The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories

Richard (Bernard) Sale (1911–1993) was born in New York City and educated at Washington and Lee University (1930–1933), where he had already begun to write professionally, selling early stories to the pulps, including “The White Cobra” to The Shadow magazine in 1932. He went on to write more than 350 stories, mostly mystery fiction, for all the major pulp magazines, including Black Mask, Thrilling Mystery, Argosy, and Detective Fiction Weekly, for which he created his most successful series character, the newspaper reporter — cum-detective Joe “Daffy” Dill, whose adventures also featured Bill Hanley and Candid Jones. He also wrote stories for all the major slick magazines.

His first novel, Not Too Narrow... Not Too Deep (1936), is an adventure tale of ten convicts who escape from a French penal colony (a renamed Devil’s Island) and a mysterious stranger who accompanies them. It was filmed by MGM in 1940 as Strange Cargo, starring Clark Gable, Joan Crawford, and Peter Lorre. His finest novels are Lazarus #7 (1942) and Passing Strange (1942). He had an active career in the film industry as a writer, with such credits as Mr. Belvedere Goes to College (1949), A Ticket to Tomahawk (1950), Suddenly (1954), a suspense film with Frank Sinatra, and Torpedo Run (1958), which he also directed. With his wife, Mary Anita Loos, he wrote Gentlemen Marry Brunettes (1955) and other films.

“The Dancing Rats” was published in the June 1942 issue.

What was the mysterious and terrible disaster that threatened to wreak havoc in Oahu, reduce the Pacific fortress to impotency and throw the shadow of death across every mother’s son on the island? Dr. Nicholas Adams, summoned from his work at the leper colony of Molokai, had just forty-eight hours to find out!

Chapter One The Episode of Mr. Sze

The wireless had been burning a hole in Nick Adams’ pocket ever since it had been delivered to him at the Cardwell Institute’s labs over on the island of Molokai. Nick had been checking the progress of the Institute’s fight against leprosy there when the war broke. And although the perfidy at Pearl Harbor had been a memory for some time now, he had remained on Molokai’s north coast, checking experimentations with Brooke Carteret, a fine leprosy medico.

The wireless, however, took his interest away from Molokai abruptly, and returned it to Oahu. Even in the baby clipper plane of the Inter-Island Steam Navigation Company, he could not restrain himself from pulling the thing out once more and rereading it. He knew every word by heart then, as the soiled and frayed message indicated, but it was so damned provocative, he couldn’t resist staring at it.

It said:

Nick blinked again and frowned. The plane was empty except for himself. The IISNC operated steamships among the islands, and due to the fact that Molokai held the leper colony, it was not included among the normal stops for tourists. But the company also operated several twin-motored clippers of the old Pan-American type, and one of these had flown him out, and a second — which he now rode — had been wirelessed for, to fly him back.

From northern Molokai to southern Oahu where Honolulu sat upon the sea was no great shakes of a trip, a matter of hours, and they were due to come in at any time. He folded the message and put it away and then watched out the plane window for the sight of Diamond Head rising precipitantly from the sea.

Dr. Nicholas Adams, chief of the field staffs of the Cardwell Institute through the western Pacific — if you wanted to get formal about it — was no malihini to the Hawaiian Island. No stranger. He knew that his identity was well known in Honolulu, as it was in various other places such as Singapore, Shanghai, Manila and Batavia, indeed in any portion of the western Pacific where there was disease. But he could not help wondering who the devil Colonel John Venner was, and how the devil Venner had known that he was on Molokai.

As for the message itself, it was intriguing, but at the same time, it was extremely dubious. The only disaster which could be imminent in Oahu was of the same ilk as had struck it once before — those Japanese planes winging death out of the sky in the dawn. And if Venner had come by such inside information, of what use was a non-military medico like Nick Adams going to be in averting it? It was more the Army and Navy’s job.

So, obviously, it was not a Japanese attack which Venner meant. It was something else. Nick made no attempt to fathom what, because he could only conjecture, and rather wildly at that.

Probably Venner had got in touch with the Cardwell Institute labs on Bishop Street in Honolulu and learned from Paul Cameron — the local head of the organization in Oahu — that Nick Adams was at Molokai. Then Venner had wirelessed.

In any case, he had got Nick’s goat, and Nick had replied by wireless when and how and where he would be arriving. He assumed that Colonel Venner would meet him and break this strain of curious impatience which held him.

From the window of the plane, Nick finally made out Koko Head, and then beyond that, the majesty of Diamond Head. An Army patrol plane, looking sleek and deadly, had picked them up some time before, established their identity and sent them on. Thus forewarned, no other planes interrupted their flight, but Nick hoped that each of the ground crews who undoubtedly had an A.A. gun trained on them would also recognize the inter-island plane, a good Hawaiian fixture, and not be too precipitous.

They glided lower, and the Aloha Tower by the Matson pier flashed by. Honolulu sat in the sun peacefully, and the blue sea broke white along the shore from Waikiki to Fort Kamehameha. Then they were down, gliding to a perfect landing on the sea and taxiing up to the ramp of the Inter-Island airport.

When Nick reached the waiting-room, there was no sign of any Army man waiting for him. There was only one man there, an Oriental of one sort or another — it was difficult to tell Japanese from Chinese — and Nick ignored him and stepped out to see if Colonel Venner might be waiting in a car at the parking space.

“Dr. Adams, sah?”

Nick turned, blank-faced. From Hawaii west, you always blank-faced when you were surprised. It was a trick of the Asiatics, friend and foe alike. He said, “Yes?”

“This humble person begs your forgiveness,” said the man who had spoken, the same Oriental, “but I have been sent to meet you. Colonel Venner is occupied. He asked me to pick you up. Will you honor me, sah?”

Nick found himself bordering on a reaction of wariness. The stranger was a Chinese, a long lean-cheeked Cassius sort of Chinese, with teeth that were almost as yellow as his skin. It was not only that the man’s dark eyes were dishonest, they were sinister. They were like onyx jewels, touched with a cold glitter, nor were they shifty — they met his own directly, hard and uncompromising. But the fellow’s hands intrigued Nick even more. They were fine hands for a strangler. From wrist to finger base, the measured distance must have been six full inches, and the tapering fingers, delicately manicured, were weirdly long and graceful, the left pinkie wearing an opal set in gold.

“I’m Nicholas Adams,” Nick said. “Who are you?”

“This worthless one is known as H. H. Sze,” replied the Chinese. He pronounced his surname T’see. “I am an officer with the Commission of Health in Honolulu, Doctor.”

“And you came for me?” Nick said.

“Forgive me, yes.” Mr. Sze did not have a semblance of expression on his face. “Colonel Venner asked me to get you. This is my car. I shall take you to him at once.”

“What’s it all about?” Nick said. “Go ahead. Get in.”

“Forgive me — after you, sah,” Mr. Sze replied. His striped seersucker suit looked as if it had been slept in. It needed a starching badly. He waited for Nick to sit in the car, then got in himself, on the edge of the seat, his face always blank, his hands on the wheel, lightly, as if he held them ready to move.

“This humble one must apologize for any celerity,” Mr. Sze said. He drove off and took the Waiana Road. “Forgive me, we do not have much time. I will explain quickly.”

“Do,” Nick said. He lighted his pipe unhurriedly and watched Mr. Sze.

“It is an epidemic, and you are needed, sah,” Mr. Sze said smoothly. “I believe you and the commissioner are old friends?”

“Yes,” Nick said. “How is he?”

“Commissioner Hartly is in the most beautiful health, and had honored this humble one in conveying his personal profound wishes for your own health, and his gratification at your presence so close to us. He and Colonel Venner dispatched me this morning to take you from the plane. It is so very, very urgent, you see.”

“Very interesting,” Nick said. He was positive Mr. Sze was lying through his teeth. “What seems to be the trouble?”

“Beriberi,” said Mr. Sze. “It is sweeping through the pineapple estates north of Wright Field like a pestilence. It is very bad. The honorable commissioner said that the most sagacious Dr. Adams would know what to do—”

“Contagious, eh?”

“The Kanakas are sick and dying,” Mr. Sze said. “The Kahunas do nothing.” His voice was very dramatic, although his face remained as blank as stone. “Forgive me — like a sweeping pestilence—”

“You certainly like to be forgiven, don’t you?”

“Forgive me, a habit of speech—”

Nick pointed the stem of his pipe at Mr. Sze. “You are a very extraordinary health officer, Mr. Sze.”

“Thank you, sah,” Mr. Sze said, bowing his head. “I am only a humble servant—”

“And I didn’t mean it as a compliment,” Nick said coldly. “You can go back and tell the commissioner that beriberi is not contagious. It is a painful disease which comes from the eating of polished rice and a lack of vitamin B. Or were you confused in the press of things?”

Mr. Sze said nothing at all. He did not look nonplussed. Resigned if anything. The trouble was you couldn’t tell how he looked. He had learned the poker face trick so exceptionally well, it was the only face he wore.

The car was slowing down, and the outskirts of the low-lying town of Waiana began to show themselves ahead.

Nick said: “The truth of the matter is you don’t know Commissioner Hartly at all and he never sent you after me... What’s your game, Mr. Sze?”

Mr. Sze did not reply. He met Nick’s eyes with his own cold stare and let it go at that.

“When we reach Waiana — and it’s here now — I’m going to turn you over to the police, Mr. Sze, unless you tell me what your game is.”

“This unwitting person—”

“Oh, for Lord’s sake, skip the obsequious formalities, Sze. Let’s not kid each other.”

Mr. Sze did not object. He said: “Forgive me. Am I such a poor actor?”

“No, but your research was poor. What’s the idea?”

“Too bad, really too bad,” Mr. Sze said. “I’m so very sorry. I know so little of medicine and I was given such little time. It would have been more harmonious if we had reached an understanding through my little thespia. Now I regret, sah, that it will be more difficult.”

“I don’t like you,” Nick Adams said bluntly. “And I don’t like your methods. I’m turning you over to the police.”

The car jolted to a halt, brakes squealing. Nick started to open the door. Mr. Sze, still blank-faced, said quietly: “Forgive me, please do not touch it, sah, or I will be compelled to shoot you.”

Nick paused. He glanced around, saw that Mr. Sze had a pistol in his right hand. The polished steel barrel caught up the reflection of the sun with dazzling flashes of fire. There was nothing to be said under the circumstances.

“I am going to a little place in Waiana here,” Mr. Sze remarked. “Forgive me, but you will honor me with your presence.”

“You go to the devil,” Nick said. “You can’t frighten me.”

“That is to be regretted if true,” Mr. Sze said, his face serenely empty. “If so, I must shoot you and run. I was ordered to detain you peaceably, sah, and if that failed, I could use my own discretion, as long as the purpose was achieved. I have no choice in this instance but to shoot you if you do not cooperate. Forgive me, it makes no difference to me one way or the other. I leave the choice to you.”

Nick was flabbergasted. “Of all the damned silliness,” he said. “If it’s robbery—”

“We are not concerned with money,” Mr. Sze said. “Please leave your bags, sah. Sit still; you are to be a prisoner. It is a happy occasion that you are being so very sensible.” He started the car again. “I will put the pistol in my pocket with my hand around it. You will drive with me. Obey me. I sincerely trust you will behave like a gentleman, for if so, there will be no regrettable violence. Nothing will happen if your behavior is exemplary. Please, sah, now.”

Nick was scarlet with anger and frustration. The man was bluffing probably, and yet Nick didn’t want to take a chance, not with a pair of eyes like that. If he could only have seen some expression in the face he might have been able to make a few guesses, but the face was void. He dropped his bags, grimly, desperately, and sat back.

