The Mammoth Book of Short Spy Novels (Mammoth Books) Read online

  “No, there’s nothing, madam.”

  She gave a hoarse cry of despair and her face was distorted with anguish.

  “Oh, God, oh, God,” she moaned.

  She turned away, the tears streaming from her weary eyes, and for a moment she stood there like a blind man groping and not knowing which way to go. Then a fearful thing happened. Fritzi, the bull terrier, sat down on his haunches and threw back his head and gave a long melancholy howl. Mrs. Caypor looked at him with terror; her eyes seemed really to start from her head. The doubt, the gnawing doubt that had tortured her during those dreadful days of suspense, was a doubt no longer. She knew. She staggered blindly into the street.

  CORNELL WOOLRICH

  Tokyo, 1941

  The telephone rang in the Hong Kong hotel room. Lyons had been expecting it to for the better part of an hour, and the delay had started to get on his nerves. He stopped pacing nervously back and forth and went over to it. He was in a man’s black silk Japanese kimono, with a single white idiograph embroidered on the back of it. It was too short for him, and his muscular bare legs, quite un-Japanese in their hairiness, stuck out ludicrously from it.

  The desk clerk said, “There’s a gentleman down here to see you, sir.”

  Lyons didn’t ask the name. He just said, “Send him up,” and put the phone back.

  He went over to his valise, which was standing unlocked at the foot of the bed, and upended the lid. He took out a revolver, checked it for load and thrust it into the elastic waistband of his undershorts. Then he closed the kimono over it, but kept his hand near it on the outside.

  Someone knocked.

  “Come in,” he said.

  The door opened, and a man holding a briefcase came in. He closed it after him, and then stood there without coming any nearer. He was a Caucasian with tawny-colored hair and hazel eyes.

  All Lyons knew was that he had never seen him before. By the same token, neither had the man ever seen Lyons before.

  “Good evening,” the man said in slightly accented English. “I’m selling cameras and photographic equipment. Could I interest you?”

  “I already have a camera, thank you. It’s a Nikko, a Japanese make.”

  Both of them spoke in a rather stilted, unlifelike way, as though they were repeating a lesson they had memorized. Or like actors running through their lines at a first reading of a play.

  “Are you satisfied with it?” the man asked.

  “I get very good results,” said Lyons. “Would you like me to show you some of them?”

  He went to the valise again and took out a pair of socks. They had been rolled into a ball, toe-to-heel, and the tops turned back over them. From within them he took out a small plastic vial, of the sort that usually contains pills or tablets.

  The man was opening his briefcase. He took out a long Manila envelope, sealed but unaddressed, and put it on the table near him.

  He took the vial and uncapped it. Lyons took the envelope and opened that.

  The man unwound the first few frames of a tightly rolled strip of microfilm, held them against the light and scanned them. Lyons counted over American currency, in denominations of fifty and a hundred.

  “You do get very good results with it,” the man agreed.

  As though this were some sort of mutually understood signal, the man put the vial away in his briefcase and Lyons put the Manila envelope away in his valise.

  The man went to the door, opened it and looked out into the hall to see if anyone was in sight.

  Then he said, “Good evening,” once more with a foreigner’s typical unfamiliarity with English usage, evidently meaning it for good night.

  “So long,” Lyons answered.

  The door closed, and the man was gone.

  Lyons picked up the phone and asked the clerk: “What time does the ship for Nagasaki sail, did you say?”

  “Not until nine in the morning, sir.”

  Lyons hung up. He had to kill the night here.

  He put the gun back in the valise first of all. Then he counted several hundred dollars out of the Manila envelope and stacked the bills into his wallet. He started to get dressed, to go out and have a night on the town.

  The Chinese girl in the ricksha said, in an astonishingly genuine Cockney accent that must have rubbed off on her from long association with merchant-mariners and limey tars, “Don’t tyke too long, byeby. We imes to get there before the plyce closes down, doncher knaow.”

