The Daughter Of Huang Chow
Chapter I
"Diamond Fred"
In the saloon bar of a public-house, situated only a few
hundred yards from the official frontier of Chinatown, two
men sat at a small table in a corner, engaged in earnest
conversation. They afforded a sharp contrast. One was a
thick-set and rather ruffianly looking fellow, not too
cleanly in either person or clothing, and, amongst other
evidences that at one time he had known the prize ring,
possessing a badly broken nose. His companion was dressed
with that spruceness which belongs to the successful East
End Jew; he was cleanly shaven, of slight build, and alert
in manner and address.
Having ordered and paid for two whiskies and sodas, the
Jew, raising his glass, nodded to his companion and took a
drink. The glitter of a magnificent diamond which he wore
seemed to attract the other's attention almost
hypnotically.
"Cheerio, Freddy!" said the thick-set man. "Any news?"
"Nothing much," returned the one addressed as Freddy,
setting his glass upon the table and selecting a cigarette
from a packet which he carried in his pocket.
"I'm not so sure," growled the other, watching him
suspiciously. "You've been lying low for a long time, and
it's not like you to slack off except when there's
something big in sight."
"Hm!" said his companion, lighting his cigarette. "What
do you mean exactly?"
Jim Poland -- for such was the big man's name--growled
and spat reflectively into a spittoon.
"I've had my eye on you, Freddy," he replied; "I've had
my eye on you!"
"Oh, have you?" murmured the other. "But tell me what
you mean!"
Beneath his suave manner lay a threat, and, indeed,
Freddy Cohen, known to his associates as "Diamond Fred,"
was in many ways a formidable personality. He had brought
to his chosen profession of crook a first-rate American
training, together with all that mental agility and
cleverness which belong to his race, and was at once an
object of envy and admiration amongst the fraternity which
keeps Scotland Yard busy.
Jim Poland, physically a more dangerous character, was
not in the same class with him; but he was not without
brains of a sort, and Cohen, although smiling agreeably,
waited with some anxiety for his reply.
"I mean," growled Poland, "that you're not wasting your
time with Lala Huang for nothing."
"Perhaps not," returned Cohen lightly. "She's a pretty
girl; but what business is it of yours?"
"None at all. I ain't interested in 'er good looks;
neither are you."
Cohen shrugged and raised his glass again.
"Come on," growled Poland, leaning across the table. "I
know, and I'm in on it. D'ye hear me? I'm in on it. These
are hard times, and we've got to stick together."
"Oh," said Cohen, "that's the game, is it?"
"That's the game right enough. You won't go wrong if you
bring me in, even at fifty-fifty, because maybe I know
things about old Huang that you don't know."
The Jew's expression changed subtly, and beneath his
drooping lids he glanced aside at the speaker. Then:
"It's no promise," he said, "but what do you know?"
Poland bent farther over the table.
"Chinatown's being watched again. I heard this morning
that Red Kerry was down here."
Cohen laughed.
"Red Kerry!" he echoed. "Red Kerry means nothing in my
young life, Jim."
"Don't 'e?" returned Jim, snarling viciously. "The way
he cleaned up that dope crowd awhile back seemed to show
he was no jug, didn't it?"
The Jew made a racial gesture as if to dismiss the
subject.
"All right," continued Poland. "Think that way if you
like. But the patrols have been doubled. I suppose you
know that? And it's a cert there are special men on duty,
ever since the death of that Chink."
Cohen shifted uneasily, glancing about him in a furtive
fashion.
"See what I mean?" continued the other. "Chinatown ain't
healthy just now."
He finished his whisky at a draught, and, standing up,
lurched heavily across to the counter. He returned with
two more glasses. Then, reseating himself and bending
forward again:
"There's one thing I reckon you don't know," he
whispered in Cohen's ear. "I saw that Chink talking to
Lala Huang only a week before the time he was hauled out
of Limehouse Reach. I'm wondering, Diamond, if, with all
your cleverness, you may not go the same way."
"Don't try to pull the creep stuff on me, Jim," said
Cohen uneasily. "What are you driving at, anyway?"
"Well," replied Poland, sipping his whisky reflectively,
"how did that Chink get into the river?"
"How the devil do I know?"
"And what killed him? It wasn't drowning, although he
was all swelled up."
"See here, old pal," said Cohen. "I know 'Frisco better
than you know Limehouse. Let me tell you that this little
old Chinatown of yours is pie to me. You're trying to get
me figuring on Chinese death traps, secret poisons, and
all that junk. Boy, you're wasting your poetry. Even if
you did see the Chink with Lala, and I doubt it -- Oh,
don't get excited, I'm speaking plain -- there's no
connection that I can see between the death of said Chink
and old Huang Chow."
"Ain't there?" growled Poland huskily. He grasped the
other's wrist as in a vise and bent forward so that his
battered face was close to the pale countenance of the
Jew. "I've been covering old Huang for months and months.
Now I'm going to tell you something. Since the death of
that Chink Red Kerry's been covering him, too."
"See here!" Cohen withdrew his arm from the other's
grasp angrily. "You can't freeze me out of this claim with
bogey stuff. You're listed, my lad, and you know it. Chief
Inspector Kerry is your pet nightmare. But if he walked in
here right now I could ask him to have a drink. I wouldn't
but I could. You've got the wrong angle, Jim. Lala likes
me fine, and although she doesn't say much, what she does
say is straight. I'll ask her to-night about the Chink."
"Then you'll be a damned fool."
"What's that?"
"I say you'll be a damned fool. I'm warning you, Freddy.
There are Chinks and Chinks. All the boys know old Huang
Chow has got a regular gold mine buried somewhere under
the floor. But all the boys don't know what I know, and it
seems that you don't either."
"What is that?"
Jim Poland bent forward more urgently, again seizing
Cohen's wrist, and:
"Huang Chow is a mighty big bug amongst the Chinese," he
whispered, glancing cautiously about him. "He's hellish
clever and rotten with money. A man like that wants
handling. I'm not telling you what I know. But call it
fifty-fifty and maybe you'll come out alive."
The brow of Diamond Fred displayed beads of
perspiration, and with a blue silk handkerchief which he
carried in his breast pocket he delicately dried his
forehead.
"You're an old hand at this stuff, Jim," he muttered.
"It amounts to this, I suppose; that if I don't agree
you'll queer my game?"
Jim Poland's brow lowered and he clenched his fists
formidably. Then:
"Listen," he said in his hoarse voice. "It ain't your
claim any more than mine. You've covered it different,
that's all. Yours was always the petticoat lay. Mine's
slower but safer. Is anyone else in with you?"
"No."
"Then we'll double up. Now I'll tell you something. I
was backing out."
"What? You were going to quit?"
"I was."
"Why?"
"Because the thing's too dead easy, and a thing like
that always looks like hell to me."
Freddy Cohen finished his glass of whisky.
"Wait while I get some more drinks," he said.
In this way, then, at about the hour of ten on a stuffy
autumn night, in the crowded bar of that Wapping
public-house, these two made a compact; and of its outcome
and of the next appearance of Cohen, the Jewish-American
cracksman, within the ken of man, I shall now proceed to
tell.
Chapter II
The End Of Cohen
"I've been expecting this," said Chief Inspector Kerry.
He tilted his bowler hat farther forward over his brow and
contemplated the ghastly exhibit which lay upon the slab
of the mortuary. Two other police officers -- one in
uniform -- were present, and they treated the celebrated
Chief Inspector with the deference which he had not only
earned but had always demanded from his subordinates.
Earmarked for important promotion, he was an interesting
figure as he stood there in the gloomy, ill-lighted place,
his pose that of an athlete about to perform a long jump,
or perhaps, as it might have appeared to some, that of a
dancing-master about to demonstrate a new step.
His close-cropped hair was brilliantly red, and so was
his short, wiry, aggressive moustache. He was ruddy of
complexion, and he looked out unblinkingly upon the world
with a pair of steel-blue eyes. Neat he was to spruceness,
and while of no more than medium height he had the
shoulders of an acrobat.
The detective who stood beside him, by name John Durham,
had one trait in common with his celebrated superior. This
was a quick keenness, a sort of alert vitality, which
showed in his eyes, and indeed in every line of his thin,
clean-shaven face. Kerry had picked him out as the most
promising junior in his department.
"Give me the particulars," said the Chief Inspector. "It
isn't robbery. He's wearing a diamond ring worth two
hundred pounds."
His diction was rapid and terse -- so rapid as to create
the impression that he bit off the ends of the longer
words. He turned his fierce blue eyes upon the uniformed
officer who stood at the end of the slab.
"They are very few, Chief Inspector," was the reply. "He
was hauled out by the river police shortly after midnight,
at the lower end of Limehouse Reach. He was alive
then--they heard his cry--but he died while they were
hauling him into the boat."
"Any statement?" rapped Kerry.
"He was past it, Chief Inspector. According to the
report of the officer in charge, he mumbled something
which sounded like: 'It has bitten me,' just before he
became unconscious."
"'It has bitten me,'" murmured Kerry. "The divisional
surgeon has seen him?"
"Yes, Chief Inspector. And in his opinion the man did
not die from drowning, but from some form of virulent
poisoning."
"Poisoning?"
"That's the idea. There will be a further examination,
of course. Either a hypodermic injection or a bite."
"A bite?" said Kerry. "The bite of what?"
"That I cannot say, Chief Inspector. A venomous reptile,
I suppose."
Kerry stared down critically at the swollen face of the
victim, and then glanced sharply aside at Durham.
"Accounts for his appearance, I suppose," he murmured.
"Yes," said Durham quietly. "He hadn't been in the water
long enough to look like that." He turned to the local
officer. "Is there any theory as to the point at which he
went in?"
"Well, an arrest has been made."
"By whom? of whom?" rapped Kerry.
"Two constables patrolling the Chinatown area arrested a
man for suspicious loitering. He turned out to be a
well-known criminal--Jim Poland, with a whole list of
convictions against him. They're holding him at Limehouse
Station, and the theory is that he was operating with -- "
He nodded in the direction of the body.
"Then who's the smart with the swollen face?" inquired
Kerry. "He's a new one on me."
"Yes, but he's been identified by one of the K Division
men. He is an American crook with a clean slate, so far as
this side is concerned. Cohen is his name. And the idea
seems to be that he went in at some point between where he
was found by the river police and the point at which Jim
Poland was arrested."
Kerry snapped his teeth together audibly, and:
"I'm open to learn," he said, "that the house of Huang
Chow is within that area."
"It is."
"I thought so. He died the same way the Chinaman died
awhile ago," snapped Kerry savagely.
"It looks very queer." He glanced aside at the local
officer. "Cover him up," he ordered, and, turning, he
walked briskly out of the mortuary, followed by Detective
Durham.
Although dawn was not far off, this was the darkest hour
of the night, so that even the sounds of dockland were
muted and the riverside slept as deeply as the great port
of London ever sleeps. Vague murmurings there were and
distant clankings, with the hum of machinery which is
never still.
Few of London's millions were awake at that hour, yet
Scotland Yard was awake in the person of the fierce-eyed
Chief Inspector and his subordinate. Perhaps those who
lightly criticize the Metropolitan Force might have
learned a new respect for the tireless vigilance which
keeps London clean and wholesome, had they witnessed this
scene on the borders of Limehouse, as Kerry, stepping into
a waiting taxi-cab accompanied by Durham, proceeded to
Limehouse Police Station in that still hour when the City
slept.
The arrival of Kerry created something of a stir amongst
the officials on duty. His reputation in these days was at
least as great as that of the most garrulous Labour
member.
The prisoner was in cells, but the Chief Inspector
elected to interview him in the office; and accordingly,
while the officer in charge sat at an extremely tidy
writing-table, tapping the blotting-pad with a pencil, and
Detective John Durham stood beside him, Kerry paced up and
down the little room, deep in reflection, until the door
opened and the prisoner was brought in.
One swift glance the Chief Inspector gave at the
battle-scarred face, and recognized instantly that this
was a badly frightened man. Crossing to the table he took
up a typewritten slip which lay there, and:
"Your name is James Poland?" he said. "Four convictions;
one, robbery with violence."
Jim Poland nodded sullenly.
"You were arrested at the corner of Pekin Street about
midnight. What were you doing there?"
"Taking a walk."
"I'll say it again," rapped Kerry, fixing his fierce
eyes upon the man's face. "What were you doing there?"
"I've told you."
"And I tell you you're a liar. Where did you leave the
man Cohen?"
Poland blinked his small eyes, cleared his throat, and
looked down at the floor uneasily. Then:
"Who's Cohen?" he grunted.
"You mean, who was Cohen?" cried Kerry.
The shot went home. The man clenched his fists and
looked about the room from face to face.
"You don't tell me -- " he began huskily.
"I've told you," said Kerry. "He's on the slab. Spit out
the truth; it'll be good for your health."
The man hesitated, then looked up, his eyes half closed
and a cunning expression upon his face.
"Make out your own case," he said. "You've got nothing
against me."
Kerry snapped his teeth together viciously.
"I've told you what happened to your pal," he warned.
"If you're a wise man you'll come in on our side, before
the same thing happens to you."
"I don't know what you're talking about," growled
Poland.
Kerry nodded to the constable at the doorway.
"Take him back," he ordered.
Jim Poland being returned to his cell, Kerry, as the
door closed behind the prisoner and his guard, stared
across at Durham where he stood beside the table.
"An old hand," he said. "But there's another way." He
glanced at the officer in charge. "Hold him till the
morning. He'll prove useful."
From his waistcoat pocket he took out a slip of chewing
gum, unwrapped it, and placed the mint-flavoured wafer
between his large white teeth. He bit upon it savagely,
settled his hat upon his head, and, turning, walked toward
the door. In the doorway he paused.
"Come with me, Durham," he said. "I am leaving the
conduct of the case entirely in your hands from now
onward."
Detective Durham looked surprised and not a little
anxious.
"I am doing so for two reasons," continued the Chief
Inspector. "These two reasons I shall now explain."
Chapter III
The Secret Treasure-House
Unlike its sister colony in New York, there are no show
places in Limehouse. The visitor sees nothing but mean
streets and dark doorways. The superficial inquirer comes
away convinced that the romance of the Asiatic district
has no existence outside the imaginations of writers of
fiction. Yet here lies a secret quarter, as secret and as
strange, in its smaller way, as its parent in China which
is called the Purple Forbidden City.
On a morning when mist lay over the Thames reaches,
softening the harshness of the dock buildings and lending
an air of mystery to the vessels stealing out upon the
tide, a man walked briskly along Limehouse Causeway,
looking about him inquiringly, as one unfamiliar with the
neighbourhood. Presently he seemed to recognize a turning
to the right, and he pursued this for a time, now walking
more slowly.
A European woman, holding a half-caste baby in her arms,
stood in an open doorway, watching him uninterestedly.
Otherwise, except for one neatly dressed young Chinaman,
who passed him about halfway along the street, there was
nothing which could have told the visitor that he had
crossed the borderline dividing West from East and was now
in an Oriental town.
A very narrow alleyway between two dingy houses proved
to be the spot for which he was looking; and, having
stared about him for a while, he entered this alleyway. At
the farther end it was crossed T-fashion, by another
alley, the only object of interest being an iron post at
the crossing, and the scenery being made up entirely of
hideous brick walls.
About halfway along on the left, set in one of these
walls, were strong wooden gates, apparently those of a
warehouse. Beside them was a door approached by two very
dirty steps. There was a bell-push near the door, but upon
neither of these entrances was there any plate to indicate
the name of the proprietor of the establishment.
From his pocket-book the visitor extracted a card,
consulted something written upon it, and then pressed the
bell.
It was very quiet in this dingy little court. No sound
of the busy thoroughfares penetrated here; and although
the passage forming the top of the "T" practically marked
the river bank, only dimly could one discern the sounds
which belong to a seaport.
Presently the door was opened by a Chinese boy who wore
the ordinary native working dress, and who regarded the
man upon the step with oblique, tired-looking eyes.
"Mr. Huang Chow?" asked the caller.
The boy nodded.
"You wantchee him see?"
"If he is at home."
The boy glanced at the card, which the visitor still
held between finger and thumb, and extended his hand
silently. The card was surrendered. It was that of an
antique dealer of Dover Street, Piccadilly, and written
upon the back was the following: "Mr. Hampden would like
to do business with you." The signature of the dealer
followed.
The boy turned and passed along a dim and perfectly
unfurnished passage which the opening of the door had
revealed, while Mr. Hampden stood upon the step and
lighted a cigarette.
In less than a minute the boy returned and beckoned to
him to come in. As he did so, and the door was closed, he
almost stumbled, so dark was the passage.
Presently, guided by the boy, he found himself in a very
business-like little office, where a girl sat at an
American desk, looking up at him inquiringly.
She was of a dark and arresting type. Without being
pretty in the European sense, there was something
appealing in her fine, dark eyes, and she possessed the
inviting smile which is the heritage of Eastern women. Her
dress was not unlike that of any other business girl,
except that the neck of her blouse was cut very low, a
fashion affected by many Eurasians, and she wore a gaily
coloured sash, and large and very costly pearl ear-rings.
As Mr. Hampden paused in the doorway:
"Good morning," said the girl, glancing down at the card
which lay upon the desk before her. "You come from Mr.
Isaacs, eh?"
She looked at him with a caressing glance from beneath
half- lowered lashes, but missed no detail of his
appearance. She did not quite like his moustache, and
thought that he would have looked better cleanshaven.
Nevertheless, he was a well-set-up fellow, and her manner
evidenced approval.
"Yes," he replied, smiling genially. "I have a small
commission to execute, and I am told that you can help
me."
The girl paused for a moment, and then:
"Yes, very likely," she said, speaking good English but
with an odd intonation. "It is not jade? We have very
little jade."
"No, no. I wanted an enamelled casket."
"What kind?"
"Cloisonne."
"Cloisonne? Yes, we have several."
She pressed a bell, and, glancing up at the boy who had
stood throughout the interview at the visitor's elbow,
addressed him rapidly in Chinese. He nodded his head and
led the way through a second doorway. Closing this, he
opened a third and ushered Mr. Hampden into a room which
nearly caused the latter to gasp with astonishment.
One who had blundered from Whitechapel into the Khan
Khalil, who had been transported upon a magic carpet from
a tube station to the Taj Mahal, of dropped suddenly upon
Lebanon hills to find himself looking down upon the pearly
domes and jewelled gardens of Damascus, could not well
have been more surprised. This great treasure-house of old
Huang Chow was one of Chinatown's secrets -- a secret
shared only by those whose commercial interests were
identical with the interests of Huang Chow.
The place was artificially lighted by lamps which
themselves were beautiful objects of art, and which swung
from the massive beams of the ceiling. The floor of the
warehouse, which was partly of stone, was covered with
thick matting, and spread upon it were rugs and carpets of
Karadagh, Kermanshah, Sultan-abad, and Khorassan, with
lesser-known loomings of almost equal beauty. Skins of
rare beasts overlay the divans. Furniture of ivory, of
ebony and lemonwood, preciously inlaid, gave to the place
an air of cunning confusion. There were tall cabinets,
there were caskets and chests of exquisite lacquer and
enamel, loot of an emperor's palace; robes heavy with
gold; slippers studded with jewels; strange carven
ivories; glittering weapons; pots, jars, and bowls, as
delicate and as fragile as the petals of a lily.
Last, but not least, sitting cross-legged upon a low
couch, was old Huang Chow, smoking a great curved pipe,
and peering half blindly across the place through large
horn-rimmed spectacles. This couch was set immediately
beside a wide ascending staircase, richly carpeted, and on
the other side of the staircase, in a corresponding
recess, upon a gilded trestle carved to represent the four
claws of a dragon, rested perhaps the strangest exhibit of
that strange collection -- a Chinese coffin of exquisite
workmanship.
The boy retired, and Mr. Hampden found himself alone
with Huang Chow. No word had been exchanged between master
and servant, but:
"Good morning, Mr. Hampden," said the Chinaman in a
high, thin voice. "Please be seated. It is from Mr. Isaacs
you come?"
Chapter IV
Personal Report Of Detective John
Durham To Chief Inspector Kerry, Officer In Charge Of
Limehouse Inquiry
Dear Chief Inspector, -- Following your instructions I
returned and interviewed the prisoner Poland in his cell.
I took the line which you had suggested, pointing out to
him that he had nothing to gain and everything to lose by
keeping silent.
"Answer my questions," I said, "and you can walk
straight out. Otherwise, you'll be up before the
magistrate, and on your record alone it will mean a
holiday which you probably don't want."
He was very truculent, but I got him in a good humour at
last, and he admitted that he had been cooperating with
the dead man, Cohen, in an attempt to burgle the house of
Huang Chow. His reluctance to go into details seemed to be
due rather to fear of Huang Chow than to fear of the law,
and I presently gathered that he regarded Huang as
responsible for the death not only of Cohen, but also of
the Chinaman who was hauled out of the river about three
weeks ago, as you well remember. The post-mortem showed
that he had died of some kind of poisoning, and when we
saw Cohen in the mortuary, his swollen appearance struck
me as being very similar to that of the Chinaman. (See my
report dated 31st ultimo.)
He finally agreed to talk if I would promise that he
should not be charged and that his name should never be
mentioned to anyone in connection with what he might tell
me. I promised him that outside the ordinary official
routine I would respect his request, and he told me some
very curious things, which no doubt have a bearing on the
case.
For instance, he had discovered -- I don't know in what
way -- that the dead Chinaman, whose name was Pi Lung, had
been in negotiation with Huang Chow for some sort of job
in his warehouse. Poland had seen the man talking to
Huang's daughter, at the end of the alley which leads to
the place. He seemed to attach extraordinary importance to
this fact. At last:
"I'll tell you what it is," he said. "That Chink was a
stranger to Limehouse; I can swear to it. He was a gent of
his hands; I reckon they've got 'em in China as well as
here. He went out for the old boy's money-box, and
finished like Cohen finished."
"Make your meaning clearer," I said.
"My meaning's this: Old Huang Chow is the biggest dealer
in stolen and smuggled valuables from overseas we've got
in London. He's something else as well; he's a big swell
in China. But here's the point. He's got business with
buyers all over London, and they have to pay cash -- no
checks. He doesn't bank it: I've proved that. He's got it
in gold, or diamonds, or something, being wise to present
conditions, hidden there in the house. Pi Lung was after
his hoard. He didn't get it. Cohen and me was after it.
Where's Cohen?"
I agreed that it looked very suspicious, and presently:
"When I went in with Cohen," continued Poland, "I knew
one thing he didn't know -- a short cut into the
warehouse. He's been playing pretty-like with Lala, old
Huang's daughter, and it's my belief that he knew where
the store was hidden; but he never told me. We knew there
were special men on duty, and we'd arranged that I was to
give a signal when the patrol had passed. Cohen all the
time had planned to double on me. While I was watching
down on the Causeway end he climbed up and got in through
the skylight I'd shown him. When I got there he was
missing, but the skylight was open. I started off after
him."
Then Poland clutched me, and his fright was very real.
"I heard a shriek like nothing I ever heard in my life.
I saw a light shine through the trap, and then I heard a
sort of moaning. Last, I heard a bang, and the light went
out. I staggered down the passage half silly, started to
run, and ran straight into the arms of two coppers."
This evidence I thought was conclusive, and in
accordance with your instructions I proceeded to Mr.
Isaacs in Dover Street. He didn't seem too pleased at my
suggestion, but when I pointed out to him that one good
turn deserved another, he agreed to give me an
introduction to Huang Chow.
I adopted a very simple disguise, just altering my
complexion and sticking on a moustache with spirit gum,
hair by hair, and trimming it down military fashion.
Everything ran smoothly, and I seemed to make a fairly
favourable impression upon Lala Huang, the Chinaman's
daughter, who evidently interviews prospective customers
before they are admitted to the warehouse.
She is a Eurasian and extremely good looking. But when I
found myself in the room where old Huang keeps his
treasures, I really thought I was dreaming. It's a
collection that must be worth thousands. He showed me
snuff-bottles, cut out of gems, and with a little opening
no bigger than the hole in a pipe-stem, but with wonderful
paintings done inside the bottles. He'd got a model of a
pagoda made out of human teeth, and a big golden rug woven
from the hair of Circassian slave girls. Excuse this,
Chief Inspector; I know it is what you call the romantic
stuff; but I think it would have impressed you if you had
seen it.
Anyway, I bought a little enamelled box, in accordance
with Mr. Isaacs's instructions, although whether I
succeeded in convincing Huang Chow that I knew anything
about the matter is more than doubtful. He got up from a
sort of throne he sits on, and led the way up a broad
staircase to a private room above.
"Of course, you have brought the cash, Mr. Hampden?" he
said.
He speaks quite faultless English. He walked up three
steps to a sort of raised writing-table in this upstairs
room, and I counted out the money to him. When he sat at
the table he faced toward the room, and I couldn't help
thinking that, in his horn-rimmed spectacles, he looked
like some old magistrate. He explained that he would pack
the purchase for me, but that I must personally take it
away. And:
"You understand," said he, "that you bought it from a
gentleman who had purchased it abroad."
I said I quite understood. He bowed me out very
politely, and presently I found myself back in the office
with Lala Huang.
She seemed quite disposed to talk, and I chatted with
her while the box was being packed for me to take away. I
knew I must make good use of my time, but you have never
given me a job I liked less. I mean, there is something
very appealing about her, and I hated to think that I was
playing a double game. However, without actually agreeing
to see me again, she told me enough to enable me to meet
her "accidentally," if I wanted to. Therefore, I am going
to look out for her this evening, and probably take her to
a picture palace, or somewhere where we can have a quiet
talk. She seems to be fancy free, and for some reason I
feel sorry for the girl. I don't altogether like the job,
but I hope to justify your faith in me, Chief.
I will prepare my official report this evening when I
return.
Yours obediently, -- John Durham.
Chapter V
Lala Huang
"No," said Lala Huang, "I don't like London -- not this
part of London."
"Where would you rather be?" asked Durham. "In China?"
Dusk had dropped its merciful curtain over Limehouse,
and as the two paced slowly along West India Dock Road it
seemed to the detective that a sort of glamour had crept
into the scene.
He was a clever man within his limitations, and cultured
up to a point; but he was not philosopher enough to know
that he viewed the purlieus of Limehouse through a haze of
Oriental mystery conjured up by the conversation of his
companion. Temple bells there were in the clangour of the
road cars. The smoke-stacks had a semblance of pagodas.
Burma she had conjured up before him, and China, and the
soft islands where she had first seen the light. For as
well as a streak of European, there was Kanaka blood in
Lala, which lent her an appeal quite new to Durham,
insidious and therefore dangerous.
"Not China," she replied. "Somehow I don't think I shall
ever see China again. But my father is rich, and it is
dreadful to think that we live here when there are so many
more beautiful places to live in."
"Then why does he stay?" asked Durham with curiosity.
"For money, always for money," answered Lala, shrugging
her shoulders. "Yet if it is not to bring happiness, what
good is it?"
"What good indeed?" murmured Durham.
"There is no fun for me," said the girl pathetically.
"Sometimes someone nice comes to do business, but mostly
they are Jews, Jews, always Jews, and -- " Again she
shrugged eloquently.
Durham perceived the very opening for which he had been
seeking..
"You evidently don't like Jews," he said endeavouring to
speak lightly.
"No," murmured the girl, "I don't think I do. Some are
nice, though. I think it is the same with every kind of
people -- there are good and bad."
"Were you ever in America?" asked Durham.
"No."
"I was just thinking," he explained, "that I have known
several American Jews who were quite good fellows."
"Yes?" said Lala, looking up at him naively, "I met one
not long ago. He was not nice at all."
"Oh!" exclaimed Durham, startled by this admission,
which he had not anticipated. "One of your father's
customers?"
"Yes, a man named Cohen."
"Cohen?"
"A funny little chap," continued the girl. "He tried to
make love to me." She lowered her lashes roguishly. "I
knew all along he was pretending. He was a thief, I think.
I was afraid of him."
Durham did some rapid thinking, then:
"Did you say his name was Cohen?" he asked.
"That was the name he gave."
"A man named Cohen, an American, was found dead in the
river quite recently."
Lala stopped dead and clutched his arm.
"How do you know?" she demanded.
"There was a paragraph in this morning's paper."
She hesitated, then:
"Did it describe him?" she asked.
"No," replied Durham, "I don't think it did in detail.
At least, the only part of the description which I
remember is that he wore a large and valuable diamond on
his left hand."
"Oh!" whispered Lala.
She released her grip of Durham's arm and went on.
"What?" he asked. "Did you think it was someone you
knew?"
"I did know him," she replied simply. "The man who was
found drowned. It is the same. I am sure now, because of
the diamond ring. What paper did you read it in? I want to
read it myself."
"I'm afraid I can't remember. It was probably the Daily
Mail."
"Had he been drowned?"
"I presume so -- yes," replied Durham guardedly.
Lala Huang was silent for some time while they paced on
through the dusk. Then:
"How strange!" she said in a low voice.
"I am sorry I mentioned it," declared Durham. "But how
was I to know it was your friend?"
"He was no friend of mine," returned the girl sharply.
"I hated him. But it is strange nevertheless. I am sure he
intended to rob my father."
"And is that why you think it strange?"
"Yes," she said, but her voice was almost inaudible.
They were come now to the narrow street communicating
with the courtway in which the great treasure-house of
Huang Chow was situated, and; Lala stopped at the corner.
"It was nice of you to walk along with me," she said.
"Do you live in Limehouse?"
"No," replied Durham, "I don't. As a matter of fact, I
came down here to-night in the hope of seeing you again."
"Did you?"
The girl glanced up at him doubtfully, and his distaste
for the task set him by his superior increased with the
passing of every moment. He was a man of some imagination,
a great reader, and ambitious professionally. He
appreciated the fact that Chief Inspector Kerry looked for
great things from him, but for this type of work he had
little inclination.
There was too much chivalry in his make-up to enable him
to play upon a woman's sentiments, even in the interests
of justice. By whatever means the man Cohen had met his
death, and whether or no the Chinaman Pi Lung had died by
the same hand, Lala Huang was innocent of any complicity
in these matters, he was perfectly well assured.
Doubts were to come later when he was away from her,
when he had had leisure to consider that she might regard
him in the light of a third potential rifler of her
father's treasure-house. But at the moment, looking down
into her dark eyes, he reproached himself and wondered
where his true duty lay.
"It is so gray and dull and sordid here," said the girl,
looking down the darkened street. "There is no one much to
talk to."
"But you have your business interests to keep you
employed during the day, after all."
"I hate it all. I hate it all."
"But you seem to have perfect freedom?"
"Yes. My mother, you see, was not Chinese."
"But you wish to leave Limehouse?"
"I do. I do. Just now it is not so bad, but in the
winter how I tire of the gray skies, the endless drizzling
rain. Oh!" She shrank back into the shadow of a doorway,
clutching at Durham's arm. "Don't let Ah Fu see me."
"Ah Fu? Who is Ah Fu?" asked Durham, also drawing back
as a furtive figure went slinking down the opposite side
of the street.
"My father's servant. He let you in this morning."
"And why must he not see you?"
"I don't trust him. I think he tells my father things."
"What is it that he carries in his hand?"
"A birdcage, I expect."
"A birdcage?"
"Yes!"
He caught the gleam of her eyes as she looked up at him
out of the shadow.
"Is he, then, a bird-fancier?"
"No, no, I can't explain because I don't understand
myself. But Ah Fu goes to a place in Shadwell regularly
and buys young birds, always very young ones and very
little ones."
"For what or for whom?"
"I don't know."
"Have you an aviary in your house?"
"No."
"Do you mean that they disappear, these purchases of Ah
Fu's?"
"I often see him carrying a cage of young birds, but we
have no birds in the house."
"How perfectly extraordinary!" muttered Durham.
"I distrust Ah Fu," whispered the girl. "I am glad he
did not see me with you."
"Young birds," murmured Durham absently. "What kind of
young birds? Any particular breed?"
"No; canaries, linnets -- all sorts. Isn't it funny?"
The girl laughed in a childish way. "And now I think Ah Fu
will have gone in, so I must say good night."
But when presently Detective Durham found himself
walking back along West India Dock Road, his mind's eye
was set upon the slinking figure of a Chinaman carrying a
birdcage.
Chapter VI
A Hint Of Incense
One Chinaman more or less does not make any very great
difference to the authorities responsible for maintaining
law and order in Limehouse. Asiatic settlers are at
liberty to follow their national propensities, and to
knife one another within reason. This is wisdom. Such
recreations are allowed, if not encouraged, by all wise
rulers of Eastern peoples.
"Found drowned," too, is a verdict which has covered
many a dark mystery of old Thames, but "Found in the
river, death having been due to the action of some poison
unknown," is a finding which even in the case of a
Chinaman is calculated to stimulate the jaded official
mind.
New Scotland Yard had given Durham a roving commission,
and had been justified in the fact that the second victim,
and this time not a Chinaman, had been found under almost
identical conditions. The link with the establishment of
Huang Chow was incomplete, and Durham fully recognized
that it was up to him to make it sound and incontestable.
Jim Poland was not the only man in the East End who knew
that the dead Chinaman had been in negotiation with Huang
Chow. Kerry knew it, and had passed the information on to
Durham.
Some mystery surrounded the life of the old dealer, who
was said to be a mandarin of high rank, but his exact
association with the deaths first of the Chinaman Pi Lung,
and second of Cohen, remained to be proved. Certain
critics have declared the Metropolitan detective service
to be obsolete and inefficient. Kerry, as a potential
superintendent, resented these criticisms, and in his
protege Durham, perceived a member of the new generation
who was likely in time to produce results calculated to
remove this stigma.
Durham recognized that a greater responsibility rested
upon his shoulders than the actual importance of the case
might have indicated; and now, proceeding warily along the
deserted streets, he found his brain to be extraordinarily
active and his imagination very much alive.
There is a night life in Limehouse, as he had learned,
but it is a mole life, a subterranean life, of which no
sign appears above ground after a certain hour.
Nevertheless, as he entered the area which harbours those
strange, hidden resorts the rumour of which has served to
create the glamour of Chinatown, he found himself to be
thinking of the great influence said to be wielded by
Huang Chow, and wondering if unseen spies watched his
movements.
Lala was Oriental, and now, alone in the night, distrust
leapt into being within him. He had been attracted by her
and had pitied her. He told himself now that this was
because of her dark beauty and the essentially feminine
appeal which she made. She was perhaps a vampire of the
most dangerous sort, one who lured men to strange deaths
for some sinister object beyond reach of a Western
imagination.
He found himself doubting the success of those tactics
upon which, earlier in the day, he had congratulated
himself. Perhaps beneath the guise of Hampden, who bought
antique furniture on commission, those cunning old eyes
beneath the horn-rimmed spectacles had perceived the
detective hidden, or at least had marked subterfuge.
While he could not count Lala a conquest -- for he had
not even attempted to make love to her -- the ease with
which he had developed the acquaintance now, afforded
matter for suspicion.
At the entrance to the court communicating with the
establishment of Huang Chow he paused, looking cautiously
about him. The men on the Limehouse beats had been warned
of the investigation afoot tonight, and there was a
plain-clothes man on point duty at no great distance away,
although carefully hidden, so that Durham had quite failed
to detect his presence.
Durham wore rough clothes and rubber-soled shoes; and
now, as he entered the court, he was thinking of the
official report of the police sergeant who, not so many
hours before, had paid a visit to the house of Huang Chow
in order to question him respecting his knowledge of the
dead man Cohen, and to learn when last he had seen him.
Old Huang, who had received his caller in the large room
upstairs, the room which boasted the presence of the
writing- dais, had exhibited no trace of confusion,
assuring the sergeant that he had not seen the man Cohen
for several days. Cohen had come to him with an American
introduction, which he, Huang, believed to be forged, and
had wanted him to undertake a shady agency, respecting the
details of which he remained peculiarly reticent. In
short, nothing had been gained by this official
interrogation, and Huang blandly denied any knowledge of
an attempted burglary of his establishment.
"What have I to lose?" he had asked the inquirer. "A lot
of old lumber which I have accumulated during many years,
and a reputation for being wealthy, due to my lonely
habits and to the ignorance of those who live around me."
Durham, mentally reviewing the words of the report,
reconstructed the scene in his mind; and now, having come
to the end of the lane where the iron post rested, he
stood staring up at a place in the ancient wall where
several bricks had decayed, and where it was possible,
according to the statement of the man Poland, to climb up
on to a piece of sloping roof, and thence gain the
skylight through which Cohen had obtained admittance on
the night of his death.
He made sure that his automatic pistol was in his
pocket, questioned the dull sounds of the riverside for a
moment, looking about him anxiously, and then, using the
leaning post as a stepping-stone, he succeeded in wedging
his foot into a crevice in the wall. By the exercise of
some agility he scrambled up to the top, and presently
found himself lying upon a sloping roof.
The skylight remained well out of reach, but his
rubber-soled shoes enabled him to creep up the slates
until he could grasp the framework with his hands.
Presently he found himself perched upon the trap which, if
his information could be relied upon, possessed no
fastener, or one so faulty that the trap could be raised
by means of a brad-awl. He carried one in his pocket, and,
screwing it into the framework, he lifted it cautiously,
making very little noise.
The trap opened, and up to his nostrils there stole a
queer, indefinable odour, partly that which belongs to old
Oriental furniture and stuffs, but having mingled with it
a hint of incense and of something else not so easily
named. He recognized the smell of that strange store-room,
which, as Mr. Hampden, he had recently visited.
For one moment he thought he could detect the distant
note of a bell. But, listening, he heard nothing, and was
reassured.
He rested the trap back against the frame, and shone the
ray of an electric torch down into the darkness beneath
him. The light fell upon the top of a low carven table,
dragon-legged and gilded. Upon it rested the model pagoda
constructed of human teeth, and there was something in
this discovery which made Durham feel inclined to shudder.
However, the impulse was only a passing one.
He measured the distance with his eye. The little table
stood beside a deep divan, and he saw that with care it
would be possible to drop upon this divan without making
much noise. He calculated its exact position before
replacing the torch in his pocket, and then, resting back
against one side of the frame, he clutched the other with
his hands. He wriggled gradually down until further
purchase became impossible. He then let himself drop, and
swung for a moment by his hands before releasing his hold.
He fell, as he had calculated, upon the divan. It
creaked ominously. Catching his foot in the cushions, he
stumbled and lay forward for a moment upon his face,
listening intently.
The room was very hot but nothing stirred.
Chapter VII
The Scuffling Sound
Detective Durham, as he lay there inhaling the peculiar
perfume of the place, recognized that he had put himself
outside the pale of official protection, and was become
technically a burglar.
He wondered if Chief Inspector Kerry would have
approved; but he had outlined this plan of investigation
for himself, and knew well that, if it were crowned by
success, the end would be regarded as having justified the
means. On the other hand, in the event of detention he
must personally bear the consequences of such irregular
behaviour. He knew well, however, that his celebrated
superior had achieved promotion by methods at least as
irregular; and he knew that if he could but obtain
evidence to account for the death of the man Cohen, and of
the Chinaman Pi Lung, who had preceded him by the same
mysterious path, the way of his obtaining it would not be
too closely questioned.
He was an ambitious man, and consequently one who took
big chances. Nothing disturbed the silence; he sat upon
the divan and again pressed the button of his torch,
shining it all about the low-beamed apartment and peering
curiously into the weird shadows of the place. He
calculated he was now in the position which Cohen had
occupied during the last moments of his life, and a sense
of the uncanny touched him coldly.
As he thought of the unnatural screams spoken of by
Poland, some strange instinct prompted him to curl up his
feet upon the divan again, as though a secret menace
crawled upon the floor amid its many rugs and carpets.
He must now endeavour to reconstruct the plan upon which
the American cracksman had operated. Poland had a
persistent belief that Cohen had known where the fabled
hoard of Huang Chow was concealed.
Durham began a deliberate inspection of the place. He
thought it unlikely that a wily old Chinaman, assuming
that he possessed hidden wealth, would keep it in so
accessible a spot as this. It was far more probable that
he had a fireproof safe in the room upstairs, perhaps
built into the wall. Yet, according to Poland's account,
it was in this room and not in any other that death came
to Diamond Fred.
The wall-hangings first engaged Durham's attention. He
moved them aside systematically, one after another,
seeking for any hiding-place, but failing to find one. The
door communicating with the outer office he found to be
locked, but he did not believe for a moment that the
office would be worthy of inspection.
There were cases containing jewelled weapons and cups
and goblets inlaid with precious stones, but none of these
seemed to have been tampered with, and all were locked, as
was the big cabinet filled with snuff bottles.
Many of the larger pieces about the place contained
drawers and cupboards, and these he systematically opened
one after another, without making any discovery of note.
Some of the cupboards contained broken pieces of crockery,
and more or less damaged curios of one kind and another,
but none of them gave him the clue for which he was
seeking.
He examined the couch upon which Huang Chow had been
seated when first he had met him, but although he searched
it scientifically he was rewarded by no discovery.
A very fusty and unpleasant smell was more noticeable at
this point than elsewhere in the room, and he found
himself staring speculatively up the wide, carpeted
stairs. Next he turned his attention to the lacquered
coffin which occupied the corresponding recess to that
filled by the couch. It was an extraordinarily ornate
piece of lacquer work and probably of great value.
The lid appeared to be screwed on, and Durham stood
staring at the thing, half revolted and half fascinated.
He failed to discover any means of opening it, however,
and when he tried to move it bodily found it very heavy.
He came to the conclusion that all the portable valuables
were contained in locked cases or cabinets, and out of
this discovery grew an idea.
The case containing the snuff bottles stood too close to
the wall to enable him t test his new theory, but a square
case near the office door, in which were five of six small
but almost priceless pieces of porcelain, afforded the
very evidence for which he was looking.
Thin electric flex descended from somewhere inside the
case down one of the legs of the pedestal, and through a
neatly drilled hole in the floor, evidently placed there
to accommodate it.
"Burglar alarm!" he muttered.
The opening of this case, and doubtless of any of the
others, would set alarm bells ringing. This was not an
unimportant discovery, but it brought him very little
nearer to a solution of the chief problem which engaged
his mind. Assuming that Cohen had opened one of the cases
and had alarmed old Huang Chow, what steps had the latter
taken to deal with the intruder which had resulted in so
ghastly a death? And how had he disposed of the body?
As Durham stood there musing and looking down through
the plate- glass at the delicate porcelain beneath, a
faint sound intruded itself upon the stillness. It gave
him another idea. Part of the floor was stone-paved, but
part was wood.
Upon a portion of the latter, where no carpet rested,
Durham dropped flat, pressing his ear to the floor.
A faint swishing and trickling sound was perceptible
from some place beneath.
"Ah!" he murmured.
Remembering that the premises almost overhung the
Thames, he divined that the cellars were flooded at high
tide, or that there was some kind of drain or cutting
running underneath the house.
He stood up again, listening intently for any sound
within the building. He thought he had detected something,
and now, as he stood there alert, he heard it again -- a
faint scuffling, which might have been occasioned by rats
or even mice, but which, in some subtle and very
unpleasant way, did not suggest the movements of these
familiar rodents.
Even as he perceived it, it ceased, leaving him
wondering, and uncomfortably conscious of a sudden dread
of his surroundings. He wondered in what part of this
mysterious house Lala resided, and recognizing that his
departure must leave traces, he determined to prosecute
his inquiries as far as possible, since another
opportunity might not arise.
He was baffled but still hopeful. Something there was in
the smell of the place which threatened to unnerve him; or
perhaps in its silence, which remained quite unbroken save
when, by acute listening, one detected the dripping of
water.
That unexplained scuffling sound, too, which he had
failed to trace or identify, lingered in his memory
insistently, and for some reason contained the elements of
fear.
He crossed the room and began softly to mount the stair.
It creaked only slightly, and the door at the top proved
to be ajar. He peeped in, to find the place empty. It was
a typical Chinese apartment, containing very little
furniture, the raised desk being the most noticeable item,
except for a small shrine which faced it on the other side
of the room.
He mounted the steps to the desk and inspected a number
of loose papers which lay upon it. Without exception they
were written in Chinese. A sort of large, dull white
blotting-pad lay upon the table, but its surface was
smooth and glossy.
Over it was suspended what looked like a lampshade, but
on inspection it proved to contain no lamp, but to
communicate, by a sort of funnel, with the ceiling above.
At this contrivance Durham stared long and curiously,
but without coming to any conclusion respecting its
purpose. He might have investigated further, but he became
aware of a dull and regular sound in the room behind him.
He turned in a flash, staring in the direction of two
curtains draped before what he supposed to be a door.
On tiptoe he crossed and gently drew the curtains aside.
He looked into a small, cell-like room, lighted by one
window, where upon a low bed Huang Chow lay sleeping
peacefully!
Durham almost held his breath; then, withdrawing as
quietly as he had approached, he descended the stair. At
the foot his attention was again arrested by the faint
scuffling sound. It ceased as suddenly as it had begun,
leaving him wondering and conscious anew of a chill of
apprehension.
He had already made his plans for departure, but knew
that they must leave evidence, when discovered, of his
visit.
A large and solid table stood near the divan, and he
moved this immediately under the trap. Upon it he laid a
leopard-skin to deaden any noise he might make, and then
upon the leopard-skin he set a massive chair: he replaced
his torch in his pocket and drew himself up on to the roof
again. Reclosing the trap by means of the awl which he had
screwed into it, he removed the awl and placed it in his
pocket.
Then, sliding gently down the sloping roof, he dropped
back into the deserted court.
Chapter VIII
A Cage Of Birds
"No," said Lala, "we have never had robbers in the
house." She looked up at Durham naively. "You are not a
thief, are you?" she asked.
"No, I assure you I am not," he answered, and felt
himself flushing to the roots of his hair.
They were seated in a teashop patronized by the workers
of the district; and as Durham, his elbows resting on the
marble-topped table, looked into the dark eyes of his
companion, he told himself again that whatever might be
the secrets of old Huang Chow, his daughter did not share
them.
The Chinaman had made no report to the authorities,
although the piled up furniture beneath the skylight must
have afforded conclusive evidence that a burglarious entry
had been made into the premises.
"I should feel very nervous," Durham declared, "with all
those valuables in the house."
"I feel nervous about my father," the girl answered in a
low voice. "His room opens out of the warehouse, but mine
is shut away in another part of the building. And Ah Fu
sleeps behind the office."
"Were you not afraid when you suspected that Cohen was a
burglar? You told me yourself that you did suspect him."
"Yes, I spoke to my father about it."
"And what did he say?"
"Oh" -- she shrugged her shoulders -- "he just smiled
and told me not to worry."
"And that was the last you heard about the matter?"
"Yes, until you told me he was dead."
Again he questioned the dark eyes and again was baffled.
He felt tempted, and not for the first time, to throw up
the case. After all, it rested upon very slender data --
the mysterious death of a Chinaman whose history was
unknown and the story of a crook whose word was worth
nothing.
Finally he asked himself, as he had asked himself
before, what did it matter? If old Huang Chow had disposed
of these people in some strange manner, they had sought to
rob him. The morality of the case was complicated and
obscure, and more and more he was falling under the spell
of Lala's dark eyes.
But always it was his professional pride which came to
the rescue. Murder had been done, whether justifiably or
otherwise, and to him had been entrusted the discovery of
the murderer. It seemed that failure was to be his lot,
for if Lala knew anything she was a most consummate
actress, and if she did not, his last hope of information
was gone.
He would have liked nothing better than to be rid of the
affair, provided he could throw up the case with a clear
conscience. But when presently he parted from the
attractive Eurasian, and watched her slim figure as,
turning, she waved her hand and disappeared round a
corner, he knew that rest was not for him.
He had discovered the emporium of a Shadwell live-stock
dealer with whom Ah Fu had a standing order for newly
fledged birds of all descriptions. Purchases apparently
were always made after dusk, and Ah Fu with his birdcage
was due that evening.
A scheme having suggested itself to Durham, he now
proceeded to put it into execution, so that when dusk
came, and Ah Fu, carrying an empty birdcage, set out from
the house of Huang Chow, a very dirty-looking loafer
passed the corner of the street at about the time that the
Chinaman came slinking out.
Durham had mentally calculated that Ah Fu would be gone
about half an hour upon his mysterious errand, but the
Chinaman travelled faster than he had calculated.
Just as he was about to climb up once more on to the
sloping roof, he heard the pattering footsteps returning
to the courtyard, although rather less than twenty minutes
had elapsed since the man had set out.
Durham darted round the corner and waited until he heard
the door closed; then, returning, he scrambled up on to
the roof, creeping forward until he was lying looking down
through the skylight into the darkened room below.
For ten minutes or more he waited, until he began to
feel cramped and uncomfortable. Then that happened which
he had hoped and anticipated would happen. The place
beneath became illuminated, not fully, by means of the
hanging lamps, but dimly so that distorted shadows were
cast about the floor. Someone had entered carrying a
lantern.