Mr. Sze drove. On the edge of Waiana, he turned off the main road and presently stopped the car in front of a small cottage, placing the right side of the car so close to the wall that Nick could not get out on that side. Mr. Sze opened the door on his side and got out and stood behind the door.

“That is very excellent,” Mr. Sze said. “With haste, if you please, Dr. Adams, we have so little time. That way out.”

“Oh, all right, damn you, I’m coming,” Nick said grimly.

Mr. Sze waited. There was no sign of the pistol, no need for sight of it. When he neared the end of the seat, Nick saw that Sze’s position behind the door was vulnerable. His own nerve was good. When he came abreast of it, he dropped both of his bags, braced both feet against the half-opened door and slammed the door wide open, grateful that it was steel. It struck Mr. Sze with a shuddery thud, knocked the Chinese down. Nick touched the starter, put the car in gear, drove off. He had a momentary glimpse of Sze rolling on the ground. He waited to be shot at. No shots however. In the mirror he saw Mr. Sze, his face void of anger. Nick was a little dismayed at Mr. Sze’s lack of expression. It was very unreal. No fury, no despair, no frustration, nothing. He stood on the street, regaining his feet, like an innocent tourist, hands in his pockets, and watched the car go. It was a chilling sensation to see him. Then Mr. Sze disappeared, along with the confused and unimpressive patterns of Waiana, and the car was rolling southwest toward Honolulu. There was no point in calling the police now. Oahu was an island. Sze would not get away. There was the cottage too. Nick hoped fervently that he would never meet Mr. Sze again. It had been a very unpleasant experience.

Chapter Two The Devil Is Loose!

As far as Koko Head, he had worried about Venner’s telegram. Now he worried about H. H. Sze. Life could be incredible sometimes. It had happened before. You could get along for a year without the slightest deviation in a monotonous routine, and then, for no reason at all, you were whisked into a maelstrom.

Consideration of Venner’s telegram was really de trop because he could only conjecture. The wire was a trifle spectacular and melodramatic and Nick conservatively doubted that disaster of any kind except typhoon, earthquake or hurricane could be imminent within forty-eight hours. How could you put a time limit on disaster? And why the devil was he so important to Venner? It did not read, Request your assistance. Oh, no, it was Require your assistance. A very urgent touch. He reminded himself not to be angry with Venner when the disaster turned out to be a phantom. The average person was secretly addicted to exaggeration, and it had taken Nicholas Adams many years of painstaking research to speak the facts of a fact and not what might be startling about a fact.

He could not however dismiss Mr. Sze as easily. Mr. Sze had been in earnest. The pistol had been real.

He thought, What did the bandit want with me? Is the prestige of the Cardwell Institute so great that he had visions of kidnaping and a glowing ransom? He seemed too practical for such an idea. And he knew about Venner — and the wireless!

It was true, as he was well aware, that the Cardwell Institute did enjoy a prestige in Hawaii akin to that jealously guarded by the old guard mercantile firms whose ancestry dated back to the pre-treaty days of iron men and sailing ships, and all this because lives were saved by it.

Lord knows that was true enough. Nick himself had been saving fifty thousand lives a year now for many years, and he could get tired of saving lives. They didn’t want to be saved. You showed a cause and a result. Like the hookworm in Malaya. It didn’t make any difference usually. The boys were too damned lazy to use the latrines, and too damned anemic from hookworm to worry about death. So you broke out the thymol and gave them the works one more time and for a while you got it well under control again... But give it a year.

Nick Adams had never been too philosophical. There had been nothing philosophical about his reply to the young Japanese medico who, during the aftermath of the Japanese earthquake, had asked him, “How can you Americans be so generous with this money and all these supplies and medicines? You will forgive my distrust but is there not some hidden reward for you, in this dispensation?”

“Sure,” Nick had said baldly. “There is balm in Gilead for an old man’s soul. The gentleman who founded this Institute, Alexander Cardwell the First, made some ninety millions of dollars stealing railroads from other gentlemen. And when he wizened and saw the yawning grave before him, he repented, and wished to gather a smattering of honor unto his perfidious name. So for all this, you are to remember Cardwell San as a gentleman and a scholar and a great humanitarian instead of a robber baron and bandit. Do I make myself clear?” Such logic however was beyond the understanding of a Japanese.

Well, the old man was eight years buried now, and the fact remained that what had started out as a vanity had become one of the most renowned and powerful healing organizations on earth, the Rockefeller Institute being the only comparable group.

Nick dropped his chin onto the palm of his hand and stared gloomily out of the car window.

“Damn that Sze!” he growled. “What the devil did he want with me anyhow?”

At Pearl City, he abandoned the car. He was glad to be out of it. He took his bags and walked down the alanui until he found a taxicab which he instantly hired. He told the Hawaiian driver: “The Royal Hawaiian and wikiwiki!”

But before he reached the hotel, he saw that the driver had taken Bishop Street and he was half prompted to stop off at the Cardwell Institute laboratories and see his friend Paul Cameron. On second thought, he decided to ring Cameron from the hotel.

He did this. After registering and being given his room facing southward on Waikiki Beach and the ocean, from which, nevertheless, he could still see the wreckage in the city where Jap bombs had dropped, he telephoned the labs. Dr. Cameron came to the hotel at once.

“In the name of heaven, Nick,” Cameron exclaimed, shaking hands with him. “When did you get in?”

“When did I get in?” Nick said. “Didn’t you get my message?”

“Message?”

“Paul, the very devil is loose on this island. Something is very much wrong. I wirelessed you from Molokai, asking you to meet me at the plane, along with Colonel Venner. I wanted your advice about a grave matter. You didn’t—”

“But I never got your message, Nick,” Cameron said. He was a tall thin man with a severe face. His nose and mouth were sharp, and he had fever-hollowed cheeks, picked up from his work of many years in Singapore on malarial control of the swamps of the island. His eyes were brown and soft and very remote. “Mind you, I’m glad to see you, Nick, but I didn’t expect you. You told us you’d be out there with the lepers of Molokai from three to five months—”

“Yes, I know, but this strange thing came up — we’ll talk about it. How are Dr. Wing and Andrews?”

“Both fine.” Cameron sighed. “Of course, since the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor, the whole place has become an armed camp, no chance for amenities or social graces—”

“That’s as it should be,” Nick Adams said. “Tell me something. Did you ever hear of a man named John Venner? A colonel in the medical corps? He’s stationed at Schofield Barracks.”

“I know who he is,” Cameron said. “But Wing is the man to tell you about Venner. Wing is a good friend of his. I think Venner is in charge of the new military hospital out near Wright Field. The Stafford in Wahiawa. Look here, Nick, why don’t you quit this hotel and bunk in at my place during your stay—”

“No, thanks,” Nick said. “Appreciate it, Paul, but I’m going to be on the move for a while, and I want to have a free hand. Suppose you have dinner here with me tonight? I want to tell you something very odd. But first I want to check on it.”

“Very well,” Cameron said. “See you tonight.”

Nick was worried. He wished he knew where Venner was. Naturally, in a telegram, Venner couldn’t tell all, and yet it was confusing not to know where you stood. There had been no sign of the Army man.

Why hadn’t Venner met him? The wireless must certainly have reached him. It had been sent very early that morning, and it was now late afternoon. He wondered if Venner perhaps had planned to drop in at the hotel. How the devil would the fellow know which hotel? The Royal Hawaiian, probably, and yet there were at least six other very fine hotels. Venner had certainly been told which plane it was. No chance to have got mixed up.

Nick chewed the side of his mouth nervously. It was very hot, and his shirt was shapeless, the collar wet from perspiration. Disaster imminent in Oahu within forty-eight hours unless you and I stop it. What the devil! Oahu just wasn’t built for a disaster in forty-eight hours unless Venner were a prophet with a secret volcano or a rattling earthquake or a whistling typhoon up his sleeve. As far as the wars went, Oahu was damned near impregnable. As near impregnable as a fortress could be. Because no fortress manned by men could ever be impregnable. How could two men who had never even met each other avert a disaster that was due to pop within forty-eight hours? It wasn’t forty-eight hours any more either. It was less than that. Considering there wouldn’t be time to waste, why hadn’t Venner shown up?

He wearily dismissed the thing from his mind for the moment and closed his eyes. Finally he picked up the telephone and asked to be connected with the new Stafford Hospital in Wahiawa. He got through immediately but still could not reach Colonel Venner. The colonel was not at Wahiawa. Nick thanked the woman for the information, hung up and started frowning again. Almost instantly, the telephone rang.

“Colonel John Venner to see you, sir.”

“Send him up at once,” Nick said. He spoke much too loud in his relief.

He got a towel from the bath and wrapped it around his throat to soak up the sweat and spare the collar of his linen suit. He felt much better now. When the knock came on the door, he said: “Come in, please.”

The man who came in was tall and heavily built, red-faced, mustached. He was forty or so but Nick had the distinct impression that he was trying to look younger.

“Colonel Venner?” he said.

“Right,” said the officer. He smiled broadly and shook hands. He had an iron grip. He was dressed in a smart uniform, and there were some decorations over the heart, and a medal. Over the shoulders were the oak leaves. And on the collar of the tunic was the Medical Corps standard. “Dr. Adams, I owe you the most profound of apologies.”

“Have a seat,” Nick said. “I expected you at the airport. But I thought you might find me here. I don’t mind saying that your telegram has intrigued me insidiously ever since I got it. I came down from Molokai, at once. I’m at your service, Doctor.”

“That’s very decent of you,” said the officer. “It makes it so much the harder for me to tell you that — well — it’s done.”

“What’s done?”

“What I mean to say, Doctor, is that I no longer have any need for you. I had stumbled on a rather heinous and far-flung plot and I admit to the fact that I was terrified by it. I had heard that you were in Molokai, and knowing your reputation — there were lesser medicos I could have had to assist — I wired you at once. Then by an unbelievable stroke of luck, I came into some facts which exploded the whole plot. I had the malcontents arrested and the entire incident is closed.”

“You mean I missed the whole thing?”

“Quite.” The officer smiled. “You regret that?”

“Certainly,” Nick said, disappointed. “I’d anticipated so much of it — you haven’t told me what it was and why you wanted me?”

“And I am afraid I cannot tell you now,” he replied.

“Hell, man, have a heart.”

“I’m terribly sorry,” said the colonel. “But secrecy is absolutely vital. And since the affair is closed, it would be better if no one but the superiors here knew. Not a good story to get around. Might give people ideas, you know. Your expenses down here will be taken care of, Doctor, and you have our eternal gratitude for your prompt action.”

“Oh well,” Nick said, “I rather thought it would be a phantom anyhow.”

“I hope we didn’t pull you away from something as important. In any case—”

“Leprosy at Molokai.”

“I was going to say, in any case, you are free to return. And I assure you—”

Nick was weary of his politeness. “Never mind, Doctor, that’s all right. We’ll say no more about it. But I don’t think I’ll be going back to Molokai. I’d like very much to visit your new hospital, if I may.”

“Of course you may!” said the colonel. “Suppose I give you a buzz. You could come out to Wahiawa for tea, and I’d show you through. We have all the military cases. Most interesting. When could you come out?”

Nick said, “Any time.”

“Well—” said the colonel, “I’m going to be rather busy until Thursday. Suppose I give you a ring on Thursday?”

“Suppose you do,” Nick said. He was annoyed.

“Righto. Call you Thursday then. And again, many thanks for dashing down here so diligently. Like a fire wagon going to a fire!”

