Sword in Sheath Read online

  “Mr. Kane!” Fortnight was there, rising up like a jack-in-the-box from behind some packing cases. “Were you looking for the captain, sir?”

  “No!” All the exasperation of the morning was in his outburst “I’m looking for you! What in blazes do you mean by bringing that turtle hunter aboard this ship? Have you gone completely crazy?”

  Fortnight swung around the boxes. “Please, sir, do not speak so loudly. How did you learn that I — ”

  “How did I learn it? How did I learn it — Why, van Norreys witnessed your whole performance!”

  “But — he said nothing — ”

  “No. He thought you were acting under my orders. And I haven't spilled anything to him — either. He just used his brains, they're good ones. He wasn't an underground leader for nothing, you know. But van Norreys is asking questions now, and he isn't the only one. Chief Bridger seems to have a few suspicions too. And only the Good Lord knows what van Bleeker is going to surprise me with — ”

  “Well” — Fortnight leaned back against the crates — “we couldn't have hoped for a much longer run. The crew of the Sumba think for themselves and — ”

  “I don't care about the crew of the Sumbal” flashed Kane. “But where is this turtle hunter and why did you drag him here? You'll get us into a mess with van Bleeker, and he'll dump us on the next island. We won't be able to protest either!”

  “I hardly think that the captain will do that,” the Samoan was actually grinning. “Not while I have this cabin mate — “ He jerked his thumb behind him and Kane crowded up to the wall of boxes.

  Squatting behind them was a thin brown man whose clothes were certainly the worse for long hard wearing and who scowled most energetically back at the tall American.

  “You see, the turtle hunter is not here on my invitation at all” Fortnight pulled a cigarette from behind one ear. “He made a bargain with Capt van Bleeker to pilot this ship to a new island in the south. At the last minute, after having already received part of his pay, he decided that he did not care to sail on the Sumba. So I was sent ashore to — ah — persuade him. Capt van Bleeker is losing his patience; his trading failures have worn the first skin from his temper. Unfortunately our pilot now refuses to do his duty. So I wouldn't mention him to the captain, if I were you, sir. He is most touchy on that subject.”

  Kane rubbed his damp face with his handkerchief. “I should think he would be — even down here they must have laws against kidnapping. Van Bleeker must have lost his mind to try a trick like this. What are you going to do with him now?” He eyed the reluctant pilot with extreme disfavor.

  “Persuade him to do his duty, sir. Some further argument will doubtless lead him to reconsider his decision — ”

  “Argument?” Kane glanced with suspicion at the Samoan's fists.

  “Argument,” repeated the other smoothly. “This talks — loudly.” He replaced the cigarette and pulled a coin from his pocket Even in the gloom of the closed cabin the shine of gold was easy to identify. The turtle hunter saw it too, in fact his eyes never left that metal disc which Fortnight flipped from hand to hand. “The captain can pay well for what he wants — and in hard money.”

  Kane was forced to laugh. “Then I’ll leave you to your persuasion. And may the best man win!”

  Fortnight permitted himself a small smile of triumph. “You may congratulate me, I think, sir, in advance — ”

  No. I’ll await results. Now I had better head off Sam. He's hunting you down also. If you can't be good — be careful!”

  Fortnight digested the remark. “The very best advice, sir.”

  Kane closed the cabin door behind him. That was one mystery solved anyway. And if van Bleeker trusted Fortnight to the extent of setting him his present duties, they should have nothing to fear from the captain in the future. But was the master of the Sumba after trade, or had he heard of the pearl Hornhoven had bought from this same hunter? A new pearl fishery would probably be worth a lot more than a trading voyage — especially with an expert, such as Lorens, on board to value the stuff.

  It suddenly occurred to Kane that he knew little about the mechanics of pearl fishing aside from the simple fact that one dives for oysters, then takes the pearls out of their interiors. Perhaps a little study on the subject would be fruitful and rewarding. Should he pick Lorens’ brains for his store of knowledge — or see what sort of reading matter van Bleeker's quite extensive library might supply? But first there was Sam to be headed off.

