Star of Ill-Omen Read online

  With a shout of encouragement to Guido, Escobar jumped from the car and frantically cast about for a weapon with which to aid him. Kem’s gun was now underneath him, but Guido’s knife lay a few feet from the writhing pair. Escobar’s eyes lit on it, and running forward, he stooped to snatch it up. With a violent effort Kem freed himself from Guido’s clutch and rolled over. Jerking out his right foot he landed a kick on the side of Escobar’s head. It caught the scientist off his balance and he toppled sideways a second before he could grasp the knife.

  All three of them were now sprawling on the ground. Kem’s brain was racing. He was not given to panic, but he knew that he was up against it. There was no escape now from a fight to a finish, and in a hand-to-hand tussle he feared that the two of them might prove too much for him. If they did that would put a grim end to his mission. The best he could hope for was a long spell in an Argentine prison; but, judging from the murderous glare he had seen in Guido’s eyes, it seemed more likely that they would kill him and leave his body to rot there in the bush. Guido’s wound had not prevented him from pressing his fierce assault, and Escobar, although over fifty, was both vigorous and powerful. Kem’s only advantage lay in his superior agility and the combat training which had taught him a score of ugly tricks that could be used in an emergency.

  He was first on his feet, but up only for a moment. He had barely kicked the knife well out of his reach when Guido seized him by the ankle and brought him crashing down again. Escobar had got to his knees and now hurled himself on the prostrate Englishman. Kem drew back his fist and landed a blow on his attacker’s left kidney. The big man gave a screech, relaxed his hold and squirmed with agony. Following up his advantage, Kem jabbed him with his left beneath the jaw and wriggled out from under him. But, in the meantime, Guido had found Kem’s gun. As he rolled over he saw the Argentinian raise it and point it.

  For a desperate second Kem thought his end had come, but he kicked out wildly. The toe of his boot caught the end of the barrel at the instant Guido fired and the bullet whizzed harmlessly overhead. Before Guido could level the weapon and fire again Kem had turned a somersault and leapt at him, a whirling mass of arms and legs that sent him spinning. Next second Kem had seized his wrist, twisted it violently and forced him to drop the gun. But with his left hand, brown, wiry and strong as a talon, Guido had him by the throat. Its sharp nails dug into his neck until little rivulets of blood ran from them, and all his efforts to wrench his head away failed to loosen that agonising grip.

  Guido was underneath but had pulled Kem down on top of him and was holding him too close for him to use his fists effectively. In vain Kem pummelled at his ribs and the sides of his head; the tough gaucho seemed immune to any punishment. Kem seized his ear and gave it a savage twist, but still he hung on. Hunching his body, Kem exerted all his strength and brought his right knee up, jabbing it into the Argentinian’s crutch. At last the awful pressure on his windpipe relaxed and he was able to tear his throat away.

  As he did so he heard a twig snap behind him. Jerking his head round he glimpsed Escobar. Sweat was running in rivulets down the burly scientist’s red and furious face, but he had recovered sufficiently from the savage blows Kem had dealt him to enter the fight again. In his hand he grasped a heavy length of broken branch that he had picked up to use as a club. He was just about to bring it crashing down on the back of Kem’s head.

  Still struggling with Guido, Kem forced himself to keep his head steady while he counted three, then he jerked it aside. The great lump of wood missed it by barely an inch, to come smashing down on Guido’s upturned face. As Guido glimpsed the coming blow he gave an awful cry, then suddenly shuddered and lay still. Before Escobar could strike again Kem had heaved himself to his feet and jumped clear of Guido’s body. Still gasping from Guido’s strangle-hold, he paused for a moment to get back a little breath; then he sailed in. His left fist landed squarely on the point of Escobar’s jaw and a smashing right followed it to his solar plexus. With a moan the scientist slumped to the ground and lay writhing there.

