Irregular Brethren and Other Stories by H. Bedford-Jones

Book Details

Irregular Brethren and Other Stories – Three stories of outcasts, pirates and explorers on the fringes of civilization.

Irregular Brethren (1919) – This story, told in a quaint Oriental Masonic lodge meeting, has all the tropical color and dramatic intensity which Mr. Bedford-Jones handles so skillfully.

Pearls From Macao (1933) – A vivid thrill-tale of a desperate voyage on the China Sea, with murder striking from the shadows again and again, and a beautiful girl on board

Berber Loot (1933) – The story of a madcap adventure in Morocco, told as only Bedford-Jones can tell it—a story of thrills, romance, and sudden death, in a wild hunt for stolen treasure

Henry James O’Brien Bedford-Jones was born in Napanee, Ontario, Canada in 1887. After being encouraged to try writing by his friend, writer William Wallace Cook, Bedford-Jones began writing dime novels and pulp magazine stories. Bedford-Jones was an enormously prolific writer; the pulp editor Harold Hersey once recalled meeting Bedford-Jones in Paris, where he was working on two novels simultaneously, each story on its own separate typewriter.

He wrote over 100 novels, earning the nickname “King of the Pulps”.

Irregular Brethren and Other Stories has 4 illustrations.

Files:

1. Bedford-Jones-IrregularBrethren.epub

Excerpt: Berber Loot

1

HENNESSY was a tough egg, any way you looked at him, and at the present moment he was in a tough place.

His cap, his attire, his fingers, the silver Senegal coins he handed out, all showed that he was from the engine-room of the tramp. She had just arrived in Casablanca from Dakar. He was bronzed, efficient, scarred, with a warm but deceptive grin.

Croghan, lean and dark, sat beside him. They drank, and watched the Berber dancers whose thudding feet seemed about to tear the platform apart. Shipmates two years previously, they had met here in Morocco, by sheer accident, half an hour ago.

Croghan seemed at home here. This was the one place in Casablanca where they might have met. It was the new “ville Arabe,” expressly designed for pleasure. And it was the one place where Croghan could tell his amazing story in safety. The squealing fifes and fiddles, the monotonously beating drums, the iron heels of the Berber men thudding dust from the planks, all served to cover up his words.

The room was long and low. At one end, a platform held a score of Berber men and boys, the platformers. The trestles were crowded with girls of all shades from pitch-black to white, and with all sorts of men—Arabs, Berbers, French civilians and tourists. Occasionally one of the fuzzy-haired girls would approach the two men who sat talking together, only to be sent away by a negative gesture from Hennessy. Men and girls were coming in or leaving every moment, causing a continual flow of movement in the place.

As the police agents in the streets outside, and at the entrance gates, bore witness, this was a place created not alone for the native quarter, in this comparatively new city of Casablanca, but for every one—and for the amusement of every one. From down the street came other music, indicating Arab dancing, and the bustle and stir on every hand showed that the night had just begun for this Moroccan underworld.

Hennessy gave the dark Croghan a hard, level look.

“Are you talking stage money, Frog dough, or cold cash?” he demanded.

“All kinds, cash included,” said Croghan. “The Berber who told me about it was one of this crowd right here. Met him here last night and he recognized me right off. He was going to meet me tonight. And half an hour after telling me, from what I can learn, somebody cut out his gizzard. I mean just that, too; you know, these natives think a knife is meant to rip any one from the ribs down—”

“Keep to the point,” said Hennessy. “How come this Berber recognized you?”

“I was running guns up into the hills iast year. Rather, acting as agent for the main guy, and collecting,” said Croghan. “That’s all ended now, of course. Durell, the head of the outfit, is here in Casablanca now. I quit the game and have been running an auto stage to Rabat and Fez the last few months. Are you interested or not?”

“In fifty thousand dollars? Boy, you said it,” Hennessy assured him.

“All right, then listen,” said Croghan, dropping his voice. “During the troubles, this Berber and some of his pals raided the hill castle of a pacha; you know, the Berbers hate all the pachas, who are held in power by the French. They got the old boy’s loot, got away, and then set in to kill each other off for the loot.

“This Berber of mine, and another named M’tel, double-crossed the rest of the outfit and cleared out with the loot. They ran afoul of a French column and were captured, but hid the stuff first. They were sent up for two years each, to different prisons, M’tel was sent to Marrakesh, but my chap went to the prison at Rabat. That’s where I got next to him— he fixed it for me to get in touch with his people and so forth, about the munitions.”

So Croghan had been in prison, then! Hennessy sipped his mint tea and said nothing.

“Day before yesterday, time was up for them both,” said Croghan. “This bunch of Berbers met my friend in Rabat and came down here to keep their dancing engagement; I dropped in last night, and all was jake. The other one, M’tel, is in bad with his tribe. Most likely, he came along and knifed my friend. I had a hint he had thrown in with Durell, the same chap—”

“Say, listen!” broke in Hennessy abruptly. “Is this some pipe-dream or what?”

Croghan leaned forward earnestly, sweat standing out on his forehead, a snarl on his thin lips, his dark eyes blazing at Hennessy.

“Cash: bank-notes and gold! Is that a pipe-dream, you fool? I know exactly where it’s hidden. I can get it.”

“What I want to know,” said Hennessy, “is why somebody—”

“I don’t give a hang what you want to know,” snapped Croghan. “I can answer every argument you put up, explain everything you don’t understand; but not here and now. I’ve no time. I’ve got to get somebody to lend a hand with this job, because M’tel and that chap Durell will be after the stuff in no time. If you want in on it, say so—yes or no. A fifty-fifty split.”

Hennessy grinned.

“Agreed,” he said. “When do we start?”

“In an hour, if you can be free of your ship in that time.”

“I can so,” said Hennessy promptly. “All I have to do is get my pay from the Old Man and leave her. He can ship a dozen engineers here, and he knows it. Will you come to the dock for me?”

“Not much,” said Croghan. “I’m scared, I tell you; I’ll not monkey around the port at night! Hennessy, I’m plenty tough, and so are you, but let me tell you that we’re up against a bad gang if Durell is in on this. Let’s separate here and now. Meet in an hour’s time at my hotel, the Bonaparte. It’s a little joint, clean and honest, in Rue Bonaparte. I’ll have my car ready.”

“Okeh, feller,” said Hennessy. “Your car? Where do we go, then?”

“A hell of a long way,” said Croghan, and drained his glass. Then he started and set down the glass abruptly, and slid from the bench. His hand gripped Hennessy’s shoulder for an instant. “Look there—the chap with the chauffeur’s coat! That’s Durell himself. So long.”

Croghan was gone, through one of the several exits—gone like an eel.

Excerpt From: H. Bedford-Jones. “Irregular Brethren and Other Stories.”