“I’ve had to put out many fires,” Nick said. “Sometimes I have to work fast. Good-bye, Colonel.”

He showed the fellow to the door, and when he opened the door the edge of it struck another man outside who had been on the point of knocking. The colonel brushed by quickly and went down the hall. He did not wait for the elevator, but descended by the stairs. Nick took the second man by the shoulders and said: “Eddie Wing! The only man in the world I am always glad to see. Come on in, Eddie.”

Dr. E. V. Wing was little, young and irrepressible. He was so small that a strong breeze could have blown him away. He was a native Hawaiian, with the C.I. labs.

“It is very delightful to see you again, sweetheart,” Dr. Wing said. “I missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too,” Nick said. “I guess I got pretty used to you, Eddie. You look fine.”

“As ever,” Dr. Wing said, cheerfully. “Cameron said you were back. I thought I’d better come right over and apologize. I’m the guy who got you into this thing, Nick. I mean — the reason you came back to Oahu. I told Venner where you were. He knew you were in the islands. He asked me where... It is good to see you, palsy. I hope I did not interrupt you and the officer? I should have telephoned. Paul said you were in, and I took the liberty of coming over at once.”

Nick said: “You didn’t interrupt anything but a lot of beating about the bush. I’ll tell you about it later. Colonel Venner of the Medical Corps just came to see me to beg off demanding my assistance.”

Eddie Wing blinked, silent for a moment. “Are you kidding?” he said. “You mean that the officer who just left—”

“Yes! That was Venner! Brought me all the way down here on an emergency and then ditched me after I got here.” Nick smiled wryly.

“Nicholas,” Eddie Wing said, “I am afraid you have been duped.”

Nick frowned. “I have a weakness for getting duped.”

“I mean that the guy who just left here was not Colonel Venner. If he said so, he’s a phony.”

“Eddie, are you sure? He—”

“Your humble pardon, Nick-ole-ass, but these ferret eyes can see pretty well!”

“Then who the devil—” Yes, and what the devil and why the devil and a lot of other queries sprung into his mind. All went unanswered. Nick stared at the door blankly, trying to arrange his thoughts in some sort of pattern, but they would not fall into line. He picked up the telephone and said: “Get me Army Intelligence at Schofield, please.”

The desk clerk wanted to ask if something was wrong but he didn’t. Presently the station answered. Nick said: “Lieutenant Kerry, please.” Allan Kerry was an old friend.

“Kerry here,” Kerry said. “Army Intelligence.”

“Kerry, this is Nicholas Adams. I’m at the Royal Hawaiian.”

“Yes, Doctor?”

“I’ve just had an unusual experience. A gentleman dressed in the uniform of the United States Army, rank of colonel, visited me and passed himself off falsely as one John Venner. I wondered if you people wanted to do something about it.”

“Silly boy!” said Kerry. “I’ll give you Captain Malta. He’s in charge of that sort of thing. Hold on.”

Captain Malta had a kettle drum voice which rattled from the depths of his diaphragm without effort. “Do you have this guy with you still?”

“No, I’m sorry, he’s gone. I can give you a pretty good description.”

“Do that,” Captain Malta said. “We’ll see if we can’t pick him up. I’d like to see him.”

Nick described the impostor accurately. “Understand, I just could be mistaken. Perhaps it really was Venner. But the chances are a hundred to one it was an impostor.”

“There are no chances involved,” Captain Malta said. “Thank you for your information, Doctor. I’ll see you personally soon.”

“Very well,” Nick said and, curiously, “How do you know there are no chances involved?”

“Because Colonel John Venner happens to be dead,” replied Captain Malta. “He was murdered in the dark sometime late last night and we only recovered his body at noon today.”

“What?” Nick whispered, awed.

“So it was an impostor.”

“Yes,” Nick said in a low voice. “Good-bye, Captain.” He hung up the telephone and sat down, his eyes troubled.

For a few minutes, Nick Adams said nothing. Eddie Wing smoked a cigarette detachedly. Nick went to the window and looked out upon the ocean. It kept coming home to him that the baby had been left on his doorstep. In one way, he was being released from any obligation. What the devil, he knew nothing at all about the forty-eight-hour disaster; he had kept his word to Venner, come down to Honolulu at once. If Venner was dead, how could anyone expect him to keep on with the mystery? On the other hand, several things he had not appreciated began to make themselves clear.

First, H. H. Sze’s attempt to divert him from the plane to Waiana finally took on an aspect of logic. By itself it was incredible. But when you put it with the word of the impostor officer who had assured him the case was closed, it made sound sense. Sze had been commissioned to get him off the plane and hidden because someone knew he was coming to Honolulu and didn’t want him there. This failing, the bogus Venner had arrived instantly to assure him the “plot” had been nipped in the bud, and that he was free to return to Molokai. The red-faced officer had made a great point of telling Nick that he was free to go. Not free to remain and enjoy his visit in Honolulu. Free to go back.

They didn’t want him in town. He didn’t know a damned thing, and yet they were afraid of him.

That line of reasoning really made up his mind. He felt rather useless and helpless, but since they considered him such a potential menace to the catastrophic plans Venner had stumbled on, he would stay and try to do a job of it. He had no idea where to begin. But it was his baby and he adopted it on the spot.

The imminent disaster was, obviously, no longer forty-eight hours away. Colonel Venner had set that hour in his telegram at 8:33 the evening before. It was now nearly six p.m. Almost twenty-two hours had elapsed since the telegram had been dispatched. Twenty-two from forty-eight equaled twenty-six. A little more than a full day.

Nick felt panic-stricken.

“Eddie,” he said, “you’ve got to help.”

“I knew that,” Eddie Wing said. “Say the word, sweetheart. E hele kaua!”

“Read this.” Nick gave him the telegram. Secrecy essential. Well, by God, you had to trust someone. There was no one in the East or the West he could have trusted as much as Eddie Wing. Dr. Wing read the message without expression, paused to consider it with eyes closed, and then returned it to Nick.

“I am not surprised,” he said. “Some fun, chum!”

“Some fun,” Nick said. “But this may surprise you. I was just talking with Captain Malta of Army Intelligence. He told me that your friend Colonel Venner is dead.”

“Dead?” Wing said, in a whisper.

“Yes. I’m sorry, Eddie. He’s dead. Make. He was murdered last night. They found his body today at noon. I don’t have any details.”

Eddie Wing’s face became hard. “Tough, Nick. He was a swell guy. Good medico. And the culprit?”

“Anonymous and at large.”

Eddie Wing said slowly, after a long breath: “Guess I’d better talk. I had lunch with Colonel Venner yesterday. He was scared. He mentioned your name. He had never met you. But he was familiar with your work in Cairo, where he had been stationed before the war. Not only familiar, he was fervent concerning it. He said he wished you were here. I mentioned that you were, that I had the dope on your location in Molokai. He asked for it. And thus it began. Yowzuh.”

Nick sat down. “There’s an angle here,” he said. “Maybe we can talk something out of it. Eddie, you’ve got to use the old bean. Remember everything. Did he say anything which might give us a clue to this message he sent? Please think about it.”

“You are going to continue with the case, sweetheart?”

“What else can I do?” Nick said. His voice was hard. “The man was depending upon my help. No one else seems to have had any word of it. I can’t just let it ride. If he meant what he said, something rotten is breeding. If he was a friend of yours, I can’t take his message lightly. I’ve got to work on it.”

“He was murdered for his pains,” Wing said.

“Oh hell, that part of it doesn’t bother me,” Nick said. His chin began to point out a little. “I’ve never been afraid and God knows there have been more things to fear than men in the pest-holes of the earth.”

“You’ve got something there,” Wing said. “O.K., Nick, can do. Hiki no. Now get this. Dr. Venner was disturbed at luncheon. Greatly disturbed. I didn’t ask him what was none of my affair, but presently he told me that he had unearthed a ghastly business. What were his words? ‘If I don’t break this thing cleanly, every mother’s son in Oahu will walk in the valley of death within two days.’ A very close translation.”

“What did you suggest?”

“I suggested that perhaps his problem was meant for the Army Intelligence, and I pointed out the impossibility of a single man attempting to handle a threat of such proportions. But he disagreed with me. He was afraid that the Intelligence might muddle it, and that if it were ever muddled, the result would be catastrophic.” Wing blinked. “Boy, can I sling the lingo!”

“He should have confided in either the Intelligence or the police,” Nick said. “As a result we’re left with our hands tied. You can be too secretive. Look at this blank wall we start from.”

“He was afraid of panic.”

“Panic?”

“Panic. Mob panic.”

“How could he have — Eddie, look here. Did he say anything — anything — as to how he found it out — what it was—”

“No,” Eddie Wing said. “He didn’t trust me with such information. But whatever it was, it was real to him. He could barely eat.”

Nick pounded his fist into his hand and stalked around the room. It didn’t help much. My God, he thought desperately, I want something to work with!

“I have been thinking,” Eddie Wing said. “John was very close to his aide, Bertram Woolton, a sergeant. From Brooklyn. Not a medico. Maybe the sergeant—”

“Good. We’ll get in touch with him at once. The Schofield Barracks?”

“Yowzuh. Sergeant Woolton was on Venner’s staff at the Stafford Hospital. I think he drove the car and such.”

“Will you drive out with me?”

Dr. Wing studied him very carefully. “No,” he said finally. “No can do, Nick.”

“Eddie, you’re not afraid?” Nick scoffed.

“Who, me? No, palsy. Got another date.”

Nick said, nodding: “I’ll drive out alone. If this doesn’t give us anything, we’ll have to work backwards from Venner’s body. That’s outright detective work and doubtless the trail won’t be any too fresh. But I’ll do what I can.”

“O.K.,” Eddie Wing said. “But look, Nick. Be very careful and don’t forget for an instant that Colonel Venner is dead as a red herring from following this same road you’re starting on.”

“I’ll remember,” Nick said.

Chapter Three The Day Before Doomsday

The Stafford Hospital was located out in Wahiawa, east of the barracks and Wright Field. Nick Adams was taken pleasantly by the sight of it, for it was a fresh and new building, impressive in architecture and set against an excellent job of landscaping, the lawns studded with giant palms. He went in and stopped at the information desk and asked if he could see Sergeant Bertram Woolton.

The reception nurse was a big-boned, pink-faced woman with straight hair and a strong jaw. The plaque on her desk said Miss Farrar. She smiled very faintly and remarked: “Then you would be Dr. Nicholas Adams of the Cardwell Institute?”

“That’s correct,” Nick said, surprised. “How the devil—”

“We expected you, Doctor. Captain Malta is at the hospital, and wishes to see you. I was to send you in to him when you arrived. I believe he’s in the waiting room on the second floor. As for Sergeant Woolton, Doctor, he isn’t in the hospital. He is not a medico, as you may be aware. He is simply on Colonel Venner’s staff, an aide-de-camp,” she explained.

“Any idea where I might locate him?”

“Probably at the barracks.”

“Thanks very much,” Nick said. “I’ll give it a try.”

“You won’t forget Captain Malta?”

“I’ll go right up and see him.”

Nick passed her desk to the elevator without another word. He was impressed. Of course Captain Malta had been in touch with Eddie Wing in some way and had learned he was going out to the Stafford. But even so, they rather kept track of him. Considering they were the right people, he was not displeased at all.

On the next floor he found a gentleman writing on a small scratch pad in the waiting-room. It was obviously Captain Malta, in uniform. He was quite an elderly man, his eyebrows dead white, his hair white, his skin coppery. His face was characteristically long and mild where it should have been severe, but his gray eyes were shrewd and sharp and his mouth had a wry practical twist.

