Part 8

“That’s a long time to wait, André, when I haven’t seen you for so long!” sighed Lotus, with a hint of disappointment. “I guess you know best, though. Suppose you meet me in the dining room, at that same little table in the corner—remember?”

“At seven o’clock,” agreed Don, as the girl turned with one gloved hand on the gate latch. “And I’m awfully glad your ankle isn’t really injured! Good night!”

Returning across the street, he found that Hammond’s chauffeur had about finished putting on the spare wheel. Hammond beckoned both officers into the car and closed the door after him. A moment later the motor started.

“Tell us about it, Commander,” the office man urged, as they turned in to a more brightly lighted section of the city. “You think the Lotus really took you for Count Borg? If she didn’t, it’s going to make things pretty difficult.”

“I don’t think you need to worry, Hammond,” Don replied. “Remember, the light was very dim, so she couldn’t have noticed small details. Of course, I had to explain the loss of my moustache.... By the way, I’ve got a dinner date with her for tomorrow evening at the Empire!”

“That ought to give us enough time to get fixed up and coached for our parts,” Red Pennington commented. “Gee, Don! What a lucky break! Our tire blowin’ out, and Lotus showin’ up at the same time! It all happened so naturally, not even the Scorpion himself could suspect anything queer.”

“Unless,” said Don thoughtfully, “the guard inside Cho-San’s iron gate smelled something phony. You see, Lotus _wanted_ to believe I was Borg, but that other guy may have been leery.”

“A guard, huh?” snorted Hammond. “I don’t like that, Commander! As you say, he just _might_ have smelled a mouse. Those Scorpion agents are suspecting each other half the time, and.... Hmmmm! You were close enough to see him plainly?”

“Only the glow of his cigarette tip,” answered Don. “But why worry over that? Looks as if we’d arrived at your office already; and I’m hungry enough to eat the letters off a stone monument!”

“And those letters are sunk in, too!” laughed the Intelligence man, reaching for the door handle. “Well, Commander, there’s a hot meal waiting for you right upstairs. I ordered it brought in, because you’re not visiting any restaurant until your make-up is absolutely perfect.”

XX

THE TEST

It was well past ten o’clock that morning before Don and Red were roused from a four-hour nap in the local Intelligence Office. After breakfast, they were fitted out with clothes quickly tailored to fit, in preparation for their new roles. Then, for several more hours they were drilled, each man in his part, so as to make the disguise as perfect as possible.

Don Winslow had already memorized all the real Count Borg could teach him. Now, working from photographs, and from a mass of information collected by the office, other Intelligence operatives expertly polished his likeness to the captured Scorpion aviator.

Poor Red was made to study much harder for his role of valet, since he had to start from scratch. At the end of six hours’ unremitting work, he was pronounced a “passable fake” and sent out to take rooms for his master at the Hotel Empire.

Somewhat later Don Winslow joined him. True to the dressy habits of Count André Borg, he had to change from the natty homespun business suit he was wearing into formal “soup-and-fish.”

While he was adjusting his black bow tie, there came a rap on the door. Red Pennington, now transformed into the valet “Penny,” opened it with a flourish.

“Please step inside, sir!” Don heard him say. “I believe you are expected.”

“Excellent, Pennington! Excellent!” came Hammond’s approving chuckle. “You’re getting more stiffnecked and manservantish every minute. Shut that door, now, and let’s have a few final words.”

“Yes, sir! Very good, sir!” chanted Red, looking down his rather stubby nose. “But may I take your hat and coat first, sir?”

Grinning broadly, Hammond spun a chair away from the wall and sat down on it.

“The Lieutenant’s eaten his part like an old actor!” he remarked. “But how about you, Commander? Do you feel able to deceive the bright eyes of the fair Scorpion spy who’ll be sitting across the table from you in about ten minutes? They say a woman’s instinct is foolproof. Of course, that may be all nonsense, but I’ve seen some queer things happen in this Intelligence game.”

Don finished buttoning his vest, and let Penny adjust his Tuxedo jacket.

“No, Hammond,” he smiled, “I don’t feel nervous about meeting Lotus’ inspection. That’s queer, too, because it is probably the toughest test I’ll have to pass. I’ve got a funny hunch about that young woman!”