Durham's view-point limited his area of vision, but
presently, as the light came nearer and nearer, he
discerned Ah Fu, carrying a lantern in one hand and a
birdcage in the other. He could hear nothing, for the trap
fitted well and the glass was thick. Moreover, it was very
dirty. He was afraid, however, to attempt to clean a
space.
Ah Fu apparently had set the lantern upon a table, and
into the radius of its light there presently moved a
stooping figure. Durham recognized Huang Chow, and felt
his heart beats increasing in rapidity.
Clutching the framework of the trap with his hands, he
moved his head cautiously, so that presently he was
enabled to see the two Chinamen. They were standing beside
the lacquered coffin upon its dragon-legged pedestal.
Durham stifled an exclamation.
One end of the ornate sarcophagus had been opened in
some way!
Now, to the watcher's unbounded astonishment, Ah Fu
placed the birdcage in the opening, and apparently
reclosed the trap in the end of the coffin. He made other
manipulations with his bony yellow fingers, which Durham
failed to comprehend. Finally the birdcage was withdrawn
again, and as it was passed before the light of the
lantern he saw that it was empty, whereas previously it
had contained a number of tiny birds all huddled up
together!
The light gleamed upon the spectacles of Huang Chow.
Watching him, Durham saw him take out from a hidden drawer
in the pedestal a long, slender key, insert it in a lock
concealed by the ornate carving, and then slightly raise
the lid which had so recently defied his own efforts.
He raised it only a few inches, and then, taking up the
lantern, peered into the interior of the coffin, at the
same time waving his hand in dismissal to Ah Fu. For a
while he stood there, peering into the interior, and then,
lowering the lid again, he relocked this gruesome
receptacle and, lantern in hand, began to mount the stair.
Durham inhaled deeply. He realized that during the last
few seconds he had been holding his breath. Now, as he
began to creep back down the slope, he discovered that his
hands were shaking.
He dropped down into the court again, and for several
minutes leaned against the wall, endeavouring to reason
out an explanation of what he had seen, and in a measure
to regain his composure.
There was a horror underlying it all which he was half
afraid to face. But the real clue to the mystery still
eluded him.
Whether what he had witnessed were some kind of obscene
ceremony, or whether an explanation more vile must be
sought, he remained undetermined. He must repeat his
exploit, if possible, and once more gain access to the
room which contained the lacquer coffin.
But the adventure was very distasteful. He recollected
the smell of the place, and the memory brought with it a
sense of nausea. He thought of Lala Huang, and his ideas
became grotesque and chaotic. Yet the solution of the
mystery lay at last within his grasp, and to the zest of
the investigator everything else became subjugated.
He walked slowly away, silent in his rubber-soled shoes.
Chapter IX
The Picture On The Pad
Lala Huang lay listening to the vague sounds which
disturbed the silence of the night. Presently her thoughts
made her sigh wearily. During the lifetime of her mother,
who had died while Lala was yet a little girl, life had
been different and so much brighter.
She imagined that in the mingled sounds of dock and
river which came to her she could hear the roar of surf
upon a golden beach. The stuffy air of Limehouse took on
the hot fragrance of a tropic island, and she sighed
again, but this time rapturously, for in spirit she was a
child once more, lulled by the voice of the great Pacific.
Young as she was, the death of her mother had been a
blow from which it had taken her several years to recover.
Then had commenced those long travels with her father,
from port to port, from ocean to ocean, sometimes settling
awhile, but ever moving onward, onward.
He had had her educated after a fashion, and his love
for her she did not doubt. But her mother's blood spoke
more strongly than that part of her which was Chinese, and
there was softness and a delicious languor in her nature
which her father did not seem to understand, and of which
he did not appear to approve.
She knew that he was wealthy. She knew that his ways
were not straight ways, although that part of his business
to which he had admitted her as an assistant, and an able
one, was legitimate enough, or so it seemed.
Consignments of goods arrived at strange hours of the
night at the establishment in Limehouse, and from this
side of her father's transactions she was barred. The big
double doors opening on the little courtyard would be
opened by Ah Fu, and packing cases of varying sizes be
taken in. Sometimes the sounds of these activities would
reach her in her room in a distant part of the house; but
only in the morning would she recognize their
significance, when in the warehouse she would discover
that some new and choice pieces had arrived.
She wondered with what object her father accumulated
wealth, and hoped, against the promptings of her common
sense, that he designed to return East, there to seek a
retirement amidst the familiar and the beautiful things of
the Orient which belonged to Lala's dream of heaven.
Stories about her father often reached her ears. She
knew that he had held high rank in China before she had
been born; but that he had sacrificed his rights in some
way had always been her theory. She had been too young to
understand the stories which her mother had told her
sometimes; but that there were traits in the character of
Huang Chow which it was not good for his daughter to know
she appreciated and accepted as a secret sorrow.
He allowed her all the freedom to which her education
entitled her. Her life was that of a European and not of
an Oriental woman. She loved him in a way, but also feared
him. She feared the dark and cruel side of his character,
of which, at various periods during their life together,
she had had terrifying glimpses.
She had decided that cruelty was his vice. In what way
he gratified it she had never learned, nor did she desire
to do so. There were periodical visits from the police,
but she had learned long ago that her father was too
clever to place himself within reach of the law.
However crooked one part of his business methods might
be, his dealings with his clients were straight enough, so
that no one had any object in betraying him; and the
legality or otherwise of his foreign relations evidently
afforded no case against him upon which the authorities
could act, or upon which they cared to act.
In America it had been graft which had protected him.
She had learned this accidentally, but never knew whether
he bought his immunity in the same way in London.
Some of the rumours which reached her were terrifying.
Latterly she had met many strange glances in her comings
and goings about Limehouse. This peculiar atmosphere had
always preceded the break-up of every home which they had
shared. She divined the fact that in some way Huang Chow
had outstayed his welcome in Chinatown, London. Where
their next resting-place would be she could not imagine,
but she prayed that it might be in some more sunny clime.
She found herself to be thinking over much of John
Hampden. His bona fides were not above suspicion, but she
could scarcely expect to meet a really white man in such
an environment.
Lala would have liked to think that he was white, but
could not force herself to do so. She would have liked to
think that he sought her company because she appealed to
him personally; but she had detected the fact that another
motive underlay his attentions. She wondered if he could
be another of those moths drawn by the light of that
fabled wealth of her father.
It was curious, she reflected, that Huang Chow never
checked -- indeed, openly countenanced -- her friendship
with the many chance acquaintances she had made, even when
her own instincts told her that the men were crooked; so
that, knowing the acumen of her father, she was well aware
that he must know it too.
Several of these pseudo lovers of hers had died. It was
a point which often occurred to her mind, but upon which
she did not care to dwell even now. But John Hampden --
John Hampden was different. He was not wholly sincere. She
sighed wearily. But nevertheless he was not like some of
the others.
She started up in bed, seized with a sudden dreadful
idea. He was a detective!
She understood now why she had found so much that was
white in him, but so much that was false. His presence
seemed to be very near her. Something caressing in his
voice echoed in her mind. She found herself to be
listening to the muted sounds of Limehouse and of the
waterway which flowed so close beside her.
That old longing for the home of her childhood returned
tenfold, and tears began to trickle down her cheeks. She
was falling in love with this man whose object was her
father's ruin. A cold terror clutched at her heart. Even
now, while their friendship was so new, so strange, there
was a query, a stark, terrifying query, to stand up before
her.
If put to the test, which would she choose?
She was unable to face that issue, and dropped back upon
her pillow, stifling a sob.
Yes, he was a detective. In some way her father had at
last attracted the serious attention of the law. Rumours
of this were flying round Chinatown, to which she had not
been entirely deaf. She thought of a hundred questions, a
hundred silences, and grew more and more convinced of the
truth.
What did he mean to do? Before her a ghostly company
uprose -- the shadows of some she had known with designs
upon her father. John Hampden's design was different. But
might he not join that mysterious company?
Now again she suddenly sprang upright, this time because
of a definite sound which had reached her ears from within
the house: a very faint, bell-like tinkling which ceased
almost immediately. She had heard it one night before, and
quite recently; indeed, on the night before she had met
John Hampden. Cohen -- Cohen, the Jew, had died that
night!
She sprang lightly on to the floor, found her slippers,
and threw a silk kimono over her nightrobe. She tiptoed
cautiously to the door and opened it.
It was at this very moment that old Huang Chow, asleep
in his cell-like apartment, was aroused by the tinkling of
a bell set immediately above his head. He awoke instantly,
raised his hand and stopped the bell. His expression,
could anyone have been present to see it, was a thing
unpleasant to behold. Triumph was in it, and cunning
cruelty.
His long yellow fingers reached out for his hornrimmed
spectacles which lay upon a little table beside him.
Adjusting them, he pulled the curtains aside and shuffled
silently across the large room.
Mounting the steps to the raised writing-table, he
rested his elbows upon it, and peered down at that curious
blotting-pad which had so provoked the curiosity of
Durham. Could Durham have seen it now the mystery must
have been solved. It was an ingenious camera obscura
apparatus, and dimly depicted upon its surface appeared a
reproduction of part of the storehouse beneath! The part
of it which was visible was that touched by the light of
an electric torch, carried by a man crossing the floor in
the direction of the lacquered coffin upon the gilded
pedestal!
Old Huang Chow chuckled silently, and his yellow fingers
clutched the table edge as he moved to peer more closely
into the picture.
"Poor fool!" he whispered in Chinese. "Poor fool!"
It was the man who had come with the introduction from
Mr. Isaacs -- a new impostor who sought to rob him, who
sought to obtain information from his daughter, who had
examined his premises last night, and had even penetrated
upstairs, so that he, old Huang Chow, had been compelled
to disconnect the apparatus and to feign sleep under the
scrutiny of the intruder.
To-night it would be otherwise. To-night it would be
otherwise.
Chapter X
The Lacquered Coffin
Durham gently raised the trap in the roof of Huang
Chow's treasure-house. He was prepared for snares and
pitfalls. No sane man, on the evidence which he, Durham,
had been compelled to leave behind, would have neglected
to fasten the skylight which so obviously afforded a means
of entrance into his premises.
Therefore, he was expected to return. The devilish
mechanism was set ready to receive him. But the artist
within him demanded that he should unmask the mystery with
his own hands.
Moreover, he doubted that an official visit, even now,
would yield any results. Old Huang Chow was too cunning
for that. If he was to learn how the man Cohen had died,
he must follow the same path to the bitter end. But there
were men on duty round the house, and he believed that he
had placed them so secretly as to deceive even this master
of cunning with whom he was dealing.
He repeated his exploit, dropping with a dull thud upon
the cushioned divan. Then, having lain there listening
awhile, he pressed the button of his torch, and, standing
up, crept across the room in the direction of the
stairway.
Here he paused awhile, listening intently. The image of
Lala Huang arose before his mind's eye reproachfully, but
he crushed the reproach, and advanced until he stood
beside the lacquered coffin.
He remembered where the key was hidden, and, stooping,
he fumbled for a while and then found it. He was acutely
conscious of an unnameable fear. He felt that he was
watched, and yet was unwilling to believe it. The musty
and unpleasant smell which he had noticed before became
extremely perceptible.
He quietly sought for the hidden lock, and, presently
finding it, inserted the key, then paused awhile. He
rested his torch upon the cushions of the divan where the
light shone directly upon the coffin. Then, having his
automatic in his left hand, he turned the key.
He had expected now to be able to raise the lid as he
had seen Huang Chow do; but the result was far more
surprising.
The lid, together with a second framework of fine
netting, flew open with a resounding bang; and from the
interior of the coffin uprose a most abominable stench.
Durham started back a step, and as he did so witnessed a
sight which turned him sick with horror.
Out on to the edge of the coffin leapt the most gigantic
spider which he had ever seen in his life! It had a body
as big as a man's fist, jet black, with hairy legs like
the legs of a crab and a span of a foot or more!
A moment it poised there, while he swayed, sick with
horror. Then, unhesitatingly, it leapt for his face!
He groaned and fired, missed the horror, but diverted
its leap, so that it fell with a sickening thud a yard
behind him. He turned, staggering back towards the stair,
and aware that a light had shone out from somewhere.
A door had been opened only a few yards from where he
stood, and there, framed in the opening, was Lala Huang,
her eyes wide with terror and her gaze set upon him across
the room.
"You!" she whispered. "You!"
"Go back!" he cried hoarsely. "Go back! Close the door.
You don't understand -- close the door!"
Her gaze set wildly upon him, Lala staggered forward;
stopped dead; looked down at her bare ankle, and then,
seeing the thing which had fastened upon her, uttered a
piercing shriek which rang throughout the place.
At which moment the floor slid away beneath Durham, and
he found himself falling -- falling -- and then battling
for life in evil- smelling water, amidst absolute
darkness.
Police whistles were skirling around the house of Huang
Chow. As the hidden men came running into the court:
"You heard the shot?" cried the sergeant in charge. "I
warned him not to go alone. Don't waste time on the door.
One man stay on duty there; the rest of you follow me."
In a few moments, led by the sergeant, the party came
dropping heavily through the skylight into the
treasure-house of Huang Chow, in which every lamp was now
alight. A trap was open near the foot of the stairs, and
from beneath it muffled cries proceeded. In this direction
the sergeant headed. Craning over the trap:
"Hallo, Mr. Durham!" he called. "Mr. Durham!"
"Get a rope and a ladder," came a faint cry from below.
"I can just touch bottom with my feet and keep my head
above water, but the tide's coming in. Look to the girl,
though, first. Look to the girl!"
The sergeant turned to where, stretched upon a tiger
skin before a half-open door, Lala Huang lay, scantily
clothed and white as death.
Upon one of her bare ankles was a discoloured mark.
As the sergeant and another of the men stooped over her
a moaning sound drew their attention to the stair, and
there, bent and tottering slowly down, was old Huang Chow,
his eyes peering through the owl-like glasses vacantly
across the room to where his daughter lay.
"My God!" whispered the sergeant, upon one knee beside
her. He looked blankly into the face of the other man.
"She's dead!"
Two plain-clothes men were busy knotting together
tapestries and pieces of rare stuff with which to draw
Durham out of the pit; but at these old Huang Chow looked
not at all, but gropingly crossed the room, as if he saw
imperfectly, or could not believe what he saw. At last he
reached the side of the dead girl, stooped, touched her,
laid a trembling yellow hand over her heart, and then
stood up again, looking from face to face.
Ignoring the mingled activities about him, he crossed to
the open coffin and began to fumble amongst the putrefying
mass of bones and webbing which lay therein. Out from this
he presently drew an iron coffer.
Carrying it across the room he opened the lid. It was
full almost to the top with uncut gems of every variety --
diamonds, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, topaz, amethysts,
flashing greenly, redly, whitely. In handfuls he grasped
them and sprinkled them upon the body of the dead girl.
"For you," he crooned brokenly in Chinese. "They were
all for you!"
The extemporized rope had just been lowered to Durham,
when:
"My God!" cried the sergeant, looking over Huang Chow's
shoulder. "What's that?"
He had seen the giant spider, the horror from Surinam,
which the Chinaman had reared and fed to guard his
treasure and to gratify his lust for the strange and
cruel. The insect, like everything else in that house, was
unusual, almost unique. It was one of the Black Soldier
spiders, by some regarded as a native myth, but actually
existing in Surinam and parts of Brazil. A member of the
family, Mygale, its sting was more quickly and certainly
fatal than that of a rattle-snake. Its instinct was
fearlessly to attack any creature, great or small, which
disturbed it in its dark hiding-place.
Now, with feverish, horrible rapidity it was racing up
the tapestries on the other side of the room.
"Merciful God!" groaned the sergeant.
Snatching a revolver from his pocket he fired shot after
shot. The third hit the thing but did not kill it. It
dropped back upon the floor and began to crawl toward the
coffin. The sergeant ran across and at close quarters shot
it again.
Red blood oozed out from the hideous black body and
began to form a deep stain upon the carpet.
When Durham, drenched but unhurt, was hauled back into
the treasure-house, he did not speak, but, scrambling into
the room stood -- pallid -- staring dully at old Huang
Chow.
Huang Chow, upon his knees beside his daughter, was
engaged in sprinkling priceless jewels over her still
body, and murmuring in Chinese:
"For you, for you, Lala. They were all for you."
Kerry's Kid
Chapter I
Red Kerry On Duty
Chief Inspector Kerry came down from the top of a
motor-bus and stood on the sidewalk for a while gazing to
right and left along Piccadilly. The night was, humid and
misty, now threatening fog and now rain. Many travellers
were abroad at this Christmas season, the pleasure seekers
easily to be distinguished from those whom business had
detained in town, and who hurried toward their various
firesides. The theatres were disgorging their audiences.
Streams of lighted cars bore parties supperward; less
pretentious taxicabs formed links in the chain.
From the little huddled crowd of more economical
theatre-goers who waited at the stopping place of the
motor-buses, Kerry detached himself, walking slowly along
westward and staring reflectively about him. Opposite the
corner of Bond Street he stood still, swinging his malacca
cane and gazing fixedly along this narrow bazaar street of
the Baghdad of the West. His trim, athletic figure was
muffled in a big, double-breasted, woolly overcoat, the
collar turned up about his ears. His neat bowler hat was
tilted forward so as to shade the fierce blue eyes.
Indeed, in that imperfect light, little of the Chief
Inspector's countenance was visible except his large,
gleaming white teeth, which he constantly revealed in the
act of industriously chewing mint gum.
He smiled as he chewed. Duty had called him out into the
midst, and for once he had obeyed reluctantly. That very
afternoon had seen the return of Dan Kerry, junior, home
from school for the Christmas vacation, and Dan was the
apple of his father's eye.
Mrs. Kerry had reserved her dour Scottish comments upon
the boy's school report for a more seemly occasion than
the first day of his holidays; but Kerry had made no
attempt to conceal his jubilation -- almost immoral, his
wife had declared it to be -- respecting the lad's
athletic record. His work on the junior left wing had
gained the commendation of a celebrated international; and
Kerry, who had interviewed the gymnasium instructor, had
learned that Dan Junior bade fair to become an amateur
boxer of distinction.
"He is faster on his feet than any boy I ever handled,"
the expert had declared. "He hasn't got the weight behind
it yet, of course, but he's developing a left that's going
to make history. I'm of opinion that there isn't a boy in
the seniors can take him on, and I'll say that he's a
credit to you."
Those words had fallen more sweetly upon the ears of
Chief Inspector Kerry than any encomium of the boy's
learning could have done. On the purely scholastic side
his report was not a good one, admittedly. "But," murmured
Kerry aloud, "he's going to be a man."
He remembered that he had promised, despite the lateness
of the hour, to telephone the lad directly he had received
a certain report, and to tell him whether he might wait up
for his return or whether he must turn in. Kerry, stamping
his small, neatly shod feet upon the pavement, smiled
agreeably. He was thinking of the telephone which recently
he had had installed in his house in Brixton. His wife had
demanded this as a Christmas box, pointing out how many
uneasy hours she would be spared by the installation.
Kerry had consented cheerfully enough, for was he not
shortly to be promoted to the exalted post of a
superintendent of the Criminal Investigation Department?
These reflections were cheering and warming; and,
waiting until a gap occurred in the stream of cabs and
cars, he crossed Piccadilly and proceeded along Bond
Street, swinging his shoulders in a manner which would
have enabled any constable in the force to recognize "Red
Kerry" at a hundred yards.
The fierce eyes scrutinized the occupants of all the
lighted cars. At pedestrians also he stared curiously, and
at another smaller group of travellers waiting for the
buses on the left- hand side of the street he looked hard
and long. He pursued his way, acknowledged the salutation
of a porter who stood outside the entrance to the Embassy
Club, and proceeded, glancing about him right and left and
with some evident and definite purpose.
A constable standing at the corner of Conduit Street
touched his helmet as Kerry passed and the light of an
arc-lamp revealed the fierce red face. The Chief Inspector
stopped, turned, and:
"What the devil's the idea?" he demanded.
He snapped out the words in such fashion that the
unfortunate constable almost believed he could see sparks
in the misty air.
"I'm sorry, sir, but recognizing you suddenly like, I --
-- "
"You did?" the fierce voice interrupted. "How long in
the force?"
"Six months, sir."
"Never salute an officer in plain clothes."
"I know, sir."
"Then why did you do it?"
"I told you, sir."
"Then tell me again."
"I forgot."
"You're paid to remember; bear it in mind."
Kerry tucked his malacca under his arm and walked on,
leaving the unfortunate policeman literally stupefied by
his first encounter with the celebrated Chief Inspector.
Presently another line of cars proclaimed the entrance
to a club, and just before reaching the first of these
Kerry paused. A man stood in a shadowy doorway, and:
"Good evening, Chief Inspector," he said quietly.
"Good evening, Durham. Anything to report?"
"Yes. Lou Chada is here again.
"With whom?"
"Lady Rourke."
Kerry stepped to the edge of the pavement and spat out a
piece of chewing-gum. From his overcoat pocket he drew a
fresh piece, tore off the pink wrapping and placed the gum
between his teeth. Then:
"How long?" he demanded.
"Came to dinner. They are dancing."
"H'm!" The Chief Inspector ranged himself beside the
other detective in the shadow of the doorway. "Something's
brewing, Durham," he said. "I think I shall wait."
His subordinate stared curiously but made no reply. He
was not wholly in his chief's confidence. He merely knew
that the name of Lou Chada to Kerry was like a red rag to
a bull. The handsome, cultured young Eurasian, fresh from
a distinguished university career and pampered by a
certain section of smart society, did not conform to
Detective Sergeant Durham's idea of a suspect. He knew
that Lou was the son of Zani Chada, and he knew that Zani
Chada was one of the wealthiest men in Limehouse. But Lou
had an expensive flat in George Street; Lou was courted by
society butterflies, and in what way he could be connected
with the case known as "the Limehouse inquiry," Durham
could not imagine.
That the open indiscretion of Lady "Pat" Rourke might
lead to trouble with her husband, was conceivable enough;
but this was rather a matter for underhand private inquiry
than for the attention of the Criminal Investigation
Department of New Scotland Yard.
So mused Durham, standing cold and uncomfortable in the
shadowy doorway, and dreaming of a certain cosy fireside,
a pair of carpet slippers and a glass of hot toddy which
awaited him. Suddenly:
"Great flames! Look!" he cried.
Kerry's fingers closed, steely, upon Durham's wrist. A
porter was urgently moving the parked cars farther along
the street to enable one, a French coupe, to draw up
before the club entrance.
Two men came out, supporting between them a woman who
seemed to be ill; a slender, blonde woman whose pretty
face was pale and whose wide-open blue eyes stared
strangely straight before her. The taller of her escorts,
while continuing to support her, solicitously wrapped her
fur cloak about her bare shoulders; the other, the manager
of the club, stepped forward and opened the door of the
car.
"Lady Rourke!" whispered Durham.
"With Lou Chada!" rapped Kerry. "Run for a cab. Brisk.
Don't waste a second."
Some little conversation ensued between manager and
patron, then the tall, handsome Eurasian, waving his hand
protestingly, removed his hat and stepped into the coupe
beside Lady Rourke. It immediately moved away in the
direction of Piccadilly.
One glimpse Kerry had of the pretty, fair head lying
limply back against the cushions. The manager of the club
was staring after the car.
Kerry stepped out from his hiding place. Durham had
disappeared, and there was no cab in sight, but
immediately beyond the illuminated entrance stood a
Rolls-Royce which had been fifth in the rank of parked
cars before the adjustment had been made to enable the
coupe to reach the door. Kerry ran across, and:
"Whose car, my lad?" he demanded of the chauffeur.
The latter, resenting the curt tone of the inquiry,
looked the speaker up and down, and:
"Captain. Egerton's," he replied slowly. "But what
business may it be of yours?"
"I'm Chief Inspector Kerry, of New Scotland Yard," came
the rapid reply. "I want to follow the car that has just
left."
"What about running?" demanded the man insolently.
Kerry shot out a small, muscular hand and grasped the
speaker's wrist.
"I'll say one thing to you," he rapped. "I'm a police
officer, and I demand your help. Refuse it, and you'll
wake up in Vine Street."
The Chief Inspector was on the step now, bending forward
so that his fierce red face was but an inch removed from
that of the startled chauffeur. The quelling force of his
ferocious personality achieved its purpose, as it rarely
failed to do.
"I'm getting in," added the Chief Inspector, jumping
back on to the pavement. "Lose that French bus, and I'll
charge you with resisting and obstructing an officer of
the law in the execution of his duty. Start."
Kerry leaped in and banged the door -- and the
Rolls-Royce started.
Chapter II
At Malay Jack's
When Kerry left Bond Street the mistiness of the night
was developing into definite fog. It varied in different
districts. Thus, St. Paul's Churchyard had been clear of
it at a time when it had lain impenetrably in Trafalgar
Square. When, an hour and a half after setting out in the
commandeered Rolls-Royce, Kerry groped blindly along
Limehouse Causeway, it was through a yellow murk that he
made his way -- a vapour which could not only be seen,
smelled and felt, but tasted.
He was in one of his most violent humours. He found some
slight solace in the reflection that the impudent
chauffeur, from whom he had parted in West India Dock
Road, must experience great difficulty in finding his way
back to the West End.
"Damn the fog!" he muttered, coughing irritably.
It had tricked him, this floating murk of London; for,
while he had been enabled to keep the coupe in view right
to the fringe of dockland, here, as if bred by old
London's river, the fog had lain impenetrably.
Chief Inspector Kerry was a man who took many risks, but
because of this cursed fog he had no definite evidence
that Chada's car had gone to a certain house. Right of
search he had not, and so temporarily he was baffled.
Now the nearest telephone was his objective, and
presently, where a blue light dimly pierced the mist, he
paused, pushed open a swing door, and stepped into a long,
narrow passage. He descended three stairs, and entered a
room laden with a sickly perfume compounded of stale beer
and spirits; of greasy humanity -- European, Asiastic, and
African; of cheap tobacco and cheaper scents; and,
vaguely, of opium.
It was fairly well lighted, but the fog had penetrated
here, veiling some of the harshness of its rough
appointments. An unsavoury den was Malay Jack's, where
flotsam of the river might be found. Yellow men there
were, and black men and brown men. But all the women
present were white.
Fan-tan was in progress at one of the tables, the four
players being apparently the only strictly sober people in
the room; A woman was laughing raucously as Kerry entered,
and many coarse- voiced conversations were in progress;
but as he pulled the rough curtain walls aside and walked
into the room, a hush, highly complimentary to the Chief
Inspector's reputation, fell upon the assembly. Only the
woman's raucous laughter continued, rising, a hideous
solo, above a sort of murmur, composed of the words "Red
Kerry!" spoken in many tones.
Kerry ignored the sensation which his entrance had
created, and crossed the room to a small counter, behind
which a dusky man was standing, coatless and shirt sleeves
rolled up. He had the skin of a Malay but the features of
a stage Irishman of the old school. And, indeed, had he
known his own pedigree, which is a knowledge beyond the
ken of any man, partly Irish he might have found himself
indeed to be.
This was Malay Jack, the proprietor of one of the
roughest houses in Limehouse. His expression, while
propitiatory, was not friendly, but:
"Don't get hot and bothered," snapped Kerry viciously.
"I want to use your telephone, that's all."
"Oh," said the other, unable to conceal his relief,
"that's easy. Come in."
He raised a flap in the counter, and Kerry, passing
through, entered a little room behind the bar. Here a
telephone stood upon a dirty, littered table, and, taking
it up:
"City four hundred," called the Chief Inspector curtly.
A moment later: "Hallo! Yes," he said. "Chief Inspector
Kerry speaking. Put me through to my department, please."
He stood for a while waiting, receiver in hand, and
smiled grimly to note that the uproar in the room beyond
had been resumed. Evidently Malay Jack had given the "all
clear" signal. Then:
"Chief Inspector Kerry speaking," he said again. "Has
Detective Sergeant Durham reported?"
"Yes," was the reply, "half an hour ago. He's
standing-by at Limehouse Station. He followed you in a
taxi, but lost you on the way owing to the fog."
"I don't wonder," said Kerry. "His loss is not so great
as mine. Anything else?"
"Nothing else."
"Good. I'll speak to Limehouse. Good-bye."
He replaced the receiver and paused for a moment,
reflecting. Extracting a piece of tasteless gum from
between his teeth, he deposited it in the grate, where a
sickly fire burned; then, tearing the wrapper from a fresh
slip, he resumed his chewing and stood looking about him
with unseeing eyes. Fierce they were as ever, but
introspective in expression.
Famous for his swift decisions, for once in a way he
found himself in doubt. Malay Jack had keen ears, and
there were those in the place who had every reason to be
interested in the movements of a member of the Criminal
Investigation Department, especially of one who had earned
the right to be dreaded by the rats of Limehouse. London's
peculiar climate fought against him, but he determined to
make no more telephone calls but to proceed to Limehouse
police station.
He stepped swiftly into the bar, and, as he had
anticipated, nearly upset the proprietor, who was standing
listening by the half-open door. Kerry smiled fiercely
into the ugly face, lifted the flap, and walked down the
room, through the aisle between the scattered tables,
where the air was heavy with strange perfumes, touched now
with the bite of London fog, and where slanting eyes and
straight eyes, sober eyes and drunken eyes, regarded him
furtively. Something of a second hush there was, but one
not so complete as the first.
Kerry pulled the curtain aside, mounted the stair,
walked along the passage and out through the swing door
into the yellow gloom of the Causeway. Ten slow steps he
had taken when he detected a sound of pursuit. Like a
flash he turned, clenching his fists. Then:
"Inspector!" whispered a husky voice.
"Yes! Who are you? What do you want?"
A dim form loomed up through the fog.
"My name is Peters, sir. Inspector Preston knows me."
Kerry had paused immediately under a street lamp, and
now he looked into the pinched, lean face of the speaker,
and:
"I've heard of you," he snapped. "Got some information
for me?"
"I think so; but walk on."
Chief Inspector Kerry hesitated. Peters belonged to a
class which Kerry despised with all the force of his
straightforward character. A professional informer has his
uses from the police point of view; and while evidence of
this kind often figured in reports made to the Chief
Inspector, he personally avoided contact with such
persons, as he instinctively and daintily avoided contact
with personal dirt. But now, something so big was at stake
that his hesitation was only momentary.
A vision of the pale face of Lady Rourke, of the golden
head leaning weakly back upon the cushions of the coupe,
as he had glimpsed it in Bond Street, rose before his
mind's eye as if conjured up out of the fog. Peters
shuffled along beside him, and:
"Young Chada's done himself in to-night," continued the
husky voice. "He brought a swell girl to the old mans
house an hour ago. I was hanging about there, thinking I
might get some information. I think she was doped."
"Why?" snapped Kerry.
"Well, I was standing over on the other side of the
street. Lou Chada opened the door with a key; and when the
light shone out I saw him carry her in."
"Carry her in?"
"Yes. She was in evening dress, with a swell cloak."
"The car?"
"He came out again and drove it around to the garage at
the back."
"Why didn't you report this at once?"
"I was on my way to do it when I saw you coming out of
Malay Jack's."
The man's voice shook nervously, and:
"What are you scared about?" asked Kerry savagely. "Got
anything else to tell me?"
"No, no," muttered Peters. "Only I've got an idea he saw
me."
"Who saw you?"
"Lou Chada."
"What then?"
"Well, only -- don't leave me till we get to the
station."
Kerry blew down his nose contemptuously, then stopped
suddenly.
"Stand still," he ordered. "I want to listen."
Silent, they stood in a place of darkness, untouched by
any lamplight. Not a sound reached them through the
curtain of fog. Asiatic mystery wrapped them about, but
Kerry experienced only contempt for the cowardice of his
companion, and:
"You need come no farther," he said coldly. "Good
night."
"But -- " began the man.
"Good night," repeated Kerry.
He walked on briskly, tapping the pavement with his
malacca. The sneaking figure of the informer was swallowed
up in the fog. But not a dozen paces had the Chief
Inspector gone when he was arrested by a frenzied scream,
rising, hollowly, in a dreadful, muffled crescendo. Words
reached him.
"My God, he's stabbed me!"
Then came a sort of babbling, which died into a moan.
"Hell!" muttered Kerry, "the poor devil was right!"
He turned and began to run back, fumbling in his pocket
for his electric torch. Almost in the same moment that he
found it he stumbled upon Peters, who lay half in the road
and half upon the sidewalk.
Kerry pressed the button, and met the glance of
upturned, glazing eyes. Even as he dropped upon his knee
beside the dying man, Peters swept his arm around in a
convulsive movement, having the fingers crooked, coughed
horribly, and rolled upon his face.
Switching off the light of the torch, Kerry clenched his
jaws in a tense effort of listening, literally holding his
breath. But no sound reached him through the muffling fog.
A moment he hesitated, well knowing his danger, then
viciously snapping on the light again, he quested in the
blood-stained mud all about the body of the murdered man.
"Ah!"
It was an exclamation of triumph.
One corner hideously stained, for it had lain half under
Peters's shoulder, Kerry gingerly lifted between finger
and thumb a handkerchief of fine white silk, such as is
carried in the breast pocket of an evening coat.
It bore an ornate monogram worked in gold, and
representing the letters "L. C." Oddly enough, it was the
corner that bore the monogram which was also bloodstained.
Chapter III
The Room Of The Golden Buddha
It was a moot point whether Lady Pat Rourke merited
condemnation or pity. She possessed that type of blonde
beauty which seems to be a lodestone for mankind in
general. Her husband was wealthy, twelve years her senior,
and, far from watching over her with jealous care -- an
attitude which often characterizes such unions -- he, on
the contrary, permitted her a dangerous freedom, believing
that she would appreciate without abusing it.
Her friendship with Lou Chada had first opened his eyes
to the perils which beset the road of least resistance.
Sir Noel Rourke was an Anglo-Indian, and his prejudice
against the Eurasian was one not lightly to be surmounted.
Not all the polish which English culture had given to this
child of a mixed union could blind Sir Noel to the yellow
streak. Courted though Chada was by some of the best
people, Sir Noel remained cold.
The long, magnetic eyes, the handsome, clear-cut
features, above all, that slow and alluring smile,
appealed to the husband of the wilful Pat rather as
evidences of Oriental, half-effeminate devilry than as
passports to decent society. Oxford had veneered him, but
scratch the veneer and one found the sandal-wood of the
East, perfumed, seductive, appealing, but something to be
shunned as brittle and untrustworthy.
Yet he hesitated, seeking to be true to his convictions.
Knowing what he knew already, and what he suspected, it is
certain that, could he have viewed Lou Chada through the
eyes of Chief Inspector Kerry, the affair must have
terminated otherwise. But Sir Noel did not know what Kerry
knew. And the pleasure-seeking Lady Rourke, with her hair
of spun gold and her provoking smile, found Lou Chada
dangerously fascinating; almost she was infatuated -- she
who had known so much admiration.
Of those joys for which thousands of her plainer sisters
yearn and starve to the end of their days she had
experienced a surfeit. Always she sought for novelty, for
new adventures. She was confident of herself, but yet --
and here lay the delicious thrill -- not wholly confident.
Many times she had promised to visit the house of Lou
Chada's father -- a mystery palace cunningly painted, a
perfumed page from the Arabian poets dropped amid the
interesting squalour of Limehouse.
Perhaps she had never intended to go. Who knows? But on
the night when she came within the ken of Chief Inspector
Kerry, Lou Chada had urged her to do so in his poetically
passionate fashion, and, wanting to go, she had asked
herself: "Am I strong enough? Dare I?"
They had dined, danced, and she had smoked one of the
scented cigarettes which he alone seemed to be able to
procure, and which, on their arrival from the East, were
contained in queer little polished wooden boxes.
Then had come an unfamiliar nausea and dizziness, an
uncomfortable recognition of the fact that she was making
a fool of herself, and finally a semi-darkness through
which familiar faces loomed up and were quickly lost
again. There was the soft, musical voice of Lou Chada
reassuring her, a sense of chill, of helplessness, and
then for a while an interval which afterward she found
herself unable to bridge.
Knowledge of verity came at last, and Lady Pat raised
herself from the divan upon which she had been lying, and,
her slender hands clutching the cushions, stared about her
with eyes which ever grew wider.
She was in a long, rather lofty room, which was lighted
by three silver lanterns swung from the ceiling. The
place, without containing much furniture, was a riot of
garish, barbaric colour. There were deep divans cushioned
in amber and blood-red. Upon the floor lay Persian carpets
and skins of beasts. Cunning niches there were, half
concealing and half revealing long-necked Chinese jars;
and odd little carven tables bore strangely fashioned
vessels of silver. There was a cabinet of ebony inlaid
with jade, there were black tapestries figured with
dragons of green and gold. Curtains she saw of
peacock-blue; and in a tall, narrow recess, dominating the
room, squatted a great golden Buddha.
The atmosphere was laden with a strange perfume.
But, above all, this room was silent, most oppressively
silent.
Lady Pat started to her feet. The whole perfumed place
seemed to be swimming around her. Reclosing her eyes, she
fought down her weakness. The truth, the truth respecting
Lou Chada and herself, had uprisen starkly before her. By
her own folly -- and she could find no tiny excuse -- she
had placed herself in the power of a man whom,
instinctively, deep within her soul, she had always known
to be utterly unscrupulous.
How cleverly he had concealed the wild animal which
dwelt beneath that suave, polished exterior! Yet how ill
he had concealed it! For intuitively she had always
recognized its presence, but had deliberately closed her
eyes, finding a joy in the secret knowledge of danger. Now
at last he had discarded pretense.
The cigarette which he had offered her at the club had
been drugged. She was in Limehouse, at the mercy of a man
in whose veins ran the blood of ancestors to whom women
had been chattels. Too well she recognized that his
passion must have driven him insane, as he must know at
what cost he took such liberties with one who could not
lightly be so treated. But these reflections afforded poor
consolation. It was not of the penalties that Lou Chada
must suffer for this infringement of Western codes, but of
the price that she must pay for her folly, of which Pat
was thinking.
There was a nauseating taste upon her palate. She
remembered having noticed it faintly while she was smoking
the cigarette; indeed, she had commented upon it at the
time.
"The dirty yellow blackguard!" she said aloud, and
clenched her hands.
She merely echoed what many a man had said before her.
She wondered at herself, and in doing so but wondered at
the mystery of womanhood.
Clarity was returning. The room no longer swam around
her. She crossed in the direction of a garish curtain,
which instinctively she divined to mask a door. Dragging
it aside, she tried the handle, but the door was locked. A
second door she found, and this also proved to be locked.
There was one tall window, also covered by ornate
draperies, but it was shuttered, and the shutters had
locks. Another small window she discovered, glazed with
amber glass, but set so high in the wall as to be
inaccessible.
Dread assailed her, and dropping on to one of the
divans, she hid her face in her hands.
"My God!" she whispered. "My God! Give me strength --
give me courage."
For a long time she remained there, listening for any
sound which should disperse the silence. She thought of
her husband, of the sweet security of her home, of the
things which she had forfeited because of this mad quest
of adventure. And presently a key grated in a lock.
Lady Pat started to her feet with a wild, swift action
which must have reminded a beholder of a startled gazelle.
The drapery masking the door which she had first
investigated was drawn aside. A man entered and dropped
the curtain behind him.
Exactly what she had expected she could not have
defined, but the presence of this perfect stranger was a
complete surprise. The man, who wore embroidered slippers
and a sort of long blue robe, stood there regarding her
with an expression which, even in her frantic condition,
she found to be puzzling. He had long, untidy gray hair
brushed back from his low brow; eyes strangely like the
eyes of Lou Chada, except that they were more
heavy-lidded; but his skin was as yellow as a guinea, and
his gaunt, cleanshaven face was the face of an Oriental.
The slender hands, too, which he held clasped before
him, were yellow, and possessed a curiously arresting
quality. Pat imagined them clasped about her white throat,
and her very soul seemed to shrink from the man who stood
there looking at her with those long, magnetic,
inscrutable eyes.
She wondered why she was surprised, and suddenly
realized that it was because of the expression in his
eyes, for it was an expression of cold anger. Then the
intruder spoke.
"Who are you?" he demanded, speaking with an accent
which was unfamiliar to her, but in a voice which was not
unlike the voice of Lou Chada. "Who brought you here?"
This was so wholly unexpected that for a moment she
found herself unable to reply, but finally:
"How dare you!" she cried, her native courage
reasserting itself. "I have been drugged and brought to
this place. You shall pay for it. How dare you!"
"Ah!" The long, dark eyes regarded her unmovingly. "But
who are you?"
"I am Lady Rourke. Open the door. You shall bitterly
regret this outrage."
"You are Lady Rourke?" the man repeated. "Before you
speak of regrets, answer the question which I have asked:
Who brought you here?"
"Lou Chada."
"Ah!" There was no alteration of pose, no change of
expression, but slightly the intonation had varied.
"I don't know who you are, but I demand to be released
from this place instantly."
The man standing before the curtained door slightly
inclined his head.
"You shall be released," he replied, "but not instantly.
I will see the one who brought you here. He may not be
entirely to blame. Before you leave we shall understand
one another."
Tone and glance were coldly angry. Then, before the
frightened woman could say another word, the man in the
blue robe robe withdrew, the curtain was dropped again,
and she heard the grating of a key in the lock. She ran to
the door, beating upon it with her clenched hands.
"Let me go!" she cried, half hysterically. "Let me go!
You shall pay for this! Oh, you shall pay for this!"
No one answered, and, turning, she leaned back against
the curtain, breathing heavily and fighting for composure,
for strength.
Chapter IV
Zani Chada, The Eurasian
I can't help thinking, Chief Inspector," said the
officer in charge at Limehouse Station, "that you take
unnecessary risks."
"Can't you?" said Kerry, tilting his bowler farther
forward and staring truculently at the speaker.
"No, I can't. Since you cleaned up the dope gang down
here you've been a marked man. These murders in the
Chinatown area, of which this one to-night makes the
third, have got some kind of big influence behind them.
Yet you wander about in the fog without even a gun in your
pocket."
"I don't believe in guns," rapped Kerry. "My bare hands
are good enough for any yellow smart in this area. And if
they give out I can kick like a mule."
The other laughed, shaking his head.
"It's silly, all the same," he persisted. "The man who
did the job out there in the fog to-night might have
knifed you or shot you long before you could have got
here."
"He might," snapped Kerry, "but he didn't."
Yet, remembering his wife, who would be waiting for him
in the cosy sitting-room he knew a sudden pang. Perhaps he
did take unnecessary chances. Others had said so. Hard
upon the thought came the memory of his boy, and of the
telephone message which the episodes of the night had
prevented him from sending.
He remembered, too, something which his fearless nature
had prompted him to forget: he remembered how, just as he
had arisen from beside the body of the murdered man,
oblique eyes had regarded him swiftly out of the fog. He
had lashed out with a boxer's instinct, but his knuckles
had encountered nothing but empty air. No sound had come
to tell him that the thing had not been an illusion. Only,
once again, as he groped his way through the shuttered
streets of Chinatown and the silence of the yellow mist,
something had prompted him to turn; and again he had
detected the glint of oblique eyes, and faintly had
discerned the form of one who followed him.
Kerry chewed viciously, then:
"I think I'll 'phone the wife," he said abruptly.
"She'll be expecting me."
Almost before he had finished speaking the 'phone bell
rang, and a few moments later:
"Someone to speak to you, Chief Inspector," cried the
officer in charge.
"Ah!" exclaimed Kerry, his fierce eyes lighting up.
"That will be from home."
"I don't think so," was the reply. "But see who it is."
"Hello!" he called.
He was answered by an unfamiliar voice, a voice which
had a queer, guttural intonation. It was the sort of voice
he had learned to loathe.
"Is that Chief Inspector Kerry?"
"Yes," he snapped.
"May I take it that what I have to say will be treated
in confidence?"
"Certainly not."
"Think again, Chief Inspector," the voice continued.
"You are a man within sight of the ambition of years, and
although you may be unaware of the fact, you stand upon
the edge of a disaster. I appreciate your sense of duty
and respect it. But there are times when diplomacy is a
more potent weapon than force."
Kerry, listening, became aware that the speaker was a
man of cultured intellect. He wondered greatly, but:
"My time is valuable," he said rapidly. "Come to the
point. What do you want and who are you?"
"One moment, Chief Inspector. An opportunity to make
your fortune without interfering with your career has come
in your way. You have obtained possession of what you
believe to be a clue to a murder."
The voice ceased, and Kerry remaining silent,
immediately continued:
"Knowing your personal character, I doubt if you have
communicated the fact of your possessing this evidence to
anyone else. I suggest, in your own interests, that before
doing so you interview me."
Kerry thought rapidly, and then:
"I don't say you're right," he rapped back. "But if I
come to see you, I shall leave a sealed statement in
possession of the officer in charge here."
"To this I have no objection," the guttural voice
replied, "but I beg of you to bring the evidence with
you."
"I'm not to be bought," warned Kerry. "Don't think it
and don't suggest it, or when I get to you I'll break you
in half."
His red moustache positively bristled, and he clutched
the receiver so tightly that it quivered against his ear.
"You mistake me," replied the speaker. "My name is Zani
Chada. You know where I live. I shall not detain you more
than five minutes if you will do me the honour of calling
upon me."
Kerry chewed furiously for ten momentous seconds, then:
"I'll come!" he said.
He replaced the receiver on the hook, and, walking
across to the charge desk, took an official form and a
pen. On the back of the form he scribbled rapidly, watched
with curiosity by the officer in charge.
"Give me an envelope," he directed.
An envelope was found and handed to him. He placed the
paper in the envelope, gummed down the lapel, and
addressed it in large, bold writing to the Assistant
Commissioner of the Criminal Investigation Department, who
was his chief. Finally:
"I'm going out," he explained.
"After what I've said?"
"After what you've said. I'm going out. If I don't come
back or don't telephone within the next hour, you will
know what to do with this."
The Limehouse official stared perplexedly.
"But meanwhile," he protested, "what steps am I to take
about the murder? Durham will be back with the body at any
moment now, and you say you've got a clue to the
murderer."
"I have," said Kerry, "but I'm going to get definite
evidence. Do nothing until you hear from me."
"Very good," answered the other, and Kerry, tucking his
malacca cane under his arm, strode out into the fog.
His knowledge of the Limehouse area was extensive and
peculiar, so that twenty minutes later, having made only
one mistake in the darkness, he was pressing an electric
bell set beside a door which alone broke the expanse of a
long and dreary brick wall, lining a street which neither
by day nor night would have seemed inviting to the casual
visitor.
The door was opened by a Chinaman wearing national
dress, revealing a small, square lobby, warmly lighted and
furnished Orientally. Kerry stepped in briskly.
"I want to see Mr. Zani Chada. Tell him I am here. Chief
Inspector Kerry is my name."
The Chinaman bowed, crossed the lobby, and, drawing some
curtains aside, walked up four carpeted stairs and
disappeared into a short passage revealed by the raising
of the tapestry. As he did so Kerry stared about him
curiously.
He had never before entered the mystery house of Zani
Chada, nor had he personally encountered the Eurasian,
reputed to be a millionaire, but who chose, for some
obscure reason, to make his abode in this old rambling
building, once a country mansion, which to-day was closely
invested by dockland and the narrow alleys of Chinatown.
It was curiously still in the lobby, and, as he
determined, curiously Eastern. He was conscious of a sense
of exhilaration. That Zani Chada controlled powerful
influences, he knew well. But, reviewing the precautions
which he had taken, Kerry determined that the trump card
was in his possession.
The Chinese servant descended the stairs again and
intimated that the visitor should follow him. Kerry,
carrying his hat and cane, mounted the stairs, walked
along the carpeted passage, and was ushered into a queer,
low room furnished as a library.
It was lined with shelves containing strange-looking
books, none of which appeared to be English. Upon the top
of the shelves were grotesque figures of gods, pieces of
Chinese pottery and other Oriental ornaments. Arms there
were in the room, and rich carpets, carven furniture, and
an air of luxury peculiarly exotic. Furthermore, he
detected a faint smell of opium from which fact he divined
that Zani Chada was addicted to the national vice of
China.
Seated before a long narrow table was the notorious
Eurasian. The table contained a number of strange and
unfamiliar objects, as well as a small rack of books. An
opium pipe rested in a porcelain bowl.
Zani Chada, wearing a blue robe, sat in a cushioned
chair, staring toward the Chief Inspector. With one
slender yellow hand he brushed his untidy gray hair. His
long magnetic eyes were half closed.
"Good evening, Chief Inspector Kerry," he said. "Won't
you be seated?"
"Thanks, I'm not staying. I can hear what you've got to
say standing."
The long eyes grew a little more narrow -- the only
change of expression that Zani Chada allowed himself.
"As you wish. I have no occasion to detain you long."
In that queer, perfumed room, with the suggestion of
something sinister underlying its exotic luxury, arose a
kind of astral clash as the powerful personality of the
Eurasian came in contact with that of Kerry. In a sense it
was a contest of rapier and battle-axe; an insidious but
powerful will enlisted against the bulldog force of the
Chief Inspector.