  Panting and dishevelled, Kem surveyed his handiwork, more with relief than any sense of triumph. Guido was out cold, his nose smashed and his face a mess of blood; Escobar would give him no further trouble, provided a watchful eye was kept upon him. But it had been a near thing, and Kem was highly conscious that half a dozen times in the past few hectic moments it was he who had been within an ace of becoming as helpless as the bodies at his feet.

  Recovering his gun he tucked it back in its holster; then, picking up the length of whipcord, he turned the squirming Escobar over on his face and tied his hands behind his back. Next he examined Guido’s wounds. The gaucho’s face was a horrid sight, but the blow had not fractured his forehead; so he was in no serious danger. The bullet had torn the muscle of his calf, which was bleeding, although not badly. As he had met with his injuries only through doing his duty, Kem was relieved to think that after a week or two in hospital he would emerge, perhaps with a permanent limp, and certainly more villainous-looking than ever, but otherwise none the worse for his adventure.

  Kem bound up his wounds as best he could, carried him to the car and propped him up on its back seat. Not wishing to cause him many hours’ additional pain by trussing him like a chicken, Kem put another length of the thin cord round his neck, knotted it, and tied its two ends to the outside handles of the car doors, so that when he came to his hands would be free to keep the flies from his face, but he would not be able to reach and release his master.

  Escobar had got back his wind but was still dizzy when Kem returned to him and made him get this feet. With a muttered curse he allowed himself to be pushed towards the car and into the driver’s seat. A threat to reduce his face to the same state as Guido’s was sufficient to prevent his offering any resistance while Kem firmly lashed his ankles with a third length of cord, then rifled his pockets. The few papers they contained were of no interest, so Kem stuffed them back; but to keep up his character of highwayman he took the money from the wallet. Then he went round to the back of the car, opened the boot and swiftly ran through Escobar’s suitcase; it contained only his things for a night away from home. When he had satisfied himself there was no other secret papers, he removed the sparking plugs from the engine and disconnected the lights and the horn to prevent any possibility of Escobar signalling with them, then turned to him and said:

  ‘I’m sorry about your man, and that you will have to spend some uncomfortable hours here; but I could think of no other way to get rid of you for the night.’

  The atomic expert gave him a suspicious scowl, and muttered: ‘I don’t believe you would have gone to these lengths only to make it easier to get away with the silver at the estancia. What’s your real game, eh?’

  Kem’s full-lipped grin spread over his round face. ‘If you want the truth, it’s not your silver or snuff-boxes I’m after, but your wife’s emeralds.’

  Almost imperceptibly Escobar relaxed. ‘Ah, well!’ he shrugged. ‘They are heavily insured. If the police get you, though, I’ll charge you with attempted murder, and we’ll see to it that you never have a chance to stage another hold-up.’

  Slamming the car door, Kem turned away with a wave of his hand, to walk the three miles to the place where he had left his mare hobbled. As he set off he was thinking that had he been due for a really lucky break Escobar would have had his cherished brief-case with him. But perhaps that had been too much to hope for. Evidently he had left it in the safe in his bedroom. Even in his absence it was not going to be any too easy to get hold of.

  ‘Still,’ thought Kem, with another grin, ‘if I play my cards properly I can persuade the beautiful Carmen to help me there.’

  3

  The Flying Saucer

  Four hours later, immaculate in a suit of cream tussore, his dark hair neatly parted at the side and brushed smoothly back, Kem Lincoln sat on the wide loggia of the estancia. The building was a large one in the Spanish colonial style and had b
een erected by a wealthy grandee early in the nineteenth century. Its rooms, built round a central arcaded courtyard, in which a cool fountain splashed, were airy and spacious, and Estévan Escobar had spared no expense in furnishing them suitably when he had taken the place over as his private residence.

  The inner side of the loggia was formed by part of the colonnade, the arches of which gave on to the courtyard; the outer by a low stone balustrade, beyond which a garden of shallow terraces sloped away towards the depression where, two miles off, lay the atomic plant and the town of hutments that housed its several thousand workers.

