Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol.69, No. 5, August 13, 1932

A dying man, a headless idol and the flight of a bee tell Wentworth a tale of frightful crime and — Kong Gai!

Chapter I The Missing Children

“And what I don’t know, I can’t tell you,” said Captain Dunand, attempting honestly to answer the shrewd queries of the reporters as he sat behind his desk in San Francisco’s Hall of Justice. He went on doggedly, “You boys seem to think I’m trying to get out of making an arrest. That ought to make you happy, because as long as the Whitcomb case remains unsolved, your papers can keep on calling me a doddering old fool—”

“Then you refuse to admit that Whitcomb and his three children are victims of a gang outrage?” demanded the News-Call reporter. “You refuse to admit that they are being held for ransom? You refuse to admit—”

“I’m not admitting what I don’t know,” persisted the gray-haired captain of detectives. “Not if you keep after me all day, boys.”

The Enquirer man drawled, “We’ve been after you six days, cap, and you haven’t come across with one printable line. You play with us, and we’ll play with you. The public have a right to know what’s being done to clear up Whitcomb’s disappearance. They’re pretty worked up about it, too. A man and three youngsters can’t vanish without leaving some sort of clew—”

Captain Dunand stared out of the window, and blinked as the last rays of sun glinted off the roofs of Chinatown and were reflected into his eyes. He said finally, “I agree with you, Haynes. I don’t want to fool anybody, except the criminals involved in the case. The department had one clew, and gave it to you.”

“The fellow who came to Whitcomb’s office and threatened him?”

“That’s the man. Martin Cravens.”

“Well,” insisted Haynes, “how about finding him in time for my next edition?”

Dunand said wearily, “I told you boys that if you plastered his name all over the front pages he’d go into hiding.”

“Well, how ’bout the chauffeur of Whitcomb’s machine, cap? He’d do to keep our jobs for us.”

Dunand was about to reply that the department was making every effort to find the missing chauffeur when he heard a whisper, followed by a laugh. He asked abruptly, “What’s funny, Haynes? Let us in on it.”

“I just said it was too bad it wasn’t a couple of elephants your dicks were looking for, cap. They could probably find a pair of elephants, provided the animals stayed on Market Street—”

Leaning back in his chair, Dunand said, “Let’s go over this thing, boys. And” — solemnly — “anything I may say isn’t for publication. Right?”

The oldest reporters pledged their words with a quiet, “Shoot, captain.”

“Six days ago,” Dunand began, “Ronald Whitcomb left his house and went to his office. He arrived at nine o’clock, about. A few minutes later the man Martin Cravens, a clerk at the Consolidated Oil, came to see him. There was an argument. It seems that Cravens had bought stock on Whitcomb’s say so, and lost his shirt. Cravens said some dangerous words; he was heard to say them by people in the outer office.”

“We know all this, cap!”

“Wait. Let me finish, Haynes. Cravens leaves, promising to get even. At a few minutes past ten, Whitcomb’s own car takes him away.

“Then we learn that somebody telephoned his home, ordering the three children to come to Maginn-Duane’s, the department store, and meet their father. The children are taken there in a taxi—”

“What taxi, cap?”

“Not the one phoned for,” said Dunand, “because the maid at the house said a second cab came, a few minutes after the first one. Let me go ahead, boys, will you? You know all this, anyhow.

“The cab didn’t go to the department store, so far as we can learn. Whitcomb is gone. His three children are gone. It looks like the work of a number of men, but there’s been no demand yet for ransom. Martin Cravens couldn’t do it by himself. He’s only a clerk, and, as you boys’ve found out, a fellow with a good reputation.

“Whitcomb’s chauffeur is also an honest man; been with him eleven years. So I tell you that it looks to me like the work of a gang of men, just as you fellows have been trying to get me to say, but” — his big finger waving at the listeners — “I want it to appear as if all suspicion is on this man Cravens! If he’s in with a gang, I want ’em to push him forward when the time comes for dickerin’. In other words, boys, I want the department to appear dumb, and according to you fellows that ought to be easy.”

“Do you realize, cap, that you’ve not told us a single new fact?”

“I’ve never lied to you, boys, and I’m not starting to do it now!”

The News-Call man said thoughtfully, “We’ve all printed stories that it looks like a gang outrage, captain.”

“Sure. But the department hasn’t backed up your statements.”

Haynes said suddenly, “We’re not blaming you, cap, but our city editors are all riding us to get some sort of story. Here’s an idea. Why don’t you put Wentworth on the case? It would let us print a lot of hooey, and we’d get by with it, and in the meantime put the real gang clear off any notion that they’re suspected. Let us cook up a tale about the trail leading to Chinatown! We can use Wentworth’s photograph, and rehash some of the stories about arrests he’s made. Be a good guy, cap. All you got to say is ‘Sergeant Wentworth has been assigned to the Whitcomb case’ and we’ll do all the necessary fiction writing.”

“Wentworth’s only the patrolman on the Chinatown beat,” said Dunand.

“I’ll leave it to the boys.”

“You said it,” agreed the newspaper men in chorus.

Dunand instantly attempted to retreat behind his last line of defense: “Then I wasn’t talking for publication,” he growled.

“No go,” the veteran police reporter decided fairly. “You’re protected in anything you said about the Whitcomb case, but this came later. If Haynes wishes to use it, he can. We all can, and we all probably will, because we haven’t anything else to turn in. It makes a good yarn, and can’t do any harm.”

“If I assign Wentworth to the case for one day, does that satisfy you?”

“One minute’ll satisfy me,” grunted Haynes. “Now, call Wentworth up here, and let us talk to him.”

Dunand was trapped, and knew it. He reached for his desk telephone, and said into the transmitter, “Chinatown squadron. Manning? Dunand. Is Sergeant Wentworth in? He is? Tell him I want him. Eh? Yes, I’ll speak to him on the phone first—”

There was a pause, and then the captain of detectives said, “Hullo, sergeant. I want… hullo… oh, it’s you, Manning? What? Busy? Well, let me talk to him on the phone. There’re some newspaper men here, and they want a word about the Whitcomb case.”

Silence again; when Dunand said, “I’m listening, Manning. He said… what? Oh, he said that, did he? Hmm, well, well, well.” A slow grin was spreading over the gray-haired captain’s stolid face. “Very well, Manning,” he concluded. “Just say to the sergeant that I’ll wait for him here.”

Haynes was looking at his watch. “Have him make it snappy,” he said, as Dunand replaced the telephone. “I’ve got a suburban edition to make, cap.”