“What do you mean—hunch?” growled Hammond, with a piercing look. “You haven’t had time to learn anything new about her. Listen, Commander! Just because the kid is as attractive as they make ’em, you musn’t go off the deep end. Keep your head, man, and remember the lovelier she looks the more dangerous she’s bound to be!”

Don’s hearty laugh wiped some of the worry from Hammond’s gloomy face.

“I’m certainly not going to fall in love with her, if that’s what you mean!” he promised. “But seriously, I _have_ a hunch that if she found out who I really am, she would be sport enough to give me a break. My masquerade would be finished, but not necessarily my life. Understand?”

Hammond got up from his chair, frowning.

“I understand, but I don’t agree,” he said heavily. “The minute you come within speaking distance of a Scorpion spy in that disguise, your life’s in danger. The second you’re discovered, it’ll probably be curtains whether pretty little Lotus or some squint-eyed thug puts out your light. Well, I won’t be keeping you any longer. Luck, Commander! And for the luvva Mike, _watch your step_!”

Red’s good-by warning was similar to Hammond’s, but even more heartfelt. His right hand still half paralyzed by the husky “Penny’s” grip, Don Winslow walked quickly to the hotel elevator.

Somewhat to his surprise, the operator greeted him respectfully as “Count Borg” showing that the real count was well known to the Empire staff. Don decided that he would indeed have to “watch his step”!

Lotus, he recalled, had mentioned a certain table in a corner of the dining room, where she had met the real count on past occasions. If she should not be there waiting for him, Don would be in a fix. He could not pick the wrong table to wait for _her_, without making her suspicious.

As he hesitated just outside the dining room, the headwaiter spotted him and came forward quickly.

“Ah, Count Borg! It is good to have you with us again after so long an absence!” the man murmured with his most unctuous smile. “Is it perhaps that you are expecting Mademoiselle Lotus this evening? If so, your table in the corner is reserved for you.”

With a low bow, the headwaiter led the way to a softly lighted alcove, somewhat apart from the main dining room. It held one small table suitable for two persons. The service included a single candle set in a beautifully ornamented silver candlestick.

Barely had the headwaiter pulled out Don’s chair, when his alert eye caught a movement across the larger room.

“_Eh, voilà, M’sieu le Comte!_” he exclaimed delightedly. “Here is the so charming Mademoiselle already! You will not have to wait.”

Hurrying away, he was back in a moment, followed by a dainty figure dressed in clinging white satin. Lotus had made herself particularly charming this evening, Don told himself. The pure simplicity of her low cut gown, made her seem even younger than her actual twenty years.

Slipping the expensive evening wrap from her shoulders, she flicked it carelessly across the headwaiter’s arm.

“Come back in a few minutes, Maurice!” she said, as the man bowed himself away.

Turning to Don, she gave him a long, serious look. Her eyes, Don thought, were like great wells of darkness. As the seconds ticked past, and she did not speak, he felt a tiny shiver of doubt. Was it possible, he wondered, that the girl had already pierced his masquerade?

All at once she came closer, with a low musical laugh.

“Always mysterious, aren’t you, André?” she said, taking both his hands. “Every time I meet you here, it is the same! You stand looking at me so silent and grave, until I feel like a silly little girl. But in the end I always succeed in making you laugh and be silly with me, don’t I, André?”

With some difficulty Don held his serious pose. Lotus’ teasing laughter and girlish sweetness were harder to resist than he had expected.

“Sit down, child!” he said soberly, as he moved to pull out her chair. “A strange thing has happened since I last saw you. You _say_ I am the same André. But it is hardly the truth!”

As he sat down across the table he saw that the girl’s cheeks had gone white as her dress. Her eyes, wide with sudden alarm, seemed about to overflow with tears.

“I—I don’t understand you!” she whispered faintly.

For an instant, Don found it hard to go on. This child opposite him might be a Scorpion spy, even one of the cleverest, but tonight she was simply a girl in love. A very young girl, who had clearly laid her heart at the feet of her hero, Count André Borg. And Don, the pseudo André, was going to hurt her feelings cruelly.

It was a tough job, the young commander told himself, but it had to be done. In the United States Navy’s war against the warmakers, sometimes the innocent had to suffer.

Bending forward, Don pushed away the sleek, dark hair just above his temple, to show the neatly taped head wound.

