The Blonde in Lower Six

Chapter Twenty-One

Seated in the back part of the Yat King Café, I dipped my chop sticks into a bowl of chicken noodles and listened to the hum of conversation about me. As long as I could keep in a dim light I felt safe. Color of skin, hair, eyebrows, clothes, would pass muster anywhere. It was only in regard to the eyes that my disguise was weak. It required a little grease paint to give the necessary slant to the upper corners, and grease paint has a habit of glinting a reflected gleam under the rays of a bright light.

The back of the Yat King Café was the gathering place of Chinese politicians. Those who controlled the destinies of Chinatown were accustomed to meet there in the early part of the evening. On this night they had come earlier than usual, a significant sign.

I raised my bowl of rice to my mouth and scooped down the white grains, Chinese fashion. For years I had studied the Chinese, learning the eight tones of Cantonese dialect, studying Chinese manners and customs, learning as much as possible of their habits of thought; all in preparation for the time when no ordinary disguise would avail, and I must assume a role which it would never be suspected a white man could assume.

“... san man chee.”

The words came as a drifting fragment of conversation which eddied from the table behind me where three of the prominent men of Chinatown swapped gossip over their tea.

It was the second time I had heard those three words in the course of ten minutes.

Why should these Chinamen be talking so continuously of the newspaper? The Chinese paper had come out in the morning and had excited no comment. They were, therefore, referring to the evening newspaper, the Clarion, probably.

I beckoned the young Chinese boy who waited on the tables.

“Ngo yiu Fa K’ei san man chee.”

He gave that brief flicker of slanting brown eyes which passes for a nod of the head with the Oriental, and slippety-slopped away.

In telling him that I wanted the American newspaper I did not risk discovery. I appeared as a Chinaman of the younger generation, and might be interested in things of the Fa K’ei without exciting comment.

And in the next moment, I would have given much to recall the words. The lad slipped to the table behind me, the table where the conspirators of Chinatown sat in conference, and made the courteous suggestion that if they were finished with the Fa K’ei newspaper the gentleman at the other table would like it.

My last wish was to invite any unnecessary attention to myself, particularly the attention of such men as the three behind me.

However, the damage was done.

There came the sound of slippered feet, the rustle of a newspaper, and it was spread before me, folded just as it had been at the other table.

Headlines stared up at me.

“It is believed that Ed Jenkins, wanted for murder in this state, will be in custody within the next forty-eight hours.

“Captain Ransome, who is in charge of the investigation, states positively that it has been learned that Jenkins is in hiding in the local Chinatown, disguised as a Chinaman.

“ 'Jenkins has earned the reputation of being able to slip through any police net,’ said Captain Ransome to a reporter of the Clarion. 'This reputation has given him the nickname of “The Phantom Crook.” It now appears that many of his escapes have been because of his uncanny ability in the art of disguise. But when he murdered Detective Bob Garret, he signed his death warrant. Never has any police search been conducted with such thoroughness as the search for Jenkins. Never has such an air-tight net been thrown about the city to prevent the escape of a criminal. Jenkins should be in custody within forty-eight hours.’ ”

Then there followed a blurb about my criminal history, and the circumstances surrounding the murder of Bob Garret, who had been found dead before the safe in Paul Boardman’s private study. It was the theory of the police, supplied by Paul Boardman, that I had come to that safe, that Garret had been awaiting me, and that I had killed him with a shotgun.

They didn’t have much evidence, and they didn’t need much. All they needed was to play up my criminal record in the newspaper a bit, and emphasize my flight. That and the statement of Paul Boardman was all that would be required to hang me.

If I should raise my voice to tell the real facts of Garret’s death I would be laughed down, hooted to the gallows. Garret had been a prominent detective, Boardman was one of the political powers of the city. If I, a known crook, should try to tell my story that Boardman and Garret tried to get me in their power by framing the girl I loved, that I had rescued her from their clutches, and that the two had then baited a trap for me with a shotgun planted to kill me when I came to the room, that I had tricked Garret into entering the trap — well, I might tell my story, but it would be considered worse than a pipe dream. A good lawyer in my behalf, would insist that the truth was too improbable to believe, would have forced me to plead insanity or self defense.

In one thing the newspaper article was right. Never had such a search been conducted for any criminal. Boardman feared me. I could not raise my voice against him, but he had seen something of what I might do. As long as I was free he was in danger. And there was a chance that I could convince some of the higher officials of the truth of my story. I had a photograph that he would have trouble explaining.

Oh, he had directed a search all right! It was a search that included every different angle. The police officers were instructed to shoot first and arrest afterward. The underworld had received the mysterious tip that the yegg who crashed a bullet into Ed Jenkins’ heart would have immunity until he had made his pile.

Boardman wanted me out of the way all right. He wanted my lips sealed in death. Conversely, I wanted his life spared. Boardman was the only witness living who knew the real inside of Garret’s death. I could never be cleared until I had obtained a written confession from him — and dead men can not sign confessions.

A short time ago clearing my name before the world meant nothing to me. I had let the police frame what crimes they wanted to on me and said nothing. When things got too hot, I slipped into California and availed myself of a loophole in the extradition laws. They couldn’t send me back, and they had nothing on me in California.