“Sergeant Wentworth said he was busy,” said Dunand placidly.

“Say, who’s in charge of the bureau? You, or Wentworth? How long’ve I got to wait?”

“It takes a long time for boiling water to freeze,” Dunand told him calmly.

“Meaning Wentworth said I could wait until hell froze over?”

The gray-haired captain of detectives said softly, “Something like that.”

“Put into words, Wentworth isn’t coming up to let us talk to him, and you are not assigning him to this case!”

“Something like that,” repeated Dunand, smiling broadly. He watched Haynes scrawl a few words on paper, and then said, “And that isn’t news, is it?”

“Want to hear what I’m phoning to my office? ‘Dunand refuses to assign Detective-Sergeant James Wentworth to Whitcomb case. Detective bureau apathetic.’ And what will the Police Commission say to that, cap?”

“I haven’t refused to assign Wentworth to this case, have I?”

The oldest of the police reporters took charge.

“Captain,” he said, “we aren’t getting anywhere. We aren’t getting any news, and you aren’t getting the abductors of Whitcomb and his youngsters—”

“Who said we weren’t?” demanded the captain.

Every reporter put two and two together. Several of them stood up.

“Where’re you going now?” Dunand asked.

“To telephone our papers that Wentworth has uncovered a clew!”

Dunand said urgently, “Boys, he… he hasn’t uncovered anything. Be reasonable!” The honest eyes of the captain clouded, and then he went on glibly, “Wentworth’s only checking on some data just brought in—”

“What data?”

And so the wise chief of the detective bureau began to lie for one of the few times in his life: “We picked up a vag, just a little while ago, boys. I’ll give you his name in a minute. He was standing outside the Whitcomb Building, and he saw a big green touring car with the side curtains all on, and while the machine was in front of the building he thought he heard a child cry, and then Whitcomb came down, very excited, and got in the green touring car, and…”

Three full minutes it took the captain to complete his fairy story. When he had finished, and the reporters had hurried out to get in touch with their various city desks, Dunand lifted the telephone again.

He was connected with the Chinatown squad room, and said to his sergeant of detectives in charge of the Chinatown detail:

“I’ve done more lying this evening than I’ve ever done before, Jimmy. It’s safe for you to come up now, boy. And if you haven’t picked up a real clew — which is why I lied, to keep you and whatever you’ve found out away from the papers until we get a chance to act — I’m going to send you out to the Sunset district where you can pick buttercups!”

Chapter II Wentworth’s Clew

It was only a few minutes before a lean young man in the uniform of a patrolman stepped quietly into the captain’s office. It was only a few minutes, but in that time Dunand had firmly denied the pleas of two city editors, who wanted pictures of the “vagrant” who was supposed to have seen the abduction, and who promised all sort of influence being brought to bear on the captain’s gray head when the requests were refused.

The Whitcomb case had been on the front page for just a day short of a week. The city was aroused, not only because of the disappearance of the wealthy Whitcomb, head of the brokerage house bearing his name, but also because of the obvious abduction of the small Whitcomb children. Rumors — terrible rumors — were on every lip. In the meantime the police were not able to produce the man Cravens, who had threatened Whitcomb the morning of the disappearance, nor to find the Whitcomb automobile and its chauffeur. There was flaming talk, aided and abetted by the newspapers, which the administration did not find pleasing. Coals were constantly being dropped on Dunand’s head — and he could do nothing about it save keep after his men. Almost the entire department was on the Ronald Whitcomb case, but not a man had learned a single essential fact, nor picked up the trail of the clerk Cravens.

It was freely admitted that Cravens had just cause for anger against Whitcomb. The millionaire broker had advised Cravens to buy several varieties of stocks — or Whitcomb’s office had advised it, which was the same thing — and Cravens had lost his savings. But that was not unusual. Many others were in the same fix, and through no real fault of Whitcomb’s. Had Cravens taken a good punch at the broker, San Francisco would have said, “Served him right!” and laughed about it. But kidnapping three children, as well as Whitcomb himself, was a different matter.

The department was baffled. Here was what appeared an obvious crime, with the criminal known, and yet they were unable to produce the man.

All of this was in Dunand’s mind as he said, “Sit down, Jimmy. I’ve lied hot and heavy to give you time, lad. Now, let’s hear what you’ve picked up.”

Wentworth said soberly, “Yes, sir. It isn’t much, but it’s a clew—”

“It’d better be,” Dunand snapped. “Or the department’ll be in a fine mess. I’ll be the judge. What is it?”

The youthful sergeant of detectives reached into his trousers pocket, and as he withdrew his hand said gravely. “I’m afraid I’ll have to be the judge, sir. It’s in my line… this is it.”

“That? What’s that?”

Dunand stared at the object in Wentworth’s hand.

It was small, no larger than an apple, which, at first glance, it resembled. A closer look showed that it was the body of an idol of some strange god, with the arms folded, and the legs drawn up. The image was of carved wood, and very old; so old that the surface was smooth, brown, and polished.

Wentworth slowly turned the curious little talisman between his fingers, so Dunand could see where the head had been. Here the wood was much lighter in color, as if it had not been exposed long to the air, nor been handled much. And where the head of the idol had been severed, there was painted three tiny white flowers, no larger than the heads of matches, but delicately, beautifully done.

“That’s your clew?” Dunand said wearily. “That’s why I lied for you?”

Wentworth said swiftly, “That’s it, chief.”

“I suppose,” the captain went on bitterly, “you found it in Chinatown, rolling along the gutter? Or—”

“I took it away from a bo’ how doy who was hop-crazy, sir. If you’d seen him fight when I found it—”

“You mean fight because he was full of hop!”

“—you’d have known yourself that it was important,” Wentworth finished.

The captain stared at him, and then laughed shortly.

“I’ll get you a radio job, Jimmy,” he said. “Bed-time stories. But tell it to me. Maybe I can give it to the reporters! It’s a wilder yarn than I gave ’em, and I didn’t think that was possible.”

Wentworth stroked the image.

“An idol is beheaded only when a kidnapping has been accomplished,” Jimmy said softly. “The kidnapper himself does it, for several reasons. It prevents the god of Life from seeing where the kidnapped person is taken. It prevents the gods of evil from enacting vengeance on the kidnappers. And, lastly, it’s supposed to protect the kidnappers from capture, which, in China means they’ll be beheaded with dull knives, because everyone in China wants to see kidnappers harshly and painfully treated—”

“And because of this you want me to believe that Whitcomb was abducted by Chinese!”

