The Scorpia Menace (4 page)

Several weeks passed and Diana gradually became absorbed in the course. Under Miss Welch's expert instruction she and the other members of the class made rapid progress and she found history, up until now somewhat dry, an absorbing subject. She had chosen to discuss in a term paper ecrtain characteristics of the sixteenth century and as her researches deepened she found herself concentrating less on the broad aspects of political and trade policies than on the more obscure manifestations of lawlessness in a particularly lawless period.

Diana ransacked the library shelves in her search for little -known, obscure works, and she even sent to the State Archive Offices for sixteenth century journals, newspapers and trade reports that spoke of piracy on the high seas. In her research one name recurred again and again. This was a reference to a band known as the Scorpia.

At first they were mentioned as legends but then as documentation became less scanty, they began to emerge as a well-trained body of lawless adventurers who pillaged honest merchant ships in the early fifteen hundreds. They were encountered on the Spanish main, in the West Indies and even off the coast of Africa. Diana's pencilled notes assumed sizeable proportions and as her studies gained in depth and scope, the activities of the Scorpia gradually became the entire topic of her thesis.

One entry caused her heart to pump faster when she came across it. A report by an agent of Governor Wicks of Jamaica spoke of the Scorpia pirate band in the seventeenth century and said that they had been destroyed by the legendary Phantom. Diana's hand faltered with surprise and she put the book down on the desk. She felt slightly giddy and her heart seemed to be beating with unaccustomed vigor. She looked at the photostat entry of the ancient, faded writing again.

There was no possible doubt about it. It said "The Phantom" clearly enough. The date of the disbandment of the Scorpia band was given as 1612. Diana was master of herself again now. She was conscious that Miss Welch was at her elbow.

"You're still concentrating on the Scorpia, I see, Diana," the teacher said, a faint smile on her face. "I cannot quite understand why you have chosen such a bizarre topic. After all, an unknown pirate band of the seventeenth century will hardly generate much excitement . . ."

She broke oS as Diana looked up, interrupting her with a flow of words.

"I can't imagine a more exciting topic, Miss Welch," the girl said. "You see, The Phantom destroyed the band in
1612."

She paused and then went on.

"I put that badly, Miss Welch. I mean The Phantom's ancestor. Not my Phantom."

She stopped, conscious that Miss Welch was staring at her with incredulity in her eyes.

"Your Phantom, Diana?" she stammered. "I'm not at all sure I know what you mean."

"No, as I said, I put it badly," Diana replied. "I'm getting so absorbed in the subject of the Scorpia, I hardly know what I'm saying tonight. It's all so interesting and it's fascinating digging up all the little pieces of information from so many different sources."

Miss Welch smiled again.

"Oh, well, Diana, if you put it like that," she said. "But I wouldn't overwork if I were you. The thesis isn't so important."

"I won't, Miss Welch," Diana said, relaxing. She got up with the others as the session came to an end, and gathered up the books. She would have to guard her tongue a little more carefully. She knew that Kit would not approve of her talking of such secret matters to an outsider. But the subject had not stopped nagging at her mind and when she arrived home she went straight to the big drawing room where she spread out the books again on a table near the window.

It was here Mrs. Palmer found her at two a.m., a steaming mug of coffee at her elbow, when she came down to investigate the light streaming out across the lawn.

"Really, Diana," she said crossly. "You shouldn't keep these hours. You'll never be up in the morning."

She crossed over to the table and picked up one of the books.

"Still this Scorpia business. Don't you get enough of this at night classes?"

"Sorry, Mama," Diana said. Her eyes were bright with excitement and she was completely oblivious of the hour.

"I'll be coming up soon."

"Just make sure you do," said her mother in a stern voice. Then her expression softened and she bent to plant a kiss on her daughter's forehead.

"Just drink the coffee and then up to bed!"

"Sure," said Diana grinning.

She waited until she heard her mother's door close and then went back to her records. She had found that the Scorpia had been only partially destroyed in 1612, even though The Phantom, the band's traditional enemy, had killed the Scorpia leader, Brunei de Gottschalk. He then blew up the powder magazine of the band's castle, obliterating their stronghold.

The writer of the chronicle, who was not named, concluded, "The story is pure legend and there is no historical evidence that the entity called The Phantom ever really lived. But the blackened stones of the castle remain."

Diana put the book down and cupped her chin on her hands. She smiled gently to herself, her imagination once again picturing the scene. Only instead of The Phantom of the ancient chronicle, Kit Walker's strong, square features were superimposed on those imagined by the seventeenth century historian.

"How little they know," she breathed to herself. "That Phantom was an ancestor of my Phantom. . ."

She read on. She had already discovered that the band was only partially destroyed and that the organization had reappeared in the early eighteenth century in East Africa. Later records spoke of the pirates near Suez as late as 1818. Incredibly, the last reference Diana could find, spoke of the China coast in 1898.

She finished the last of the coffee and closed the books.

"That wasn't so very long ago," she told herself.

She frowned.

"Curious. I understood the band had died out."

