Sword in Sheath Read online

  “Suppose you tell us first why you are so interested in our affairs.” Sam faced the taller man, his hands resting lightly on his hips, not too far from the weapon he had strapped on that morning as a matter of course.

  “But certainly I will tell you. Because, sirs, I have been following you in the hope that I might be of service. I am Jasper Fortnight from American Samoa.”

  “American Samoa — that's half the ocean away!” broke in Kane.

  “Yes, it is indeed far from here. But in wartime many men travel to far places. I was mate of a trading schooner which was sunk by the Japanese in these waters. Now I wait for a ship to take me away again. I hold a mate's ticket, you understand.

  “Meanwhile, here in Celebes I am clerk to Kasteen Lowe at the hotel. Your ship, the Sumba, is the first to touch this port in weeks. It is my hope to find a berth aboard her. So I followed you. I speak many island dialects, and I hoped that you might recommend me to the Sumba’s captain. You will?”

  “Suppose first you do us this service,” suggested Lorens. “Discover more about the present whereabouts of this Japanese trader.”

  “Let me speak with his neighbors.” Fortnight started briskly toward the nearest occupied hut. “Many eyes mark all happenings in Manado, and all that passes here is known to at least a few.” He called a sentence or two through the hut doorway and after a long moment of silence was answered. But the speaker did not edge out into their sight, and it was plain that the occupants of the hut were none too well pleased to be so singled out.

  Kane nudged Sam. “What dialect is he speaking?”

  “I don't know — probably some local one. Quite helpful, isn't he? Just brimming over with good will and Boy Scoutishness — ”

  Jasper came back in two strides. “Your trader has been here for two days. But no man bought from him or sold to him, and none saw him go — ”

  “Actual or willful blindness?” asked Kane.

  “That I do not know. Perhaps both. If so they will never admit it — ”

  But he was interrupted by a murmur from the hut, and after listening intently, he threw out his hands in a little gesture of defeat.

  “They say that that is all, that they know nothing of this man and to ask more is to arouse the wrath of the demon. They wish us to go away.”

  “Well” — Lorens pushed up his helmet— “that is all. I can vouch for that. Not even torture would gain you more. Shall we go farther afield?”

  “ Sure! He may have vanished in a puff of dust here but I don't believe that he'll head inland — not with the natives against him. The Toradjas were head-hunters once, and some of them may still have a hankering to try that ancestral sport The authorities wouldn't ask too many questions about a missing Jap. But if he went to sea surely someone down at the harbor saw him go.”

  They started on, and Fortnight followed. Apparently he was not going to allow his chance for a berth on the Sumba to escape him. Kane glanced back at him once or twice, measuringly. The Samoan was friendly, and there was something likeable in that easy smile and unruffled poise. Whether he was a resourceful and energetic job hunter or a very smooth and accomplished liar was yet to be proved. Hakroun had this town in his pocket by all accounts, and this man might well be one of the old Moro's smarter operators.

  Faced by the bustling activity of the harbor where the small native vessels were loading and discharging cargo, Sam hesitated, and Kane asked innocently, “Where do we begin now? If the fellow wants to hide — it'd take a regular shore patrol to route him out here. And if everyone clams up about seeing him — where does that leave us?”

  Sam scowled and plowed through the shore refuse toward a group of natives who were holding a conference above tide level. One of them turned to spit out a mouthful of scarlet betel juice and caught sight of the Nisei. He did not even hurry; it was as if he valued Sam too low to pay the American the respect of a hasty retreat. Instead he was almost lazy about rising to his feet and languid in his drift down shore, a drift in which his companions joined.

  “See that?” Marusaki demanded. “This demon trader business must be hot — plenty hot — ”

  “So one would begin to suspect,” Lorens agreed. “Or else it may just be that Hakroun has ceased to smile upon us and said so — publicly. Fortnight, can you ask questions without receiving the response accorded a leper?”

  “I can try, sir, if you wish.”