Now things were different. There was Helen Chadwick. Not that I would even allow myself to think there could ever be anything between us. She was of the upper crust, the inner circle of society. I was a branded crook. True she had once been the object of clutching tentacles which had twined up from the dark subsurface of crookdom and sought to drag her down — and then was when I had met her, had cut those tentacles, managed it so her name never appeared in the subsequent developments. All of her life she had been free to do as she pleased, had looked the world in the eye, demanded her rights. Now she could not understand why I could not see something of her, return the friendship which she was willing to offer.

Perhaps she thought me indifferent, when I would have laid down my life for her any time. But friendship with me was dangerous.

Probably Helen Chadwick realized it by this time. Boardman had sought to strike at me through her. He couldn’t get his hands on me directly, but he knew that if he threatened Helen Chadwick with danger I would come to her rescue. Where he had slipped was in not realizing the desperation with which I would come. I had walked into his trap and demolished it, but first I had his accomplice spring the trap, collect the two barrels of buckshot which had been loaded for me.

I laid the paper to one side with a sigh.

There could be no rest for Ed Jenkins until after Paul Boardman had been mastered. Just as there could be no safety for Boardman until I was out of the way.

And then behind me, cutting through the air with the hoarse sibilants of danger, came a swift sentence in Chinese.

They were taking the roll call of the tongs!

Instantly I sensed the trap that had been laid for me. No matter how much I might study the habits of the Chinese, there was one chapter that was closed. The tong life was safeguarded by initiatory ceremonies that a white man could not hope to pass save and except as a white man, taking an honorary membership. Any disguise would be penetrated in the ceremonies preparatory to initiation.

That article in the paper had been fiendish in its effect, masterly in its simplicity. That was the reason those three Chinese at the table behind me had been mentioning it with such interest. Chinatown had been offered a big reward to smoke Ed Jenkins from his hiding place. After all, it would be simple. Somewhere within Chinatown was a white man disguised as a Chinaman. The police offered a secret reward to the political heads of Chinatown. They would make their own search, take a roll call of Chinatown, call the tongs together. The white man would be located by the process of elimination.

The tong messenger was approaching, going from table to table, bending low, giving a secret summons, getting a whispered password, a password concerning which I knew nothing.

I arose, left the price of my meal on the table, and slipped toward the rear of the half-lit room. Chinese do not like to have white men penetrate their inner lives. Such knowledge as I had secured had been at the expense of infinite patience, untold effort. The very extent of that knowledge was a source of danger. It would not need the promise of a reward to spur the Chinese on to getting rid of a foreigner who had penetrated the intricacies of their language, the secrets of organized Chinatown.

Behind me came shuffling steps.

Someone followed, calmly, unhurriedly.

I dared not quicken my pace. To do so would be to confess my identity.

The man behind followed with the remorseless certainty of Fate herself.

I slipped through the rear door, into a narrow, ill-smelling passageway which led to the back alley. My stomach muscles sucked up against my backbone as I waited for the feel of cold steel within my vitals. Mechanically my feet kept the regular, shuffling gait of a Chinaman.

Behind me other feet slippety-slopped with the same rhythmic regularity.

I reached the alley, turned the corner, saw that the street was virtually deserted. Some mysterious summons was penetrating through Chinatown. Each and every Chinaman had become a spy in the great round-up which was taking place.

To my ears came the clashing of cymbals, the boom-boom-boom; boom-boom-boom of a tom-tom; the wailing skirl of a reed pipe whining forth its harmonious discords.

The Chinese theatre.

It would be out in fifteen minutes, but much might happen in fifteen minutes.

I paid for a ticket and slipped within. The performance had been dragging through the afternoon, and many of the higher class Chinese had left the theatre before the finish of the show. The rear of the place was well filled, but up nearer the front, in the higher class seats were scattered vacancies.

I slipped into a chair.

Feet slip-slapped down the aisle, and a body rustled into a vacant chair behind me. I dared not turn my head.

Throughout the darkened room was the subtle aroma of incense, the close human smell of packed bodies, the scent of Oriental perfume. On the stage, the performance was in its final spasm. A warrior hurtled a big sword about his head. An actor rolled to the floor dead. An assistant came and placed a pillow for him to lie upon. There was no scenery, not much pretense. The dead man listened with blinking delight to the staccato voice of the warrior as he made his final speech.

A man dressed as a woman smirked and simpered, reciting lines of squeaky Chinese in what was probably intended to be effeminate tones.

Throughout the audience came a rustle.

There would be a big gathering of the tongs after the show. Ushers had probably spread the word earlier in the evening.

Behind me sat my shadow.

By leaving the Yat King Café at just that time I had attracted attention. A tongman had been planted within the building, instructed, doubtless, to shadow anyone who left hurriedly. Throughout Chinatown hundreds of such spies would be on guard.

Ahead of me a man turned a wrinkled face and peered back over the sea of humanity behind. I would have given much to be able to do the same. The identity of the man behind me puzzled me.

The old man with the puckered face was Soo Hoo Duck, himself a mystery. He had gravitated into Chinatown from Pekin, and there was some strange power about him. Within a few short months he had become the uncrowned king of all Chinatown. Men did his bidding unquestioningly. In some uncanny manner he knew everything that went on in Chinatown. Twice before I had encountered him. Each time I had wondered whether his shrewd, old eyes had penetrated my disguise.

