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

“I did as you said,” Delgado whispered, “but I do not understand why you wished it.”

“I thought that perhaps you might wish to escape,” Vivian answered swiftly.

The man strained upward against his handcuffs, his face working eagerly. He registered an impression of slightness, but in reality he was a big brute, with a face from which varied dissipations had wiped every trace of color and the strange eyes did nothing to lighten it. They were lusterless, burned out with a coldness in them that suggested the filmed eyes of a crocodile.

Those cold eyes of his now were fixed intently on Vivian’s face, seen through the window.

“Escape? But of course. Can you arrange it?”

“I can,” Vivian shot back at him. “For a price.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” the man said eagerly. “How much of a price?”

“That depends,” Vivian told him coolly, “on how much money you have.”

“I have five hundred pesetas,” he said thoughtfully, but there was a curious note in his voice.

“Is that all your life is worth?”

“It is all I have.” He insisted.

“So,” Vivian said harshly. She did not miss the cunning which lifted a corner of the man’s lips. At the bottom of her eyes a light flashed and went out. “You would attempt to bargain, with your life as the stake. I know that Detective Sanchez has three thousand pesetas he is keeping for you. I want that three thousand... and more... as the price of your liberty.”

“I tell you I have no more,” the man snarled.

“A man is dead a long time,” Vivian said, and her voice crackled like the snap of a whip. The light from above touched her face... glinted on the cold iciness of her eyes. She turned away.

“Wait,” the man’s voice came to her shrilly. “I have more.”

His long fingers, that were like ivory claws, started to crawl back and forth on the edge of the bunk like one of the great white hunting spiders that natives of the tropics keep in the thatch of their huts to prey on the lizards and crockroaches. The resemblance was uncanny.

“How much?” Vivian queried harshly.

“Two thousand pesetas,” the man said. “It is sewn in the lining of my coat and the detectives did not find it. But that is all. I swear it by the Madonna and all the saints.”

Vivian leaned against the porthole again.

“That is better,” she said. “Did you think me a child to believe that Cruz Delgado would not have money hidden where he could put his hands upon it in an emergency? Now listen. We reach Cadiz the day after tomorrow, and I will arrange your escape there. But there is something that you must do also.”

For five minutes she talked swiftly, outlining to the bandit what he must do, and then, lest her two Spaniards on the deck above become restless, returned to them.

There was not a cloud in the sky as the ship moved slowly toward Cadiz, a city of white stone and marble, joined to the mainland by the slenderest strip of yellowed earth. Already the nearest of the miradores, towers originally built as lookouts from which the garrison could discern the approach of returning treasure-laden galleons, was looming abreast of the ship.

The driving energy that was behind Vivian never caused her to hurry or to stumble. She knew how to attack swiftly, but her plan of attack was always thorough to the last detail. Now, with the moment of action upon her, her restless mind went around and around her plans, shoring up guards against contingencies that had not arisen, might never arise.

For the plan that she had concocted for the escape of Cruz Delgado was a daring one... so daring and so simple that its very simplicity made for success. It was a scheme that not one woman in a million would have attempted... that not one man in a million would have dreamed a woman would attempt... and that also made for its success.

With a last glance out of her window the Lady from Hell slipped out of her stateroom and made her way down the corridor to Cabin 12, occupied by Delgado and his two guards. Delgado, she knew, would be in the cabin, handcuffed to his berth, and the two detectives would be smoking aft.

Keeping them there had been the duty assigned to Wylie, and detectives are detectives the world over. As long as a new found friend stood ready to pay for the bottle of liquor on the table before them, they would remain in the smoking room until it was finished.

The door of the cabin was not locked. The detectives had seen no need to lock it, since their prisoner was handcuffed to the rail of his berth. What they did not know was the fact that not ten minutes before the Lady from Hell had skillfully picked the pocket of one of the detectives of a ring of keys... among them the key to the handcuffs.

Delgado raised his head eagerly as the door swung open. He started to speak but Vivian raised a warning hand.

“Don’t talk,” she said. “Somebody passing might hear.”

Bending over she tried key after key until the right one clicked in the lock and the handcuffs opened.

Cautiously she peered out into the corridor. It was empty.