“Captain Malta?”

“Dr. Adams, I believe. A real pleasure for me, Doctor.”

They shook hands. Nick said, with a smile: “You don’t look like your voice, Captain. Glad to meet you.”

“Sit down,” Captain Malta said. “Why did you come out here, Adams?”

“Same reason as you,” Nick said. “Only how did you know I was coming?”

“Oh, that. Dr. Wing called and asked for police protection for you. Naturally they called me out here to report it. Anything to do with the Venner case comes to me. Did you know you had a sergeant of police on your trail?”

“Not in the slightest!” Nick said, surprised. “Damn Eddie, so that was the engagement he had! I can take care of myself, Captain.”

“I should have thought Colonel Venner could take care of himself too.”

Nick shrugged off the inference.

“Now, Doctor,” Captain Malta said, “are you after Woolton?”

“Yes.”

“So am I. I wouldn’t be surprised if he were after you. He’s not at the barracks. So I imagine he’s downtown and moving rather cautiously after what happened to Dr. Venner. You and I have some things to talk about. There are elements here beyond me. Here is the picture as I have been able to gather it together. First, I have not located the gentleman who posed as Venner and I haven’t the faintest notion what his purpose would be.”

Nick told him what the purpose might be and mentioned the episode with H. H. Sze at Waiana.

Captain Malta shook his head. “Venner made a great mistake in not working with the Army. We’d have co-operated one hundred percent. As it is, we’re batting with a split stick.”

Nick handed him the telegram. “The reminder has chastened me, Captain. Perhaps you’d better have a look at this.”

Captain Malta glanced at it. “I’ve seen a copy at the R.C.A. offices on South King Street.”

“Captain, you’re amazing! How did you know—”

“Found your wireless in reply to the one he sent. Right on his desk at his quarters, unopened. He was murdered before he ever received it. Naturally I could tell from your wire something of what he had sent and got in touch with R.C.A. Rather startling, wasn’t it? Forty-eight-hour disaster.”

“Twenty-five hours now,” Nick said. “And we sit wasting time.”

“You are never wasting time when you are thinking,” Captain Malta said. “A culprit can be captured in sixty seconds if you know where to take him and what for. So please let’s discuss this. What sort of disaster did you think Venner insinuated?”

“I don’t know,” Nick said. “There was no way of telling. He mentioned the idea to Dr. Wing at lunch yesterday and said something about secrecy being essential to avoid panic among the people. So that would make it a universal disaster. I’d considered an artificial epidemic of cholera. You see, the impregnable fortress of Oahu is impregnable only so long as the men and women inside the fortress are able to man it. A sweeping epidemic of cholera would wreak havoc. I’m not much of a cholera man myself, never was much interested in the disease because its causes and its remedies were so simple.”

“Well, now,” Captain Malta said, frowning heavily, “you may have hit the nail on the head.”

“It would be the easiest sort of thing to start rolling, and the easiest way of reaching the entire populace of Oahu Island. It’s a horrible idea, but it’s quite possible it wouldn’t work.”

“It’s not contagious, is it?” the captain asked.

“Oh no. You have to drink cholera to catch it. It’s in the water. That’s what I mean about it not working. You have a high percent Chinese and Japanese population on the island. The Chinese learned about cholera hundreds of years ago when they became a nation of tea drinkers. In other words, I’m quite sure your Chinese population would not come down with it because they boil their water for tea. We Americans ourselves are coffee drinkers so that the disease would not be apt to decimate us, and the moment you had more than the average cases, you’d warn everyone to boil water and you would nip it in the bud. It’s not contagious. There’s the crux. So I’m almost certain you can discard the premise,” Nick said. “And that leaves me absolutely without another theory, because that is the only epidemic I know of which could possibly be started artificially.”

“Then we must look for a different disaster. Now see if what I have to tell you suggests anything to you. Today is Tuesday. Monday morning, a soldier from Schofield Barracks named Robert MacFerson reported in here at the hospital, violently ill. The nurse on duty downstairs — Miss Farrar I think her name is — she said he was in poor shape, to express it mildly. Dr. Venner brought him up to Isolation and put him off in a room by himself with a nurse — Miss Agatha Wilson. Then Dr. Venner came down with his aide, Woolton, and said that no one was to see the patient without his permission. By Monday noon, the patient apparently failing, Dr. Venner went down to Honolulu. Where he went we have no idea. Why he left a dying man is also something I don’t understand.

“You say that he lunched with Dr. Wing. This wasn’t all, obviously. He never returned to the hospital. He was alive to send you the radiogram at 8:33 p.m. but he never returned to Stafford Hospital.”

Nick said: “It’s possible he deserted his patient and went downtown because of the urgency of the terrible secret he had unearthed. If the patient were in a hopeless condition — though why he isolated the patient so thoroughly interests me. Captain, I think it might do us no harm to visit the Isolation Ward and see the patient.”

“Oh, he’s probably dead,” Captain Malta said.

“Do you know what was wrong with him?”

“Not an iota.”

“Well, couldn’t we have a word or two with Miss Agatha Wilson? The nurse would certainly have his nursing charts all handy.”

“Of course,” Captain Malta said suddenly and grimly. “We’ve been fools! Of course that’s it! This all began when MacFerson reported in. Up to that time, obviously, there had been no intimation of any disaster. Venner was going about his business normally here. But after MacFerson reported in, things began to pop.”

“I don’t quite get it, Captain,” Nick said.

“Don’t you see, Adams? A dying man always relieves his sinful soul, and if MacFerson were part of this plot, or even were aware of it, he might have poured out his soul to Venner and revealed the very crux we’re after. Consider it, Venner’s isolating him, the secrecy involved, Venner rushing downtown, seeing Wing, speaking of disaster, trying to find you, finally wirelessing you in desperation. It all goes back to this MacFerson patient and stops. There is nothing beyond MacFerson.”

“In that case, let’s see the man or corpse as the case may be,” Nick said, jumping to his feet. “And Miss Wilson should be able to unburden herself to a great extent. Where is Isolation, Captain?”

Isolation was on the third floor. They took the elevator up, and reported to a Dr. Hugh Hollister, a grumpy little man with spectacles and a reddish mustache. He and Malta seemed to know each other.

“It’s Venner’s patient, Hugh,” Captain Malta said. “The Robert MacFerson in Isolation. I beg your pardon, this is Nicholas Adams of the C.I. offices. Adams, this is Dr. Hollister, in charge here now.”

“How do, Doctor,” Hollister grumbled. “Glad to meet you. Heard a lot about you. If you want to see MacFerson you’re out of luck.”

Nick’s heart fell. “Even if he’s dead—”

“I wouldn’t know about that,” said Hollister. “But I’m damn sick of John’s hocus-pocus on this thing. Why, he left strict orders that no one was to take a look at MacFerson unless he ordered it in writing. And since he’s the commanding officer, that’s the way it was. Of course, Wilson was his pet nurse, and he trusted her implicitly, along with Woolton.”

“I’d like to talk with her,” said Nick.

“You can’t,” said Hollister. “She’s gone.”

“Gone?” Captain Malta said sharply. “What the devil are you talking about, Hugh? Gone where?”

“Well, you don’t have to be popping off at me! Tell it to John Venner! It’s all his fault, this whole abracadabra. Agatha Wilson went out with MacFerson, about an hour ago.”

“With MacFerson?” Nick exclaimed, appalled.

“Are you surprised?” Dr. Hollister grumbled. “My word, I’d have expected you, at least, to know all about it. MacFerson was switched down to the Cardwell Institute laboratories for further treatment. Don’t ask me what kind of treatment, I don’t even know what was wrong with him. All I know is an efficient sort of snob from the government offices, a colonel at that, came in here with a release for the patient signed by John Venner, along with credentials from the Cardwell Institute verifying MacFerson’s removal and admittance to the C.I. labs.”

“Who signed the Cardwell Institute papers?” Nick asked sharply, his hands trembling.

“Why, Paul Cameron, of course! He’s the chief down there—”

Captain Malta took a chair, sighing quietly, his face looking most indulgent despite the reverses. “Then MacFerson is really gone, Hugh? And Miss Wilson with him?”

“All signed out. They left in a private ambulance which was waiting down in the emergency courtyard.”

“Hand me the phone, please, Hugh... You can have it when I’m finished, Adams.”

Captain Malta telephoned Central Police station and asked to have the ambulance checked. He sent two men over to the Cardwell Institute labs. Dr. Hollister looked amazed. “Now,” Malta said quietly, still holding the phone, “what did your snobbish colonel look like, Hugh?”

Hollister began an elaborate description, which proved to be unnecessary, for even from the briefest details, Nick recognized the fellow as the same pink-skinned gentleman who had visited him at the Royal Hawaiian, posing as John Venner. He considered the man’s efficiency, for if the impostor had managed to sign out MacFerson only an hour before, he had still been able to pop in on Nick and explain that the case was closed. The man had cold nerve. Malta said into the phone: “Yes, it’s Zeller again. You’ve got to find him. I’d report it to Intelligence also, since we’re more interested in him than they are... Yes... Yes, in thirty minutes or so, I’ll be there. Good-bye.” He hung up.

Nick said: “You know the man?”

“Yes. Fritz Zeller, a German agent. Intelligence knows him a bit better and would like to nip him. It’s a firing squad when they do. He’s a damned clever lad. You wished to call Cameron, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Nick said. He took the telephone, got through to Paul Cameron at his home. “Paul,” he said, “did you sign credentials acknowledging that a patient from the Stafford named Robert MacFerson was to be treated and admitted to the C.I. labs?”

Dr. Cameron was silent a moment. “Say it again, Nick.”

After he had repeated it, Cameron said, perplexed: “I’m afraid not, Nick. I didn’t know what the devil you were talking about for a moment. You sound rather perturbed.”

“There’s been a forgery then,” Nick said. “That’s all. I’ll explain it all later, Paul. Good-night.” He hung up. He sighed heavily. “You can assume the worst,” he murmured.

“I already had,” Captain Malta replied dryly. “And you needn’t look so pop-eyed, Hugh.”

“I think you’re both quite mad,” said Dr. Hollister, awed. “A touch of sun?”

“Johnny Venner is dead, murdered,” Captain Malta said. “And don’t ask me for explanations. You ponder it and it ought to explain our behavior here.”

“Are you sure the charts are gone?” Nick asked desperately.

“Yes, she took them with her— Murdered? John murdered?”

“Let’s get out of here,” Captain Malta said. “This chap will hold us for hours asking details. Read the newspapers, Hugh, and thanks for all the help.”

They went downstairs. Nick said, in admiration: “You’ve done a good job on this thing, Captain.”

“Not at all,” Captain Malta said. “This has all been routine. Don’t be impressed. Actually it has accomplished little. As for my having covered so many details, remember I’ve been at it longer than you, ever since we found Venner’s body at Maili by the tracks of the Oahu railroad. He was found shot through the head, stark naked, all identification removed. I recognized him of course. He was not meant to be found so soon, being in a stream. There were some chains still on one leg, but the heavier weights had dropped off. Where did you plan on going now?”

“To Schofield Barracks,” Nick said. “To find Sergeant Woolton.”

“I’ll save you the trip,” said Captain Malta. “He’s not there.”

“Not there? Where is he?”

“I wish I knew. If he is still alive, I think he may be hiding out. Possibly he wishes to reach you, since he must have known that Venner had wired you. I would like you to go back to town. I want you to be convenient for Woolton to find.”