  “I’ll be right with you, China-doll,” Lyons tossed at her, hopping out and following the elderly Chinese gentleman into an unlighted shop entrance. “Wait outside here for me, till I see what this old gazabo has up his sleeve.”

  The old man was unlocking a padlock that secured the door. Then he went inside a short distance, lighted up a pumpkin-shaped, pumpkin colored paper lantern and let it ride up toward the ceiling again. Then he went a little deeper in, repeating the process with a yellow-green one. He let down a bamboo roller shade that blanked out the shop window from the street outside.

  “So what is this big deal?” Lyons asked him impatiently. “You’ve been pestering me for the past hour in the last bar we were in, until you got my sales resistance worn down to nothing. And my curiosity up to boiling point.”

  The old merchant giggled. “I show. I show.” But first he transferred the padlock around to the inside of the door and refastened it.

  “What’s the idea of that?” Lyons asked, lidding his eyes at him with sleepy wariness but without showing any actual alarm. “Don’t try to get funny with me, because I can handle myself, and the girl’s right outside there, anyway.”

  “No, no, I am gentleman, not holdup bandit,” protested the Chinese gravely. “Is just so no one can disturb while I am showing you this.”

  “That valuable, huh?” said Lyons ironically.

  “Oh, very. Very.” He went into the back and was gone a long time Finally Lyons began to fidget. He called out, “Hey! you in there, how about it? Wha’d you do, go to sleep on me?”

  The Chinese reappeared, holding something in his hand.

  “I have to keep it in very exclusive safe place, you know.”

  It was a very small lacquered box. He opened it first, then removed a false bottom from it.

  Lyons’ face dropped for a minute. He thought it was just some sort of knickknack or curio.

  “Come over here, by light.” He placed a little mat of cotton batting on the counter. And on it throbbed a diamond, the biggest one that Lyons had ever seen.

  Lyons’ face was a study in impassivity. “Haven’t you got any electricity in this place?” he grumbled. “I can’t see a damn thing.”

  “No ’lectric.” But he brought out a coal miner’s lamp with a bright tin reflector. It cast a pool of bleach on the counter, as white as spilled borax. In it the diamond seemed to turn blue. Rays came from it like silver quills shooting from a porcupine.

  Lyons took a long time before saying anything.

  “What am I supposed to do, buy it?”

  The Chinese merely dropped his eyes in complacent assent.

  Lyons waited another long time. “Why me?”

  “You have plenty money; I see you in bar. You American, you pay good. Also, you pay in American money, best money there is in world.”

  “How do I even know it’s real?” parried Lyons.

  “It has to be. Is too big not to be. If was going to be imitation, false, would be smaller, maybe only medium-size, to fool somebody easier, sell easier. Is so big, nobody want to believe it real. So what good is it? That show it must be real.”

  He had a point there, in a roundabout way.

  Lyons had another question. “Suppose it is real. Still and all, what makes you think I want it?”

  “I study you good, in bar. You the kind of man buy this, no other kind but you. It go with your character, your personality. You reckless, you take chance, you live dangerous. You not think you going live too long, and you not care. You live wild
and fast while you can. I see how you act with money, with drink, with girl, even when music play for dancing. You the kind of a man to buy a diamond, sudden, from a stranger, in the middle of the night, even when you don’t need. Live for the moment – because tomorrow maybe never come.”

  Lyons didn’t answer, but his slow smile did. “How’d you happen to come across it?” he asked curiously.

  The Chinese sighed. He sat down alongside of him and lit a cigarette reflectively. He left the cotton-bedded jewel exposed there on the counter, but took the precaution of moving it a good deal nearer to himself, and out of easy reach of Lyons. The Strand-accented night-flower outside was allowed to cool her heels and wait.

  “Is a long chain of circonstances. Was in our own country for a while. They say two men fight a duel, and one kill the other with it. Maybe not so, maybe only story, I don’t know. Then, they say, partner of man killed steal it from coffin his friend body lie in, run away, take it with him to where he go, big city, New York. Big high-up man there, boss whole city, buy it from him. How you say – like mandarin?”