“I don’t know about Whitcomb,” said the sergeant of detectives who had spent his youth in China, “but I’ll swear anywhere that the three little white flowers painted on the neck of the idol represent three children, and three white children at that.”

For a long moment Dunand stared at the curious, outlandish headless idol in Jimmy Wentworth’s hands, and then he snapped to action:

“What’s the Chink say?” he roared. Forgetting that he knew no word of Chinese, and that only Wentworth spoke the dialects like a native, Dunand shouted, “Bring him up here! I’ll talk to him! I’ll find out where the Whitcomb children are! I’ll… I’ll…. what’d he say?”

“He’s dead, chief,” Wentworth said.

“What? Did he talk?”

“You’d better let me explain, sir. I was finishing my beat, with an eye on Number Eighteen Eleven Waverley, because there’s been hop sold there, when I heard a racket. Some Chinese were attempting to persuade another Chinaman — this one I found — not to go somewhere. He was so full of dope — that is, he wasn’t past the dream stage, and wasn’t out cold — that they couldn’t do anything with him. He rushed out, and I thought I’d have a look-see just why they didn’t want him going places.

“I stopped him — and it took a gun in his belly to do it…”

Dunand could see what had happened. Wentworth in a dark doorway. The ’binder, drug-crazed, leaping down a rickety stairway and into the street, murderous, deadly, to anyone who would confront him. Wentworth stepping before the Asiatic, gun out. A few sharp words, the flash of a knife…

“You shot him, Jim?”

“No,” Wentworth said quietly. “I took his knife away from him, and intended to book him as disorderly, just as an example to the hop-joints to keep their customers inside until they’d slept it off, when some other Chino slipped up, and before I had a chance to shift my grip, he drove a knife into my man’s throat… and that’s hatchetman-way of saying ‘Nobody talk!’ ”

“Get the murderer?”

Jimmy Wentworth said. “He was gone before I could get blood out of my eyes.”

Into Dunand’s eyes crept momentarily a look of fear, the fear of the unknown, of the mysteries of Chinatown, which only his youthful sergeant fully understood.

“Ah,” said the captain. And next, “The dead man, Jimmy… was he…”

“One of Kong Gai’s hatchetmen? No! That’s the curious part of it. My guess is that he’s a new bo’ how doy, earning his spurs, and not considered bad enough to be a brother of the snake. Some real Cobra knifed him, to make sure he didn’t talk… and there’s my clew.”

“Put in simple words, you’re trying to tell me that Kong Gai has a hand in the Ronald Whitcomb case?”

Wentworth said, “I’m telling you, chief, that the dead man had a hand in kidnapping three white children.”

“Rubbish! If Kong Gai were kidnapping for money, he wouldn’t take the father, too!”

Jimmy Wentworth looked out of the window. He said thoughtfully. “Not in America. But in China, chief, when ransom is demanded, one of the favorite ways of getting it is to take two people — a man and his father, for example, and… I hate to say it!… and torture the father until… the son is willing to pay any amount. And… well, you can see how this might be…”

Shivering, Dunand said, “You mean they’d torture Whitcomb’s children until the father, Ronald Whitcomb, would pay? I… of course you mean it. Kong Gai! It’s the sort of thing he’d do! But why should he pick Whitcomb? There are wealthier men in the city. Whitcomb’s rich, but there’re others with more money. Why Whitcomb, Jimmy?”

“I thought about that,” Jimmy Wentworth admitted. “The only answer I can give is that shown in Whitcomb’s list of customers. You had a copy of that, sir, and I looked it over. There are a few Chinese names on that list. Kong Gai might have had Whitcomb’s house invest money, and have lost it in the crash, and this is Kong Gai’s way of getting both money and revenge…”

“I’ll tear Chinatown apart,” Dunand growled.

“And scare ’em somewhere else,” Wentworth said. “Not that I have anything to suggest, chief. All I can do is to keep my eyes open. And I’m grateful that you kept the newspaper boys away. One hint that Kong Gai is involved, and the lives of the four, father and children, won’t be worth the price of a flower like those painted on the idol’s neck…”

While Dunand’s brows drew together, as the keen old captain fought to find some plan, Wentworth held the headless idol under the light on Dunand’s desk.

“Look at the little tiny lines painted on the petals of the flowers, sir,” he said. “The Chinese are marvelous artists, aren’t they?”

“I don’t give a damn what kind of artists they are! And neither should you, Jimmy Wentworth!”

“I was just wondering—”

The telephone rang sharply; Dunand answered it with his customary: “Dunand. Who’s this?” and then listened.

If Wentworth had not been bent over his strange wooden idol, he would have seen his chief’s face change from inattention to surprise, to astonishment, and then to fierce satisfaction. Dunand listened intently, and then said, “We’ll be right there. Nobody’s to see him. We’re on our way.”

Dunand stood up happily.

“Kong Gai,” he chuckled. “Kidnapping. Baloney. Here’s the end of the Whitcomb case! Ronald Whitcomb’s in the Forest Park Hospital, Jimmy. Mulloy phoned. Found him ‘dazed.’ Blah! I’ll bet his accounts are all wet, and he’s been usin’ customers’ money. We got Whitcomb, and I’ll bet he took his three children with him and intended to run off and then got cold feet about taking a trip to Peru. Dazed! Hooey! And you, Jimmy Wentworth, and your three flowers!”

Wentworth looked up, almost as if he hadn’t heard the gleeful speech.

“Now, what’s the matter?” demanded his chief.

“I was wondering why the petals of the flowers are marked, veined, the wrong way. When you look closely, the tiny black lines, the veins, are painted like those on… well, on a bee’s wing.”

“A bee’s left ear,” suggested the jubilant captain of detectives. “You been taking hop, too, Jimmy? Come along with me. A breath of air’ll do you good. Maybe it’ll make you stop dreaming about Kong Gai.”

Chapter III The Man the Bees Stung

Officer Mulloy was standing on the fourth floor of the hospital, trying to appear as if he didn’t realize that the nurse at the desk was red-headed, pretty, and Irish, and as if he had forgotten that at home there were seven little Mulloys, and Nora herself, who would stand for no nonsense.

He saluted briskly as Dunand and Wentworth stepped from the noiseless elevator, hoping that the nurse could see the breadth of his shoulders.

