Moon of Skulls by Robert E. Howard

Listen to me and I swear, by all things holy and unholy, that before the sun rises the false leper shall be in your power!”
    I could tell that Gordon was impressed in spite of himself.
    “Speak fast!” he rapped.
    Still I could sense his disbelief and a wave of futility swept over me.
    “If you will not act with me,” I said, “let me go and somehow I’ll find a way to get to the Master and kill him. My time is short — my hours are numbered and my vengeance is yet to be realized.”
    “Let me hear your plan, and talk fast,” Gordon answered.
    “It is simple enough. I will return to the Masters lair and tell him I have accomplished that which he sent me to do. You must follow closely with your men and while I engage the Master in conversation, surround the house. Then, at the signal, break in and kill or seize him.”
    Gordon frowned. “Where is this house?”
    “The warehouse back of Yun Shatu’s has been converted into a veritable oriental palace.”
    “The warehouse!” he exclaimed. “How can that be? I had thought of that first, but I have carefully examined it from without. The windows are closely barred and spiders have built webs across them. The doors are nailed fast on the outside and the seals that mark the warehouse as deserted have never been broken or disturbed in any way.”
    “They tunneled up from beneath,” I answered. “The Temple of Dreams is directly connected with the warehouse.”
    “I have traversed the alley between the two buildings,” said Gordon, “and the doors of the warehouse opening into that alley are, as I have said, nailed shut from without just as the owners left them. There is apparently no rear exit of any kind from the Temple of Dreams.”
    “A tunnel connects the buildings, with one door in the rear room of Yun Shatu’s and the other in the idol room of the warehouse.”
    “I have been in Yun Shatu’s back room and found no such door.”
    “The table rests upon it. You noted the heavy table in the center of the room? Had you turned it around the secret door would have opened in the floor. Now this is my plan: I will go in through the Temple of Dreams and meet the Master in the idol room. You will have men secretly stationed in front of the warehouse and others upon the other street, in front of the Temple of Dreams. Yun Shatu’s building, as you know, faces the waterfront, while the warehouse, fronting the opposite direction, faces a narrow street running parallel with the river. At the signal let the men in this street break open the front of the warehouse and rush in, while simultaneously those in front of Yun Shatu’s make an invasion through the Temple of Dreams. Let these make for the rear room, shooting without mercy any who may seek to deter them, and there open the secret door as I have said. There being, to the best of my knowledge, no other exit from the Master’s lair, he and his servants will necessarily seek to make their escape through the tunnel. Thus we will have them on both sides.”
    Gordon ruminated while I studied his face with breathless interest.
    “This may be a snare,” he muttered, “or an attempt to draw me away from Sir Haldred, but —”
    I held my breath.
    “I am a gambler by nature,” he said slowly. “I am going to follow what you Americans call a hunch — but God help you if you are lying to me!”
    I sprang erect.
    “Thank God! Now aid me with this suit, for I must be wearing it when I return to the automobile waiting for me.”
    His eyes narrowed as I shook out the horrible masquerade and prepared to don it.
    “This shows, as always, the touch of the master hand. You were doubtless instructed to leave marks of your hands, encased in those hideous gauntlets?”
    “Yes, though I have no idea why.”
    “I think I have — the Master is famed for leaving no real clues to mark his crimes — a great ape escaped from a neighboring zoo earlier in the evening and it seems too obvious for mere chance, in the light of