Still through half-closed eyes Zani Chada watched his
visitor, who stood, feet apart and chin thrust forward
aggressively, staring with wide open, fierce blue eyes at
the other.
"I'm going to say one thing," declared Kerry, snapping
out the words in a manner little short of ferocious. He
laid his hat and cane upon a chair and took a step in the
direction of the narrow, laden table. "Make me any kind of
offer to buy back the evidence you think I've got, and
I'll bash your face as flat as a frying- pan."
The yellow hands of Zani Chada clutched the metal knobs
which ornamented the arms of the chair in which he was
seated. The long eyes now presented the appearance of
being entirely closed; otherwise he remained immovable.
Following a short, portentous silence:
"How grossly you misunderstood me, Chief Inspector,"
Chada replied, speaking very softly. "You are shortly to
be promoted to a post which no one is better fitted to
occupy. You enjoy great domestic happiness, and you
possess a son in whom you repose great hopes. In this
respect Chief Inspector, I resemble you."
Kerry's nostrils were widely dilated, but he did not
speak.
"You see," continued the Eurasian, "I know many things
about you. Indeed, I have watched your career with
interest. Now, to be brief, a great scandal may be averted
and a woman's reputation preserved if you and I, as men of
the world, can succeed in understanding one another."
"I don't want to understand you," said Kerry bluntly.
"But you've said enough already to justify me in blowing
this whistle." He drew a police whistle from his overcoat
pocket. "This house is being watched."
"I am aware of the fact," murmured Zani Chada.
"There are two people in it I want for two different
reasons. If you say much more there may be three."
Chada raised his hand slowly.
"Put back your whistle, Chief Inspector."
There was a curious restraint in the Eurasian's manner
which Kerry distrusted, but for which at the time he was
at a loss to account. Then suddenly he determined that the
man was waiting for something, listening for some sound.
As if to confirm this reasoning, just at that moment a
sound indeed broke the silence of the room.
Somewhere far away in the distance of the big house a
gong was beaten three times softly. Kerry's fierce glance
searched the face of Zani Chada, but it remained
mask-like, immovable. Yet that this had been a signal of
some kind the Chief Inspector did not doubt, and:
"You can't trick me," he said fiercely. "No one can
leave this house without my knowledge, and because of what
happened out there in the fog my hands are untied."
He took up his hat and cane from the chair.
"I'm going to search the premises," he declared.
Zani Chada stood up slowly.
"Chief Inspector," he said, "I advise you to do nothing
until you have consulted your wife."
"Consulted my wife?" snapped Kerry. "What the devil do
you mean?"
"I mean that any steps you may take now can only lead to
disaster for many, and in your own case to great sorrow."
Kerry took a step forward, two steps, then paused. He
was considering certain words which the Eurasian had
spoken. Without fearing the man in the physical sense, he
was not fool enough to underestimate his potentialities
for evil and his power to strike darkly.
"Act as you please," added Zani Chada, speaking even
more softly. "But I have not advised lightly. I will
receive you, Chief Inspector, at any hour of the night you
care to return. By to- morrow, if you wish, you may be
independent of everybody."
Kerry clenched his fists.
"And great sorrow may be spared to others," concluded
the Eurasian.
Kerry's teeth snapped together audibly; then, putting on
his hat, he turned and walked straight to the door.
Chapter V
Dan Kerry, Junior
Dan Kerry, junior, was humorously like his father,
except that he was larger-boned and promised to grow into
a much bigger man. His hair was uncompromisingly red, and
grew in such irregular fashion that the comb was not made
which could subdue it. He had the wide-open, fighting blue
eyes of the Chief Inspector, and when he smiled the
presence of two broken teeth lent him a very pugilistic
appearance.
On his advent at the school of which he was now one of
the most popular members, he had promptly been christened
"Carrots." To this nickname young Kerry had always taken
exception, and he proceeded to display his prejudice on
the first day of his arrival with such force and
determination that the sobriquet had been withdrawn by
tacit consent of every member of the form who hitherto had
favoured it.
"I'll take you all on," the new arrival had declared
amidst a silence of stupefaction, "starting with you" --
pointing to the biggest boy. "If we don't finish to-day,
I'll begin again to- morrow."
The sheer impudence of the thing had astounded
everybody. Young Kerry's treatment of his leading
persecutor had produced a salutary change of opinion. Of
such kidney was Daniel Kerry, junior; and when, some hours
after his father's departure on the night of the murder in
the fog, the 'phone bell rang, it was Dan junior, and not
his mother, who answered the call.
"Hallo!" said a voice. "Is that Chief Inspector Kerry's
house?"
"Yes," replied Dan.
"It has begun to rain in town," the voice continued, "Is
that the Chief Inspector's son speaking?"
"Yes, I'm Daniel Kerry."
"Well, my boy, you know the way to New Scotland Yard?"
"Rather."
"He says will you bring his overall? Do you know where
to find it?"
"Yes, yes!" cried Dan excitedly, delighted to be thus
made a party to his father's activities.
"Well, get it. Jump on a tram at the Town Hall and bring
the overall along here. Your mother will not object, will
she?"
"Of course not," cried Dan. "I'll tell her. Am I to
start now?"
"Yes, right away."
Mrs. Kerry was sewing by the fire in the dining room
when her son came in with the news, his blue eyes
sparkling excitedly. She nodded her head slowly.
"Ye'll want ye'r Burberry and ye'r thick boots," she
declared, "a muffler, too, and ye'r oldest cap. I think
it's madness for ye to go out on such a night, but -- -- "
"Father said I could," protested the boy.
"He says so, and ye shall go, but I think it madness a'
the same."
However, some ten minutes later young Kerry set out,
keenly resenting the woollen muffler which he had been
compelled to wear, and secretly determined to remove it
before mounting the tram. Across one arm he carried the
glistening overall which was the Chief Inspector's
constant companion on wet nights abroad. The fog had
turned denser, and ten paces from the door of the house
took him out of sight of the light streaming from the
hallway.
Mary Kerry well knew her husband's theories about
coddling boys, but even so could not entirely reconcile
herself to the present expedition. However, closing the
door, she returned philosophically to her sewing,
reflecting that little harm could come to Dan after all,
for he was strong, healthy, and intelligent.
On went the boy through the mist, whistling merrily. Not
twenty yards from the house a coupe was drawn up, and by
the light of one of its lamps a man was consulting a piece
of paper on which, presumably, an address was written;
for, as the boy approached, the man turned, his collar
pulled up about his face, his hat pulled down.
"Hallo!" he called. "Can you please tell me something?"
He spoke with a curious accent, unfamiliar to the boy.
"A foreigner of some kind," young Kerry determined.
"What is it?" he asked, pausing.
"Will you please read and tell me if I am near this
place?" the man continued, holding up the paper which he
had been scrutinizing.
Dan stepped forward and bent over it. He could not make
out the writing, and bent yet more, holding it nearer to
the lamp. At which moment some second person neatly
pinioned him from behind, a scarf was whipped about his
head, and, kicking furiously but otherwise helpless, he
felt himself lifted and placed inside the car.
The muffler had been thrown in such fashion about his
face as to leave one eye partly free, and as he was lifted
he had a momentary glimpse of his captors. With a thrill
of real, sickly terror he realized that he was in the
hands of Chinamen!
Perhaps telepathically this spasm of fear was conveyed
to his father, for it was at about this time that the
latter was interviewing Zani Chada, and at about this time
that Kerry recognized, underlying the other's words, at
once an ill- concealed suspense and a threat. Then, a few
minutes later, had come the three strokes of the gong; and
again that unreasonable dread had assailed him, perhaps
because it signalized the capture of his son, news of
which had been immediately telephoned to Limehouse by Zani
Chada's orders.
Certain it is that Kerry left the Eurasian's house in a
frame of mind which was not familiar to him. He was
undecided respecting his next move. A deadly menace
underlay Chada's words.
"Consult your wife," he kept muttering to himself. When
the door was opened for him by the Chinese servant, he
paused a moment before going out into the fog. There were
men on duty at the back and at the front of the house.
Should he risk all and raid the place? That Lady Rourke
was captive here he no longer doubted. But it was equally
certain that no further harm would come to her at the
hands of her captors, since she had been traced there and
since Zani Chada was well aware of the fact. Of the
whereabouts of Lou Chada he could not be certain. If he
was in the house, they had him.
The door was closed by the Chinaman, and Kerry stood out
in the darkness of the dismal, brick-walled street,
feeling something as nearly akin to dejection as was
possible in one of his mercurial spirit. Something
trickled upon the brim of his hat, and, raising his head,
Kerry detected rain upon his upturned face. He breathed a
prayer of thankfulness. This would put an end to the fog.
He began to walk along by the high brick wall, but had
not proceeded far before a muffled figure arose before him
and the light of an electric torch was shone into his
face.
"Oh, it's you, Chief Inspector!" came the voice of the
watcher.
"It is," rapped Kerry. "Unless there are tunnels under
this old rat-hole, I take it the men on duty can cover all
the exits?"
"All the main exits," was the reply. "But, as you say,
it's a strange house, and Zani Chada has a stranger
reputation."
"Do nothing until you hear from me."
"Very good, Chief Inspector."
The rain now was definitely conquering the fog, and in
half the time which had been occupied by the outward
journey Kerry was back again in Limehouse. police station.
Unconsciously he had been hastening his pace with every
stride, urged onward by an unaccountable anxiety, so that
finally he almost ran into the office and up to the desk
where the telephone stood.
Lifting it, he called his own number and stood tapping
his foot, impatiently awaiting the reply. Presently came
the voice of the operator: "Have they answered yet?"
"No."
"I will ring them again."
Kerry's anxiety became acute, almost unendurable; and
when at last, after repeated attempts, no reply could be
obtained from his home, he replaced the receiver and
leaned for a moment on the desk, shaken with such a storm
of apprehension as he had rarely known. He turned to the
inspector in charge, and:
"Let me have that envelope I left with you," he
directed. "And have someone 'phone for a taxi; they are to
keep on till they get one. Where is Sergeant Durham?"
"At the mortuary."
"Ah!"
"Any developments, Chief Inspector?"
"Yes. But apart from keeping a close watch upon the
house of Zani Chada you are to do nothing until you hear
from me again."
"Very good," said the inspector. "Are you going to wait
for Durham's report?"
"No. Directly the cab arrives I am going to wait for
nothing."
Indeed, he paced up and down the room like a wild beast
caged, while call after call was sent to neighbouring cab
ranks, for a long time without result. What did it mean,
his wife's failure to answer the telephone? It might mean
that neither she nor their one servant nor Dan was in the
house. And if they were not in the house at this hour of
the night, where could they possibly be? This it might
mean, or -- something worse.
A thousand and one possibilities, hideous, fantastic,
appalling, flashed through his mind. He was beginning to
learn what Zani Chada had meant when he had said: "I have
followed your career with interest."
At last a taxi was found, and the man instructed over
the 'phone to proceed immediately to Limehouse station. He
seemed so long in coming that when at last the cab was
heard to pause outside, Kerry could not trust himself to
speak to the driver, but directed a sergeant to give him
the address. He entered silently and closed the door.
A steady drizzle of rain was falling. It had already
dispersed the fog, so that he might hope with luck to be
home within the hour. As a matter of fact, the man
performed the journey in excellent time, but it seemed to
his passenger that he could have walked quicker, such was
the gnawing anxiety within him and the fear which prompted
him to long for wings.
Instructing the cabman to wait, Kerry unlocked the front
door and entered. He had noted a light in the dining room
window, and entering, he found his wife awaiting him
there. She rose as he entered, with horror in her comely
face.
"Dan!" she whispered. "Dan! where is ye'r mackintosh?"
"I didn't take it," he replied, endeavouring to tell
himself that his apprehensions had been groundless. "But
how was it that you did not answer the telephone?"
"What do ye mean, Dan?" Mary Kerry stared, her eyes
growing wider and wider. "The boy answered, Dan. He set
out wi' ye'r mackintosh full an hour and a half since."
"What!"
The truth leaped out at Kerry like an enemy out of
ambush.
"Who sent that message?"
"Someone frae the Yard, to tell the boy to bring ye'r
mackintosh alone at once. Dan! Dan -- "
She advanced, hands outstretched, quivering, but Kerry
had leaped out into the narrow hallway. He raised the
telephone receiver, listened for a moment, and then jerked
it back upon the hook.
"Dead line!" he muttered. "Someone has been at work with
a wire- cutter outside the house!"
His wife came out to where he stood, and, clenching his
teeth very grimly, he took her in his arms. She was
shaking as if palsied.
"Mary dear," he said, "pray with all your might that I
am given strength to do my duty."
She looked at him with haggard, tearless eyes.
"Tell me the truth: ha' they got my boy?"
His fingers tightened on her shoulders.
"Don't worry," he said, "and don't ask me to stay to
explain. When I come back I'll have Dan with me!"
He trusted himself no further, but, clapping his hat on
his head, walked out to the waiting cab.
"Back to Limehouse police station," he directed rapidly.
"Lor lumme!" muttered the taximan. "Where are you goin'
to after that, guv'nor? It's a bit off the map."
"I'm going to hell!" rapped Kerry, suddenly thrusting
his red face very near to that of the speaker. "And you're
going to drive me!"
Chapter VI
The Knight Errant
Recognizing the superior strength of his captors, young
Kerry soon gave up struggling. The thrill of his first
real adventure entered into his blood. He remembered that
he was the son of his father, and he realized, being a
quick-witted lad, that he was in the grip of enemies of
his father. The panic which had threatened him when first
he had recognized that he was in the hands of Chinese,
gave place to a cold rage -- a heritage which in later
years was to make him a dangerous man.
He lay quite passively in the grasp of someone who held
him fast, and learned, by breathing quietly, that the
presence of the muffler about his nose and mouth did not
greatly inconvenience him. There was some desultory
conversation between the two men in the car, but it was
carried on in an odd, sibilant language which the boy did
not understand, but which he divined to be Chinese. He
thought how every other boy in the school would envy him,
and the thought was stimulating, nerving. On the very
first day of his holidays he was become the central figure
of a Chinatown drama.
The last traces of fear fled. His position was
uncomfortable and his limbs were cramped, but he resigned
himself, with something almost like gladness, and began to
look forward to that which lay ahead with a zest and a
will to be no passive instrument which might have
surprised his captors could they have read the mind of
their captive.
The journey seemed almost interminable, but young Kerry
suffered it in stoical silence until the car stopped and
he was lifted and carried down stone steps into some damp,
earthy-smelling place. Some distance was traversed, and
then many flights of stairs were mounted, some bare but
others carpeted.
Finally he was deposited in a chair, and as he raised
his hand to the scarf, which toward the end of the journey
had been bound more tightly about his head so as to
prevent him from seeing at all, he heard a door closed and
locked.
The scarf was quickly removed. And Dan found himself in
a low- ceilinged attic having a sloping roof and one
shuttered window. A shadeless electric lamp hung from the
ceiling. Excepting the cane-seated chair in which he had
been deposited and a certain amount of nondescript lumber,
the attic was unfurnished. Dan rapidly considered what his
father would have done in the circumstances.
"Make sure that the door is locked," he muttered.
He tried it, and it was locked beyond any shadow of
doubt.
"The window."
Shutters covered it, and these were fastened with a
padlock.
He considered this padlock attentively; then, drawing
from his pocket one of those wonderful knives which are
really miniature tool-chests, he raised from a grove the
screw-driver which formed part of its equipment, and with
neatness and dispatch unscrewed the staple to which the
padlock was attached!
A moment later he had opened the shutters and was
looking out into the drizzle of the night.
The room in which he was confined was on the third floor
of a dingy, brick-built house; a portion of some other
building faced him; down below was a stone-paved
courtyard. To the left stood a high wall, and beyond it he
obtained a glimpse of other dingy buildings. One lighted
window was visible -- a square window in the opposite
building, from which amber light shone out.
Somewhere in the street beyond was a standard lamp. He
could detect the halo which it cast into the misty rain.
The glass was very dirty, and young Kerry raised the sash,
admitting a draught of damp, cold air into the room. He
craned out, looking about him eagerly.
A rainwater-pipe was within reach of his hand on the
right of the window and, leaning out still farther, young
Kerry saw that it passed beside two other, larger, windows
on the floor beneath him. Neither of these showed any
light.
Dizzy heights have no terror for healthy youth. The
brackets supporting the rain-pipe were a sufficient
staircase for the agile Dan, a more slippery prisoner than
the famous Baron Trenck; and, discarding his muffler and
his Burberry, he climbed out upon the sill and felt with
his thick-soled boots for the first of these footholds.
Clutching the ledge, he lowered himself and felt for the
next.
Then came the moment when he must trust all his weight
to the pipe. Clenching his teeth, he risked it, felt for
and found the third angle, and then, still clutching the
pipe, stood for a moment upon the ledge of the window
immediately beneath him. He was curious respecting the
lighted window of the neighbouring house; and, twisting
about, he bent, peering across -- and saw a sight which
arrested his progress.
The room within was furnished in a way which made him
gasp with astonishment. It was like an Eastern picture, he
thought. Her golden hair dishevelled and her hands
alternately clenching and unclenching, a woman whom he
considered to be most wonderfully dressed was pacing
wildly up and down, a look of such horror upon her pale
face that Dan's heart seemed to stop beating for a moment!
Here was real trouble of a sort which appealed to all
the chivalry in the boy's nature. He considered the
window, which was glazed with amber-coloured glass,
observed that it was sufficiently open to enable him to
slip the fastening and open it entirely could he but reach
it. And -- yes! -- there was a rain- pipe!
Climbing down to the yard, he looked quickly about him,
ran across, and climbed up to the lighted window. A moment
later he had pushed it widely open.
He was greeted by a stifled cry, but, cautiously
transferring his weight from the friendly pipe to the
ledge, he got astride of it, one foot in the room. Then,
by exercise of a monkey-like agility, he wriggled his head
and shoulders within.
"It's all right," he said softly and reassuringly; "I'm
Dan Kerry, son of Chief Inspector Kerry. Can I be of any
assistance?"
Her hands clasped convulsively together, the woman stood
looking up at him.
"Oh, thank God!" said the captive. "But what are you
going to do? Can you get me out?"
"Don't worry," replied Dan confidently. "Father and I
can manage it all right!"
He performed a singular contortion, as a result of which
his other leg and foot appeared inside the window. Then,
twisting around, he lowered himself and dropped
triumphantly upon a cushioned divan. At that moment he
would have faced a cage full of man-eating tigers. The
spirit of adventure had him in its grip. He stood up,
breathing rapidly, his crop of red hair more dishevelled
than usual.
Then, before he could stir or utter any protest, the
golden- haired princess whom he had come to rescue
stooped, threw her arms around his neck, and kissed him.
"You darling, brave boy!" she said. "I think you have
saved me from madness."
Young Kerry, more flushed than ever, extricated himself,
and:
"You're not out of the mess yet," he protested. "The
only difference is that I'm in it with you!"
"But where is your father?"
"I'm looking for him."
"What!"
"Oh! he's about somewhere," Dan assured her confidently.
"But, but -- -- " She was gazing at him wide-eyed,
"Didn't he send you here?"
"You bet he didn't," returned young Kerry. "I came here
on my own accord, and when I go you're coming with me. I
can't make out how you got here, anyway. Do you know whose
house this is?"
"Oh, I do, I do!"
"Whose?"
"It belongs to a man called Chada."
"Chada? Never heard of him. But I mean, what part of
London is it in?"
"Whatever do you mean? It is in Limehouse, I believe. I
don't understand. You came here."
"I didn't," said young Kerry cheerfully; "I was
fetched!"
"By your father?"
"Not on your life. By a couple of Chinks! I'll tell you
something." He raised his twinkling blue eyes. "We are
properly up against it. I suppose you couldn't climb down
a rain-pipe?"
Chapter VII
Retribution
It was that dark, still, depressing hour of the night,
when all life is at its lowest ebb. In the low, strangely
perfumed room of books Zani Chada sat before his table,
his yellow hands clutching the knobs on his chair arms,
his long, inscrutable eyes staring unseeingly before him.
Came a disturbance and the sound of voices, and Lou
Chada, his son, stood at the doorway. He still wore his
evening clothes, but he no longer looked smart. His glossy
black hair was dishevelled, and his handsome, olive face
bore a hunted look. Panic was betoken by twitching mouth
and fear-bright eyes. He stopped, glaring at his father,
and:
"Why are you not gone?" asked the latter sternly. "Do
you wish to wreck me as well as yourself ?"
"The police have posted a man opposite Kwee's house. I
cannot get out that way."
"There was no one there when the boy was brought in."
"No, but there is now. Father!" He took a step forward.
"I'm trapped. They sha'n't take me. You won't let them
take me?"
Zani Chada stirred not a muscle, but:
"To-night," he said, "your mad passion has brought ruin
to both of us. For the sake of a golden doll who is not
worth the price of the jewels she wears, you have placed
yourself within reach of the hangman."
"I was mad, I was mad," groaned the other.
"But I, who was sane, am involved in the consequences,"
retorted his father.
"He will be silent at the price of the boy's life."
"He may be," returned Zani Chada. "I hate him, but he is
a man. Had you escaped, he might have consented to be
silent. Once you are arrested, nothing would silence him."
"If the case is tried it will ruin Pat's reputation."
"What a pity!" said Zani Chada.
In some distant part of the house a gong was struck
three times.
"Go," commanded his father. "Remain at Kwee's house
until I send for you. Let Ah Fang go to the room above and
see that the woman is silent. An outcry would ruin our
last chance."
Lou Chada raised his hands, brushing the hair back from
his wet forehead, then, staring haggardly at his father,
turned and ran from the room.
A minute later Kerry was ushered in by the Chinese
servant. The savage face was set like a mask. Without
removing his hat, he strode across to the table and bent
down so that fierce, wide- open blue eyes stared closely
into long, half-closed black ones.
"I've got one thing to say," explained Kerry huskily.
"Whatever the hangman may do to your slimy son, and
whatever happens to the little blonde fool he kidnapped,
if you've laid a hand on my kid I'll kick you to death, if
I follow you round the world to do it."
Zani Chada made no reply, but his knuckles gleamed, so
tightly did he clutch the knobs on the chair arms. Kerry's
savagery would have awed any man, even though he had
supposed it to be the idle threat of a passionate man. But
Zani Chada knew all men, and he knew this one. When Daniel
Kerry declared that in given circumstances he would kick
Zani Chada to death, he did not mean that he would shoot
him, strangle him, or even beat him with his fists; he
meant precisely what he said -- that he would kick him to
death -- and Zani Chada knew it.
Thus there were some moments of tense silence during
which the savage face of the Chief Inspector drew even
closer to the gaunt, yellow face of the Eurasian. Finally:
"Listen only for one moment," said Zani Chada. His voice
had lost its guttural intonation. He spoke softly,
sibilantly. "I, too, am a father -- "
"Don't mince words!" shouted Kerry. "You've kidnapped my
boy. If I have to tear your house down brick by brick I'll
find him. And if you've hurt one hair of his head -- you
know what to expect!"
He quivered. The effort of suppression which he had
imposed upon himself was frightful to witness. Zani Chada,
student of men, knew that in despite of his own physical
strength and of the hidden resources at his beck, he stood
nearer to primitive retribution than he had ever done.
Yet:
"I understand," he continued. "But you do not
understand. Your boy is not in this house. Oh! violence
cannot avail! It can only make his loss irreparable."
Kerry, nostrils distended, eyes glaring madly, bent over
him.
"Your scallywag of a son," he said hoarsely, "has gone
one step too far. His adventures have twice before ended
in murder -- and you have covered him. This time you can't
do it. I'm not to be bought. We've stood for the Far East
in London long enough. Your cub hangs this time. Get me?
There'll be no bargaining. The woman's reputation won't
stop me. My kid's danger won't stop me. But if you try to
use him as a lever I'll boot you to your stinking yellow
paradise and they'll check you in as pulp."
"You speak of three deaths," murmured Zani Chada.
Kerry clenched his teeth so tightly that his maxillary
muscles protruded to an abnormal degree. He thrust his
clenched fists into his coat pockets.
"We all follow our vocations in life," resumed the
Eurasian, "to the best of our abilities. But is
professional kudos not too dearly bought at the price of a
loved one lost for ever? A far better bargain would be,
shall we say, ten thousand pounds, as the price of a silk
handkerchief -- "
Kerry's fierce blue eyes closed for a fraction of a
second. Yet, in that fraction of a second, he had
visualized some of the things which ten thousand pounds --
a sum he could never hope to possess -- would buy. He had
seen his home, as he would have it -- and he had seen Dan
there, safe and happy at his mother's side. Was he
entitled to disregard the happiness of his wife, the life
of his boy, the honourable name of Sir Noel Rourke,
because an outcast like Peters had come to a fitting end
-- because a treacherous Malay and a renegade Chinaman
had, earlier, gone the same way, sped, as he suspected, by
the same hand?
"My resources are unusual," added Chada, speaking almost
in a whisper. "I have cash to this amount in my safe -- "
So far he had proceeded when he was interrupted; and the
cause of the interruption was this:
A few moments earlier another dramatic encounter had
taken place in a distant part of the house. Kerry Junior,
having scientifically tested all the possible modes of
egress from the room in which Lady Pat was confined, had
long ago desisted, and had exhausted his ingenuity in
plans which discussion had proved to be useless. In spite
of the novelty and the danger of his situation, nature was
urging her laws. He was growing sleepy. The crowning
tragedy had been the discovery that he could not regain
the small, square window set high in the wall from which
he had dropped into this luxurious prison. Now, as the two
sat side by side upon a cushioned divan, the woman's arm
about the boy's shoulders, they were startled to hear, in
the depths of the house, three notes of a gong.
Young Kerry's sleepiness departed. He leapt to his feet
as though electrified.
"What was that?"
There was something horrifying in those gong notes in
the stillness of the night. Lady Pat's beautiful eyes grew
glassy with fear.
"I don't know," replied Dan. "It seemed to come from
below."
He ran to the door, drew the curtain aside, and pressed
his ear against one of the panels, listening intently. As
he did so, his attitude grew tense, his expression
changed, then:
"We're saved!" he cried, turning a radiant face to the
woman. "I heard my father's voice!"
"Oh, are you sure, are you sure?"
"Absolutely sure!"
He bent to press his ear to the panel again, when a
stifled cry from his companion brought him swiftly to his
feet. The second door in the room had opened silently, and
a small Chinaman, who carried himself with a stoop, had
entered, and now, a menacing expression upon his face, was
quickly approaching the boy.
What he had meant to do for ever remained in doubt, for
young Kerry, knowing his father to be in the house and
seeing an open door before him, took matters into his own
hands. At the moment that the silent Chinaman was about to
throw his arms about him, the pride of the junior school
registered a most surprising left accurately on the point
of Ah Fang's jaw, following it up by a wilful
transgression of Queensberry rules in the form of a
stomach punch which temporarily decided the issue. Then:
"Quick! quick!" he cried breathlessly, grasping Lady
Pat's hand. "This is where we run!"
In such fashion was Zani Chada interrupted, the
interruption taking the form of a sudden, shrill outcry:
"Dad! dad! Where are you, dad?"
Kerry spun about as a man galvanized. His face became
transfigured.
"This way, Dan!" he cried. "This way, boy!"
Came a clatter of hurrying feet, and into the low,
perfumed room burst Dan Kerry, junior, tightly clasping
the hand of a pale- faced, dishevelled woman in evening
dress. It was Lady Rourke; and although she seemed to be
in a nearly fainting condition, Dan dragged her, half
running, into the room.
Kerry gave one glance at the pair, then, instantly, he
turned to face Zani Chada. The latter, like a man of
stone, sat in his carved chair, eyes nearly closed. The
Chief Inspector whipped out a whistle and raised it to his
lips. He blew three blasts upon it.
From one -- two -- three -- four points around the house
the signal was answered.
Zani Chada fully opened his long, basilisk eyes.
"You win, Chief Inspector," he said. "But much may be
done by clever counsel. If all fails -- "
"Well?" rapped Kerry fiercely, at the same time throwing
his arm around the boy.
"I may continue to take an interest in your affairs."
A tremendous uproar arose, within and without the house.
The police were raiding the place. Lady Rourke sank down,
slowly, almost at the Eurasian's feet.
But Chief Inspector Kerry experienced an unfamiliar
chill as his uncompromising stare met the cold hatred
which blazed out of the black eyes, narrowed, now, and
serpentine, of Zani Chada.
The Pigtail Of Hi Wing Ho
Chapter I
How I Obtained It
Leaving the dock gates behind me I tramped through the
steady drizzle, going parallel with the river and making
for the Chinese quarter. The hour was about half-past
eleven on one of those September nights when, in such a
locality as this, a stifling quality seems to enter the
atmosphere, rendering it all but unbreathable. A mist
floated over the river, and it was difficult to say if the
rain was still falling, indeed, or if the ample moisture
upon my garments was traceable only to the fog. Sounds
were muffled, lights dimmed, and the frequent hooting of
sirens from the river added another touch of weirdness to
the scene.
Even when the peculiar duties of my friend, Paul Harley,
called him away from England, the lure of this miniature
Orient which I had first explored under his guidance,
often called me from my chambers. In the house with the
two doors in Wade Street, Limehouse, I would discard the
armour of respectability, and, dressed in a manner
unlikely to provoke comment in dockland, would haunt those
dreary ways sometimes from midnight until close upon dawn.
Yet, well as I knew the district and the strange and often
dangerous creatures lurking in its many burrows, I
experienced a chill partly physical and partly of
apprehension to-night; indeed, strange though it may
sound, I hastened my footsteps in order the sooner to
reach the low den for which I was bound -- Malay Jack's --
a spot marked plainly on the crimes-map and which few
respectable travellers would have regarded as a haven of
refuge.
But the chill of the adjacent river, and some quality of
utter desolation which seemed to emanate from the deserted
wharves and ramshackle buildings about me, were driving me
thither now; for I knew that human companionship, of a
sort, and a glass of good liquor -- from a store which the
Customs would have been happy to locate -- awaited me
there. I might chance, too, upon Durham or Wessex, of New
Scotland Yard, both good friends of mine, or even upon the
Terror of Chinatown, Chief Inspector Kerry, a man for whom
I had an esteem which none of his ungracious manners could
diminish.
I was just about to turn to the right into a narrow and
nameless alley, lying at right angles to the Thames, when
I pulled up sharply, clenching my fists and listening.
A confused and continuous sound, not unlike that which
might be occasioned by several large and savage hounds at
close grips, was proceeding out of the darkness ahead of
me; a worrying, growling, and scuffling which presently I
identified as human, although in fact it was animal
enough. A moment I hesitated, then, distinguishing among
the sounds of conflict an unmistakable, though subdued,
cry for help, I leaped forward and found myself in the
midst of the melee. This was taking place in the lee of a
high, dilapidated brick wall. A lamp in a sort of iron
bracket spluttered dimly above on the right, but the scene
of the conflict lay in densest shadow, so that the figures
were indistinguishable.
"Help! By Gawd! they're strangling me -- "
From almost at my feet the cry arose and was drowned in
Chinese chattering. But guided by it I now managed to make
out that the struggle in progress waged between a burly
English sailorman and two lithe Chinese. The yellow men
seemed to have gained the advantage and my course was
clear.
A straight right on the jaw of the Chinaman who was
engaged in endeavouring to throttle the victim laid him
prone in the dirty roadway. His companion, who was holding
the wrist of the recumbent man, sprang upright as though
propelled by a spring. I struck out at him savagely. He
uttered a shrill scream not unlike that of a stricken
hare, and fled so rapidly that he seemed to melt in the
mist.
"Gawd bless you, mate!" came chokingly from the ground
-- and the rescued man, extricating himself from beneath
the body of his stunned assailant, rose unsteadily to his
feet and lurched toward me.
As I had surmised, he was a sailor, wearing a rough,
blue-serge jacket and having his greasy trousers thrust
into heavy seaboots -- by which I judged that he was but
newly come ashore. He stooped and picked up his cap. It
was covered in mud, as were the rest of his garments, but
he brushed it with his sleeve as though it had been but
slightly soiled and clapped it on his head.
He grasped my hand in a grip of iron, peering into my
face, and his breath was eloquent.
"I'd had one or two, mate," he confided huskily (the
confession was unnecessary). "It was them two in the Blue
Anchor as did it; if I 'adn't 'ad them last two, I could
'ave broke up them Chinks with one 'and tied behind me."
"That's all right," I said hastily, "but what are we
going to do about this Chink here?" I added, endeavouring
at the same time to extricate my hand from the vise-like
grip in which he persistently held it. "He hit the tiles
pretty heavy when he went down."
As if to settle my doubts, the recumbent figure suddenly
arose and without a word fled into the darkness and was
gone like a phantom. My new friend made no attempt to
follow, but:
"You can't kill a bloody Chink," he confided, still
clutching my hand; "it ain't 'umanly possible. It's easier
to kill a cat. Come along o' me and 'ave one; then I'll
tell you somethink. I'll put you on somethink, I will."
With surprising steadiness of gait, considering the
liquid cargo he had aboard, the man, releasing my hand and
now seizing me firmly by the arm, confidently led me by
divers narrow ways, which I knew, to a little beerhouse
frequented by persons of his class.
My own attire was such as to excite no suspicion in
these surroundings, and although I considered that my
acquaintance had imbibed more than enough for one night, I
let him have his own way in order that I might learn the
story which he seemed disposed to confide in me. Settled
in the corner of the beerhouse -- which chanced to be
nearly empty -- with portentous pewters before us, the
conversation was opened by my new friend:
"I've been paid off from the Jupiter -- Samuelson's
Planet Line," he explained. "What I am is a fireman."
"She was from Singapore to London?" I asked.
"She was," he replied, "and it was at Suez it 'appened
-- at Suez."
I did not interrupt him.
"I was ashore at Suez -- we all was, owin' to a 'itch
with the canal company -- a matter of money, I may say.
They make yer pay before they'll take yer through. Do you
know that?"
I nodded.
"Suez is a place," he continued, "where they don't sell
whisky, only poison. Was you ever at Suez?"
Again I nodded, being most anxious to avoid diverting
the current of my friend's thoughts.
"Well, then," he continued, "you know Greek Jimmy's --
and that's where I'd been."
I did not know Greek Jimmy's, but I thought it
unnecessary to mention the fact.
"It was just about this time on a steamin' 'ot night as
I come out of Jimmy's and started for the ship. I was
walkin' along the Waghorn Quay, same as I might be walkin'
along to-night, all by myself -- bit of a list to port but
nothing much -- full o' joy an' happiness, 'appy an' free
-- 'appy an' free. Just like you might have noticed
to-night, I noticed a knot of Chinks scrappin' on the
ground all amongst the dust right in front of me. I rammed
in, windmillin' all round and knocking 'em down like
skittles. Seemed to me there was about ten of 'em, but
allowin' for Jimmy's whisky, maybe there wasn't more than
three. Anyway, they all shifted and left me standin' there
in the empty street with this 'ere in my 'and."
At that, without more ado, he thrust his hand deep into
some concealed pocket and jerked out a Chinese pigtail,
which had been severed, apparently some three inches from
the scalp, by a clean cut. My acquaintance, with somewhat
bleared eyes glistening in appreciation of his own
dramatic skill -- for I could not conceal my surprise --
dangled it before me triumphantly.
"Which of 'em it belong to," he continued, thrusting it
into another pocket and drumming loudly on the counter for
more beer, "I can't say, 'cos I don't know. But that ain't
all."
The tankards being refilled and my friend having sampled
the contents of his own:
"That ain't all," he continued. "I thought I'd keep it
as a sort of relic, like. What 'appened? I'll tell you.
Amongst the crew there's three Chinks -- see? We ain't
through the canal before one of 'em, a new one to me -- Li
Ping is his name -- offers me five bob for the pigtail,
which he sees me looking at one mornin'. I give him a
punch on the nose an' 'e don't renew the offer: but that
night (we're layin' at Port Said) 'e tries to pinch it! I
dam' near broke his neck, and 'e don't try any more.
To-night" -- he extended his right arm forensically -- "a
deppitation of Chinks waits on me at the dock gates; they
explains as from a patriotic point of view they feels it
to be their dooty to buy that pigtail off of me, and they
bids a quid, a bar of gold -- a Jimmy o' Goblin!"
He snapped his fingers contemptuously and emptied his
pewter. A sense of what was coming began to dawn on me.
That the "hold-up" near the riverside formed part of the
scheme was possible, and, reflecting on my rough treatment
of the two Chinamen, I chuckled inwardly. Possibly,
however, the scheme had germinated in my acquaintance's
mind merely as a result of an otherwise common assault, of
a kind not unusual in these parts, but, whether elaborate
or comparatively simple, that the story of the pigtail was
a "plant" designed to reach my pocket, seemed a reasonable
hypothesis.
"I told him to go to China," concluded the object of my
suspicion, again rapping upon the counter, "and you see
what come of it. All I got to say is this: If they're so
bloody patriotic, I says one thing: I ain't the man to
stand in their way. You done me a good turn to-night,
mate; I'm doing you one. 'Ere's the bloody pigtail, 'ere's
my empty mug. Fill the mug and the pigtail's yours. It's
good for a quid at the dock gates any day!"
My suspicions vanished; my interest arose to boiling
point. I refilled my acquaintance's mug, pressed a
sovereign upon him (in honesty I must confess that he was
loath to take it), and departed with the pigtail coiled
neatly in an inner pocket of my jacket. I entered the
house in Wade Street by the side door, and half an hour
later let myself out by the front door, having cast off my
dockland disguise.
Chapter II
How I Lost It
It was not until the following evening that I found
leisure to examine my strange acquisition, for affairs of
more immediate importance engrossed my attention. But at
about ten o'clock I seated myself at my table, lighted the
lamp, and taking out the pigtail from the table drawer,
placed it on the blotting-pad and began to examine it with
the greatest curiosity, for few Chinese affect the pigtail
nowadays.
I had scarcely commenced my examination, however, when
it was dramatically interrupted. The door bell commenced
to ring jerkily. I stood up, and as I did so the ringing
ceased and in its place came a muffled beating on the
door. I hurried into the passage as the bell commenced
ringing again, and I had almost reached the door when once
more the ringing ceased; but now I could hear a woman's
voice, low but agitated:
"Open the door! Oh, for God's sake be quick!"
Completely mystified, and not a little alarmed, I threw
open the door, and in there staggered a woman heavily
veiled, so that I could see little of her features, but by
the lines of her figure I judged her to be young.
Uttering a sort of moan of terror she herself closed the
door, and stood with her back to it, watching me through
the thick veil, while her breast rose and fell
tumultuously.
"Thank God there was someone at home!" she gasped.
I think I may say with justice that I had never been so
surprised in my life; every particular of the incident
marked it as unique -- set it apart from the episodes of
everyday life.
"Madam," I began doubtfully, "you seem to be much
alarmed at something, and if I can be of any assistance to
you -- "
"You have saved my life!" she whispered, and pressed one
hand to her bosom. "In a moment I will explain."
"Won't you rest a little after your evidently alarming
experience?" I suggested.
My strange visitor nodded, without speaking, and I
conducted her to the study which I had just left, and
placed the most comfortable arm-chair close beside the
table so that as I sat I might study this woman who so
strangely had burst in upon me. I even tilted the shaded
lamp, artlessly, a trick I had learned from Harley, in
order that the light might fall upon her face.
She may have detected this device; I know not; but as if
in answer to its challenge, she raised her gloved hands
and unfastened the heavy veil which had concealed her
features.
Thereupon I found myself looking into a pair of lustrous
black eyes whose almond shape was that of the Orient; I
found myself looking at a woman who, since she was
evidently a Jewess, was probably no older than eighteen or
nineteen, but whose beauty was ripely voluptuous, who
might fittingly have posed for Salome, who, despite her
modern fashionable garments, at once suggested to my mind
the wanton beauty of the daughter of Herodias.
I stared at her silently for a time, and presently her
full lips parted in a slow smile. My ideas were diverted
into another channel.
"You have yet to tell me what alarmed you," I said in a
low voice, but as courteously as possible, "and if I can
be of any assistance in the matter."
My visitor seemed to recollect her fright -- or the
necessity for simulation. The pupils of her fine eyes
seemed to grow larger and darker; she pressed her white
teeth into her lower lips, and resting her hands upon the
table leaned toward me.
"I am a stranger to London," she began, now exhibiting a
certain diffidence, "and to-night I was looking for the
chambers of Mr. Raphael Philips of Figtree Court."
"This is Figtree Court," I said, "but I know of no Mr.
Raphael Philips who has chambers here."
The black eyes met mine despairingly.
"But I am positive of the address!" protested my
beautiful but strange caller -- from her left glove she
drew out a scrap of paper, "here it is."
I glanced at the fragment, upon which, in a woman's hand
the words were pencilled: "Mr. Raphael Philips, 36-b
Figtree Court, London."
I stared at my visitor, deeply mystified.
"These chambers are 36-b!" I said. "But I am not Raphael
Philips, nor have I ever heard of him. My name is Malcolm
Knox. There is evidently some mistake, but" -- returning
the slip of paper -- "pardon me if I remind you, I have
yet to learn the cause of your alarm."
"I was followed across the court and up the stairs."
"Followed! By whom?"
"By a dreadful-looking man, chattering in some tongue I
did not understand!"
My amazement was momentarily growing greater.
"What kind of a man?" I demanded rather abruptly.
"A yellow-faced man -- remember I could only just
distinguish him in the darkness on the stairway, and see
little more of him than his eyes at that, and his ugly
gleaming teeth -- oh! it was horrible!"
"You astound me," I said; "the thing is utterly
incomprehensible." I switched off the light of the lamp.
"I'll see if there's any sign of him in the court below."
"Oh, don't leave me! For heaven's sake don't leave me
alone!"
She clutched my arm in the darkness.
"Have no fear; I merely propose to look out from this
window."
Suiting the action to the word, I peered down into the
court below. It was quite deserted. The night was a very
dark one, and there were many patches of shadow in which a
man might have lain concealed.
"I can see no one," I said, speaking as confidently as
possible, and relighting the lamp, "if I call a cab for
you and see you safely into it, you will have nothing to
fear, I think."
"I have a cab waiting," she replied, and lowering the
veil she stood up to go.
"Kindly allow me to see you to it. I am sorry you have
been subjected to this annoyance, especially as you have
not attained the object of your visit."
"Thank you so much for your kindness; there must be some
mistake about the address, of course."
She clung to my arm very tightly as we descended the
stairs, and often glanced back over her shoulder
affrightedly, as we crossed the court. There was not a
sign of anyone about, however, and I could not make up my
mind whether the story of the yellow man was a delusion or
a fabrication. I inclined to the latter theory, but the
object of such a deception was more difficult to
determine.
Sure enough, a taxicab was waiting at the entrance to
the court; and my visitor, having seated herself within,
extended her hand to me, and even through the thick veil I
could detect her brilliant smile.
"Thank you so much, Mr. Knox," she said, "and a thousand
apologies. I am sincerely sorry to have given you all this
trouble."
The cab drove off. For a moment I stood looking after
it, in a state of dreamy incertitude, then turned and
slowly retraced my steps. Reopening the door of my
chambers with my key, I returned to my study and sat down
at the table to endeavour to arrange the facts of what I
recognized to be a really amazing episode. The adventure,
trifling though it seemed, undoubtedly held some hidden
significance that at present was not apparent to me. In
accordance with the excellent custom of my friend, Paul
Harley, I prepared to make notes of the occurrence while
the facts were still fresh in my memory. At the moment
that I was about to begin, I made an astounding discovery.
Although I had been absent only a few minutes, and had
locked my door behind me, the pigtail was gone!
I sat quite still, listening intently. The woman's story
of the yellow man on the stairs suddenly assumed a totally
different aspect -- a new and sinister aspect. Could it be
that the pigtail was at the bottom of the mystery? --
could it be that some murderous Chinaman who had been
lurking in hiding, waiting his opportunity, had in some
way gained access to my chambers during that brief
absence? If so, was he gone?
From the table drawer I took out a revolver, ascertained
that it was fully loaded, and turning up light after light
as I proceeded, conducted a room-to-room search. It was
without result; there was absolutely nothing to indicate
that anyone had surreptitiously entered or departed from
my chambers.
I returned to the study and sat gazing at the revolver
lying on the blotting-pad before me. Perhaps my mind
worked slowly, but I think that fully fifteen minutes must
have passed before it dawned on me that the explanation
not only of the missing pigtail but of the other incidents
of the night, was simple enough. The yellow man had been a
fabrication, and my dark-eyed visitor had not been in
quest of "Raphael Philips," but in quest of the pigtail:
and her quest had been successful!
"What a hopeless fool I am!" I cried, and banged my fist
down upon the table, "there was no yellow man at all --
there was -- -- -"
My door bell rang. I sprang nervously to my feet,
glanced at the revolver on the table -- and finally
dropped it into my coat pocket ere going out and opening
the door.
On the landing stood a police constable and an officer
in plain clothes.
"Your name is Malcolm Knox?" asked the constable,
glancing at a note-book which he held in his hand.
"It is," I replied.
"You are required to come at once to Bow Street to
identify a woman who was found murdered in a taxi-cab in
the Strand about eleven o'clock to-night."
I suppressed an exclamation of horror; I felt myself
turning pale.
"But what has it to do -- "
"The driver stated she came from your chambers, for you
saw her off, and her last words to you were 'Good night,
Mr. Knox, I am sincerely sorry to have given you all this
trouble.' Is that correct, sir?"
The constable, who had read out the information in an
official voice, now looked at me, as I stood there
stupefied.
"It is," I said blankly. "I'll come at once." It would
seem that I had misjudged my unfortunate visitor: her
story of the yellow man on the stair had apparently been
not a fabrication, but a gruesome fact!
Chapter III
How I Regained It
My ghastly duty was performed; I had identified the
dreadful thing, which less than an hour before had been a
strikingly beautiful woman, as my mysterious visitor. The
police were palpably disappointed at the sparsity of my
knowledge respecting her. In fact, had it not chanced that
Detective Sergeant Durham was in the station, I think they
would have doubted the accuracy of my story.
As a man of some experience in such matters, I fully
recognized its improbability, but beyond relating the
circumstances leading up to my possession of the pigtail
and the events which had ensued, I could do no more in the
matter. The weird relic had not been found on the dead
woman, nor in the cab.
Now the unsavoury business was finished, and I walked
along Bow Street, racking my mind for the master-key to
this mystery in which I was become enmeshed. How I longed
to rush off to Harley's rooms in Chancery Lane and to tell
him the whole story! But my friend was a thousand miles
away -- and I had to see the thing out alone.
That the pigtail was some sacred relic stolen from a
Chinese temple and sought for by its fanatical custodians
was a theory which persistently intruded itself. But I
could find no place in that hypothesis for the beautiful
Jewess; and that she was intimately concerned I did not
doubt. A cool survey of the facts rendered it fairly
evident that it was she and none other who had stolen the
pigtail from my rooms. Some third party -- possibly the
"yellow man" of whom she had spoken -- had in turn stolen
it from her, strangling her in the process.
The police theory of the murder (and I was prepared to
accept it) was that the assassin had been crouching in
hiding behind or beside the cab -- or even within the dark
interior. He had leaped in and attacked the woman at the
moment that the taxi-man had started his engine; if
already inside, the deed had proven even easier. Then,
during some block in the traffic, he had slipped out
unseen, leaving the body of the victim to be discovered
when the cab pulled up at the hotel.
I knew of only one place in London where I might hope to
obtain useful information, and for that place I was making
now. It was Malay Jack's, whence I had been bound on the
previous night when my strange meeting with the seaman who
then possessed the pigtail had led to a change of plan.
The scum of the Asiatic population always come at one time
or another to Jack's, and I hoped by dint of a little
patience to achieve what the police had now apparently
despaired of achieving -- the discovery of the assassin.
Having called at my chambers to obtain my revolver, I
mounted an eastward-bound motor-bus. The night, as I have
already stated, was exceptionally dark. There was no moon,
and heavy clouds were spread over the sky; so that the
deserted East End streets presented a sufficiently
uninviting aspect, but one with which I was by no means
unfamiliar and which certainly in no way daunted me.
Changing at Paul Harley's Chinatown base in Wade Street,
I turned my steps in the same direction as upon the
preceding night; but if my own will played no part in the
matter, then decidedly Providence truly guided me. Poetic
justice is rare enough in real life, yet I was destined
to-night to witness swift retribution overtaking a
malefactor.
The by-ways which I had trodden were utterly deserted; I
was far from the lighted high road, and the only signs of
human activity that reached me came from the adjacent
river; therefore, when presently an outcry arose from
somewhere on my left, for a moment I really believed that
my imagination was vividly reproducing the episode of the
night before!
A furious scuffle -- between a European and an Asiatic
-- was in progress not twenty yards away!