  Sam pulled at his lower lip and scowled sullenly but Kane nodded. So Fortnight left them and struck back towards the town. As he went his shoulders sagged, and he kept his eyes on the deep dust of the roadway. He was the picture of a man who had been refused a job. Kane watched the Samoan out of sight. Enemy or friend, Fortnight was good — but definitely good! Now he would probably go around telling about how he'd been turned down and tongues might loosen. Yeah, Fortnight knew all the tricks. But who was Fortnight?

  “Good, isn't he?” he asked Sam.

  “Too blamed good! You can't tell me he isn't an old hand at the game — ”

  “To that fact I agree.” Lorens reached out for the cigarette Kane proffered, but his hand was not quite steady. When the Netherlander became aware of that tremor the hollows below his cheek bones flushed, and he gripped the tube so that the tobacco sifted from torn paper.

  “Old terrors die hard,” he commented with a little embarrassed laugh. “After the last few years I find I do not care for events or persons I cannot satisfactorily explain. Even the sound of shoe leather on stone — when he who wears it is a heavy walker — is apt to be upsetting — especially at night. You must excuse such folly — ”

  “We have a few pet memories ourselves,” Kane interrupted. “Now I find sharpened bamboo canes very unattractive, and Sam has no great affection for large mottled branches in jungle trees — they might become live members of the reptile clan. But Fortnight — ”

  “Cigaretten, Tuan?”

  “Hello! You back?” The small beggar was there again, this time both dirty hands outstretched and a confident smile creasing his sticky face.

  “Cigaretten?” He voiced his plea for the second time. And when Kane did not display the open-handedness of their first encounter, he added in a low voice, “Hij is — “ He stopped tantalizingly, watching the cigarettes.

  “He is — Who is?” Kane dropped one cigarette into the dirty hand and drew another from the package.

  “The trader — he is gone — ”

  A second cigarette joined the first.

  “Back to his demon place, Mijnheer Amerikaan. He was from the Forbidden Land — ”

  “The Forbidden Land — but what — ?”

  But the boy was quick. He grabbed the pack of cigarettes from Kane's fingers and was away, dodging with expert ease Sam's grab.

  “The Forbidden Place.” Both Americans turned to Lorens for enlightenment.

  “Might be anything — or nothing. The natives have given this trader a supernatural origin, that may be all. We can ask van Bleeker.”

  “Something accomplished, something done.” Sam flipped the silver dollar. “Can we, I wonder, make that satisfying statement about this day's work?”

  “We can try.” Kane jammed his hands into cigarette-empty pockets.

  7

  “ONE WITH LEMURIA AND ATLANTIS”

  “The Forbidden Place, is it?” Van Bleeker smiled a bit loftily. “Man, that is one of the oldest of island legends. I am surprised that you, van Norreys, were taken in by it — you know something of the Indies.”

  “Does any man know the Indies?” countered Lorens. “As for the Forbidden Place — that story I do not know.”

  “It is one with Lemuria and Atlantis, a fabled island where a sultan or raja ruled in great peace and plenty, his people knowing neither harm nor want. In fact the men of the Forbidden Place were so satisfied with their lot that they were rumored to have the nasty habit of killing all outsiders who dared to invade their territory, since they had no wish for the sins of the world to enter their p
aradise.”

  “Beneath some folk tales there is a core of hard fact,” remarked Sam. “What about the base of this one?”

  “It is true that there were island kingdoms in the Indies before the coming of European explorers — look at the histories of the Princes of Bali and Java. Waves of immigration from India flowed into these seas. And it might well be true that some half-savage northern raja set himself up in a pocket kingdom hereabouts — although we have found no remains of his glory. The jungle is a great swallower of the romantic past. This raja may even have protected his sovereignty for a generation by murder of all travelers. But at the best he must have flourished some five hundred years ago. So I don't believe your trader had dealings with him — ”

  “Then you think that there's nothing in the story?”