  That was easy enough. The Nisei was crossing the companionway, his sandaled feet making little or no sound on the well-scrubbed decking. At Kane's “p-s-st” he came up.

  “It's all right. Fortnight brought the guy on board by order— from van Bleeker. He had signed up as pilot and then decided to forget all about it. So now he's cooling off in Fortnight's quarters. It's okay.”

  “Funny how things happen around here.” Sam leaned back against the wall of the deckhouse. “I am visited by an odd feeling, at times, that we're missing something — not being included in the inner circle, as it were.”

  “Yes? The answer to that is to do a little circling on our own. What do you know about pearls?”

  “Pearls? They grow in oysters. And some people are able to grow them on command. Then they're ‘cultured’ and not worth as much — ”

  ‘I’ve heard of them. Sort of a monopoly among the Japanese. Say — “ He was struck by a thought which might explain so much. “D'you suppose that what Hakroun has hold of is one of these home-grown beds of trained oysters? Could that racket have been started down here during the war?”

  “I hardly think so. A project such as that can't be kept secret. An expert can tell a cultured pearl from the natural one. There's no reason to be hush-hush. And the process is a lengthy one, requires a lot of equipment and a big staff to keep it going. I'd stake a good bet that the one Hornhoven showed us was the real thing. But that pink shade in the color— that's new. Before this most of the pink pearls came from the Arabian Gulf.”

  “If van Bleeker locates a new bed, can he cash in on it?”

  “Search me. I don't know the laws they have down here. There must be some sort of regulations — such as there are in mining — staking claims or something of the sort. But an untouched bed — wheel”

  “Like that, eh? No wonder they have that turtle hunter locked up. How are you at diving, Sam? We ought to get in on the ground floor — or the bottom of the lagoon — too. I could do very nicely with several hundred thousand or so to play around with.”

  “If s not as simple as that. And you don't find a pearl in every oyster, you know — ”

  “Oh, I'm not that greedy. I'll settle for one in twenty. Hello — What's that racket forward?”

  There was racket forward — both shouts and orders. Seamen leaned over the rail while a smaller group busied themselves with the launching of one of the shallow draught scows which were the usual ship's boats of an island trader. Kane seized on Bridger.

  “What's the matter?”

  “Driftin’ outrigger. See — over there! Someone in her too, only he's down — !”

  In spite of the glare of the sun on water Kane was able to make out a narrow black shadow which rose and fell without direction on the thick green-blue waves.

  “Lookout sighted her — said th’ fellow was up then. He sort o’ waved an’ then jus’ keeled over.”

  “Survivor from a wreck?”

  “Not in an outrigger. But this is far from land for one o’ those. ’Less it was blown out in a storm. An’ we ain't had any storms — ”

  The Sumba's boat had reached the outrigger now and the single occupant of the native canoe was pulled limply into the larger craft which then bore back for the side of the freighter at a rate of speed which suggested that help was needed. Van Bleeker was on the bridge, his glasses trained on the boat, but waiting to receive the party below was Felder with the first-aid kit.

  As the scow came alongside someone shouted for a sling
. Kane and Sam crowded forward as a makeshift stretcher came up and over the rail.

  The former passenger of the outrigger was a native with a shock of bushy black hair. A strip of dirty cloth was twisted tight, not about his loins, but around his chest, and it was as stiff as a coat of mail with a great blackish stain over which a fresh wave of red was slowly seeping. Save for this bandage his dark body was bare.

  Felder squatted down beside the stretcher and tried to loosen the hands which clawed into the folds of the bandage. He managed to free one, then cut away the cloth. Kane blinked. He had seen wounds like those before — too many times.

  “Submachine gun,” half whispered Sam.

  Felder dropped the end of cloth, his hand moved to the neck pulse, then he got to his feet.