Realizing that such was indeed the case, and that I was
not the victim of hallucination, I advanced slowly in the
direction of the sounds, but my footsteps reechoed
hollowly from wall to wall of the narrow passage-way, and
my coming brought the conflict to a sudden and dramatic
termination.
"Thought I wouldn't know yer ugly face, did yer?" yelled
a familiar voice. "No good squealin' -- I got yer! I'd
bust you up if I could!" (a sound of furious blows and
inarticulate chattering) "but it ain't 'umanly possible to
kill a Chink -- "
I hurried forward toward the spot where two dim figures
were locked in deadly conflict.
"Take that to remember me by!" gasped the husky voice as
I ran up.
One of the figures collapsed in a heap upon the ground.
The other made off at a lumbering gait along a second and
even narrower passage branching at right angles from that
in which the scuffle had taken place.
The clatter of the heavy sea-boots died away in the
distance. I stood beside the fallen man, looking keenly
about to right and left; for an impression was strong upon
me that another than I had been witness of the scene --
that a shadowy form had slunk back furtively at my
approach. But the night gave up no sound in confirmation
of this, and I could detect no sign of any lurker.
I stooped over the Chinaman (for a Chinaman it was) who
lay at my feet, and directed the ray of my pocket-lamp
upon his yellow and contorted countenance. I suppressed a
cry of surprise and horror.
Despite the human impossibility referred to by the
missing fireman, this particular Chinaman had joined the
shades of his ancestors. I think that final blow, which
had felled him, had brought his shaven skull in such
violent contact with the wall that he had died of the
thundering concussion set up.
Kneeling there and looking into his upturned eyes, I
became aware that my position was not an enviable one,
particularly since I felt little disposed to set the law
on the track of the real culprit. For this man who now lay
dead at my feet was doubtless one of the pair who had
attempted the life of the fireman of the Jupiter.
That my seafaring acquaintance had designed to kill the
Chinaman I did not believe, despite his stormy words: the
death had been an accident, and (perhaps my morality was
over-broad) I considered the assault to have been
justified.
Now my ideas led me further yet. The dead Chinaman wore
a rough blue coat, and gingerly, for I found the contact
repulsive, I inserted my hand into the inside pocket.
Immediately my fingers closed upon a familiar object --
and I stood up, whistling slightly, and dangling in my
left hand the missing pigtail!
Beyond doubt Justice had guided the seaman's blows. This
was the man who had murdered my dark-eyed visitor!
I stood perfectly still, directing the little white ray
of my flashlight upon the pigtail in my hand. I realized
that my position, difficult before, now was become
impossible; the possession of the pigtail compromised me
hopelessly. What should I do?
"My God!" I said aloud, "what does it all mean?"
"It means," said a gruff voice, "that it was lucky I was
following you and saw what happened!"
I whirled about, my heart leaping wildly.
Detective-Sergeant Durham was standing watching me, a grim
smile upon his face!
I laughed rather shakily.
"Lucky indeed!" I said. "Thank God you're here. This
pigtail is a nightmare which threatens to drive me madl"
The detective advanced and knelt beside the crumpled-up
figure on the ground. He examined it briefly, and then
stood up.
"The fact that he had the missing pigtail in his
pocket," he said, "is proof enough to my mind that he did
the murder."
"And to mine."
"There's another point," he added, "which throws a lot
of light on the matter. You and Mr. Harley were out of
town at the time of the Huang Chow case; but the Chief and
I outlined it, you remember, one night in Mr. Harley's
rooms?"
"I remember it perfectly; the giant spider in the coffin
-- "
"Yes; and a certain Ah Fu, confidential servant of the
old man, who used to buy the birds the thing fed on. Well,
Mr. Knox, Huang Chow was the biggest dealer in illicit
stuff in all the East End -- and this battered thing at
our feet is -- Ah Fu!"
"Huang Chow's servant?"
"Exactly!"
I stared, uncomprehendingly, and:
"In what way does this throw light on the matter?" I
asked.
Durham -- a very intelligent young officer -- smiled
significantly.
"I begin to see light!" he declared. "The gentleman who
made off just as I arrived on the scene probably had a
private quarrel with the Chinaman and was otherwise not
concerned in any way."
"I am disposed to agree with you," I said guardedly.
"Of course, you've no idea of his identity?"
"I'm afraid not."
"We may find him," mused the officer, glancing at me
shrewdly, "by applying at the offices of the Planet Line,
but I rather doubt it. Also I rather doubt if we'll look
very far. He's saved us a lot of trouble, but" -- peering
about in the shadowy corners which abounded -- "didn't I
see somebody else lurking around here?"
"I'm almost certain there was someone else!" I cried.
"In fact, I could all but swear to it."
"H'm!" said the detective. "He's not here now. Might I
trouble you to walk along to Limehouse Police Station for
the ambulance? I'd better stay here."
I agreed at once, and started off.
Thus a second time my plans were interrupted, for my
expedition that night ultimately led me to Bow Street,
whence, after certain formalities had been observed, I
departed for my chambers, the mysterious pigtail in my
pocket. Failing the presence of Durham, the pigtail must
have been retained as evidence, but:
"We shall know where to find it if it's wanted, Mr.
Knox," said the Yard man, "and I can trust you to look
after your own property."
The clock of St. Paul's was chiming the hour of two when
I locked the door of my chambers and prepared to turn in.
The clangour of the final strokes yet vibrated through the
night's silence when someone set my own door bell loudly
ringing.
With an exclamation of annoyance I shot back the bolts
and threw open the door.
A Chinaman stood outside upon the mat!
Chapter IV
How It All Ended
"Me wishee see you," said the apparition, smiling
blandly; "me comee in?"
"Come in, by all means," I said without enthusiasm, and,
switching on the light in my study, I admitted the
Chinaman and stood facing him with an expression upon my
face which I doubt not was the reverse of agreeable.
My visitor, who wore a slop-shop suit, also wore a
wide-brimmed bowler hat; now, the set bland smile still
upon his yellow face, he removed the bowler and pointed
significantly to his skull.
His pigtail had been severed some three inches from the
root!
"You gotchee my pigtail," he explained; "me callee get
it -- thank you."
"Thank you," I said grimly. "But I must ask you to
establish your claim rather more firmly."
"Yessir," agreed the Chinaman.
And thereupon in tolerable pidgin English he unfolded
his tale. He proclaimed his name to be Hi Wing Ho, and his
profession that of a sailor, or so I understood him. While
ashore at Suez he had become embroiled with some drunken
seamen: knives had been drawn, and in the scuffle by some
strange accident his pigtail had been severed. He had
escaped from the conflict, badly frightened, and had run a
great distance before he realized his loss. Since Southern
Chinamen of his particular Tong hold their pigtails in the
highest regard, he had instituted inquiries as soon as
possible, and had presently learned from a Chinese member
of the crew of the S. S. Jupiter that the precious queue
had fallen into the hands of a fireman on that vessel. He
(Hi Wing Ho) had shipped on the first available steamer
bound for England, having in the meanwhile communicated
with his friend on the Jupiter respecting the recovery of
the pigtail.
"What was the name of your friend on the Jupiter?"
"Him Li Ping -- yessir!" -- without the least hesitation
or hurry.
I nodded. "Go on," I said.
He arrived at the London docks very shortly after the
Jupiter. Indeed, the crew of the latter vessel had not yet
been paid off when Hi Wing Ho presented himself at the
dock gates. He admitted that, finding the fireman so
obdurate, he and his friend Li Ping had resorted to
violence, but he did not seem to recognize me as the
person who had frustrated their designs. Thus far I found
his story credible enough, excepting the accidental
severing of the pigtail at Suez, but now it became wildly
improbable, for he would have me believe that Li Ping, or
Ah Fu, obtaining possession of the pigtail (in what manner
Hi Wing Ho protested that he knew not) he sought to hold
it to ransom, knowing how highly Hi Wing Ho valued it.
I glared sternly at the Chinaman, but his impassive
countenance served him well. That he was lying to me I no
longer doubted; for Ah Fu could not have hoped to secure
such a price as would justify his committing murder;
furthermore, the presence of the unfortunate Jewess in the
case was not accounted for by the ingenious narrative of
Hi Wing Ho. I was standing staring at him and wondering
what course to adopt, when yet again my restless door-bell
clamoured in the silence.
Hi Wing Ho started nervously, exhibiting the first
symptoms of alarm which I had perceived in him. My mind
was made up in an instant. I took my revolver from the
drawer and covered him.
"Be good enough to open the door, Hi Wing Ho," I said
coldly.
He shrank from me, pouring forth voluble protestations.
"Open the door!"
I clenched my left fist and advanced upon him. He
scuttled away with his odd Chinese gait and threw open the
door. Standing before me I saw my friend Detective
Sergeant Durham, and with him a remarkably tall and very
large-boned man whose square-jawed face was deeply tanned
and whose aspect was dourly Scottish.
When the piercing eyes of this stranger rested upon Hi
Wing Ho an expression which I shall never forget entered
into them; an expression coldly murderous. As for the
Chinaman, he literally crumpled up.
"You rat!" roared the stranger.
Taking one long stride he stooped upon the Chinaman,
seized him by the back of the neck as a terrier might
seize a rat, and lifted him to his feet.
"The mystery of the pigtail, Mr. Knox," said the
detective, "is solved at last."
"Have ye got it?" demanded the Scotsman, turning to me,
but without releasing his hold upon the neck of Hi Wing
Ho.
I took the pigtail from my pocket and dangled it before
his eyes.
"Suppose you come into my study," I said, "and explain
matters."
We entered the room which had been the scene of so many
singular happenings. The detective and I seated ourselves,
but the Scotsman, holding the Chinaman by the neck as
though he had been some inanimate bundle, stood just
within the doorway, one of the most gigantic specimens of
manhood I had ever set eyes upon.
"You do the talking, sir," he directed the detective;
"ye have all the facts."
While Durham talked, then, we all listened -- excepting
the Chinaman, who was past taking an intelligent interest
in anything, and who, to judge from his starting eyes, was
being slowly strangled.
"The gentleman," said Durham -- "Mr. Nicholson --
arrived two days ago from the East. He is a buyer for a
big firm of diamond merchants, and some weeks ago a
valuable diamond was stolen from him -- "
"By this!" interrupted the Scotsman, shaking the
wretched Hi Wing Ho terrier fashion.
"By Hi Wing Ho," explained the detective, "whom you see
before you. The theft was a very ingenious one, and the
man succeeded in getting away with his haul. He tried to
dispose of the diamond to a certain Isaac Cohenberg, a
Singapore moneylender; but Isaac Cohenberg was the bigger
crook of the two. Hi Wing Ho only escaped from the
establishment of Cohenberg by dint of sandbagging the
moneylender, and quitted the town by a boat which left the
same night. On the voyage he was indiscreet enough to take
the diamond from its hiding-place and surreptitiously to
examine it. Another member of the Chinese crew, one Li
Ping -- otherwise Ah Fu, the accredited agent of old Huang
Chow! -- was secretly watching our friend, and, knowing
that he possessed this valuable jewel, he also learned
where he kept it hidden. At Suez Ah Fu attacked Hi Wing Ho
and secured possession of the diamond. It was to secure
possession of the diamond that Ah Fu had gone out East. I
don't doubt it. He employed Hi Wing Ho -- and Hi Wing Ho
tried to double on him!
"We are indebted to you, Mr. Knox, for some of the data
upon which we have reconstructed the foregoing and also
for the next link in the narrative. A fireman ashore from
the Jupiter intruded upon the scene at Suez and deprived
Ah Fu of the fruits of his labours. Hi Wing Ho seems to
have been badly damaged in the scuffle, but Ah Fu, the
more wily of the two, evidently followed the fireman, and,
deserting from his own ship, signed on with the Jupiter."
While this story was enlightening in some respects, it
was mystifying in others. I did not interrupt, however,
for Durham immediately resumed:
"The drama was complicated by the presence of a fourth
character -- the daughter of Cohenberg. Realizing that a
small fortune had slipped through his fingers, the old
moneylender dispatched his daughter in pursuit of Hi Wing
Ho, having learned upon which vessel the latter had
sailed. He had no difficulty in obtaining this
information, for he is in touch with all the crooks of the
town. Had he known that the diamond had been stolen by an
agent of Huang Chow, he would no doubt have hesitated.
Huang Chow has an international reputation.
"However, his daughter -- a girl of great personal
beauty -- relied upon her diplomatic gifts to regain
possession of the stone, but, poor creature, she had not
counted with Ah Fu, who was evidently watching your
chambers (while Hi Wing Ho, it seems, was assiduously
shadowing Ah Fu!). How she traced the diamond from point
to point of its travels we do not know, and probably never
shall know, but she was undeniably clever and
unscrupulous. Poor girl! She came to a dreadful end. Mr.
Nicholson, here, identified her at Bow Street to-night."
Now the whole amazing truth burst upon me.
"I understand!" I cried. "This" -- and I snatched up the
pigtail --
"That my pigtail," moaned Hi Wing Ho feebly.
Mr. Nicholson pitched him unceremoniously into a corner
of the room, and taking the pigtail in his huge hand,
clumsily unfastened it. Out from the thick part, some two
inches below the point at which it had been cut from the
Chinaman's head, a great diamond dropped upon the floor!
For perhaps twenty seconds there was perfect silence in
my study. No one stooped to pick the diamond from the
floor -- the diamond which now had blood upon it. No one,
so far as my sense informed me, stirred. But when,
following those moments of stupefaction, we all looked up
-- Hi Wing Ho, like a phantom, had faded from the room!
The House Of Golden Joss
Chapter I
The Blood-Stained Idol
"Stop when we pass the next lamp and give me a light for
my pipe."
"Why?"
"No! don't look round," warned my companion. "I think
someone is following us. And it is always advisable to be
on guard in this neighbourhood."
We had nearly reached the house in Wade Street,
Limehouse, which my friend used as a base for East End
operations. The night was dark but clear, and I thought
that presently when dawn came it would bring a cold,
bright morning. There was no moon, and as we passed the
lamp and paused we stood in almost total darkness.
Facing in the direction of the Council School I struck a
match. It revealed my ruffianly looking companion -- in
whom his nearest friends must have failed to recognize Mr.
Paul Harley of Chancery Lane.
He was glancing furtively back along the street, and
when a moment later we moved on, I too, had detected the
presence of a figure stumbling toward us.
"Don't stop at the door," whispered Harley, for our
follower was only a few yards away.
Accordingly we passed the house in which Harley had
rooms, and had proceeded some fifteen paces farther when
the man who was following us stumbled in between Harley
and myself, clutching an arm of either. I scarcely knew
what to expect, but was prepared for anything, when:
"Mates!" said a man huskily. "Mates, if you know where I
can get a drink, take me there!"
Harley laughed shortly. I cannot say if he remained
suspicious of the newcomer, but for my own part I had
determained after one glance at the man that he was merely
a drunken fireman newly recovered from a prolonged
debauch.
"Where 'ave yer been, old son?" growled Harley, in that
wonderful dialect of his which I had so often and so
vainly sought to cultivate. "You look as though you'd 'ad
one too many already."
"I ain't," declared the fireman, who appeared to be in a
semi- dazed condition. "I ain't 'ad one since ten o'clock
last night. It's dope wot's got me, not rum."
"Dope!" said Harley sharply; "been 'avin' a pipe, eh?"
"If you've got a corpse-reviver anywhere," continued the
man in that curious, husky voice, "'ave pity on me, mate.
I seen a thing to-night wot give me the jim-jams."
"All right, old son," said my friend good-humouredly;
"about turn! I've got a drop in the bottle, but me an' my
mate sails to-morrow, an' it's the last."
"Gawd bless yer!" growled the fireman; and the three of
us -- an odd trio, truly -- turned about, retracing our
steps.
As we approached the street lamp and its light shone
upon the haggard face of the man walking between us,
Harley stopped, and:
"Wot's up with yer eye?" he inquired.
He suddenly tilted the man's head upward and peered
closely into one of his eyes. I suppressed a gasp of
surprise for I instantly recognized the fireman of the
Jupiter!
"Nothin' up with it, is there?" said the fireman.
"Only a lump o' mud," growled Harley, and with a very
dirty handkerchief he pretended to remove the imaginary
stain, and then, turning to me:
"Open the door, Jim," he directed.
His examination of the man's eyes had evidently
satisfied him that our acquaintance had really been
smoking opium.
We paused immediately outside the house for which we had
been bound, and as I had the key I opened the door and the
three of us stepped into a little dark room. Harley closed
the door and we stumbled upstairs to a low first-floor
apartment facing the street. There was nothing in its
appointments, as revealed in the light of an oil lamp
burning on the solitary table, to distinguish it from a
thousand other such apartments which may be leased for a
few shillings a week in the neighbourhood. That adjoining
might have told a different story, for it more closely
resembled an actor's dressing-room than a seaman's
lodging; but the door of this sanctum was kept
scrupulously locked.
"Sit down, old son," said my friend heartily, pushing
forward an old arm-chair. "Fetch out the grog, Jim;
there's about enough for three."
I walked to a cupboard, as the fireman sank limply down
in the chair, and took out a bottle and three glasses.
When the man, who, as I could now see quite plainly, was
suffering from the after effects of opium, had eagerly
gulped the stiff drink which I handed to him, he looked
around with dim, glazed eyes, and:
"You've saved my life, mates," he declared. "I've 'ad a
'orrible nightmare, I 'ave -- a nightmare. See?"
He fixed his eyes on me for a moment, then raised
himself from his seat, peering narrowly at me across the
table.
"I seed you before, mate. Gaw, blimey! if you ain't the
bloke wot I giv'd the pigtail to! And wot laid out that
blasted Chink as was scraggin' me! Shake, mate!"
I shook hands with him, Harley eyeing me closely the
while, in a manner which told me that his quick brain had
already supplied the link connecting our doped
acquaintance with my strange experience during his
absence. At the same time it occurred to me that my
fireman friend did not know that Ah Fu was dead, or he
would never have broached the subject so openly.
"That's so," I said, and wondered if he required further
information.
"It's all right, mate. I don't want to 'ear no more
about blinking pigtails -- not all my life I don't," and
he sat back heavily in his chair and stared at Harley.
"Where have you been?" inquired Harley, as if no
interruption had occurred, and then began to reload his
pipe: "at Malay Jack's or at Number Fourteen?"
"Neither of 'em!" cried the fireman, some evidence of
animation appearing in his face; "I been at Kwen Lung's."
"In Pennyfields?"
"That's 'im, the old bloke with the big joss. I allers
goes to see Ma Lorenzo when I'm in Port o' London. I've
seen 'er for the last time, mates."
He banged a big and dirty hand upon the table.
"Last night I see murder done, an' only that I know they
wouldn't believe me, I'd walk across to Limehouse P'lice
Station presently and put the splits on 'em, I would."
Harley, who was seated behind the speaker, glanced at me
significantly.
"Sure you wasn't dreamin'?" he inquired facetiously.
"Dreamin'!" cried the man. "Dreams don't leave no blood
be'ind, do they?"
"Blood!" I exclaimed.
"That's wot I said -- blood! When I woke up this mornin'
there was blood all on that grinnin' joss -- the blood wot
'ad dripped from 'er shoulders when she fell."
"Eh!" said Harley. "Blood on whose shoulders? Wot the
'ell are you talkin' about, old son?"
"Ere" -- the fireman turned in his chair and grasped
Harley by the arm -- "listen to me, and I'll tell you
somethink, I will. I'm goin' in the Seahawk in the mornin'
see? But if you want to know somethink, I'll tell yer.
Drunk or sober I bars the blasted p'lice, but if you like
to tell 'em I'll put you on somethink worth tellin'. Sure
the bottle's empty, mates?"
I caught Harley's glance and divided the remainder of
the whisky evenly between the three glasses.
"Good 'ealth," said the fireman, and disposed of his
share at a draught. "That's bucked me up wonderful."
He lay back in his chair and from a little tobacco-box
began to fill a short clay pipe.
"Look 'ere, mates, I'm soberin' up, like, after the
smoke, an' I can see, I can see plain, as nobody'll ever
believe me. Nobody ever does, worse luck, but 'ere goes.
Pass the matches."
He lighted his pipe, and looking about him in a sort of
vaguely aggressive way:
"Last night," he resumed, "after I was chucked out of
the Dock Gates, I made up my mind to go and smoke a pipe
with old Ma Lorenzo. Round I goes to Pennyfields, and she
don't seem glad to see me. There's nobody there only me.
Not like the old days when you 'ad to book your seat in
advance."
He laughed gruffly.
"She didn't want to let me in at first, said they was
watched, that if a Chink 'ad an old pipe wot 'ad b'longed
to 'is grandfather it was good enough to get 'im fined
fifty quid. Anyway, me bein' an old friend she spread a
mat for me and filled me a pipe. I asked after old Kwen
Lung, but, of course, 'e was out gamblin', as usual; so
after old Ma Lorenzo 'ad made me comfortable an' gone out
I 'ad the place to myself, and presently I dozed off and
forgot all about bloody ship's bunkers an' nigger-drivin'
Scotchmen."
He paused and looked about him defiantly.
"I dunno 'ow long I slept," he continued, "but some time
in the night I kind of 'alf woke up."
At that he twisted violently in his chair and glared
across at Harley:
"You been a pal to me," he said; "but tell me I was
dreamin' again and I'll smash yer bloody face!"
He glared for a while, then addressing his narrative
more particularly to me, he resumed:
"It was a scream wot woke me -- a woman's scream. I
didn't sit up; I couldn't. I never felt like it before. It
was the same as bein' buried alive, I should think. I
could see an' I could 'ear, but I couldn't move one muscle
in my body. Foller me? An' wot did I see, mates, an' wot
did I 'ear? I'm goin' to tell yer. I see old Kwen Lung's
daughter -- "
"I didn't know 'e 'ad one," murmured Harley.
"Then you don't know much!" shouted the fireman. "I knew
years ago, but 'e kept 'er stowed away somewhere up above,
an' last night was the first time I ever see 'er. It was
'er shriek wot 'ad reached me, reached me through the
smoke. I don't take much stock in Chink gals in general,
but this one's mother was no Chink, I'll swear. She was
just as pretty as a bloomin' ivory doll, an' as little an'
as white, and that old swine Kwen Lung 'ad tore the dress
off of 'er shoulders with a bloody great whip!"
Harley was leaning forward in his seat now, intent upon
the man's story, and although I could not get rid of the
idea that our friend was relating the events of a
particularly unpleasant opium dream, nevertheless I was
fascinated by the strange story and by the strange manner
of its telling.
"I saw the blood drip from 'er bare shoulders, mates,"
the man continued huskily, and with his big dirty hands he
strove to illustrate his words. "An' that old yellow devil
lashed an' lashed until the poor gal was past screamin'.
She just sunk down on the floor all of a 'cap, moanin' and
moanin' -- Gawd! I can 'ear 'er moanin' now!"
"Meanwhile, 'ere's me with murder in me 'eart lyin'
there watchin', an' I can't speak, no! I can't even curse
the yellow rat, an' I can't move -- not a 'and, not a
foot! Just as she fell there right up against the joss an'
'er blood trickled down on 'is gilded feet, old Ma Lorenzo
comes staggerin' in. I remember all this as clear as
print, mates, remember it plain, but wot 'appened next
ain't so good an' clear. Somethink seemed to bust in me
'ead. Only just before I went off, the winder -- there's
only one in the room -- was smashed to smithereens an'
somebody come in through it."
"Are you sure?" said Harley eagerly. "Are you sure?"
That he was intensely absorbed in the story he revealed
by a piece of bad artistry, very rare in him. He
temporarily forgot his dialect. Our marine friend,
however, was too much taken up with his own story to
notice the slip, and:
"Dead sure!" he shouted.
He suddenly twisted around in his chair.
"Tell me I was dreamin', mate," he invited, "and if you
ain't dreamin' in 'arf a tick it won't be because I
'aven't put yer to sleep!"
"I ain't arguin', old son," said Harley soothingly. "Get
on with your yarn."
"Ho!" said the fireman, mollified, "so long as you
ain't. Well, then, it's all blotted out after that.
Somebody come in at the winder, but 'oo it was or wot it
was I can't tell yer, not for fifty quid. When I woke up,
which is about 'arf an hour before you see me, I'm all
alone -- see? There's no sign of Kwen Lung nor the gal nor
old Ma Lorenzo nor anybody. I sez to meself, wot you keep
on sayin'. I sez, 'You're dreamin', Bill.'"
"But I don't think you was," declared Harley. "Straight
I don't."
"I know I wasn't!" roared the fireman, and banged the
table lustily. "I see 'er blood on the joss an' on the
floor where she lay!"
"This morning?" I interjected.
"This mornin', in the light of the little oil lamp where
old Ma Lorenzo 'ad roasted the pills! It's all still an'
quiet an' I feel more dead than alive. I'm goin' to give
'er a hail, see? When I sez to myself, 'Bill,' I sez, 'put
out to sea; you're amongst Kaffirs, Bill.' It occurred to
me as old Kwen Lung might wonder 'ow much I knew. So I
beat it. But when I got in the open air I felt I'd never
make my lodgin's without a tonic. That's 'ow I come to
meet you, mates.
"Listen -- I'm away in the old Seahawk in the mornin',
but I'll tell you somethink. That yellow bastard killed
his daughter last night! Beat 'er to death. I see it
plain. The sweetest, prettiest bit of ivory as Gawd ever
put breath into. If 'er body ain't in the river, it's in
the 'ouse. Drunk or sober, I never could stand the splits,
but mates" -- he stood up, and grasping me by the arm, he
drew me across the room where he also seized Harley in his
muscular grip -- "mates," he went on earnestly, "she was
the sweetest, prettiest little gal as a man ever clapped
eyes on. One of yer walk into Limehouse Station an' put
the koppers wise. I'd sleep easier at sea if I knew old
Kwen Lung 'ad gone west on a bloody rope's end."
Chapter II
At Kwen Lung's
For fully ten minutes after the fireman had departed
Paul Harley sat staring abstractedly in front of him, his
cold pipe between his teeth, and knowing his moods I
intruded no words upon this reverie, until:
"Come on, Knox," he said, standing up suddenly, "I think
this matter calls for speedy action."
"What! Do you think the man's story was true?"
"I think nothing. I am going to look at Kwen Lung's
joss."
Without another word he led the way downstairs and out
into the deserted street. The first gray halftones of dawn
were creeping into the sky, so that the outlines of
Limehouse loomed like dim silhouettes about us. There was
abundant evidence in the form of noises, strange and
discordant, that many workers were busy on dock and
riverside, but the streets through which our course lay
were almost empty. Sometimes a furtive shadow would move
out of some black gully and fade into a dimly seen doorway
in a manner peculiarly unpleasant and Asiatic. But we met
no palpable pedestrian throughout the journey.
Before the door of a house in Pennyfields which closely
resembled that which we had left in Wade Street, in that
it was flatly uninteresting, dirty and commonplace, we
paused. There was no sign of life about the place and no
lights showed at any of the windows, which appeared as dim
cavities -- eyeless sockets in the gray face of the
building, as dawn proclaimed the birth of a new day.
Harley seized the knocker and knocked sharply. There was
no response, and he repeated the summons, but again
without effect. Thereupon, with a muttered exclamation, he
grasped the knocker a third time and executed a veritable
tattoo upon the door. When this had proceeded for about
half a minute or more:
"All right, all right!" came a shaky voice from within.
"I'm coming."
Harley released the knocker, and, turning to me:
"Ma Lorenzo," he whispered. "Don't make any mistakes."
Indeed, even as he warned me, heralded by a creaking of
bolts and the rattling of a chain, the door was opened by
a fat, shapeless, half-caste woman of indefinite age; in
whose dark eyes, now sunken in bloated cheeks, in whose
full though drooping lips, and even in the whole overlaid
contour of whose face and figure it was possible to
recognize the traces of former beauty. This was Ma
Lorenzo, who for many years had lived at that address with
old Kwen Lung, of whom strange stories were told in
Chinatown.
As Bill Jones, A.B., my friend, Paul Harley, was well
known to Ma Lorenzo as he was well known to many others in
that strange colony which clusters round the London docks.
I sometimes enjoyed the privilege of accompanying my
friend on a tour of investigation through the weird
resorts which abound in that neighbourhood, and, indeed,
we had been returning from one of these Baghdad nights
when our present adventure had been thrust upon us.
Assuming a wild and boisterous manner which he had at
command:
"'Urry up, Ma!" said Harley, entering without ceremony;
"I want to introduce my pal Jim 'ere to old Kwen Lung, and
make it all right for him before I sail."
Ma Lorenzo, who was half Portuguese, replied in her
peculiar accent:
"This no time to come waking me up out of bed!"
But Harley, brushing past her, was already inside the
stuffy little room, and I hastened to follow.
"Kwen Lung!" shouted my friend loudly. "Where are you?
Brought a friend to see you."
"Kwen Lung no hab," came the complaining tones of Ma
Lorenzo from behind us.
It was curious to note how long association with the
Chinese had resulted in her catching the infection of that
pidgin-English which is a sort of esperanto in all Asiatic
quarters.
"Eh!" cried my friend, pushing open a door on the right
of the passage and stumbling down three worn steps into a
very evil- smelling room. "Where is he?"
"Go play fan-tan. Not come back."
Ma Lorenzo, having relocked the street door, had
rejoined us, and as I followed my friend down into the dim
and uninviting apartment she stood at the top of the
steps, hands on hips, regarding us.
The place, which was quite palpably an opium den, must
have disappointed anyone familiar with the more ornate
houses of Chinese vice in San Francisco and elsewhere. The
bare floor was not particularly clean, and the few
decorations which the room boasted were garishly European
for the most part. A deep divan, evidently used sometimes
as a bed, occupied one side of the room, and just to the
left of the steps reposed the only typically Oriental
object in the place. It was a strange thing to see in so
sordid a setting; a great gilded joss, more than
life-size, squatting, hideous, upon a massive pedestal; a
figure fit for some native temple but strangely out of
place in that dirty little Limehouse abode.
I had never before visited Kwen Lung's, but the fame of
his golden joss had reached me, and I know that he had
received many offers for it, all of which he had rejected.
It was whispered that Kwen Lung was rich, that he was a
great man among the Chinese, and even that some kind of
religious ceremony periodically took place in his house.
Now, as I stood staring at the famous idol, I saw
something which made me stare harder than ever.
The place was lighted by a hanging lamp from which
depended bits of coloured paper and several gilded silk
tassels; but dim as the light was it could not conceal
those tell-tale stains.
There was blood on the feet of the golden idol!
All this I detected at a glance, but ere I had time to
speak:
"You can't tell me that tale, Ma!" cried Harley. "I
believe 'e was smokin' in 'ere when we knocked."
The woman shrugged her fat shoulders.
"No, hab," she repeated. "You two johnnies clear out.
Let me sleep."
But as I turned to her, beneath the nonchalant manner I
could detect a great uneasiness; and in her dark eyes
there was fear. That Harley also had seen the bloodstains
I was well aware, and I did not doubt that furthermore he
had noted the fact that the only mat which the room
boasted had been placed before the joss -- doubtless to
hide other stains upon the boards.
As we stood so I presently became aware of a current of
air passing across the room in the direction of the open
door. It came from a window before which a tawdry red
curtain had been draped. Either the window behind the
curtain was wide open, which is alien to Chinese habits,
or it was shattered. While I was wondering if Harley
intended to investigate further:
"Come on, Jim!" he cried boisterously, and clapped me on
the shoulder; "the old fox don't want to be disturbed."
He turned to the woman:
"Tell him when he wakes up, Ma," he said, "that if ever
my pal Jim wants a pipe he's to 'ave one. Savvy? Jim's
square."
"Savvy," replied the woman, and she was wholly unable to
conceal her relief. "You clear out now, and I tell Kwen
Lung when he come in."
"Righto, Ma!" said Harley. "Kiss 'im on both cheeks for
me, an' tell 'im I'll be 'ome again in a month."
Grasping me by the arm he lurched up the steps, and the
two of us presently found ourselves out in the street
again. In the growing light the squalor of the district
was more evident than ever, but the comparative freshness
of the air was welcome after the reek of that room in
which the golden idol sat leering, with blood at his feet.
"You saw, Harley?" I exclaimed excitedly. "You saw the
stains? And I'm certain the window was broken!"
Harley nodded shortly.
"Back to Wade Street!" he said. "I allow myself fifteen
minutes to shed Bill Jones, able seaman, and to become
Paul Harley, of Chancery Lane."
As we hurried along:
"What steps shall you take?" I asked.
"First step: search Kwen Lung's house from cellar to
roof. Second step: entirely dependent upon result of
first. The Chinese are subtle, Knox. If Kwen Lung has
killed his daughter, it may require all the resources of
Scotland Yard to prove it."
"But -- "
"There is no 'but' about it. Chinatown is the one
district of London which possesses the property of
swallowing people up."
Chapter III
"Captain Dan"
Half an hour later, as I sat in the inner room before
the great dressing-table laboriously removing my disguise
-- for I was utterly incapable of metamorphosing myself
like Harley in seven minutes -- I heard a rapping at the
outer door. I glanced nervously at my face in the mirror.
Comparatively little of "Jim" had yet been removed, for
since time was precious to my friend I had acted as his
dresser before setting to work to remove my own make-up.
There were two entrances to the establishment, by one of
which Paul Harley invariably entered and invariably went
out, and from the other of which "Bill Jones" was
sometimes seen to emerge, but never Paul Harley. That my
friend had made good his retirement I knew, but,
nevertheless, if I had to open the door of the outer room
it must be as "Jim."
Thinking it impolite not to do so, since the one who
knocked might be aware that we had come in but not gone
out again, I hastily readjusted that side of my moustache
which I had begun to remove, replaced my cap and muffler,
and carefully locking the door of the dressing-room,
crossed the outer apartment and opened the door.
It was Harley's custom never to enter or leave these
rooms except under the mantle of friendly night, but at so
early an hour I confess I had not expected a visitor.
Wondering whom I should find there I opened the door.
Standing on the landing was a fellow-lodger who
permanently occupied the two top rooms of the house. Paul
Harley had taken the trouble to investigate the man's
past, for "Captain Dan," the name by which he was known in
the saloons and worse resorts which he frequented, was
palpably a broken-down gentleman; a piece of flotsam
caught in the yellow stream. Opium had been his downfall.
How he lived I never knew, but Harley believed he had some
small but settled income, sufficient to enable him to kill
himself in comfort with the black pills.
As he stood there before me in the early morning light,
I was aware of some subtle change in his appearance. It
was fully six months since I had seen him last, but in
some vague way he looked younger. Haggard he was, with an
ugly cut showing on his temple, but not so lined as I
remembered him. Some former man seemed to be struggling
through the opium-scarred surface. His eyes were brighter,
and I noted with surprise that he wore decent clothes and
was clean shaved.
"Good morning, Jim," he said; "you remember me, don't
you?"
As he spoke I observed, too, that his manner had
altered. He who had consorted with the sweepings af the
doss-houses now addressed me as a courteous gentleman
addresses an inferior -- not haughtily or patronizingly,
but with a note of conscious superiority and self-respect
wholly unfamiliar. Almost it threw me off my guard, but
remembering in the nick of time that I was still "Jim":
"Of course I remember you, Cap'n," I said. "Step
inside."
"Thanks," he replied, and followed me into the little
room.
I placed for him the arm-chair which our friend the
fireman had so recently occupied, but:
"I won't sit down," he said.
And now I observed that he was evidently in a condition
of repressed excitement. Perhaps he saw the curiosity in
my glance, for he suddenly rested both his hands on my
shoulders, and:
"Yes, I have given up the dope, Jim," he said -- -"done
with it for ever. There's not a soul in this neighbourhood
I can trust, yet if ever a man wanted a pal, I want one
to-day. Now, you're square, my lad. I always knew that, in
spite of the dope; and if I ask you to do a little thing
that means a lot to me, I think you will do it. Am I
right?"
"If it can be done, I'll do it," said I.
"Then, listen. I'm leaving England in the Patna for
Singapore. She sails at noon to-morrow, and passengers go
on board at ten o'clock. I've got my ticket, papers in
order, but" -- he paused impressively, grasping my
shoulders hard -- "I must get on board to-night."
I stared him in the face.
"Why?" I asked.
He returned my look with one searching and eager; then:
"If I show you the reason," said he, "and trust you with
all my papers, will you go down to the dock -- it's no
great distance -- and ask to see Marryat, the chief
officer? Perhaps you've sailed with him?"
"No," I replied guardedly. "I was never in the Patna."
"Never mind. When you give him a letter which I shall
write he will make the necessary arrangements for me to
occupy my state- room to-night. I knew him well," he
explained, "in -- the old days. Will you do it, Jim?"
"I'll do it with pleasure," I answered.
"Shake!" said Captain Dan.
We shook hands heartily, and:
"Now I'll show you the reason," he added. "Come
upstairs."
Turning, he led the way upstairs to his own room, and
wondering greatly, I followed him in. Never having been in
Captain Dan's apartments I cannot say whether they, like
their occupant, had changed for the better. But I found
myself in a room surprisingly clean and with a note of
culture in its appointments which was even more
surprising.
On a couch by the window, wrapped in a fur rug, lay the
prettiest half-caste girl I had ever seen, East or West.
Her skin was like cream rose petals and her abundant hair
was of wonderful lustrous black. Perhaps it was her smooth
warm colour which suggested the idea, but as her cheeks
flushed at sight of Captain Dan and the long dark eyes
lighted up in welcome, I thought of a delicate painting on
ivory and I wondered more and more what it all could mean.
"I have brought Jim to see you," said Captain Dan. "No,
don't trouble to move dear."
But even before he had spoken I had seen the girl wince
with pain as she had endeavoured to sit up to greet us.
She lay on her side in a rather constrained attitude, but
although her sudden movement had brought tears to her eyes
she smiled bravely and extended a tiny ivory hand to me.
"This is my wife, Jim!" said Captain Dan.
I could find no words at all, but merely stood there
looking very awkward and feeling almost awed by the
indescribable expression of trust in the eyes of the
little Eurasian, as with her tiny fingers hidden in her
husband's clasp she lay looking up at him.
"Now you know, Jim," said he, "why we must get aboard
the Patna to-night. My wife is really too ill to travel;
in fact, I shall have to carry her down to the cab, and
such a proceeding in daylight would attract an enormous
crowd in this neighbourhood!"
"Give me the letters and the papers," I answered. "I
will start now."
His wife disengaged her hand and extended it to me.
"Thank you," she said, in a queer little silver-bell
voice; "you are good. I shall always love you."
Chapter IV
The Secret Of Ma Lorenzo
It must have been about eleven o'clock that night when
Paul Harley rang me up. Since we had parted in the early
morning I had had no word from him, and I was all anxiety
to tell him of the quaint little romance which unknown to
us had had its setting in the room above.
In accordance with my promise I had seen the chief
officer of the Patna; and from the start of surprise which
he gave on opening "Captain Dan's" letter, I judged that
Mr. Marryat and the man who for so long had sunk to the
lowest rung of the ladder had been close friends in those
"old days." At any rate, he had proceeded to make the
necessary arrangements without a moment's delay, and the
couple were to go on board the Patna at nine o'clock.
It was with a sense of having done at least one good
deed that I finally quitted our Limehouse base and
returned to my rooms. Now, at eleven o'clock at night:
"Can you come round to Chancery Lane at once?" said
Harley. "I want you to run down to Pennyfields with me."
"Some development in the Kwen Lung business?"
"Hardly a development, but I'm not satisfied, Knox. I
hate to be beaten."
Twenty minutes later I was sitting in Harley's study,
watching him restlessly promenading up and down before the
fire.
"The police searched Kwen Lung's place from foundation
to tiles," he said. "I was there myself. Old Kwen Lung
conveniently kept out of the way -- still playing fan-tan,
no doubt! But Ma Lorenzo was in evidence. She blandly
declared that Kwen Lung never had a daughter! And in the
absence of our friend the fireman, who sailed in the
Seahawk, and whose evidence, by the way, is legally
valueless -- what could we do? They could find nobody in
the neighbourhood prepared to state that Kwen Lung had a
daughter or that Kwen Lung had no daughter. There are all
sorts of fables about the old fox, but the facts about him
are harder to get at."
"But," I explained, "the bloodstains on the joss!"
"Ma Lorenzo stumbled and fell there on the previous
night, striking her skull against the foot of the figure."
"What nonsense!" I cried. "We should have seen the wound
last night."
"We might have done," said Harley musingly; "I don't
know when she inflicted it on herself; but I did see it
this morning."
"What!"
"Oh, the gash is there all right, partly covered by her
hair."
He stood still, staring at me oddly.
"One meets with cases of singular devotion in unexpected
quarters sometimes," he said.
"You mean that the woman inflicted the wound upon
herself in order -- "
'To save old Kwen Lung -- exactly! It's marvellous."
"Good heavens!" I exclaimed. "And the window?"
"Oh! it was broken right enough -- by two drunken
sailormen fighting in the court outside! Sash and
everything smashed to splinters."
He began irritably to pace the carpet again.
"It must have been a devil of a fight!" he added
savagely.
"Meanwhile," said I, "where is old Kwen Lung hiding?"
"But more particularly," cried Harley, "where has he
hidden the poor victim? Come along, Knox! I'm going down
there for a final look round."
"Of course the premises are being watched?"
"Of course -- and also, of course, I shall be the
laughing stock of Scotland Yard if nothing results."
It was close on midnight when once more I found myself
in Pennyfields. Carried away by Harley's irritable
excitement I had quite forgotten the romance of Captain
Dan; and when, having exchanged greetings with the
detective on duty hard by the house of Kwen Lung, we
presently found ourselves in the presence of Ma Lorenzo, I
scarcely knew for a moment if I were "Jim" or my proper
self.
"Is Kwen Lung in?" asked Harley sternly.
The woman shook her head.
"No," she replied; "he sometimes stop away a whole
week."
"Does he?" jerked Harley. "Come in, Knox; we'll take
another look round."
A moment later I found myself again in the room of the
golden joss. The red curtain had been removed from before
the shattered window, but otherwise the place looked
exactly as it had looked before. The atmosphere was much
less stale, however, but there was something repellent
about the great gilded idol smiling eternally from his
pedestal beside the door.
I stared into the leering face, and it was the face of
one who knew and who might have said: "Yes! this and other
things equally strange have I beheld in many lands as well
as England. Much I could tell. Many things grim and
terrible, and some few joyous; for behold! I smile but am
silent."
For a while Harley stared abstractedly at the
bloodstains on the pedestal of the joss and upon the floor
beneath from which the matting had been pulled back.
Suddenly he turned to Ma Lorenzo:
"Where have you hidden the body?" he demanded.
Watching her, I thought I saw the woman flinch, but
there was enough of the Oriental in her composition to
save her from self- betrayal. She shook her head slowly,
watching Harley through half-closed eyes.
"Nobody hab," she replied.
And I thought for once that her lapse into pidgin had
been deliberate and not accidental.
When finally we quitted the house of the missing Kwen
Lung, and when, Harley having curtly acknowledged "good
night" from the detective on duty, we came out into
Limehouse Causeway.
"You have not overlooked the possibility, Harley," I
said, "that this woman's explanation may be true, and that
the fireman of the Seahawk may have been entertaining us
with an account of a weird dream?"
"No!" snapped Harley -- "neither will Scotland Yard
overlook it."
He was in a particularly impossible mood, for he so
rarely made mistakes that to be detected in one invariably
brought out those petulant traits of character which may
have been due in some measure to long residence in the
East. Recognizing that he would rather be alone I parted
from him at the corner of Chancery Lane and returned to my
own chambers. Furthermore, I was very tired, for it was
close upon two o'clock, and on turning in I very promptly
went to sleep, nor did I awaken until late in the morning.
For some odd reason, but possibly because the fact had
occurred to me just as I was retiring, I remembered at the
moment of waking that I had not told Harley about the
romantic wedding of Captain Dan. As I had left my friend
in very ill humour I thought that this would be a good
excuse for an early call, and just before eleven o'clock I
walked into his office. Innes, his invaluable secretary,
showed me into the study at the back.
"Hallo, Knox," said Harley, looking up from a little
silver Buddha which he was examining, "have you come to
ask for news of the Kwen Lung case?"
"No," I replied. "Is there any?"
Harley shook his head.
"It seems like fate," he declared, "that this thing
should have been sent to me this morning." He indicated
the silver Buddha. "A present from a friend who knows my
weakness for Chinese ornaments," he explained grimly. "It
reminds me of that damned joss of Kwen Lung's!"
I took up the little image and examined it with
interest. It was most beautifully fashioned in the patient
Oriental way, and there was a little hinged door in the
back which fitted so perfectly that when closed it was
quite impossible to detect its presence. I glanced at
Harley.
"I suppose you didn't find a jewel inside?" I said
lightly.
"No," he replied; "there was nothing inside."
But even as he uttered the words his whole expression
changed, and so suddenly as to startle me. He sprang up
from the table, and:
"Have you an hour to spare, Knox?" he cried excitedly.
"I can spare an hour, but what for?"
"For Kwen Lung!"
Four minutes later we were speeding in the direction of
Limehouse, and not a word of explanation to account for
this sudden journey could I extract from my friend.
Therefore I beguiled the time by telling him of my
adventure with Captain Dan.
Harley listened to the story in unbroken silence, but at
its termination he brought his hand down sharply on my
knee.
"I have been almost perfectly blind, Knox," he said;
"but not quite so perfectly blind as you!"
I stared at him in amazement, but he merely laughed and
offered no explanation of his words.
Presently, then, I found myself yet again in the
familiar room of the golden joss. Ma Lorenzo, in whom some
hidden anxiety seemed to have increased since I had last
seen her, stood at the top of the stairs watching us. Upon
what idea my friend was operating and what he intended to
do I could not imagine; but without a word to the woman he
crossed the room and grasping the great golden idol with
both arms he dragged it forward across the floor!
As he did so there was a stifled shriek, and Ma Lorenzo,
stumbling down the steps, threw herself on her knees
before Harley! Raising imploring hands:
"No, no!" she moaned. "Not until I tell you -- I tell
you everything first!"
"To begin with, tell me how to open this thing," he said
sternly.
Momentarily she hesitated, and did not rise from her
knees, but:
"Do you hear me?" he cried.
The woman rose unsteadily and walking slowly round the
joss manipulated some hidden fastening, whereupon the
entire back of the thing opened like a door! From what was
within she shudderingly averted her face, but Harley,
stepping back against the wall, stopped and peered into
the cavity.
"Good God!" he muttered. "Come and look, Knox."
Prepared by his manner for some gruesome spectacle, I
obeyed -- and from that which I saw I recoiled in horror.
"Harley," I whispered, "Harley! who is it?"
The spectacle had truly sickened me. Crouched within the
narrow space enclosed by the figure of the idol was the
body of an old and wrinkled Chinaman! His knees were drawn
up to his chin, and his head so compressed upon them that
little of his features could be seen.
"It is Kwen Lung!" murmured Ma Lorenzo, standing with
clasped hands and wild eyes over by the window. "Kwen Lung
-- and I am glad he is dead!"
Such a note of hatred came into her voice as I had never
heard in the voice of any woman.
"He is vile, a demon, a mocking cruel demon! Long, long
years ago I would have killed him, but always I was
afraid. I tell you everything, everything. This is how he
comes to be dead. The little one" -- again her voice
changed and a note of almost grotesque tenderness came
into it -- "the lotus-flower, that is his own daughter's
child, flesh of his flesh, he keeps a prisoner as the
women of China are kept, up there" -- she raised one fat
finger aloft -- "up above. He does not know that someone
comes to see her -- someone who used to come to smoke but
who gave it up because he had looked into the dear one's
eye. He does not know that she goes with me to see her
man. Ah! we think he does not know! I -- I arrange it all.
A week ago they were married. Tuesday night, when Kwen
Lung die, I plan for her to steal away for ever, for
ever."
Tears now were running down the woman's fat cheeks, and
her voice quivered emotionally.
"For me it is the end, but for her it is the beginning
of life. All right! I don't matter a damn! She is young
and beautiful. Ah, God! so beautiful! A drunken pig comes
here and finds his way in, so I give him the smoke and
presently he sleeps, but it makes delay, and I don't know
how soon Kwen Lung, that yellow demon, will wake. For he
is like the bats who sleep all day and wake at night.
"At last the sailor pig sleeps and I call softly to my
dear little one that the time has come. I have gone out
into the street, locking the door behind me, to see if her
man is waiting, and I hear her shrieks -- her shrieks! I
hurry back. My hands tremble so much that I can scarcely
unlock the door. At last I enter, and I see and I know --
that yellow devil has learned all and has been playing
with us like cat and mouse! He is lashing her, with a
great whip! Lashing her -- that tiny, sweet flower. Ah!"
