Two figures were helping a third one onto a horse. One of them mounted the same horse and held the limp figure in a close embrace. Then the other mounted the second horse, and the two horses started moving quietly through the trees toward the trail downhill.
There was no moon, but there was some starlight. And as the two horses moved through a narrow clearing toward the path Tom Kee caught a glimpse of the girl Evita. He also saw the two riders before the branches hid them, and though he did not recognize them he knew they were not Tsing-fu’s people.
Hooves clip-clopped lightly on the trail and picked up speed. He turned and raced back to his own mount and led it to the path. Then he followed, first at a careful distance because there were few other riders about and then more closely as he began to meet pedestrians and peasant carts further down the slope. Once in a while he held back and drew off to the side of the road so that the sound of his hoofbeats would not be so constant that the riders ahead would notice him. He thought he saw one of them turn occasionally to glance back over his shoulder, but they went on riding at a steady pace. Now they were galloping. Tom Kee slouched low on his horse with his head bent down, as he had seen the peasants do, and he began to gallop too.
“Got a spare bed, Jacques?” Nick tramped in with his burden and Paula quickly closed the kitchen door behind them.
“You found her!” Jacques’ eyes gleamed with pleasure in his dark face. “But mon Dieu! She has been most terribly treated! Bring her in here at once. Marie!”
His pretty young wife appeared in the doorway and took in the situation at a glance. “The bed is ready,” she said crisply. “Bring her this way, please. Paula, you help me undress her and we will see what she needs first. Jacques, you light the stove. Monsieur, put her down right here. So. Now leave, please.”
Nick left the girl on clean sheets and soft pillows, grinned at Paula, and went back to Jacques.
“Soup? Coffee? Drink?” Jacques offered.
“All, thank you, but a little later,” Nick said, and his eyes were worried. “We were followed here, Jacques. One man on horseback, who rode on by as we stopped here. How secure are we — and you?”
Jacques shrugged cheerfully. “Against one man, invincible. It was not Haitian officer, I suppose?”
Nick shook his head. “Chinese, I’m also sure. I tried to shake him off, but it was impossible with the girl. And Paula and I will be leaving some time before the dawn. I hope he tries to follow us again and I hope I’ll get him next time. But if not, you better watch out for reprisals. And get the girl moved out of here as soon as you can so her presence doesn’t compromise you.”
The Creole smiled and jerked his thumb at a bolted inner door. “That is full of arms and ammunition. I am surrounded by friends who will run to my aid at the slightest sign of trouble — so long as they do not have to deal with the Tontons Macoute, the secret police. There are double locks and heavy shutters. All are closed now, as you see, and all have curtains across them. So we cannot even be heard, much less attacked. And while the house itself is but of wood and mud, it is of a wood and mud most solid. No, my friend. We have no need to worry.”
“Still, I think I’ll take a look around outside,” said Nick. “Turn the light off for a moment, will you?”
Jacques nodded and clicked the kitchen switch. Nick eased open the door and stepped outside. He glided stealthily around the house and stared into the shadows. There was no hiding place for any man within at least a hundred yards, the boundary of the nearest neighbor’s garden, except for the barn and the horses’ stalls. He investigated, and found nobody. Drums still pounded far away and faint sounds drifted down the village street, sounds of people chattering and laughing. But there wasn’t a sign of a horse or a listening man.
Nick went back into the house and took the refreshments Jacques offered him. Paula joined him a few minutes later and reported that Evita was resting comfortably.
“She has eaten a little and she is drowsy,” she told Nick. “But she wants to talk to us before she sleeps. And she thanks you.” It seemed to Nick that Paula’s tone was a whole lot friendlier now, and he was glad of it.
“She has you to thank, not me,” he said, sipping Jacques’ cognac appreciatively. “You Terrible Ones are a bunch of gutsy girls, judging by what I’ve seen. Think she can talk to us now?”
Paula nodded. “It must be now, because I think that we must leave soon. Marie will let us have five minutes, no more.” She gave him a ghost of a smile that twitched the corners of her lips and showed the trace of a dimple in one cheek. “Even though you are, she says, worth a whole squad of Marines.”
“Aw, shucks!” Nick said kiddingly, and shuffled his feet. “Okay, let’s go listen fast so Evita can rest.” He rose and followed Paula into the little room Marie had made into a bedroom for Evita. Jacques made a quick check of the door and window locks and went in after them.
It was almost midnight. All was quiet in the village.
The night was cool and Tom Kee was getting stiff. But the sounds coming through his earphones kept him glued to his post. From the side wall of a house more than two hundred yards away but almost directly opposite from the LeClerqs he could hear every word that was being said. His horse was tethered to a tree in a little parklike grove nearby and he himself was plastered in the shadows of the darkened house. The little telescope-like transistorized device in his hands was aimed directly at a window in the place that he was watching. It was one of the tricks of his trade, and he used it well. He chuckled grimly and adjusted a small dial. The voices were coming to him loud and clear. The girl’s voice was cracked and whispering but every word was audible.
“.… It made no sense to me,” she whispered, “but that is what he said. His clue was — The Castle of the Blacks. He told me when we… when we…” she turned her head away from them and closed her eyes. “He told me when we were in bed together, only minutes before the men broke in and fell upon us. He tried to get away through a window but they shot him in the back. Then they must have hit me, I suppose, because… because the next thing I knew I was in some sort of house, and I had my clothes on. There was a smell of food — a lot of food, as if there were a restaurant below. And then this man…” She sighed heavily. Marie gave her a sip of rum-laced tea and glared at the others reprovingly.
“Only the essentials, Evita,” Nick said quickly. “Did you know him? Did he give anything away? Did you tell him anything?”
Evita pushed the cup away and nodded. “I knew him. Paula, he was the one we joked about, and called him Fu Manchu. The owner of the Chinese Dragon in Santo Domingo. The one we always thought was following the same leads we were, looking for the treasure.”
“Tsing-fu Shu,” said Paula softly. “I thought it might be he, there in the dark.”
“And… and there was a creature.” Evita shuddered and sucked in her breath. “But that was later. He kept at me and kept at me and tried to find out if there was anything else I knew. I told him I knew nothing. Then he talked to another man I could not see… and they decided that the Castle of the Blacks must be the Citadelle. And then he stuck a needle into me and — and I woke up in that cell. With that monster guarding the door.”
“This Padilla,” said Nick. “You said he told you something else. What was it?”
“That was when we first met,” Evita whispered. “Before we went to his apartment. I made him tell me something before… I agreed to go. And he said it was under all our noses, if we only knew where to look. He didn’t know where, or he would have been there himself. But he knew it was within a morning’s drive of Santo Domingo. And Trujillo had laughed when he told him. He said — he said with a joke it would be on La Trinitaria. And he repeated this several times, Padilla said. There was something very funny to him about La Trinitaria.”