Part 11

“I hope not, my dear,” sighed Splendor, wagging his gray maned head. “But if Cho-San has pierced Don Winslow’s disguise, as I fear he has done, things may happen too fast for us to prevent...”

“_Oh-h-h! The lights!_”

Mercedes’ gasp cut through a pitch black room. Without warning every light had gone out, not only in the office building but in the street outside.

* * * * *

In a darkness just as absolute, Don Winslow plunged blindly forward, bearing Red’s helpless weight. Lotus’ scream had given him his direction. If only he didn’t bump into a pillar or a prowling hatchet man, he’d make it to where she waited!

Suddenly a small, firm hand clutched his arm. Without question he obeyed its pressure, felt himself being guided past an unseen obstruction.

The next instant a cool draught struck his face. The guiding hand gave his arm one quick, farewell squeeze. Somewhere behind him sounded the click of a closing panel.

The darkness was as thick as ever, but now he sensed that he was no longer in the vaulted torture room. That cool current of air suggested a tunnel or corridor connecting with the world above ground.

Luckily he had remembered to take a small pocket torch when he went down to dinner that evening. Its white beam now showed up the rough stone walls of a passageway, like the one leading from the elevator. But that was not all.

Within arm’s reach stood the French maid, Suzette, her finger to her lips in silent warning. As Don met her eyes, she beckoned urgently and turned to vanish in the black shadows.

When the flashlight found her again Suzette was several yards up the tunnel, running like a boy. Don followed somewhat more slowly, trying to keep Red’s head from bumping the low, timbered roof. He was breathing heavily when he finally overtook the French-woman.

“We mus’ be ver’ quick, Commander!” she whispered, halting at a place where the passageway branched. “Your poor friend, is he too badly hurt to walk?”

“Not so’s you’d notice it, Miss!” came Red’s husky answer. “Just get these ropes off my hands and ankles, and I’ll manage to toddle. Got a knife, Skipper?”

Don’s penknife was already out, sawing at the brutally tight cords.

“This is easier than getting that loop of wire off your thumbs in the dark, shipmate!” he panted. “I was afraid those two cat-eyed hatchet men would come back at me before I got you clear.”

“Not a chance!” grinned Red Pennington rubbing his blood smeared wrists. “You hit ’em so hard they couldn’t even crawl away, Skipper. You must have judged their positions just right.”

“_Allons donc, Messieurs!_ We waste time!” cut in Suzette’s sharp whisper. “We are not out of the danger yet. This left-hand passage—come! And run as if the devil-dog Marines were after you!”

XXVIII

PULLING DEATH’S WHISKERS

Red Pennington made a desperate spurt to catch up. His feet and hands were still numb; his head ached fiercely; his stomach was seasick for the first time in years. But that crack about the Marines was too much to swallow.

“You got it wrong, lady!” he puffed, stumbling at Suzette’s heels. “You mean run like _we_ were chasin’ the _Marines_, don’t you? No gob ever yet ran away from a leatherneck...”

“Pipe down and save your breath, sailor!” warned Don. “Suzette’s leading this patrol, and it’s not over yet by a long shot!”

As he spoke the fleet-footed French girl darted into another branch tunnel. This one doubled back after a few feet, then branched again, and continued at right angles. In the next few minutes the young officers realized they were deep in an underground maze. Here anyone but a guide with an exceptional memory would lose the way.

And now another danger made itself apparent. From time to time distant shouts and the clatter of a machine gun echoed through the rocky labyrinth. In quick whispers tossed over her shoulders Suzette urged greater speed. The noticeable dimming of Don’s flashlight gave added warning.

Despite aching muscles and tortured lungs, Red forced himself to a swifter pace. As a result, he tripped and fell. Before Don could help him, he was running again, ignoring a pair of gashed knees. Sheer fighting courage kept him up, defying the weight of a body built more for comfort than for speed.

All at once Suzette slowed and stopped, throwing back a warning arm.

“Put out your torch, _Monsieur_ Winslow!” she hissed. “Around the next corner is a machine gun in a 'pill-box.’ It stands between us and freedom. Either we mus’ silence it or be trap here where we stand!”

“I see,” muttered Don. “But you must have made some plan for doing that, Suzette. What’s our best play?”

