"Stalked By the Golden Jaguar"

"Stalked By the Golden Jaguar"


10/19-10/20/1943

I.

Kelly O'Connor slammed shut the dilapadated old book she had been studying, and muttered a single word more appropriate for a hardened sailor in a storm than for a pretty young reporter in the day room of the NEW YORK MESSENGER. Middle-aged Will Townsend, seated at his own desk nearby, grinned affectionately. He had been putting on weight the past year and had stealthily punched a new hole into his belt to accomodate the more substantial girth.

Watching Kelly was no hardship. She was tall and slender, with long dark red hair and bright green eyes, as well as an upturned nose and full lips. In her light yellow dress, belted around the waist, she was more appealing a sight than all the dumpy middle-aged reporters he had to face every day.

"It must be something unusual for you to stick around the office after the whistle blows, O'Connor," he remarked. "This is the first time I ever saw you here after dark. I thought you had a frantic social life, always out dancing and going to Broadway shows."

"I wish." Kelly said. "Twenty-three and already an old maid married to the newspaper business."

"You've been shoving your nose into a hundred different books here since five o'clock," asserted Townsend.

"I've been trying to get some information for a story I'm working on," answered Kelly. She gestured at the rows of wildly random volumes in the shelves that encircled the walls. "Look at all these books you guys have been bringing in for a generation. All sorts of strange and unsavory topics are covered but not one can tell me the truth about the Golden Jaguar cult practiced by a certain tribe from the jungles of Ecuador."

"A good reporter has sources," suggested Townsend. "Why not ask them?"

"I'm going to." Kelly took down a phone from its hook where it sat on the desk she shared with senior reporter Skip Leinster.

"What about Carla Colan?" suggested Townsend. "She's been to Rio. She's quite a traveler and she writes some stories for our paper."

"I don't get along with Carla. Her articles seem pretty flimsy to me. But I know a real expert! I'll try Big Jim Newton." She twirled the dial with an impeccably manicured finger. "Ring, ring, ring, pick up already. Oh. Hello!"

A slick voice with an unfamiliar accent came along the wire.

"Oh, is that you, Tomas?" asked Kelly. "I want to speak to Mr. Newton."

Polite surprise tinged the meticulous tones. "Why, Mr. Newton went out in response to your call an hour ago, Miss Kelly."

"What's that?" demanded Kelly. "Went where?"

"Why, surely you remember, Miss Kelly." A faint uneasiness seemed to edge the Ewa's voice. "At about nine o'clock you called, and I answered the phone. You said you wished to speak to Mr. Newton. After my master talked to you, he then told me to have his car brought around to the side entrance. He said that you had requested him to meet you at the cottage on Duck Lake shore."

"Stuff and nonsense!" exclaimed Kelly. "This is the first time I've phoned Big Jim Newton for weeks! You've mistaken somebody else for me."

The servant did not argue but simply replied, "As you say, miss."
Kelly replaced the phone and turned to Townsend, who was leaning forward with aroused interest.

"Something fishy here," scowled Kelly. "Tomas, Jim's Ewa servant, said I called an hour ago, and Jim went out to meet me. Townsend, you've been here all evening. Did I call up anybody? That retired headhunter has me doubting myself."

"No, you didn't," emphatically answered older reporter. "I've been sitting right here close to the phone ever since six o'clock. Nobody's used it. And you haven't left the day room during that time. I would have noticed."

"Well, say," said Kelly, uneasily, "This sounds like monkey business. I think I better drive up to Duck Lake. If this is a joke, Newton may be over there waiting for me to show up and I don't want him mad at him over a misunderstanding."

Townsend pulled his jacket on and reached for a fedora which had seen better days. "Count me in."

"Why? I'm just going to ask Big Jim a few questions. I don't need a chaperone, will."

"It's not that, O'Connor. But that fake phone call worries me. Someone's pulling shenanigans. Newton might've got mixed up with some gangland types. I still carry my old Army automatic when I go to bad parts of town."

With a sinking feeling, Kelly O'Connor realized it would be too suspicious for her to argue further. She wanted to go by herself because her instincts told her the Green Devil might be needed. In the lining of her spacious brown leather handbag was concealed a green silk bandana mask, thin gloves and a sash with some miniature tools in tiny pouches. With Townsend along, she couldn't get into her Green Devil guise if there was trouble.

"We'll use my car, the DeSoto," offered Townsend. "I'm allowed extra gas rations because I do some weekend work for the city."

"Sounds good to me," she agreed. "The tires on my roadster are getting smooth as a baby's bottom."