“That happened during the attack on the Navy gunboat, five days ago,” he said grimly. “A machine gun bullet ripped through my seaplane and grooved my skull. It was Don Winslow himself who pulled me out of the water, after the plane cracked up—or so they tell me. I woke up in the brig some hours later, too dazed to know if I was afloat or ashore. Gradually my mind cleared. _But my memory has been skipping cogs ever since!_”

Slowly the look of fright left Lotus’ face. Two large tears trickled down each side of her pretty nose, but her lips smiled tenderly.

“My poor André!” she cried, softly. “It must make you feel queer—as if you were someone else—to have your memory 'skip cogs’! But that is certain to cure itself! After all your brain is not like the gears of a car that have to be thrown away when they are broken. You remember _me_! Very soon you will recall everything. In the meantime, let Lotus be your memory, dear André!”

As Don Winslow gazed into her eager, pleading little face, he felt like kicking himself. Only the fact that duty came before sentiment kept him from blurting out the whole true story, then and there.

“Very well, child!” he said, glancing down at his newly manicured fingernails. “I certainly hope you are right about my mind clearing up in time; but right now I am finding this loss of memory pretty awkward. For instance, who is that large, Oriental person coming toward us? He looks as if he knew me, all right, but I can’t name him, for the life of me!”

“Cho-San!” came Lotus’ gasp. “Why, André! You don’t even remember ... my guardian? The greatest power in all Scorpia, next to the master? Oh, this is terrible! You must _pretend_ to remember Cho-San, whatever else you’ve forgotten, André!”

XXI

CHO-SAN

With a cool shrug of his shoulders, the pseudo count returned to a study of his manicured fingers. He’d understood from Hammond that there was little love lost between dashing André Borg and the saturnine Chinese, Cho-San. If that were true, a pose of insulting indifference would be the safest.

In any case, it seemed to be working now. As Don continued to ignore his presence, the big Oriental stood glowering beside the table. Like a huge frog, he seemed to swell with silent rage. Suddenly he beckoned the anxiously hovering headwaiter.

“Another chair, Maurice!” he growled in a heavy bass. “Mademoiselle Lotus seems to be in the company of an idiot. I shall stay to protect her, in case he becomes a worse nuisance. Bring me a chair, quickly!”

As Maurice hurried to obey, Lotus half arose, her hands clasping and unclasping in distress.

“Please, Cho-San!” she choked. “Be patient with André—Count Borg, I mean! Five days ago he received a wound on the head, while carrying out your orders. Since then his mind has not been the same....”

“Evidently not!” grated the Chinese, seating himself in the chair Maurice had brought. “No man in his right mind deliberately insults Cho-San, though your André has come very near to doing so in times past. Well, Borg, have you lost your tongue as well as your reason? You had it at three o’clock this morning when you made this appointment with my ward.”

“So your watchman overheard and told you about that, Cho-San!” drawled the pretended Borg, as Maurice glided away. “I thought he would, but I’m surprised you were interested enough to follow Lotus and me here. Er—by the way, it’s quite true about that head wound I got. My memory has blanked out. It’s only now and then I recall something that’s happened in the past few years. Of course, I know you and Lotus, here; but how and why and where you came into my life I haven’t the faintest idea! Awful nuisance, isn’t it?”

For sixty long seconds, Cho-San stared at “Count Borg’s” handsome, rather bored features. His sloe-black eyes were so wickedly penetrating that Don was glad his disguise didn’t depend on paint or false hair. Even the tiny scar below his eye was genuine. For the rest, Don hoped that he had copied Count Borg’s own voice and manner successfully.

At last Cho-San’s big body relaxed its angry tenseness. When he spoke, his voice had taken on a smoother inflection.

“I would give a great deal to know just _what_ has changed about you, my dear Count,” he remarked. “It may be your mind—in another sense of the word—for certainly you have never dared to insult me publicly before. Your alleged loss of memory is all poppy-cock, of course. It may take time to discover what your new game is, but I shall do it. Meantime, you will take my orders as before, if you know what is good for you!”

Don Winslow permitted a lazy smile to grow at the corners of his mouth.

“Oh—ah—of course, Cho-San!” he murmured, covering a yawn. “And really, it doesn’t make much difference whether you believe my memory’s gone or not, so long as _I_ know it has. But let’s stop talking about orders and insults and call Maurice back. Lotus will be much more interested in a lobster a la Newburg I am certain.”

