Moons in Gold by C.S. Montanye

Book Details

Moons in Gold (1936) – When a rare set of golden opals appear, various jewel thieves go on a chase to steal them that takes them from Paris to London to Egypt to China. Their trails are littered with dead bodies.

Captain Valentine is in Paris looking for rare golden opals that have just surfaced out of a private collection. He rapidly finds that he is not the only jewel thief on the hunt for these rarities. And he rapidly finds that murder is accompanying the chase. What begins as a very suave, mannered society affair in Paris, ends in a fight for survival in a pirate infested trap on a river deep within China.

Moons in Gold is C.S. Montanye’s only novel length story.

Carlton Stevens (C.S.) Montanye (1892-1948) was a hugely prolific writer of pulp fiction mysteries. He was published in a number of publications including Black Mask, Detective Story and Collier’s Weekly.

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1. Montanye-MoonsInGold.epub

Excerpt: Moons in Gold

One

PARIS flashed by in its eternal pursuit of pleasure. The singing lilt of its nocturnal melody crept in through the windows of a room on the third floor of the shabby Hotel Le Grand Duc. The tall, slim, debonair man who was shaving by the dresser light whistled a bar of its gay music. His lathered brush kept time to the tempo of the tune. The rhythm seemed to inspire the gliding strokes of the razor that slid over his lean, weathered face.

He was careful to shave accurately around the narrow thread of the jaunty black moustache that gave him a measure of his careless, devil-may-care air. But when the blade moved to his sideburns he considered the grey at each temple with a frown.

“Youth!” he lamented. “Quicksilver in the golden bowl of time! A red rose fading in the garden of summer! Yesterday’s wine, made sour by the hours. Stark tragedy, Tim.”

The man he addressed was laying out a suit of evening clothes. He was short, stocky, bland and yellow-skinned. His slant eyes were the trademark of his nationality. In all respects Wang Shim was the model servant.

He laid his master’s trousers precisely over the footboard of the bed and bowed.

“Youth,” he announced, “is the rising sun that sets too soon.”

The man who called himself Captain Valentine laughed.

“Perfect, my dear Tim. I may always count on you to supply the final simile. Now for a clean shirt and the streets of this Queen City.”

The Chinese gestured.

“Honorable master, I can supply similes, but no shirt. The laundry did not return your package this afternoon. When I went for it at six o’clock stoutly barred doors prevented admittance.”

Valentine glanced at the watch strapped to his left wrist. His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. For him the evening was of paramount importance. There was the matter of Baron Grunoff, the pretty singing girl of the Moulin Bleu, the business responsible for his fortnight in Paris. The hour had advanced. It was close to nine o’clock.

“Must my plans be ruined because of the lack of a shirt?” he inquired. “Must we struggle on in poverty because a laundry happens to be shut? Borrow one for me, Tim. The gentleman who resides at the end of the hall. I’ve seen him several times. His name is Crayshaw, he’s British from his bowler to the polished tips of his capable boots, and he’s my size and build. Ask Mr. Crayshaw to lend me a shirt.”

The Chinese let himself quietly out of the room. Captain Valentine’s lean face darkened. He was at the low ebb of his resources. Financial climaxes that never troubled him anywhere in the world invariably cropped up in Paris.

The door opened, Wang Shim came in. “The honorable gentleman was out. I knocked on many doors. The only one who offered a shirt was a small Frenchman on the floor below. I thanked him and declined, the cuffs were frayed.”

Valentine fumbled in his kit bag. He produced a key. It was made of brass, the ingenious invention of a London locksmith who was serving a twenty-year sentence in an American prison. Valentine called the device a master-key. It opened all doors, solved the secrets of every lock into which it slipped. A hundred times it had more than repaid the large sum he had given for it.

“Wait here,” he directed. “If our friend Crayshaw returns before I do engage him in conversation. Speak loudly so I’ll hear you.”

The hotel corridor was empty. Captain Valentine slid the key into the lock of the door of the darkened room at its end. He gave the barrel on the shaft a preliminary twirl. The key fit itself snugly into the wards and tumblers of the lock. A turn and Valentine stepped across the threshold.

He shut the door soundlessly and switched on a single light. The room was similar to the one he occupied. A small pile of luggage was heaped in a corner. The initials T.C. were on the bags. Continental hotel labels plastered them. Evidently Crayshaw was something of a globe trotter. Valentine went to the dresser, opened it and looked over the haberdashery it contained.

Almost the first thing he saw was a flat automatic of American manufacture. He pushed the blue steel threat of it aside and delved deeper into the drawer. He discovered, presently, a clean evening shirt wrapped in cellophane. Another drawer yielded a wing collar. He considered a small sheaf of correspondence pushed in behind the other collars. From where he stood he could see writing in purple ink on green stationery. A faint aroma of perfume floated from the drawer. He caught a line or two of distinguished chirography. “My dear Thomas: I will be in Paris―” Valentine pushed the drawer shut, snapped off the light and let himself out.

A minute later he was in his own quarters. He finished dressing, let the Chinese knot his black tie, and put on his collapsible opera hat.

“The Honorable Captain is not taking his service pistol?”

Valentine shrugged.

“This is Paris, Tim. We are part of a civilised pattern. You may clean and oil my gun when you have nothing better to do. Meanwhile, I am off to the carnival of night life. Don’t trouble to leave a light for me. I may be late.”

Twenty minutes later Valentine alighted in front of the Moulin Bleu on the rue de Douai. He purchased a ticket and went in.