“Found him wanderin’ on Forest Parkway, sir,” he said. “Red in the face he was, and that’s no lie, but whether it’s drinking he was I couldn’t say. He was goin’ this way and that, and I says, ‘Think shame to yourself, man, out on a street where th’ children is playin’. But he only looks at me. At first I thinks he’s far gone in a drunken spree, and then I see his eyes. And like no human eyes was they, sir! And—”

“And you brought him here,” said Dunand crisply.

“No other way could he have come, sir. For he fell right down before me eyes, he did, and I stop the first machine I see, and—”

“Good work, officer. Which room is Whitcomb in?”

“The one behind me, sir. But a nurse says he’s a very sick man, sir, or I’d have verified me suspicions—”

Dunand said sharply, “You aren’t positive it’s Whitcomb?”

Officer Mulloy drew himself up.

“And don’t he live on this beat, sir? Many’s the time I see him being drove home from work. I meant me suspicions about th’ drink an’ all—”

Dunand nodded, looking about. He said, “There’s a nurse, officer. Please ask her to go into Whitcomb’s room and tell the doctor I’m here, and that I want to see Whitcomb immediately.”

Nothing loath, Mulloy marched to the little alcoved desk and delivered the captain’s request. The nurse first telephoned her superintendent for permission to enter the sick room for the police, and, being given this, hurried across the hall. She reappeared in a moment and spoke briefly to Mulloy, who trudged back to his superiors.

“She says will you come with her to th’ room,” said Mulloy. “An’ she says he’s a sick man, is Mr. Whitcomb. And” — grinning broadly — “she wants to know if th’ young felly, bein’ you, sarge, is a college boy workin’ on th’ force for experience, an’ I didn’t have th’ heart t’ tell her what a tough felly you are.”

Jimmy Wentworth glanced swiftly at the pretty nurse, and her heightened color told him that she knew Mulloy had repeated what she had said.

The two detectives followed her into the sick room.

On the bed lay a man in middle years. His face was gray, what little the men from Headquarters could see. Most of it, and the entire forehead, was covered with what appeared to be thick towels, but were ice bags.

One hand was visible, and Wentworth’s first impression was that the skin must have been immersed in water, for drops stood out on it.

It was obvious that Whitcomb was indeed a man in peril of death.

A doctor and interne were drawing blood from the exposed arm, with several nurses assisting. The operation was completed, and the bandaging finished, before the house doctor had one of the girls strip off his rubber gloves. He said, “Have fresh ones ready. One of these broke,” and then came to the detectives.

“From what the officer said, I understand this is Ronald Whitcomb,” Dr. Lyle said quietly. “The hospital has already put in a call for his personal physician, but we didn’t dare wait for his arrival. Whitcomb is in bad shape, sir.”

“My name’s Dunand,” said the grim captain. “This is one of my sergeants. First thing; Whitcomb will recover?”

“Probably. Thanks to your officer, captain. By bringing him here promptly, he undoubtedly saved his life.”

Wentworth asked, “What is wrong with him?”

“Heat apoplexy, I believe. You call it sunstroke, sergeant. Whitcomb’s a heavy, full blooded man. They are most susceptible. Especially if they’ve been subjected to any kind of physical or mental strain.”

“Never heard of anyone in San Francisco being sun struck,” Dunand muttered.

“It isn’t entirely a matter of heat, captain. He may have been wandering aimlessly about without a hat, you know—”

“Had he been drinking?”

“I shouldn’t say so.”

“You are positive of your diagnosis?” Wentworth questioned.

The doctor smiled. “Just about as positive as is ever possible,” he countered. “The man is unconscious. Spasmodic, jerky breathing. Hands and face cold to the touch, but, as you can see, covered with excessive perspiration. Flickering pulse. Dr. Jaynes finds faint heart beats, about a hundred and thirty to the minute. Pupils insensitive to the light. All the signs of heat apoplexy. We’ve bled him, and packed his head in ice. In my opinion, he ought to recover.”

Dunand said briefly, “Sounds logical. You ought to know.”

“Has he been conscious at all?” Wentworth asked.

“No, sergeant. Nor will he be for a day or so. He will lie there without movement whatsoever. That’s typical of sunstroke.”

“Do any harm if I looked carefully through his clothes?” Wentworth asked in the same level tone.

“Not the slightest. I’ll have Dr. Jaynes and a nurse see that his arm is not disturbed. Help yourself, sergeant.”

Dunand understood what his subordinate was after; some shred of clew which might indicate that Whitcomb had been abducted, or had not been abducted. Something to tell of the whereabouts of the children. He nodded agreement to Wentworth’s unasked question, feeling that the matter should be cleared up immediately.

Jimmy Wentworth stepped to the side of the high metal bed on which Whitcomb lay, covered only with a rubber sheet, which was drawn down. The broker still wore his shirt, so hastily had the hospital people applied first aid for sunstroke, and before Wentworth began his investigation he looked about for coat and vest.

“In the closet,” a nurse told him.

“Please get it,” Wentworth requested. No sense in disturbing the unconscious man at all if the upper garment would reveal what he sought.

The youthful sergeant of the Chinatown squad had his hand in the inner coat pocket when he heard a strangled cry, terrible in the silent room, followed instantly by an ejaculation of surprise from one of the doctors. Wentworth turned round instantly to look.

Whitcomb’s mouth was open now. His eyes were open also. A horrible rigidity had straightened his arms and legs.

The sick man groaned deeply, and before Dr. Lyle could take the hypodermic which an attentive nurse was handing him, Whitcomb began to shout incoherently, to rave and toss his arms and shoulders about on the bed. Nurses and doctors hastened to hold him down as he struggled, and then Dr. Lyle shot the needle home. For a full minute more Whitcomb struggled furiously, crying out a jumble of meaningless words which ended in a shriek:

“No more!”

And then complete silence, as the powerful drug stopped the raving.

Whitcomb’s face now was as gray as ever, and the man lay as if dead.

“Well,” said Dr. Lyle. “Well. Another diagnosis gone to the devil.” He growled a long string of orders, and the room became very active as the interne and nurses hurried to put them into effect.

Wentworth said quietly, “So it isn’t sunstroke, doctor?”

“It is not,” Dr. Lyle told him soberly. “Not when he acts in such a manner.” He looked at his watch. “I wish Dr. Henderson — Whitcomb’s physician — would hurry and get here. Because—”

“Because you think the man is not going to recover?” broke in Dunand shrewdly.

Dr. Lyle shrugged.

“I’ve done enough guessing,” he said briefly.

“Will you guess what is wrong?” Jimmy Wentworth suggested.