She got up and went to the window. All was silent, apart from the night wind tapping at the blinds. Diana's eyes saw nothing of the faint lights from the boulevards, stippling the patterns of leaves across the lawn in front of her. Instead, she saw blue water suddenly stained red, the flash of cutlasses, the sprawl of sweating bodies across tilting decks; heard the clash of steel on steel, the screams and groans of the wounded, the sullen roar of cannon.

She shivered suddenly as though the night were cold. Then she went back to the table and cleared her things. She was a long time falling asleep.

4

OTTO KOCH IS CURIOUS

The doorbell rang shrilly as Diana was sitting at breakfast the next day. Her mother came in a few minutes later. Her eyes were bright and mischievous.

"You're famous again, Diana," she said Satirically. "Dinah Mulvaney is waiting to interview you in the drawing- room."

David Palmer froze in mid-stroke as he was about to decapitate a boiled egg.

"Whoever she may be," he said.

"Don't you ever keep up to date with local news, Uncle David?" said Diana, getting up from the table.

"She's a power in the community. Social Editor of the
Westchester Gazette,
no less."

Uncle David made an expressive movement of his shoulders. He tried hard to put an awed look on his face but failed miserably. Diana and her mother burst out laughing. In fact, Diana had a job composing her face when she opened the double doors to the drawing room a few moments later.

A smartly groomed woman in her thirties, dressed in a tailored suit and a fur wrap got up from a couch to greet her effusively.

"I hear you've taken up night school, Diana," she said approvingly. "I thought we might run a few lines."

She looked at the girl curiously.

"It's certainly original. What made you do it?"

"Do sit down, Miss Mulvaney," her hostess said, leading (he way back to the couch.

"It hardly seems important enough to justify even a few lines," she said deprecatingly.

"You let us be the judge of that, Diana," said the columnist, getting out a small gold pencil and a miniature pad from her alligator handbag. "Whatever you do is news, my dear. Now what did you say you were studying?"

"I didn't," said Diana mischievously. "But if you must know, it's history and I've chosen to study an obscure pirate band called the Scorpia."

Dinah Mulvaney's pencil remained poised over the paper for just a fraction of a second. Her eyes looked blank. Then her face broke up in a smile.

"Oh, how fascinating," she said. "Our readers will love to hear all about that."

A hard-faced man wearing an expensive blue-striped suit and Palm Beach hat pulled the Fleetwood Cadillac into the curb and sounded the horn peremptorily. The wizened cripple who ran the news-stand hurried eagerly to the window.

"What'll it be, Mr. Cringle?" he asked.

"Sports edition and the
Gazette,"
said the man called Cringle. He had cold blue eyes that seemed to look right through the little news-stand proprietor. His long blond hair fell in soft waves beneath the brim of his hat. A faint scar puckered the skin of one bronzed cheek and pulled the lid of his right eye slightly to one side. It gave him a strange and sinister appearance and commanded attention when he spoke.

The little man was back, thrusting the papers through the window.

"Keep the change," said Cringle curtly.

He wound up the window so fiercely he almost caught the newsman's hands. He drove a little farther down the block. A middle-aged man driving a yellow Chevy was trying to park in the one slot available. He was doing a bad job of it. When he had backed out, Cringle slammed the brakes of the Fleetwood hard, tires shrieking on the road surface. He pulled into the space with inches to spare, reversed back and cut the motor. Eyes popping, the man in the Chevy wound down his window. His face looked like a red beet as he shouted across to Cringle.

"That was my space!"

"Beat it, Buster!" said Cringle, slowly turning his face toward the man at the wheel of the other car. The driver opened his mouth once or twice as though to say something and caught sight of the scar. He shut his mouth suddenly, turned white, nodded and drove off rapidly. He didn't look back. Cringle chuckled to himself. He pulled his hat for- ward over his eyes and settled down to read the sports section.

Half an hour passed. The man in the striped suit finished reading the baseball scores and turned to the
Gazette.
He idly flipped the pages. His eyes expressed appreciation as he looked at the three column spread of Diana Palmer in a pin-up pose in her bikini by the pool of her Westchester home. He glanced at the caption underneath. It said: HUNTING THE SCORPIA-DIANA PALMER: see column one.

Cringle sat up, pushing his hat to the back of his head. He read on, his original purpose in parking by the sidewalk obviously forgotten. The first paragraph of Dinah Mulvaney's story made him jerk forward; the matchstick he had been chewing fell from between his teeth to the floor of the car unnoticed.

The story began, "Lovely Diana Palmer, the Westchester Olympic athlete and explorer, has a new hobby. She is attending night classes at the University and is studying medieval history. But medieval history with a difference. She is trying to trace the origins of an eighteenth century pirate band, the Scorpia."

Cringle finished the story and read it again. He folded the newspaper and put it carefully on the seat beside him. The hard, unrelenting look had returned to his face. He sat thinking for a moment. Then he looked at the newspaper again. The Palmer story had a footnote. He got out of the car and walked back to the news-stand.

"You got a yesterday's
Gazette
left, Mose?" he asked the proprietor.

"Sure, Mr. Cringle," said the little man. "At least, I'm pretty sure we have one. Hold it."

He scratched the pile of papers waiting to be returned. A few moments later he came up with the paper. He waved away the proffered coin.