Cho-San agreed with a surly grunt, and the three orders were taken. During the meal “Count Borg” told the story he had rehearsed about his capture and subsequent escape from Haiti in Michael Splendor’s plane. He made it brief but convincing, even naming the spot where he had abandoned the plane sixteen hours before.

As he talked he was aware that both the girl and her grim-faced guardian were studying him closely. What thoughts were passing through their minds, he scarcely dared to guess. Certainly Cho-San’s moonlike pokerface betrayed even less than his grunted comments. Lotus, for some reason, appeared too upset for speech.

Don was glad when the uncomfortable meal was over, and Cho-San made the first motion to leave.

“I am sorry to interrupt your evening _tête-à-tête_, my dear Count Borg,” the Oriental said with oily sarcasm, “but your presence is required at the comrades’ headquarters. Immediately, do you understand?”

With an indifferent smile, Don moved to pick up Lotus’ evening wrap.

“I told you my memory, not my understanding, had done a blackout, Cho-San,” he drawled. “Lead the way, old dear, and I’ll follow. Only first, I’ll send upstairs for my medicine.... Er—Maurice! Will you phone up for my valet to bring it down now with my hat and topcoat?”

“Medicine! Valet!” snarled the big Chinese, glaring furiously at Don. “What new stall is this, Borg? I tell you, I’m in no mood for trifling tonight! A man in your youth and health needing medicine—bah! And who is this manservant you’ve picked up? Haven’t I warned you....”

“It’s my wound, you know,” cut in the pseudo count. “Ever since that bullet nicked me, I’ve had the most frightful headaches. Actually blind me at times! So this morning I asked a druggist chap for something, and he prescribed....”

“To the devil with your druggist—and with you, too, Borg!” spat the Scorpion leader. “You may think you’re funny, but I do not. Lotus! Bring this fool out to the door in three minutes, or it will be the worse for you both. I’ll wait for you just that long!”

Turning on his heel, the bulky Oriental stalked out of the alcove. Following slowly with Lotus, Don saw Cho-San halt and stare at the figure of “Penny” who had just appeared in the lobby. Evidently Red had made record time for a valet, after getting the head-waiter’s phone call.

With a murmured excuse to Lotus, Don stepped forward to meet his manservant at a point just out of earshot.

“Listen, Red!” he whispered, taking the small bottle Pennington had brought. “I’m going for a ride with Cho-San and the Lotus in about two minutes. Follow us in another car, but watch your step. That’s all for now!”

Slipping into his topcoat, he sauntered back to the girl.

“Come, little Lotus!” he said banteringly. “We musn’t keep your guardian waiting. It’s bad for the jolly old dragon’s disposition. By the way, where are the comrades’ headquarters he spoke of. I suppose I must have been there countless times, but it’s all foggy in my head now.”

Sudden fear showed again in the look Lotus gave him.

“I—I wonder, André,” she said in a strained tone, “if Cho-San may not be partly right about the change in you. It doesn’t seem possible you could have forgotten so many things! I wonder if you are not just playing a part, for some strange purpose of your own!”

There was no time for Don to think up a reply, as they were already passing through the outer door. Just across the sidewalk the huge figure of Cho-San bulked beside a waiting car.

Once inside the limousine, Don found himself in no mood for further self-explanations. More and more it was being impressed upon him that the job he had undertaken was beset with risks. So far he had been able to dodge open failure; but this fact failed to set his mind at ease.

Cho-San, and now Lotus herself, had made it plain that they suspected something wrong with him other than a loss of memory. They seemed to take it for granted that he was really Count André Borg, yet they accused him of playing a part!

Don would have given his right hand now to know just what suspicions were seething in the minds of his two companions.

Another question popped up to startle him, as the big car rolled through San Francisco’s older, dimly lighted section.

_Did the real Count Borg know the Chinese language?_

As if in answer to his thought, Cho-San spoke suddenly in rapid, sing-song syllables.

“_Kia hing—po pay-ow ni shi lee ting!_”

Don’s scalp prickled as if a gun had been leveled at his head. Was this the showdown he asked himself?

“_So-lay-ow!_” came the chanted response from the driver’s seat.