  It was the cocktail hour, and with Kem in the loggia were now assembled the Escobars’ house-party, which consisted of five other guests. They were a Colonel Gonzales, who was on General Peron’s staff, and his middle-aged wife; a painter named Jorge Avila, engaged on some murals in the house; Pedro Belasco, a young astronomer whom Escobar regarded as his most promising pupil, and Yolanda Milleflores, a pretty but rather shallow young woman who had been educated at the same convent as Carmen, Escobar’s wife. Carmen herself and her elderly aunt, Doña Julia Partaga y Calderon, who lived with them, completed the party.

  Carmen was twenty-four and, Kem thought, one of the loveliest women he had ever set eyes on. A Partaga y Calderon by birth, she was descended from a long line of Spanish hidalgos, and the strong yet delicate bone formation of her thin face had the indelible stamp of the aristocrat. Her hair was black, her skin had the matt whiteness of magnolia petals, her cheekbones were high, her dark eyebrows tapering and below them her fine eyes were almond-shaped, vaguely suggesting that from somewhere far back she must have inherited a dash of Chinese blood.

  She had been married only three years and was heiress to a great fortune; so why she should have married a man like Escobar, who was more than twice her age and of little social standing, remained something of a mystery. She had had no children, but appeared to be on good terms with her husband and content to live with him in social exile at the estancia for the greater part of the year; although, apparently, her money gave her more independence than that enjoyed by the wives of most South Americans, as she made two trips to Paris every year to buy clothes, accompanied only by her aunt.

  It was her most recent trip which had given Kem an exceptionally lucky break at the outset of his mission. After receiving his instructions from the D.G. he had gone to the Foreign Office for briefing by an expert on South American affairs. Naturally he had made further enquiries about Escobar and it had transpired that, just by chance, the man he was interviewing had learned in casual conversation a few nights before that Escobar’s wife was then in Paris. A high priority signal to the British Embassy had elicited the information that Carmen had left Paris for Lisbon and was reported to be sailing home the following day in the General Peron, one of the Dictator’s new motor-powered liners. Within an hour Kem had collected his passport and crammed the essentials for a voyage into three suitcases. A special service aircraft had taken him to Lisbon overnight and he had sailed in the same ship.

  The liners of General Peron’s new fleet were most luxuriously appointed, but quite small and built to accommodate a limited number of first-class passengers only; so it had been easy for Kem to draw the attention of Carmen to himself on the second night out. From his boyhood he had been interested in conjuring and in time had become an accomplished amateur of that art. After dinner, in the charming little lounge, he had started to amuse the people at his table with some sleight-of-hand tricks, and amazed them by the facility with which he picked their pockets. Soon most of the forty or fifty passengers present, attracted by his entertaining patter, had left their tables to gather round, Carmen and her aunt among them. Without particularly singling them out, he had included them among his victims; so when they appeared on the promenade deck the following morning it had been quite natural for him to greet them as acquaintances.

  As the wily Kem was a past-master at getting himself into the good graces of elderly ladies, the Doña Julia Partaga y Calderon took a great liking to him, and their acquaintance swiftly ripened into one of those shipboard friendships in which his most constant attendance on her and her niece had been readily accepted. But, for all that, South American convention demanded that she should continue to play the dragon; so the occasions on which Kem was able to enjoy Carmen’s company on his own had been short and infrequent.

  At first that had not worried him particularly, as his object was simply to achieve a degree of intimacy which would ensure an invitation to meet her husband when she got home. In fact he had rather doubted the wisdom of attempting to have an affaire with her at all, as that might bring about complications contrary to the interests of his mission. But Carmen obviously loved admiration and found him an amusing companion; so during the long lazy days running down through blue seas towards the equator he decided that it would appear abnormal if he did not enter into a flirtation with her.

  A ship being a world apart with no distracting influences, and almost every hour of every day offering chances for subtle innuendo or stolen glances, such approaches, once begun, are apt to advance with surprising rapidity; thus, having launched himself upon his slippery slope, Kem had soon found himself committed to the role of Carmen’s would-be lover.