As the city lights fell behind them, and houses gave way to clumps of trees and bushes, velvet black in the star-light, Townsend said: "Do you think Tomas made a mistake?"

"What else could it be?" answered Kelly without seeming to give it much thought.

"Somebody might have been playing a joke, as you suggested. Why should anybody impersonate you to Newton?"

"How should I know? But I'm about the only acquaintance he'd bestir himself for, at this time of night. He's reserved, suspicious of people. I don't think he has a lot of friends but he took a liking t me."

"Something of an explorer, wasn't he?"

"You bet. He spent over a year in the worst part of Ecuador where there really are headhunters and cannibals. Came back with three servants from the Ewa tribe. His story was that they saved his life and he swore to take to care of them."

"How'd he make his money?" Townsend asked, abruptly.

"I've never asked him. But he has plenty of it."

As they headed north, patches of trees on each side of the road grew denser, and residential houses became more gradual. After an hour's drive from the city, they found the broad silver mirror called Duck Lake. The twisting road meandered along the curving shore.

"Where's Newton's lodge?" inquired Townsend.

Kelly pointed. "See that thick clump of shadows, within a few yards of the water's edge? It's the only cottage on this side of the lake. The others are three or four miles away. None of them occupied, this time of the year. There's a car drawn up in front of the cottage."

"No light in the shack," grunted Townsend, pulling up beside the long low roadster that stood before the narrow stoop. The building reared dark and silent before them, blocked against the rippling white sheen behind it.

"Hey, Jim!" called Kelly. "Big Jim Newton!"

No answer came, only a vague echo rolling down from the wooded hills.

"Devil of a place at night," muttered Townsend, peering at the dense shadows that bordered the lake. "I'm used to street lamps."

Kelly slid out of her side of the car. "Newton must be here, unless he's gone for a midnight stroll along the lake."

Their steps echoed loudly and emptily on the tiny stoop. Kelly banged on the door and shouted. Somewhere back in the woods a night bird lifted a drowsy note. There was no other answer. She grabbed the doorknob shook the door. It was locked from the inside.

"I don't like this," Townsend growled. "Car in front of the cottage, door locked on the inside but nobody answering us. Something's wrong. I'll kick the door in..."

"No need." Kelly fumbled in his pocket. "I know where he hides a key." She walked over to a nearby tree and groped around its roots until she came up with something wrapped in a piece of soft leather.

"How comes it you know where Newton keeps a key to his shack?" demanded Townsend.

"What's with that critical tone in your voice? I AM a reporter. I interviewed him a few times and once he had lost his key when we got here. Turn on your flash, will you? I can't find the lock. All right, I've got it. Hey, Jim! Are you here?"

Townsend's flash played over chairs and card tables, coming to rest on a closed door in the opposite wall. They entered and Townsend heard Kelly fumbling about with an arm elevated. A faint click followed and Kelly sighed in disappointment.

"The juice is off. There's a line running out from town to supply the cottage owners with electricity, but it must be dead. As long as we're in here, let's go through the house. Big Jim may be sleeping soundly after some brandy hit him..."

She broke off with a sharp intake of breath after opening the door that led to the bedroom. Her colleague's flashlight played on the interior, showing an overturned chair, a smashed table and a crumpled shape that lay in the midst of a dark widening pool.

"Good God, it's Newton!" Townsend's gun glinted in his hand as he played the flash around the room, sifting the shadows for any lurking shapes. The light rested on a bolted rear door and then on on an open window, the screen of which hung in tatters.

"We've got to have more light," he grunted. "Where's the switch? Maybe a fuse has blown."

"Outside, I think near that window." Stumbling, Kelly led the way out of the house and around to the window. Townsend flashed his light, grunted.

"The switch has been pulled!" He pushed it back in place, and light flooded the cottage. The light streaming through the windows seemed to emphasize the blackness of the whispering woods around them. Townsend glared into the shadows, tense and unhappy. Kelly had not spoken for what to her was a considerable time.

Back in the house they bent over the body which lay in the middle of the blood-splattered hardwood floor. Big Jim Newton had been a stocky, strongly built man of early middle age. His skin was tanned and weather-beaten, hinting of tropic suns. His features were covered with a layer of dried blood. His head lolled back, disclosing a raw gaping wound beneath his chin.

"His throat's been cut!" stammered Kelly. "Someone murdered Jim."

Townsend shook his head. "Not cut but torn right out. Good God, it looks like a big cat had ripped him."

( the rest of the story )