In the pitch darkness the girl grasped a sleeve of each of the two men. Not until their three heads were literally together, did she reply.

“I can think of jus’ one way to do,” she said tensely. “Somewhere along the next passage is a photo-electric trigger, worked by infra-red light. If we try to pass it, the overhead lights flash on, the machine gunner begin to shoot, and we die with fifty bullet holes in our backs! So this, _Messieurs_, is my plan. When the lights flash on, I will empty my small pistol through the machine gunner’s loophole. That will keep him busy until you pass beyond the next turn. Before he dare to look again, I follow you, and—”

“Nothing doing, Suzette!” Don cut in abruptly. “That way you’d be sacrificing your life for us and you know it. I’ve got another idea. We’ll silence that machine gun before the lights flash up in the passageway. All I ask is for you to show me that 'pillbox’ loophole _in the dark_!”

Well trained by the French Secret Service, Suzette knew the voice of authority. Without hesitation she took Don’s hand.

“Come then, _Monsieur_!” she whispered. “And your friend—he mus’ keep close behind us, but make no sound.”

For the next thirty feet they proceeded at a snail’s pace, careful not to make the slightest sound. At last, however, Suzette halted, to grope for a few seconds at an unseen wall.

Don guessed what she was doing. When the tug came on his wrist, he let his own hand be guided until it touched the edges of a square opening.

The loophole! And protruding from it, Don could feel the ugly steel snout of a submachine gun. The other end, he knew, was held by a ready killer, whose grip need only tighten on the trigger to spray forth a stream of lead and fire!

“I’ve heard of pulling Death’s whiskers,” the young officer thought with a slight shiver, “but this is the nearest I’ve come to doing it yet!”

His next movements were coolly calculated. Fixing the loophole’s position in mind, he took a fresh grip on the unlighted pocket torch. At the same time he drew the snub-nosed .38 caliber automatic from his shoulder holster. Lastly, to steady his aim, he drew a single deep breath.

The rest happened too fast for words to describe.

The flash of Don’s torch, the blast of his pistol, a muffled explosion inside the concrete wall—all followed in the same split instant. The scream of human pain that issued through the loophole seemed to be minutes later, though actually it was hardly a second.

While the cry still echoed, a blinding flood of light showed three crouched figures racing for the tunnel’s end. So cramped was the passage that bullets from the “pillbox” could have cut them down like toy soldiers, but not even one shot rang out. The next instant all three had disappeared around a rocky projection of the wall.

Don Winslow’s dimming flashlight now showed a rough-boarded staircase, leading upward. At Suzette’s heels, the two officers mounted, three steps at a time. At the top they crossed a narrow hall, burst through a half-concealed door, and came out into the open air.

Here, in what seemed to be a dark alley, Red Pennington grabbed at Don’s shoulder.

“Avast, Skipper!” he panted! “Lemme get a breath or two before we—ugh—go on!”

“_Non! Non!_ Not yet, _Messieurs_!” the Frenchwoman’s voice lashed back. “Soon we will stop, but it is not safe yet. _Allons!_”

As if to confirm her words, high-pitched, Oriental voices broke out in the building behind them. Red waited for no more, but lunged ahead, sobbing for breath.

The route they followed for the next five minutes was as mixed up as the maze of underground tunnels they had left. Back and forth through dark alleyways and darker buildings they dodged. Suzette had evidently studied the route by daylight, and kept a map of it in her mind for just such an emergency.

At the last door, which seemed to be that of a basement apartment, she used a key.

“This place is safe if we do not show the light, _Messieurs_,” she panted. “Many weeks ago I have rent and furnish it under another name. Beyond is a door opening to another street where you can get a taxi. And now, while Suzette gets her breath, tell me what you did to that machine gun, Commander. I die of curiousness!”

“I took a chance and tried to plug his gun muzzle with my own bullet,” Don answered. “Just by luck I did it first try. Of course, when the machine gunner pulled the trigger, his weapon blew up! That’s all there was to it!”

“Except a chilled steel nerve and cracking good marksmanship!” grunted Red Pennington. “If you’d missed that first shot the guy inside would have blown your head off.”

“_Mais, oui!_” chimed in Suzette. “We owe our lives to the so brave Commander! But now I mus’ speak of other things. Tell me, Monsieur Winslow, how many men you can bring for a raid tonight on the underworld of Scorpia? We mus’ strike now, while so many agents are here for Cho-San’s big conference!”