  Being constantly in her presence had half intoxicated him already; so, putting behind him the fear that if they became too intimate on the voyage she might refuse to see him afterwards, he had deliberately settled down to woo her; while she, from a natural reaction against the restraint imposed upon her by the chaperonage of her aunt, went halfway to meet him. By the time they crossed the equator they were daily resorting to little subterfuges which enabled her to be alone with him for short periods, and so the fascinating game went on until she agreed to come up from her cabin at night and meet him secretly on the boat deck.

  In the veins of both Carmen and Kem ran hot southern blood; so they came to their meetings with no illusions as to its probable outcome. After ten days spent in talking neither expected the other to waste precious time admiring the Southern Cross or discussing the ethics of their relationship. With only a few murmured words they went straight into one another’s arms.

  On the next night they met again. At two o’clock in the morning Kem saw her down to her cabin. In a whisper he asked her to let him come in and say good night to her there. Flushed, and trembling a little, she had consented. Once inside their passion mounted to fever heat. The good night was never said, and Kem stole away at dawn. For the three nights that followed she did not come on deck; but as soon as all was quiet he went down to her. During hours that sped all too swiftly they gave free rein to the lovely madness that had seized upon both and, oblivious of past or future, revelled in the highest delights that youth can give.

  Then had come the last night of the voyage, and when the ship’s bell tolled the sad tidings that it was time for them to part, Carmen said with a sigh:

  ‘These stolen nights have been wonderful, and I have loved every moment of them. But as I told you in the beginning, there can never be anything permanent between us, and I have made myself think of them as though they were dreams that have never really happened. You know how rigid the social code is in the Argentine, and it would be too dangerous for us to attempt to carry on our affaire once we have landed; so now, Kem darling, we must say good-bye for good.’

  Her attitude was just what he had feared it might be, but he had already taken precautions against that, so was able to reply, ‘My angel, I would never forgive myself if I brought trouble on you, but it is too much to ask that I should forgo my chance of ever seeing you again. Only yesterday Dona Julia insisted that when I had concluded my business in Buenos Aires I must come on a visit to your estancia for at least a week, and unless you positively forbid me to do so I mean to accept the invitation.’

  At first Carmen had protested at the risk involved of their not being able to conceal their passion for one another from her husband; but Kem had argued that since t
hey had succeeded in doing so from her aunt, who had had nothing to do and had been constantly in their company, it was unlikely that a man like Colonel Escobar, who must have many important affairs to occupy him, would prove more perspicacious; and he had then solemnly sworn to observe the utmost discretion during his visit.

  Through lack of opportunity, but not of inclination, it was the first time that Carmen had surrendered herself to a young man of near her own age, and, being still in the throes of awakening to the supreme heights of physical passion, she had yielded to the temptation to prolong her clandestine amour. She did so with considerable misgiving for, as she told Kem, even if he stayed at the estancia for a month there might not occur a single opportunity on which they could safely make love again. Nevertheless, when the ship was about to dock twelve hours later, as mistress of the estancia she had formally endorsed her aunt’s invitation.

  That her misgivings had been well founded Kem had to admit after his first forty-eight hours as a member of the Escobar house-party. Carmen dared not break away from the customary routine by which, morning and evening, the party all rode, swam in the pool or sat about together; and Escobar invariably returned to the house both for the siesta hours and at cocktail time every evening. So far, only three times during Kem’s stay had a chance arisen for Carmen and himself to snatch a few whispered words and kisses. But tonight the coast would be clear. He had no intention of allowing anything to interfere with the accomplishment of his mission, and had put behind him any scruples about having planned to use Carmen unconsciously to aid him in it; yet he would have been less than human had he not also planned to seize the final opportunity of revelling again in the wild delights they had known together.

  At the moment, however, a quite unforeseen happening that afternoon had drawn the whole company into an excited discussion, which temporarily debarred him from any chance of getting a whispered word with her of his intention of coming that night to her room. A Flying Saucer had appeared over the valley.