He stared at the people about him, and, of a sudden his eyes seemed lidless, so sharp did his gaze become. He was looking at something behind me, perhaps at the man who had followed me into the theatre.

As for myself, I kept my eyes upon the stage, trying to show my utter unconcern.

There was a rustle of motion. The man behind me had made some sign.

And then the wrinkled countenance shifted slightly, the glittering eyes dropped squarely to my face.

“Your name?”

The comment was addressed to me. There could be no evasion, no escape. I was surrounded with a crowd of packed Chinese, and the word of this man was law.

I must bluff it through.

My reply was in the Cantonese dialect, and as my voice rippled through the four tones which are in each of the two octaves and which comprise the eight notes of the Cantonese dialect, I could feel my heart beats quicken.

“The name by which I was christened was Ah Klim, Oh Worthy One; but, compared to the eminence of your learning, I have adopted the name of Dust Underfoot whilst I converse with thee.”

There was a ripple at his side, and a pair of twinkling, mischievous feminine eyes were turned in my direction.

“Father,” said the girl at his side, “I like the sound of his voice.”

Was she taunting me? Had my voice failed to catch the subtle tone inflections of the language, revealed me as a foreigner, an impostor?

The old man turned to her with a gesture.

“Peace. One does not judge of the contents of a chest by an examination of the cover.”

She was not a whit abashed.

“But one judges the quality of the silk by the sound of the rustle.”

I knew her then. She was Soo Hoo Duck’s daughter, whom he had christened “Ngat Toy,” Little Sun. She had been educated in Stanford, and her modem flippancy was the scandal of the old-timers in Chinatown.

The old man did not turn to her again. Instead he began to blink at her words, blink slowly, solemnly, as though he was thinking out some problem which required deep study.

“You will accompany me to my residence at the conclusion of the performance,” he said, slowly.

I could hardly believe my ears.

From behind came a voice which contained respectful protest, a voice which came from the seat occupied by my shadow.

“But, Excellency, is it right that water from the streets be elevated to heaven?”

Again there came that lidless look in the old man’s eyes.

“Yes. When it is drawn by the sun.”

“Then,” came the voice of the other, “it is returned to the gutter as rain and the street knows it again.”

There was subtle satisfaction in his voice.

The girl shifted again, her eyes slipped casually over my face, back to the speaker behind.

“Not always, Chuck Gee. Sometimes it descends in the form of hail, strengthened by its sojourn in the high places, causing those below to rush under cover of some protecting roof.”

I gasped.

The man behind me was Chuck Gee, then. Reputed to be head of the gunmen. Chinese regard murder as a profession, just as law or dentistry. If one has an aching tooth he goes to a dentist. If he desires to eliminate one of his neighbors he employs one of the hatchetmen who make of such things a profession. And Chuck Gee was the head of the hatchetmen, a past master of the art of murder.

The brass cymbals crashed forth one terrific, final blare, the beating of the tom-tom rattled into a hysterical rat-a-tat-tat, and the reed pipe wailed up into a veritable crescendo of sound. Once more the great cymbals clashed, and then there was silence, a silence in which the tortured air writhed and quivered from the sudden cessation of unearthly noise.

And then shadowy figures got to their feet. The play was over.

I escorted the girl down the narrow street. On the other side was Soo Hoo Duck. Behind us walked Chuck Gee. Behind him came the motley rabble from the theatre. In that throng there may have been a spy, there may have been a hundred.

I doubted if Chuck Gee had as yet penetrated my disguise. He had, however, detected something suspicious in my departure from the café. He wanted a word or two with me, and at his own convenience.

Doubtless, when Soo Hoo Duck had turned around, Chuck Gee had made a sign, pointed me out for Soo Hoo Duck’s inspection.

What did Soo Hoo Duck want of me? Had his keen eyes penetrated my disguise? Had his daughter caught Chuck Gee’s sign? Did she suspect my identity? Time would tell, and it would be a short space of time. Meanwhile Chuck Gee trailed along behind me, patient, deadly, suspicious.

That newspaper article had been inspired!

We turned down a side street, and I knew that I was entirely within the power of Soo Hoo Duck. Whatever his reason had been for demanding my company, his request was a most imperative command, and his word was law in Chinatown.

Generally, I knew where he lived. It was said that the entrance to his house was merely a blind, that the door which opened upon the dark side street concealed many secrets. Perhaps I was destined to find out.

Here and there we encountered groups of Americans. There were restaurant parties who sought a thrill from investigating the quaint, Chinese cafés. There were the outcasts, those men who were forced to live in the haunts of an alien race — liquor, lottery, opium; sometimes it was one thing, sometimes another. They looked the part, bleary-eyed, shabby, shuffling, furtive.

And then, as we made our last turn, we encountered two men who were different. Upon their smug faces was stamped an assurance of superiority. They looked about them with patronizing sneers as they elbowed their way along.

“Hello. Look at the bright eyed Chink kid!”

There was no attempt to lower the voice. The man glared with brazen effrontery at the girl.

She lowered her eyes, and endeavored to hurry past.

The old man muttered some soothing bit of Chinese philosophy to her under his breath. It was evident that they were accustomed to these insults.

The two men barred the sidewalk.