  “Boss?” repeated Lyons, trying to help him out. “Political boss, you mean?” Association of words brought back the only name he could readily recall in that bracket. “Someone like Boss Tweed?”

  “Him,” said the Chinese with instant certainty. “Same name.”

  “Quite a history,” admitted Lyons, absorbed in spite of himself. “So then?”

  “He gave it to actress, him sweetheart. He thrown out, lose job, because he too crooked.”

  “I’ve heard,” said Lyons drily.

  “She not have good luck anymore, either. All plays bad; one time police close for indecent, one time fire in theater, many people die. One night in play she fall downstairs on stage, break leg, have to wear thing like stone – ”

  “Cast.”

  “ – for six month. When she walk, never can walk again without cane. No more good for acting. She retire, go to Europe, every night play gambling table at Monte Carlo – ” He made a circle with his hand.

  “Roulette?” suggested Lyons.

  He nodded. “Wheel spin. Ball fall in hole. Every night she lose, every night more and more. Never win. Until everything gone. Everything she have from that man you say name of. She come out with diamond one night, only thing she got left. Casino won’t accept, only can play with money. But Russian grand duke standing next to her at same table, he see it. He buy it from her.”

  “So after that she won, I suppose.”

  “She lose even what he give her. She go outside casino, take little lady gun – you know, pearl handle, only so big – ”

  “Killed herself.”

  “No. Only make herself blind in both eyes, from way bullet push in brain. She live very old, never see again.”

  “Very spooky,” grimaced Lyons. “Only I don’t believe a word of it.’’

  “I only know what I hear from last man had it. He say all this. I no can tell is true or isn’t.”

  “Go on,” Lyons said. “How’d it get to you?”

  “Grand Duke go back to Russia with it. This before revolution. People not like Czar or czar-government or czar official. Somebody put bomb underneath seat of his carriage. When he get in with family to go to church Sunday, all blown up. Him, wife, son and daughter. Even little pet dog on lap. Only one son escaped because sick in bed with mump, can’t go to church.”

  “And what happened to him?”

  “Came bad things afterward. He marry Russian princess, they have son. Little boy fall down, scratch knee, one day. All little boy do is fall down, scratch knee. But they find out he have sickness where once blood start, never can stop again.”

  “I’ve heard of that.”

  “Twenty-four hour after, he dead. From little bit of scratch on knee. When revolution come, revolution army burn down house while he not home. They take his wife, put her in a little room in military headquarter. All night long soldiers wait in line, go in there. Next morning they forget to watch her little bit. She take two silk stocking, hang herself from window bar.”

  “And him?”

  “He hide in freight car, go across Siberia, many many days, finally get out of country. So cold he have to cut off own hand with hatchet.”

  “Frostbite?”

  “I see it, my own eyes. Arm end at wrist. I meet him in Harbin, up north, Manchuria. He have nothing left, only the diamond. He eat from garbage cans, sleep under newspapers on doorsteps of houses. He stop me and beg one day. I take him to restaurant, buy him meal. Then he take it out from between toes and show it to me. He have only rags on feet, no shoes. I give him money, buy it. He kneel down, kiss my feet, cry.”

  “A grand duke’s son,” mused Lyons.

  “I have to run away myself pretty soon after,” the Chinese went on. “I make enemy of warlords in Manchuria, they take my business, all my property. Send soldiers after me. If I stay, they shoot me. I come down here to Hong Kong, where man I used to know up there have this little store. He let me sleep in back, give me rice and tea.

  “Once I rich businessman myself. Now – ” He looked at the diamond sadly.

  Lyons looked at it, too.

  He reached over, picked it up and held it in his open hand. It was like holding a ball of white fire, only without burning yourself.

  The Chinese kept watching his expression closely, but Lyons wouldn’t say the first word. He knew good psychology from bad.

  His silence broke the Chinese down finally.

  “You can have for five thousand American dollar.”

  “You’ve been smoking opium,” Lyons told him tersely.

  “Two thousand.”

  “You’re not in a position to bargain. You’re strapped. You talked so much you’ve boxed yourself in.”

  “One.”