“Don’t need to guess — now,” said the physician. “Not about that. I know. It’s a rare case, gentlemen, and between ourselves there isn’t much we can do about it. To put it plainly, Whitcomb is going to die from insect stings.”

“What?” grunted Dunand. “First you said sunstroke, and now you talk about bugs!”

“Not bugs. Wasps.”

“Or bees?” Jimmy Wentworth said softly.

“Or bees,” agreed the medical man. “Either one. The early symptoms are exactly the same as heat apoplexy. Exactly, when there are no swellings, and that’s often the case. Now you’ll excuse me, please. There are a lot of things we can try, and we’ll try them all, but Ronald Whitcomb is going to die without recovering consciousness just the same.”

Captain Dunand stared at the dying man, and from him to Wentworth. No word was passed, but both were thinking the selfsame thing. That the petals of the little white flowers painted on the headless idol were veined in black like the wings of bees — and the image had been found on the body of a bo’ how doy — a Chinese ’binder, a killer, a hatchetman, who had himself been murdered before he could say a word to anyone.

Chapter IV The Charge Is — Murder

The first extras were out by the time Dunand and Wentworth returned to the Hall of Justice, after having left word at the hospital to be informed of Whitcomb’s death, or any change in his condition. Dr. Henderson, Whitcomb’s own physician, had agreed with the second diagnosis of the hospital medical men, and agreed also that chance for recovery was almost impossible. All the physicians were positive that Whitcomb would not recover consciousness, but just the same Dunand had not left until two men from the department were in the room, ready to take down any word, and, if possible, to ask the questions Wentworth had told them to ask.

The headlines just about told the story:

Which Ronald Whitcomb, at death’s door, couldn’t possibly have done, but which held off the newspapers as to the manner of the broker’s dying for a few hours.

Down in Captain Dunand’s office, gray haired chief and black haired sergeant sat staring at the envelope they had taken from Whitcomb’s pocket. They had already read the letter a dozen times. It was typewritten on fine paper, with the sheet cut in half to remove a letterhead or address, and said:

The communication was signed by Whitcomb. The check, attached to the letter, was for one hundred thousand dollars.

Dunand said slowly, “Not much to go on, Jimmy. We’ll have men at the Whitcomb Company tomorrow. And tap their phones. Only…”

“Only you’re a man,” said Wentworth, “and you don’t want the children hurt.”

“No. I don’t want them hurt, lad. You… you still think this means Kong Gai?”

“I do, chief. Now more than ever. No one save a fiend like that Chinese would send a father with the ransom note for his children, knowing full well that he would not be able to tell where the youngsters were. And what has been done to Whitcomb will make anyone anxious to get the children out of the hands of such monsters.”

“I don’t understand it,” muttered the head of the detective bureau.

“According to the doctors, Whitcomb was stung and stung until he became almost unconscious. Somewhere along the line he signed the demand for ransom and the letter. Then the devils allowed him to partially recover consciousness, put him in a machine, let him off somewhere near his home while — according to the doctors — he could just stagger about, but was to all intents already a dead man.”

“And if he hadn’t raved, everyone would have thought he’d died from apoplexy!”

“There is no perfect crime,” Wentworth said slowly. “At least, not yet. Given time, Kong Gai the Venomous One may find it. Through his opium sales, he has his coils about some renegade physician. That’s sure. That’s where he must’ve picked up the bee sting idea. He has his slimy coils everywhere, captain! He—”

The telephone rang briskly, and Dunand said, “Damn reporters. Or a city editor. I hate to answer it.”

He spoke gruffly into the receiver: “Dunand. Well?” and then said excitedly, “Splendid! Congratulations, sheriff! Bring him right up here!” As he hung up, he said to Wentworth, “Cravens’s caught! Down in San Bernardino county! The sheriff’s office kept it under cover, and they’ve got him downstairs now.”

“And what good is that going to do?” Jimmy Wentworth demanded. “I suppose you think Cravens tortured Ronald Whitcomb?”

“No, but he might be a tool of a gang. Perhaps” — magnanimously — “Kong Gai’s tool.”

“If he were, you’d find him in the bay with his throat slit.”

This time Wentworth reached for the telephone, for Dunand was snapping off the desk light, and pressing another button which would cause all the brightness in the room to fall on Cravens when he was brought in for examination; the Chinatown detective sergeant answered the ring with a voice so like his chief’s that Dunand was forced to smile.

“Dunand,” said Wentworth. “Well? Oh, hello, Williams… you did, eh? And it checks? Thanks. I’ll tell the captain.”

As the door opened, Wentworth said curtly, “Williams reports that the sample of ransom letter paper we gave him coincides with paper used by the people where Cravens worked, sir.”

“Very good, sergeant,” said Dunand.

The captain nodded to the three deputies and the under-sheriff who shoved a thin young man into the room. Not until the four, prisoner and captors, were in the spot of light did Dunand speak. He said, “I think it’s safe to take off the handcuffs, boys.”

“We took no chances, cap,” said Undersheriff Egan. “Not with this boy.”

“Tough, is he?”

“Say! He wouldn’t come across with a word! We says, ‘The sooner you tell us where Whitcomb and his kids is, the better it’ll be, bud,’ but the punk won’t open his head.”

“Why were you in San Bernardino?” Dunand asked quietly of the prisoner.

Cravens lifted his head. The eyes were circled with black, with fatigue, and the young man’s face was very pale.

“You wouldn’t believe me,” he said at last.

Dunand looked out of the window. It was black outside now. High on a roof in Chinatown a lantern glowed, like the single eye of a five-legged dragon. Dunand carefully drew open a drawer of his desk, took out a box of cigars, and handed them about to the deputies. He selected one for himself, cut the end, was about to put it in his mouth, when he roared suddenly:

“Where are the children, Cravens?”

The prisoner shivered, but his eyes met the fierce gaze of the captain.

“I don’t know,” he said.

Dunand waved the ransom letter in front of Cravens.

“When did you write this?” he asked.

“I didn’t write it.”

“It is on paper from the company you worked for!”

Cravens bowed his head, but remained silent.

A third time the telephone rang, and again Wentworth answered it. He spoke now for the first time, gently; “The charge had better be changed, captain. From kidnapping to murder. Whitcomb is dead.”

Dunand shifted ground subtly.

“You can be cleared of murder,” he said to the frightened prisoner. “If you will give us the names of the gang, and tell where the Whitcomb children are, I will do my best with the District Attorney.”