“Well, give us a smile, slant-eyes.”

She shook her head and made as if to go around them in the gutter.

Somehow, I rather fancied her feminine vanity was not entirely indifferent to the masculine notice, even if it was in the easy, sneering manner of men of that type.

“Not so fast, cutie,” said the man, as he grabbed her by the arm.

It was the other who furnished the insult. Neither of them seemed to pay us the slightest heed. Soo Hoo Duck had barely enough strength to carry his wizened body about the streets. He was old with that premature age of the Chinaman, that age which seems to shrivel the body at the same time it gives to the mind a detached, philosophic outlook. As for myself, I was merely a “Chink,” one to be bullied about as they chose.

“Aw, come on, Bill,” said the companion in the full-mouthed tones of burly insolence. “She ain’t nothin’ but a damn, yellow-bellied Chink. Come get a white girl.”

She raised her face at that, and never have I seen such an expression in the eyes of a woman. There was rage, and there was more; there was the expression of baffled helplessness which sometimes shines through the eyes of a caged creature who has wearied of buffeting the bars.

I could feel cold rage in my eyes. The girl had stuck up for me. I sensed that had it not been for her words I would have been exposed there in the theatre.

I glanced back. Some fifty yards behind us Chuck Gee was smirking, watching, waiting.

It has been my habit never to carry a weapon of any sort. I rely upon my wits, and wits are of more value than a gun any day. But not always does an ingenious solution of a difficulty present itself.

As a rule the Chinese abhor physical violence. A Chinaman is constitutionally organized so that he can’t hit.

He can become fairly clever with knife or gun, but with the fists their habits are opposed to efficiency. That was why the two men regarded me as a negligible quantity.

The first man recoiled from the stinging blow which I landed on his mouth. The second gave a vile oath and rushed. It was over in a space of seconds. The hardest punch I saved for the man who had been so deliberately insulting. I felt his teeth give way under the impact of my fist, and knew that some dentist would have a good job in the morning.

Both of the men rolled sprawling into the gutter. The girl watched me with wide eyes. It was old Soo Hoo Duck who clasped my sleeve gently.

“This way, my son,” he said.

We slipped down a short flight of stairs, through a door into a basement, to the back, up a longer flight of stairs, through a mysterious room where there were lights, circling streamers of tobacco smoke, yet no visible occupants, and found ourselves in a long, dark corridor. A bolt rasped at the other end of this corridor, and we entered a room so sumptuously furnished that only the Oriental mind could have patterned it.

Indirect lighting shed a glow as soft as moonlight upon rare tapestries, rich silks, great, thick carpets which muffled the sound of steps. There were huge mahogany and teakwood furnishings; cut glass glistened, and the dull white of ivory shone mysteriously forth.

Soo Hoo Duck slumped in a chair, motioned the girl and myself to be seated, and then spoke words of such bitterness as only the very old can speak.

“For myself, I do not care. It is for her. I have sacrificed everything. She has been to college, has absorbed the education of the whites, has learned even their habits of thought. With the right friends she would be happy; but, on every hand she is insulted. Those who notice her are fortune hunters or worse. In my own country the curse of caste would brand her as a coolie of the lower strata. In this country she is a source of ridicule. In Chinatown there are no friends for her. The Americans treat her as a curiosity, as something to be insulted, as though she were a monkey chained to a hand organ.”

The girl placed a soothing hand on his forehead.

“There, there, Father. You cannot judge from the attitude of those two men.”

He shook his head, slowly, mournfully.

“It is not they alone. It is typical. And we must thank our friend.”

I had been taking in this conversation with wide eyes. The significance of it penetrated to my mind. Its significance was not in sentiment nor in word, but in the fact that the entire conversation was in English, and in the purest diction which could be learned in the colleges. There was none of the pidgin-English, none of the halting accents, none of the garbled pronunciation, which almost invariably characterizes the Chinaman who seeks to talk our language. He spoke as a man of my own race.

And then, suddenly, he seemed to realize the situation. He straightened in his chair, and when he again spoke, his words were in Cantonese, and his voice was that of the old philosopher immune to emotion.

“The water of the gutters is very muddy,” he said.

I recognized that the words were for me, and bowed.

“But muddy water splashes as far as clear water, and it leaves a stain,” he went on.

Again I nodded. My cue was silence, as much of silence as I could maintain throughout the interview.

“And you have saved my daughter from being splashed, you who call yourself Ah Klim.

“Back there in the theatre Chuck Gee made me the sign of the knife and pointed to you. I thought that I recognized you, wanted a chance to talk frankly with you, to find out what you did here. A man may receive much information from another, but the knife of Chuck Gee would have destroyed the source of information which I desired. But, after all, one should not pry into the affairs of his friends. The greatest compliment one friend can give to another is to allow him his independence. And you have proved a friend, perhaps more than you appreciated.”

He was speaking pure Cantonese now, the dialect of the lower classes, however, with all of the coolie idioms.

“Take this, and go,” he said.

With the words he pulled toward him a teakwood stand upon which was a slab of China ink, a little water, a brush. Picking up a piece of red paper he moistened the brush tip and began to spread out those weird lines which form the Chinese written language.

When he handed me the paper I bowed again. What it contained I had no means of knowing. Whatever it was, I had no intention of using it. I have played as a lone wolf, and I do not blindly exhibit things others have written without at least knowing their contents.