She choked in her utterance, and turning to the gilded
joss which contained the dead Chinaman she shook her
clenched hands at it, and the expression, on her face I
can never forget. Then:
"As I shriek curses at him, crash goes the window -- and
I see her husband spring into the room! The tender one had
fallen, there at the foot of the joss, and Kwen Lung, his
teeth gleaming -- like a rat -- like a devill -- turns to
meet him. So he is when her man strike him, once. Just
once, here." She rested her hand upon her heart. "And he
falls -- and he coughs. He lie still. For him it is
finished. That devil heart has ceased to beat. Ah!"
She threw up her hands, and:
"That is all. I tell you no more."
"One thing more," said Harley sternly; "the name of the
man who killed Kwen Lung?"
At that Ma Lorenzo slowly raised her head and folded her
arms across her bosom. There was something one could never
forget in the expression of her fat face.
"Not if you burn me alive!" she answered in a low voice.
"No one ever knows that -- from me."
She sank on to the divan and buried her face in her
hands. Her fat shoulders shook grotesquely; and Harley
stood perfectly still staring across at her for fully a
minute. I could hear voices in the street outside and the
hum of traffic in Limehouse Causeway.
Then my friend did a singular thing. Walking over to the
gilded joss he reclosed the opening and not without a
great effort pushed the great idol back against the wall.
"There are times, Knox," he said, staring at me oddly,
"when I'm glad that I am not an official agent of the
law."
While I watched him dumfounded he walked across to the
woman and touched her on the shoulder. She raised her
tear-stained face.
"All right," she whispered. "I am ready."
"Get ready as soon as you like," said he tersely.
"I'll have the man removed who is watching the house,
and you can reckon on forty-eight hours to make yourself
scarce."
With never another word he seized me by the arm and
hurried me out of the place! Ten paces along the street a
shabby-looking fellow was standing, leaning against a
pillar. Harley stopped, and:
"Even the greatest men make mistakes sometimes, Hewitt,"
he remarked. "I'm throwing up the case; probably Inspector
Wessex will do the same. Good morning."
On towards the Causeway he led me -- for not a word was
I capable of uttering; and just before we reached that
artery of Chinatown, from down-river came the deep,
sustained note of a steamer's siren, the warning of some
big liner leaving dock.
"That will be the Patna," said Harley. "She sails at
twelve o'clock, I think you said?"
Man With The Shaven Skull
Chapter I
A Strange Disappearance
"Pull that light lower," ordered Inspector Wessex.
"There you are, Mr. Harley; what do you make of it?"
Paul Harley and I bent gingerly over the ghastly exhibit
to which the C.I.D. official had drawn our attention, and
to view which we had journeyed from Chancery Lane to
Wapping.
This was the body of a man dressed solely in ragged
shirt and trousers. But the remarkable feature of his
appearance lay in the fact that every scrap of hair from
chin, lip, eyebrows and skull had been shaved off!
There was another facial disfigurement, peculiarly and
horribly Eastern, which my pen may not describe.
"Impossible to identify!" murmured Harley. "Yes, you
were right, Inspector; this is a victim of Oriental
deviltry. Look here, too!"
He indicated three small wounds, one situated on the
left shoulder and the others on the forearm of the dead
man.
"The divisional surgeon cannot account for them,"
replied Wessex. "They are quite superficial, and he thinks
they may be due to the fact that the body got entangled
with something in the river."
"They are due to the fact that the man had a birthmark
on his shoulder and something -- probably a name or some
device -- tattooed on his arm," said Harley quietly. "Some
few years ago, I met with a similar case in the
neighbourhood of Stambul. A woman," he added,
significantly.
Detective-Inspector Wessex listened to my companion with
respect, for apart from his established reputation as a
private inquiry- agent which had made his name familiar in
nearly every capital of the civilized world, Paul Harley's
work in Constantinople during the six months preceding war
with Turkey had merited higher reward than it had ever
received. Had his recommendations been adopted the course
of history must have been materially changed.
"You think it's a Chinatown case, then, Mr. Harley?"
"Possibly," was the guarded answer.
Paul Harley nodded to the constable in charge, and the
ghastly figure was promptly covered up again. My friend
stood staring vacantly at Wessex, and presently:
"The chief actor, I think, will prove to be not
Chinese," he said, turned, and walked out.
"If there's any development," remarked Wessex as the
three of us entered Harley's car, which stood at the door,
"I will, of course, report to you, Mr. Harley. But in the
absence of any clue or mark of identification, I fear the
verdict will be, 'Body of a man unknown,' etc., which has
marked the finish of a good many in this cheerful quarter
of London."
"Quite so," said Harley, absently. "It presents
extraordinary features, though, and may not end as you
suppose. However -- where do you want me to drop you,
Wessex, at the Yard?"
"Oh no," answered Wessex. "I made a special visit to
Wapping just to get your opinion on the shaven man. I'm
really going down to Deepbrow to look into that new
disappearance case; the daughter of the gamekeeper. You'll
have read of it?"
"I have," said Harley shortly.
Indeed, readers of the daily press were growing tired of
seeing on the contents bills: "Another girl missing." The
circumstance (which might have been no more than
coincidence) that three girls had disappeared within the
last eight weeks leaving no trace behind, had stimulated
the professional scribes to link the cases, although no
visible link had been found, and to enliven a somewhat
dull journalistic season with theories about "a new Mormon
menace."
The vanishing of this fourth girl had inspired them to
some startling headlines, and the case had interested me
personally for the reason that I was acquainted with Sir
Howard Hepwell, one of whose gamekeepers was the
stepfather of the missing Molly Clayton. Moreover, it was
hinted that she had gone away in the company of Captain
Ronald Vane, at that time a guest of Sir Howard's at the
Manor.
In fact, Sir Howard had 'phoned to ask me if I could
induce Harley to run down, but my friend had expressed
himself as disinterested in a common case of elopement.
Now, as Wessex spoke, I glanced aside at Harley, wondering
if the fact that so celebrated a member of the C.I.D. as
Detective-Inspector Wessex had been put in charge would
induce him to change his mind.
We were traversing a particularly noisy and unsavoury
section of the Commercial Road, and although I could see
that Wessex was anxious to impart particulars of the case
to Harley, so loud was the din that I recognized the
impossibility of conversing, and therefore:
"Have you time to call at my rooms, Wessex?" I asked.
"Well," he replied, "I have three-quarters of an hour."
"You can do it in the car," said Harley suddenly. "I
have been asked to look into this case myself, and before
I definitely decline I should like to hear your version of
the matter."
Accordingly, we three presently gathered in my chambers,
and Wessex, with one eye on the clock, outlined the few
facts at that time in his possession respecting the
missing girl.
Two days before the news of the disappearance had been
published broadcast under such headings as I have already
indicated, a significant scene had been enacted in the
gamekeeper's cottage.
Molly Clayton, a girl whose remarkable beauty had made
her a central figure in numerous scandalous stories, for
such is the charity of rural neighbours, was detected by
her stepfather, about eight in the evening, slipping out
of the cottage.
"Where be ye goin', hussy?" he demanded, grasping her
promptly by the arm.
"For a walk!" she replied defiantly.
"A walk wi' that fine soger from t' Manor!" roared
Bramber furiously. "You'll be sorry yet, you barefaced
gadabout! Must I tell you again that t' man's a villain?"
The girl wrenched her arm from Bramber's grasp, and
blazed defiance from her beautiful eyes.
"He knows how to respect a woman -- what you don't!" she
retorted hotly.
"So I don't respect you, my angel?" shouted her
stepfather. "Then you know what you can do! The door's
open and there's few'll miss you!"
Snatching her hat, the girl, very white, made to go out.
Whereat the gamekeeper, a brutal man with small love for
Molly, and maddened by her taking him at his word, seized
her suddenly by her abundant fair hair and hauled her back
into the room.
A violent scene followed, at the end of which Molly
fainted and Bramber came out and locked the door.
When he came back about half-past nine the girl was
missing. She did not reappear that night, and the police
were advised in the morning. Their most significant
discovery was this:
Captain Ronald Vane, on the night of Molly's
disappearance, had left the Manor House, after dining
alone with his host, Sir Howard Hepwell, saying that he
proposed to take a stroll as far as the Deep Wood.
He never returned!
From the moment that Gamekeeper Bramber left his
cottage, and the moment when Sir Howard Hepwell parted
from his guest after dinner, the world to which these two
people, Molly Clayton and Captain Vane, were known, knew
them no more!
I was about to say that they were never seen again. But
to me has fallen the task of relating how and where Paul
Harley and I met with Captain Vane and Molly Clayton.
At the end of the Inspector's account:
"H'm," said Harley, glancing under his thick brows in my
direction, "could you spare the time, Knox?"
"To go to Deepbrow?" I asked with interest.
"Yes; we have ten minutes to catch the train."
"I'll come," said I. "Sir Howard will be delighted to
see you, Harley."
Chapter II
The Clue Of The Photographs
"What do you make of it, Inspector?" asked my friend.
Detective- Inspector Wessex smiled, and scratched his
chin.
"There was no need for me to come down!" he replied.
"And certainly no need for you, Mr. Harley!"
Harley bowed, smiling, at the implied compliment.
"It's a common or garden elopement!" continued the
detective. "Vane's reputation is absolutely rotten, and
the girl was clearly infatuated. He must have cared a good
bit, too. He'll be cashiered, as sure as a gun!"
Leaving Sir Howard at the Manor, we had joined Inspector
Wessex at a spot where the baronet's preserves bordered a
narrow lane. Here the ground was soft, and the detective
drew Harley's attention to a number of footprints by a
stile.
"I've got evidence that he was seen here with the girl
on other occasions. Now, Mr. Harley, I'll ask you to look
over these footprints."
Harley dropped to his knees and made a brief but close
examination of the ground round about. One particularly
clear imprint of a pointed toe he noticed especially; and
Wessex, diving into the pocket of his light overcoat,
produced a patent- leather shoe, such as is used for
evening wear.
"He had a spare pair in his bag," he explained
nonchalantly, "and his man did not prove incorruptible!"
Harley took the shoe and placed it in the impression. It
fitted perfectly!
"This is Molly Clayton, I take it?" he said, indicating
the prints of a woman's foot.
"Yes," assented Wessex. "You'll notice that they stood
for some little time and then walked off, very close
together."
Harley nodded absently.
"We lose them along here," continued Wessex, leading up
the lane; "but at the corner by the big haystack they join
up with the tracks of a motor-car! I ask for nothing
clearer! There was rain that afternoon, but there's been
none since."
"What does the Captain's man think?"
"The same as I do! He's not surprised at any madness on
Vane's part, with a pretty woman in the case!"
"The girl left nothing behind -- no note?"
"Nothing."
"Traced the car?"
"No. It must have been hired or borrowed from a long
distance off."
Where the tracks of the tires were visible we stopped,
and Harley made a careful examination of the marks.
"Seems to have had a struggle with her," he said, dryly.
"Very likely!" agreed Wessex, without interest.
Harley crawled about on the ground for some time, to the
great detriment of his Harris tweeds, but finally arose, a
curious expression on his face -- which, however, the
detective evidently failed to observe.
We returned to the Manor House where Sir Howard was
awaiting us, his good-humoured red face more red than
usual; and in the library, with its sporting prints and
its works for the most part dealing with riding, hunting,
racing, and golf (except for a sprinkling of Nat Gould's
novels and some examples of the older workmanship of
Whyte-Melville), we were presently comfortably ensconced.
On a side table were placed a generous supply of liquid
refreshments, cigars and cigarettes; so that we made
ourselves quite comfortable, and Sir Howard restrained his
indignation, until each had a glass before him and all
were smoking.
"Now," he began, "what have you got to report,
gentlemen? You, Inspector," he pointed with his cigar
toward Wessex, "have seen Vane's man and all of you have
been down to look at these damned tracks. I only want to
hear one thing; that you expect to trace the disgraceful
couple. I'll see to it" -- his voice rose almost to a
shout -- "that Vane is kicked out of the service, and as
to that shameless brat of Bramber's, I wish her no worse
than the blackguard's company!"
"One moment, Sir Howard, one moment," said Harley
quietly; "there are always two sides to a case."
"What do you mean, Mr. Harley? There's only one side
that interests me -- the outrage inflicted upon my
hospitality by this dirty guest of mine. For the girl I
don't give twopence; she was bound to come to a bad end."
"Well," said Harley, "before we pronounce the final
verdict upon either of them I should like to interview
Bramber. Perhaps," he added, turning to Wessex, "it would
be as well if Mr. Knox and I went alone. The presence of
an official detective sometimes awes this class of
witness."
"Quite right, quite right!" agreed Sir Howard, waving
his cigar vigorously. "Go and see Bramber, Mr. Harley;
tell him that no blame attaches to himself whatever; also,
tell him with my compliments that his stepdaughter is -- "
"Quite so, quite so," interrupted Harley, endeavouring
to hide a smile. "I understand your feelings, Sir Howard,
but again I ask you to reserve your verdict until all the
facts are before us."
As a result, Harley and I presently set out for the
gamekeeper's cottage, and as the man had been warned that
we should visit him, he was on the porch smoking his pipe.
A big, dark, ugly fellow he proved to be, of a very
forbidding cast of countenance. Having introduced
ourselves:
"I always knowed she'd come to a bad end!" declared
Gamekeeper Bramber, almost echoing Sir Howard's words.
"One o' these gentlemen o' hers was sure to be the finish
of her!"
"She had other admirers -- before Captain Vane?"
"Aye! the hussy! There was a black-faced villain not six
months since! He got t' vain cat to go to London an' have
her photograph done in a dress any decent woman would 'a'
blushed to look at! Like one o' these Venuses up at t'
Manor! Good riddance! She took after her mother!"
The violent old ruffian was awkward to examine, but
Harley persevered.
"This previous admirer caused her to be photographed in
that way, did he? Have you a copy?"
"No!" blazed Bramber. "What I found I burnt! He ran off,
like I told her he would -- an' her cryin' her eyes out!
But the pretty soger dried her tears quick enough!".
"Do you know this man's name?"
"No. A foreigner, he was."
"Where were the photographs done -- in London, you say?"
"Aye."
"Do you know by what photographer?"
"I don't! An' I don't care! Piccadilly they had on 'em,
which was good enough for me."
"Have you her picture?"
"No!"
"Did she receive a letter on the day of her
disappearance?"
"Maybe."
"Good day!" said Harley. "And let me add that the
atmosphere of her home was hardly conducive to ideal
conduct!"
Leaving Bramber to digest this rebuke, we came out of
the cottage. Dusk was falling now, and by the time that we
regained the Manor the place was lighted up. Inspector
Wessex was waiting for us in the library, and:
"Well?" he said, smiling slightly as we entered.
"Nothing much," replied Harley dryly, "except that I
don't wonder at the girl's leaving such a home."
"What's that! What!" roared a big voice, and Sir Howard
came into the room. "I tell you, Bramber only had one
fault as a stepfather; he wasn't heavy-handed enough. A
bad lot, sir, a bad lot!"
"Well, sir," said Inspector Wessex, looking from one to
another, "personally, beyond the usual inquiries at
railway stations, etc., I cannot see that we can do much
here. Don't you agree with me, Mr. Harley?"
Harley nodded.
"Quite," he replied. "There is a late train to town
which I think we could catch if we started at once."
"Eh?" roared Sir Howard; "you're not going back
to-night? Your rooms are ready for you, damn it!"
"I quite appreciate the kindness, Sir Howard," replied
Harley; "but I have urgent business to attend to in
London. Believe me, my departure is unavoidable."
The blue eyes of the baronet gleamed with the simple
cunning of his kind.
"You've got something up your sleeve," he roared. "I
know you have, I know you have!"
Inspector Wessex looked at me significantly, but I could
only shrug my shoulders in reply; for in these moods
Harley was as inscrutable as the Sphinx.
However, he had his way, and Sir Howard hurriedly
putting a car in commission, we raced for the local
station and just succeeded in picking up the express at
Claybury.
Wessex was rather silent throughout the journey, often
glancing in my friend's direction, but Harley made no
further reference to the case beyond outlining the
interview with Bramber, until, as we were parting at the
London terminus, Wessex to report to Scotland Yard and I
to go to Harley's rooms:
"How long do you think it will take you to find that
photographer, Wessex?" he asked.
"Piccadilly is a sufficient clue."
"Well," replied the Inspector, "nothing can be done
to-night, of course, but I should think by mid-day
tomorrow the matter should be settled."
"Right," said Harley shortly. "May I ask you to report
the result to me, Wessex?"
"I will report without fail."
Chapter III
Ali Of Cairo
It was not until the evening of the following day that
Harley rang me up, and:
"I want you to come round at once," he said urgently.
"The Deepbrow case is developing along lines which I
confess I had anticipated, but which are dramatic
nevertheless."
Knowing that Harley did not lightly make such an
assertion, I put aside the work upon which I was engaged
and hurried around to Chancery Lane. I found my friend,
pipe in mouth, walking up and down his smoke-laden study
in a state which I knew to betoken suppressed excitement,
and:
"Did Wessex find your photographer?" I asked on
entering.
"Yes," he replied. "A first-class man, as I had
anticipated. As I had further anticipated he did a number
of copies of the picture for the foreign gentleman --
about fifty, in fact!"
"Fifty!"
"Yes! Does the significance of that fact strike you?"
asked Harley, a queer smile stealing across his tanned,
clean-shaven face.
"It is an extraordinary thing for even an ardent admirer
to have so many reproductions done of the same picture!"
"It is! I will show you now what I found trodden into
one of the footprints where the struggle took place beside
the car."
Harley produced a piece of thick silk twine.
"What is it?"
"It is a link, Knox -- a link to seek which I really
went down to Deepbrow." He stared at me quizzically, but
my answering look must have been a blank one. "It is part
of the tassel of one of those red cloth caps commonly
called in England, a fez!"
He continued to stare at me and I to stare at the piece
of silk; then:
"What is the next move?" I demanded. "Your new clue
rather bewilders me."
"The next move," he said, "is to retire to the adjoining
room and make ourselves look as much like a couple of
Oriental commercial travellers as our correctly British
appearance will allow!"
"What!" I cried.
"That's it!" laughed Harley. "I have a perpetual tan,
and I think I can give you a temporary one which I keep in
a bottle for the purpose."
Twenty minutes later, then, having quitted Harley's
chambers by a back way opening into one of those old-world
courts which abound in this part of the metropolis, two
quietly attired Eastern gentlemen got into a cab at the
corner of Chancery Lane and proceeded in the direction of
Limehouse.
There are haunts in many parts of London whose very
existence is unsuspected by all but the few; haunts
unvisited by the tourist and even unknown to the
copy-hunting pressman. Into a quiet thoroughfare not three
minutes' walk from the busy life of West India Dock Road,
Harley led the way. Before a door sandwiched in between
the entrance to a Greek tobacconist's establishment and a
boarded shop-front, he paused and turned to me.
"Whatever you see or hear," he cautioned, "express no
surprise. Above all, show no curiosity."
He rang the bell beside the door, and almost immediately
it was opened by a Negress, grossly and repellently ugly.
Harley pattered something in what sounded like Arabic,
whereat the Negress displayed the utmost servility,
ushering us into an ill-lighted passage with every
evidence of respect. Following this passage to its
termination, an inner door was opened, and a burst of
discordant music greeted us, together with a wave of
tobacco smoke. We entered.
Despite my friend's particular injunctions to the
contrary I gave a start of amazement.
We stood in the doorway of a fairly large apartment
having a divan round three of its sides. This divan was
occupied by ten or a dozen men of mixed nationalities --
Arabs, Greeks, lascars, and others. They smoked cigarettes
for the most part and sipped Mokha from little cups. A
girl was performing a wriggling dance upon the square
carpet occupying the centre of the floor, accompanied by a
Nubian boy who twanged upon a guitar, and by most of the
assembled company, who clapped their hands to the music or
droned a low, tuneless dirge.
Shortly after our entrance the performance terminated,
and the girl retired through a curtained doorway at the
farther end of the room. Our presence being now observed,
suspicious glances were cast in our direction, and a very
aged man, who sat smoking a narghli near the door by which
the girl had made her exit, gravely waved towards us the
amber mouthpiece which he held in his hand.
Harley walked straight across to him, I close at his
heels. The light of a lamp which hung close by fell fully
upon my friend's face; and, rising from his seat, the old
man greeted him with the dignified and graceful salutation
of the East. At his request we seated ourselves beside
him, and, while we all three smoked excellent Turkish
cigarettes, Harley and he conversed in a low tone.
Suddenly, at some remark of my friend's, our strange host
rose to his feet, an angry frown contracting his heavy
eyebrows.
Silence fell upon the company.
In a loud and peremptory voice he called out something
in Arabic.
Instantly I detected a fellow near the entrance door,
and whom I had not hitherto observed, slipping furtively
into the shadow, with a view, as I thought, to secret
departure. He seemed to be deformed in some way and had
the most evil, pock-marked face I had ever beheld in my
life. Angrily, the majestic old man recalled him.
Whereupon, with a sort of animal snarl quite
indescribable, the fellow plucked out a knife! Two men who
had been on the point of seizing him fell back, and:
"Hold him!" shouted Harley, springing forward -- "hold
him! It's Ali of Cairo!"
But Harley was too late. Turning, the strange and
formidable- looking Oriental ran like the wind! Ere hand
could be raised to stay him he was through the doorway!
"That settles it," said Harley grimly, as once more I
found myself in a cab beside him. "I was right; but he'll
forestall us!"
"Who will forestall us?" I asked in bewilderment.
"The biggest villain in Europe, Asia, or Africa!" cried
my companion. "I have wasted precious time to-day. I might
have known." He drummed irritably upon his knees. "The
place we have just left is a sort of club, you understand,
Knox, and Hakim is the proprietor or host as well as being
an old gentleman of importance and authority in the Moslem
world. I told him of my suspicions -- which step I should
have taken earlier -- and they were instantly confirmed.
My man was there -- recognized me -- and bolted! He'll
forestall us."
"But my dear fellow," I said patiently -- "who is this
man, and what has he to do with the Deepbrow case?"
"He is the blackest scoundrel breathing!" answered
Harley bitterly. "As to what he has to do with the case --
why did he bolt? At any rate, I know where to find him now
-- and we may not be too late after all."
"But who and what is this man?"
"He is Ali of Cairo! As to what he is -- you will soon
learn."
Chapter IV
The House By The River
On quitting the singular Oriental club, Harley had first
raced off to a public telephone, where he had spoken for
some time -- as I now divined -- to Scotland Yard. For
when we presently arrived at the headquarters of the
Metropolitan Police, I was surprised to find Inspector
Wessex awaiting us. Leaning out of the cab window:
"Yes?" called Harley excitedly. "Was I right?"
"You were, Mr. Harley," answered Wessex, who seemed to
be no less excited than my companion. "I got the man's
reply an hour ago."
"I knew it!" said Harley shortly. "Get in, Wessex; we
haven't a minute to waste."
The Inspector joined us in the cab, having first given
instructions to the chauffeur. As we set out once more:
"You have had very little time to make the necessary
arrangements," continued my friend.
"Time enough," replied Wessex. "They will not be
expecting us."
"I'm not so sure of it. One of the biggest villains in
the civilized world recognized me three minutes before I
called you up and then made good his escape. However,
there is at least a fighting chance."
Little more was said from that moment until the end of
the drive, both my companions seeming to be consumed by an
intense eagerness to reach our destination. At last the
cab drew up in a deserted street. I had rather lost my
bearings; but I knew that we were once more somewhere in
the Chinatown area, and:
"Follow us until we get into the house," Harley said to
Inspector Wessex, "and wait out of sight. If you hear me
blow this whistle, bring up the men you have posted -- as
quick as you like! But make it your particular business to
see that no one gets out!"
Into a pitch-dark yard we turned, and I felt a shudder
of apprehension upon observing that it was the entrance to
a wharf. Dully gleaming in the moonlight, the Thames, that
grave of many a ghastly secret, flowed beneath us.
Emerging from the shadow of the archway, we paused before
a door in the wall on our left.
At that moment something gleamed through the air,
whizzed past my ear, and fell with a metallic jingle on
the stones!
Instinctively we both looked up.
At an unlighted window on the first floor I caught a
fleeting glimpse of a dark face.
"You were right!" I said. "Ali of Cairo has forestalled
us!"
Harley stooped and picked up a knife with a broad and
very curious blade. He slipped it into his pocket,
nonchalantly.
"All evidence!" he said. "Keep in the shadow and bend
down. I am going to stand on your shoulders and get into
that window!"
Wondering at his daring, I nevertheless obeyed; and
Harley succeeded, although not without difficulty, in
achieving his purpose. A moment after he had disappeared
in the blackness of the room above.
"Stand clear, Knox!" I heard.
Two of the cushion seats sometimes called
"poof-ottomans" were thrown down, and:
"Up you come!" called Harley. "I'll grasp your hands if
you can reach."
It proved no easy task, but I finally managed to
scramble up beside my friend -- to find myself in a dark
and stuffy little room.
"This way!" said Harley rapidly -- "upstairs."
He led the way without more ado, but it was with serious
misgivings that I stumbled up a darkened stair in the rear
of my greatly daring friend.
A pistol cracked in the darkness -- and my fez was no
longer on my head!
Harley's repeater answered, and we stumbled through a
heavily curtained door into a heated room, the air of
which was laden with some Eastern perfume. In the dim
light from a silken-shaded lantern a figure showed,
momentarily, darting across the place before us.
Again Harley's pistol spoke, but, as it seemed,
ineffectively.
I had little enough opportunity to survey my
surroundings; yet even in those brief, breathless moments
I saw enough of the place wherein we stood to make me
doubt the evidence of my senses! Outside, I knew, lay a
dingy wharf, amid a maze of mean streets; here was an
opulently furnished apartment with a strong Oriental note
in the decorations!
Snatching an electric torch from his pocket, Harley
leaped through a doorway draped with rich Persian
tapestry, and I came close on his heels. Outside was
darkness. A strong draught met us; and, passing along a
carpeted corridor, we never halted until we came to a room
filled with the weirdest odds and ends, apparently
collected from every quarter of the globe.
Crack!
A bullet flattened itself on the wall behind us!
"Good job he can't shoot straight!" rapped Harley.
The ray of the torch suddenly picked out the head and
shoulders of a man who was descending through a trap in
the floor! Ere we had time to shoot he was gone! I saw his
brown fingers relax their hold -- and a bundle which he
had evidently hoped to take with him was left lying upon
the floor.
Together we ran to the trap and looked down.
Slowly moving tidal water flowed darkly beneath us! For
twenty breathless seconds we watched -- but nothing showed
upon the surface.
"I hope his swimming is no better than his shooting," I
said.
"It can avail him little," replied Harley grimly; "a
river-police boat is waiting for anyone who tries to
escape from that side of the house. We are by no means
alone in this affair, Knox. But, firstly, what have we
here!" He took up the bundle which the fugitive had
deserted. "Something incriminating when Ali of Cairo dared
not stay to face it out! He would never have deserted this
place in the ordinary way. That fellow who was such a bad
shot was left behind, when the news of our approach
reached here, to make a desperate attempt to remove some
piece of evidence! I'll swear to it. But we were too soon
for him!"
All the time he was busily removing the pieces of
sacking and scraps of Oriental stuff with which the bundle
was fastened; and finally he drew out a dress-suit,
together with the linen, collar, shoes, and underwear -- a
complete outfit, in fact -- and on top of the whole was a
soft gray felt hat!
Eagerly Harley searched the garments for some name of a
maker by which their owner might be identified. Presently,
inside the lining of the breast pocket, where such a mark
is usually found, he discovered the label of a well-known
West End firm.
"The police can confirm it, Knox!" he said, looking up,
his face slightly flushed with triumph; "but I,
personally, have no doubt!"
"You may have no doubt, Harley," I retorted, "but I am
full of doubt! What is the significance of this discovery
to which you seem to attach so much importance?"
"At the moment," replied my friend, "never mind; I still
have hopes -- although they have grown somewhat slender --
of making a much more important discovery."
"Why not permit the police to aid in the search?"
"The police are more useful in their present
occupation," he replied. "We are dealing with the most
cunning knave produced by East or West, and I don't mean
to let him slip through my fingers if he is in this house!
Nevertheless, Knox, I am submitting you to rather an
appalling risk, I know; for our man is desperate, and if
he is still in the place will prove as dangerous as a
cornered rat."
"But the man who dropped through the trap?"
"The man who dropped through the trap," said Harley,
"was not Ali of Cairo -- and it is Ali of Cairo for whom I
am looking!"
"The hunchback we saw to-night?"
Harley nodded, and having listened intently for a few
moments, proceeded again to search the singular apartments
of the abode. In each was evidence of Oriental occupancy;
indeed, some of the rooms possessed a sort of Arabian
Nights atmosphere. But no living creature was to be seen
or heard anywhere. It was while the two of us, having
examined every inch of wall, I should think, in the
building, were standing staring rather blankly at each
other in the room with the lighted lantern, that I saw
Harley's expression change.
"Why," he muttered, "is this one room illuminated -- and
all the others in darkness?"
Even then the significance of this circumstance was not
apparent to me. But Harley stared critically at an
electric switch which was placed on the immediate right of
the door and then up at the silk-shaded lantern which
lighted the room. Crossing, he raised and lowered the
switch rapidly, but the lamp continued to burn
uninterruptedly!
"Ah!" he said -- "a good trick!"
Grasping the wooden block to which the switch was
attached, he turned it bodily -- and I saw that it was a
masked knob; for in the next moment he had pulled open the
narrow section of wall -- which proved to be nothing less
than a cunningly fitted door!
A small, dimly lighted apartment was revealed, the
Oriental note still predominant in its appointments,
which, however, were few, and which I scarcely paused to
note. For lying upon a mattress in this place was a
pretty, fair-haired girl!
She lay on her side, having one white arm thrown out and
resting limply on the floor, and she seemed to be in a
semi-conscious condition, for although her fine eyes were
widely opened, they had a glassy, witless look, and she
was evidently unaware of our presence.
"Look at her pupils," rapped Harley. "They have drugged
her with bhang! Poor, pretty fool!"
"Good God!" I cried. "Who is this, Harley?"
"Molly Clayton!" he answered. "Thank heaven we have
saved one victim from Ali of Cairo."
Chapter V
The Harem Agency
Owing to the instrumentality of Paul Harley, the public
never learned that the awful riverside murder called by
the Press in reference to the victim's shaven skull "the
barber atrocity" had any relation to the Deepbrow case. It
was physically impossible to identify the victim, and
Harley had his own reasons for concealing the truth. The
house on the wharf with its choice Oriental furniture was
seized by the police; but, strange to relate, no arrest
was made in connection with this most gruesome outrage.
The man who dropped through the trap had been wounded by
one of Harley's shots, and he sank for the last time under
the very eyes of the crew of the police cutter.
It was at a late hour on the night of this concluding
tragedy that I learned the amazing truth underlying the
case. Wessex was still at work in the East End upon the
hundred and one formalities which attached to his office,
and Harley and I sat in the study of my friend's chambers
in Chancery Lane.
"You see," Harley was explaining. "I got my first clue
down at Deepbrow. The tracks leading to the motor-car.
They showed -- to anyone not hampered by a preconceived
opinion -- that the girl and Vane had not gone on together
(since the man's footprints proved him to have been
running), but that she had gone first and that he had run
after her! Arguments: (a) He heard the approach of the
car; or (b) he heard her call for help. In fact, it almost
immediately became evident to me that someone else had met
her at the end of the lane; probably someone who expected
her, and whom she was going to meet when she,
accidentally, encountered Vane! The captain was not
attired for an elopement, and, more significant still, he
said he should stroll to the Deep Wood, and that was where
he did stroll to; for it borders the road at this point!
"I had privately ascertained, from the postman, that
Molly Clayton actually received a letter on that morning!
This resolved my last doubt. She was not going to meet
Vane on the night of her disappearance.
"Then whom?"
"The old love! He who some months earlier had had over
fifty seductive pictures of this undoubtedly pretty girl
prepared for a purpose of his own!"
"Vane interfered?"
"When the girl saw that they meant to take her away, she
no doubt made a fuss! He ran to the rescue! They had not
reckoned on his being there, but these are clever
villains, who leave no clues -- except for one who has met
them on their own ground!"
"On their own ground! What do you mean, Harley? Who are
these people?"
"Well -- where do you suppose those fifty photographs
went?"
"I cannot conjecture!"
"Then I will tell you. The turmoil in the East has put
wealth and power into unscrupulous hands. But even before
the war there were marts, Knox -- open marts -- at which a
Negro girl might be purchased for some 30 pounds, and a
Circassian for anything from 250 pounds to 500 pounds! Ah!
You stare! But I assure you it was so. Here is the point,
though: there were, and still are, private dealers! Those
photographs were circulated among the nouveaux riches of
the East! They were employed in the same way that any
other merchant employs a catalogue. They reached the hands
of many an opulent and abandoned 'profiteer' of Damascus,
Stambul -- where you will. Molly's picture would be one of
many. Remember that hundreds of pretty girls disappear
from their homes -- taking the whole of the world -- every
year. Clearly, English beauty is popular at the moment!
And," he added bitterly, "the arch-villain has escaped!"
"Ali of Cairo!" I cried. "Then Ali of Cairo -- "
"Is the biggest slave-dealer in the East!"
"Good God! Harley -- at last I understand!"
"I was slow enough to understand it myself, Knox. But
once the theory presented itself I asked Wessex to get
into immediate touch with the valet he had already
interviewed at Deepbrow. It was the result of his inquiry
to which he referred when we met him at Scotland Yard
to-night. Captain Vane had a large mole on his shoulder
and a girl's name, together with a small device, tattooed
on his forearm -- a freak of his Sandhurst days -- "
"Then 'the man with the shaven skull' -- "
"Is Captain Ronald Vane! May he rest in peace. But I
never shall until the crook-back dealer in humanity has
met his just deserts."
The White Hat
Chapter I
Major Jack Ragstaff
"Hallo! Innes," said Paul Harley as his secretary
entered. "Someone is making a devil of a row outside."
"This is the offender, Mr. Harley," said Innes, and
handed my friend a visiting card.
Glancing at the card, Harley read aloud:
"Major J. E. P. Ragstaff, Cavalry Club."
Meanwhile a loud harsh voice, which would have been
audible in a full gale, was roaring in the lobby.
"Nonsense!" I could hear the Major shouting.
"Balderdash! There's more fuss than if I had asked for an
interview with the Prime Minister. Piffle! Balderdash!"
Innes's smile developed into a laugh, in which Harley
joined, then:
"Admit the Major," he said.
Into the study where Harley and I had been seated
quietly smoking, there presently strode a very choleric
Anglo-Indian. He wore a horsy check suit and white spats,
and his tie closely resembled a stock. In his hand he
carried a heavy malacca cane, gloves, and one of those
tall, light-gray hats commonly termed white. He was below
medium height, slim and wiry; his gait and the shape of
his legs, his build, all proclaimed the dragoon. His
complexion was purple, and the large white teeth visible
beneath a bristling gray moustache added to the natural
ferocity of his appearance. Standing just within the
doorway:
"Mr. Paul Harley?" he shouted.
It was apparently an inquiry, but it sounded like a
reprimand.
My friend, standing before the fireplace, his hands in
his pockets and his pipe in his mouth, nodded brusquely.
"I am Paul Harley," he said. "Won't you sit down?"
Major Ragstaff, glancing angrily at Innes as the latter
left the study, tossed his stick and gloves on to a
settee, and drawing up a chair seated himself stiffly upon
it as though he were in a saddle. He stared straight at
Harley, and:
"You are not the sort of person I expected, sir," he
declared. "May I ask if it is your custom to keep clients
dancin' on the mat and all that -- on the blasted mat,
sir?"
Harley suppressed a smile, and I hastily reached for my
cigarette-case which I had placed upon the mantelshelf.
"I am always naturally pleased to see clients, Major
Ragstaff," said Harley, "but a certain amount of routine
is necessary even in civilian life. You had not advised me
of your visit, and it is contrary to my custom to discuss
business after five o'clock."
As Harley spoke the Major glared at him continuously,
and then:
"I've seen you in India!" he roared; "damme! I've seen
you in India! -- and, yes! in Turkey! Ha! I've got you now
sir!" He sprang to his feet. "You're the Harley who was in
Constantinople in 1912."
"Quite true."
"Then I've come to the wrong shop."
"That remains to be seen, Major."
"But I was told you were a private detective, and all
that."
"So I am," said Harley quietly. "In 1912 the Foreign
Office was my client. I am now at the service of anyone
who cares to employ me."
"Hell!" said the Major.
He seemed to be temporarily stricken speechless by the
discovery that a man who had acted for the British
Government should be capable of stooping to the work of a
private inquiry agent. Staring all about the room with a
sort of naive wonderment, he drew out a big silk
handkerchief and loudly blew his nose, all the time eyeing
Harley questioningly. Replacing his handkerchief he
directed his regard upon me, and:
"This is my friend, Mr. Knox," said Harley; "you may
state your case before him without hesitation, unless -- "
I rose to depart, but:
"Sit down, Mr. Knox! Sit down, sir!" shouted the Major.
"I have no dirty linen to wash, no skeletons in the
cupboard or piffle of that kind. I simply want something
explained which I am too thick-headed -- too damned
thick-headed, sir -- to explain myself."
He resumed his seat, and taking out his wallet extracted
from it a small newspaper cutting which he offered to
Harley.
"Read that, Mr. Harley," he directed. "Read it aloud."
Harley read as follows:
"Before Mr. Smith, at Marlborough Street Police Court,
John Edward Bampton was charged with assaulting a
well-known clubman in Bond Street on Wednesday evening. It
was proved by the constable who made the arrest that
robbery had not been the motive of the assault, and
Bampton confessed that he bore no grudge against the
assailed man, indeed, that he had never seen him before.
He pleaded intoxication, and the police surgeon testified
that although not actually intoxicated, his breath had
smelled strongly of liquor at the time of his arrest.
Bampton's employers testified to a hitherto blameless
character, and as the charge was not pressed the man was
dismissed with a caution."
Having read the paragraph, Harley glanced at the Major
with a puzzled expression.
"The point of this quite escapes me," he confessed.
"Is that so?" said Major Ragstaff. "Is that so, sir?
Perhaps you will be good enough to read this."
From his wallet he took a second newspaper cutting,
smaller than the first, and gummed to a sheet of club
notepaper. Harley took it and read as follows:
"Mr. De Lana, a well-known member of the Stock Exchange,
who met with a serious accident recently, is still in a
precarious condition."
The puzzled look on Harley's face grew more acute, and
the Major watched him with an expression which I can only
describe as one of fierce enjoyment.
"You're thinkin' I'm a damned old fool, ain't you?" he
shouted suddenly.
"Scarcely that," said Harley, smiling slightly, "but the
significance of these paragraphs is not apparent, I must
confess. The man Bampton would not appear to be an
interesting character, and since no great damage has been
done, his drunken frolic hardly comes within my sphere. Of
Mr. De Lana, of the Stock Exchange, I never heard, unless
he happens to be a member of the firm of De Lana and Day?"
"He's not a member of that firm, sir," shouted the
Major. "He was, up to six o'clock this evenin'."
"What do you mean exactly?" inquired Harley, and the
tone of his voice suggested that he was beginning to
entertain doubts of the Major's sanity or sobriety; then:
"He's dead!" declared the latter. "Dead as the Begum of
Bangalore! He died at six o'clock. I've just spoken to his
widow on the telephone."
I suppose I must have been staring very hard at the
speaker, and certainly Harley was doing so, for suddenly
directing his fierce gaze toward me:
"You're completely treed, sir, and so's your friend!"
shouted Major Ragstaff.
"I confess it," replied Harley quietly; "and since my
time is of some little value I would suggest, without
disrespect, that you explain the connection, if any,
between yourself, the drunken Bampton, and Mr. De Lana, of
the Stock Exchange, who died, you inform us, at six
o'clock this evening as the result, presumably, of
injuries received in an accident."
"That's what I'm here for!" cried Major Ragstaff. "In
the first place, then, I am the party, although I saw to
it that my name was kept out of print, whom the drunken
lunatic assaulted."
Harley, pipe in hand, stared at the speaker perplexedly.
"Understand me," continued the Major, "I am the person
-- I, Jack Ragstaff -- he assaulted. I was walkin' down
from my quarters in Maddox Street on my way to dine at the
club, same as I do every night o' my life, when this
flamin' idiot sprang upon me, grabbed my hat" -- he took
up his white hat to illustrate what had occurred -- "not
this one, but one like it -- pitched it on the ground and
jumped on it!"
Harley was quite unable to conceal his smiles as the
excited old soldier dropped his conspicuous head-gear on
the floor and indulged in a vigorous pantomime designed to
illustrate his statement.
"Most extraordinary," said Harley. "What did you do?"
"What did I do?" roared the Major. "I gave him a crack
on the head with my cane, and I said things to him which
couldn't be repeated in court. I punched him, and likewise
hoofed him, but the hat was completely done in. Damn crowd
collected, hearin' me swearin' and bellowin'. Police and
all that; names an' addresses and all that balderdash. Man
lugged away to guard-room and me turnin' up at the club
with no hat. Damn ridiculous spectacle at my time of
life."
"Quite so," said Harley soothingly; "I appreciate your
annoyance, but I am utterly at a loss to understand why
you have come here, and what all this has to do with Mr.
De Lana, of the Stock Exchange."
"He fell out of the window!" shouted the Major.
"Fell out of a window?"
"Out of a window, sir, a second floor window ten yards
up a side street! Pitched on his skull -- marvel he wasn't
killed outright!"
A faint expression of interest began to creep into
Harley's glance, and:
"I understand you to mean, Major Ragstaff," he said
deliberately, "that while your struggle with the drunken
man was in progress Mr. De Lana fell out of a neighbouring
window into the street?"
"Right!" shouted the Major. "Right, sir!"
"Do you know this Mr. De Lana?"
"Never heard of him in my life until the accident
occurred. Seems to me the poor devil leaned out to see the
fun and overbalanced. Felt responsible, only natural, and
made inquiries. He died at six o'clock this evenin', sir."
"H'm," said Harley reflectively. "I still fail to see
where I come in. From what window did he fall?"
"Window above a sort of teashop, called Cafe Dame --
damn silly name. Place on a corner. Don't know name of
side street."
"H'm. You don't think he was pushed out, for instance?"
"Certainly not!" shouted the Major; "he just fell out,
but the point is, he's dead!"
"My dear sir," said Harley patiently, "I don't dispute
that point; but what on earth do you want of me?"
"I don't know what I want!" roared the Major, beginning
to walk up and down the room, "but I know I ain't
satisfied, not easy in my mind, sir. I wake up of a night
hearin' the poor devil's yell as he crashed on the
pavement. That's all wrong. I've heard hundreds of
death-yells, but" -- he took up his malacca cane and beat
it loudly on the table -- "I haven't woke up of a night
dreamin' I heard 'em again."
"In a word, you suspect foul play?"
"I don't suspect anything!" cried the other excitedly,
"but someone mentioned your name to me at the club -- said
you could see through concrete, and all that -- and here I
am. There's something wrong, radically wrong. Find out
what it is and send the bill to me. Then perhaps I'll be
able to sleep in peace."
He paused, and again taking out the large silk
handkerchief blew his nose loudly. Harley glanced at me in
rather an odd way, and then:
"There will be no bill, Major Ragstaff," he said; "but
if I can see any possible line of inquiry I will pursue it
and report the result to you."
Chapter II
A Curious Outrage
"What do you make of it, Harley?" I asked. Paul Harley
returned a work of reference to its shelf and stood
staring absently across the study.
"Our late visitor's history does not help us much," he
replied. "A somewhat distinguished army career, and so
forth, and his only daughter, Sybil Margaret, married the
fifth Marquis of Ireton. She is, therefore, the noted
society beauty, the Marchioness of Ireton. Does this
suggest anything to your mind?"
"Nothing whatever," I said blankly.
"Nor to mine," murmured Harley.
The telephone bell rang.
"Hallo!" called Harley. "Yes. That you, Wessex? Have you
got the address? Good. No, I shall remember it. Many
thanks. Good-bye."
He turned to me.
"I suggest, Knox," he said, "that we make our call and
then proceed to dinner as arranged."
Since I was always glad of an opportunity of studying my
friend's methods I immediately agreed, and ere long,
leaving the lights of the two big hotels behind, our cab
was gliding down the long slope which leads to Waterloo
Station. Thence through crowded, slummish high-roads we
made our way via Lambeth to that dismal thoroughfare,
Westminster Bridge Road, with its forbidding, often
windowless, houses, and its peculiar air of desolation.
The house for which we were bound was situated at no
great distance from Kensington Park, and telling the
cabman to wait, Harley and I walked up a narrow, paved
path, mounted a flight of steps, and rang the bell beside
a somewhat time-worn door, above which was an
old-fashioned fanlight dimly illuminated from within.
A considerable interval elapsed before the door was
opened by a marvellously untidy servant girl who had
apparently been interrupted in the act of black-leading
her face. Partly opening the door, she stared at us agape,
pushing back wisps of hair from her eyes and with every
movement daubing more of some mysterious black substance
upon her countenance.
"Is Mr. Bampton in?" asked Harley.
"Yus, just come in. I'm cookin' his supper."
"Tell him that two friends of his have called on rather
important business."
"All right," said the black-faced one. "What name is
it?"
"No name. Just say two friends of his."
Treating us to a long, vacant stare and leaving us
standing on the step, the maid (in whose hand I perceived
a greasy fork) shuffled along the passage and began to
mount the stairs. An unmistakable odour of frying sausages
now reached my nostrils. Harley glanced at me quizzically,
but said nothing until the Cinderella came stumbling
downstairs again. Without returning to where we stood:
"Go up," she directed. "Second floor, front. Shut the
door, one of yer."
She disappeared into gloomy depths below as Harley and
I, closing the door behind us, proceeded to avail
ourselves of the invitation. There was very little light
on the staircase, but we managed to find our way to a
poorly furnished bed-sitting-room where a small table was
spread for a meal. Beside the table, in a chintz-covered
arm-chair, a thick-set young man was seated smoking a
cigarette and having a copy of the Daily Telegraph upon
his knees.
He was a very typical lower middle-class,
nothing-in-particular young man, but there was a certain
truculence indicated by his square jaw, and that sort of
self-possession which sometimes accompanies physical
strength was evidenced in his manner as, tossing the paper
aside, he stood up.
"Good evening, Mr. Bampton," said Harley genially. "I
take it" -- pointing to the newspaper -- "that you are
looking for a new job?"
Bampton stared, a suspicion of anger in his eyes, then,
meeting the amused glance of my friend, he broke into a
smile very pleasing and humorous. He was a fresh-coloured
young fellow with hair inclined to redness, and smiling he
looked very boyish indeed.
"I have no idea who you are," he said, speaking with a
faint north-country accent, "but you evidently know who I
am and what has happened to me."
"Got the boot?" asked Harley confidentially.
Bampton, tossing the end of his cigarette into the
grate, nodded grimly.
"You haven't told me your name," he said, "but I think I
can tell you your business." He ceased smiling. "Now look
here, I don't want any more publicity. If you think you
are going to make a funny newspaper story out of me change
your mind as quick as you like. I'll never get another job
in London as it is. If you drag me any further into the
limelight I'll never get another job in England."
"My dear fellow," replied Harley soothingly, at the same
time extending his cigarette-case, "you misapprehend the
object of my call. I am not a reporter."
"What!" said Bampton, pausing in the act of taking a
cigarette, "then what the devil are you?"
"My name is Paul Harley, and I am a criminal
investigator."
He spoke the words deliberately, having his eyes fixed
upon the other's face; but although Bampton was palpably
startled there was no trace of fear in his straightforward
glance. He took a cigarette from the case, and:
"Thanks, Mr. Harley," he said. "I cannot imagine what
business has brought you here."
"I have come to ask you two questions," was the reply.
"Number one: Who paid you to smash Major Ragstaff's white
hat? Number two: How much did he pay you?"
To these questions I listened in amazement, and my
amazement was evidently shared by Bampton. He had been in
the act of lighting his cigarette, but he allowed the
match to burn down nearly to his fingers and then dropped
it with a muttered exclamation in the fire. Finally:
"I don't know how you found out," he said, "but you
evidently know the truth. Provided you assure me that you
are not out to make a silly-season newspaper story, I'll
tell you all I know."
Harley laid his card on the table, and:
"Unless the ends of justice demand it," he said, "I give
you my word that anything you care to say will go no
further. You may speak freely before my friend, Mr. Knox.
Simply tell me in as few words as possible what led you to
court arrest in that manner."
"Right," replied Bampton, "I will." He half closed his
eyes, reflectively. "I was having tea in the Lyons' cafe,
to which I always go, last Monday afternoon about four
o'clock, when a man sat down facing me and got into
conversation."
"Describe him!"
"He was a man rather above medium height. I should say
about my own build; dark, going gray. He had a neat
moustache and a short beard, and the look of a man who had
travelled a lot. His skin was very tanned, almost as
deeply as yours, Mr. Harley. Not at all the sort of chap
that goes in there as a rule. After a while he made an
extraordinary proposal. At first I thought he was joking,
then when I grasped the idea that he was serious I
concluded he was mad. He asked me how much a year I
earned, and I told him Peters and Peters paid me 150
pounds. He said: 'I'll give you a year's salary to knock a
man's hat off!'"