“I didn’t kill Whitcomb,” said the exhausted man, “and I didn’t kidnap his children—”

“Give an account of your actions for the past six days.”

“You won’t believe it,” repeated Cravens.

“Tell us anyhow,” said Jimmy Wentworth.

The accused man looked at him, seeing only a fellow no older than himself, in a patrolman’s uniform.

“What’s the use?” the prisoner muttered.

“Because I might believe you,” Wentworth told him gravely.

Cravens’ head was hanging; he looked so guilty that Dunand was about to roar at him again, and then the prisoner began to speak jerkily.

“I went to Whitcomb. I admit it. I’d given him three thousand dollars to invest. He put it in speculative stocks. I wanted bonds. I told him I’d… I’d…”

“You can leave out what you told him,” said Jimmy Wentworth. “Because anything you say can be used against you. Tell us why you left the city.”

“I didn’t leave the city,” blurted Cravens. “I was taken away! In a machine. I’ve been kept doped. You can see” — he pulled up a sleeve — “you can see where I’ve been doped!”

Wentworth did not intend asking who did it, lest the prisoner say, “Chinese,” and the deputies repeat it outside the Hall of Justice. So he said, “And you came to in San Bernardino county?”

“I woke up on the side of a road, and that’s all I know. I never even knew who took me away! I never heard them speak. I was blindfolded after they slugged me—”

“Where?”

“Just as I came out of the Whitcomb Building! I had walked to the curb, and turned around and shook my fist at the building. I wanted to tell the world what I thought of them all! I said something… crooks, you know… not very loudly, perhaps… and then just as I stopped, because there was a car at the curb, somebody said something I didn’t catch, and I was banged over the head. That’s all I remember, although I must have been yanked into the car—”

“Bull,” growled one of the deputies. “Trying to tell us you were kidnapped yourself, on a downtown street!”

Wearily, Cravens said, “I knew nobody’d believe me. I remember, too, that when I shook my fist toward the building there didn’t seem to be many people in sight; a couple of men and women walking the other way, with their backs in my direction, but no one saw me shake my fist—”

“One person saw you,” said Jimmy Wentworth. “A person I’m looking for myself.”

“You mean — you know — who hit me? Who carried me out of the city? Who got me in this terrible mess?”

“When we find him, we’ll find the same man who killed Whitcomb and stole the children.”

The deputies stared at the lithe, youthful figure in patrolman’s blue. Finally Undersheriff Egan blurted, “You can’t talk us out of th’ reward for th’ kids’ recovery like that, off’cer! Cravens is guilty as hell. He threatened Whitcomb, didn’t he? He wrote th’ ransom note on his company’s stationery, didn’t he? He ran away, didn’t he? We caught him, and there’s a five thousand dollar reward for doin’ it — and it’s goin’ to be ours!”

“You’re wrong,” Wentworth said.

“We’ll see what the newspapers say about it! I kept the capture quiet to give you city bulls a chance to make some more arrests, maybe, but now I’ll tell what I know. Then see where you get off if you let Cravens go!”

“We aren’t letting him go,” the Chinatown detective-sergeant said soothingly. “We’re keeping him for his good, and for our own. If you tell the newspapers, you will excite public opinion so greatly that Cravens, an innocent man, will be hanged. You don’t want that, do you, sheriff?”

“No,” said Undersheriff Egan, after a long pause. “But I don’t want to see the boys done out of a just reward, neither! I want some kind of assurance that you got another clew—”

“I give you my word,” Jimmy said simply.

Again the deputies all looked over the slim figure in blue.

“Yeah,” said Egan. “Your word. And who might you be, officer?”

“My name’s Wentworth,” said Jimmy.

A third time the men from the southern end of the state stared, this time in utter astonishment. Then one of the deputies calculated, “Wentworth! A kid like you! I don’t believe it!”

Captain Dunand said soberly, “He’s Wentworth, boys. Rated as sergeant of detectives—”

“Wentworth of the Chinatown Squad,” muttered Egan. “Well, well, well… I’d like to shake your hand, sergeant! If the case is in your hands, I won’t say a word! When’ll you make your arrests, sergeant?”

Jimmy Wentworth’s heart beat more rapidly. He knew on what a slim chance he based his conclusions — little more than flowers painted on the neck of a headless idol, and what common knowledge he possessed about bees — but was convinced that he was on the right trail. At all events, he was convinced of Cravens’ innocence, and that was sufficient to make him say quietly:

“Perhaps tomorrow, boys, if all goes well.”

Chapter V The Bee’s Flight

Wentworth had little sleep that night. Bees! He had to learn about bees, and with that thought in mind routed out an expert at the state university across the bay. To him Wentworth listened carefully, making notes again and again; he left with the scientist’s assurance that his original conclusions, if faulty in detail, were correct in all major analysis.

These were simple. Bees were hungry little things. Bees didn’t like smoke. Bees died if they did not receive adequate fresh air. Bees became angry when cooped up. Bees could get out of any crevice, and would if they had the chance. Lastly, bees would always return to their hive, or wherever they were being kept, if they had been brought a considerable distance from their original hive…

And Whitcomb had died from many bee stings, died under torture.

Only Kong Gai the Deadly would have thought of sending a man to deliver the ransom demand for his children. Only Kong Gai’s mind would consider such a thing a joke, and something to be proud about.

Wentworth believed that the little black lines, like the markings on a bee’s wing, had been made on the headless idol to further protect the ’binder carrying it from vengeance of a god or devil not even Jimmy knew — some awful being of the underworld who, in addition to riding on a dragon, in addition to breathing fire and bearing ten swords in ten hands, also could kill by stinging men to death… that must be the reason why the white flowers — representing the kidnapped children — were so painted. To propitiate the god.

At eight-ten in the morning Wentworth marched into the bowl shop of the Wangs, who had more than once assisted the department. He found old Wang Yu behind his counter, and, after bowing and hoping that the ancient’s health was good, asked for the son, Wang Chen-po.

Old Wang clapped his hands thrice, and a Chinese dressed in American clothing instantly appeared. Without a word or look toward Wentworth, Wang Chen-po said, “And what are my honorable father’s commands?”

“Here is our friend,” said old Wang, indicating Wentworth. “I have none, except to have demanded your presence.”

“Hi, Jimmy,” grinned Chen-po, without apology, since he knew that his friend understood the Conduct-Toward-One’s-Father. “What do you want now? Everything is quiet on the Eastern Front, so far as I know—”

“How many youngsters are there in the Wang family?”