It seemed that he sensed this feeling, for, suddenly, his manner changed, and he shook his head.

“No,” he muttered, “that will not do. There are many hands who can make strokes of the pen... Here. This is better. There is only one of it.”

His yellow-nailed hand slipped a ring from his middle finger. It was a ring I had noticed before, a ring of soft, yellow gold, and on it was a jade dragon, a dragon of exquisite workmanship. There were fiery rubies for eyes, small diamonds for teeth, a long ruby for a tongue. The rest was jade and gold. It was a huge affair, and I fancied it had been used as a seal once or twice, a seal to imprint a signature which all Chinatown respected and obeyed.

“Take this. Wear it,” he said. “I am weary. I would not talk more tonight. My daughter will escort you to a safe exit. There was much I would have asked, but I shall remain silent. It is better so. Ah Klim and Soo Hoo Duck will meet in the future as casual acquaintances, but here you have sanctuary. Here you have friends. Yet, beware of Chuck Gee. Good night.”

There was a finality in his tone which allowed no argument. I wanted to mutter some thanks, to make a formal farewell after the fashion of the Cantonese, but the hand of the girl was on my sleeve, and there was something in the atmosphere of the place which made me remain silent. I bowed, and followed the girl.

We went through two rooms, each of which was furnished with lavish splendor. As we walked, I studied her, and, as I studied her, I came to like her. There was a blending of the ancient and modem in an entirely incomprehensible manner. She was a baffling combination.

We left the magnificent rooms, entered a gloomy corridor of bare boards, and I spoke to her.

“Ngat T’oy,” I said, using the language of the Chinese, “one who finds a pomegranate upon a raspberry bush thinks it is a raspberry. If you would have Fa K’ei Mends who will respect you, you must get away from Chinatown.”

She stopped. There in the dim light of the echoing corridor she came close to me.

“Thanks for those kind words.”

Her speech was in English.

I made no comment. I would wait and see what her next move might be.

“You see, my father has his life here. I wouldn’t want to buy my happiness at the expense of his. And your white society snobs don’t pick up Chink women for friends.”

She was right at that. The old man enjoyed his power. White society might receive her, but only when she had found an open sesame. It would never open to the old man. After all, it was none of my affair. There remained the fact that both she and her father had used English as the language in which to address me.

It was as though she read my thoughts.

“You might as well take off the mask, Ed Jenkins.”

“Yes?” was all I said, but I was tensed, ready for anything at that moment.

“Yes,” she said with a low laugh. “My father thought you were in disguise. He felt it would be a bad thing for Chinatown to have you hiding here, and he was going to surrender you. But he knew Chuck Gee intended to kill you. He felt you were entitled to be turned over alive to the police. I liked your voice and tried to save you. Perhaps I could have done so, perhaps not. Of course we were not sure it was you until after you whipped those two rowdies. A Chinaman would not have done that.”

I remained silent. She was right. Anyone who had seen that incident or heard of it would know that the man who struck those blows was not a Chinaman. And Chuck Gee had been watching.

“Come,” she said, simply.

I followed, followed with wary steps. In the dark passages of Chinatown many things happen. I was an outlaw. A price was on my head dead or alive, and the word had been passed that I was not to be taken alive.

The Chinese love to make secret passages. It is racial habit. They make ’em even when there’s no reason. Usually there’s a reason. I wasn’t surprised to find that the entire block was honeycombed by little runways. I’d have been surprised if it hadn’t been.

“There is this flight of stairs to the alley,” she said.

With the words she stopped at the head of a narrow stairway, slid back a panel in the wall and peered without. Then her hand strayed back to my sleeve, groped up it to my elbow, and gently pulled me to the peep-hole.

I peered through—

Below appeared the dimly lit alley. At first I could see nothing except streaks of weak, reddish light, blotches of dark shadow. Then something moved. Someone coughed, a suppressed cough that seemed bit off in the middle. The shadows were alive with men.

Again a pressure on my sleeve. I was pulled gently back and the window closed.

“I am afraid it was because of the blow,” she said, and there was something almost tender in her voice.

I felt that might have something to do with it, but in reality it was the newspaper article, Chuck Gee and his confounded spy system, that and unlimited quantities of money which were being poured into Chinatown. The police must have me at any price. Paul Boardman, whose word was law, must have my lips sealed by death.

The girl showed a calm efficiency. Technically she was an accessory after the fact, could be held on a most serious charge, sent to San Quentin for what she was doing. And she was smart enough to know it, must also have known she would later be called to account; but she was as cool and calm as though she had been merely showing a visitor through her house.

“There is another way over the roof and down to a basement that comes out on the next corner,” she said in that queer, lilting voice of hers.

No wonder her father had christened her “Little Sun.” It was a name I liked and I addressed her by it.

“Listen, Little Sun, you don’t need to pilot me around. You may make trouble for yourself. I’ll work my own way out of this, thanks, all the same.”

She paused in the door of a passageway; slender, graceful, attired in semitransparent silk that emphasized the slim lines of her pose, she reminded me of a deer poised for flight from pursuing hunters.

“You don’t know just what you’re up against,” she remarked, casually, and again led the way.