Nick had a cold thought. “The weights and chains might have hung onto him. He could be at the bottom of the ocean.”

“Anything is possible,” said Captain Malta, his white bushy brows jerking as he moved them. “We should try to be optimistic. It’s the least we can do. Come along, Adams, I’ll drive you back to town myself. I’d like you to meet the man I’ve put on you, for safety’s sake. His name is Crowell. He’s a nice fellow, seen service in New York’s finest.”

Sergeant Crowell was waiting in the lobby downstairs. He was a cheerful soul, moon-faced, and with a glistening gold tooth in the front of his mouth.

“Highly pleased to make your acquaintance, sir,” he said, shaking hands.

“We’re going back together,” Malta said. “You follow. Nothing on the way out?”

“No one followed him, Captain.”

“Very good. Keep a weather eye on the doctor. I have a feeling he’s going to be worth his weight in gold before long.”

Nick was gloomy. “It will have to be before long. It’s nearly eight o’clock. That gives us a solitary day, according to Venner’s own time limit. Not many hours, Captain.”

“True,” Malta said. His voice was low but his eyes were hard. “Still, empires have vanished in less time. We’ve a chance, we’ve a chance.” But he did not sound enthusiastic.

Chapter Four The Empty Carton

There had been no calls for him at the hotel. No Woolton, to his intense disappointment. While he was still at the desk, he saw Dr. Cameron come in. He glanced at his wristwatch, saw it was only a few minutes past eight. He joined Cameron.

“Paul,” he said. “It may be a hit-and-run meal. I’m expecting a very important call and I can’t risk missing it.”

“That’s all right, Nick,” Cameron said, his voice cool. “Although I did want to tell you a personal decision I made today.”

“We’ll have time for that, surely,” Nick said. “Go ahead. I’ll tell them at the desk that I’m inside and if there are any calls they can page me there. I’ll eat with you and then go up to my room and change my things.”

He joined Paul Cameron at a table a few moments later.

Nick turned to Cameron, who did not look well, nor did he look ill. His cheeks were very hollow, and his color was not good, and from the twitching of his fingers, he seemed to be tense and nervous. “What was your news, Paul?” Nick said.

“I’ve tendered my resignation from the Institute,” Cameron said. “Effective immediately.”

“What?” Nick exclaimed sharply. “Your resignation? Have you gone crazy, Paul?”

“I put it in writing by mail, but I also cabled the New York office of my decision,” said Cameron, his voice dead.

“But Paul, in the name of heaven—”

“I had an offer from the University of Southern California, a doctor of pathology there, my own department, much free time for any experimentation I desire. In other words, a free hand. So I’ve accepted. I’m tired of malaria. I’ve done all I can do with it. I want a go at the lepra bacilli. I’m going to try and find the way the blight is communicated.”

“I’m terribly disappointed,” Nick said gravely. “It’s such a poor time to lose a man like you.”

“Very kind of you, Nick.”

“Oh, the hell with kindness — you’ve spoiled the night for me. They’ll have a struggle getting another fellow like you.”

“There are better than I,” Cameron said. His eyes were abnormally bright, and he could not sit still.

“That’s not true. I can’t believe it still.”

“Its causes are not easily explained, Nick. They’re bound up in my own life. Tonight I am finishing here a task I dedicated myself to many, many years ago when I was very young. Tomorrow I will start on a new task, and a new dedication, and perhaps my life will not be, in the future, the inhibited turmoil it has been in the past.”

Nick shrugged. “I don’t know what you mean, but of course you know what you’re doing.”

“Out of the whole thing, I’m grateful for your friendship, Nick.”

“You sound as if you were resigning from that too.”

A waiter stopped by and bowed politely. “Telephone call for doctor, please.”

“Which doctor?” Nick said, starting to rise.

“Dr. Cameron, tuan.”

Cameron rose. He seemed relieved. “Be right back.” He left.

Cameron returned in a few moments, his face somber. “I’m very sorry, but I’ll have to run. I know you’re busy, Nick, too, so suppose you come to the labs tomorrow?”

“Very well,” Nick said. “See you tomorrow.”

“Good-night, Nick.”

“ ’Night, Paul.”

Almost instantly, the waiter came over again. “Pardon. Dr. Adams? You are wanted at the front desk, sir.”

Nick signed the check hurriedly and walked out briskly. At the front desk, the clerk said: “The telephone call you were expecting, Doctor.”

“Good!” Nick said, elated. “I’ll take it up in my room. Tell the gentleman to hold on.”

“Very well, Doctor. And just a moment. Your friend, Dr. Cameron, dropped this package as he was leaving. Will you be able to return it to him?”

Nick took the small carton, about the size of a toothpaste tube box, nodded, said he would return it to Cameron, and then ran for his room.

Nick unlocked the door and went in. The moonlight through the window looked very beautiful. The telephone was ringing. He hurried to the phone without turning on the lights, and sat on the edge of the bed as he answered it.

“Hello?”

“Nicholas?”

“Hello, Eddie.” Nick’s voice dropped in disappointment.

Eddie Wing sounded serene, as was his way. “Sweetheart, I would appreciate the pleasure of your company this evening for the dropping of a few pearls of wisdom and the eating of some poi.”

“Eddie — thanks, but you know—”

“Huapala — I insist.” Eddie was firm. “I have a friend here who is most anxious to meet you. In fact, visiting me might coincide perfectly with your plans for the night.”

Nick began to warm. “This friend wouldn’t be a denizen of Brooklyn by any chance?”

Eddie Wing said whimsically: “I do believe he mentioned the fact. We may expect you then, Nicholas?”

“Yes,” Nick said. “Bless your heart, Eddie.”

“Bless my foot!” Eddie said. “Come on over.”

“At once.”

Nick hung up. Sergeant Woolton had been found! Dr. Venner’s aide-de-camp was at Wing’s house! It was marvelous good luck, and Nick began to feel the pulse of optimism in his veins. He started for the door hastily, not bothering to change, but hearing a faint click behind him, he paused at the door, his back against it. There was an amused chuckle in the dark. Nick’s heart jumped. He reached for the light — hesitated.

A voice as liquid as oil said: “Please, sah, forgive me, but you may turn on the light.”

Nick flipped the switch. When the room blazed, he found Mr. H. H. Sze lying on the bed. Mr. Sze was not reclining exactly. He was half erect, his shoulders against the headboard, a pillow under them, and his knees were high against his chest. He was dangling his pistol carelessly, his index finger crooked under the trigger guard. “Good evening, sah,” he said, his face with less expression than a judge’s. “Forgive this worthless one such informality.” He rose mockingly to his feet and bowed.

“Well, Mr. Sze,” Nick said. He halted, at a momentary loss for words. “We meet again. I had high hopes I’d avoid another visit from you.”

“Forgive me,” said Mr. Sze, “but your so clever escape at Waiana was so very much a challenge to me. You are armed, sah?”

“No.”

“Forgive me, sah, if I make certain for myself.” Gracefully he moved behind Nick. Nick stood stock-still while those long fingers probed his person for a gun, and found none. “You have something of great importance in your hand, sah?”

“Since I haven’t seen it yet, I wouldn’t know,” Nick said.

“Forgive me, sah, I will see for myself.”

Mr. Sze took Cameron’s carton from Nick and opened it. He did not just rip it open. He inserted one of his long index fingers under the flap and very evenly raised the flap. There was nothing inside. The carton was empty.

Mr. Sze looked at the thing blankly. It could not have meant anything to him, but with his lack of facial expression, Nick wasn’t able to make any guesses. Mr. Sze shrugged. “So very sorry, sah.” He dropped the carton on the bed.

“Quite all right,” Nick said. “I’m sorry I don’t have a lot of personal papers you could peruse. It would probably do your heart good. Or can you read, Mr. Sze?”

Mr. Sze’s eyes glittered. “Forgive me, Doctor, but this witless one has earned the accomplishment. This humble one is aware that he would normally be your inferior.” He drew himself erect. “But a pistol, sah, is the great equalizer. One man, yellow or white, is as good as another.”

“Ah,” Nick said, stalling, “a philosopher.”

“Forgive me, sah, but you are right. I am a philosopher. But this poor one is also a realist. You are my prisoner, if you please, and this time you must not escape, you must not offer resistance, Doctor, because this time — forgive me — I will take no chances.”

“What are your plans for me?” Nick said heavily. He was not afraid, his voice was quite steady, and he felt very cool.

“Forgive me, sah, this unfortunate one does not make the plans. If it were left to me to make the plans, you would be fermenting in Waiana, sah, for when a man is considered dangerous to a cause, there is no wise recourse but to slay him. To do otherwise is to be careless, sentimental, or merciful, none of which are compatible with destiny. Forgive me, it is un-Christian, but this realist belives that the meek will inherit only the grave.

“I am not of those meek, sah, forgive me the personal mention. This person believes you should have perished in Malacca. This person believes that you should perish now. But others have seen fit to forbid imperiling your life. And elaborate precautions have thus been taken for your safety. Indeed, sah, the star which blessed your birth will take you from this city tonight, for which, Christianly, you should offer your gratification to the Deity. Those who are left in Oahu on the morrow will not offer prayers to the Deity this side of hell.”

Nick felt the goose pimples studding his flesh. He managed to ask: “And these precautions, Mr. Sze?”

“Forgive me, sah, I have the drug herewith. You are to drink a glass of water in which is dissolved two tablets from this bottle. I have been given to understand that they will render you unconscious within a brief time. When you recover your senses, sah, you will be enroute south by small boat to Lanai, properly warned that should you show yourself in this locality again, immediate death would result. Forgive me, sah.”

“For God’s sake,” Nick said huskily. “I forgive thee. Don’t keep saying that. What guarantee have I that the drug isn’t nitric acid or the like?”

“None, sah.”

Nick walked to the bed and sat down and put his head in his hands. “And if I refuse, you shoot?”

“Forgive, sah,” Mr. Sze said, eyes inflexible, “but that would be my pleasure.”

Nick raised his head. He dropped his eyes to the carton on the bed, the empty carton which the clerk had given him. He could just see the legend on the face of the box. The drug had a Cardwell Institute label on it, a number, and the words Haffkine Vaccine.

Five silent seconds passed while his brain absorbed the words. They transfixed him. He went rigid, his mouth agape, his eyes dilated, his face paling. It struck home, the whole rotten terrifying business hit into the pit of the stomach with force which stiffened his muscles and knotted a nausea in his throat. The realization welled up in his mind in a roaring crescendo, and he saw the past flit by in rapid succession, from the second century through the twentieth, in the twinkling of an eye. Here was a plot he would not have believed possible, a plot where artificiality was almost fantastic, and yet the simple legend on the carton, like a thunderbolt, declaimed the fact. All at once, the pieces fitted together, the entire jigsaw puzzle coincided its multitudinous parts perfectly.

In the lightning swift procession of the past, he saw Imperial Rome decimated, the houses filled with dead, the streets with funerals, the air with lamentations. He saw the Italian boot gripped in the thing, Genoa, Siena, Pisa prostrated, nearly all the population struck down, the city of Florence taken in storm, perishing in the twinkling of an eye. He saw the Channel crossed, and London blighted and seventy thousand men and women dying swiftly and terribly. He saw the red crosses on the doors of Drury Lane and the words Lord Have Mercy on Us inscribed thereon, as Samuel Pepys had seen. He saw the dancing rats, red-eyed, sick and dying, coming down the centuries, to Hong Kong, Manila, Bombay. He saw the flea, Pulex cheopis, and the cry echoed in his mind like the beat of a kettle drum: Plague, PLAGUE, PLAGUE!

