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

“Get into his clothes,” she whispered. “Hurry,” and aided the bandit to strip off the guard’s uniform.

There was, luckily, not a great deal of difference between the guard and the escaped criminal. The uniform fitted sufficiently well to pass muster. Together they dressed the unconscious man on the floor in the garments Delgado had worn.

“From now on,” she whispered to Delgado, “you must act alone. I can do nothing. You know the habits of the Civil Guard better than I do. Remain here until the man recovers consciousness. Then, keeping him gagged, with his hands bound, make him march ashore as the escaped prisoner you have captured. The officer will be in the dining saloon with the passengers. There is a guard at the head of the gangplank. If he halts you, tell him that you are taking Delgado ashore by your officer’s orders. Good luck.”

She stepped out and closed the door... heard the key click in the lock behind her. A tap on Wylie’s door and her companion in crime joined her in the corridor.

“All set,” she whispered. “We’ve got to get up into the saloon, so that we’re in the clear if anything breaks.”

The Lady from Hell carefully chose a seat beside a window that looked down on the gangplank, and waited as the officer in charge questioned each passenger in turn.

The heat of the Spanish midday was on the gangplank like the white hot blade of a sword. Vivian kept her eyes fixed upon it, scarcely conscious of the conversation of the two men behind her, unrelating fragments lodging in her brain but making no impression... until... “Anxious to capture... not so much because he’s a brigand... what he knows... tremendous treasure... hid all his loot in mountains... left there when he fled to the Argentine... Cruz Delgado...”

The Lady from Hell sat up alertly, listening intently. The conversation went on.

“The officials estimate that he must have several hundred thousand pesetas hidden away. If it weren’t for that, they’d shoot him as soon as they got him ashore. But the government would like to get their hands on that money, and no one but Delgado himself knows where it is hidden.”

Out of the corner of her eye she saw a Civil Guard descending the gangplank holding tightly to the bound and gagged figure of a man in civilian clothes.

Delgado, posing as a member of the Civil Guard, was audaciously making his escape. Another moment he would be free, lost in the Cadiz underworld.

“Oh, look!” Vivian exclaimed in a loud voice. “They’ve captured the man who escaped. There’s a guard taking him ashore.”

The officer looked up alertly.

“What is that, señorita?”

Vivian repeated what she had said and pointed through the porthole. With an exclamation the officer ran out onto the deck and toward the gangplank shouting at the two figures on their way down the plank.

Delgado realized at once that success or failure hung in the balance with seconds tipping the scales between freedom and capture. With an oath he flung the bound figure of the guard aside and made a break for the end of the wharf. But he was too late. The shouts of the officer had reached the guards at the gate and, with only ten feet separating him from the sunlit street and freedom, Delgado saw the gates close in his face. He whirled, gun in hand, to make a last stand, and a guard sprang out at him from a pile of freight. A short struggle — and he was a prisoner again.

With a little contented sigh Vivian turned back from the scene she had been watching. She wasted no thoughts upon the man she had double crossed. That was like the Lady from Hell. If a thing... a man... had no further usefulness for her, it was tossed into the discard at once, without sentiment, without regret. Likewise, if a thing... or a person... could still be useful to her, she would cling to it with every bit of savagery she possessed. In all her long and glamorous career of crime she had fought viciously for any member of her gang in trouble. And once something was in the past, she wasted no thoughts over it.

She met Wylie’s puzzled eyes with a smile.

“Why did you do that, Vivian?” he whispered, under cover of the general excitement. “Why didn’t you let the poor devil escape? After all, he deserved getting away. He’d paid you what you asked.”

“Yes,” Vivian said thoughtfully. “He paid... but not all he is going to pay.”

The fact that Cadiz was a strange city and that she had no extensive underworld connections was no obstacle to the Lady from Hell. There was scarcely a city of major importance in Europe where she did not know the name and address of at least one of those shadowy figures of the underworld who kept his fingers on the pulse of crime for his own benefit. In one city it might be a fence who, unsuspected by the police, handled stolen works of art; in another, a man who made it his business to finance robberies, putting up a specific sum for a specific job.