As Bampton spoke the words he glanced at us with
twinkling eyes, but although for my own part I was merely
amused, Harley's expression had grown very stern.
"Of course, I laughed," continued Bampton, "but when the
man drew out a fat wallet and counted ten five-pound notes
on the table I began to think seriously about his
proposal. Even supposing he was cracked, it was absolutely
money for nothing.
"'Of course,' he said, 'you'll lose your job and you may
be arrested, but you'll say that you had been out with a
few friends and were a little excited, also that you never
could stand white hats. Stick to that story and the
balance of a hundred pounds will reach you on the
following morning.'
"I asked him for further particulars, and I asked him
why he had picked me for the job. He replied that he had
been looking for some time for the right man; a man who
was strong enough physically to accomplish the thing, and
someone" -- Bampton's eyes twinkled again -- "with a dash
of the devil in him, but at the same time a man who could
be relied upon to stick to his guns and not to give the
game away.
"You asked me to be brief, and I'll try to be. The man
in the white hat was described to me, and the exact time
and place of the meeting. I just had to grab his white
hat, smash it, and face the music. I agreed. I don't deny
that I had a couple of stiff drinks before I set out, but
the memory of that fifty pounds locked up here in my room
and the further hundred promised, bucked me up
wonderfully. It was impossible to mistake my man; I could
see him coming toward me as I waited just outside a sort
of little restaurant called the Cafe Dame. As arranged, I
bumped into him, grabbed his hat and jumped on it."
He paused, raising his hand to his head reminiscently.
"My man was a bit of a scrapper," he continued, "and he
played hell. I've never heard such language in my life,
and the way he laid about me with his cane is something I
am not likely to forget in a hurry. A crowd gathered,
naturally, and (also naturally) I was 'pinched.' That
didn't matter much. I got off lightly; and although I've
been dismissed by Peters and Peters, twenty crisp fivers
are locked in my trunk there, with the ten which I
received in the City."
Harley checked him, and:
"May I see the envelope in which they arrived?" he
asked.
"Sorry," replied Bampton, "but I burned it. I thought it
was playing the game to do so. It wouldn't have helped you
much, though," he added; "It was an ordinary common
envelope, posted in the City, address typewritten, and not
a line enclosed."
"Registered?"
"No."
Bampton stood looking at us with a curious expression on
his face, and suddenly:
"There's one point," he said, "on which my conscience
isn't easy. You know about that poor devil who fell out of
a window? Well, it would never have happened if I hadn't
kicked up a row in the street. There's no doubt he was
leaning out to see what the disturbance was about when the
accident occurred."
"Did you actually see him fall?" asked Harley.
"No. He fell from a window several yards behind me in
the side street, but I heard him cry out, and as I was
lugged off by the police I heard the bell of the ambulance
which came to fetch him."
He paused again and stood rubbing his head ruefully.
"H'm," said Harley; "was there anything particularly
remarkable about this man in the Lyons' cafe?"
Bampton reflected silently for some moments, and then:
"Nothing much," he confessed. "He was evidently a
gentleman, wore a blue top-coat, a dark tweed suit, and
what looked like a regimental tie, but I didn't see much
of the colours. He was very tanned, as I have said, even
to the backs of his hands -- and oh, yes! there was one
point: He had a gold-covered tooth."
"Which tooth?"
"I can't remember, except that it was on the left side,
and I always noticed it when he smiled."
"Did he wear any ring or pin which you would recognize?"
"No."
"Had he any oddity of speech or voice?"
"No. Just a heavy, drawling manner. He spoke like
thousands of other cultured Englishmen. But wait a minute
-- yes! There was one other point. Now I come to think of
it, his eyes very slightly slanted upward."
Harley stared.
"Like a Chinaman's?"
"Oh, nothing so marked as that. But the same sort of
formation."
Harley nodded briskly and buttoned up his overcoat.
"Thanks, Mr. Bampton," he said; "we will detain you no
longer!"
As we descended the stairs, where the smell of frying
sausages had given place to that of something burning --
probably the sausages:
"I was half inclined to think that Major Ragstaff's
ideas were traceable to a former touch of the sun," said
Harley. "I begin to believe that he has put us on the
track of a highly unusual crime. I am sorry to delay
dinner, Knox, but I propose to call at the Cafe Dame."
Chapter III
A Criminal Genius
On entering the doorway of the Cafe Dame we found
ourselves in a narrow passage. In front of us was a
carpeted stair, and to the right a glass-panelled door
communicating with a discreetly lighted little dining room
which seemed to be well patronized. Opening the door
Harley beckoned to a waiter, and:
"I wish to see the proprietor," he said.
"Mr. Meyer is engaged at the moment, sir," was the
reply.
"Where is he?"
"In his office upstairs, sir. He will be down in a
moment."
The waiter hurried away, and Harley stood glancing up
the stairs as if in doubt what to do.
"I cannot imagine how such a place can pay," he
muttered. "The rent must be enormous in this district."
But even before he ceased speaking I became aware of an
excited conversation which was taking place in some
apartment above.
"It's scandalous!" I heard, in a woman's shrill voice.
"You have no right to keep it! It's not your property, and
I'm here to demand that you give it up."
A man's voice replied in voluble broken English, but I
could only distinguish a word here and there. I saw that
Harley was interested, for catching my questioning glance,
he raised his finger to his lips enjoining me to be
silent.
"Oh, that's the game, is it?" continued the female
voice. "Of course you know it's blackmail?"
A flow of unintelligible words answered this speech,
then:
"I shall come back with someone," cried the invisible
woman, "who will make you give it up!"
"Knox," whispered Harley in my ear, "when that woman
comes down, follow her! I'm afraid you will bungle the
business, and I would not ask you to attempt it if big
things were not at stake. Return here; I shall wait."
As a matter of fact, his sudden request had positively
astounded me, but ere I had time for any reply a door
suddenly banged open above and a respectable-looking
woman, who might have been some kind of upper servant,
came quickly down the stairs. An expression of intense
indignation rested upon her face, and without seeming to
notice our presence she brushed past us and went out into
the street.
"Off you go, Knox!" said Harley.
Seeing myself committed to an unpleasant business, I
slipped out of the doorway and detected the woman five or
six yards away hurrying in the direction of Piccadilly. I
had no difficulty in following her, for she was evidently
unsuspicious of my presence, and when presently she
mounted a westward-bound 'bus I did likewise, but while
she got inside I went on top, and occupied a seat on the
near side whence I could observe anyone leaving the
vehicle.
If I had not known Paul Harley so well I should have
counted the whole business a ridiculous farce, but
recognizing that something underlay these seemingly
trivial and disconnected episodes, I lighted a cigarette
and resigned myself to circumstance.
At Hyde Park Corner I saw the woman descending, and when
presently she walked up Hamilton Place I was not far
behind her. At the door of an imposing mansion she
stopped, and in response to a ring of the bell the door
was opened by a footman, and the woman hurried in.
Evidently she was an inmate of the establishment; and
conceiving that my duty was done when I had noted the
number of the house, I retraced my steps to the corner;
and, hailing a taxicab, returned to the Cafe Dame.
On inquiring of the same waiter whom Harley had accosted
whether my friend was there:
"I think a gentleman is upstairs with Mr. Meyer," said
the man.
"In his office?"
"Yes, sir."
Thereupon I mounted the stairs and before a half-open
door paused. Harley's voice was audible within, and
therefore I knocked and entered.
I discovered Harley standing by an American desk. Beside
him in a revolving chair which, with the desk, constituted
the principal furniture of a tiny office, sat a man in a
dress-suit which had palpably not been made for him. He
had a sullen and suspiciously Teutonic cast of
countenance, and he was engaged in a voluble but hardly
intelligible speech as I entered.
"Ha, Knox!" said Harley, glancing over his shoulder,
"did you manage?"
"Yes," I replied.
Harley nodded shortly and turned again to the man in the
chair.
"I am sorry to give you so much trouble, Mr. Meyer," he
said, "but I should like my friend here to see the room
above."
At this moment my attention was attracted by a singular
object which lay upon the desk amongst a litter of bills
and accounts. This was a piece of rusty iron bar somewhat
less than three feet in length, and which once had been
painted green.
"You are looking at this tragic fragment, Knox," said
Harley, taking up the bar. "Of course" -- he shrugged his
shoulders -- "it explains the whole unfortunate
occurrence. You see there was a flaw in the metal at this
end, here" -- he indicated the spot -- "and the other end
had evidently worn loose in its socket."
"But I don't understand."
"It will all be made clear at the inquest, no doubt. A
most unfortunate thing for you, Mr. Meyer."
"Most unfortunate," declared the proprietor of the
restaurant, extending his thick hands pathetically. "Most
ruinous to my business."
"We will go upstairs now," said Harley. "You will kindly
lead the way, Mr. Meyer, and the whole thing will be quite
clear to you, Knox."
As the proprietor walked out of the office and upstairs
to the second floor Harley whispered in my ear:
"Where did she go?"
"No. -- Hamilton Place," I replied in an undertone.
"Good God!" muttered my friend, and clutched my arm so
tightly that I winced. "Good God! The master touch, Knox!
This crime was the work of a genius -- of a genius with
slightly, very slightly, oblique eyes."
Opening a door on the second landing, Mr. Meyer admitted
us to a small supper-room. Its furniture consisted of a
round dining table, several chairs, a couch, and very
little else. I observed, however, that the furniture,
carpet, and a few other appointments were of a character
much more elegant than those of the public room below. A
window which overlooked the street was open, so that the
plush curtains which had been drawn aside moved slightly
to and fro in the draught.
"The window of the tragedy, Knox," explained Harley.
He crossed the room.
"If you will stand here beside me you will see the gap
in the railing caused by the breaking away of the fragment
which now lies on Mr. Meyer's desk. Some few yards to the
left in the street below is where the assault took place,
of which we have heard, and the unfortunate Mr. De Lana,
who was dining here alone -- an eccentric custom of his --
naturally ran to the window upon hearing the disturbance
and leaned out, supporting his weight upon the railing.
The rail collapsed, and -- we know the rest."
"It will ruin me," groaned Meyer; "it will give bad
repute to my establishment."
"I fear it will," agreed Harley sympathetically, "unless
we can manage to clear up one or two little difficulties
which I have observed. For instance" -- he tapped the
proprietor on the shoulder confidentially -- "have you any
idea, any hazy idea, of the identity of the woman who was
dining here with Mr. De Lana on Wednesday night?"
The effect of this simple inquiry upon the proprietor
was phenomenal. His fat yellow face assumed a sort of
leaden hue, and his already prominent eyes protruded
abnormally. He licked his lips.
"I tell you -- already I tell you," he muttered, "that
Mr. De Lana he engage this room every Wednesday and
sometimes also Friday, and dine here by himself."
"And I tell you," said Harley sweetly, "that you are an
inspired liar. You smuggled her out by the side entrance
after the accident."
"The side entrance?" muttered Meyer. "The side
entrance?"
"Exactly; the side entrance. There is something else
which I must ask you to tell me. Who had engaged this room
on Tuesday night, the night before the accident?"
The proprietor's expression remained uncomprehending,
and:
"A gentleman," he said. "I never see him before."
"Another solitary diner?" suggested Harley.
"Yes, he is alone all the evening waiting for a friend
who does not arrive."
"Ah," mused Harley -- "alone all the evening, was he?
And his friend disappointed him. May I suggest that he was
a dark man? Gray at the temples, having a dark beard and
moustache, and a very tanned face? His eyes slanted
slightly upward?"
"Yes! yes!" cried Meyer, and his astonishment was
patently unfeigned. "It is a friend of yours?"
"A friend of mine, yes," said Harley absently, but his
expression was very grim. "What time did he finally
leave?"
"He waited until after eleven o'clock. The dinner is
spoilt. He pays, but does not complain."
"No," said Harley musingly, "he had nothing to complain
about. One more question, my friend. When the lady escaped
hurriedly on Wednesday night, what was it that she left
behind and what price are you trying to extort from her
for returning it?"
At that the man collapsed entirely.
"Ah, Gott!" he cried, and raised his hand to his clammy
forehead. "You will ruin me. I am a ruined man. I don't
try to extort anything. I run an honest business -- "
"And one of the most profitable in the world," added
Harley, "since the days of Thais to our own. Even at Bond
Street rentals I assume that a house of assignation is a
golden enterprise."
"Ah!" groaned Meyer, "I am ruined, so what does it
matter? I tell you everything. I know Mr. De Lana who
engages my room regularly, but I don't know who the lady
is who meets him here. No! I swear it! But always it is
the same lady. When he falls I am downstairs in my office,
and I hear him cry out. The lady comes running from the
room and begs of me to get her away without being seen and
to keep all mention of her out of the matter."
"What did she pay you?" asked Harley.
"Pay me?" muttered Meyer, pulled up thus shortly in the
midst of his statement.
"Pay you. Exactly. Don't argue; answer."
The man delivered himself of a guttural, choking sound,
and finally:
"She promised one hundred pounds," he confessed
hoarsely.
"But you surely did not accept a mere promise? Out with
it. What did she give you?"
"A ring," came the confession at last.
"A ring. I see. I will take it with me if you don't
mind. And now, finally, what was it that she left behind?"
"Ah, Gott!" moaned the man, dropping into a chair and
resting his arms upon the table. "It is all a great panic,
you see. I hurry her out by the back stair from this
landing and she forgets her bag."
"Her bag? Good."
"Then I clear away the remains of dinner so I can say
Mr. De Lana is dining alone. It is as much my interest as
the lady's."
"Of course! I quite understand. I will trouble you no
more, Mr. Meyer, except to step into your office and to
relieve you of that incriminating evidence, the lady's bag
and her ring."
Chapter IV
The Slanting Eyes
Do you understand, Knox?" said Harley as the cab bore us
toward Hamilton Place. "Do you grasp the details of this
cunning scheme?"
"On the contrary," I replied, "I am hopelessly at sea."
Nevertheless, I had forgotten that I was hungry in the
excitement which now claimed me. For although the thread
upon which these seemingly disconnected things hung was
invisible to me, I recognized that Bampton, the city
clerk, the bearded stranger who had made so singular a
proposition to him, the white-hatted major, the dead
stockbroker, and the mysterious woman whose presence in
the case the clear sight of Harley had promptly detected,
all were linked together by some subtle chain. I was
convinced, too, that my friend held at least one end of
that chain in his grip.
"In order to prepare your mind for the interview which I
hope to obtain this evening," continued Harley, "let me
enlighten you upon one or two points which may seem
obscure. In the first place you recognize that anyone
leaning out of the window on the second floor would almost
automatically rest his weight upon the iron bar which was
placed there for that very purpose, since the ledge is
unusually low?"
"Quite," I replied, "and it also follows that if the bar
gave way anyone thus leaning on it would be pitched into
the street."
"Your reasoning is correct."
"But, my dear fellow," said I, "how could such an
accident have been foreseen?"
"You speak of an accident. This was no accident! One end
of the bar had been filed completely through, although the
file marks had been carefully concealed with rust and
dirt; and the other end had been wrenched out from its
socket and then replaced in such a way that anyone leaning
upon the bar could not fail to be precipitated into the
street!"
"Good heavens! Then you mean -- "
"I mean, Knox, that the man who occupied the supper room
on the night before the tragedy -- the dark man, tanned
and bearded, with slightly oblique eyes -- -spent his time
in filing through that bar -- in short, in preparing a
death trap!"
I was almost dumbfounded.
"But, Harley," I said, "assuming that he knew his victim
would be the next occupant of the room, how could he know
-- ?"
I stopped. Suddenly, as if a curtain had been raised,
the details of what I now perceived to be a fiendishly
cunning murder were revealed to me.
"According to his own account, Knox," resumed Harley,
"Major Ragstaff regularly passed along that street with
military punctuality at the same hour every night. You may
take it for granted that the murderer was well aware of
this. As a matter of fact, I happen to know that he was.
We must also take it for granted that the murderer knew of
these little dinners for two which took place in the
private room above the Cafe Dame every Wednesday -- and
sometimes on Friday. Around the figure of the methodical
major -- with his conspicuous white hat as a sort of focus
-- was built up one of the most ingenious schemes of
murder with which I have ever come in contact. The victim
literally killed himself."
"But, Harley, the victim might have ignored the
disturbance."
"That is where I first detected the touch of genius,
Knox. He recognized the voice of one of the combatants --
or his companion did. Here we are."
The cab drew up before the house in Hamilton Place. We
alighted, and Harley pressed the bell. The same footman
whom I had seen admit the woman opened the door.
"Is Lady Ireton at home?" asked Harley.
As he uttered the name I literally held my breath. We
had come to the house of Major Ragstaff's daughter, the
Marchioness of Ireton, one of society's most celebrated
and beautiful hostesses! -- the wife of a peer famed alike
as sportsman, soldier, and scholar.
"I believe she is dining at home, sir," said the man.
"Shall I inquire?"
"Be good enough to do so," replied Harley, and gave him
a card. "Inform her that I wish to return to her a handbag
which she lost a few days ago."
The man ushered us into an anteroom opening off the
lofty and rather gloomy hall, and as the door closed:
"Harley," I said in a stage whisper, "am I to believe --
"
"Can you doubt it?" returned Harley with a grim smile.
A few moments later we were shown into a charmingly
intimate little boudoir in which Lady Ireton was waiting
to receive us. She was a strikingly handsome brunette, but
to-night her face, which normally, I think, possessed rich
colouring, was almost pallid, and there was a hunted look
in her dark eyes which made me wish to be anywhere rather
than where I found myself. Without preamble she rose and
addressed Harley:
"I fail to understand your message, sir," she said, and
I admired the imperious courage with which she faced him.
"You say you have recovered a handbag which I had lost?"
Harley bowed, and from the pocket of his greatcoat took
out a silken-tasselled bag.
"The one which you left in the Cafe Dame, Lady Ireton,"
he replied. "Here also I have" -- from another pocket he
drew out a diamond ring -- "something which was extorted
from you by the fellow Meyer."
Without touching her recovered property, Lady Ireton
sank slowly down into the chair from which she had arisen,
her gaze fixed as if hypnotically upon the speaker.
"My friend, Mr. Knox, is aware of all the
circumstances," continued the latter, "but he is as
anxious as I am to terminate this painful interview. I
surmise that what occurred on Wednesday night was this --
(correct me if I am wrong): While dining with Mr. De Lana
you heard sounds of altercation in the street below. May I
suggest that you recognized one of the voices?"
Lady Ireton, still staring straight before her at
Harley, inclined her head in assent.
"I heard my father's voice," she said hoarsely.
"Quite so," he continued. "I am aware that Major
Ragstaff is your father." He turned to me: "Do you
recognize the touch of genius at last?" Then, again
addressing Lady Ireton: "You naturally suggested to your
companion that he should look out of the window in order
to learn what was taking place. The next thing you knew
was that he had fallen into the street below?"
Lady Ireton shuddered and raised her hands to her face.
"It is retribution," she whispered. "I have brought this
ruin upon myself. But he does not deserve -- "
Her voice faded into silence, and:
"You refer to your husband, Lord Ireton?" said Harley.
Lady Ireton nodded, and again recovering power of
speech:
"It was to have been our last meeting," she said,
looking up at Harley.
She shuddered, and her eyes blazed into sudden
fierceness. Then, clenching her hands, she looked aside.
"Oh, God, the shame of this hour!" she whispered.
And I would have given much to have been spared the
spectacle of this proud, erring woman's humiliation. But
Paul Harley was scientifically remorseless. I could detect
no pity in his glance.
"I would give my life willingly to spare my husband the
knowledge of what has been," said Lady Ireton in a low,
monotonous voice. "Three times I sent my maid to Meyer to
recover my bag, but he demanded a price which even I could
not pay. Now it is all discovered, and Harry will know."
"That, I fear, is unavoidable, Lady Ireton," declared
Harley. "May I ask where Lord Ireton is at present?"
"He is in Africa after big game."
"H'm," said Harley, "in Africa, and after big game? I
can offer you one consolation, Lady Ireton. In his own
interests Meyer will stick to his first assertion that Mr.
De Lana was dining alone."
A strange, horribly pathetic look came into the woman's
haunted eyes.
"You -- you -- are not acting for -- ?" she began.
"I am acting for no one," replied Harley tersely. "Upon
my friend's discretion you may rely as upon my own."
"Then why should he ever know?" she whispered.
"Why, indeed," murmured Harley, "since he is in Africa?"
As we descended the stair to the hall my friend paused
and pointed to a life-sized oil painting by London's most
fashionable portrait painter. It was that of a man in the
uniform of a Guards officer, a dark man, slightly gray at
the temples, his face very tanned as if by exposure to the
sun.
"Having had no occasion for disguise when the portrait
was painted," said Harley, "Lord Ireton appears here
without the beard; and as he is not represented smiling
one cannot see the gold tooth. But the painter, if
anything, has accentuated the slanting eyes. You see, the
fourth marquis -- the present Lord Ireton's father --
married one of the world-famous Yen Sun girls, daughters
of the mandarin of that name by an Irish wife. Hence, the
eyes. And hence -- "
"But, Harley -- it was murder!"
"Not within the meaning of the law, Knox. It was a
recrudescence of Chinese humour! Lord Ireton is officially
in Africa (and he went actually after 'big game'). The
counsel is not born who could secure a conviction. We are
somewhat late, but shall therefore have less difficulty in
finding a table at Prince's."
Tcheriapin
Chapter I
The Rose
"Examine it closely," said the man in the unusual caped
overcoat. "It will repay examination."
I held the little object in the palm of my hand, bending
forward over the marble-topped table and looking down at
it with deep curiosity. The babel of tongues so
characteristic of Malay Jack's, and that mingled odour of
stale spirits, greasy humanity, tobacco, cheap perfume,
and opium, which distinguish the establishment faded from
my ken. A sense of loneliness came to me.
Perhaps I should say that it became complete. I had
grown conscious of its approach at the very moment that
the cadaverous white-haired man had addressed me. There
was a quality in his steadfast gaze and in his oddly
pitched deep voice which from the first had wrapped me
about -- as though he were cloaking me in his queer
personality and withdrawing me from the common plane.
Having stared for some moments at the object in my palm,
I touched it gingerly; whereupon my acquaintance laughed
-- a short bass laugh.
"It looks fragile," he said. "But have no fear. It is
nearly as hard as a diamond."
Thus encouraged, I took the thing up between finger and
thumb, and held it before my eyes. For long enough I
looked at it, and looking, my wonder grew. I thought that
here was the most wonderful example of the lapidary's art
which I had ever met with, east or west.
It was a tiny pink rose, no larger than the nail of my
little finger. Stalk and leaves were there, and golden
pollen lay in its delicate heart. Each fairy-petal blushed
with June fire; the frail leaves were exquisitely green.
Withal it was as hard and unbendable as a thing of steel.
"Allow me," said the masterful voice.
A powerful lens was passed by my acquaintance. I
regarded the rose through the glass, and thereupon I knew,
beyond doubt, that there was something phenomenal about
the gem -- if gem it were. I could plainly trace the veins
and texture of every petal.
I suppose I looked somewhat startled. Although, baldly
stated, the fact may not seem calculated to affright, in
reality there was something so weird about this unnatural
bloom that I dropped it on the table. As I did so I
uttered an exclamation; for in spite of the stranger's
assurances on the point, I had by no means overcome my
idea of the thing's fragility.
"Don't be alarmed," he said, meeting my startled gaze.
"It would need a steam-hammer to do any serious damage."
He replaced the jewel in his pocket, and when I returned
the lens to him he acknowledged it with a grave
inclination of the head. As I looked into his sunken eyes,
in which I thought lay a sort of sardonic merriment, the
fantastic idea flashed through my mind that I had fallen
into the clutches of an expert hypnotist who was amusing
himself at my expense, that the miniature rose was a mere
hallucination produced by the same means as the notorious
Indian rope trick.
Then, looking around me at the cosmopolitan groups
surrounding the many tables, and catching snatches of
conversations dealing with subjects so diverse as the
quality of whisky in Singapore, the frail beauty of
Chinese maidens, and the ways of "bloody greasers," common
sense reasserted itself.
I looked into the gray face of my acquaintance.
"I cannot believe," I said slowly, "that human ingenuity
could so closely duplicate the handiwork of nature. Surely
the gem is unique? -- possibly one of those magical
talismans of which we read in Eastern stories?"
My companion smiled.
"It is not a gem," he replied, "and while in a sense it
is a product of human ingenuity, it is also the handiwork
of nature."
I was badly puzzled, and doubtless revealed the fact,
for the stranger laughed in his short fashion, and:
"I am not trying to mystify you," he assured me. "But
the truth is so hard to believe sometimes that in the
present case I hesitate to divulge it. Did you ever meet
Tcheriapin?"
This abrupt change of topic somewhat startled me, but
nevertheless:
"I once heard him play," I replied. "Why do you ask the
question?"
"For this reason: Tcheriapin possessed the only other
example of this art which so far as I am aware ever left
the laboratory of the inventor. He occasionally wore it in
his buttonhole."
"It is then a manufactured product of some sort?"
"As I have said, in a sense it is; but" -- he drew the
tiny exquisite ornament from his pocket again and held it
up before me -- "it is a natural bloom."
"What!"
"It is a natural bloom," replied my acquaintance, fixing
his penetrating gaze upon me. "By a perfectly simple
process invented by the cleverest chemist of his age it
had been reduced to this gem-like state while retaining
unimpaired every one of its natural beauties, every shade
of its natural colour. You are incredulous?"
"On the contrary," I replied, "having examined it
through a magnifying glass I had already assured myself
that no human hand had fashioned it. You arouse my
curiosity intensely. Such a process, with its endless
possibilities, should be worth a fortune to the inventor."
The stranger nodded grimly and again concealed the rose
in his pocket.
"You are right," he said; "and the secret died with the
man who discovered it -- in the great explosion at the
Vortex Works in 1917. You recall it? The T.N.T. factory?
It shook all London, and fragments were cast into three
counties."
"I recall it perfectly well."
"You remember also the death of Dr. Kreener, the chief
chemist? He died in an endeavour to save some of the
workpeople."
"I remember."
"He was the inventor of the process, but it was never
put upon the market. He was a singular man, sir; as was
once said of him -- 'A Don Juan of science.' Dame Nature
gave him her heart unwooed. He trifled with science as
some men trifle with love, tossing aside with a smile
discoveries which would have made another famous. This" --
tapping his breast pocket -- "was one of them."
"You astound me. Do I understand you to mean that Dr.
Kreener had invented a process for reducing any form of
plant life to this condition?"
"Almost any form," was the guarded reply. "And some
forms of animal life."
"What!"
"If you like" -- the stranger leaned forward and grasped
my arm -- "I will tell you the story of Dr. Kreener's last
experiment."
I was now intensely interested. I had not forgotten the
heroic death of the man concerning whose work this chance
acquaintance of mine seemed to know so much. And in the
cadaverous face of the stranger as he sat there regarding
me fixedly there was a promise and an allurement. I stood
on the verge of strange things; so that, looking into the
deep-set eyes, once again I felt the cloak being drawn
about me, and I resigned myself willingly to the illusion.
From the moment when he began to speak again until that
when I rose and followed him from Malay Jack's, as I shall
presently relate, I became oblivious of my surroundings. I
lived and moved through those last fevered hours in the
lives of Dr. Kreener, Tcheriapin, the violinist, and that
other tragic figure around whom the story centred. I
append:
The Stranger's Story
I asked you (said the man in the caped coat) if you had
ever seen Tcheriapin, and you replied that you had once
heard him play. Having once heard him play you will not
have forgotten him. At that time, although war still
raged, all musical London was asking where he had come
from and to what nation he belonged. Then when he
disappeared it was variously reported, you will recall,
that he had been shot as a spy and that he had escaped
from England and was serving with the Austrian army. As to
his parentage I can enlighten you in a measure. He was a
Eurasian. His father was an aristocratic Chinaman, and his
mother a Polish ballet-dancer -- that was his parentage;
but I would scarcely hesitate to affirm that he came from
Hell; and I shall presently show you that he has certainly
returned there.
You remember the strange stories current about him. The
cunning ones said that he had a clever press agent. This
was true enough. One of the most prominent agents in
London discovered him playing in a Paris cabaret. Two
months later he was playing at the Queen's Hall, and
musical London lay at his feet.
He had something of the personality of Paganini, as you
remember, except that he was a smaller man; long, gaunt,
yellowish hands and the face of a haggard Mephistopheles.
The critics quarrelled about him, as critics only quarrel
about real genius, and while one school proclaimed that
Tcheriapin had discovered an entirely new technique, a
revolutionary system of violin playing, another school was
equally positive in declaring that he could not play at
all, that he was a mountebank, a trickster, whose proper
place was in a variety theatre.
There were stories, too, that were never published --
not only about Tcheriapin, but concerning the Strad, upon
which he played. If all this atmosphere of mystery which
surrounded the man had truly been the work of a press
agent, then the agent must have been as great a genius as
his client. But I can assure you that the stories
concerning Tcheriapin, true and absurd alike, were not
inspired for business purposes; they grew up around him
like fungi.
I can see him now, a lean, almost emaciated figure with
slow, sinuous movements and a trick of glancing sideways
with those dark, unfathomable, slightly oblique eyes. He
could take up his bow in such a way as to create an
atmosphere of electrical suspense.
He was loathsome, yet fascinating. One's mental attitude
toward him was one of defence, of being tensely on guard.
Then he would play.
You have heard him play, and it is therefore unnecessary
for me to attempt to describe the effect of that music.
The only composition which ever bore his name -- I refer
to "The Black Mass" -- affected me on every occasion when
I heard it, as no other composition has ever done.
Perhaps it was Tcheriapin's playing rather than the
music itself which reached down into hitherto un-plumbed
depths within me and awakened dark things which,
unsuspected, lay there sleeping. I never heard "The Black
Mass" played by anyone else; indeed, I am not aware that
it was ever published. But had it been we should rarely
hear it. Like Locke's music to "Macbeth" it bears an
unpleasant reputation; to include it in any concert
programme would be to court disaster. An idle
superstition, perhaps, but there is much naivete in the
artistic temperament.
Men detested Tcheriapin, yet when he chose he could win
over his bitterest enemies. Women followed him as children
followed the Pied Piper; he courted none, but was courted
by all. He would glance aside with those black, slanting
eyes, shrug in his insolent fashion, and turn away. And
they would follow. God knows how many of them followed --
whether through the dens of Limehouse or the more
fashionable salons of vice in the West End -- they
followed -- perhaps down to Hell. So much for Tcheriapin.
At the time when the episode occurred to which I have
referred, Dr. Kreener occupied a house in Regent's Park,
to which, when his duties at the munition works allowed,
he would sometimes retire at week-ends. He was a man of
complex personality. I think no one ever knew him
thoroughly; indeed, I doubt if he knew himself.
He was hail-fellow-well-met with the painters,
sculptors, poets, and social reformers who have made of
Soho a new Mecca. No movement in art was so modern that
Dr. Kreener was not conversant with it; no development in
Bolshevism so violent or so secret that Dr. Kreener could
not speak of it complacently and with inside knowledge.
These were his Bohemian friends, these dreamers and
schemers. Of this side of his life his scientific
colleagues knew little or nothing, but in his hours of
leisure at Regent's Park it was with these dreamers that
he loved to surround himself rather than with his brethren
of the laboratory. I think if Dr. Kreener had not been a
great chemist he would have been a great painter, or
perhaps a politician, or even a poet. Triumph was his
birthright, and the fruits for which lesser men reached
out in vain fell ripe into his hands.
The favourite meeting-place for these oddly assorted
boon companions was the doctor's laboratory, which was
divided from the house by a moderately large garden. Here
on a Sunday evening one might meet the very "latest"
composer, the sculptor bringing a new "message," or the
man destined to supplant with the ballet the time-worn
operatic tradition.
But while some of these would come and go, so that one
could never count with certainty upon meeting them, there
was one who never failed to be present when such an
informal reception was held. Of him I must speak at
greater length, for a reason which will shortly appear.
Andrews was the name by which he was known to the
circles in which he moved. No one, from Sir John Tennier,
the fashionable portrait painter, to Kruski, of the
Russian ballet, disputed Andrews's right to be counted one
of the elect. Yet it was known, nor did he trouble to hide
the fact, that Andrews was employed at a large printing
works in South London, designing advertisements. He was a
great, red-bearded, unkempt Scotsman, and only once can I
remember to have seen him strictly sober; but to hear him
talk about painters and painting in his thick Caledonian
accent was to look into the soul of an artist.
He was as sour as an unripe grape-fruit, cynical,
embittered, a man savagely disappointed with life and the
world; and tragedy was written all over him. If anyone
knew the secret of his wasted life it was Dr. Kreener, and
Dr. Kreener was a reliquary of so many secrets that this
one was safe as if the grave had swallowed it.
One Sunday Tcheriapin joined the party. That he would
gravitate there sooner or later was inevitable, for the
laboratory in the garden was a Kaaba to which all such
spirits made at least one pilgrimage. He had just set
musical London on fire with his barbaric playing, and
already those stories to which I have referred were
creeping into circulation.
Although Dr. Kreener never expected anything of his
guests beyond an interchange of ideas, it was a fact that
the laboratory contained an almost unique collection of
pencil and charcoal studies by famous artists, done upon
the spot; of statuettes in wax, putty, soap and other
extemporized materials, by the newest sculptors. While
often enough from the drawing room which opened upon the
other end of the garden had issued the strains of masterly
piano-playing, and it was no uncommon thing for little
groups to gather in the neighbouring road to listen,
gratis, to the voice of some great vocalist.
From the first moment of their meeting an intense
antagonism sprang up between Tcheriapin and Andrews.
Neither troubled very much to veil it. In Tcheriapin it
found expression in covert sneers and sidelong glances,
while the big, lion-maned Scotsman snorted open contempt
of the Eurasian violinist. However, what I was about to
say was that Tcheriapin on the occasion of his first visit
brought his violin.
It was there, amid these incongruous surroundings, that
I first had my spirit tortured by the strains of "The
Black Mass."
There were five of us present, including Tcheriapin, and
not one of the four listeners was unaffected by the music.
But the influence which it exercised upon Andrews was so
extraordinary as almost to reach the phenomenal. He
literally writhed in his chair, and finally interrupted
the performance by staggering rather than walking out of
the laboratory.
I remember that he upset a jar of acid in his stumbling
exit. It flowed across the floor almost to the feet of
Tcheriapin, and the way in which the little black-haired
man skipped, squealing, out of the path of the corroding
fluid was curiously like that of a startled rabbit. Order
was restored in due course, but we could not induce
Tcheriapin to play again, nor did Andrews return until the
violinist had taken his departure. We found him in the
dining room, a nearly empty whisky-bottle beside him.
"I had to gang awa'," he explained thickly; "he was
temptin' me to murder him. I should ha' had to do it if I
had stayed. Damn his hell-music."
Tcheriapin revisited Dr. Kreener on many occasions
afterward, although for a long time he did not bring his
violin again. The doctor had prevailed upon Andrews to
tolerate the Eurasian's company, and I could not help
noticing how Tcheriapin skilfully and deliberately goaded
the Scotsman, seeming to take a fiendish delight in
disagreeing with his pet theories and in discussing any
topic which he had found to be distasteful to Andrews.
Chief among these was that sort of irreverent criticism
of women in which male parties so often indulge. Bitter
cynic though he was, women were sacred to Andrews. To
speak disrespectfully of a woman in his presence was like
uttering blasphemy in the study of a cardinal. Tcheriapin
very quickly detected the Scotsman's weakness, and one
night he launched out into a series of amorous adventures
which set Andrews writhing as he had writhed under the
torture of "The Black Mass."
On this occasion the party was only a small one,
comprising myself, Dr. Kreener, Andrews and Tcheriapin. I
could feel the storm brewing, but was powerless to check
it. How presently it was to break in tragic violence I
could not foresee. Fate had not meant that I should
foresee it.
Allowing for the free play of an extravagant artistic
mind, Tcheriapin's career on his own showing had been that
of a callous blackguard. I began by being disgusted and
ended by being fascinated, not by the man's scandalous
adventures, but by the scarcely human psychology of the
narrator.
From Warsaw to Budapesth, Shanghai to Paris, and Cairo
to London he passed, leaving ruin behind him with a smile
-- airily flicking cigarette ash upon the floor to
indicate the termination of each "episode."
Andrews watched him in a lowering way which I did not
like at all. He had ceased to snort his scorn; indeed, for
ten minutes or so he had uttered no word or sound; but
there was something in the pose of his ungainly body which
strangely suggested that of a great dog preparing to
spring. Presently the violinist recalled what he termed a
"charming idyll of Normandy."
"There is one poor fool in the world," he said,
shrugging his slight shoulders, "who never knew how badly
he should hate me. Ha! ha! of him I shall tell you. Do you
remember, my friends, some few years ago, a picture that
was published in Paris and London? Everybody bought it;
everybody said: 'He is a made man, this fellow who can
paint so fine.'"
"To what picture do you refer?" asked Dr. Kreener.
"It was called 'A Dream at Dawn.'"
As he spoke the words I saw Andrews start forward, and
Dr. Kreener exchanged a swift glance with him. But the
Scotsman, unseen by the vainglorious half-caste, shook his
head fiercely.
The picture to which Tcheriapin referred will, of
course, be perfectly familiar to you. It had phenomenal
popularity some eight years ago. Nothing was known of the
painter -- whose name was Colquhoun -- and nothing has
been seen of his work since. The original painting was
never sold, and after a time this promising new artist
was, of course, forgotten.
Presently Tcheriapin continued:
"It is the figure of a slender girl -- ah! angels of
grace! -- what a girl!" He kissed his hand rapturously.
"She is posed bending gracefully forward, and looking down
at her own lovely reflection in the water. It is a
seashore, you remember, and the little ripples play about
her ankles. The first blush of the dawn robes her white
body in a transparent mantle of light. Ah! God's mercy! it
was as she stood so, in a little cove of Normandy, that I
saw her!"
He paused, rolling his dark eyes; and I could hear
Andrews's heavy breathing; then:
"It was the 'new art' -- the posing of the model not in
a lighted studio, but in the scene to be depicted.
"And the fellow who painted her! -- the man with the
barbarous name! Bah! he was big -- as big as our Mr.
Andrews -- and ugly -- pooh! uglier than he! A moon-face,
with cropped skull like a prize- fighter and no soul. But,
yes, he could paint. 'A Dream at Dawn' was genius -- yes,
some soul he must have had.
"He could paint, dear friends, but he could not love.
Him I counted as -- puff!"
He blew imaginary down into space.
"Her I sought out, and presently found. She told me, in
those sweet stolen rambles along the shore, when the
moonlight made her look like a Madonna, that she was his
inspiration -- his art -- his life. And she wept; she
wept, and I kissed her tears away.
"To please her I waited until 'A Dream at Dawn' was
finished. With the finish of the picture, finished also
his dream of dawn -- the moon-faced one's."
Tcheriapin laughed, and lighted a fresh cigarette.
"Can you believe that a man could be so stupid? He never
knew of my existence, this big, red booby. He never knew
that I existed until -- until his 'dream' had fled -- with
me! In a week we were in Paris, that dream-girl and I --
in a month we had quarrelled. I always end these matters
with a quarrel; it makes the complete finish. She struck
me in the face -- and I laughed. She turned and went away.
We were tired of one another.
"Ah!" Again he airily kissed his hand. "There were
others after I had gone. I heard for a time. But her
memory is like a rose, fresh and fair and sweet. I am glad
I can remember her so, and not as she afterward became.
That is the art of love. She killed herself with absinthe,
my friends. She died in Marseilles in the first year of
the great war."
Thus far Tcheriapin had proceeded, and was in the act of
airily flicking ash upon the floor, when, uttering a sound
which I can only describe as a roar, Andrews hurled
himself upon the smiling violinist.
His great red hands clutching Tcheriapin's throat, the
insane Scotsman, for insane he was at that moment, forced
the other back upon the settee from which he had half
arisen. In vain I sought to drag him away from the
writhing body, but I doubt that any man could have relaxed
that deadly grip. Tcheriapin's eyes protruded hideously
and his tongue lolled forth from his mouth. One could hear
the breath whistling through his nostrils as Andrews
silently, deliberately, squeezed the life out of him.
It all occupied only a few minutes, and then Andrews,
slowly opening his rigidly crooked fingers, stood panting
and looking down at the distorted face of the dead man.
For once in his life the Scotsman was sober, and turning
to Dr. Kreener:
"I have waited seven long years for this," he said, "and
I'll hang wi' contentment."
I can never forget the ensuing moments, in which, amid a
horrible silence broken only by the ticking of a clock and
the heavy breathing of Colquhoun (so long known to us as
Andrews) we stood watching the contorted body on the
settee.
And as we watched, slowly the rigid limbs began to
relax, and Tcheriapin slid gently on to the floor,
collapsing there with a soft thud, where he squatted like
some hideous Buddha, resting back against the cushions,
one spectral yellow hand upraised, the fingers still
clutching a big gold tassel.
Andrews (for so I always think of him) was seized with a
violent fit of trembling, and he dropped into the chair,
muttering to himself and looking down wild-eyed at his
twitching fingers. Then he began to laugh, high-pitched
laughter, in little short peals.
"Here!" cried the doctor sharply. "Drop that!"
Crossing to Andrews, he grasped him by the shoulders and
shook him roughly.
The laughter ceased, and:
"Send for the police," said Andrews in a queer, shaky
voice. "Dinna fear but I'm ready. I'm only sorry it
happened here."
"You ought to be glad," said Dr. Kreener.
There was a covert meaning in the words -- a fact which
penetrated even to the dulled intelligence of the
Scotsman, for he glanced up haggardly at his friend.
"You ought to be glad," repeated Dr. Kreener.
Turning, he walked to the laboratory door and locked it.
He next lowered all the blinds.
"I pray that we have not been observed," he said, "but
we must chance it."
He mixed a drink for Andrews and himself. His quiet,
decisive manner had had its effect, and Andrews was now
more composed. Indeed, he seemed to be in a half-dazed
condition; but he persistently kept his back turned to the
crouching figure propped up against the settee.
"If you think you can follow me," said Dr. Kreener
abruptly, "I will show you the result of a recent
experiment."
Unlocking a cupboard, he took out a tiny figure some two
inches long by one inch high, mounted upon a polished
wooden pedestal. It was that of a guinea-pig. The flaky
fur gleamed like the finest silk, and one felt that the
coat of the minute creature would be as floss to the
touch; whereas in reality it possessed the rigidity of
steel. Literally one could have done it little damage with
a hammer. Its weight was extraordinary.
"I am learning new things about this process every day,"
continued Dr. Kreener, placing the little figure upon a
table. "For instance, while it seems to operate uniformly
upon vegetable matter, there are curious modifications
when one applies it to animal and mineral substances. I
have now definitely decided that the result of this
particular inquiry must never be published. You,
Colquhoun, I believe, possess an example of the process, a
tiger lily, I think? I must ask you to return it to me.
Our late friend, Tcheriapin, wears a pink rose in his coat
which I have treated in the same way. I am going to take
the liberty of removing it."
He spoke in the hard, incisive manner which I had heard
him use in the lecture theatre, and it was evident enough
that his design was to prepare Andrews for something which
he contemplated. Facing the Scotsman where he sat hunched
up in the big armchair, dully watching the speaker:
"There is one experiment," said Dr. Kreener, speaking
very deliberately, "which I have never before had a
suitable opportunity of attempting. Of its result I am
personally confident, but science always demands proof."
His voice rang now with a note of repressed excitement.
He paused for a moment, and then:
"If you were to examine this little specimen very
closely," he said, and rested his finger upon the tiny
figure of the guinea- pig, "you would find that in one
particular it is imperfect. Although a diamond drill would
have to be employed to demonstrate the fact, the animal's
organs, despite their having undergone a chemical change
quite new to science, are intact, perfect down to the
smallest detail. One part of the creature's structure
alone defied my process. In short, dental enamel is
impervious to it. This little animal, otherwise as
complete as when it lived and breathed, has no teeth. I
found it necessary to extract them before submitting the
body to the reductionary process."
He paused.
"Shall I go on?" he asked.
Andrews, to whose mind, I think, no conception of the
doctor's project had yet penetrated, shuddered, but slowly
nodded his head.
Dr. Kreener glanced across the laboratory at the
crouching figure of Tcheriapin, then, resting his hands
upon Andrews's shoulders, he pushed him back in the chair
and stared into his dull eyes.
"Brace yourself, Colquhoun," he said tersely.
Turning, he crossed to a small mahogany cabinet at the
farther end of the room. Pulling out a glass tray he
judicially selected a pair of dental forceps.
Chapter II
"The Black Mass"
Thus far the stranger's appalling story had progressed
when that singular cloak in which hypnotically he had
enwrapped me seemed to drop, and I found myself clutching
the edge of the table and staring into the gray face of
the speaker.
I became suddenly aware of the babel of voices about me,
of the noisome smell of Malay Jack's, and of the presence
of Jack in person, who was inquiring if there were any
further orders. I was conscious of nausea.
"Excuse me," I said, rising unsteadily, "but I fear the
oppressive atmosphere is affecting me."
"If you prefer to go out," said my acquaintance, in that
deep voice which throughout the dreadful story had
rendered me oblivious of my surroundings, "I should be
much favoured if you would accompany me to a spot not five
hundred yards from here."
Seeing me hesitate:
"I have a particular reason for asking," he added.
"Very well," I replied, inclining my head, "if you wish
it. But certainly I must seek the fresh air."
Going up the steps and out through the door above which
the blue lantern burned, we came to the street, turned to
the left, to the left again, and soon were threading that
maze of narrow ways which complicates the map of
Pennyfields.
I felt somewhat recovered. Here, in the narrow but
familiar highways the spell of my singular acquaintance
lost much of its potency, and already I found myself
doubting the story of Dr. Kreener and Tcheriapin. Indeed,
I began to laugh at myself, conceiving that I had fallen
into the hands of some comedian who was making sport of
me; although why such a person should visit Malay Jack's
was not apparent.
I was about to give expression to these new and saner
ideas when my companion paused before a door half hidden
in a little alley which divided the back of a Chinese
restaurant from the tawdry- looking establishment of a
cigar merchant. He apparently held the key, for although I
did not actually hear the turning of the lock I saw that
he had opened the door.
"May I request you to follow me?" came his deep voice
out of the darkness. "I will show you something which will
repay your trouble."
Again the cloak touched me, but it was without entirely
resigning myself to the compelling influence that I
followed my mysterious acquaintance up an uncarpeted and
nearly dark stair. On the landing above a gas lamp was
burning, and opening a door immediately facing the stair
the stranger conducted me into a barely furnished and
untidy room.
The atmosphere smelled like that of a pot-house, the
odours of stale spirits and of tobacco mingling
unpleasantly. As my guide removed his hat and stood there,
a square, gaunt figure in his queer, caped overcoat, I
secured for the first time a view of his face in profile;
and found it to be startlingly unfamiliar. Seen thus, my
acquaintance was another man. I realized that there was
something unnatural about the long, white hair, the gray
face; that the sharp outline of brow, nose, and chin was
that of a much younger man than I had supposed him to be.
All this came to me in a momentary flash of perception,
for immediately my attention was riveted upon a figure
hunched up on a dilapidated sofa on the opposite side of
the room. It was that of. a big man, bearded and very
heavily built, but whose face was scarred as by years of
suffering, and whose eyes confirmed the story indicated by
the smell of stale spirits with which the air of the room
was laden. A nearly empty bottle stood on a table at his
elbow, a glass beside it, and a pipe lay in a saucer full
of ashes near the glass.
As we entered, the glazed eyes of the man opened widely
and he clutched at the table with big red hands, leaning
forward and staring horribly.
Save for this derelict figure and some few dirty
utensils and scattered garments which indicated that the
apartment was used both as sleeping and living room, there
was so little of interest in the place that automatically
my wandering gaze strayed from the figure on the sofa to a
large oil painting, unframed, which rested upon the
mantelpiece above the dirty grate, in which the fire had
become extinguished.
I uttered a stifled exclamation. It was "A Dream at
Dawn" -- evidently the original painting!
On the left of it, from a nail in the wall, hung a
violin and bow, and on the right stood a sort of
cylindrical glass case or closed jar, upon a wooden base.
From the moment that I perceived the contents of this
glass case a sense of fantasy claimed me, and I ceased to
know where reality ended and mirage began.
It contained a tiny and perfect figure of a man. He was
arrayed in a beautifully fitting dress-suit such as a doll
might have worn, and he was posed as if in the act of
playing a violin, although no violin was present. At the
elfin black hair and Mephistophelian face of this
horrible, wonderful image, I stared fascinatedly.