All this from the simple legend on the carton. The two words Haffkine Vaccine explained so much. Back in time, recent enough to be called contemporary, a professor named W. M. Haffkine of Bombay had developed a vaccine for bubonic plague which aroused the immunity forces of an individual against the Black Death, although the time of immunity was extremely brief. Nick had used it often, injecting himself before going into plague foci to stamp out the pestilence. A man like Cameron, working in Honolulu where plague was not endemic, could never have had a sane reason for such an injection unless he was working with plague.

It raced through Nick’s mind, feverishly, as he sat on the bed, all in brief seconds, for Mr. Sze did not seem aware of any prolonged stalling. Disaster imminent in forty-eight hours. MacFerson must have been part of the plot, come down with the buboes, and in his dying terror, had blurted it all out to Colonel Venner.

It was madness, he would not have believed it could be handled artificially, and yet, of them all, it was the surest and most sweeping pestilence. It was the sort of thing which could decimate half of the entire garrison of the island, make the naval base almost uninhabitable, the crowded native sections a pyre of dead, wipe out the manpower in the military barracks. It was difficult to control when it erupted, naturally. Artificially begun, with varied and numerous foci, with thousands of rats and fleas — the image stunned him. The Black Death was omega; there was scarcely any survival if you were struck. You could bury a man in the morning and be buried yourself that evening.

Everything seemed clearer. Venner’s mentioning qualifications for the job, and speaking of his Cairo work. What the devil, he’d been in Cairo many times and done much work, but he knew now that Venner had meant his work in Cairo when he had hunted incessantly for the focus, found it and destroyed it. The greatest rat catcher in Egypt, they had called him.

Nick had never liked working on plague. It was hazardous, its mortality breathtaking. He remembered when he had stood in a Cairo cellar and seen his covered legs swarming with fleas from the dancing, dying rats in that black hole.

Mr. Sze said suddenly: “Forgive me, sah, time passes, and you must reach a decision.”

“Get me the glass of water and put in your chloral hydrate,” Nick said. He rubbed his hands against each other hard, thinking, watching Mr. Sze with caution.

Mr. Sze did not have to leave the room. He poured a glass of water from the Bombay cooler on the side table and dropped the two pills into the water, where they dissolved. He was standing fairly close to the bed. Nick shifted his weight forward so that his feet, curling under the bed, would be able to raise him quickly. Then Mr. Sze, gun in his right hand, glass of water in his left, said: “Forgive me, sah, your potion is ready, if you please.”

“Can it be,” Nick remarked casually, “that you have canine blood, Mr. Sze? Are you related then to the Ming dogs?”

“Forgive me, sah,” Mr. Sze replied, mouth hard, “is it a poor joke?”

“A poor joke,” Nick said, and then he drove it home. “I just happened to notice the flea on your leg.”

The glass of water dropped with a crash. For the first time in their acquaintanceship, Nick saw expression on the face of H. H. Sze. A gnarled pattern of intermingled terror and repugnance broke down the passive structure of the Chinese’s countenance, and he threw his head and eyes down, without any thought but of his own survival, to see the flea — in his mind the only flea — the plague flea.

Nick thought, coming up from the bed, that he took an eternity. He had been tensed, tuning his body for just that moment. He put all pressure on the balls of his feet and shot up from the bed, his right fist out like a ramrod. He had meant to catch Mr. Sze on the jaw, but he miscalculated and struck the Chinese square in the face with force which drove a sharp pain through his hand, and lifted the man over backwards to the floor.

Mr. Sze made no sound, but Nick could see the Chinese had not dropped the gun.

Nick kicked at the gun hand, caught the barrel of the pistol with his toe, sent the gun spinning across the room. It struck the wall a savage blow and detonated. The sound was sharp and frightening. He did not see where the bullet went. He ran across the room, imagining he heard Mr. Sze coming to, for possession of the pistol. Nick picked it up, breathless, and wheeled. But Mr. Sze lay on the floor, on his back, where he had first fallen, his nose bleeding profusely, his eyes closed.

I’ve killed him, Nick thought, appalled.

There was, however, a strong pulse. Holding the gun and watching the Chinese, Nick picked up the telephone. “I want a policeman,” he said. It was a classic phrase in the forepart of every American telephone directory. He supplemented it. “Page a Sergeant Crowell; he may be in the lobby. Then call Army Intelligence, Captain Malta; I’ve caught a gunman in my room.”

The desk clerk couldn’t say a word.

Nick hung up, his hands shaking from excitement. He couldn’t catch his breath. Good Lord, it was a mess. It was no time to be respectable, even though he gave his respectability a momentary thought worrying about it. Someone called him from the door. “Are you all right, sir? Open up in here!”

He opened the door. Sergeant Crowell strode in, his face screwed tight, a revolver in his hand. “Heard the shot,” he said.

“You heard the shot? Then you couldn’t have been downstairs.”

“I was in the lobby,” Sergeant Crowell said. “Sounded like a blasted cannon. Is that the one, the sloe-eyed — sir?”

“His name is H. H. Sze,” Nick replied. He gave Crowell the gun. “You can arrest him. I’ve no time to wait for details at this point. Please get in touch with Captain Malta and tell him to meet me at the home of Eddie Wing. Can you remember that? Wing’s home. And whatever you do, don’t let this man escape.”

Sergeant Crowell cocked his head grimly. “That point you don’t have to think about twice, sir. With me they don’t escape alive.”

Nick retrieved the vaccine carton, put it in his pocket, and fled. He took a cab and drove quickly to Dr. Wing’s home, which was located out in Nuuanu Valley not far from the Country Club. From the outside, the stucco house was ordinary, but its interior was carpeted with luxuriantly deep rugs, the walls studded with Hawaiian objets d’art, the furniture polished teakwood, the place alive with books of many languages. There was a musty richness about Eddie Wing’s home which did not match his youth. “Nicholas,” he said. “Welcome to Stony Broke. Come in, please, quickly—”

“It’s plague,” Nick breathed, unable to contain himself. “It’s plague, Eddie, bubonic plague. Look at this.” He thrust the carton at Wing. “Paul Cameron inoculated himself with this stuff tonight. It means he’s either working with plague or trying to break this thing himself, and the second possibility is an impossibility. I’m convinced. He’s been in and out of the thing vaguely ever since I found it. His signature was forged to the credentials Zeller used to get MacFerson and his nurse out of the hospital. Now I don’t think it was a forgery at all. His resigning his post here — leaving tomorrow himself — it all fits, don’t you see? He’s in it! My God, I can’t believe such a thing, but he’s in it!”

“Huapala, catch your breath,” Eddie Wing said, his voice a whisper in comparison with Nick’s hoarseness. “You’re too excited. Come upstairs quickly. Sergeant Woolton is here, and he has news. I don’t believe it’s plague. You can’t use plague in artificial fashion. Too dangerous.”

“Yes?” Nick said. “It’s plague, all right! If it hadn’t been plague, I might not be here. It was plague to the damned gunman who— Where is Woolton, Eddie? I’m out of hand.”

“Upstairs in the forward bedroom. Go ahead — scramble! Go right up and visit with him, but don’t let him get excited. He’s wounded.”

Nick nodded and ran up the stairs. He knew the guest-room well, had spent many nights in it. There was a faint scent of sandalwood upstairs. He opened the guest-room door, went in, and found Sergeant Woolton reposing in bed, a young man, brawny and huge, with a big face, big hands and wild hair. He sat up instantly, his face showing some pain, and he said: “Hello, pal, who are you?”

“I’m Nicholas Adams,” Nick said, “Woolton?”

“That’s the name, Doc. My friends call me Boitie.”

“You’re wounded?”

“Yeah, Doc, the — slipped me one. Square in the groin, but that won’t stop me. It didn’t stop me when I caught it. I wish to hell you could patch me up for the final because I’m a fighting man, Doc, and I’d like to be in this thing for the windup.”

“You take it easy,” Nick said. “Let’s see it.”

It was a serious wound. Eddie Wing had already attended to the extraction of the bullet. If there was going to be peritonitis, Bertie Woolton was in trouble. But he didn’t seem to mind. His energy, under the circumstances, was amazing. “Will I make the grade, Doc?”

“Yes, if you give yourself a chance and stay strong.”

“Good. I’ll moider ’em when I get out.”

Nick replied: “How did you get shot and who shot you?”

“Jap named Kita shot me because I got too nosy,” said Woolton, his voice strong. “Oh, he was a sneaky little monkey. I never got a shot at him. I’m glad you came down, sir. I knew the colonel was going to wire you. That was the last I saw of him, when he went to R.C.A. on King. ‘Boitie,’ he says to me, ‘you keep your glimmers on Kita until you hear from me. Kita knows where the focus is and Kita will lead you there.’ ”

Nick said: “Now talk slowly and take it easy. You’d better start at the beginning, Woolton.”

“O.K.,” Woolton said, nodding. He leaned back in bed and rested a moment. “Began yesterday morning. Punk named Robert MacFoison reported in at Stafford ill. Slinky little rat. Colonel Venner put him to bed. MacFoison was fulla lumps. Colonel got Miss Wilson, told me to get out. I ain’t a butcher, y’see.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Next thing, the colonel comes dashing out like an M-3 heading for Libya. ‘Boitie,’ he says, ‘hell to pay. We’ve gotta woik fast, lotsa woik, Boitie, before they toin this island into a pesthole.’ ”

Nick said: “Did Venner tell you what MacFerson had related to him?”

“If you’ll hold your hat, Doc, I’ll tell you exactly like I was told. And this man-hole in my belly hoits.” He stirred restlessly. Nick knew that Bertie Woolton couldn’t be killed by one wound. The fellow’s strength and sang froid were wonderful. “Now the colonel didn’t talk much. ‘What it is,’ he says, ‘I can’t tell you, Boitie. But in brief, this MacFoison was part of a plot to spread a lot of death around this island where it would do the most good. The punk was gonna introduce the Schofield Barracks to this screwy blitz. That was his job. And he came down with the same sickness he had planned for his pals.’ ” Woolton frowned. “It was a sickness of some kind.”

“I know what it is now,” Nick said. “I don’t like to be impatient under the circumstances, Woolton, but time is precious.”

“Sure, pal.” Woolton nodded. “I’ll blitz it. So the colonel says: ‘I’m going down for a snort with Doc Wing because there is only one mug for this job and that’s his pal Nicholas Adams’ — you. ‘I’ve got to get Adams here at once,’ he says, ‘because MacFoison said inoculation has already begun, and they plan to loose the sickness on the island within forty-eight hours, when the rats are thoroughly infected.’ I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about, I’m a fighting man, I ain’t a sawbones.”

“You’re making fine sense,” Nick said. “Keep going, Woolton. Did he know where the focus was?”

“Focus, focus, he said focus too. What’s a focus?”

“A focus is the center. It’s where they would have these infected rats.”

“No, my fran’, that he didn’t know. That yellow rat MacFoison got hold of himself, Doc. He’d been outa his head for fear and spouting all this dope, and all of a sudden, MacFoison got leery that the colonel wouldn’t save him. So he shut up like a clam and said he would give out no more singing unless Colonel Venner saved him from the lumps. The colonel threatened him with every torture this side of Canarsie, but MacFoison wouldn’t open up. Foist, he’d been afraid of what he had, then he was afraid of the colonel leaving him to die. Colonel Venner said there was nothing he could do anyhow.”

“What was MacFerson’s job in the thing?” Nick asked.

“He was going to infect Schofield Barracks.”

“But how?”

