The Drums Of Jeopardy

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The Drums Of Jeopardy

CHAPTER I

A fast train drew into Albany, on the New York Central, from the
West. It was three-thirty of a chill March morning in the first
year of peace. A pall of fog lay over the world so heavy that
it beaded the face and hands and deposited a fairy diamond dust
upon wool. The station lights had the visibility of stars, and
like the stars were without refulgence - a pale golden aureola,
perhaps three feet in diameter, and beyond, nothing. The few
passengers who alighted and the train itself had the same nebulosity
of drab fish in a dim aquarium.

Among the passengers to detrain was a man in a long black coat.
The high collar was up. The man wore a derby hat, well down upon
his head, after the English mode. An English kitbag, battered and
scarred, swung heavily from his hand. He immediately strode for
the station wall and stood with his back to it. He was almost
invisible. He remained motionless until the other detrained
passengers swam past, until the red tail lights of the last coach
vanished into the deeps; then he rushed for the exit to the street.

Away toward the far end of the platform there appeared a shadowy
patch in the fog. It grew and presently took upon itself the shape
of a man. For one so short and squat and thick his legs possessed
remarkable agility, for he reached the street just as the other man
stopped at the side of a taxicab.

The fool! As if such a movement had not been anticipated. Sixteen
thousand miles, always eastward, on horses, camels, donkeys, trains,
and ships; down China to the sea, over that to San Francisco, thence
across this bewildering stretch of cities and plains called the
United States, always and ever toward New York - and the fool thought
he could escape! Thought he was flying, when in truth he was being
driven toward a wall in which there would be no breach! Behind and
in front the net was closing. Up to this hour he had been extremely
clever in avoiding contact. This was his first stupid act - thought
the fog would serve as an impenetrable cloak.

Meantime, the other man reached into the taxicab and awoke the
sleeping chauffeur.

"A hotel," he said.

"Which one?"

"Any one will do."

"Yes, sir. Two dollars."

"When we arrive. No; I'll take the bag inside with me." Inside
the cab the fare chuckled. For those who fished there would be no
fish in the net. This fog - like a kindly hand reaching down from
heaven!

Five minutes later the taxicab drew up in front of a hotel. The
unknown stepped out, took a leather purse from his pocket and
carefully counted out in silver two dollars and twenty cents, which
he poured into the chauffeur's palm.

"Thank you, sir."

"You are an American?"

"Sure! I was born in this burg."

"Like the idea?"

"Huh?"

"The idea of being an American?"

"I should say yes! This is one grand little gob o' mud, believe me!
It's going to be dry in a little while, and then it will be some
grand little old brick. Say, let me give you a tip! The gas in
this joint is extra if you blow it out!"

Grinning, the chauffeur threw on the power and wheeled away into
the fog.

His late fare followed the vehicle with his gaze until it reached
the vanishing point, then he laughed. An American cockney! He
turned and entered the hotel. He marched resolutely up to the
desk and roused the sleeping clerk, who swung round the register.
The unknown without hesitance inscribed his name, which was John
Hawksley. But he hesitated the fraction of a second before adding
his place of residence - London.

"A room with a bath, if you please; second flight. Have the man
call me at seven."

"Yes, sir. Here, boy!"

Sleepily the bellboy lifted the battered kitbag and led the way to
the elevator.

"Bawth!" said the night clerk, as the elevator door slithered to
the latch. "Bawth! The old dear!"

He returned to his chair, hoping that he would not be disturbed
again until he was relieved.

What do we care, so long as we don't know? What's the stranger to
us but a fleeting shadow? The Odysseys that pass us every day, and
we none the wiser!

The clerk had not properly floated away into dreams when he was
again roused. Resentfully he opened his eyes. A huge fist covered
with a fell of black hair rose and fell. Attached to this fist was
an arm, and joined to that were enormous shoulders. The clerk's
trailing, sleep-befogged glance paused when it reached the newcomer's
face. The jaws and cheeks and upper lip were blue-black with a
beard that required extra-tempered razors once a day. Black eyes
that burned like opals, a bullet-shaped head well cropped, and a
pudgy nose broad in the nostrils. Because this second arrival wore
his hat well forward the clerk was not able to discern the pinched
forehead of the fanatic. Not wholly unpleasant, not particularly
agreeable; the sort of individual one preferred to walk round rather
than bump into. The clerk offered the register, and the squat man
scratched his name impatiently, grabbed the extended key, and trotted
to the elevator.

