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!”