It is time you should see what a little persuasion—Oriental style—can accomplish. I have machines, copied from the torture rooms of Ancient China, which can extract any secret!”

Chuckling evilly, the huge Scorpion leader motioned the two young people out of the room ahead of him.

As he turned away, Don fought an overpowering desire to smash his fist into Cho-San’s grinning yellow face. Only by ramming his hands deep in his pockets did he succeed in controlling them. Although on fire with anxiety for Red, he must pretend a careless, somewhat bored good humor.

“And I feared we were going to have a tiresome evening, Cho-San,” he murmured. “Chinese torture machines sound awfully entertaining, I must say! Er—by the way, I don’t recall how we get to the lamp room, as you call it.”

“Lantern Room!” growled the Chinese. “Lotus will lead the way and I will follow. Take the shortest corridor, girl! I am anxious to see your André’s face when he sets eyes on our latest captive.”

The doorway concealed by the carved screen opened into another dimly lighted vestibule. Don guessed that a number of its darkly shining panels were really hidden doors, communicating with as many passageways.

The girl, however, showed no hesitation in locating the one she wanted. Her small fingers played briefly with one of the carved dragons of the molding. There was the usual muffled click. Two seconds later a black opening gaped in the solid wall.

This time the narrow corridor ran almost straight, with a sharp downward slope. The distance might have been a hundred feet before another panel slid open at Lotus’ touch, and bright electric light streamed briefly into the dark passageway. Knowing, yet fearing, what he was going to see, Don Winslow stepped into the Room of a Thousand Torments.

The place was really a stone vault of immense proportions, fifty feet wide and perhaps a hundred long. Its groined ceiling was supported by thick stone pillars to which were affixed chains and ring bolts of iron.

Along the walls stood a weird array of mechanical monsters, some of them so crudely made that they might have been centuries old. Don glimpsed a medieval “rack” for pulling living human bodies apart, a rude “wheel” between whose heavy spokes human legs and arms could be broken like matchsticks, an “iron maiden” whose hinged and hollow halves were spiked with deadly knife blades.

There were rows of other horrible machines at which he barely glanced. What drew his attention like a terrible magnet was the prone figure of Red Pennington, still in his valet’s garb, lying on a dark stained plank table. Blood trickling from Red’s broken scalp had smeared the chalklike whiteness of his face. So deathly was his appearance that the two Chinese hatchet men standing guard above him looked like murderers gloating over their kill!

Biting hard on his tongue, Don Winslow held back his rage. Still keeping his outward pose of lazy boredom, he turned to the Scorpion leader.

“Oh, come now, Cho-San!” he protested. “What kind of a silly joke is this? The fellow’s dead as dust! No fun in tormenting a corpse, you know.”

With a feline hiss, Cho-San leaped past him, shouldering aside the nearest hatchet man. Placing his ear to Red’s chest, he listened for the heartbeat. The silence in the great, vaulted room was breathless.

Abruptly the big Oriental straightened up, motioning the guards away.

“The man is not quite dead; we can quickly revive him,” he said. “Come nearer, Count Borg! We shall show you some fun _at the expense of your own valet_!”

“What’s that?” cried Don sharply, striding across to the table. “Why, you’re right, Cho-San! I didn’t recognize him with all that blood on his face. But see here—you can’t put the screws on my valet, you know! He’s just a harmless chap I picked up to do for me....”

“Ummmmm-hmmmmmm! Of course, of course!” rumbled Cho-San. “Just a harmless chap you—or perhaps someone else—told to follow our car this evening! Well, my dear Count Borg, he succeeded, as you observe!”

The guards had returned with two buckets of water and a wide leather strap. At a gesture from Cho-San, they sloshed the water over Red’s body from head to foot. As soon as both buckets were empty one of the hatchet men began slapping their bound and helpless victim’s face with the heavy strap.

Suddenly Red groaned, rolling partly on his side. The man with the strap stepped away. At the same time, Cho-San pushed Don forward.

The trick was cleverly planned. Only luck and Don’s presence of mind prevented a showdown then and there. As it happened, Red in his half-conscious state still thought he was back at the Empire rehearsing the part of “Penny.”

“Yes, sir! I’ll get right up, sir!” he mumbled, opening one eye. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep, but ... mmmmm—my head!”