She was wrong. I knew what I was up against — the combined efforts of the police and Chinese. Those blows had established my identity as well as though I had left my calling card. A Chinaman who tackled two rowdies and smashed them into the gutter was pretty likely not to be a Chinaman at all, and then there had been the matter of Chuck Gee... The police had learned too much of my reputation. I might have earned the nickname of The Phantom Crook in the East because of my ability to slip through the fingers of the police, but they were taking steps to see to it I did not live up to the name here.

I knew exactly what we should find before we found it — the other corner was watched. A veritable cordon of men were thrown about the entire block. There were police and Chinese gunmen. As yet they had not entered the houses for a search. They preferred to catch me on the outside. Why?

Of course it would be more difficult searching each nook and corner... but that would hardly be the real reason. Nor did the men without seem anxious. They acted as though they were waiting for something, some new development in the situation.

I stretched, yawned, and tapped the girl on the shoulder.

“Listen, Little Sun, I’ve been interested in seeing how far you would go to help me. I’ve found out, and I thank you. Now is no time for experiments. I’m getting tired of so much police interference. I’m on my way, and it’s going to be no place for a lady, so you beat it back to your dad, give him my compliments and tell him I’ll see him again some day.”

She looked me over appraisingly from those slant eyes of hers, and then slipped me a bit of American slang.

“Go to it, big boy,” she said, bowed, smiled at me and vanished through a doorway.

I slipped into another room and took stock of the situation.

The whole upper floors of the block were honeycombed with passages. So far so good. The whole block was surrounded. Not so good. The guards were both Chinese and police. Probably there were underground passages, but Chuck Gee’s men would be guarding them. However, there was one thing in my favor. We hadn’t seen a single Chinaman in the whole tour we had made of the upper floors. We had gone through dining-rooms, sleeping-rooms, gambling rooms, little corridors, rooms of all sorts. In none of them had there been a single human being.

That meant but one thing. They were getting the Chinese out as fast as possible. In some mysterious manner word was being passed for the Chinks to get in the clear. Did that mean they were going to set fire to the block? Perhaps. It would enable them to get me dead rather than alive; but more probably there was some other scheme. A block on fire would be a little hard to handle, even if they did have the fire department under Boardman’s thumb. No, there was something else.

Anyway, I had one thing to go on. The Chinks were being removed from that block.

I opened my blouse and took a wide belt from around my waist. In this belt were many small, compact articles that had been of value more than once. If the police thought I had earned my nickname of The Phantom Crook by depending on one disguise, they were crazy.

Calmly, leisurely I went to work on my features. A white beard, horn-rimmed glasses, a skull cap of blue silk, a stick of grease paint and lines drawn across my face, and I’d do in the right kind of light — an old Chinaman, bent with age, wrinkled of skin, gray of hair and beard, seeking my way out, with trembling, halting steps.

I started for the main flight of stairs that was nearest. Not by any secret passageways would I come down; but right out in the open, down the main stairway.

From a doorway ahead a swift-moving shadow darted into the half-light, poised for a moment, then shuffled to the stairs. Good. I would have a pilot. The Chinaman in front of me would go through the mill first, give me an idea of what to expect.

He opened a door to the street. I was right behind. Hands grasped him. He was held at the doorway for questioning.

“You savee Ah Klim?”

It was the voice of Captain Ransome, the police Captain, who had taken active charge of the man hunt and who had promised that the fugitive would be in custody within forty-eight hours.

“I heap no savee.”

“All right. You stickum fingers in ink, puttem on paper.”

So that was it. They were fingerprinting the Chinks as they left the building.

I hesitated for a moment while they were daubing the fingers of the man ahead.

“We’ve got him trapped sure.” Ransome was talking to one of many bluecoats near him. “Every outlet is blocked. The men are instructed to shoot on sight. However, I’m going to try for him myself. We don’t want him wounded, you know. When you see me shoot, empty your gun in him. All right, let’s put this next fellow through.”

There was a purring complacency about Ransome’s voice which characterizes the crooked police officer when he is wielding a terrific power that is his to use for good or evil.

I turned and darted into a branch hallway. This was no place for me. The disguise might get by for a minute, but the fingerprints would identify me, I was trapped.

From behind came a cry.

“One of em’s going back. He’ll warn Jenkins!”

I could never mistake that deep, booming voice. It was Paul Boardman, the orator, the politician, the crook, who controlled half of the governmental agencies in the State.

“Let him go. He can’t get out.”

That last from Captain Ransome.

So I was surrounded, every channel of escape blocked, and they were fingerprinting the men who left the building. Well, I had been in as tight fixes before, doubtless would be again, but this was the first time I had ever encountered any such organization of pursuit. Beyond doubt I was badly wanted.

I slipped back by another flight of stairs, into the deserted rabbit warren of the upper floors, and heard the voice of “Little Sun.”

“Couldn’t you make it?... Oh, it’s not...”

I straightened and smiled reassuringly at her.

“Yes, but it is, though. I just aged a bit.”

She came straight to me.

“Do you know a Helen Chadwick?”

At the question I stiffened. Helen’s name must not be connected with mine. The police knew something — too much. The underworld, Chinatown, the rank and file of crookdom must never know.

“Helen Chadwick?” I repeated the words vaguely, sparring for time.