I looked and looked at the dwarfed figure of. . .
Tcheriapin!
All these impressions came to me in the space of a few
hectic moments, when in upon my mental tumult intruded a
husky whisper from the man on the sofa.
"Kreener!" he said. "Kreener!"
At the sound of that name, and because of the way in
which it was pronounced, I felt my blood running cold. The
speaker was staring straight at my companion.
I clutched at the open door. I felt that there was still
some crowning horror to come. I wanted to escape from that
reeking room, but my muscles refused to obey me, and there
I stood while:
"Kreener!" repeated the husky voice, and I saw that the
speaker was rising unsteadily to his feet.
"You have brought him again. Why have you brought him
again? He will play. He will play me a step nearer to
Hell."
"Brace yourself, Colquhoun," said the voice of my
companion. "Brace yourself."
"Take him awa'!" came in a sudden frenzied shriek. "Take
him awa'! He's there at your elbow, Kreener, mockin' me,
and pointing to that damned violin."
"Here!" said the stranger, a high note of command in his
voice. "Drop that! Sit down at once."
Even as the other obeyed him, the cloaked stranger,
stepping to the mantelpiece, opened a small box which lay
there beside the glass case. He turned to me; and I tried
to shrink away from him. For I knew -- I knew -- yet I
loathed to look upon -- what was in the box. Muffled as
though reaching me through fog, I heard the words:
"A perfect human body...in miniature. . . every organ
intact by means of. . . process. . . rendered
indestructible. Tcheriapin as he was in life may be seen
by the curious ten thousand years hence. Incomplete. . .
one respect. . . here in this box. . ."
The spell was broken by a horrifying shriek from the man
whom my companion had addressed as Colquhoun, and whom I
could only suppose to be the painter of the celebrated
picture which rested upon the mantelshelf.
"Take him awa', Kreener! He is reaching for the violin!"
Animation returned to me, and I fell rather than ran
down the darkened stair. How I opened the street door I
know not, but even as I stepped out into the squalid
alleys of Pennyfields the cloaked figure was beside me. A
hand was laid upon my shoulder.
"Listen!" commanded a deep voice.
Clearly, with an eerie sweetness, an evil, hellish
beauty indescribable, the wailing of a Stradivarius violin
crept to my ears from the room above. Slowly -- slowly the
music began, and my soul rose up in revolt.
"Listen!" repeated the voice. "Listen! It is 'The Black
Mass'!"
The Dance Of The Veils
Chapter I
The House Of The Agapoulos
Hassan came in and began very deliberately to light the
four lamps. He muttered to himself and often smiled in the
childish manner which characterizes some Egyptians. Hassan
wore a red cap, and a white robe confined at the waist by
a red sash. On his brown feet he wore loose slippers, also
of red. He had good features and made a very picturesque
figure moving slowly about his work.
As he lighted lamp after lamp and soft illumination
crept about the big room, because of the heavy shadows
created the place seemed to become mysteriously enlarged.
That it was an Eastern apartment cunningly devised to
appeal to the Western eye, one familiar with Arab
households must have seen at once. It was a traditional
Oriental interior, a stage setting rather than the
nondescript and generally uninteresting environment of the
modern Egyptian at home.
Brightly coloured divans there were and many silken
cushions of strange pattern and design. The hanging lamps
were of perforated brass with little coloured glass
panels. In carved wooden cabinets stood beautiful
porcelain jars, trays, and vessels of silver and copper
ware. Rich carpets were spread about the floor, and the
draperies were elegant and costly, while two deep windows
projecting over the court represented the best period of
Arab architecture. Their intricate carven woodwork had
once adorned the palace of a Grand Wazir. Agapoulos had
bought them in Cairo and had had them fitted to his house
in Chinatown. A smaller brass lamp of very delicate
workmanship was suspended in each of the recesses.
As Hassan, having lighted the four larger lanterns, was
proceeding leisurely to light the first of the smaller
ones, draperies before a door at the east end of the room
were parted and Agapoulos came in. Agapoulos was a short
but portly Greek whom the careless observer might easily
have mistaken for a Jew. He had much of the appearance of
a bank manager, having the manners of one used to making
himself agreeable, but also possessing the money-eye and
that comprehensive glance which belongs to the successful
man of commerce.
Standing in the centre of the place he brushed his neat
black moustache with a plump forefinger. A diamond ring
which he wore glittered brilliantly in the coloured rays
of the lanterns. With his right hand, which rested in his
trouser pocket, he rattled keys. His glance roved about
the room appraisingly. Walking to a beautifully carved
Arab cabinet he rearranged three pieces of Persian
copperware which stood upon it. He moved several cushions,
and taking up a leopard skin which lay upon the floor he
draped it over an ebony chair which was inlaid intricately
with ivory.
The drooping eyelids of M. Agapoulos drooped lower, as
returning to the centre of the room he critically surveyed
the effect of these master touches. At the moment he
resembled a window- dresser, or, rather, one of those
high-salaried artists who beautify the great
establishments of Regent Street, the Rue de la Paix, and
Ruination Avenue, New York.
Hassan lighted the sixth lamp, muttering smilingly all
the time. He was about to depart when Agapoulos addressed
him in Arabic.
"There will be a party down from the Savoy tonight,
Hassan. No one else is to come unless I am told. That
accursed red policeman, Kerry, has been about here of
late. Be very careful."
Hassan saluted him gravely and retired through one of
the draped openings. In his hand he held the taper with
which he had lighted the lamps. In order that the
draperies should not be singed he had to hold them widely
apart. For it had not occurred to Hassan to extinguish the
taper. The Egyptian mind is complex in its simplicity.
M. Agapoulos from a gold case extracted a cigarette, and
lighting it, inhaled the smoke contentedly, looking about
him. The window-dresser was lost again in the bank manager
who has arranged a profitable overdraft. Somewhere a bell
rang. Hassan, treading silently, reappeared, crossed the
room, and opening a finely carved door walked along a
corridor which it had concealed. He still carried the
lighted taper.
Presently there entered a man whose well-cut serge suit
revealed the figure of a soldier. He wore a soft gray felt
hat and carried light gloves and a cane. His dark face,
bronzed by recent exposure to the Egyptian sun, was
handsome in a saturnine fashion, and a touch of gray at
the temples tended to enhance his good looks. He carried
himself in that kind of nonchalant manner which is not
only insular but almost insolent.
M. Agapoulos bowed extravagantly. As he laid his plump
hand upon his breast the diamond ring sparkled in a way
most opulent and impressive.
"I greet you, Major Grantham," he said. "Behold" -- he
waved his hand glitteringly -- "all is prepared."
"Oh, yes," murmured the other, glancing around without
interest; "good. You are beginning to get straight in your
new quarters."
Agapoulos extended the prosperous cigarette-case, and
Major Grantham took and lighted a superior cigarette.
"How many in the party?" inquired the Greek smilingly.
"Three and myself."
A shadow of a frown appeared upon the face of Agapoulos.
"Only three," he muttered.
Major Grantham laughed.
"You should know me by this time, Agapoulos," he said.
"The party is small but exclusive, you understand?"
He spoke wearily, as a tired man speaks of distasteful
work which he must do. There was contempt in his voice;
contempt of Agapoulos, and contempt of himself.
"Ah!" cried the Greek, brightening; "do I know any of
them?"
"Probably. General Sir Francis Payne, Mr. Eddie, and Sir
Horace Tipton."
"An Anglo-American party, eh?"
"Quite. Mr. Eddie is the proprietor of the well-known
group of American hotels justly celebrated for their great
height and poisonous cuisine; while Sir Horace Tipton
alike as sportsman, globe-trotter, and soap manufacturer,
is characteristically British. Of General Sir Francis
Payne I need only say that his home services during the
war did incalculable harm to our prestige throughout the
Empire."
He spoke with all the bitterness of a man who has made a
failure of life. Agapoulos was quite restored to good
humour.
"Ahl" he exclaimed, brushing his moustache and rattling
his keys; "sportsmen, eh?"
Major Grantham dropped into the carven chair upon which
the Greek had draped the leopard skin. Momentarily the
window-dresser leapt into life as Agapoulos beheld one of
his cunning effects destroyed, but he forced a smile when
Grantham, shrugging his shoulders, replied:
"If they are fools enough to play -- the usual 5 per
cent, on the bank's takings."
He paused, glancing at some ash upon the tip of his
cigarette. Agapoulos swiftly produced an ashtray and
received the ash on it in the manner of a churchwarden
collecting half a crown from a pew-holder.
"I think," continued Grantham indifferently, "that it
will be the dances. Two of them are over fifty."
"Ah!" said Agapoulos thoughtfully; "not, of course, the
ordinary programme?"
Major Grantham looked up at him with lazy insolence.
"Why ask?" he inquired. "Does Lucullus crave for
sausages? Do philosophers play marbles?"
He laughed again, noting the rather blank look of
Agapoulos.
"You don't know what I'm talking about, do you?" he
added. "I mean to say that these men have been everywhere
and done everything. They have drunk wine sweet and sour
and have swallowed the dregs. I am bringing them. It is
enough."
"More than enough," declared the Greek with enthusiasm.
He bowed, although Grantham was not looking at him. "In
the little matter of fees I can rely upon your discretion,
as always. Is it not said that a good dragoman is a
desirable husband?"
Major Grantham resettled himself in his chair.
"M. Agapoulos," he said icily, "we have done shady
business together for years, both in Port Said and in
London, and have remained the best of friends; two
blackguards linked by our common villainy. But if this
pleasant commercial acquaintance is to continue let there
be no misunderstanding between us, M. Agapoulos. I may
know I'm a dragoman; but in future, old friend" -- he
turned lazy eyes upon the Greek -- "for your guidance,
don't remind me of the fact or I'll wring your neck."
The drooping eyelids of M. Agapoulos flickered
significantly, but it was with a flourish more grand than
usual that he bowed.
"Pardon, pardon," he murmured. "You speak harshly of
yourself, but ah, you do not mean it. We understand each
other, eh?"
"I understand you perfectly," drawled Grantham; "I was
merely advising you to endeavour to understand me. My
party will arrive at nine o'clock, Agapoulos, and I am
going back to the Savoy shortly to dress. Meanwhile, if
Hassan would bring me a whisky and soda I should be
obliged."
"Of course, of course. He shall do so at once," cried
Agapoulos. "I will tell him."
Palpably glad to escape, the fat Greek retired, leaving
Major Grantham lolling there upon the leopard skin, his
hat, cane and gloves upon the carpet beside him; and a few
moments later Hassan the silent glided into the
extravagant apartment bearing refreshments. Placing his
tray upon a little coffee-table beside Major Grantham, he
departed.
There was a faint smell of perfume in the room, a heavy
voluptuous smell in which the odour of sandal-wood mingled
with the pungency of myrrh. It was very silent, so that
when Grantham mixed a drink the pleasant chink of glass
upon glass rang out sharply.
Chapter II
Zahara
Zahara had overheard the latter part of the conversation
from her own apartment. Once she had even crept across to
the carven screen in order that she might peep through
into the big, softly lighted room. She had interrupted her
toilet to do so, and having satisfied herself that
Grantham was one of the speakers (although she had really
known this already), she had returned and stared at
herself critically in the mirror.
Zahara, whose father had been a Frenchman, possessed
skin of a subtle cream colour very far removed from the
warm brown of her Egyptian mother, but yet not white. At
night it appeared dazzling, for she enhanced its smooth,
creamy pallor with a wonderful liquid solution which came
from Paris. It was hard, Zahara had learned, to avoid a
certain streaky appearance, but much practice had made her
an adept.
This portion of her toilet she had already completed and
studying her own reflection she wondered, as she had
always wondered, what Agapoulos could see in Safiyeh.
Safiyeh was as brown as a berry; quite pretty for an
Egyptian girl, as Zahara admitted scornfully, but brown --
brown. It was a great puzzle to Zahara. The mystery of
life indeed had puzzled little Zahara very much from the
moment when she had first begun to notice things with
those big, surprising blue eyes of hers, right up to the
present twenty- fourth year of her life. She had an uneasy
feeling that Safiyeh, who was only sixteen, knew more of
this mystery than she did. Once, shortly after the
Egyptian girl had come to the house of Agapoulos, Zahara
had playfully placed her round white arm against that of
the more dusky beauty, and:
"Look!" she had exclaimed. "I am cream and you are
coffee."
"It is true," the other had admitted in her practical,
serious way, "but some men do not like cream. All men like
coffee."
Zahara rested her elbows upon the table and surveyed the
reflection of her perfect shoulders with disapproval. She
had been taught at her mother's knee that men did not
understand women, and she, who had been born and reared in
that quarter of Cairo where there is no day but one long
night, had lived to learn the truth of the lesson. Yet she
was not surprised that this was so; for Zahara did not
understand herself. Her desires were so simple and so
seemingly natural, yet it would appear that they were
contrary to the established order of things.
She was proud to think that she was French, although
someone had told her that the French, though brave, were
mercenary. Zahara admired the French for being brave, and
thought it very sensible that they should be mercenary.
For there was nothing that Zahara wanted of the world that
money could not obtain (or so she believed), and she knew
no higher philosophy than the quest of happiness. Because
others did not seem to share this philosophy she often
wondered if she could be unusual. She had come to the
conclusion that she was ignorant. If only Harry Grantham
would talk to her she felt sure he could teach her so
much.
There were so many things that puzzled her. She knew
that at twenty-four she was young for a French girl,
although as an Egyptian she would have been considered
old. She had been taught that gold was the key to
happiness and that man was the ogre from whom this key
must be wheedled. A ready pupil, Zahara had early acquired
the art of attracting, and now at twenty-four she was a
past mistress of the Great Craft, and as her mirror told
her, more beautiful than she had ever been.
Therefore, what did Agapoulos see in Safiyeh?
It was a problem which made Zahara's head ache. She
could not understand why as her power of winning men
increased her power to hold them diminished. Safiyeh was a
mere inexperienced child -- yet Agapoulos had brought her
to the house, and Zahara, wise in woman's lore, had
recognized the familiar change of manner.
It was a great problem, the age-old problem which
doubtless set the first silver thread among Phryne's
red-gold locks and which now brought a little perplexed
wrinkle between Zahara's delicately pencilled brows.
It had not always been so. In those early days in Cairo
there had been an American boy. Zahara had never
forgotten. Her beauty had bewildered him. He had wanted to
take her to New York; and oh! how she had wanted to go.
But her mother, who was then alive, had held other views,
and he had gone alone. Heavens! How old she felt. How many
had come and gone since that Egyptian winter, but now,
although admiration was fatally easy to win how few were
so sincere as that fresh-faced boy from beyond the
Atlantic.
Zahara, staring into the mirror, observed that there was
not a wrinkle upon her face, not a flaw upon her perfect
skin. Nor in this was she blinded by vanity. Nature,
indeed, had cast her in a rare mould, and from her unusual
hair, which was like dull gold, to her slender ankles and
tiny feet, she was one of the most perfectly fashioned
human beings who ever added to the beauty of the world.
Yet Agapoulos preferred Safiyeh. Zahara could hear him
coming to her room even as she sat there, chin in hands,
staring at her own bewitching reflection. Presently she
would slip out and speak to Harry Grantham. Twice she had
read in his eyes that sort of interest which she knew so
well how to detect. She liked him very much, but because
of a sense of loyalty to Agapoulos (a sentiment purely
Egyptian which she longed to crush) Zahara had never so
much as glanced at Grantham in the Right Way. She was
glad, though, that he had not gone, and she hoped that
Agapoulos would not detain her long.
As a matter of fact, the Greek's manner was even more
cold than usual. He rested his hand upon her shoulder for
a moment, and meeting her glance reflected in the mirror:
"There will be a lot of money here to-night," he said.
"Make the best of your opportunities. Chinatown is foggy,
yes -- but it pays better than Port Said."
He ran fat fingers carelessly through her hair, the big
diamond glittering effectively in the wavy gold, then
turned and went out. Sitting listening intently, Zahara
could hear him talking in a subdued voice to Safiyeh, and
could detect the Egyptian's low-spoken replies.
*****
Grantham looked up with a start. A new and subtle
perfume had added itself to that with which the air of the
room was already laden. He found Zahara standing beside
him.
His glance travelled upward from a pair of absurdly tiny
brocaded shoes past slender white ankles to the
embroidered edge of a wonderful mandarin robe decorated
with the figures of peacocks; upward again to a little
bejewelled hand which held the robe confined about the
slender figure of Zahara, and upward to where, sideways
upon a bare shoulder peeping impudently out from Chinese
embroidery, rested the half-mocking and half-serious face
of the girl.
"Hallo!" he said, smiling, "I didn't hear you come in."
"I walk very soft," explained Zahara, "because I am not
supposed to be here."
She looked at him quizzically. "I don't see you for a
long time," she added, and in the tone of her voice there
was a caress. "I saw you more often in Port Said than
here."
"No," replied Grantham, "I have been giving Agapoulos a
rest. Besides, there has been nobody worth while at any of
the hotels or clubs during the last fortnight."
"Somebody worth while coming to-night?" asked Zahara
with professional interest.
At the very moment that she uttered the words she
recognized her error, for she saw Grantham's expression
change. Yet to her strange soul there was a challenge in
his coldness and the joy of contest in the task of melting
the ice of this English reserve.
"Lots of money," he said bitterly; "we shall all do well
to- night."
Zahara did not reply for a moment. She wished to close
this line of conversation which inadvertently she had
opened up. So that, presently:
"You look very lonely and bored," she said softly.
As a matter of fact, it was she who was bored of the
life she led in Limehouse -- in chilly, misty Limehouse --
and who had grown so very lonely since Safiyeh had come.
In the dark gray eyes looking up at her she read
recognition of her secret. Here was a man possessing that
rare masculine attribute, intuition. Zahara knew a fear
that was half delightful. Fear because she might fail in
either of two ways and delight because the contest was
equal.
"Yes," he replied slowly, "my looks tell the truth. How
did you know?"
Zahara observed that his curiosity had not yet become
actual interest. She toyed with the silken tassel on her
robe, tying and untying it with quick nervous fingers and
resting the while against the side of the carved chair.
"Perhaps because I am so lonely myself," she said. "I
matter to no one. What I do, where I go, if I live or die.
It is all -- -- "
She spread her small hands eloquently and shrugged so
that another white shoulder escaped from the Chinese
wrapping. Thereupon Zahara demurely drew her robe about
her with a naive air of modesty which nine out of ten
beholding must have supposed to be affected.
In reality it was a perfectly natural, instinctive
movement. To Zahara her own beauty was a commonplace to be
displayed or concealed as circumstances might dictate. In
a certain sense, which few could appreciate, this
half-caste dancing girl and daughter of El Wasr was as
innocent as a baby. It was one of the things which men did
not understand. She thought that if Harry Grantham asked
her to go away with him it would be nice to go. Suddenly
she realized how deep was her loathing of this Limehouse
and of the people she met there, who were all alike.
He sat looking at her for some time, and then: "Perhaps
you are wrong," he said. "There may be some who could
understand."
And because he had answered her thoughts rather than her
words, the fear within Zahara grew greater than the joy of
the contest.
Awhile longer she stayed, seeking for a chink in the
armour. But she failed to kindle the light in his eyes
which -- unless she had deluded herself -- she had seen
there in the past; and because she failed and could detect
no note of tenderness in his impersonal curiosity:
"You are lonely because you are so English, so cold,"
she exclaimed, drawing her robe about her and glancing
sideways toward the door by which Agapoulos might be
expected to enter. "You are bored, yes. Of course. You
look on at life. It is not exciting, that game -- except
for the players."
Never once had she looked at him in the Right Way; for
to have done so and to have evoked only that amused yet
compassionate smile would have meant hatred, and Zahara
had been taught that such hatred was fatal because it was
a confession of defeat.
"I shall see you again to-night, shall I not?" he said
as she turned away.
"Oh, yes, I shall be -- on show. I hope you will
approve."
She tossed her head like a petulant child, turned, and
with never another glance in his direction, walked from
the room. She was very graceful, he thought.
Yet it was not entirely of this strange half-caste,
whose beauty was provoking, although he resolutely
repelled her tentative advances, that Grantham was
thinking. In that last gesture when she had scornfully
tossed her head in turning aside, had lain a bitter
memory. Grantham stood for a moment watching the swaying
draperies. Then, dropping the end of his cigarette into a
little brass ash-tray, he took up his hat, gloves, and
cane from the floor, and walked toward the doorway through
which he had entered.
A bell rang somewhere, and Grantham paused. A close
observer might have been puzzled by his expression.
Evidently changing his mind, he crossed the room, opened
the door and went out, leaving the house of Agapoulos by a
side entrance. Crossing the little courtyard below he
hurried in the direction of the main street, seeming to
doubt the shadows which dusk was painting in the narrow
ways.
Many men who know Chinatown distrust its shadows, but
the furtive fear of which Grantham had become aware was
due not to anticipation but to memory -- to a memory
conjured up by that gesture of Zahara's.
There were few people in London or elsewhere who knew
the history of this scallywag Englishman. That he had held
the King's commission at some time was generally assumed
to be the fact, but that his real name was not Grantham
equally was taken for granted. His continuing,
nevertheless, to style himself "Major" was sufficient
evidence to those interested that Grantham lived by his
wits; and from the fact that he lived well and dressed
well one might have deduced that his wits were bright if
his morals were turbid.
Now, the gesture of a woman piqued had called up the
deathless past. Hurrying through nearly empty squalid
streets, he found himself longing to pronounce a name, to
hear it spoken that he might linger over its bitter
sweetness. To this longing he presently succumbed, and:
"Inez," he whispered, and again more loudly, "Inez."
Such a wave of lonely wretchedness and remorse swept up
about his heart that he was almost overwhelmed by it, yet
he resigned himself to its ruthless cruelty with a sort of
savage joy. The shadowed ways of Limehouse ceased to exist
for him, and in spirit he stood once more in a queer,
climbing, sunbathed street of Gibraltar looking out across
that blue ribbon of the Straits to where the African coast
lay hidden in the haze.
"I never knew," he said aloud. And one meeting this man
who hurried along and muttered to himself must have
supposed him to be mad. "I never knew. Oh, God! if I had
only known."
But he was one of those to whom knowledge comes as a
bitter aftermath. When his regiment had received orders to
move from the Rock, and he had informed Inez of his
departure, she had turned aside, just as Zahara had done;
scornfully and in silence. Because of his disbelief in her
he had guarded his heart against this beautiful Spanish
girl who (as he realized too late) had brought him the
only real happiness he had ever known. Often she had told
him of her brother, Miguel, who would kill her -- would
kill them both -- if he so much as suspected their
meetings; of her affianced husband, absent in Tunis, whose
jealousy knew no bounds.
He had pretended to believe, had even wanted to believe;
but the witchery of the girl's presence removed, he had
laughed -- at himself and at Inez. She was playing the
Great Game, skilfully, exquisitely. When he was gone --
there would soon be someone else. Yet he had never told
her that he doubted. He had promised many things -- and
had left her.
She died by her own hand on the night of his departure.
Now, as a wandering taxi came into view: "Inez!" he
moaned -- "I never knew."
That brother whom he had counted a myth had succeeded in
getting on board the transport. Before Grantham's inner
vision the whole dreadful scene now was reenacted: the
struggle in the stateroom; he even seemed to hear the
sound of the shot, to see the Spaniard, drenched with
blood from a wound in his forehead, to hear his cry:
"I cannot see! I cannot see! Mother of Mercy! I have
lost my sight!"
It had broken Grantham. The scandal was hushed up, but
retirement was inevitable. He knew, too, that the light
had gone out of the world for him as it had gone for
Miguel da Mura.
It is sometimes thus that a scallywag is made.
Chapter IV
The Star Of Egypt
As Grantham went out by the side door, Hassan, soft of
foot, appeared. Crossing to the main door he opened it and
walked down the narrow corridor beyond. Presently came the
tap, tap, tap of a stick and a sound of muttered
conversation in some place below.
Hassan reentered and went in through the curtained
doorway to summon Agapoulos. Agapoulos was dressing and
would not be disturbed. Hassan went back to those who
waited, but ere long returned again chattering volubly to
himself. Going behind the carven screen he rapped upon the
door of Zahara's room, and she directed him to come in. To
Zahara, Hassan was no more than a piece of furniture, and
she thought as little of his intruding while she was in
the midst of her toilet as another woman would have
thought of the entrance of a maid.
"Two men," reported Hassan, "who won't go away until
they see somebody."
"Whom do they want to see?" she inquired indifferently,
adjusting the line of her eyebrow with an artistically
pointed pencil.
"They say whoever belongs here."
Zahara invariably spoke either French or English to
natives, and if Hassan had addressed her in Arabic she
would not have replied, although she spoke that language
better than she spoke any other.
"What are they like? Not -- police?"
"Foreign," replied Hassan vaguely.
"English -- American?"
"No, not American or English. Very black hair, dark
skin."
Zahara, a student of men, became aware of a mild
interest. These swarthy visitors should prove an agreeable
antidote to the poisonous calm of Harry Grantham. She was
trying with all the strength of her strange, stifled soul
not to think of Grantham, and she was incapable of
recognizing the fact that she could think of nothing else
and had thought of little else for a long time past. Even
now it was because of him that she determined to interview
the foreign visitors. The mystery of her emotions puzzled
her more than ever.
She descended to a small, barely furnished room on the
ground floor, close beside the door opening upon the
street. It was lighted by one hanging lamp. On the divan
which constituted the principal item of furniture a small
man, slenderly built, was sitting. He wore a broad-brimmed
hat, so broad of brim that it threw the whole of the upper
part of his face into shadow. It was impossible to see his
eyes. Beside him rested a heavy walking-stick.
As Zahara entered, a wonderful, gaily coloured figure,
this man did not move in the slightest, but sat, chin on
breast, his small, muscular, brown hands resting on his
knees. His companion, however, a person of more massive
build, elegantly dressed and handsome in a swarthy
fashion, bowed gravely and removed his hat. Zahara liked
his eyes, which were dark and very bold looking.
"M. Agapoulos is engaged," she said, speaking in French.
"What is it you wish to know?"
The man regarded her fixedly, and:
"Senorita," he replied, "I will be frank with you."
Save for his use of the word "senorita" he also spoke in
French. Zahara drew her robe more closely about her and
adopted her most stately manner.
"My name," continued the other, "does not matter, but my
business is to look into the affairs of other people, you
understand?"
Zahara, who understood from this that the man was some
kind of inquiry agent, opened her blue eyes very widely
and at the same time shook her head.
"No," she protested; "what do you mean?"
"A certain gentleman came here a short time ago, came
into this house and must be here now. Don't be afraid. He
has done nothing very dreadful," he added reassuringly.
Zahara retreated a step, and a little wrinkle of
disapproval appeared between her pencilled brows. She no
longer liked the man's eyes, she decided. They were
deceitful eyes. His companion had taken up the heavy stick
and was restlessly tapping the floor.
"There is no one here," said Zahara calmly, "except the
people who live in the house."
"He is here, he is here," muttered the man seated on the
divan.
The tapping of his stick had grown more rapid, but as he
had spoken in Spanish, Zahara, who was ignorant of that
language, had no idea what he had said.
"My friend," continued the Spaniard, bowing slightly in
the direction of the slender man who so persistently kept
his broad- brimmed hat on his head, "chanced to hear the
voice of this gentleman as he spoke to your porter on
entering the door. And although the door was closed too
soon for us actually to see him, we are convinced that he
is the person we seek."
"I think you are mistaken," said Zahara coolly. "But
what do you want him for?"
As she uttered the words she realized that even the
memory of Grantham was sufficient to cause her to betray
herself. She had betrayed her interest to the man himself,
and now she had betrayed it to this dark-faced stranger
whose manner was so mysterious. The Spaniard recognized
the fact, and, unlike Grantham, acted upon it promptly.
"He has taken away the wife of another, Senorita," he
said simply, and watched her as he spoke the lie.
She listened in silence, wide-eyed. Her lower lip
twitched, and she bit it fiercely.
"He went first to Port Said and then came to London with
this woman," continued the Spaniard remorselessly. "We
come from her husband to ask her to return. Yes, he will
forgive her -- or he offers her freedom."
Rapidly but comprehensively the speaker's bold glance
travelled over Zahara, from her golden head to her tiny
embroidered shoes.
"If you can help us in this matter it will be worth
fifty English pounds to you," he concluded.
Zahara was breathing rapidly. The fatal hatred which she
had sought to stifle gained a new vitality. Another woman
-- another woman actually here in London! So there was
someone upon whom he did not look in that half-amused and
half-compassionate manner. How she hated him! How she
hated the woman to whom he had but a moment ago returned!
"Then he will marry this other one?" she said suddenly.
"Oh, no. Already he neglects her. We think she will go
back."
Zahara experienced a swift change of sentiment. She
seemed to be compounded of two separate persons, one of
whom laughed cruelly at the folly of the other.
"What is the name of this man you think your friend has
recognized?" she asked.
The big stick was rapping furiously during this
colloquy.
"We are both sure, Senorita. His name is Major
Spalding."
That Spalding and Grantham were neighbouring towns in
Lincolnshire Zahara did not know, but:
"No one of that name comes here," she replied.
"The one you heard and -- who has gone -- is not called
by that name." She spoke with forced calm. It was Grantham
they sought! "But what happens if I show you this one who
is not called Spalding?"
"No matter! Point him out to me," answered the Spaniard
eagerly -- and his dark eyes seemed to be on fire --
"point him out to me and fifty pounds of English money is
yours!"
"Let me see."
He drew out a wallet and held up a number of notes.
"Fifty," he said, in a subdued voice, "when you point
him out."
For a long moment Zahara hesitated, then:
"Sixty," she corrected him -- "now! Then I will do it
to-night -- if you tell what happens."
Exhibiting a sort of eager impatience the man displayed
a bunch of official-looking documents.
"I give him these," he explained, "and my work is done."
"H'm," said Zahara. "He must not know that it is I who
have shown him to you. To-night he will be here at nine
o'clock, and I shall dance. You understand?"
"Then," said the Spaniard eagerly, "this is what you
will do."
And speaking close to her ear he rapidly outlined a
plan; but presently she interrupted him.
"Pooh! It is Spanish, the rose. I dance the dances of
Egypt."
"But to-night," he persisted, "it will not matter."
Awhile longer they talked, the rapping of the stick upon
the tiled floor growing ever faster and faster. But
finally:
"I will tell Hassan that you are to be admitted," said
Zahara, and she held out her hand for the notes.
When, presently, the visitors departed, she learned that
the smaller man was blind; for his companion led him out
of the room and out of the house. She stood awhile
listening to the tap, tap, tap of the heavy stick receding
along the street. What she did not hear, and could not
have understood had she heard, since it was uttered in
Spanish, was the cry of exultant hatred which came from
the lips of the taller man:
"At last, Miguel! at last! Though blind, you have found
him! You have not failed. I shall not fail!"
*****
Zahara peeped through the carved screen at the assembled
company. They were smoking and drinking and seemed to be
in high good humour. Safiyeh had danced and they had
applauded the performance, but had complained to M.
Agapoulos that they had seen scores of such dances and
dancers. Safiyeh, who had very little English, had not
understood this, and because presently she was to play
upon the a'ood while Zahara danced the Dance of the Veils,
Zahara had avoided informing her of the verdict of the
company.
Now as she peeped through the lattice in the screen she
could see the Greek haggling with Grantham and a tall
gray-haired man whom she supposed to be Sir Horace Tipton.
They were debating the additional fees to be paid if
Zahara, the Star of Egypt, was to present the secret and
wonderful dance of which all men had heard but which only
a true daughter of the ancient tribe of the Ghawazi could
perform.
Sometimes Zahara was proud of her descent from a
dancing-girl of Kenneh. This was always at night, when a
sort of barbaric excitement possessed her which came from
the blood of her mother. Then, a new light entered her
eyes and they seemed to grow long and languid and dark, so
that no one would have suspected that in daylight they
were blue.
A wild pagan abandon claimed her, and she seemed to hear
the wailing of reed instruments and the throb of the
ancient drums which were played of old before the kings of
Egypt. Safiyeh was not a true dancing girl, and because
she knew none of those fine frenzies, she danced without
inspiration, like a brown puppet moved by strings. But she
could play upon an a'ood much better than Zahara, and
therefore must not be upset until she had played for the
Dance of the Veils.
Seeing that the bargain was all but concluded, Zahara
stole back to her room. Her lightly clad body gleamed like
that of some statue become animate.
Her cheeks flushed as she took up the veils, of which
she alone knew the symbolic meaning; the white veil, the
purple veil: each had its story to tell her; and the veil
of burning scarlet. In a corner of the big room on a divan
near the door she had seen the Spaniard, a handsome,
swarthy figure in his well-fitting dress clothes, and now,
opening a drawer, she glanced at the little pile of notes
which represented her share of the bargain. There were
fifty. She had told Agapoulos that a distinguished
foreigner with an introduction from someone she knew had
paid ten pounds to be present. And because she had given
Agapoulos the ten pounds, Agapoulos had agreed to admit
the visitor.
She could hear the Greek approaching now, but she was
thinking of Grantham whom she had last seen in laughing
conversation with the tall, gray-haired man. His laughter
had appeared forced. Doubtless he grew weary of the woman
he had brought to London.
"Dance to-night with all the devil that is in you, my
beautiful," said Agapoulos, hurrying into the room.
Zahara turned aside, toying with the veils.
"They are rich, eh?" she said indifferently.
She was thinking of the fifty pounds which she had
earned so easily; and after all (how strangely her mind
wandered) perhaps he was really tired of the woman. The
Spaniard had said so.
"Very rich," murmured Agapoulos complacently.
He brushed his moustache and rattled keys in his pocket.
In his dress clothes he looked like the manager of a
prosperous picture palace. "Safryeh!" he called.
When presently the music commenced, the players
concealed behind the tall screen, an expectant hush fell
upon the wine-flushed company. Hassan, who played the
darabukkeh, could modulate its throbbing so wonderfully.
Zahara entered the room, enveloped from shoulders to
ankles in a flame-coloured cloak. Between her lips she
held a red rose.
"By God, what a beauty!" said a husky voice.
Zahara did not know which of the party had spoken, but
she was conscious of the fact that by virtue of the
strange witchcraft which became hers on such nights she
held them all spell-bound. They were her slaves.
Slowly she walked across the apartment while the
throbbing of the Arab drum grew softer and softer,
producing a weird effect of space and distance. All eyes
were fixed upon her, and meeting Grantham's gaze she saw
at last the Light there which she knew. This sudden
knowledge of triumph almost unnerved her, and the rose
which she had taken from between her lips trembled in her
white fingers. Two of the petals fell upon the carpet,
which was cream-coloured from the looms of Ispahan. Like
blood spots the petals lay upon the cream surface.
Zahara swung sharply about. Agapoulos, seated alone in
the chair over which he had draped the leopard skin, was
busily brushing his moustache and glancing sideways toward
the screen which concealed Safryeh. Zahara tilted her head
on to her shoulder and cast a languorous glance into the
shadows masking the watchful Spaniard.
She could see his eyes gleaming like those of a wild
beast. An icy finger seemed to touch her heart. He had
lied to her! She knew it, suddenly, intuitively. Well, she
would see. She also had guile.
With a little scornful laugh Zahara tossed the rose on
to the knees -- of Agapoulos.
The sound of three revolver shots fired in quick
succession rang out above the throbbing music. Agapoulos
clutched at his shirt front with both hands, uttered a
stifled scream and tried to stand up. He coughed, and
glaring straight in front of him fell forward across a
little coffee table laden with champagne bottles and
glasses.
Coincident with the crash made by his falling body came
the loud bang of a door. The Spaniard had gone.
"By God, sir! It's murder, it's murder!" cried the same
husky voice which had commented upon the beauty of Zahara.
There was a mingling, purposeless movement. Someone ran
to the door -- to find that it was locked from the
outside. Mr. Eddie, now recognizable by his accent, came
toward the prone man, dazed, horrified, and grown very
white. Zahara, a beautiful, tragic figure, in her flaming
cloak, stood looking down at the dead man. Safiyeh was
peeping round from behind the screen, her face a brown
mask of terror. Hassan, holding his drum, appeared behind
her, staring stupidly. To the smell of cigar smoke and
perfume a new and acrid odour was added.
Vaguely the truth was stealing in upon the mind of the
dancing- girl that she had been made party to a plot to
murder Grantham. She had saved his life. He belonged to
her now. She could hear him speaking, although for some
reason she could not see him. A haze had come, blotting
out everything but the still, ungainly figure which lay so
near her upon the carpet, one clutching, fat hand, upon
which a diamond glittered, outstretched so that it nearly
touched her bare white feet.
"We must get out this way! The side door to the
courtyard! None of us can afford to be mixed up in an
affair of this sort."
There was more confused movement and a buzz of excited
voices -- meaningless, chaotic. Zahara could feel the
draught from the newly opened door. A thin stream of blood
was stealing across the carpet. It had almost reached the
fallen rose petals, which it strangely resembled in colour
under the light of the lanterns.
As though dispersed by the draught, the haze lifted, and
Zahara saw Grantham standing by the open doorway through
which he had ushered out the other visitors.
Wide-eyed and piteous she met his glance. She had seen
that night the Look in his eyes. She had saved his life,
and there was much, so much, that she wanted to tell him.
A thousand yearnings, inexplicable, hitherto unknown, deep
mysteries of her soul, looked out of those great eyes.
"Don't think," he said tensely, "that I was deceived. I
saw the trick with the rose! You are as guilty as your
villainous lover! Murderess!"
He went out and closed the door. The flame-coloured
cloak slowly slipped from Zahara's shoulders, and the
veils, like falling petals, began to drop gently one by
one upon the blood-stained carpet.
The Hand Of The Mandarin Quong
Chapter I
The Shadow On The Curtain
"Singapore is by no means herself again," declared
Jennings, looking about the lounge of the Hotel de
l'Europe. "Don't you agree, Knox?"
Burton fixed his lazy stare upon the speaker.
"Don't blame poor old Singapore," he said. "There is no
spot in this battered world that I have succeeded in
discovering which is not changed for the worse."
Dr. Matheson flicked ash from his cigar and smiled in
that peculiarly happy manner which characterizes a certain
American type and which lent a boyish charm to his
personality.
"You are a pair of pessimists," he pronounced. "For some
reason best known to themselves Jennings and Knox have
decided upon a Busman's Holiday. Very well. Why grumble?"
"You are quite right, Doctor," Jennings admitted. "When
I was on service here in the Straits Settlements I
declared heaven knows how often that the country would
never see me again once I was demobbed. Yet here you see I
am; Burton belongs here; but here's Knox, and we are all
as fed up as we can be!"
"Yes," said Burton slowly. "I may be a bit tired of
Singapore. It's a queer thing, though, that you fellows
have drifted back here again. The call of the East is no
fable. It's a call that one hears for ever."
The conversation drifted into another channel, and all
sorts of topics were discussed, from racing to the latest
feminine fashions, from ballroom dances to the merits and
demerits of coalition government. Then suddenly:
"What became of Adderley?" asked Jennings.
There were several men in the party who had been cronies
of ours during the time that we were stationed in
Singapore, and at Jennings's words a sort of hush seemed
to fall on those who had known Adderley. I cannot say if
Jennings noticed this, but it was perfectly evident to me
that Dr. Matheson had perceived it, for he glanced swiftly
across in my direction in an oddly significant way.
"I don't know," replied Burton, who was an engineer. "He
was rather an unsavoury sort of character in some ways,
but I heard that he came to a sticky end."
"What do you mean?" I asked with curiosity, for I myself
had often wondered what had become of Adderley.
"Well, he was reported to his C. O., or something,
wasn't he, just before the time for his demobilization? I
don't know the particulars; I thought perhaps you did, as
he was in your regiment."
"I have heard nothing whatever about it," I replied.
"You mean Sidney Adderley, the man who was so indecently
rich?" someone interjected. "Had a place at Katong, and
was always talking about his father's millions?"
"That's the fellow."
"Yes," said Jennings, "there was some scandal, I know,
but it was after my time here."
"Something about an old mandarin out Johore Bahru way,
was it not?" asked Burton. "The last thing I heard about
Adderley was that he had disappeared."
"Nobody would have cared much if he had," declared
Jennings. "I know of several who would have been jolly
glad. There was a lot of the brute about Adderley, apart
from the fact that he had more money than was good for
him. His culture was a veneer. It was his check-book that
spoke all the time."
"Everybody would have forgiven Adderley his vulgarity,"
said Dr. Matheson, quietly, "if the man's heart had been
in the right place."
"Surely an instance of trying to make a silk purse out
of a sow's ear," someone murmured.
Burton gazed rather hard at the last speaker.
"So far as I am aware," he said, "the poor devil is
dead, so go easy."
"Are you sure he is dead?" asked Dr. Matheson, glancing
at Burton in that quizzical, amused way of his.
"No, I am not sure; I am merely speaking from hearsay.
And now I come to think of it, the information was rather
vague. But I gathered that he had vanished, at any rate,
and remembering certain earlier episodes in his career, I
was led to suppose that this vanishing meant -- "
He shrugged his shoulders significantly.
"You mean the old mandarin?" suggested Dr. Matheson.
"Yes."
"Was there really anything in that story, or was it
suggested by the unpleasant reputation of Adderley?"
Jennings asked.
"I can settle any doubts upon that point," said I;
whereupon I immediately became a focus of general
attention.
"What! were you ever at that place of Adderley's at
Katong?" asked Jennings with intense curiosity.
I nodded, lighting a fresh cigarette in a manner that
may have been unduly leisurely.
"Did you see her?"
Again I nodded.
"Really!"
"I must have been peculiarly favoured, but certainly I
had that pleasure."
"You speak of seeing her" said one of the party, now
entering the conversation for the first time. "To whom do
you refer?"
"Well," replied Burton, "it's really a sort of fairy
tale -- unless Knox" -- glacing across in my direction --
"can confirm it. But there was a story current during the
latter part of Adderley's stay in Singapore to the effect
that he had made the acquaintance of the wife, or some
member of the household, of an old gentleman out Johore
Bahru way -- sort of mandarin or big pot among the
Chinks."
"It was rumoured that he had bolted with her," added
another speaker.
"I think it was more than a rumour."
"Why do you say so?"
"Well, representations were made to the authorities, I
know for an absolute certainty, and I have an idea that
Adderley was kicked out of the Service as a consequence of
the scandal which resulted."
"How is it one never heard of this?"
"Money speaks, my dear fellow," cried Burton, "even when
it is possessed by such a peculiar outsider as Adderley.
The thing was hushed up. It was a very nasty business. But
Knox was telling us that he had actually seen the lady.
Please carry on, Knox, for I must admit that I am
intensely curious."
"I can only say that I saw her on one occasion."
"With Adderley?"
"Undoubtedly."
"Where?"
"At his place at Katong."
"I even thought his place at that resort was something
of a myth," declared Jennings. "He never asked me to go
there, but, then, I took that as a compliment. Pardon the
apparent innuendo, Knox," he added, laughing. "But you say
you actually visited the establishment?"
"Yes," I replied slowly, "I met him here in this very
hotel one evening in the winter of '15, after the natives'
attempt to mutiny. He had been drinking rather heavily, a
fact which he was quite unable to disguise. He was never
by any means a real friend of mine; in fact, I doubt that
he had a true friend in the world. Anyhow, I could see
that he was lonely, and as I chanced to be at a loose end
I accepted an invitation to go over to what he termed his
'little place at Katong.'
"His little place proved to be a veritable palace. The
man privately, or rather, secretly, to be exact, kept up a
sort of pagan state. He had any number of servants. Of
course he became practically a millionaire after the death
of his father, as you will remember; and given more
congenial company, I must confess that I might have spent
a most enjoyable evening there. "Adderley insisted upon
priming me with champagne, and after a while I may as well
admit that I lost something of my former reserve, and
began in a fashion to feel that I was having a fairly good
time. By the way, my host was not quite frankly drunk. He
got into that objectionable and dangerous mood which some
of you will recall, and I could see by the light in his
eyes that there was mischief brewing, although at the time
I did not know its nature.
"I should explain that we were amusing ourselves in a
room which was nearly as large as the lounge of this
hotel, and furnished in a somewhat similar manner. There
were carved pillars and stained glass domes, a little
fountain, and all those other peculiarities of an Eastern
household.
"Presently, Adderley gave an order to one of his
servants, and glanced at me with that sort of mocking,
dare-devil look in his eyes which I loathed, which
everybody loathed who ever met the man. Of course I had no
idea what all this portended, but I was very shortly to
learn.
"While he was still looking at me, but stealing
side-glances at a doorway before which was draped a most
wonderful curtain of a sort of flamingo colour, this
curtain was suddenly pulled aside, and a girl came in.
"Of course, you must remember that at the time of which
I am speaking the scandal respecting the mandarin had not
yet come to light. Consequently I had no idea who the girl
could be. I saw she was a Eurasian. But of her striking
beauty there could be no doubt whatever. She was dressed
in magnificent robes, and she literally glittered with
jewels. She even wore jewels upon the toes of her little
bare feet. But the first thing that struck me at the
moment of her appearance was that her presence there was
contrary to her wishes and inclinations. I have never seen
a similar expression in any woman's eyes. She looked at
Adderley as though she would gladly have slain him!
"Seeing this look, his mocking smile in which there was
something of triumph -- of the joy of possession -- turned
to a scowl of positive brutality. He clenched his fists in
a way that set me bristling. He advanced toward the girl
-- and although the width of the room divided them, she
recoiled -- and the significance of expression and gesture
was unmistakable. Adderley paused.
"'So you have made up your mind to dance after all?' he
shouted.
"The look in the girl's dark eyes was pitiful, and she
turned to me with a glance of dumb entreaty.
"'No, no!' she cried. 'No, no! Why do you bring me
here?'
"'Dance!' roared Adderley. 'Dance! That's what I want
you to do.'
"Rebellion leapt again to the wonderful eyes, and she
started back with a perfectly splendid gesture of
defiance. At that my brutal and drunken host leapt in her
direction. I was on my feet now, but before I could act
the girl said a thing which checked him, sobered him,
which pulled him up short, as though he had encountered a
stone wall.
"'Ah, God!' she said. (She was speaking, of course, in
her native tongue.) 'His hand! His hand! Look! His hand!'
"To me her words were meaningless, naturally, but
following the direction of her positively agonized glance
I saw that she was watching what seemed to me to be the
shadow of someone moving behind the flame-like curtain
which produced an effect not unlike that of a huge,
outstretched hand, the fingers crooked, claw- fashion.
"'Knox, Knox!' whispered Adderley, grasping me by the
shoulder.
"He pointed with a quivering finger toward this
indistinct shadow upon the curtain, and:
"'Do you see it -- do you see it?' he said huskily. 'It
is his hand -- it is his hand!'
"Of the pair, I think, the man was the more frightened.
But the girl, uttering a frightful shriek, ran out of the
room as though pursued by a demon. As she did so whoever
had been moving behind the curtain evidently went away.
The shadow disappeared, and Adderley, still staring as if
hypnotized at the spot where it had been, continued to
hold my shoulder as in a vise. Then, sinking down upon a
heap of cushions beside me, he loudly and shakily ordered
more champagne.
"Utterly mystified by the incident, I finally left him
in a state of stupor, and returned to my quarters,
wondering whether I had dreamed half of the episode or the
whole of it, whether he did really possess that wonderful
palace, or whether he had borrowed it to impress me."
I ceased speaking, and my story was received in absolute
silence, until:
"And that is all you know?" said Burton.
"Absolutely all. I had to leave about that time, you
remember, and afterward went to France."
"Yes, I remember. It was while you were away that the
scandal arose respecting the mandarin. Extraordinary
story, Knox. I should like to know what it all meant, and
what the end of it was."
Dr. Matheson broke his long silence.
"Although I am afraid I cannot enlighten you respecting
the end of the story," he said quietly, "perhaps I can
carry it a step further."
"Really, Doctor? What do you know about the matter?"
"I accidentally became implicated as follows," replied
the American: "I was, as you know, doing voluntary
surgical work near Singapore at the time, and one evening,
presumably about the same period of which Knox is
speaking, I was returning from the hospital at Katong, at
which I acted sometimes as anaesthetist, to my quarters in
Singapore; just drifting along, leisurely by the edge of
the gardens admiring the beauty of the mangroves and the
deceitful peace of the Eastern night.
"The hour was fairly late and not a soul was about.
Nothing disturbed the silence except those vague sibilant
sounds which are so characteristic of the country.
Presently, as I rambled on with my thoughts wandering back
to the dim ages, I literally fell over a man who lay in
the road.
"I was naturally startled, but I carried an electric
pocket torch, and by its light I discovered that the
person over whom I had fallen was a dignified-looking
Chinaman, somewhat past middle age. His clothes, which
were of good quality, were covered with dirt and blood,
and he bore all the appearance of having recently been
engaged in a very tough struggle. His face was notable
only for its possession of an unusually long jet-black
moustache. He had swooned from loss of blood."