“You’re right, Suzette!” exclaimed Don. “Tonight’s the time, and I’ve asked our local office to hold fifty fighting men within call in case I needed them. Michael Splendor has just arrived and is probably running them up now. I could lead them back here within an hour, probably...”

“But that is perfect, Commander!” cried the little Frenchwoman. “Go now, and bring your men to the shop of Cho-San. I will have the door unlock, so you need make no noise. From the shop I will conduct you to the secret gallery w’ich overlook the Scorpion’s great Assembly Room. The agents will soon be gather there to hear Cho-San’s instructions for a new world war plot. Your men will then take them by surprise and make the—w’at you call—_clean-up_ in one big swoop!”

“We’ll do that or die trying, Suzette!” Don exclaimed heartily. “Now lead the way to the other door, and we’ll be off. If you get a chance to speak to Lotus, tell her we’ll be back to take her away from Cho-San’s torture rooms and slimy passages.”

Suzette did not reply. Taking Don’s hand she led the two young officers swiftly through the apartment and an adjoining basement. As they came out onto a darkened areaway, Don Winslow thought he heard the little maid sob.

“_Voilà!_” she said in a choked voice. “You can see the street beyond that alley to the right. And hurry, _Messieurs_, if you hope to see the little Lotus alive. I have fear that Cho-San has punish her already for her part in helping you escape!”

Don’s groan came through gritted teeth.

“Heaven grant you’re wrong about that!” he said hoarsely. “If that child has given her life for us, we’ll never rest till we wipe the last memory of Scorpia from the earth! Come, Red! Every second counts against us now!”

XXIX

THE WRATH OF CHO-SAN

Feet stamped and flashlights blazed through the office building of the local Intelligence Bureau. Above the sounds of disciplined search, Michael Splendor’s great voice could be heard roaring questions and orders.

There had been two or three minutes time, however, between the moment the lights went out and the organization of a flashlight brigade. In that brief space the emissaries of Scorpia had pulled off their carefully planned raid and departed. As souvenirs of their visit they had left two drugged and unconscious detectives outside an upper floor room.

Count Borg had vanished, snatched from under the noses of Hammond’s best men; and no one had seen him go. The fact was a stunning blow to the Bureau chief; but to Splendor, it was just one more challenge to fight.

“Find out how many men ye’ve got here now, Hammond!” he bellowed down the corridor. “Bring them back to the main office so I can look them over. If I spot no spies among them, we’ll start at once.”

The office lights were still out, but darkness was no obstacle to the gray-haired cripple. Holding an electric torch in his teeth, he propelled his wheel chair through the door and around the long oak table which ran almost the length of the room. Satisfied that no prowlers lurked in the shadows, he took his place beside the single entrance and waited.

Moments later, Hammond finished rounding up his force of deputies. As he led them down the corridor toward the main office Splendor’s bull voice hailed him.

“Stand opposite me, Hammond,” the veteran ordered, “and let your men pass between us one by one. That way we’ll be sure there’s no traitor among them!”

As he spoke there was a sudden stir among the group of men outside. It ended briefly with a cry of discovery.

“I’ve got him, sir!” cried one of the deputies. “This fellow didn’t want to stand inspection, I guess. I caught him trying to slip away!”

Spotlighted by a score of torch beams, the culprit was pushed forward to the door. In his light topcoat he looked like a slim boy, hanging his head as if in shame.

A flick of Hammond’s hand knocked off the low pulled fedora and brought a gasp from every onlooker. The youthful face, under a mass of tightly wound hair, was Mercedes Colby’s.

“I don’t care—I’m going with you anyway!” the girl exploded, turning upon Michael Splendor. “I’m no fluffy, helpless child to be sent to bed when there’s a real job of work to do! If a man with no legs can risk his life to help Don Winslow, so can a girl. And you’re not going to stop me!”

Throwing off the borrowed topcoat, Mercedes stood there slim and defiant in her boyish flying togs. Her clear eyes glowed like battle lanterns in the light of Splendor’s torch beam. Before the veteran could frame a reply, a voice outside in the corridor drew everyone’s attention.