At that moment Don flashed him a warning signal often used between them—a sharp lift of the right eyebrow. And, foggy as poor Red’s brain still was, he got it.

Instead of answering, he shut his mouth and groaned.

With a sigh of inward relief, Don Winslow went on with the act. Until the chance should come for a getaway, he must play for time.

“Look here, my man!” he snapped angrily. “What on earth possessed you to follow my friend’s car this evening? Hang it! If this is some stupid police trick....”

“Not at all, my dear Count!” chorded Cho-San, seizing Red by the scalp. “It’s a trick of the famous Navy Intelligence, if anything. Look closely at this stout lieutenant’s hair—dyed black, _except at the roots_!”

A flat accusation could not have been more menacing than Cho-San’s leer. Yet, somehow Don sensed that the Chinese was still only guessing. With a puzzled frown he returned the man’s snaky gaze.

“A lieutenant?” he drawled. “Oh, of course! You mean Red Pennington. But really, Cho-San, this fellow Penny couldn’t be Don Winslow’s shipmate. I picked him up only today on the sidewalk, mooching for dimes. He told me he’d been a valet and I hired him. Even bought him an outfit of clothes. Come now, Cho-San, admit that your idea’s a bit fantastic! Besides, how could Pennington have got here so soon from Haiti, old dear? Ha-ha! I’ve got you there, haven’t I?”

“Unless,” smiled the Chinese with sinister emphasis, “—unless you, my dear Don Winslow, brought him with you as a passenger in the plane that Michael Splendor _allowed_ you to steal!”

XXVII

WHEN THE LIGHTS WENT OUT

“Oh-h-h!” Lotus’ gasp of amazement was well faked. “Why, Cho-San, unless you’re joking you’re insane to think of such a thing! This isn’t Don Winslow—it’s _André_! I know because I—I love him! Even you, Cho-San, must admit a woman can recognize the man she loves.”

For a moment the Scorpion leader stood snarling like a tiger that had missed its kill. His lips writhed back and strange animal sounds came through his bared yellow teeth.

“Ar-r-rgh! So!” he growled. “We shall see. We shall see if you have turned traitor to Scorpia, my little Lotus. I know one way to answer both questions. Stand aside!”

Forcing her back with a sweep of his loglike arm, Cho-San erupted into sing-song Chinese commands. While he was still speaking, the two hatchet men leaped to obey.

Red Pennington was lifted from the table, carried to a spot beneath the nearest stone arch, and held there upright, while Cho-San advanced upon him with the tread of a big jungle cat. Seizing Red’s bound wrists, the Chinese jerked them toward a loop of wire which hung down from the arch’s apex.

“Great guns, Lotus!” whispered Don, his lips barely moving. “We’ve got to do something quick. They’re going to hang Red up by the thumbs—torture him before our eyes!”

The girl nodded silently. Her face was dead white, her lips a thin purple line. With Don at her side, she made for the leering Scorpion leader.

“Don’t, Cho-San!” she exclaimed in a low, tragic voice. “If you are such a fiend that you must torture somebody, take me! I could stand it better than watching....”

“_Oo-oo-oonh!_”

The moan of agony was wrung from Red’s lips, as Cho-San threw his weight on the pulley rope. The stocky lieutenant now hung by his thumbs from the wire loop which had cut through skin and tissue.

Only Lotus’ warning nudge kept Don from throwing himself then and there upon the slant-eyed devil who was leaning on that rope. With a supreme effort he controlled himself.

Suzette, he recalled, had mentioned a plan of rescue which Lotus would attempt when the chance came. Until then he must play the game!

Lotus, he noticed, had moved over to the nearest wall. She leaned against it in a pathetic huddle, her hands covering her face. So convincing was her pose of despair that Don wondered if it were acting at all.

Red anger again clouded his brain. His hand crept to the lapel of his dinner jacket within quick reach of the automatic beneath his armpit.

“I advise you to keep your hand away from your weapon, my friend!” came Cho-San’s ugly growl. “Back there in the shadows stands one of my personal bodyguards, with a Thompson submachine gun aimed at your midriff. At the first signal from me—he will make a bloody rag of your shirt front. Ah-ha! You see him now?”