  “No,” van Bleeker answered Kane frankly. “But someone may have revived the tale to serve his own ends. I will admit that if Hakroun is busy in this matter there will be trouble.”

  “We could discover nothing except that several praus have put to sea — the trader could have sailed on one of them.”

  “It is my opinion, van Norreys, that your trader has vanished from the sight of men permanently. If, for any reason, he had the ill will of Hakroun, he undoubtedly disappeared. I don't like this affair — not one little bit do I like it!”

  “Hakroun means trouble, eh?” Kane bit at a ragged quicknail on his thumb. Sam lounged at ease, smoothing the jacket he had just discarded. But Lorens hunched forward, turning the silver band around and around on his bony wrist.

  “Hakroun always means trouble!” snapped the captain. “But if he goes against us he will not have a friendless Jap trader to deal with! If Hakroun has reestablished the kingdom of the Forbidden Place for his own use he may have invaders.”

  “What do you suspect he's trying to hide?” Sam wanted to know.

  “Something big, and yet something which can be handled quickly, because he knows that now the war is over the trading companies and government control will be back. He can only play this game for a limited time — therefore his find is something from which he can skim the cream in a hurry. It is not a mine or oil — ”

  “Which leaves what — ”

  “Pearls.” Lorens dropped the single word into the discussion.

  Van Bleeker's breath made a hissing sound through his half-bared teeth. There was a visible hunger in his weathered face. “Pearls!” he repeated, and his fingers crooked upon the table top as if reaching for the gleaming globes of frozen sea light. “Yes, that would certainly be it — pearls! A new fishery — untouched before maybe!”

  “But could he work it secretly?” protested Kane. “He'd have to have divers and equipment and — ”

  “He has the divers. Before the war he had shares in several pearling ships on the Australian Banks. And native divers need no more equipment than goggles, a good knife and a stone for weight. Yes, he could work it easily for a while. Of course, once the government patrol boats begin making their rounds again, his monopoly would be gone. But before that he could take out enough to make a fortune — another one — to hide away in his treasure chests. If the bed has never been fished before and is especially rich, he may make ten fortunes. Pearls are high now — the market has been starved through the war.”

  “Yes, what is it?” the captain added impatiently a moment later as the steward looked in upon them.

  “There is one who comes from the shore. He says that he has a message for the young American lords and that it is an important one.”

  “Fortnight, I’ll bet! He's the Samoan we told you of, sir,” Kane explained. “All right to have him in here?”

  “Certainly. Bring him here.”

  It was Fortnight who came in. He now wore a shirt and carried a coat over his arm. In his hand was the peaked cap of a ship's officer, although it was marked with no insignia or braid. He greeted van Bleeker with a gesture which was close to a salute before he turned to the Americans.

  “Well, what were you able to find out?”

  “Much, sir,” he answered Kane. “This trader you seek was in Manado several days, but no man knows from whence he came — save that a ship of the Orang-laut, the sea gypsies, put in just at nightfall one day and sailed with the dawn on the next. While he was here no one traded with him, but he had one visitor who came late at night to his hut. There was a quarrel between the two. And after the visitor departed the trader was seen to crawl from his hut and bathe his face in water from the storage place of his neighbor.”

  “And this visitor?”

  “Was undoubtedly identified by the witness who told me this, sir. But his fear was greater than his greed — no offer of mine would bring the truth out of him. However in his struggle not to speak, he forgot to guard against telling other matters. He believed that something was taken from the trader by force, and that the man lingered on here after that in hopes of recovering it”

  “The Nararatna!”

  “You mean that necklace Hakroun showed you?” Kane asked Lorens.

  The Netherlander nodded vigorously. “And I refused to buy,” he returned with a glance at the listening Samoan. “It might well be that. In certain quarters it would be worth thousands. It might also be used in blackmail. But if it was the Nararatna which was taken from him — where did he get it in the first place?”

  “Let us not stray from the main course now,” van Bleeker cut in. “So this trader lingered on, hoping to regain his property?”