THE girl was petite, dark and pretty. She had the face of a wondering child, the smile, fixed and stiff, of a bisque doll, the twinkling feet of a wood nymph.

Captain Valentine’s flashlight pencil roamed over the playbill. He found her name. She was Clothilde Vallier, but they called her Chichi. He had heard something of her sudden popularity. Paris adored Chichi. She was feted, toasted, sought after. She gave the blase metropolis a new kind of thrill. Her lack of sophistication, her naive innocence and radiant smile became charms that aided and abetted her rise to fame and fortune.

And she, Valentine reminded himself, was the reason for the Baron Grunoff’s visit to Paris.

The senile, aged member of an aristocracy that had become debris beneath warring guns of conflict, had found the second flowering of youth in the garden of Chichi’s enchantment. A widower with grown sons and daughters, Grunoff came from his native Hungary to pay homage to the former milliner. Valentine knew that. He knew other things, too.

He turned and looked at the lower left proscenium box. Chichi had finished her song and was bowing in the round, amber glow of the spotlight.

Valentine got up and turned into the aisle. A troupe of negro musicians with strange, cacophonous instruments had taken its place before the curtain. He left the theatre to their bedlam.

The stage door was around the corner from the rue de Douai. The usual lounges idled at its portal. They stepped aside as the adventurer went past them. He spoke to the custodian who read an evening newspaper in a backless, rickety chair.

“Mademoiselle Vallier,” Valentine said crisply. “Where shall I find her?”

The other hesitated, looked at him and supplied directions.

“Upstairs, m’sieu. The first door to the left. Her name is on it.”

Stage hands were arranging the next scene behind the curtain. They tugged on ropes and pushed painted canvas into place. Two of them were rolling out a length of carpet. Others stood furniture in designated spots. Some girls of the ensemble in scanty, glittering costumes came down the stairs. They smiled admiringly at Valentine, whispered and laughed together.

He knocked on Chichi’s door. A stout woman opened it. She spoke in French:

“What is it you want?”

“First,” Valentine said, “a civil tongue. I must see Mademoiselle Vallier at once.”

“Who is it, Luci?”

Over the woman’s shoulder the adventurer smiled at the little lady of the chansonettes. She stood with a purple robe around her. Cold cream was smeared over her smooth cheeks. Her eyes were like dark stars in the white heaven of her pretty face. She clutched the robe more tightly, walking toward the door.

“You want to see me?” To the woman she said swiftly: “That is all, Luci. Come back in ten minutes.”

“As you wish,” the other grumbled.

Captain Valentine moved into the dressing-room. It was small, airless and warm. He rested against a trunk. He searched the girl’s face. Her smile was no longer fixed and stiff. Her rose-red lips curved in a friendly, anticipative smile.

“Will you come and have supper with me, Chichi?”

She shook back her shining curls. “But who are you, monsieur?”

“An admirer.”

She laughed. It was a low, musical cadence of pleased merriment. She sat down before the dressing table, giving him a sly, sidelong glance.

“I have so many admirers,” she murmured. “They all wish to take me to supper.”

“But you will come with me?”

She sighed, shaking her head. “Maybe some other night.”

“You are engaged this evening?”

She made a quick grimace and hid it in another kindling smile.

“Yes”

“Engagements can sometimes be broken.”

“Not this one, monsieur. It is so important.”

Valentine opened his silver cigarette case. He passed it to her, striking a match on the placard stating in French that smoking was prohibited.

“You supper with wealth, perhaps?”

“With the Baron Grunoff,” she told him frankly.

Valentine’s laugh was genuine.

“That old sack of bones! You, with your radiance and loveliness! Impossible! You will be wasting your time! Mademoiselle, let me beg of you―”

She blew smoke rings pensively.

“Out of the question. The Baron is also my admirer. Suppose he is old, what of it? You will be old some day, so will I. You will look like him―”

“Heaven forbid!” The adventurer’s grey eyes mirrored amusement. “I can promise you something else, too.”

“And that?”

“I will never wear a wig. Seriously, Chichi, where is he taking you? I would like nothing better than to dine at the same cafe and adore you from a distance. Good logic. If he thinks I’m interested he will be jealous and jealousy pays good dividends.”

She turned the cigarette over in her slender, white fingers.

“I’m afraid you will have to be disappointed. I dine with him at his villa.”

Captain Valentine feigned a sigh.

“Some other night then. I will come back here and get you. Possibly to-morrow.”

Out in the stage door alley, the adventurer moved more quickly. The byplay of the dressing-room had had its own significance. Before he would be able to act he had to know where Grunoff was taking the girl. So they were going to his villa. Rapidly, the adventurer computed the exact amount of his finances. Bois d’Or was some nine miles from the city. On the rue de Douai he chartered a taxi, settled back against the worn upholstery and brooded as the vehicle scuttled off toward the Golden Wood.

Valentine reviewed the events of the past month. It was quite by chance that he had learned the Baron Grunoff had withdrawn from a safe deposit vault in a Budapest bank his world-famed collection of opals. The jewels were known as the Moons in Gold. Their history had been fateful. Once part of a king’s collection, they were fifteen of the most perfect Jewels existent. Opals set in virgin gold chalices! Opals steeped in romance, intrigue! Opals with the remembrance of bloodshed and death hidden deep within their iridescent depths. They were the prize above all other prizes that Valentine intended to capture.

Excerpt From: C.S. Montanye. “Moons in Gold.”