Don’s lungs deflated in a sigh of relief. The Chinese syllables were not meant for him. He had the feeling of having stepped over another deadly trap.

“So Don Winslow is still in Haiti?” rumbled the Scorpion leader’s next words. “Did you learn, my dear Count, anything about his further plans while you were there? For instance, does he intend to return shortly to the United States?”

“I didn’t hear a thing about his intentions, Cho-San,” replied Don indifferently. “I fancy, though, that he’ll be in the plane Michael Splendor is flying here today. Splendor’s a bit sore, you know, about my stealing his big cabin job. He broadcast the news that he was flying here on a hunch that I’d head for 'Frisco. Maybe his pilot will be this Winslow chap.”

“Ummmm, I wonder!” mumbled the Oriental. “They say he looks enough like you, Borg, to be your twin. In a certain situation you might even impersonate him. Suppose, for instance, that Winslow should disappear without his friends being the wiser—just what would prevent your taking his place in the interests of Scorpia?”

Don’s answer was a laugh that he tried to make natural.

“Why, my dear Cho-San,” he retorted, “the interests of Scorpia would prevent my doing that to take the words out of your mouth! I admit I look like Winslow, but his voice, his walk, and everything else about him is different; so don’t talk nonsense!”

“Cho-San _never_ talks nonsense, you fool!” hissed the Chinese. “You will do well to remember that your life depends on your usefulness to Scorpia, and to me—its mouthpiece! If you don’t, the next time a bullet strikes your skull it may be better aimed!”

XXII

WET TRACKS IN THE FOG

The big car twisted and turned through the narrow streets, boring deeper into the dark heart of old Chinatown. Don Winslow, seated between Cho-San and Lotus, felt his sense of danger rising.

At any moment now, the Chinese chauffeur would pull up at an unfamiliar building. Then, flanked by two Scorpion spies, the pretended Count Borg would enter the underworld of Scorpia.

What further tests would he have to pass Don could not guess. He knew only that if he failed his life would pay the forfeit!

Tensely he told himself that he must not fail. For the honor of the United States Navy, for the sake of his friends, and of all who prefer peace to war’s mass murder, _he must not fail_!

Glancing at Cho-San, he saw that the Scorpion leader was studying a small pocket mirror, cupped in one of his huge hands. The mirror was held so as to reflect everything that could be seen through the car’s rear window.

Suddenly with an angry snort, the big Chinese bent forward.

“_Yi kow pu hau-tung sai-kai!_” he cried sharply.

“_Ta hau_,” came the driver’s answering sing-song, “_kia hing_.”

With a jerk the car speeded up, throwing the passengers back against the cushions. Don felt Lotus’ small, cool hand close down on his finger.

“It’s that car following us, André,” she explained. “Cho-San has just told Ko Loo, the chauffeur, to speed up and lose it.”

Don twisted to look through the rear window at the criss-crossing traffic of an intersection. With a short laugh he turned back.

“Cho-San knows best,” he remarked lightly. “I couldn’t tell if one of those pairs of lights back there were following us. It looks to me as if they all are. But what’s the difference?”

“None, my dear Borg,” rumbled Cho-San, “considering that Ko Loo has never yet failed to put an enemy off the trail. As a matter of fact, two sets of lights are following us at this moment. The trailer is being trailed by one of our own cars. He will have an unpleasant surprise, in addition to losing track of us!”

Sharp anxiety shot through Don’s mind. “An unpleasant surprise” might mean anything from a car accident to murder. And Red Pennington was the trailer who was going to get it!

However, there was nothing in the world that Don could do to warn his friend. By this time both cars were out of sight. Ko Loo skidded the big limousine around two more dim corners at twenty miles an hour, and pulled up abruptly in front of a dark warehouse.

“_Ki-wo-pu teh shwoh!_” sang out Cho-San’s commanding bass.

“_Ta chang!_” came the answer, as Ko Loo sprang out to obey the order. In the foggy night the chauffeur’s voice had a curious, muffled sound.

Almost immediately he returned, and the car rolled silently forward into a black, cavelike opening. As it stopped, Lotus again squeezed Don’s hand.

“Last time, we came another way—remember, André?” she whispered. “We are now in the garage next to Cho-San’s curio shop. Of course it doesn’t look like a garage from the outside with the doors closed....”