Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 104, No. 4, August 22, 1936

Fire blazed again under her brows, a flame of greenish scorching anger, sudden as the outburst of a smouldering volcano. She knew then what had happened. The cabin into which that door led had been occupied by a tall, slim man who claimed to be Portuguese. And Vivian knew that both the man and her money were no longer on the ship. The man had disembarked at Las Palmas — and the ship had sailed from there half an hour before. Already the mountains of the island were becoming purple shadows on the horizon.

She had been on deck with Wylie watching the ship draw away from the land, or she would have discovered her loss sooner. Undoubtedly the man had waited until the last moment! Come to think of it, she remembered now that he had hurried down the gangplank an instant before it was drawn in, and the ship pulled away.

And to think that she, the criminal scourge of three continents, had been robbed by a cheap sneak thief and robbed of the funds that Wylie and herself were counting on to give them a new start on their criminal career, was particularly galling and humiliating.

There was nothing that she could do. She could not return to Las Palmas. A radio message might bring the arrest of the man. But he would undoubtedly have prepared for that, and unless the money were found on him, there would be no proof that he was the thief.

With an eloquent lift of her shoulders she turned and went back on deck.

Adrian Wylie, recovered somewhat from the strain of exposure in the open boat in which they had drifted, and his broken ribs expertly bandaged, was lying in the cushioned deck chair where she had left him. The moment that Vivian Legrand appeared in sight he sensed that something was amiss and closed the book he was reading.

With a lithe catlike movement she dropped in the chair next to him and in a few swift sentences told him of their loss and her belief of the identity of the thief.

Wylie was silent a moment after the crushing news. Giving the impression of a scholarly and dignified gentleman of independent means, there was nothing about him to hint that for years he had been a consummate crook, any more than there was about the Lady from Hell to suggest that she was the world’s most glamorous criminal.

Tall, lean and impressive, Wylie gave far more the impression of a man of affairs, a banker perhaps, than the whimiscal, yet prudent and incalculably gifted criminal that he was when the Lady from Hell had first met him in the house of the Mandarin Hoang Fi Tu in Manila. He had been an opium addict then. Now, under the urging of that gifted brain of his, he had completely thrust the drug from his life. And he was never to touch it again during his association with the Lady from Hell.

He, no less than Vivian realized the seriousness of the position in which they found themselves.

“Napoleon said,” he murmured thoughtfully, “that an army moves on its stomach, and most certainly, two people in the business in which we are engaged move on the money they pay out — money in bribes, in paying helpers, in securing the information that they must have.”

He made a little gesture of helplessness.

“Of course,” Vivian said thoughtfully, “there are a few hundred scattered here and there in banks — in Paris — in London, but...”

“But,” Wylie cut in, “in order to get hold of those few hundred dollars we must first get to Paris and to London.”

“And,” Vivian went on thougntfully, “front is one of the most important weapons we have. Without money for clothes... Adrian, do you realize that we haven’t even enough money for a hotel when we reach Cadiz, or for...”

She halted, stiffened and broke off in the midst of the sentence. Her glance, with startled intensity struck on the face of a tall, swarthy man who swung past in the company of another man a smaller one. There was calculation mixed with speculation in the glance she turned back to Wylie.

“Who is that man?” she queried. “Last night I passed his cabin. The door was partly open and the light on. It was closed by someone almost immediately, but not before I had seen that this chap... the tail one... was handcuffed to the berth railing.”

Wylie nodded. “A rather silly precaution in the middle of the Atlantic, it seems to me,” he said, “but then I suppose the two detectives with him aren’t taking any changes. That is Cruz Delgado.”

“Oh, so that is Delgado,” Vivian said, and there was decided interest in the gaze she sent after the vanishing figures, her mind mulling over the amazing possibility that had leaped into her mind. The name of Delgado had been familiar to both of them during their criminal operations in Europe. It was a familiar name in the underworld, where the exploits of the Basque brigand were discussed. A year or so before he had fled to the Argentine after a crime that included the killing of a high government official. “So he’s being taken back to Spain.”

Wylie nodded. “Yes, to Cadiz... I don’t think his life will be worth much after he gets back.”