“Thinking of adopting one of them, Jimmy?”

“It’s Saturday,” said Wentworth, “and I thought maybe some of them might want to earn money to buy duck’s-egg cake.”

“They all have the Yankee spirit,” laughed Chen-po. “What do they do in order to make enough to get good and sick? They’re ravenous little devils, Jimmy. They can eat you into the hospital. Shoot!”

Jimmy said lightly, “They hang around their windows, Chen-po, where the lily-pots are, and when they see a bee, they catch it and put it in a box. One bee, one dollar.”

“Bees in Chinatown? Say, these youngsters aren’t dumb, Jimmy! They know better than to try such a game.”

“I think some of them may catch a bee or so, old man.”

Wang Chen-po scratched his chin, and before he had finished his father cackled in Cantonese:

“You waste time, my son. Inform the grandchildren of Wang Yü that bees are desired, in the shortest time possible. Our white friend does not joke.”

“That’s right,” Jimmy said, after bowing to old Wang. “And if the kids’ll catch bees, maybe I’ll catch…”

He became silent. Both Chinese knew what he meant, but neither blinked an eye. Kong Gail Every decent Chinese hated the terrible leader of the Snake Brotherhood. No man’s life was safe while the King Cobra lived.

“I’ll see what can be done,” Chen-po said quietly. “The kids are to be careful that they aren’t seen, eh? And to say nothing about it?”

“That’s it,” agreed Detective-Sergeant Wentworth. “I’ll go around my beat, and drop in just before lunch.”

It was almost noon when Jimmy Wentworth leaned against the old bricks of the cathedral on the southerly boundary of the Asiatic district, and pulled from his rear pocket a thick newspaper. He stood there, apparently reading, but his right hand was shrewdly busy inside the paper. For Wentworth was attempting to put into practice what the bee expert had told him… would it work?

Inside the paper was a thin box, in which was a bit of honeycomb. The end of the box, fashioned that morning, very early, in the basement of the Hall of Justice, could be slid up or down, enough to permit a bee to escape. And in the box were five bees, collected by the grandchildren of old Wang as the little insects had sought pollen from the white and yellow china lilies…

Five bees!

Would the little winged workers lead the way to the venomous Kong Gai?

Wentworth felt something soft crawl along his finger, inside the paper, and a moment later a bee crept out, remained motionless an instant, and then flew up. The detective-sergeant tried to follow the bee’s eccentric circles and oscillations. Each time, as the bee swung above the newspaper concealing the honey in the box, it seemed to sway to one side, so that the honey was at the edge of its circle instead of the center, as if the bee were throwing a loop about the sweet to make positive of its exact location. Then, in a straight line, it darted northeast.

Wentworth’s eyes instantly sought the clock on the old cathedral. Four minutes to twelve. He stood there quietly, reading his newspaper, as if waiting until twelve to go for his lunch.

A moment before the clock boomed the hour, a bee hovered over Wentworth’s head, and, after one swoop, again crawled to the concealed box in the newspaper. Wentworth could hear its excited humming and buzzing as it tried to enter the box, but he did not open the slide, lest another bee escape. Instead, he again glanced at the clock; one minute to twelve!

The bee had been gone three minutes. The bee expert said that a minute and a half was consumed by a bee delivering the pollen at the hive. That meant the bee had spent less than a minute going to… where?… and less than a minute returning. A bee could fly a mile in five minutes. Therefore the place where it went could be no more than a block or two away… in a northeasterly direction!

The captive bees, laden with honey, buzzed in the little box as Wentworth marched along his beat, as if he had decided to make one more round, and, as he often did, go to his lunch at one instead of twelve.

Wentworth paused the second time before the basket shop belonging to a member of the Wang family, where no questions would be asked, and repeated his performance. Again he timed the greedy bee, which, like its fellow, had difficulty in obtaining food in the city where it had been brought. Again he checked the direction of flight. Twice more he did this, until he had but one bee left.

Then he walked calmly along the street where the lines had crossed; where the bees seemed to be going. Even allowing a half minute leeway, it seemed probable to the detective that the location of the hive must be in the middle of the block somewhere, and as he reached it he let the last bee escape.

Again the bee circled, but this time darted straight up. Wentworth looked with an air of disinterest, and saw that the windows of the third story were boarded up. As if, according to Chinese custom, someone had died and the body had not yet been shipped to China. No unusual occurrence — except because of the flight of the bee! And as his eyes lowered, and he shoved his newspaper into his hip pocket again, he caught an opened wicket in a basement door across the street… ’binders, watching! Kong Gai’s men.

As if he had not seen them, Wentworth crossed the street, entered a drug shop, and, by pointing, was sold a packet of cigarettes. He put these in his pocket, and then strode leisurely up the street. When he turned the corner, he pulled out his watch — in case he was being spied upon — and then walked slowly up the long hill, out of the district, as if now going for food.

He waited until he was two blocks from the district, and then entered the first apartment house.

“A telephone, quick,” he told the switchboard operator in the lobby. “No, not one here. In an apartment. And if anybody comes in, or you see anyone looking in, you haven’t seen a cop come in. Get that!”

The operator took Wentworth to a ground-floor apartment, and the sergeant called Headquarters immediately.

He was given Dunand at once.

“It’s Number Ninety-one Ninety-two Fish Alley, sir,” said Wentworth eagerly. “No mistake about it. Three boarded-up windows, third story. Which makes the bee expert correct. He said the bees wouldn’t be active, nor sting, if they were kept in any cold dark basement…”

“We’re ready,” snapped Dunand.

“Tell ’em to go along Stockton street, chief. To Sacramento. Down two blocks. Left turn to Fish Alley. The seventh house. That’s the one. Middle of block, right hand side. I’ll swing on when they turn off Stockton.”

“Better get goin’,” ordered the gray haired captain. “I’m givin’ th’ order to start, boy!”

Chapter VI Kong Gai Laughs

The blue-clad patrolman making his regular beat on Nob Hill saw the hurrying figure of a fellow officer, and ran to meet him; when he saw who it was he said:

“What’s up, sergeant?”

“Plenty,” said Jimmy swiftly. “When you hear a racket — you’ll hear it — come along and see!”

With that he hastened back toward Chinatown. At the corner of Stock-ton and Sacramento, near the mouth of the tunnel where he had once found a murdered flower girl killed by Kong Gai, he paused, and then turned northward, walking slowly along the pavement, stopping to play with a Chinese urchin in pink jacket and red pantaloons; he did this until he heard a sudden roar, coming from the tunnel.