“Yes,” went on the girl. “The police were in our apartment a few moments ago getting ready to start a search of the upper floors here. My father told them you had escaped. They telephoned from our apartment to a Helen Chadwick, told her you were dying, and had asked for her. She is on her way here.”

For once I could feel the blood in my veins turn to luke warm water.

Helen Chadwick, drawn into this trap!

The girl saw my expression.

“Perhaps I can help,” she said, simply, and her hand patted my arm.

God knows what there was about this paradoxical character, this girl that had all the mannerisms of the West, all the habits of thought and appearance of the East, but there was a steadying something that nerved me for what was to come. No longer was I under any illusions. They were planning the death of myself and of Helen Chadwick, the two who knew too much to live. I would be killed “while resisting arrest.” Helen Chadwick would disappear — another tourist who had gone into Chinatown and failed to return.

“Go back and try to get in touch with her. Then, don’t let her out of your sight,” I said, after a moment. “I’ll either be out of here or dead within a few minutes.”

She didn’t argue, didn’t ask a lot of questions, didn’t pull any fainting fits. She arose to the emergency with the true Oriental impassivity, and I knew I could depend on her.

Back to the head of the stairs I went. No time now for planning any subtle schemes. I must get out, and I must use my head to do it. Boardman had struck. He wanted to kill two birds with one stone. I must have my liberty. Helen would need help. Boardman needed a lesson.

I had a straggling wisp of white beard fastened to my chin, one of the long drooping beards which strings down from the chins of very old Chinamen. I slipped this beard off, held it in my hand, ready to readjust.

I had noticed a heavy bronze idol in one of the rooms, on a little family shrine. I went back to this, and checked over the last details of the plan in my mind.

The idol sat there, cross-legged, gazing out upon the world through his mask of fatalistic indifference. Before him, little joss sticks gave forth curling wisps of perfumed smoke. Red papers, covered with grotesque Chinese characters, were impaled on sticks and stuck into cans filled with earth. Pieces of roast pig and bowls of cooked rice were before him.

“Old man, I want you to do me a favor,” I told him in mock seriousness.

His enameled eyes stared straight forward in complacent serenity. I stooped and hoisted him from his dais to my shoulder. Then I dashed down the hall. I was working against time.

At the head of the main stairs was a door, a door that opened inward. Gently, I pried it open a foot or two, placed a chair, climbed up and balanced the bronze idol on top of the door, resting slightly against the wall behind, ready to fall at the least motion of the door. Carefully I got down, then made a swift trip of inspection to the little slide which covered the peep-hole.

They were still working the same system. Boardman was slightly to one side. Captain Ransome was at the foot of the stairs. They were grabbing the men who came out, taking their fingerprints and passing them on to a fingerprint expert who sat within a sedan, curtains pulled. Chuck Gee’s men were scattered through the shadows. A cordon of police were in the background, ready to receive any customers that trickled down the main stairway.

Everything was ready. My scheme would either work or it would not, but I was desperate, had no time to put on finishing details.

Carefully, so as not to dislodge the bronze idol, I stuck my head through the crack in the door, blinked down the stairway.

To all appearances, in that half light, I was a feeble old man, clean shaven, a Chinaman who had nearly rounded out his span of life, blinking with Oriental stupidity, failing to take in the situation, frightened, yet harmless.

For two minutes I waited, cursing the police captain below for his carelessness in not watching the stairway. Had I been carrying a revolver I could have shot him. But they knew I didn’t carry a gun, and they knew I was trapped. Their carelessness was the carelessness of supreme self-confidence.

Then he looked up, blinked, and stared.

“Come down,” he ordered, and his gun came out and up.

I made no move.

“No savvy,” I said, with the calm, emotionless stupidity of an old Chinaman who has supreme contempt for the ways of the Fa K’ei.

“Come down, hurry you!”

I blinked slowly.

“No savvy.”

Captain Ransome started up, gun held before him.

“Well, here’s something you will savvy. Make a move and I’ll blow your damned head off. Come down, I say! No!” he added suddenly — “Damn your slant-eyed impudence, stay there. Move that head back or show a hand, though, and you’ll be laying on a marble slab inside of an hour. Here, John Chinaman, don’t you move.”

I thought of the conversation I had heard, remembered Ransome’s boast that he would be the one to kill Ed Jenkins. He wanted to empty his gun into me. They wanted me not merely wounded, but dead. Possibly he suspected my real identity and wanted to get back from the street so the others would not see him shoot me down in cold blood.

He was cautious as he came up the stairs. Evidently he feared a trap. I had started the play, must see it through. If I had so much as even jerked my head back he would have fired through the door. He was taking no chances.

I waited until his gun was almost at the tip of my nose, and then I drew slowly, an inch or so at a time.

“No savvy,” I said, querulously.

He kept the gun trained on my head; as I drew back, the gun followed. Finally, I was clear of the door, his arm was through it. He could see me in the hall, twisted, stooped, hands upstretched, behind me the vacant corridor.

“Damn you! Take this!” he said and lurched forward, tightening the finger which rested on the trigger.

As he thrust out his arm, his shoulder jostled the door.

My bronze god slipped noiselessly and smoothly downward, straight as a plumb.