"Ah," mused the clerk, "we have with us Mr. Poppy - Popo - " He
stared at the signature close up. "Hanged if I can make it out! It
looks like some new brand of soft drink we'll be having after July
first. Greek or Bulgarian. Anyhow, he didn't awsk for a bawth.
Looks as if he needed one, too. Here, boy!"

"Ye-ah!"

"Take a peek at this John Hancock."

"Gee! That must be the guy who makes that drugstore drink - Boolzac."

The clerk swung out, but missed the boy's head by a hair. The boy
stood off, grinning.

"Well, you ast me!"

"All right. If anybody else comes in tell 'em we're full up. I'll
be a wreck to-morrow without my usual beauty sleep." The clerk
dropped into his chair again and elevated his feet to the radiator.

"Want me t' git a pillow for yuh?"

"No back talk!" - drowsily.

"Oh! boy, but I got one on you!"

"What?"

"This Boolzac guy didn't have no baggage, and yuh give 'im the key
without little ol' three-per in advance."

"No grip?"

"Nix. Not a toot'brush in sight."

"Well, the damage is done. I might as well go to sleep."

It was not premeditated on the part of the clerk to give the squat
man the room adjoining that of Hawksley's. The key had been nearest
his hand. But the squat man trembled with excitement when he noted
that it was stamped 214. He had taken particular pains to search
the register for Hawksley's number before rousing the clerk. He
hadn't counted on any such luck as this. His idea had been merely
to watch the door of Room 212.

He had the feline foot, as they say. He moved about lightly and
without sound in the dark. Almost at once he approached one of the
two doors and put his ear to the panel. Running water. The fool
had time to take a bath!

A plan flashed into his head. Why not end the affair here and now,
and reap the glory for himself? What mattered the net if the fish
swam into your hand? Wasn't this particularly his affair? It was
the end, not the means. A close touch in Hong-Kong, but the fool
had slipped away. But there, in the next room, assured that he had
escaped - it would be easy. The squat man tiptoed to the window.
Luck of luck, there was a fire-escape platform! He would let half
an hour pass, then he would act. The ape, with his British
mannerisms! Death to the breed, root and branch! He sat down to
wait.

On the other side of the wall the bather finished his ablutions.
His body was graceful, vigorous, and youthful, tinted a golden
bronze. His nose was hawky; his eyes a Latin brown, alert and
roving, though there was a hint of weariness in them, the pressure
of long, racking hours of ceaseless vigilance. His top hair was
a glossy black inclined to curl; but the four days' growth of
beard was as blond as a ripe chestnut burr. In spite of this mark
of vagabondage there were elements of beauty in the face. The
expanse of the brow and the shape of the head were intellectual.
The mouth was pleasure-loving, but the nose and the jaw neutralized
this.

After he had towelled himself he reached down for a brown leather
pouch which lay on the three-legged bathroom stool. It was patently
a tobacco pouch, but there was evidently something inside more
precious than Saloniki. He held the pouch on his palm and stared at
it as if it contained some jinn clamouring to be let out. Presently
he broke away from this fascination and rocked his body, eyes closed
- like a man suffering unremitting pain.

"God's curse on them!" he whispered, opening his eyes. He raised
the pouch swiftly, as though he intended dashing it to the tiled
floor; but his arm sank gently. After all, he would be a fool to
destroy them. They were future bread and butter.

He would soon have their equivalent in money - money that would bring
back no terrible recollections.

Strange that every so often, despite the horror, he had to take them
out and gaze at them. He sat down upon the stool, spread a towel
across his knees, and opened the pouch. He drew out a roll of cotton
wool, which he unrolled across the towel. Flames! Blue flames, red,
yellow, violet, and green - precious stones, many of them with
histories that reached back into the dim centuries, histories of
murder and loot and envy. The young man had imagination - perhaps
too much of it. He saw the stones palpitating upon lovely white and
brown bosoms; he saw bloody and greedy hands, the red sack of towns;
he heard the screams of women and the raucous laughter of drunken
men. Murder and loot.

At the end of the cotton wool lay two emeralds about the size of
half dollars and half an inch in thickness, polished, and as vividly
green as a dragonfly in the sun, fit for the turban of Schariar,
spouse of Scheherazade.