Slowly Don’s narrowed gaze made out the shadowy figure behind an unlighted archway. His hand lifted to cover a well-faked yawn.

“Of course I see him!” he murmured lazily. “But why all the dramatics, Cho-San? So far the fun you promised has been frightfully tiresome. I’ve heard men groaning in pain before in my life, you know. Really, this isn’t even interesting....”

“It will be, my dear Borg-Winslow!” spat the Chinese. “It will be most interesting when Lieutenant Pennington starts to tell us—between groans—just which your name really is! And if this simple thumb-stretcher doesn’t work, I have a new electrical machine which tears the brain apart, bit by bit. Perhaps you would like me to give you a taste of that, when I am finished with your friend?”

With a ghastly chuckle, Cho-San turned back to his work. The pulley rope tightened. From Red’s anguished throat burst another pitiful moan.

At that instant the huge room was plunged in darkness. There was a scuffle of feet, two hard, thudding blows—the sound of one or more falling bodies.

A girl’s scream rang out, followed by Cho-San’s bass bellow. Then came silence, more stifling than the thick darkness of the vault.

* * * * *

In contrast to the gruesome quiet of Cho-San’s dark torture room, loud argument resounded in the brightly lighted office of the local Intelligence Bureau. Michael Splendor, just arrived from the airport to take charge of operations, was laying down the law to the chief of the San Francisco operatives.

“It’s all ye’re fault, Hammond!” he roared, pounding the desk with an enormous hairy fist. “Ye should have seen the game was up when Cho-San butted in on the party and spirited Don Winslow away in his big black car! Ye should have had a squad of expert men ready to shadow him, instead of leavin’ it to a young officer who’s not trained to the work. Now, repeat if ye will, the story of that taxi driver who said he’d been hired to follow Cho-San’s limousine!”

“I know he’s the one who drove Pennington, because we took his license number,” Hammond stated flatly. “His name’s Grogan, and he seems to be on the level. He says they lost Cho-San’s limousine somewhere in Chinatown. They followed another by mistake and it brought them up in front of Cho-San’s curio shop. Pennington told Grogan to stop and wait while he took a look at the place. While the lieutenant was gone, two tough eggs from the second car shoved pistols through Grogan’s window and told him to drive on. Grogan had no choice but to obey. He came back here to his regular stand, and we nabbed him for questioning. That’s all!”

“And isn’t it enough to persuade ye that both Pennington and Commander Winslow are in deadly peril?” retorted Splendor bitterly. “Why did ye have to wait till I arrived, before raidin’ Cho-San’s layout? Get busy, now, call up all your reserves—every fightin’ man ye can deputize for the job. What’s holdin’ ye?”

“Nothing, sir, now that you’ve ordered it!” replied Hammond, his honest face flushing red. “Of course you’re aware we’ll need to find evidence of lawless activities in order to justify a raid. Cho-San has both wealth and influence to fight criminal charges in any court!”

“And what of that?” the lion-maned cripple roared back. “By this time Don Winslow and Pennington will have found enough evidence to hang that yellow fiend higher than Haman. Away with ye, Hammond! Collect your men, and be sure that one of them is husky enough to carry me on his back. Legs or no legs, I’ll lead this raid if it’s me last act!”

Without a word Hammond departed, swept from the room by the blast of Splendor’s fierce energy. As the door closed behind him another opened to admit Mercedes Colby still in her flying togs.

“I heard that last, Mr. Splendor!” she cried, coming quickly to the cripple’s chair. “No wonder Hammond calls you 'the old Lion’! But you were joking, weren’t you, about leading this raid on Cho-San’s place?”

“Faith, and why should I joke about that?” snorted the veteran Intelligence officer. “Have I been in a jokin’ mood since we took off from Haiti this mornin’? At least I can shoot with the best of Hammond’s deputies, and that’s all I ask a chance to do. But what about the thing I sent ye to find out, child? Is Count Borg well guarded in that room Hammond assigned him to?”

“_Too_ well guarded, if you take the Count’s word for it,” replied Mercedes with a smile. “Mr. Hammond assigned a couple of his best detectives, armed to the teeth, to guard the doors. Of course they didn’t arm Count Borg because he’s a prisoner, at least, technically. But I don’t think any Scorpion gang is going to kidnap him tonight.”