  “He's dead,” the second mate reported to van Bleeker as the captain approached the group. “He was good as dead hours ago — even before he put that on” Felder pointed to the bandage. “There's no hope of surviving that sort of wound — ”

  Kane fought down past memories and an odd feeling in his own middle. He knelt down in Felder's place. Sam was right about what had caused that appalling tear across flesh and bone, there was no need of verifying that. But there was a glint of light from that other fist, the one still gripping the cloth. The American set his teeth and began working at the stiff fingers. One by one he forced them free, first from the edge of the bandage, then open so he could take what had been held fast against death itself.

  It was a small glass phial, perhaps once fashioned to hold medicine. But it now contained a bit of some grimy fiber rather like cotton and was firmly stoppered with a dull gray knobby thing which was certainly not a cork.

  Van Bleeker's hand was on his arm. “Come, and bring that with you!” the captain snapped.

  When, trailed by Lorens and Sam, they reached the bridge and some measure of privacy van Bleeker spoke again, “Open it!”

  It took hard tugging to bring the gray stopper out. But with that done Kane was able to twitch loose the fibrous stuff — and from the heart of the roll dropped three spheres of glowing light.

  “Good Lord,” breathed Lorens in a tone which approached reverent awe. “That I have lived to see those!”

  Kane was cupping in his palm three perfect pearls.

  10

  NOT ON THE MAP

  “Three times nine is twenty-seven,” van Bleeker muttered “Twenty-seven like those — !”

  “Twenty-seven!” Kane goggled down at what he held. “There're only three.”

  “You don't understand,” Lorens cut in. “That diver was from Borneo, and there they believe in the old superstitions. Every ninth pearl they find is put into a bottle with two grains of rice, the stopper being made from a human finger bone. After certain incatations the pearls are supposed to change the rice grains into gems of equal value. So, if this man was true to the old customs, three pearls in the bottle mean that he had found twenty- seven to begin with. He was diving in a rich and practically untouched bed if he was able to find twenty-seven like those.”

  “The question being,” pointed out Sam, “where did he come from? Are there any islands near here?”

  “Not marked on the chart, no. How long, Felder, could he have lived with that wound?”

  The slim, dark-faced young officer raised his shoulders in an exaggerated shrug. “How can any man tell, Captain? Those natives have great powers of endurance. The first blood on the bandage was dried, and he must have died just as our men reached him. Three hours, four, maybe more since he was shot. And who knows whether he was just now coming from the pearling bed? He might have brought those up months ago in a very distant place.”

  “I think not,” Kane interrupted. “Suppose he was trying to escape from somewhere — maybe last night. He was shot at, made it to the outrigger, and pushed off — Couldn't a current have pulled him out here?”

  Van Bleeker hunched over the chart table thumbing a hastily unrolled map. Felder had caught some of the captain's fever and was working out his own calculations.

  “There is a drift, sir — “ the Eurasian ventured. “Southeast—”

  Van Bleeker stabbed the points of the dividers into the map.

  “Southeast shall we try then. But with caution, you understand. And, Felder, take the keys to the gun locker and break out the arms. We have no wish to share the fate of this poor devil.”

  The Sumba changed course and sailed on. Upon her deck men worked to enfold in canvas the body of the diver, sewing the stuff smoothly about the pitiful form. And van Bleeker came forward when they had finished to read over that narrow bundle the words of the burial service. When it slid overside into the green depths Kane knew a queer feeling of loneliness. They would probably never know the name or history of the dead man; he would become just an entry in the ship's log, to be reported to the proper authorities when the Sumba made port again — if she ever did.

  Now why should that thought cross his mind at this time? There was no reason for the Sumba to run into trouble. Well armed and manned, the freighter could stand up against anything now cruising these waters since there were certainly no enemy subs or destroyers out — the war was over. Only those wounds — submachine guns were not the usual weapons of peaceful men.

  “Land ho!”

  The lookout's cry rang down to deck, bringing out passengers and crew alike. Kane hurried to the bridge to find as many of the watch as possible lining the starboard rail, glasses to the eyes of those lucky enough to grab them first.

  “I don't see anything!” The American was openly disappointed. Lorens held out his binoculars.