“I don’t know,” Woolton said. “How the hell would a man infect a barracks? You should know, Doc.”

“He’d have to transport infected rats by truck,” Nick said.

“Truck?” said Woolton. “You’re within a smell of it, Doc. Because MacFoison had raved about some people, see? He’d mentioned a man named Zeller and a man named the Chief, and a man named Kita. The colonel told me that I was to find Kita and that Kita was a trucker, and that I was to follow Kita until he led me to the focus.”

“And you found Kita?”

“He had a trucking agency on Chulia Street. There was a spot over the road from the garage and I hung in there with a bottle until it was a dead marine. Then the Nipper came out of the garage. He drove his own car. I chased him in a taxi. He went down to Bishop Street and stopped in front of a place called Laboratories, Limited. That was when I caught my slug. Kita saw me leave the cab, and if I’d not been in uniform, it woulda been different. I ducked into an alley and thought I’d lost the Nip, but I hadn’t. I was rounding the corner behind the stores when I caught one. I heard the shot and he just got me toining — see how it hit me — and I went down. Then I got up and I could still walk but I knew I couldn’t get far. There was a parking space behind the alley, and six trucks lined up with Kita’s name on the side of them. They had tarpaulin over the back so I crawled under there. The trucks was empty.”

“When was this?”

“Round noon, Doc, because the heat was filthy the rest of the day. The trucks stayed there. I could hear them looking for me, but I hadn’t bled outside my clothes and there was no trail. When it got dark, I managed to get out the alley, into a cab. I came right to Dr. Wing’s place, because I figured he’d know where the colonel was. Then I heard they’d bumped off the colonel. That’s all.”

Nick shook his head. “Woolton,” he said, his face alive, “you’re terrific.”

“I’m dead tired,” Woolton said. He smiled. “Thanks, pal. It’s your show now. Make it a lulu and slip the sloe a slug from his pal Boitie.”

Chapter Five The Men Behind the Rats

There was no time to waste. Nick was aware that Eddie Wing had been in the room with them for most of it, but had disappeared. Nick went downstairs to find Captain Malta in the hall with Wing, a Colt H-5 at his hip. “In a minute,” Nick said. “We can break it open if we’re not too late.” He picked up the telephone and called the Quarantine station in Honolulu. “This is Dr. Nicholas Adams of the Cardwell Institute,” he began formally, so that they would place him. He knew Dr. Jeremiah Riggs down there very well. He asked for Dr. Riggs, and they switched the call to Dr. Riggs’ home. It took some minutes, and Nick was in a nervous frenzy. “Hello, Riggs? This is Nick Adams! Yes, in Honolulu, but listen, Jerry, I haven’t time for amenities. I want you — please understand this, it’s most urgent — I want you to get together the fumigation equipment — yes, hydrocyanic gas and sulphur and anything you have, bring it all, I’m not sure what sort of situation there may be — to the Laboratories Limited on Bishop Street... I mean every word, Riggs, there’s a bubonic plague focus there. Thanks, Jerry, thanks very much.” He hung up.

Captain Malta said: “Bishop Street, Doctor? The shopping center?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll be damned!” said Captain Malta, his face red, and his eyebrows bristling. “Plague! This is out of my line, Adams!”

“No time to talk,” Nick said. “Let’s go. Do you have men?”

“Not with me.” Captain Malta telephoned headquarters. “Give me a company at once,” he said. “Laboratories Limited on Bishop Street. The men are to deploy with arms covering the entrance.”

“There’s a trucking exit in the rear,” Nick said. “That’s most important. Make certain the men who cover that section are protected on hands and legs from any flea bites. Make certain of that, Malta, or it may mean death for them.”

Malta relayed the information and received some in return. “He did?... I’ll leave word here then for him to follow. Yes, at once.” He hung up. “Sergeant Crowell brought in a prisoner at Central station and said that he had information for me. He’s on the way over. Dr. Wing, will you inform the sergeant that I’ve left with Dr. Adams for—”

“I imagine,” Dr. Wing said quietly, “your sergeant is just arriving. There is a car racing down the road.”

He was right. Sergeant Crowell was in the car, and he brought it to a roaring halt in front of the house behind Captain Malta’s car. Sergeant Crowell jumped out. Captain Malta said tersely: “Headquarters said you had important information for me.”

“Yes, Captain, I have. On that gunman — Mr. Sze, Doctor — I found these inter-island boat tickets for Lanai. He was taking the morning boat, two tickets.”

“He was to take me,” Nick said. “At least he said so.”

“Yes, sir, but it ain’t what I mean. Look here, on the other side is the address where the tickets were sent to him. Care of the Laboratories, Limited, Bishop Street. I thought—”

“Good job,” Malta snapped. “Fortunately, we’re a bit ahead of you, we already have the address. Let’s be going.”

Nick and Eddie Wing got in Malta’s car as the engine started. Nick shut out everything but the job. It came easily to him, he had done it often before when he had a patient. You could be thinking of a thousand important things, and suddenly you saw your patient, and in a twinkling, you had detached yourself from everything but the patient and your treatment of him. Oahu was the patient this night and, not unlike those distant days when he had interned at Lenox Hill in New York, he was answering an emergency call, and all that was lacking was the clanging bell of an ambulance.

“I can’t impress upon you the value of secrecy,” Nick Adams told Captain Malta, as they drove into town together. “I fully understand now why Venner was so mysterious. I don’t mind your knowing that we have bubonic plague in Oahu, Captain, and I pray to God we stamp it out before the night is over. Naturally Dr. Riggs and his disinfecting crew are going to know, too, and I suppose Intelligence will be informed. But other than that, I would hush any publicity on the matter, for it ought to be fairly plain to you that such a plot suggests itself again, or suggests others, and that isn’t so good. Also, the population might be too close to a panic line on any other incident, which may transpire, for war is war and other incidents will come along.”

“I understand thoroughly,” Captain Malta said. “I’m even inclined to think I would have acted as Colonel Venner did. It was just his own incredible bad luck in being murdered that prevented a successful conclusion to the thing, as he had planned it. Plague! I don’t know much of these things — that’s the one with rats?”

“Yes,” Nick said. “That’s the one with rats. That’s the one that wiped off half the population of Europe some centuries ago. That’s the one they worry about even in the United States at ports like Mobile or New Orleans or San Francisco.”

“Could it — really work?” Captain Malta asked, his voice awed. “It’s hard to think—”

“It may still work,” Nick said. “If they’ve loaded those trucks with infected rats to establish various foci at the naval base, at various barracks, at the docks, and in the Chinese quarter, not I nor twenty like me will stop the fire once it begins to burn!”

“But exactly how do the rats do it? Why is it so difficult? It’s easy enough to trap a rat.”

“The rat doesn’t do it. The rat is the carrier. There are two types of fleas that do it, they are infected, cheopis and asta. They climb onto a rat, live on him, infect him. When he dies, they hide in the dust and leap onto the next living thing that comes by. Since the long-tailed black mus rattus makes his home with man, he brings the flea into man’s quarters, and you have plague. In septicemic plague, there is a ninety percent mortality, and no treatment of any avail. The ten percent are just lucky. In pneumonic plague, man can then directly contaminate man by merely coughing! The possibilities are gruesome to look upon. As for trapping the rat, Captain, I will pay you a fine reward if you will find me the resting place of the rat. Like the elephant, the rodent burying ground has never been found. Think of it, there is one rat for every two persons in the world, and yet his tomb has never been found. A famous scientist connected with the Rockefeller Institute once spent much time in Manila, trying to find the rat’s grave, and never succeeded. It is most difficult to catch a dead rat, Captain, and in this case, it is the dead rat who is likely to have carried the sinister boarders who strike plague.”

Captain Malta made no comment. His silence was one of dismay. They turned into Bishop Street and proceeded to the address. They found that the constabulary had already done an excellent piece of work. The street was roped off on either side, and the quarantine fumigating equipment stood by, waiting, the truck with the big pumps, hoses and cylinders of deadly hydrocyanic gas.

A tall dignified man with a fine mustache met Malta, and the captain introduced the newcomer as Major Henry Dinwoody, commanding the soldiers who had been rushed to the scene. “We must move quickly,” Dinwoody said. “It’s possible they aren’t aware of us yet. This was done quickly and quietly.”

“Is the rear covered?” Nick asked.

“Quite thoroughly.”

“And they aren’t aware?”

“No, Doctor,” Dinwoody said. “They are loading small crates into the trucks.”

Nick shuddered and said: “Let’s go, Captain. Don’t storm the place, Major. Just make certain that no one leaves the front entrance. And have the fumigating crew ready to pump. If there are any other people in these shops along the way, get them out, and force them to leave until we are finished. It will take time.”

Captain Malta joined Nick. They were directed to the alley, followed it in the dark until they reached the area way behind the stores. They approached the rear of Laboratories Limited, and were quietly halted by a tough sergeant, looking queer with white gloves and white leggings. He recognized Malta and apologized. They had reached the line.

“What arrangements have you made?” Captain Malta asked the sergeant.

“I blow my whistle and we go in with the bayonet,” the sergeant said. He was very tall.

Nick watched. Bare-legged, bare-armed coolies, who didn’t even realize what they were doing, earning their daily shilling, were bringing small wire-netted crates from the sliding rear door of the building and piling them one on top of the other in the rear of the various trucks.

Close by the door, his arms folded stoically, stood a little man. Nick assumed it was the same Mr. Kita whose name adorned the trucks.

Captain Malta passed a pistol and a flashlight to Nick. Nick rejected the pistol. — “Never killed a man in my life” — but took the torch. Nick said: “No point waiting, Captain. Leave the trucks as they are; don’t have your men touch them. Take every man in sight prisoner. The important thing is for me to get inside and seal that building. This is it, no doubt of it.”

“Blow your whistle, Sergeant,” Captain Malta said.

The sergeant took a breath and blew piercingly on his whistle. Soldiers evolved out of the darkness in more quantity than Nick had ever expected. He found himself running, right in the vanguard, striving for the open door before Kita leaped in and closed it. There would be the devil to pay if they couldn’t get in.

Kita, surprised by the whistle and the sudden rush of men, threw his head one way and another and started shooting. Nick had not even seen him take a gun out, but the shots were vivid enough. His stomach was terrified, a rocklike knob, but his legs kept moving and his head was cool enough. He had a momentary vision as he approached the door of Kita pointing a gun almost directly into his face. It couldn’t happen to me, Nick thought in a flash, not me!

Captain Malta, just behind him, fired at Kita and killed the Jap before Kita ever pulled his trigger. The proximity of Malta’s pistol to Nick’s ear was such that Nick thought he had burst an eardrum. His left ear rang and kept ringing but other than that internal ring, it was as deaf as a stone. He saw the coolies yelling and chattering in a frantic fear. They were quickly taken, no resistance offered. Poor souls, he thought, they’ve lived with death tonight and don’t even know it. He wondered how many of them had been infected by the valveless epipharynx of the plague flea.

When he reached the door, he turned and went in. It was damned reassuring to have a man like Captain Malta at his side. The place was well lighted when they went in, but almost instantly, the fluorescent tubes died, and the building plunged into darkness. Nick had had a quick vision of the interior, and the room in which he stood he knew to be a former loft, now containing shelves in quantity separated by little alleys, and the shelves which rose from the floor to a six-foot height were filled with meshed cages in which the oddly sinister scuffle of the rats could be heard. Some of the beasts were squealing. It was ugly.

“There’s a staircase on the left,” Nick panted. “Must go up to the laboratory itself. No one can get out?”