Rodin would have seized upon the young man's attitude - the limp
body, the haggard face - hewn it out of marble and called it
Conscience. The possessor of the stones held this attitude for
three or four minutes. Then he rolled up the cotton wool, jammed
it into the pouch, which he hung to his neck by a thong, and sprang
to his feet. No more of this brooding; it was sapping his vitality;
and he was not yet at his journey's end.

He proceeded to the bedroom, emptied the battered kitbag, and began
to dress. He put on heavy tan walking shoes, gray woollen stockings,
gray knickerbockers, gray flannel shirt, and a Norfolk jacket minus
the third button.

Ah, that button! He fingered the loose threads which had aforetime
snugged the button to the wool. The carelessness of a tailor had
saved his life. Had that button held, his bones at this moment
would be reposing on the hillside in far-away Hong-Kong. Evidently
Fate had some definite plans regarding his future, else he would not
be in this room, alive. But what plans? Why should Fate bother
about him further? She had strained the orange to the last drop.
Why protect the pulp? Perhaps she was only making sport of him,
lulling him into the belief that eventually he might win through.
One thing, she would never be able to twist his heart again. You
cannot fill a cup with water beyond the brim. And God knew that
his cup had been full and bitter and red.

His hand swept across his eyes as if to brush away the pictures
suddenly conjured up. He must keep his thoughts off those things.
There was a taint of madness in his blood, and several times he
had sensed the brink at his feet. But God had been kind to him
in one respect: The blood of his glorious mother predominated.

How many were after him, and who? He had not been able to recognize
the man that night in Hong-Kong. That was the fate of the pursued:
one never dared pause to look back, while the pursuers had their man
before them always. If only he could have broken through into Greece,
England would have been easy. The only door open had been in the
East. It seemed incredible that he should be standing in this room,
but three hours from his goal.

America! The land of the free and the brave! And the irony of it
was that he must seek in America the only friends he had in the
world. All the Englishmen he had known and loved were dead. He
had never made friends with the French, though he loved France. In
this country alone he might successfully lose himself and begin life
anew. The British were British and the French were French; but in
this magnificent America they possessed the tenacity of the one and
the gayety of the other - these joyous, unconquered, speed-loving
Americans.

He took up the overcoat. Under the light it was no longer black but
a very deep green. On both sleeves there were narrow bands of a
still deeper green, indicating that gold or silver braid had once
befrogged the cuffs. Inside, soft silky Persian lamb; and he ran
his fingers over the fur thoughtfully. The coat was still
impregnated with the strong odour of horse. He cast it aside, never
to touch it again. From the discarded small coat he extracted a
black wallet and opened it. That passport! He wondered if there
existed another more cleverly forged. It would not have served
an hour west of the Hindenburg Line; but in the East and here in
America no one had questioned it. In San Francisco they had
scarcely glanced at it, peace having come. Besides this passport
the wallet contained a will, ten bonds, a custom appraiser's receipt
and a sheaf of gold bills. The will, however, was perhaps one of
the most astonishing documents conceivable. It left unreservedly
to Capt. John Hawksley the contents of the wallet!

Within three hours of his ultimate destination! He knew all about
great cities. An hour after he left the train, if he so willed,
he could lose himself for all time.

>From the bottom of the kitbag he dug up a blue velours case, which
after a moment's hesitation he opened. Medals incrusted with
precious stones; but on the top was the photograph of a charming
girl. blonde as ripe wheat, and arrayed for the tennis court.
It was this photograph he wanted. Indifferently he tossed the case
upon the centre table, and it upset, sending the medals about with
a ring and a tinkle.

The man in the next room heard this sound, and his eye roved
desperately. Some way to peer into yonder room! But there was no
transom, and he would not yet dare risk the fire escape. The young
man raised the photograph to his lips and kissed it passionately.

Then he hid it in the lining of his coat, there being a convenient
rent in the inside pocket.

"I must not think!" he murmured. "I must not!"