  “Never mind the count-down. I’ll name it, not you. Now look, I’ve had a lot to drink so I’m an easy mark, a pushover, a sucker. Give you five hundred for it, and I’ll hate myself in the morning.”

  “Oh, no can do, no can do!” cried the Chinese, agonized, pounding a fist against each side of his head.

  “Sure can do,” Lyons said, mimicking his way of speech. “In fact, better can-do while the can-doing’s good or can-do the hell without anything at all.”

  The Chinese clasped his hands prayerfully before his face and rolled his eyes up to the ceiling.

  “Make up your mind,” Lyons said remorselessly. “I’ve got to get back to my pussy cat outside.”

  The Chinese submitted, spreading his hands out in mute helplessness and letting his head droop forward forlornly.

  But, as though the transaction weren’t already one-sided enough, a tricky afterthought had occurred to Lyons by this time. “I only have two-fifty on me,” he said glibly. “The rest is in my room in the hotel.”

  “All right, I hold for you, you come back with rest tomorrow,” suggested the Chinese, but only halfheartedly.

  “Hold, nothing!” flared Lyons, raising his voice in pretended anger at the reflection on his integrity. “I either take it with me now or not at all. Don’t crowd your luck. I change very quickly. I may not be in the mood to buy it anymore by tomorrow. I’m at the Victoria, the best hotel in town.” He took out his room key and showed it to him, tag first. “There’s my room number on it, see, right there.” His hand pistoned in and out a number of times in quick succession. “Here’s your two-fifty. You come round tomorrow and pick up the rest.”

  “What time?” said the Chinese, who was an outsmarted man and knew it.

  “Not too early. I’m expecting to do quite some howling tonight,” Lyons told him. His ship for Nagasaki sailed at nine, he knew. “Make it about eleven. Just come up and knock at the door.”

  “Oh, and by the way,” he added, bringing out an additional five-dollar bill. “Got a bottle of perfume or some such around? My little lady friend outside doesn’t need to know what I’ve just bought in here. First thing you know she’ll expect me to give it to he
r. Or maybe even try to help herself while I’m dozing between tackles.”

  When he brought the neatly packaged perfume bottle out and handed it to her, she exclaimed: “Aow, I sye, is that for me? Haow nice. What’s it caahled?”

  “Spanish Fly,” he said irreverently.

  John Lyons’ little house in Azabu-ku was a Western-type job. Which didn’t mean it wasn’t flimsy, only that it was less flimsy than its native counterparts. It was mainly of wood, white-painted, with a very small amount of stonework around the base and a slanting red-tile roof. It had its own garden at the back and sides, and he rented the whole thing for thirty-seven-fifty American a month. Which was good value for preoccupation Tokyo. It was even furnished, although, in truth, somewhat scantily, with the Japanese idea of Western furniture. Chairs and tables all with legs too short for the average lanky Occidental build. And in addition, they had a girl come in who worked from seven to seven, for only seven a week more. Finally, he even had a beat-up ’34 Chevy to go around in. He’d bought it second-hand and it was only held together with spittle and a hairpin, but he was a good mechanic, and it got him where he wanted to go.

  The whole thing fitted nicely into the framework of the hundred and fifty a month he got from the Acme Travel Agency, Fifth Avenue and Forty-eighth, New York. Also Market Street, San Fran, but no Tokyo office. His check came in regularly on about the 15th of each month, and made a lot of yen when it was converted.

  Where else, he used to tell Ruth when she got her periodic homesick – blues – about every second week, it seemed – could they live as well as this for the same amount of money?

  “This is living?” she’d answered once.

  She didn’t like it here, he knew. They had no children. When they’d first married, it was the Depression that kept them from having any. They couldn’t afford them. Now he found he didn’t want them anymore, anyway. He liked it better this way. His tendencies had become completely wolflike, and it was too late to change. In fact, he didn’t want to change, wasn’t going to. He liked running around to bars and clubs every night, meeting his men friends. He never took her with him, so time hung heavy on her hands. She didn’t know what to do with herself.