  “Over there. It's just a line across the water now.”

  But the line across the water grew taller until it became a hump of rough mountain climbing out of the sea The Sumba proceeded cautiously forward at a reduced speed. Van Bleeker had no mind to pile her up on some uncharted reef. Because this sea-borne mountain was not on any of the maps he had routed out from their cases in the chartroom.

  Below the crew was busy about one of the landing scows, and Kane saw three men come along the deck, submachine guns balanced across their arms. Felder stood by the linesman in the forepart of the ship, and his clear reports of the bottom came up easily to the little group on the bridge.

  Van Bleeker put down his glasses at last with an air of decision

  “Part coral, part volcanic, I should say. Which may mean a lagoon. We'll cruise off here and send the boat in to leeward where there might be an entrance. Order it away now, Mister,” he said over his shoulder to the ever-silent first mate, a Malay-Chinese. “Tell them to keep clear of land, just take soundings and find us an anchorage.”

  The mate touched his cap and was gone. Then the boat was swung over and men slid down into her. Kane padded away to his own cabin, only to discover that Sam had beaten him to it and had already taken out the Reisings.

  “Expecting resistance in force?”

  Sam shook his head. “Only being prepared. You saw what that diver got. I’m not asking for a sample of the same — if that is what the inhabitants of this beauty spot are handing out to one and all Jungle up and down that mountain — we could use some barrage to soften it up before we hit the beach — ”

  Kane grinned. “And where are you going to get the big guns for that? No, we ‘does’ this strictly small style, we ‘does’ — ”

  “And I never did like tramping through jungles. I suppose we're to go in on the first wave?”

  “Yeah, regular shock troops. Only no fruit salad on the chest afterwards for this little job.”

  “Who wants a battle star when he can get one of those pearls?” countered Sam. “All set? Then let's go.”

  They tramped back to the bridge. But Lorens was there before them. He wore the lizard-skin belt Hornhoven had given him, but now it supported the holster of a Luger. And, as he turned, the shirt flattened across his shoulders so that an outline stood out clearly beneath the thin cotton stuff. Kane glanced for the seco
nd time at that tell-tale bulge. A knife in a collar sheath — he'd bet even money that that handsome pig-ticker Hornhoven had parted with was now riding comfortably between its new owner's shoulder blades. A collar sheath! Which told a lot about a man who chose to wear it. Lorens hadn't been kidding when he said that this sort of work was old stuff to him.

  All they could do now was await the return of the boat and speculate as to why that green-clothed hump was not charted.

  “Maybe it just bobbed up a short time ago,” was Kane's suggestion. “Don't volcanic islands have a habit of doing that?”

  “Overgrown with vegetation like that?” scoffed Lorens. “It is manifestly a volcano cone, yes. But there are no signs of recent eruption and with these coral reefs around it — no, this has been here a long, long time. It is well off the regular trade routes, and if it lacks fresh water and good anchorage it might well be unknown. You can see no trace of man along the shore.”

  “From here it all looks straight up and down — no room to perch a village,” was Sam's comment. “At last, here comes that boat! Now we'll know when we can put in — ”

  Yes, Felder reported, there was anchorage on the leeward of the island, deep enough within the encircling arms of the reef. They had made soundings and were ready to guide the Sumba in.

  So for the next hour the engine room telephone heated up with a barrage of orders, as the freighter edged through the break in the reef into a lagoon where a tiny strip of beach backed up against an upsweep of dense greenery.

  The two Americans eyed that shore line dubiously.

  “For mountain goats only — that must be close to a forty-five degree rise.” Sam tried to measure with his eye the precipitous slope where bald rock showed now and again through the mass of vine, bush and tree.

  “I don't know. If we come in from the corner of the beach— it doesn't seem to shoot right up there, more of a slope. And if we could get to the top we'd have a good chance to see the whole place. Sort of a bird's-eye view—

  “Only we aren't attached to wings — even tin ones. This begins to remind me strongly of the good old days in the Owen-Stanleys.”