He became the hunted man again. He turned a chair upend and placed
it under the window. He tipped another in front of the door. On
the threshold of the bathroom door he deposited the water carafe
and the glasses. His bed was against the connecting door. No man
would be able to enter unannounced. He had no intention of letting
himself fall asleep. He would stretch out and rest. So he lit his
pipe, banked the two pillows, switched out the light, and lay down.
Only the intermittent glow of his pipe coal could be seen. Near
the journey's end; and no more tight-rope walking, with death at
both ends, and death staring up from below. Queer how the human
being clung to life. What had he to live for? Nothing. So far as
he was concerned, the world had come to an end. Sporting instinct;
probably that was it; couldn't make up his mind to shuffle off this
mortal coil until he had beaten his enemies. English university
education had dulled the bite of his natural fatalism. To carry on
for the sport of it; not to accept fate but to fight it.

By chance his hand touched his spiky chin. Nevertheless, he would
have to enter New York just as he was. He had left his razor in a
Pullman washroom hurriedly one morning. He dared not risk a barber's
chair, especially these American chairs, that stretched one out in
a most helpless manner.

Slowly his pipe sank toward his breast. The weary body was
overcoming the will. A sound broke the pleasant spell. He sat up,
tense. Someone had entered through the window and stumbled over the
chair! Hawksley threw on the light.

CHAPTER II

When the day clerk arrived the night clerk sleepily informed him
that the guest in Room 214 was without baggage and had not paid in
advance.

"Lave a call?"

"No. I thought I'd put you wise. I didn't notice that the man had
no grip until he was in the elevator."

"All right. I'll send the bell-hop captain up with a fake call to
see if the man's still there."

When the captain - late of the A.E.F. in France - returned to the
office he was mildly excited.

"Gee, there's been a whale of a scrap in Room 212. The chambermaid
let me in."

"Murder?" whispered the clerks in unison.

"Murder your granny! Naw! Just a fight between 212 and 214,
because both of 'em have flown the roost. But take a peek at what
I found on the table."

It was a case of blue velours. The boy threw back the lid
dramatically.

"War medals?"

"If they are I never piped 'em before. They ain't French or
British." The captain of the bell-boys scratched his head
ruminatively. "Gee, I got it! Orders, that's what they all 'em.
Kings pay 'em out Saturdays when the pay roll is nix. Will you pipe
the diamonds and rubies? There's your room rents, monseer."

The day clerk, who considered himself a judge, was of the opinion
that there were two or three thousand dollars tied up in the
stones. It was a police affair. Some ambassador had been robbed,
and the Britisher and the Greek or Bulgarian were mixed up in it.
Loot.

"I thought the war was over," said the night clerk.

"The shootin' is over, that's all," said the captain of the bellboys,
sagely.

What had happened in Room 212? A duel of wits rather than of
physical contact. Hawksley realized instantly that here was the
crucial moment. Caught and overpowered, he was lost. If he shouted
for help and it came, he was lost. Once the police took a hand in
the affair, the newspaper publicity that would follow would result
in the total ruin of all his hopes. There was only one chance - to
finish this affair outside the hotel, in some fog-dimmed street.
There leaped into his mind, obliquely and queerly, a picture in one
of Victor Hugo's tales - Quasimodo. And there he stood, in every
particular save the crooked back. And on the top of this came the
recollection that he had seen the man before.... The torches! The
red torches and the hobnailed boots!

There began an odd game, a dancing match, which the young man led
adroitly, always with his thought upon the open window. There
would be no shooting; Quasimodo would not want the police either.
Half a dozen times his fingers touched futilely the dancing master's
coat. Bank and forth across the room, over the bed, round the stand
and chairs. Persistently, as if he understood the young man's
manoeuvres, the squat individual kept to the window side of the room.

An inspiration brought the affair to an end. Hawksley snatched up
the bedclothes and threw them as the ancient retiarius threw his net.
He managed to win to the lower platform of the fire escape before
Quasimodo emerged.

There was a fourteen-foot drop to the street, and the man with the
golden stubble on his chin and cheeks swung for a moment to gauge
his landing. Quasimodo came after with the agility of an ape.
The race down the street began with about a hundred yards in between.

Down the hill they went, like phantoms. The distance did not widen.
Bears will run amazingly fast and for a long while. The quarry cut
into Pearl Street for a block, turned a corner, and soon vaguely
espied the Hudson River. He made for this.

To the mind of Quasimodo this flight had but one significance - he
was dealing with an arrant coward; and he based his subsequent acts
upon this premise, forgetting that brave men run when need says must.
It would have surprised him exceedingly to learn that he was not
driving, that he was being led. Hawksley wanted his enemy alone,
where no one would see to interfere. Red torches and hobnailed
boots! For once the two bloods, always more or less at war, merged
in a common purpose - to kill this beast, to grind the face of him
into pulp! Red torches and hobnailed boots!