  “That is what the witness believed, sir. But after the Americans visited him this afternoon he disappeared. And of that disappearance I could learn nothing at all. It was as if all mention of his going was forbidden.”

  “Could be at that,” Sam observed. “They have a way of clamming up on occasion over things which they believe are none of an outsider's affair. Any other bits of news?”

  “ Only that in the past hour three men have been summoned to the house of Abdul Hakroun, and one of the three was the captain of the Drinker of the Wind.”

  “Looks as if we've stirred up the anthill. We talk to a trader, and he promptly disappears. We go to visit an old gentleman, and as soon as we leave he sends for his ship's captain. If I were a suspicious man now — “ Kane laughed.

  But van Bleeker's attention was all for Fortnight. “They tell me that you have a mate's papers — ”

  From the breast pocket of the coat he was carrying the Samoan pulled a stout envelope from which he shook several folded papers. At the reading of the third one van Bleeker's eyebrows arose, and he laid it down, to study the tall man carefully.

  “So you were one of Redfern's men?”

  “I was, sir. He taught me all I know.”

  “What became of Capt. Redfern?”

  The Samoan's face did not change expression, but Kane saw his hands twist the edge of his coat.

  “We were cruising north in the Leopard. Capt. Redfern had not used the radio for several days — he had had a touch of fever. There was a Japanese submarine in those waters, and she blew the bottom out of us before we even knew that war had been declared. That was on December 10,1941. We took to the boats — or rather to the boat — there was only time to launch one before the Leopard went under. The Japanese machine-gunned us, and the captain — the captain was killed, sir. It was two weeks before we survivors were picked up by an American destroyer.

  “Since then I have been on cargo ships wherever I could find a berth. Only I am a Samoan, and not all captains were like Michael Redfern — they do not trust a native as an officer — ”

  “I have my full complement of officers,” van Bleeker pointed out.

  “I know that, sir. Only I have been here in Manado for some time, and I want to ship out. I was an able seaman before I was Capt. Redfern's mate.”

  “Very well. Tell Felder to sign you on. I can use a man with your knowledge of the islands.”

  “Thank you, sir.” There was gratitude coloring his voice, but he lost none of his dig
nity. And he gave van Bleeker an officer's salute as he left the cabin.

  “That may be one good thing we found in this port,” observed the captain of the Sumba.

  “How — ?” asked Kane.

  “I have heard of Redfern and his methods. If this man is one of Redfern's boys — and his papers state that he is — he is worth two of most modern crews. Michael Redfern was one of the old hands in the island trade. They say that his father sailed out here in the days of the tea trade and never went home again. All the Redferns had the Indies in their blood; they weren't happy away from the coral seas. And Michael Redfern had a strong belief in the natives. In the days when most of the white men treated them like animals, and none too intelligent animals at that, Redfern had the habit of picking up island boys he liked the looks of and giving them educations — training them usually as seamen. He had very few failures, and some of the graduates of his school went on to conquer new worlds. I know of at least two who did very well for themselves. One was in Hawaii before the war, running a sort of tourist bureau, booking cruises through islands off the main line of steamship travel. The other captained his own ship and owned two others in the copra trade. So the Japs got Redfern, did they? Well, there's always a berth on the Sumba for one of his boys.”

  Overhead an orange-lemon moon held steady, and below streaks of cold fire stripped back from the Sumba’s bow where the phosphorescence made fantastic patterns on the waves. Kane leaned both elbows on the rail and watched the curl of light lace out. All this talk of Hakroun — Granted that the man was a menace and a tricky one. But there was no doubt that van Bleeker had a few tricks up his jacket sleeve also. Then there was that dollar — R.S., 1944. And in 1944 Rodney Safield had disappeared over this same sea through which they were now cutting their way south.

  Van Bleeker's Dutch temper had flared. There had been no trade in Manado — at least none for the master of the Sumba. So now they sailed for Besi in the Soelas to try their luck again. And from Besi only a prophet coud foresee where van Bleeker's stubbornness might take them.