"Why, was he wounded?" exclaimed Jennings.
"His hand had been nearly severed from his wrist!"
"Merciful heavens!"
"I realized the impossibility of carrying him so far as
the hospital, and accordingly I extemporized a rough
tourniquet and left him under a palm tree by the road
until I obtained assistance. Later, at the hospital,
following a consultation, we found it necessary to
amputate."
"I should say he objected fiercely?"
"He was past objecting to anything, otherwise I have no
doubt he would have objected furiously. The index finger
of the injured hand had one of those preternaturally long
nails, protected by an engraved golden case. However, at
least I gave him a chance of life. He was under my care
for some time, but I doubt if ever he was properly
grateful. He had an iron constitution, though, and I
finally allowed him to depart. One queer stipulation he
had made -- that the severed hand, with its golden
nail-case, should be given to him when he left hospital.
And this bargain I faithfully carried out."
"Most extraordinary," I said. "Did you ever learn the
identity of the old gentleman?"
"He was very reticent, but I made a number of inquiries,
and finally learned with absolute certainty, I think, that
he was the Mandarin Quong Mi Su from Johore Bahru, a
person of great repute among the Chinese there, and rather
a big man in China. He was known locally as the Mandarin
Quong."
"Did you learn anything respecting how he had come by
his injury, Doctor?"
Matheson smiled in his quiet fashion, and selected a
fresh cigar with great deliberation. Then:
"I suppose it is scarcely a case of betraying a
professional secret," he said, "but during the time that
my patient was recovering from the effects of the
anaesthetic he unconsciously gave me several clues to the
nature of the episode. Putting two and two together I
gathered that someone, although the name of this person
never once passed the lips of the mandarin, had abducted
his favourite wife."
"Good heavens! truly amazing," I exclaimed.
"Is it not? How small a place the world is. My old
mandarin had traced the abductor and presumably the girl
to some house which I gathered to be in the neighbourhood
of Katong. In an attempt to force an entrance -- doubtless
with the amiable purpose of slaying them both -- he had
been detected by the prime object of his hatred. In
hurriedly descending from a window he had been attacked by
some weapon, possibly a sword, and had only made good his
escape in the condition in which I found him. How far he
had proceeded I cannot say, but I should imagine that the
house to which he had been was no great distance from the
spot where I found him."
"Comment is really superfluous," remarked Burton. "He
was looking for Adderley."
"I agree," said Jennings.
"And," I added, "it was evidently after this episode
that I had the privilege of visiting that interesting
establishment."
There was a short interval of silence; then:
"You probably retain no very clear impression of the
shadow which you saw," said Dr. Matheson, with great
deliberation. "At the time perhaps you had less occasion
particularly to study it. But are you satisfied that it
was really caused by someone moving behind the curtain?"
I considered his question for a few moments.
"I am not," I confessed. "Your story, Doctor, makes me
wonder whether it may not have been due to something
else."
"What else can it have been due to?" exclaimed Jennings
contemptuously -- "unless to the champagne?"
"I won't quote Shakespeare," said Dr. Matheson, smiling
in his odd way. "The famous lines, though appropriate, are
somewhat overworked. But I will quote Kipling: 'East is
East, and West is West.'"
Chapter II
The Lady Of Katong
Fully six months had elapsed, and on returning from
Singapore I had forgotten all about Adderley and the
unsavoury stories connected with his reputation. Then, one
evening as I was strolling aimlessly along St. James's
Street, wondering how I was going to kill time -- for
almost everyone I knew was out of town, including Paul
Harley, and London can be infinitely more lonely under
such conditions than any desert -- I saw a thick-set
figure approaching along the other side of the street.
The swing of the shoulders, the aggressive turn of the
head, were vaguely familiar, and while I was searching my
memory and endeavouring to obtain a view of the man's
face, he stared across in my direction.
It was Adderley.
He looked even more debauched than I remembered him, for
whereas in Singapore he had had a tanned skin, now he
looked unhealthily pallid and blotchy. He raised his hand,
and:
"Knox!" he cried, and ran across to greet me.
His boisterous manner and a sort of coarse geniality
which he possessed had made him popular with a certain set
in former days, but I, who knew that this geniality was
forced, and assumed to conceal a sort of appalling
animalism, had never been deceived by it. Most people
found Adderley out sooner or later, but I had detected the
man's true nature from the very beginning. His eyes alone
were danger signals for any amateur psychologist. However,
I greeted him civilly enough:
"Bless my soul, you are looking as fit as a fiddle!" he
cried. "Where have you been, and what have you been doing
since I saw you last?"
"Nothing much," I replied, "beyond trying to settle down
in a reformed world."
"Reformed world!" echoed Adderley. "More like a ruined
world it has seemed to me."
He laughed loudly. That he had already explored several
bottles was palpable.
We were silent for a while, mentally weighing one
another up, as it were. Then:
"Are you living in town?" asked Adderley.
"I am staying at the Carlton at the moment," I replied.
"My chambers are in the hands of the decorators. It's
awkward. Interferes with my work."
"Work!" cried Adderley. "Work! It's a nasty word, Knox.
Are you doing anything now?"
"Nothing, until eight o'clock, when I have an
appointment."
"Come along to my place," he suggested, "and have a cup
of tea, or a whisky and soda if you prefer it."
Probably I should have refused, but even as he spoke I
was mentally translated to the lounge of the Hotel de
l'Europe, and prompted by a very human curiosity I
determined to accept his invitation. I wondered if Fate
had thrown an opportunity in my way of learning the end of
the peculiar story which had been related on that
occasion.
I accompanied Adderley to his chambers, which were
within a stone's throw of the spot where I had met him.
That this gift for making himself unpopular with all and
sundry, high and low, had not deserted him, was
illustrated by the attitude of the liftman as we entered
the hall of the chambers. He was barely civil to Adderley
and even regarded myself with marked disfavour.
We were admitted by Adderley's man, whom I had not seen
before, but who was some kind of foreigner, I think a
Portuguese. It was characteristic of Adderley. No
Englishman would ever serve him for long, and there had
been more than one man in his old Company who had openly
avowed his intention of dealing with Adderley on the first
available occasion.
His chambers were ornately furnished; indeed, the room
in which we sat more closely resembled a scene from an
Oscar Asche production than a normal man's study. There
was something unreal about it all. I have since thought
that this unreality extended to the person of the man
himself. Grossly material, he yet possessed an aura of
mystery, mystery of an unsavoury sort. There was something
furtive, secretive, about Adderley's entire mode of life.
I had never felt at ease in his company, and now as I
sat staring wonderingly at the strange and costly
ornaments with which the room was overladen I bethought me
of the object of my visit. How I should have brought the
conversation back to our Singapore days I know not, but a
suitable opening was presently offered by Adderley
himself.
"Do you ever see any of the old gang?" he inquired.
"I was in Singapore about six months ago," I replied,
"and I met some of them again."
"What! Had they drifted back to the East after all?"
"Two or three of them were taking what Dr. Matheson
described as a Busman's Holiday."
At mention of Dr. Matheson's name Adderley visibly
started.
"So you know Matheson," he murmured. "I didn't know you
had ever met him."
Plainly to hide his confusion he stood up, and crossing
the room drew my attention to a rather fine silver bowl of
early Persian ware. He was displaying its peculiar virtues
and showing a certain acquaintance with his subject when
he was interrupted. A door opened suddenly and a girl came
in. Adderley put down the bowl and turned rapidly as I
rose from my seat.
It was the lady of Katong!
I recognized her at once, although she wore a very
up-to-date gown. While it did not suit her dark good looks
so well as the native dress which she had worn at
Singapore, yet it could not conceal the fact that in a
barbaric way she was a very beautiful woman. On finding a
visitor in the room she became covered with confusion.
"Oh," she said, speaking in Hindustani. "Why did you not
tell me there was someone here?"
Adderley's reply was characteristically brutal.
"Get out," he said. "You fool."
I turned to go, for I was conscious of an intense desire
to attack my host. But:
"Don't go, Knox, don't go!" he cried. "I am sorry, I am
damned sorry, I -- "
He paused, and looked at me in a queer sort of appealing
way. The girl, her big eyes widely open, retreated again
to the door, with curious lithe steps, characteristically
Oriental. The door regained, she paused for a moment and
extended one small hand in Adderley's direction.
"I hate you," she said slowly, "hate you! Hate you!"
She went out, quietly closing the door behind her.
Adderley turned to me with an embarrassed laugh.
"I know you think I am a brute and an outsider," he
said, "and perhaps I am. Everybody says I am, so I suppose
there must be something in it. But if ever a man paid for
his mistakes I have paid for mine, Knox. Good God, I
haven't a friend in the world."
"You probably don't deserve one," I retorted.
"I know I don't, and that's the tragedy of it," he
replied. "You may not believe it, Knox; I don't expect
anybody to believe me; but for more than a year I have
been walking on the edge of Hell. Do you know where I have
been since I saw you last?"
I shook my head in answer.
"I have been half round the world, Knox, trying to find
peace."
"You don't know where to look for it," I said.
"If only you knew," he whispered. "If only you knew,"
and sank down upon the settee, ruffling his hair with his
hands and looking the picture of haggard misery. Seeing
that I was still set upon departure:
"Hold on a bit, Knox," he implored. "Don't go yet. There
is something I want to ask you, something very important."
He crossed to a sideboard and mixed himself a stiff
whisky-and- soda. He asked me to join him, but I refused.
"Won't you sit down again?"
I shook my head.
"You came to my place at Katong once," he began
abruptly. "I was damned drunk, I admit it. But something
happened, do you remember?"
I nodded.
"This is what I want to ask you: Did you, or did you
not, see that shadow?"
I stared him hard in the face.
"I remember the episode to which you refer," I replied.
"I certainly saw a shadow."
"But what sort of shadow?"
"To me it seemed an indefinite, shapeless thing, as
though caused by someone moving behind the curtain."
"It didn't look to you like -- the shadow of a hand?"
"It might have been, but I could not be positive."
Adderley groaned.
"Knox," he said, "money is a curse. It has been a curse
to me. If I have had my fun, God knows I have paid for
it."
"Your idea of fun is probably a peculiar one," I said
dryly.
Let me confess that I was only suffering the man's
society because of an intense curiosity which now
possessed me on learning that the lady of Katong was still
in Adderley's company.
Whether my repugnance for his society would have enabled
me to remain any longer I cannot say. But as if Fate had
deliberately planned that I should become a witness of the
concluding phases of this secret drama, we were now
interrupted a second time, and again in a dramatic
fashion.
Adderley's nondescript valet came in with letters and a
rather large brown paper parcel sealed and fastened with
great care.
As the man went out:
"Surely that is from Singapore," muttered Adderley,
taking up the parcel.
He seemed to become temporarily oblivious of my
presence, and his face grew even more haggard as he
studied the writing upon the wrapper. With unsteady
fingers he untied it, and I lingered, watching curiously.
Presently out from the wrappings he took a very beautiful
casket of ebony and ivory, cunningly carved and standing
upon four claw-like ivory legs.
"What the devil's this?" he muttered.
He opened the box, which was lined with sandal-wood, and
thereupon started back with a great cry, recoiling from
the casket as though it had contained an adder. My former
sentiments forgotten, I stepped forward and peered into
the interior. Then I, in turn, recoiled.
In the box lay a shrivelled yellow hand -- with long
tapering and well-manicured nails -- neatly severed at the
wrist!
The nail of the index finger was enclosed in a tiny,
delicately fashioned case of gold, upon which were
engraved a number of Chinese characters.
Adderley sank down again upon the settee.
"My God!" he whispered, "his hand! His hand! He has sent
me his hand!"
He began laughing. Whereupon, since I could see that the
man was practically hysterical because of his mysterious
fears:
"Stop that," I said sharply. "Pull yourself together,
Adderley. What the deuce is the matter with you?"
"Take it away!" he moaned, "take it away. Take the
accursed thing away!"
"I admit it is an unpleasant gift to send to anybody," I
said, "but probably you know more about it than I do."
"Take it away," he repeated. "Take it away, for God's
sake, take it away, Knox!"
He was quite beyond reason, and therefore:
"Very well," I said, and wrapped the casket in the brown
paper in which it had come. "What do you want me to do
with it?"
"Throw it in the river," he answered. "Burn it. Do
anything you like with it, but take it out of my sight!"
Chapter III
The Gold-Cased Nail
As I descended to the street the liftman regarded me in
a curious and rather significant way. Finally, just as I
was about to step out into the hall:
"Excuse me, sir," he said, having evidently decided that
I was a fit person to converse with, "but are you a friend
of Mr. Adderley's?"
"Why do you ask?"
"Well, sir, I hope you will excuse me, but at times I
have thought the gentleman was just a little bit queer,
like."
"You mean insane?" I asked sharply.
"Well, sir, I don't know, but he is always asking me if
I can see shadows and things in the lift, and sometimes
when he conies in late of a night he absolutely gives me
the cold shivers, he does."
I lingered, the box under my arm, reluctant to obtain
confidences from a servant, but at the same time keenly
interested. Thus encouraged:
"Then there's that lady friend of his who is always
coming here," the man continued. "She's haunted by
shadows, too." He paused, watching me narrowly.
"There's nothing better in this world than a clean
conscience, sir," he concluded.
*****
Having returned to my room at the hotel, I set down the
mysterious parcel, surveying it with much disfavour. That
it contained the hand of the Mandarin Quong I could not
doubt, the hand which had been amputated by Dr. Matheson.
Its appearance in that dramatic fashion confirmed
Matheson's idea that the mandarin's injury had been
received at the hands of Adderley. What did all this
portend, unless that the Mandarin Quong was dead? And if
he were dead why was Adderley more afraid of him dead than
he had been of him living?
I thought of the haunting shadow, I thought of the night
at Katong, and I thought of Dr. Matheson's words when he
had told us of his discovery of the Chinaman lying in the
road that night outside Singapore.
I felt strangely disinclined to touch the relic, and it
was only after some moments' hesitation that I undid the
wrappings and raised the lid of the casket. Dusk was very
near and I had not yet lighted the lamps; therefore at
first I doubted the evidence of my senses. But having
lighted up and peered long and anxiously into the
sandal-wood lining of the casket I could doubt no longer.
The casket was empty!
It was like a conjuring trick. That the hand had been in
the box when I had taken it up from Adderley's table I
could have sworn before any jury. When and by whom it had
been removed was a puzzle beyond my powers of unravelling.
I stepped toward the telephone -- and then remembered that
Paul Harley was out of London. Vaguely wondering if
Adderley had played me a particularly gruesome practical
joke, I put the box on a sideboard and again contemplated
the telephone doubtfully far a moment. It was in my mind
to ring him up. Finally, taking all things into
consideration, I determined that I would have nothing
further to do with the man's unsavoury and mysterious
affairs.
It was in vain, however, that I endeavoured to dismiss
the matter from my mind; and throughout the evening, which
I spent at a theatre with some American friends, I found
myself constantly thinking of Adderley and the ivory
casket, of the mandarin of Johore Bahru, and of the
mystery of the shrivelled yellow hand.
I had been back in my room about half an hour, I
suppose, and it was long past midnight, when I was
startled by a ringing of my telephone bell. I took up the
receiver, and:
"Knox! Knox!" came a choking cry.
"Yes, who is speaking?"
"It is I, Adderley. For God's sake come round to my
place at once!"
His words were scarcely intelligible. Undoubtedly he was
in the grip of intense emotion.
"What do you mean? What is the matter?"
"It is here, Knox, it is here! It is knocking on the
door! Knocking! Knocking!"
"You have been drinking," I said sternly. "Where is your
man?"
"The cur has bolted. He bolted the moment he heard that
damned knocking. I am all alone; I have no one else to
appeal to." There came a choking sound, then: "My God,
Knox, it is getting in! I can see. . . the shadow on the
blind. . ."
Convinced that Adderley's secret fears had driven him
mad, I nevertheless felt called upon to attend to his
urgent call, and without a moment's delay I hurried around
to St. James's Street. The liftman was not on duty, the
lower hall was in darkness, but I raced up the stairs and
found to my astonishment that Adderley's door was wide
open.
"Adderley!" I cried. "Adderley!"
There was no reply, and without further ceremony I
entered and searched the chambers. They were empty. Deeply
mystified, I was about to go out again when there came a
ring at the door-bell. I walked to the door and a
policeman was standing upon the landing.
"Good evening, sir," he said, and then paused, staring
at me curiously.
"Good evening, constable," I replied.
"You are not the gentleman who ran out awhile ago," he
said, a note of suspicion coming into his voice.
I handed him my card and explained what had occurred,
then:
"It must have been Mr. Adderley I saw," muttered the
constable.
"You saw -- when?"
"Just before you arrived, sir. He came racing out into
St. James's Street and dashed off like a madman."
"In which direction was he going?"
"Toward Pall Mall."
*****
The neighbourhood was practically deserted at that hour.
But from the guard on duty before the palace we obtained
our first evidence of Adderley's movements. He had raced
by some five minutes before, frantically looking back over
his shoulder and behaving like a man flying for his life.
No one else had seen him. No one else ever did see him
alive. At two o'clock there was no news, but I had
informed Scotland Yard and official inquiries had been set
afoot.
Nothing further came to light that night, but as all
readers of the daily press will remember, Adderley's body
was taken out of the pond in St. James's Park on the
following day. Death was due to drowning, but his throat
was greatly discoloured as though it had been clutched in
a fierce grip.
It was I who identified the body, and as many people
will know, in spite of the closest inquiries, the mystery
of Adderley's death has not been properly cleared up to
this day. The identity of the lady who visited him at his
chambers was never discovered. She completely disappeared.
The ebony and ivory casket lies on my table at this
present moment, visible evidence of an invisible menace
from which Adderley had fled around the world.
Doubtless the truth will never be known now. A
significant discovery, however, was made some days after
the recovery of Adderley's body.
From the bottom of the pond in St. James's Park a
patient Scotland Yard official brought up the gold
nail-case with its mysterious engravings -- and it
contained, torn at the root, the incredibly long
finger-nail of the Mandarin Quong!
The Key Of The Temple Of Heaven
Chapter I
The Keeper Of The Key
The note of a silver bell quivered musically through the
scented air of the ante-room. Madame de Medici stirred
slightly upon the divan with its many silken cushions,
turning her head toward the closed door with the
languorous, almost insolent, indifference which one
perceives in the movements of a tigress. Below, in the
lobby, where the pillars of Mokattam alabaster upheld the
painted roof, the little yellow man from Pekin shivered
slightly, although the air was warm for Limehouse, and
always turned his mysterious eyes toward a corner of the
great staircase which was visible from where he sat,
coiled up, a lonely figure in the mushrabiyeh chair.
Madame blew a wreath of smoke from her lips, and, through
half-closed eyes, watched it ascend, unbroken, toward the
canopy of cloth-of-gold which masked the ceiling. A
Madonna by Leonardo da Vinci faced her across the
apartment, the painted figure seeming to watch the living
one upon the divan. Madame smiled into the eyes of the
Madonna. Surely even the great Leonardo must have failed
to reproduce that smile -- the great Leonardo whose
supreme art has captured the smile of Mona Lisa. Madame
had the smile of Cleopatra, which, it is said, made Caesar
mad, though in repose the beauty of Egypt's queen left him
cold. A robe of Kashmiri silk, fine with a phantom
fineness, draped her exquisite shape as the art of Cellini
draped the classic figures which he wrought in gold and
silver; it seemed incorporate with her beauty.
A second wreath of smoke curled upward to the canopy,
and Madame watched this one also through the veil of her
curved black lashes, as the Eastern woman watches the
world through her veil. Those eyes were notable even in so
lovely a setting, for they were of a hue rarely seen in
human eyes, being like the eyes of a tigress; yet they
could seem voluptuously soft, twin pools of liquid amber,
in whose depths a man might lose his soul.
Again the silver bell sounded in the ante-room, and,
below, the little yellow man shivered sympathetically.
Again Madame stirred with that high disdain that so became
her, who had the eyes of a tigress. Her carmine lips
possessed the antique curve which we are told
distinguished the lips of the Comtesse de Cagliostro; her
cheeks had the freshness of flowers, and her hair the
blackness of ebony, enhancing the miracle of her skin,
which had the whiteness of ivory -- not of African ivory,
but of that fossil ivory which has lain for untold ages
beneath the snows of Siberia.
She dropped the cigarette from her tapered fingers into
a little silver bowl upon a table at her side, then
lightly touched the bell which stood there also. Its soft
note answered to the bell in the ante-room; a white-robed
Chinese servant silently descended the great staircase,
his soft red slippers sinking into the rich pile of the
carpet; and the little yellow man from the great temple in
Pekin followed him back up the stairway and was ushered
into the presence of Madame de Medici.
The servant closed the door silently and the little
yellow man, fixing his eyes upon the beautiful woman
before him, fell upon his knees and bowed his forehead to
the carpet.
Madame's lovely lips curved again in the disdainful
smile, and she extended one bare ivory arm toward the
visitor who knelt as a suppliant at her feet.
"Rise, my friend!" she said, in purest Chinese, which
fell from her lips with the music of a crystal spring.
"How may I serve you?"
The yellow man rose and advanced a step nearer to the
divan, but the strange beauty of Madame had spoken
straight to his Eastern heart, had, awakened his soul to a
new life. His glance travelled over the vision before him,
from the little Persian slipper that peeped below the
drapery of Kashmir silk to the small classic head with its
crown of ebon locks; yet he dared not meet the glance of
the amber eyes.
"Sit here beside me," directed Madame, and she slightly
changed her position with that languorous and lithe grace
suggestive of a creature of the jungle.
Breathing rapidly betwixt the importance of his mission
and a new, intoxicating emotion which had come upon him at
the moment of entering the perfumed room, the yellow man
obeyed, but always with glance averted from the taunting
face of Madame. A golden incense-burner stood upon the
floor, over between the high, draped windows, and a faint
pencil from its dying fires stole grayly upward. Upon the
scented smoke the Buddhist priest fixed his eyes, and
began, with a rapidity that grew as he proceeded, to pour
out his tale. Seated beside him, one round arm resting
upon the cushions so as almost to touch him, Madame
listened, watching the averted yellow face, and always
smiling -- smiling.
The tale was done at last; the incense-burner was cold,
and breathlessly the Buddhist clutched his knees with
lean, clawish fingers and swayed to and fro, striving to
conquer the emotions that whirled and fought within him.
Selecting another cigarette from the box beside her, and
lighting it deliberately, Madame de Medici spoke.
"My friend of old," she said, and of the language of
China she made strange music, "you come to me from your
home in the secret city, because you know that I can serve
you. It is enough."
She touched the bell upon the table, and the white-robed
servant reentered, and, bowing low, held open the door.
The little yellow man, first kneeling upon the carpet
before the divan as before an altar, hurried from the
apartment. As the door was reclosed, and Madame found
herself alone again, she laughed lightly, as Calypso
laughed when Ulysses' ship appeared off the shores of her
isle.
God fashions few such women. It is well.
Chapter II
The Tiger Lady
"By heavens, Annesley!" whispered Rene Deacon, "what
eyes that woman has!" His companion, following the
direction of Deacon's glance, nodded rather grimly.
"The eyes of a Circe, or at times the eyes of a
tigress."
"She is magnificent!" murmured Deacon rapturously. "I
have never seen so beautiful a woman."
His glance followed the tall figure as it passed into a
smaller salon on the left; nor was he alone in his regard.
Fashionable society was well represented in the gallery --
where a collection of pictures by a celebrated artist was
being shown; and prior to the entrance of the lady in the
strangely fashioned tiger-skin cloak, the somewhat
extraordinary works of art had engaged the interest even
of the most fickle, but, from the moment the tiger- lady
made her appearance, even the most daring canvases were
forgotten.
"She wears tiger-skin shoes!" whispered one.
"She is like a design for a poster!" laughed another.
"I have never seen anything so flashy in my life," was
the acrid comment of a third.
"What a dazzlingly beautiful woman!" remarked another --
this one a man. While:
"Who is she?" arose upon all sides.
Judging from the isolation of the barbaric figure, it
would seem that society did not know the tiger-lady, but
Deacon, seizing his companion by the arm and almost
dragging him into the small salon which the lady had
entered, turned in the doorway and looked into Annesley's
eyes. Annesley palpably sought to evade the glance.
"You know everybody," whispered Deacon. "You must be
acquainted with her."
A great number of people were now thronging into the
room, not so much because of the pictures it contained,
but rather out of curiosity respecting the beautiful
unknown. Annesley tried to withdraw; his uneasiness grew
momentarily greater.
"I scarcely know her well enough," he protested, "to
present you. Moreover -- "
"But she's smiling at you!" interrupted Deacon eagerly.
His handsome but rather weak face was flushed; he was,
as an old clubman had recently said of him, "so very
young." He lacked the restraint usual in cultured
Englishmen, and had the frankly passionate manner which
one associates with the South. His uncle, Colonel Deacon,
a mordant wit, would say apologetically:
"Reggie" (Deacon's father) "married a Gascon woman. She
was delightfully pretty. Poor Reggie!"
Certainly Rene was impetuous to an embarrassing degree,
nor lightly to be thwarted. Boldly meeting the glance of
the woman of the amber eyes, he pushed Annesley forward,
not troubling to disguise his anxiety to be presented to
the tiger-lady. She turned her head languidly, with that
wild-animal grace of hers, and unsmiling now, regarded
Annesley.
"So you forget me so soon, Mr. Annesley," she murmured,
"or is it that you play the good shepherd?"
"My dear Madame," said Annesley, recovering with an
effort his wonted sang-froid, "I was merely endeavouring
to calm the rhapsodies of my friend, who seemed disposed
to throw himself at your feet in knight-errant fashion."
"He is a very handsome boy," murmured Madame; and as the
great eyes were turned upon Deacon the carmine lips curved
again in the Cleopatrian smile.
She was indeed wonderful, for while she spoke as the
woman of the world to the boy, there was nothing maternal
in her patronage, and her eyes were twin flambeaux, luring
-- luring, and her sweet voice was a siren's song.
"May I beg leave to present my friend, Mr. Rene Deacon,
Madame de Medici?" said Annesley; and as the two exchanged
glances -- the boy's a glance of undisguised passionate
admiration, the woman's a glance unfathomable -- he
slightly shrugged his shoulders and stood aside.
There were others in the salon, who, perceiving that the
unknown beauty was acquainted with Annesley, began to move
from canvas to canvas toward that end of the room where
the trio stood. But Madame did not appear anxious to make
new acquaintances.
"I have seen quite enough of this very entertaining
exhibition," she said languidly, toying with a great unset
emerald which swung by a thin gold chain about her neck.
"Might I entreat you to take pity upon a very lonely woman
and return with me to tea?"
Annesley seemed on the point of refusing, when:
"I have acquired a reputed Leonardo," continued Madame,
"and I wish you to see it."
There was something so like a command in the words that
Deacon stared at his companion in frank surprise. The
latter avoided his glance, and:
"Come!" said Madame de Medici.
As of old the great Catherine of her name might have
withdrawn with her suite, so now the lady of the tiger
skins withdrew from the gallery, the two men following
obediently, and one of them at least a happy courtier.
Chapter III
Twin Pools Of Amber
THE white-robed Chinese servant entered and placed fresh
perfume upon the burning charcoal of the silver
incense-burner. As the scented smoke began to rise he
withdrew, and a second servant entered, who facially, in
dress, in figure and bearing, was a duplicate of the
first. This one carried a large tray upon which was set an
exquisite porcelain tea-service. He placed the tray upon a
low table beside the divan, and in turn withdrew.
Deacon, seated in a great ebony chair, smoked rapidly
and nervously -- looking about the strangely appointed
room with its huge picture of the Madonna, its jade Buddha
surmounting a gilded Burmese cabinet, its Persian canopy
and Egyptian divan, at the thousand and one costly
curiosities which it displayed, at this mingling of East
and West, of Christianity and paganism, with a growing
wonder.
To one of his blood there was delight, intoxication, in
that room; but something of apprehension, too, now grew up
within him.
Madame de Medici entered. The garish motor-coat was
discarded now, and her supple figure was seen to best
advantage in one of those dark silken gowns which she
affected, and which had a seeming of the ultra-fashionable
because they defied fashion. She held in her hand an
orchid, its structure that of an odontoglossum, but of a
delicate green colour heavily splashed with scarlet -- a
weird and unnatural-looking bloom.
Just within the doorway she paused, as Deacon leaped up,
and looked at him through the veil of the curved lashes.
"For you," she said, twirling the blossom between her
fingers and gliding toward him with her tigerish step.
He spoke no word, but, face flushed, sought to look into
her eyes as she pinned the orchid in the button-hole of
his coat. Her hands were flawless in shape and colouring,
being beautiful as the sculptured hands preserved in the
works of Phidias.
The slight draught occasioned by the opening of the door
caused the smoke from the incense-burner to be wafted
toward the centre of the room. Like a blue-gray phantom it
coiled about the two standing there upon a red and gold
Bedouin rug, and the heavy perfume, or the close proximity
of this singularly lovely woman, wrought upon the
high-strung sensibilities of Deacon to such an extent that
he was conscious of a growing faintness.
"Ah! You are not well!" exclaimed Madame with deep
concern. "It is the perfume which that foolish Ah Li has
lighted. He forgets that we are in England."
"Not at all," protested Deacon faintly, and conscious
that he was making a fool of himself. "I think I have
perhaps been overdoing it rather of late. Forgive me if I
sit down."
He sank on the cushioned divan, his heart beating
furiously, while Madame touched the little bell, whereupon
one of the servants entered.
She spoke in Chinese, pointing to the incense-burner.
Ah Li bowed and removed the censer. As the door softly
reclosed:
"You are better?" she whispered, sweetly solicitous,
and, seating herself beside Deacon, she laid her hand
lightly upon his arm.
"Quite," he replied hoarsely; "please do not worry about
me. I am wondering what has become of Annesley."
"Ah, the poor man!" exclaimed Madame, with a silver
laugh, and began to busy herself with the teacups. "He
remembered, as he was looking at my new Leonardo, an
appointment which he had quite forgotten."
"I can understand his forgetting anything under the
circumstances."
Madame de Medici raised a tiny cup and bent slightly
toward him. He felt that he was losing control of himself,
and, averting his eyes, he stooped and smelled the orchid
in his buttonhole. Then, accepting the cup, he was about
to utter some light commonplace when the faintness
returned overwhelmingly, and, hurriedly replacing the cup
upon the tray, he fell back among the cushions. The
stifling perfume of the place seemed to be choking him.
"Ah, poor boy! You are really not at all well. How sorry
I am!"
The sweet tones reached him as from a great distance;
but as one dying in the desert turns his face toward the
distant oasis, Deacon turned weakly to the speaker. She
placed one fair arm behind his head, pillowing him, and
with a peacock fan which had lain amid the cushions fanned
his face. The strange scene became wholly unreal to him;
he thought himself some dying barbaric chief.
"Rest there," murmured the sweet voice.
The great eyes, unveiled now by the black lashes, were
two twin lakes of fairest amber. They seemed to merge
together, so that he stood upon the brink of an
unfathomable amber pool -- which swallowed him up -- which
swallowed him up.
He awoke to an instantaneous consciousness of the fact
that he had been guilty of inexcusably bad form. He could
not account for his faintness, and reclining there amid
the silken cushions, with Madame de Medici watching him
anxiously, he felt a hot flush stealing over his face.
"What is the matter with me!" he exclaimed, and sprang
to his feet. "I feel quite well now."
She watched him, smiling, but did not speak. He was a
"very young man" again, and badly embarrassed. He glanced
at his wrist-watch.
"Gracious heavens!" he cried, and noted that the
tea-tray had been removed, "there must be something
radically wrong with my health. It is nearly seven
o'clock!"
The note of the silver bell sounded in the ante-room.
"Can you forgive me?" he said.
But Madame, rising to her feet, leaned lightly upon his
shoulder, toying with the petals of the orchid in his
buttonhole.
"I think it was the perfume which that foolish Ah Li
lighted," she whispered, looking intently into his eyes,
"and it is you who have to forgive me. But you will, I
know!" The silver bell rang again. "When you have come to
see me again -- many, many times, you will grow to love it
-- because I love it."
She touched the bell upon the table, and Ah Li entered
silently. When Madame de Medici held out her hand to him
Deacon raised the white fingers to his lips and kissed
them rapturously; then he turned, the Gascon within him
uppermost again, and ran from the room.
A purple curtain was drawn across the lobby, screening
the caller newly arrived from the one so hurriedly
departing.
Chapter IV
The Living Buddha
It was past midnight when Colonel Deacon returned to the
house. Rene was waiting for him, pacing up and down the
big library. Their relationship was curious, as subsisting
between ward and guardian, for these two, despite the
disparity of their ages, had few secrets from one another.
Rene burned to pour out his story of the wonderful Madame
de Medici, of the secret house in Chinatown with its
deceptively mean exterior and its gorgeous interior, to
the shrewd and worldly elder man. That was his way. But
Fate had an oddly bitter moment in store for him.
"Hallo, boy!" cried the Colonel, looking into the
library; "glad you're home. I might not see you in the
morning, and I want to tell you about -- er -- a lady who
will be coming here in the afternoon."
The words died upon Rene's lips unspoken, and he stared
blankly at the Colonel.
"I thought I knew all there was to know about pictures,
antiques, and all that sort of lumber," continued Colonel
Deacon in his rapid and off-hand manner. "Thought there
weren't many men in London could teach me anything;
certainly never suspected a woman could. But I've met one,
boy! Gad! What a splendid creature! You know there isn't
much in the world I haven't seen -- north, south, east and
west. I know all the advertised beauties of Europe and
Asia -- stage, opera, and ballet, and all the rest of
them. But this one -- Gad!"
He dropped into an arm-chair, clapping both his hands
upon his knees. Rene stood at the farther end of the
library, in the shadow, watching him.
"She's coming here to-morrow, boy -- coming here. Gad!
you dog! You'll fall in love with her the moment you see
her -- sure to, sure to! I did, and I'm three times your
age!"
"Who is this lady, sir?" asked Rene, very quietly.
"God knows, boy! Everybody's mad to meet her, but nobody
knows who she is. But wait till you see her. Lady Dascot
seems to be acquainted with her, but you will see when
they come to-morrow -- see for yourself. Gad, boy! . . .
what did you say?"
"I did not speak."
"Thought you did. Have a whisky-and-soda ?"
"No, thank you, sir -- good night."
"Good night, boy!" cried the Colonel. "Good night. Don't
forget to be in to-morrow afternoon or you'll miss meeting
the loveliest woman in London, and the most brilliant."
"What is her name?"
"Eh? She calls herself Madame de Medici. She's a
mystery, but what a splendid creature!"
Rene Deacon walked slowly upstairs, entered his bedroom,
and for fully an hour sat in the darkness, thinking --
thinking.
"Am I going mad?" he murmured. "Or is this witch driving
all London mad?"
He strove to recover something of the glamour which had
mastered him when in the presence of Madame de Medici, but
failed. Yet he knew that, once near her again, it would
all return. His reflections were bitter, and when at last
wearily he undressed and went to bed it was to toss
restlessly far into the small hours ere sleep came to
soothe his troubled mind.
But his sleep was disturbed: a series of dreadfully
realistic dreams danced through his brain. First he seemed
to be standing upon a high mountain peak with eternal
snows stretched all about him. He looked down, past the
snow line, past the fir woods, into the depths of a lovely
lake, far down in the valley below. It was a lake of
liquid amber, and as he looked it seemed to become two
lakes, and they were like two great eyes looking up at him
and summoning him to leap. He thought that he leaped, a
prodigious leap, far out into space; then fell -- fell --
fell. When he splashed into the amber deeps they became
churned up in a milky foam, and this closed about him with
a strangle grip. But it was no longer foam, but the
clinging arms of Madame de Medici! . . .
Then he stood upon a fragile bridge of bamboo spanning a
raging torrent. Right and left of the torrent below were
jungles in which moved tigerish shapes. Upon the farther
side of the bridge Madame de Medici, clad in a single
garment of flame-coloured silk, beckoned to him. He sought
to cross the bridge, but it collapsed, and he fell near
the edge of the torrent. Below were the raging waters, and
ever nearing him the tigerish shapes, which now Madame was
calling to as to a pack of hounds. They were about to
devour him, when --
He was crouching upon a ledge, high above a street which
seemed to be vaguely familiar. He could not see very well,
because of a silk mask tied upon his face, and the
eyeholes of which were badly cut. From the ledge he
stepped to another, perilously. He gained it, and
crouching there, where there was scarce foothold for a
cat, he managed fully to raise a window which already was
raised some six inches. Then softly and silently -- for he
was bare-footed -- he entered the room.
Someone slept in a bed facing the window by which he had
entered, and upon a table at the side of the sleeper lay a
purse, a bunch of keys, an electric torch, and a Service
revolver. Gliding to the table Rene took the keys and the
electric torch, unlocked the door of the room, and crept
down a thickly carpeted stair to a room below. The door of
this also he opened with one of the keys in the bunch, and
by the light of the torch found his way through a quantity
of antique furniture and piled up curiosities to a safe
set in the farther wall.
He seemed, in his dream, to be familiar with the lock
combination, and, selecting the correct key from the
bunch, he soon had the safe open. The shelves within were
laden principally with antique jewellery, statuettes,
medals, scarabs; and a number of little leather-covered
boxes were there also. One of these he abstracted,
relocked the safe, and stepped out of the room, locking
the door behind him. Up the stairs he mounted to the
bedroom wherein he had left the sleeper. Having entered,
he locked the door from within, placed the keys and the
torch upon the table, and crept out again upon the dizzy
ledge.
Poised there, high above the thoroughfare below, a great
nausea attacked him. Glancing to the right, in the
direction of the window through which he had come, he
perceived Madame de Medici leaning out and beckoning to
him. Her arm gleamed whitely in the faint light. A new
courage came to him. He succeeded, crouched there upon the
narrow ledge, in relowering the window, and leaving it in
the state in which he had found it, he stood up and
essayed that sickly stride to the adjoining ledge. He
accomplished it, knelt, and crept back into the room from
which he had started. . . .
The head of an ivory image of Buddha loomed up out of
the utter darkness, growing and growing until it seemed
like a great mountain. He could not believe that there was
so much ivory in the world, and he felt it with his
fingers, wonderingly. As he did so it began to shrink, and
shrink, and shrink, and shrink, until it was no larger
that a seated human figure. Then beneath his trembling
hands it became animate; it moved, extended ivory arms,
and wrapped them about his neck. Its lips became carmine
-- perfumed; they bent to him. . . and he was looking into
the bewitching face of Madame de Medici!
He awoke, gasping for air and bathed in cold
perspiration. The dawn was just breaking over London and
stealing grayly from object to object in his bedroom.
Chapter V
The Ivory God
The great car, with its fittings of gold and ivory, drew
up at the door of Colonel Deacon's house. The interior was
ablaze with tiger lilies, and out from their midst stepped
the fairest of them all -- Madame de Medici, and swept
queenly up the steps upon the arm of the cavalierly
soldier.
All connoisseurs esteemed it a privilege to view the
Deacon collection, and this afternoon there was a goodly
gathering. Chairs and little white tables were dotted
about the lawn in shady spots, and the majority of the
company were already assembled; but when, in a wonderful
golden robe, Madame de Medici glided across the lawn, the
babel ceased abruptly as if by magic. She pulled off one
glove and began twirling a great emerald between her slim
fingers. It was suspended from a thin gold chain.
Presently, descrying Annesley seated at a table with Lady
Dascot, she raised the jewel languidly and peered through
it at the two.
"Why!" exclaimed Rene Deacon, who stood close beside
her, "that was a trick of Nero's!"
Madame laughed musically.
"One might take a worse model," she said softly; "at
least he enjoyed life."
Colonel Deacon, who listened to her every word as to the
utterance of a Cumaean oracle, laughed with extraordinary
approbation.
There was scarce a woman present who regarded Madame
with a friendly eye, nor a man who did not aspire to
become her devoted slave. She brought an atmosphere of
unreality with her, dominating old and young alike by
virtue of her splendid pagan beauty. The lawn, with its
very modern appointments, became as some garden of the
Golden House, a pleasure ground of an emperor.
But later, when the company entered the house, and
Colonel Deacon sought to monopolize the society of Madame,
an unhealthy spirit of jealousy arose between Rene and his
guardian. It was strange, grotesque, horrible almost.
Annesley watched from afar, and there was something very
like anger in his glance.
"And this," said the Colonel presently, taking up an
exquisitely carved ivory Buddha, "has a strange history.
In some way a legend has grown up around it -- it is of
very great age -- to the effect that it must always cause
its owner to lose his most cherished possession."
"I wonder," said the silvern voice, "that you, who
possess so many beautiful things, should consent to have
so ill-omened a curiosity in your house."
"I do not fear the evil charm of this little ivory
image," said Colonel Deacon, "although its history goes
far to bear out the truth of the legend. Its last
possessor lost his most cherished possession a month after
the Buddha came into his hands. He fell down his own
stairs -- and lost his life!"
Madame de Medici languidly surveyed the figure through
the upraised emerald.
"Really!" she murmured. "And the one from whom he
procured it?"
"A Hindu usurer of Simla," replied the Colonel. "His
daughter stole it from her father together with many other
things, and took them to her lover, with whom she fled!"
Madame de Medici seemed to be slightly interested.
"I should love to possess so weird a thing," she said
softly.
"It is yours!" exclaimed the Colonel, and placed it in
her hands.
"Oh, but really," she protested.
"But really I insist -- in order that you may not forget
your first visit to my house!"
She shrugged her shoulders.
"How very kind you are, Colonel Deacon," she said, "to a
rival collector!"
"Now that the menace is removed," said Colonel Deacon
with laboured humour, "I will show you my most treasured
possession."
"So! I am greatly interested."
"Not even this rascal Rene," said the Colonel, stopping
before a safe set in the wall, "has seen what I am about
to show you!"
Rene started slightly and watched with intense interest
the unlocking of the safe.
"If I am not superstitious about the ivory Buddha,"
continued the Colonel, "I must plead guilty in the case of
the Key of the Temple of Heaven!"
"The Key of the Temple of Heaven!" murmured a lady
standing immediately behind Madame de Medici. "And what is
the Key of the Temple of Heaven?"
The Colonel, having unlocked the safe, straightened
himself, and while everyone was waiting to see what he had
to show, began to speak again pompously:
"The Temple of Heaven stands in the outer or Chinese
City of Pekin, and is fabulously wealthy. No European, I
can swear, had ever entered its secret chambers until last
year. One of its most famous treasures was this Key. It
was used only to open the special entrance reserved for
the Emperor when he came to worship after his succession
to the throne -- that was, of course, before China became
a Republic. The Key is studded almost all over with
precious stones. Last year a certain naval man -- I'll not
mention his name -- discovered the secret of its
hiding-place. How he came by that knowledge does not
matter at present. One very dark night he crept up to the
temple. He found the Keeper of the Key -- a Buddhist
priest -- to be sleeping, and he succeeded, therefore, in
gaining access and becoming possessed of the Key."
A chorus of excited exclamations greeted this dramatic
point of the story.
"The object of this outrage," continued the Colonel,
"for an outrage I cannot deny it to have been, was not a
romantic one. The poor chap wanted money, and he thought
he could sell the Key to one of the native jewellers. But
he was mistaken. He got back safely, and secretly offered
it in various directions. No one would touch the thing;
moreover, although of great value, the stones were very
far from flawless, and not really worth the risks which he
had run to secure them. Don't misunderstand me; the Key
would fetch a big sum, but not a fortune."
"Yes?" said Madame de Medici, smiling, for the Colonel
paused.
"He packed it up and addressed it to me, together with a
letter. The price that he asked was quite a moderate one,
and when the Key arrived in England I dispatched a check
immediately. It never reached him."
"Why?" cried many whom this strange story had profoundly
interested.
"He was found dead at the back of the native
cantonments, with a knife in his heart!"
"Oh!" exclaimed Lady Dascot. "How positively ghastly! I
don't think I want to see the dreadful thing!"
"Really!" murmured Madame de Medici, turning languidly
to the speaker. "I do."
The Colonel stooped and reached into the safe. Then he
began to take out object after object, box after box.
Finally, he straightened himself again, and all saw that
his face was oddly blanched.
"It's gone!" he whispered hoarsely. "The Key of the
Temple of Heaven has been stolen!"
Chapter VI
Madame Smiles
Rene entered his bedroom, locked the door, and seated
himself on the bed; then he lowered his head into his
hands and clutched at his hair distractedly. Since, on his
uncle's own showing, no one knew that the Key of the
Temple of Heaven had been in the safe, since, excepting
himself (Rene) and the Colonel, no one else knew the lock
combination, how the Key had been stolen was a mystery
which defied conjecture. No one but the Colonel had
approached within several yards of the safe at the time it
was opened; so that clearly the theft had been committed
prior to that time.
Now Rene sought to recall the details of a strange dream
which he had dreamed immediately before awakening on the
previous night; but he sought in vain. His memory could
supply only blurred images. There had been a safe in his
dream, and he -- was it he or another? -- had unlocked it.
Also there had been an enormous ivory Buddha. . . . Yet,
stay! it had not been enormous; it had been. . .
He groaned at his own impotency to recall the
circumstances of that mysterious, perhaps prophetic dream;
then in despair he gave it up, and stooping to a little
secretaire, unlocked it with the idea of sending a note
round to Annesley's chambers. As he did so he uttered a
loud cry.
Lying in one of the pigeon-holes was a long piece of
black silk, apparently torn from the lining of an opera
hat. In it two holes were cut as if it were intended to be
used as a mask. Beside it lay a little leather-covered
box. He snatched it out and opened it. It was empty!
"Am I going mad?" he groaned. "Or -- "
"You are wanted on the 'phone, sir."
It was the butler who had interrupted him. Rene
descended to the telephone, dazedly, but, recognizing the
voice of Annesley, roused himself.
"I'm leaving town to-night, Deacon," said Annesley, "for
-- well, many reasons. But before I go I must give you a
warning, though I rely on you never to mention my name in
the matter. Avoid the woman who calls herself Madame de
Medici; she'll break you. She's an adventuress, and has a
dangerous acquaintance with Eastern cults, and. . . I
can't explain properly. . . ."
"Annesley! the Key!"
"It's the theft of the Key that has prompted me to
speak, Deacon. Madame has some sort of power -- hypnotic
power. She employed it on me once, to my cost! Paul
Harley, of Chancery Lane, can tell you more about her. The
house she's living in temporarily used to belong to a
notorious Eurasian, Zani Chada. To make a clean breast of
it I daren't thwart her openly; but I felt it up to me to
tell you that she possesses the secret of post-hypnotic
suggestion. I may be wrong, but I think you stole that
Key!"
"I!"
"She hypnotized you at some time, and, by means of this
uncanny power of hers, ordered you to steal the Key of the
Temple of Heaven in such and such a fashion at a certain
hour in the night. . ."
"I had a strange seizure while I was at her house. . .
."
"Exactly! During that time you were receiving your
hypnotic orders. You would remember nothing of them until
the time to execute them -- which would probably be during
sleep. In a state of artificial somnambulism, and under
the direction of Madame's will, you became a burglar!"
As Madame de Medici's car drove off from the house of
Colonel Deacon, and Madame seated herself in the cushioned
corner, up from amid the furs upon the floor, where,
dog-like, he had lain concealed, rose the little yellow
man from the Temple of Heaven. He extended eager hands
toward her, kneeling there, and spoke:
"Quick! quick!" he breathed. "You have it? The Key of
the Temple."
Madame held in her hand an ivory Buddha. Inverting it
she unscrewed the pedestal, and out from the hollow inside
the image dropped a gleaming Key.
"Ah!" breathed the yellow man, and would have clutched
it; but Madame disdainfully raised her right hand which
held the treasure, and with her left hand thrust down the
clutching yellow fingers.
She dropped the Key between her white skin and the
bodice of her gown, tossing the ivory figure
contemptuously amid the fur.
"Ah!" repeated the yellow man in a different tone, and
his eyes gleamed with the flame of fanaticism. He slowly
uprose, a sinister figure, and with distended fingers
prepared to seize Madame by the throat. His eyes were
bloodshot, his nostrils were dilated, and his teeth were
exposed like the fangs of a wolf.
But she pulled off her glove and stretched out her bare
white hand to him as a queen to a subject; she raised the
long curved lashes, and the great amber eyes looked into
the angry bloodshot eyes.
The little yellow man began to breathe more and more
rapidly; soon he was panting like one in a fight to the
death who is all but conquered. At last he dropped on his
knees amid the fur. . . and the curling lashes were
lowered again over the blazing amber eyes that had
conquered.
Madame de Medici lowered her beautiful white hand, and
the little yellow man seized it in both his own and
showered rapturous kisses upon it.
Madame smiled slightly.
"Poor little yellow man!" she murmured in sibilant
Chinese, "you shall never return to the Temple of Heaven!"
-- End --