“No one,” Captain Malta said grimly.

“I’ll take the staircase, they must be up there!”

“Let me go first, Adams, you’re not armed!”

“No, no, it’s all right.”

Nick found the staircase with his electric torch. The stairs were old and creaky and he heard each one of his own steps as he ascended. A voice ahead of him called, “Adams?”

“Yes,” he said. “Yes.”

A rough hard hand grasped him, swung him around and pulled him. The torch fell from his hand. Nick felt the cold barrel of a gun against his cheek — in the dark his assailant had meant for it to be against his head. There was a grunt. He heard Captain Malta trip on the stairs and curse. Then Malta called: “Adams, are you safe?”

Nick’s assailant said: “Is that you, Malta?”

“Yes.”

“I want safe conduct,” the man said. He was strong. “This is Zeller speaking. I’m holding Adams here. If you don’t give me safe conduct, I’ll kill him. I’ll take him with me and release him when I get clear.”

“Has he got you, Doctor?”

It occurred to Nick that he had a golden opportunity. The gun was hard against his cheek. He jerked his head backwards and found the right side of Zeller’s thumb cushion against his mouth. He bit it as savagely as any animal, and he felt his teeth go deep. Zeller roared at the pain and futilely pounded Nick’s back with his fist. Then Captain Malta’s torch spotlighted them both. At that moment, the pressure of Nick’s teeth opening the muscles of Zeller’s hand, Zeller dropped his gun. It clattered down the stairs. Captain Malta raised his gun as Nick released Zeller’s hand.

“Kamerad,” Zeller said. He did not raise his hands. He shook the one which had been bitten. “Kamerad, Malta. I am taken.” He said it very quickly, not frightened, but quickly nevertheless, for Malta was not being merciful in the press of things.

“This is a dangerous man,” Captain Malta said, “and I don’t want to lose him in this melee. Can you wait a few seconds, Adams, while I deliver him to a guard downstairs?”

“Go ahead, I’ll wait.”

A gun in his back, Fritz Zeller said, his voice ugly: “I trust you have not infected me, Adams.”

“You never know,” Nick said. “Better have a Pasteur treatment, although a chap like yourself should certainly have built up an immunization against rabies.”

“We should have wiped you off early,” Zeller said. He went down the stairs with Malta behind him, grumbling something about the damned stubborn Dutchman.

Alone, Nick Adams stood on the landing. His eyes had become more accustomed to the darkness, and that, coupled with the reflection of the electric torches on the floor of the loft below, showed him a door with an opaque glass upper half, marked Private and closed. He was wary. Then he called: “Paul! Paul Cameron!”

There was a voice beyond the door. “Nick?” Cameron’s voice, but not cold and impersonal as it had always been. It was a tired voice, quivering with emotion.

“It’s no use, Paul,” Nick called. “It’s finished, Paul.”

The door opened. Cameron said: “Come in quickly.”

Nick shivered and went in. He heard Cameron lock the door. They stood in the darkness. He heard Cameron moving. “Walk directly ahead,” said Cameron wearily. “You’ll find a chair. You’re a fool. You realize I could kill you as easily as I’d step on a spider? I’ve a Mauser here, Nick, in my hand.”

“Why would you kill me?” Nick said. “I’m the only friend you have left in this world.”

“Sit down,” Cameron said. “Sit down.”

Nick found the chair and sat. He wished, vainly, that he could see Cameron’s face, for the voice was tortured. He was not afraid. He said: “In the name of God, Paul, why did you do it?”

He heard a sigh. “It was so perfect,” Cameron whispered. “Damn you, Nick. Damn you, damn you. You’ve ruined a lifetime, you’ve destroyed a dream... No, I have. I’ve done it myself, committed hara-kiri because I was still capable of one human frailty. From the beginning Sze and Zeller wanted to murder you, but I would not sanction it. I should have stayed in character and let them finish you, and tonight, Oahu would have begun its decline and fall. Oh my God, why were you my friend in the beginning?” His voice broke, then choked into silence.

There was a long and tense pause. Outside on the landing, Captain Malta called: “Adams! Where are you?” Then the door rattled.

Cameron fired at the door without warning, and the shot raised Nick’s hair and took his breath away. He had not expected it. Cameron said: “You had better explain to your friend, Nick. I’ll kill any man who comes through that door now. I’m not to be taken alive tonight.”

“Malta!” Nick called feverishly. “Don’t come in! I’m in here, I’m all right. Please don’t come in.”

“You may tell him that you will be out presently unharmed,” Cameron said. “I want to talk with you, Nick.”

“I’ll be out in a few minutes unharmed,” Nick said. “Please be patient, Captain.”

“Are you saying that at gunpoint?” Malta called sharply.

“No, no,” Nick said. “He could shoot me if he wished. Please stand by, Captain.”

The logic was plain. “Very well, Adams.”

“I am sitting here,” Cameron said huskily in the dark, “and wondering what is being thought in that neat and honest mind of yours, Nick.”

“Incredulity mostly.”

“You hate me,” Cameron said in a tight voice.

“I’m incapable of hate,” Nick said. “But I can’t forgive you this, for any reason, because you are a doctor. I could forgive no man who had sworn his fidelity by the Hippocratic oath such a black rotten plot. It was your job to save lives, not extinguish them. It was your job to put everything else in life aside — all your personal wishes — and save, not destroy.”

“You’d never understand,” Cameron said.

“Right. A chauvinist perhaps. But not a doctor.”

Cameron’s teeth were gritted and his voice was fierce. “I’ve owed them this, the verdamnt Yankees, owed them it since April 1917. If they had stayed at home, tended their own business, we would not be at war today; we Germans would have won the first war, as it was intended we should! But you Yankees interfered; you did not defeat us, you tired us, and you postponed the war for twenty years. This time, I swore I would take care of you.”

He coughed. Nick stunned, said: “We Germans, did you say?”

“Yes. We Germans. I am a German. First, last, always. I saw the pattern of things to come so far back when my kin and friends were killed by American soldiers. I saw what would happen. The Armistice confirmed this. I knew at once I must work from within. The opportunity would come. I even assumed United States citizenship. Then the opportunity came. I saw what would happen — the same story again — but this time we had Japan with us. Oahu, the impregnable Pacific fortress — there was an objective to reduce!”

Nick grimaced at the sound of jubilance in Cameron’s hard voice.

“After the attack on Pearl Harbor, I knew more than ever that the base could not be taken from the outside unless first it was softened up on the inside. That was my task. Fortunately, I had been working on the premise long before the Japanese flew in from the west and decimated your fleet—”

“How in God’s name—”

Cameron raised his hands. “It took time and patience. I began a year ago, almost, with fifty rats, male and female. As you know, their gestation period is twenty-one days, and in three months, the newborn can also breed, so that by the end of the year when I reached a figure of five thousand rats, all mus rattus, the time had come to inoculate them. These rats had all been maintained in the lofts below in their cages, well fed and uninfected, as far as we could help. I imported cheopis and asta fleas from Haifa and Jaffa, from India and from Manila. In other words, under the seal of the Cardwell Institute I imported the bacillus pestis. The time had come. I proceeded to infect every rat in the loft with fleas, allowed a suitable incubation period for the vermin to sicken. Tonight they are alive with plague. In hours—”

“That’s over,” Nick said harshly. “Do you hear? Finished.”

Cameron said grimly: “It would have been ghastly, Nick. But it would have served its purpose. The Japanese did not have to take Oahu. They had only to reduce it to impotency, drive the U.S. fleet back to the coast, knowing it constituted no threat to their lines of communication... I could have accomplished that, almost alone. But it is finished, as you say, and I am finished. I am very tired.”

“What happened to MacFerson?” Nick said.

“Gone in the sea. That was Zeller’s department. Venner was Zeller’s department. There was another, an American sergeant. Kita shot him in the stomach. I don’t know where he died. You were Zeller’s department, he put Sze on you. But I forbade violence... In one way” — he spoke very slowly now — “I am glad that no cause contributed to my failure but the cause of friendship. The Jekyll frustrated the Hyde. There is something reassuring in the thought.” His voice hardened. “Rid the earth of malcontents, Nick, when you look for disease, for they are disease and while they exist, the meek shall never inherit the earth. Please leave me now, and I give you fair warning, don’t let me see you again.”

“You’re going to give yourself up, Paul. Don’t be a fool. You’re surrounded here, we’re sealing the building, you’re alone.”

“Get out, Nick. Tell Malta to try and take me. I’ve six bullets left in the pistol, good for six men.”

Nick rose and felt his way to the door. “Good-bye, Paul,” he said. There was no point persuading. He knew from Cameron’s voice.

Nick unlocked the door and stepped out. The door was slammed and locked behind him. He ran into Malta’s arms. Captain Malta said, “Adams!”

“I’m all right.”

“Where is he?”

“In there.”

“I’ve got to bring him out.”

“You haven’t a chance. No windows, he’s in a closed room. He’d shoot you the instant you opened the door. He won’t give himself up.”

“I want that man,” Malta said.

“Come along,” Nick said. “The man is finished but the rats are not. The plague is more important than the man who fashioned it. I promise you that you’ll have Cameron, but first I want the life of every rat and flea in this pesthole. Tell your men to seal all windows, seal all doors, check the roof and sides for ventilators. The building is to be made as air-tight as possible. And remove all inhabitants from the buildings around in an area of five hundred yards.”

“Very well, Adams.”

Nick descended the stairs to the floor of the loft. There were electric torches flashing around. He saw the crated rats, red-eyed, scuffling, squealing, panicky. His skin crawled. He walked out of the place quickly. He borrowed a light to look at his trousers but they were devoid of fleas. The chances in that hole were terrific. He watched the men sealing up the building. When Captain Malta came out, Nick said: “These trucks will have to be driven some place and burned. They’re thoroughly infected at this point and we can’t openly spray them with the gas. It’s too deadly.”

Captain Malta ordered the soldiers to drive the trucks out toward Barber’s Point and to set them all together out there and await instructions. “I’ll call the Army post and ask them if they can’t use a flame-thrower on the blasted things. That’s quick fire to kill everything in a hurry.”

They went around through the alley to Bishop Street and soon the report came that the place was sealed. The quarantine crew made a quick inspection of their own, then ran a hose into the building. The pumps started, and the hydrocyanic gas went in.

“But Cameron!” Malta said suddenly. “What about Cameron?”

Nick stared at the closed building. His face was dull and unexpressive. “You have no worries about Cameron,” he said. “Hydrocyanic is quick and painless.” He slumped. “There’s nothing else for me to do here, Captain. I’d rather not stay around.”

Captain Malta looked up to the boarded windows on the second floor. Then he nodded. “Yes,” he said. “I see your point. I think we’ve no further need for you at this time, Doctor. Good-night.”

There was a single shot, sharp and clear. It came from the building...

“Good-night,” Nick said.

“Well, sweetheart,” said Dr. Eddie Wing, who drove him away from the scene, “spend the night with me?”

“No,” Nick said. “Thanks, Eddie. I’m going back to the Royal Hawaiian. I want to see about passage.”

“East?”

“Yes. I’m going home to the States.”

Eddie Wing smiled grimly. “What are you going to do there, Nick?”

“Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the country,” Nick said. He smiled too. “I guess we’ve got to take a moratorium on saving lives, Eddie. First you kill the bug; then saving a life becomes easy. I’m going to offer my services to the Medical Corps. Perhaps I can help in isolating and destroying the pestis Japanicus.”

“And the pestis Germanicus,” Eddie Wing said.

“And the ladybug Italia,” Nick said.