Johnston McCulley
Wild Norene
Published by Good Press, 2020
EAN 4064066416812
Table of Contents
CHAPTER I. The Girl in the Doorway.
CHAPTER VI. The Truth Comes Out.
CHAPTER VII. Prisoners—and Freed!
CHAPTER X. When Death Is Faced.
CHAPTER I.
The Girl in the Doorway.
SEÑOR GUERRERO led the way down the dark and narrow alley and softly opened the door. The man behind him waited close to the wall.
A shaft of light pierced the darkness. With it came the sound of strong voices raised in ribald song and the tinkling of a piano scarcely heard above the din.
Feet shuffled, liquor gurgled, glasses rang as they were placed on the tables.
Foul air rushed out, bearing odors of stale tobacco-smoke and cheap liquor. In an instant the clean smell of water-soaked pine was gone, and the breeze that swept up the street from the river and the distant sea seemed instantly polluted.
"The coast, I think, is clear," Señor Guerrero whispered.
He slipped inside, and Captain Bill Adams followed and stood against the wall for a moment while Guerrero closed the door behind them.
Captain Adams had a soft hat pulled down to his eyes and his coat collar turned up in an attempt to pass without being recognized. There was no disguising his broad shoulders, great hands, and massive form, yet the risk was small, for those men in the room who knew him were scattered in the crowd or sitting at tables near the street door.
Adams's lips curled in scorn as he followed Guerrero along the wall to a table in a far corner, at which there were two chairs, both unoccupied. As he sat down he glanced over the room.
There was a bar along one wall, with a crowd of men before it. There were scores of tables to which silent-footed Chinese carried liquor. On a platform in one corner was an old piano, a woman playing it. Another woman stood beside her and sang in a cracked voice.
In another corner were poker-tables, where the players silently eyed one another, speaking in low voices only when it was necessary. There were faro-tables and roulette-tables. And there were women who mingled in the throng, painted women dressed in gaudy gowns.
"It is a place," said Captain Adams slowly and with conviction, "where a man would expect to find a traitor."
Strong men of the sea called Adams king. He was a relic of the days of bucko mates. He had slain a man with a single blow of his fist. He had quelled mutiny single-handed.
His name was a synonym for fear from Valdez to Cape Horn, in Honolulu, in the ports of China and Japan, Australia, and the South Seas.
That name also was coupled with justice, for Captain Adams never gave a demonstration of brute force without good and sufficient provocation.
He always showed his strength at sea, never on land. The usual haunts of sailormen did not know him. He left his ship only to transact business. He was an abstainer, and morally clean.
Because he never appeared in a gathering to refute them, seamen told great tales of his strength and brutality when provoked, thus making his reputation in that regard thrice what he deserved.
Now he bent forward at the table, his keen eyes taking in the scene before him. Guerrero had ordered liquor, and as soon as the Chinese waiter had gone Captain Adams had thrown his in a cuspidor.
"If our suspicions prove true—" Guerrero began.
"We'll say nothing until we are certain," the captain interrupted. "It's a bad thing to accuse a man of unless there is an abundance of proof."
"And if we get the proof?"
Captain Adams straightened his shoulders and waited a moment before replying.
"If we get the proof I'll attend to the matter personally," he said. "You are not concerned in it, señor, except that you are a sort of guide for me ashore."
"Not concerned in it!" exclaimed the other hoarsely. "Not concerned in it? When there may depend on it success or failure?"
"Screech, señor, and tell our business to the world," the captain advised. "There are some in this place, I believe, who would be glad to hear."
"I beg your pardon," Guerrero said, and fell silent.
Captain Adams looked over the room again. The woman at the piano had ceased playing and was standing at the end of the platform, talking with some men. She was tall, graceful, and fair, despite her painted face; but there were lines about her eyes and a wistful look was about her lips.
"What a place!" Adams gasped.
"Sailors must have relaxation after a long voyage," suggested Guerrero.
"This isn't relaxation! They spend two months' wages here in a night, drinking vile liquor, trying to beat gambling games that cannot be beaten. I've been a sailor for thirty years, and I don't need this sort of relaxation. And the women—"
"That tall one who was playing the piano is Sally Wood," said Guerrero. "Every one in Astoria knows her. She has a history."
"I don't doubt it."
"Not the sort you think, señor. She lived in Seattle as a girl. A man won and married her. Then he took her aged father's savings and deserted her, left her penniless with a baby—the old story."
"And she turned to this sort of thing?"
"Again, señor, not as you think. She turned to this sort of thing because she can play a piano, and because she gets more money here in a night than she could any place else in a month. The sailors worship her, señor. Sometimes when she plays they throw silver and gold on the platform, showers of it, and she thanks them prettily."
"Pity she wouldn't take her silver and gold and get out of here, then."
"She stays because she needs much silver and gold. Every one seems to know the story. She is laying it by. When she has an adequate amount she