“Good for you, Mercedes!” cried Don Winslow, striding up the corridor with Red at his heels. “You’re not the only woman who’s risking her life tonight in the cause of humanity. When he knows the truth, even Mr. Splendor won’t try to keep you back!”

Don’s arrival acted like a powerful stimulant to the spirits of everyone there. What had seemed a dangerous duty to most of Hammond’s hard-boiled deputies, now took on the color of high adventure. There was something in the young Commander’s presence which always fired men to eager loyalty, and they expressed it now in a muffled cheer.

Briefly Don outlined the situation up to the moment he and Red had left Suzette. In return Hammond told him of Count Borg’s disappearance, and the preparations made up to then.

Each deputy, the Bureau chief explained, was armed with two pistols. Half of them carried Thompson submachine guns and the rest a supply of tear gas bombs. There were extra weapons and gas masks in the office, he said, from which Don and Red could choose.

“I can’t see that there’s any need to wait, then,” said Don. “As soon as Mr. Splendor has finished his inspection, we can start!”

For weapons, both the Navy officers selected regulation Enfield rifles, which could be used as terrible clubs in hand-to-hand fighting. Mercedes, still insistent on going along, was fitted out with a bulletproof vest under her light topcoat. Her weapons consisted of a pair of automatics, one loaded with tear gas cartridges. The three of them were the last to pass Michael Splendor’s swift inspection.

At his own signal, the veteran was lifted pickaback to the shoulders of a powerful deputy, and carried at the head of his fifty men to the cars waiting outside. With a few low spoken words, the deputies jammed into the vehicles. Doors slammed, starters whirred, and the raiding party was on its way, speeding through the foggy streets.

Twenty minutes later, the leading car braked to a stop in front of Cho-San’s darkened shop. As the others lined up behind it, the crippled but dauntless leader headed the silent rush of fighting men across the street.

At the shop door Don and Red caught up with him. The knob turned easily at the young Commander’s touch. An instant later ten flashlight beams picked out the small figure of Suzette, waiting in the center of the room.

“Thank Heaven you are arrive, _Messieurs_!” the girl exclaimed. “The little Lotus still lives, and they have just brought in Count Borg. Follow me quickly if you would save them!”

* * * * *

Deep under the fortresslike mansion of Cho-San, a huge room had been hollowed out of the native earth and rock. Across one end of it stretched a platform, equipped with lights to produce every sort of stage effect. The room’s main floor space was filled with regular theater seats enough to accommodate two hundred persons.

At present more than half of the seats were occupied. Men and women of all nationalities sat conversing in twenty different tongues and dialects. As if to add drama to the scene, each appeared in his native costume, however outlandish it happened to be. There were dark men from India, Morocco, and the South Sea Islands; black men from Africa, and yellow men from the Far East. Mingled with these were fair-skinned women from North and South America and from the glittering capitals of Europe—a strangely varied and colorful assembly!

Yet for all their differences of age, sex and race, these people had one trait in common. It was an expression of reckless cruelty, like a brand burned deep into their very souls.

There was nothing strange about that, of course, for these were the key men and women of Scorpia, the chief spies and agents of a world-wide crime club. Success for them meant always disaster for civilized nations—revolutions, wars, and bloody conquests, from which the Scorpion’s brood could pick their illegal wealth.

The sound of hard-voiced laughter and conversation died suddenly. Weird music throbbed out from some hidden source. Slowly the great curtain of purple velvet rolled back upon a scene of medieval horror.

Three spotlights threw a merciless radiance upon the darkened stage. In the center stood Cho-San, robed in the rich silks of Ancient China, his hands clasped under loose sleeves. Motionless as a statue, his huge figure dominated the scene.

At Cho-San’s right a second spotlight circled a great wooden wheel, to whose spokes had been lashed the body of a girl. Still clad in her white satin evening gown, Lotus’ young beauty was in tragic contrast with her stiff, tortured pose.

The third part of the gruesome tableau was a heavy wooden stretcher, or rack, to which a man was bound by hands and feet. So taut were the ropes that another turn of the machine’s windlass would have jerked his joints apart.

