Mark Tidd's Citadel

by Clarence Budington Kelland

I let go and dropped back quick. It was pretty plain I couldn’t get out the way I got in, and it was just as sure I was in a bad box. I’d been discovered, and stood a first-class chance of being trapped right there in the kitchen. I bolted.

My main idea was to get anywhere else, I didn’t so much care where. I wanted to move and move quick. I did, too. Through the dining-room and into the office, where I stopped a second to breathe and see if I could think. Outside I could hear Plunk yelling and cheering like he was at a baseball game. Whether the Jap who discovered me did any yelling to give the alarm I don’t know. I found I didn’t do a very workman-like job of thinking, so I says to myself that if I couldn’t think I’d better run, anyhow. I ran. This time I headed up-stairs because I caught a glimpse of The Man Who Will Come outside, watching Plunk, and, though I couldn’t see any more, I believed other Japanese were with him. If I’d had any hopes of escaping out of the front door they went glimmering.

I scooted down the long corridor toward the other end of the hotel, partly because it was about the only way I could go, and partly to get nearer to the citadel. I wanted to get a chance to warn Mark Tidd of the predicament I was in if I could.

I suppose I could have gone on to the third floor and hidden in Motu’s old den, but the matches kept weighing on my mind. If I holed up like a frightened fox and took the matches with me Mark and the fellows would be in a bad fix that night. I made up my mind I’d get the matches across somehow, no matter what happened to me. That was why I wanted to get near the citadel. If I could attract Mark’s attention I could heave the matches over to him, and then have my mind free to look out for myself.

About half-way down I thought I heard a sound ahead of me, and stopped quick. Sure enough there was a sound. It was somebody coming up the back stairs, probably to head me off. That made me listen back the way I’d come. Right then and there I pretty nearly quit and curled up on the floor like one of those little green worms does when you touch it with a stick. I couldn’t go either way. All the choice I had was which room I’d hide in.

As a matter of fact I didn’t stop to choose, but just bobbed into the nearest doorway. By luck the key was in the door and I turned it. Then I tiptoed to the window, but it was too far to jump or drop without taking a big chance of spraining an ankle. Over at one side was a door that opened into a bathroom, and the bathroom opened into another room, and the other room opened into another room. A regular suite, it was. Then I got an idea. If I do say it myself, it was about as good as Mark Tidd could have done in the circumstances.

I had already locked the hall door. Quick as a wink I ran to it and banged against it like I was trying to get out, or had slipped and fallen against it. Then I scooted through the bathroom door and locked that. After that I just went headlong, but as quietly as I could go, into the third room. You see, I figured the Japanese would hear the noise, and when they found the door locked would think I was there. Then if they tried the next room and the bath they’d find that door locked, and, because I had the key right in my pocket, they’d be more than liable to suppose it was locked on the inside. That would make them dead certain I was in there. While they were trying to break in and catch me I’d be making tracks.

Now, Mark Tidd or not, I think that was a good scheme. I don’t get up a scheme very often, so when I do I want folks to know about it and sort of appreciate it.

This scheme worked. I heard a man rush by the door of the room where I crouched. Then, as plain as day, I heard him meet another fellow in front of the locked door. They jabbered a minute in their funny language, and after a minute they rattled on the door.

“Open,” says a man.