Presently one of the huge passenger boats, moored for the winter,
loomed up through the fog; and toward this Hawksley directed his
steps. He made a flying leap aboard and vanished round the
deckhouse to the river side.

Quasimodo laughed as he followed. It was as if the tobacco pouch
and the appraiser's receipt were in his own pocket; and broad rivers
made capital graveyards. They two alone in the fog! He whirled
round the deckhouse - and backed on his heels to get his balance.
Directly in front, in a very understandable pose, was the intended
victim, his jaw jutting, his eyelids narrowed.

Quasimodo tried desperately to reach for his pistol; but a bolt of
lightning stopped the action. There is something peculiar about a
blow on the nose, a good blow. The Anglo-Saxon peoples alone
possess the counterattack - a rush. To other peoples concentration
of thought is impossible after the impact. Instinctively Quasimodo's
hands flew to his face. He heard a laugh, mirthless and terrible.
Before he could drop his hands from his face-blows, short and
boring, from this side and from that, over and under. The squat
man was brave enough; simply he did not know how to fight in this
manner. He was accustomed to the use of steel and the hobnails on
his boots. He struck wildly, swinging his arms like a Flemish mill
in a brisk wind.

Some of his blows got home, but these provoked only sardonic laughter.

Wild with rage and pain he bored in. He had but one chance - to get
this shadow in his gorilla-like arms. He lacked mental flexibility.
An idea, getting into his head, stuck; it was not adjustable. Like
an arrow sped from the bowstring, it had to fulfill its destiny.
It never occurred to him to take to his heels, to get space between
himself and this enemy he had so woefully underestimated. Ten feet,
and he might have been able to whirl, draw his pistol, and end the
affair.

The coup de grace came suddenly: a blow that caught Quasimodo full
on the point of the jaw. He sagged and went sprawling upon his
face. The victor turned him over and raised a heel.... No! He
was neither Prussian nor Sudanese black. He was white; and white
men did not stamp in the faces of fallen enemies.

But there was one thing a white man might do in such a case without
disturbing the ethical, and he proceeded about it forthwith: Draw
the devil's fangs; render him impotent for a few hours. He
deliberately knelt on one of the outspread arms and calmly emptied
the insensible man's pockets. He took everything - watch, money,
passport, letters, pistol, keys - rose and dropped them into the
river. He overlooked Quasimodo's belt, however. The Anglo-Saxon
idea was top hole. His fists had saved his life.

CHAPTER m

Hawksley heard the panting of an engine and turned his head. Dimly
he saw a giant bridge and a long drab train moving across it. He
picked up the fallen man's cap and tried it on. Not a particularly
good fit, but it would serve. He then trotted round the deckhouse
to the street side, jumped to the wharf, and sucking the cracked
knuckles of his right hand fell into a steady dogtrot which carried
him to the station he had left so hopefully an hour and a half gone.

An accommodation train eventually deposited him in Poughkeepsie,
where he purchased a cap and a sturdy walking stick. The stubble
on his chin and cheeks began to irritate him intensely, but he could
not rid himself of the idea that a barber's chair would be inviting
danger. He was now tolerably certain that from one end of the
continent to the other his presence was known. His life and his
property, they would be after both. Even now there might be men in
this strange town seeking him. The closer he got to New York, the
more active and wide-awake they would become.

He walked the streets, his glance constantly roving. But apparently
no one paid the least attention to him. Finally he returned to the
railway station; and at six o'clock that evening he left the platform
of the 125th Street Station, and appraised covertly the men who
accompanied him to the street. He felt assured that they were all
Americans. Probably they were; but there are still some stray fools
of American birth who cannot accept the great American doctrine as
the only Ararat visible in this present flood. Perhaps one of these
accompanied Hawksley to the street. Whatever he was, one had upon
order met every south-going train since seven o'clock that morning,
when Quasimodo, paying from the gold hidden in his belt, had sent
forth the telegraphic alarm. The man hurried across the street and
followed Hawksley by matching his steps. His business was merely to
learn the other's destination and then to report.

Across the earth a tempest had been loosed; but Ariel did not ride
it, Caliban did. The scythe of terror was harvesting a type; and
the innocent were bending with the guilty.

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