A moment later hook-and-ladder Number Fifteen roared out of the tunnel, siren wailing and engine humming a high tune. Behind it Wentworth saw a red-and-gold hose wagon, with men in fireman’s blue hanging to the sides…

Chinatown gaped, wondering where the Fire God was striking. As the hook-and-ladder slowed, and swung around the corner, barely missing the lamp-post on the sidewalk, Wentworth leaped to the side.

Nobody would think anything of that. It was a policeman’s duty to get to a fire as rapidly as possible.

Wentworth heard someone next to him shout, “Nice goin’, sarge!”

The deep voice was that of Officer Reilly, holder of the department’s record for marksmanship, and no fireman at all. Only the driver, and the rear wheel-man, were from the fire department. Every other person in slicker, or in blue uniform, was a member of the riot squad…

Down one street! Left turn! The scream and squeal of brakes and tires, and a sudden noiseless operation that shot the first length of mechanically operated ladder into the air, in front of the windows of the house Wentworth had told about.

A spying ’binder popped his head out from the basement across the street. Officer Reilly waited until he saw the flash of metal, and the raising gun, before he drew trigger. The sound of explosion was covered by the roar of the hose wagon’s engine as it drew up beside the hook-and-ladder.

Men were already running up the ladder. The first two were axe-armed, and the raising ladder took them to one of the windows. As an axe crashed against the barrier, Wentworth, followed by other men, swung to the building-side of the ladder, and continued frantically up to the roof.

Wentworth’s head cleared the coping first, and almost the same instant his gun roared. He saw a ’binder leap high in the air; saw others turn and level drawn weapons, and then the riot squadman behind him had shoved the nose of the deadly chopper across the coping, and the rat-tat-tat of the little gun sprayed death over the Chinese.

Wentworth knew there was not a moment to be lost. While some of the bo’ how doy were still trying to get a bullet into the slim target afforded by one eye and a bit of forehead of the man operating the chopper, Wentworth pulled himself to the roof. He felt the sting of hot metal in his shoulder, and the impact half swung him about.

Nothing better could have happened. Had he continued straight forward, he would have been riddled with bullets.

Jimmy Wentworth, the smiling young detective-sergeant of the Chinatown squad, had gone berserk. Here was a chance to get his hands on Kong Gai! He made one leap, notwithstanding the pain in his shoulder, and fell through what had been a skylight, but had been changed to a row of light slats, to give the bees air at times. The stairway to the roof was ten feet further along the roof. For a fraction of time something seemed to stay Wentworth’s fall — a black curtain of heavy silk, which had been used to cover the opening most of the time — and during it he managed to squirm about…

The silk ripped, and Wentworth fell, landing on hands and knees. His gun was up at the very time of impact, up, and blazing at a black-clad figure.

A shrill, sweet voice screamed, “Hold! Get him, snake-brothers! It is the white fool himself! Get him for Kong Gai!”

Wentworth’s heart stopped as his eyes and gun flashed up. He expected to die now, but if only he could get one shot at the King Cobra, and end his reign of terror! Then, so swift that it bit into Kong Gai’s last words, he heard the tapping sound of the chopper at work, searching out corners of the room in a vain effort to get the Venomous One.

Jimmy’s head began to work sanely again. He yelled, “Look out! The kids are somewhere here—”

“They’re behind you, sarge,” shouted the machine gun officer. “All’s O.K.,” and he alertly kept the muzzle of the chopper moving, ready to fire.

Despite this assurance, Wentworth waited. Would Kong Gai, from some clever point of concealment, kill him now? It could easily be done…

The sweet voice droned on, “Your eyes, oh white fool, I will tear out with my fingers! Your mouth I shall sew together, so you cannot destroy my sleep with your screams when we cut your body apart, inch by inch, and put little serpents to feed on you while you are still alive! The day will come soon! I could kill you now, but that is not my way of killing!”

A storm of bullets from the chopper ended the terrible promise. Then all was silent, save the hammering of axes and the stamping of feet.

For the three closed windows had not shown the room in which the kidnapped white children had been found, and when the officers smashed inside they found only a place of awful worship, with a great naked headless idol surrounded with crushed white flowers and many impaled dead bees, killed as sacrifices after they had served Kong Gai’s horrible torture of Whitcomb.

And a row of the little insects which, maddened, had stung Whitcomb to his curious death, was found about a sheet of paper before the idol. On the paper was a statement of the account of one Sam Gee Quong, who had lost several thousands of dollars in the stock market. And it was easy to guess that Quong was only another name for Kong Gai, and why the Venomous One had picked Whitcomb to kill, and his children to be held for ransom…

Jimmy Wentworth’s shrewd deductions had been close enough, and had led the riot squad to the building itself, if not to the inner room. The other room must have been the chamber in which the bees had been kept, and a search at once found a small, makeshift hive, with a volume of instructions on bee-keeping beside it. The constant burning of incense in the other room made it impossible to keep the bees there, save when it was intended to let them sting someone… Whitcomb.

Kong Gai had lost the children, and seven hatchetmen to boot. Four more were caught alive, but wounded. The remainder of the Brotherhood had escaped along some secret passage.

Captain Dunand felt that only Wentworth’s mad promptness in leaping to the roof in face of the ’binders’ bullets had prevented the Cobra Men from rushing off with the children. Apparently it had been Kong Gai’s command that the children be carried to the roof, and to some secret hiding place. That would be Kong Gai’s way, too — not taking any chance that the police might follow the children along his own secret tunnel deep into the dark places of Chinatown. He cared for his hide, did Kong Gai, and took no chances.

“If we’d nabbed Kong Gai, this would have been perfect,” commented the gray haired captain, as he surveyed the strange, terrible headless idol, supposed by the Chinese to protect those who kidnap children, and before which the Snake Brotherhood had bowed low.

“He was here,” said Wentworth quietly.

“See him?”

“No. Heard him.”

Captain Dunand said thoughtfully, “Say things, did he?”

“Some day,” Jimmy answered, “we’re coming face to face. Then… we’ll see.”

Kong Gai’s horrible laugh shrilled in the room.

“We’ll see!” screamed Kong Gai in English. “Yes! We’ll see!”

Try as they might, the riot squad could not find from what vantage point the fiendish Kong Gai had spoken. Once more the Evil One laughed, and then the room of the Headless Idol, with its crushed white blossoms and dead bees and streaming incense bowls, was as silent as death.