All this the audience took in before the first gasp of astonishment escaped their lips. Like a wind through dry branches a harsh whisper swept across the room:—

“The Lotus! Count Borg! _What does it mean, Cho-San?_”

The whisper died into silence. Openmouthed the assembled agents of Scorpia sat staring at the terrible, unspoken wrath of Cho-San. As they watched, the towering figure of the Chinese seemed to swell and palpitate with voiceless fury.

When it came, his first word rolled out like an organ’s shuddering bass.

“Treason!” he thundered. “Treason to the power of Scorpia! These two, about to die in torment, dared to defy the Master; and I, Cho-San, accuse them before you all!”

XXX

TRAPPED

The hundred-odd men and women of Scorpia shivered in the darkness beyond the stage. All had heard tales of Cho-San’s torture room. Some even had visited the vaulted chamber and seen old bloodstains on those devilish machines.

They remembered their fellow agents who had disappeared to be “tried” later in this same underground auditorium. In such cases the accused were brought on the stage to give their “confessions”; but their broken bodies and fear stricken tones told plainer than words of secret torments. Not even the few who were released after trial ever told exactly what had happened to them.

And now these members of Scorpia’s Inner Council were to see with their own eyes the fate of two who had defied the Scorpion’s power. Their cruel natures were as thrilled by the prospect as they were awed by thought that their own turn might come some day.

Such was the mind of the audience which heard Cho-San’s grim accusation. With savage eagerness they drank in the Scorpion leader’s every word, while their eyes gloated over those helpless victims on the wheel and rack.

With the tread of a great jungle beast, Cho-San approached the half-conscious Lotus.

Facing the assembly, the Chinese raised his voice.

“This girl, this fickle traitoress,” he cried, “has gone over to the enemy, body and soul. In a few minutes you will hear her confess her guilt under mortal pain. But first—”

Cho-San paused dramatically.

“First,” he repeated, “she will listen to the screams of this other enemy of Scorpia—the man who was once a member of this very Inner Council—Count André Borg! We shall see what confession another turn of the ropes will wring from him ... Dr. Skell!”

Into the spotlight moved a tall man garbed in a white laboratory coat. His bald, skull-like head turned to face Cho-San.

“One turn?” he asked, laying a bony hand upon the rack’s windlass.

The Chinese nodded. Slowly the rack’s wooden crank moved downward, tightening the ropes. Count Borg’s body stiffened under the frightful tension. Through his clenched jaws issued a grinding sob of pain.

“Another turn and his bones snap out of their sockets,” came the dry croak of Dr. Skell. “Shall I go on?”

“No! No!” came Lotus’ frantic cry. “Torture me, Cho-San, but not André! Anything—_anything but that_!”

“Tear him apart!” snarled the Scorpion leader. “Put your weight on that windlass, or—”

CR-RACK!

The whipping report of a rifle slapped against the walls. With a queer, animal whine, the bony Skell shrank back, his bullet grazed hand dripping red.

For a moment paralysis seemed to grip the assembled Council of Scorpia. Then through tense silence the voice of Don Winslow cut like a knife.

“Hold it, Cho-San! We’ve got every exit covered. You’d better give up!”

Quick as a cat, the big Chinese leaped. Outside the spotlight, his figure was a swift vanishing blur. The slam of an automatic pistol came seconds too late, as Michael Splendor charged onto the stage at the head of twenty fighting men.

Leaping down across the footlights, Don Winslow, Red Pennington and a dozen of Hammond’s men lined up with ready guns. Yet in the face of that threat more than half the Scorpion assembly had drawn concealed pistols.

A single shot would touch off a battle to the death. None knew it better than Michael Splendor as he perched on the shoulders of a powerful deputy, full in the spotlight’s glare. He knew also that men and women, however desperate, can sometimes be bluffed.

“Every exit to this room is blocked by armed men!” he announced in a ringing voice. “Throw down your weapons and ye’ll take no harm. Fight and ye’ll get licked anyway. Which will ye choose?”

A low muttering began among the trapped councilmen of Scorpia. Above the babel of whispers a single voice rose clear.

“Cho-San escaped!” rang the defiant shout. “The secret corridors are NOT blocked. We will scatter—and catch these fools in their own trap!”

A roar of approval went up from the crowd. In three scrambling groups the assembly broke for the sides and rear of the auditorium, avoiding the platform. A few of the nearest kept their eyes and pistols trained on the line of riflemen, but they clearly wished to postpone the shooting.