As I heard it crack on his skull I grabbed him by the collar, dragged him inside. The gun exploded once, then fell from his limp hand. My fingers sought his pulse. My next move depended on circumstances. If he was clean out I would put on his uniform, take a chance of getting down one of the other stairways.

Damn him, he had a hard head. Even as I knelt beside him, he was stirring, and Boardman’s voice was calling uneasily up the stairs. I could hear a shuffling sound which I knew was made by the feet of the cops as they closed in to the entrance. They had heard the shot.

There remained only the most desperate course. It was sink or swim.

I rubbed yellow stain on Ransome’s features, took my grease-paint pencil and doped up his eyes. It was a crude job. The gun I put back in his hand. Then, as he struggled to his knees, dazedly, gropingly, I stuck the white whiskers back on my face, and boldly opened the door.

“Help!” I screamed in the shrill falsetto of a Chinaman. “Police, come quick!”

They blocked the foot of the stairs, eager, tense, yet suspicious, a dozen guns trained on me.

I gave them the story on the road down, gave it to them in a quavering voice, shrill with excitement, babbling pidgin-English, yet seeing that the words were sufficiently distinct to give them the idea.

“Policee man he come. White man with face painted like China boy hit him over head. He take off policeeman’s clothes, dross himself up allee samee cop. You catchum.”

The idea was logical. They could see something had happened when Ransome had started through that door, and the possibilities of the situation dawned upon them. Attired in the Captain’s uniform. Ed Jenkins could dash through one of the exits and gain the shelter of the rabbit warrens across the street before the guards could dope out the situation.

They started up with curses and cries.

Above me I heard the door open.

That would be Captain Ransome, and he would be wanting a pot shot at me as I went down the stairs.

I risked a look over my shoulder.

He was standing there in the doorway, still half dazed, an incongruous sight. His face was stained yellow, his eyes doped up with grease paint. He had on his uniform, and in his hand was a gun.

He saw me. and he saw the cops. He raised the gun. In that minute he knew that I was Ed Jenkins, and he wanted me to be taken — dead.

The cops on the stairs were looking for Ed Jenkins, his face doped up to look like a Chink’s, wearing the uniform of an officer.

Of course, Captain Ransome didn’t know that I had doped up his face. He felt the boys below would recognize him.

He raised the gun. and I dove headlong for the feet of the cops on the stairs.

Over my head guns crashed and bullets spatted.

There could be but one end to such a fusillade. When Ransome had raised his gun to shoot at me, it had, of course, been pointed toward the cops and he had started the merry fireworks. Two seconds later his dead body was slumping limply down the stairs, riddled with lead.

The cops crowded by and up. Someone stepped on my hand, another kicked me to one side. From the street came excited cries. I rolled over, jumped to one side and then I was scuttling through the night, my white beard streaming, while Boardman’s exulting cry earned the tidings to the waiting men, to Chuck Gee and his crowd of cut-throats.

“He’s dead. Jenkins is shot!”

It was the end. Excited Chinamen broke cover and scurried about through the shadows like dry leaves in an autumn wind. By the time the shouts above changed their tune to incredulous rage, I was safely across the street, up a flight of stairs, and exploring about through unknown passageways which were thronged with jabbering Chinese.

My whiskers had come off, some of the grease paint wrinkles had been wiped, and I was walking erect, a younger Chinaman, babbling hysterical inquiries, scuttling for cover, with the rest of the frightened covey. The Chinese are great for cover in excitement, and this time I was with the vanguard.

There was but one more duty I had. To look for Helen Chadwick. Had I staged my escape before she arrived? Would they seek to molest her now that I had broken through their cordon?

I slipped to a latticed window, glanced hastily at the street, and then stopped short.

Helen Chadwick’s red roadster was parked a short distance from the corner. She was somewhere within, then. Would she come out? Had Little Sun been successful in keeping her safe?

There were a hundred highbinders slipping through the shadows, scattering out through Chinatown on their mission of murder — Chuck Gee’s men, deploying for the purpose of assassinating Ed Jenkins.

And what a police shake-up there would be! Captain Bansome shot down by his own men! Would they be able to hush it up? Probably not. The Chief of Police was on the square, was fighting Paul Boardman. Boardman had been grooming Captain Ransome for the Chief’s job... How the papers would be filled with the story of Ed Jenkins’ wild escape, the trickery by which the police had turned their guns upon their own captain while the real quarry slipped through their fingers.

It was a wild night, and my work was not over. I must watch that red roadster.

I had thought I knew Chinatown; but, during the next fifteen minutes, I was swept through places I had never dreamt of. Chattering, gibbering Chinese scuttled like frightened rats through the district, breaking away from the vicinity of that fatal block. It was fear of those gunmen who were released for action.

Chinese react toward a hatchetman or highbinder just as a covey of quail react to the silent shadow of a swift-flying hawk. And now Chinatown’s shadows thronged with men who made of murder a specialty. Chuck Gee had combined the tongs, concentrated their energies upon ridding Chinatown of this man who mingled with them, yet was not of them.

I emerged to the surface some three blocks away, stepped to the street, and started working my way back, walking in the open, not with furtive glances over my shoulder as the other Chinese were doing, but with head thrust forward, slipping purposefully through the shadows, my attitude that of the hunter rather than the hunted.

And it worked. Chinese ran from me like mice from a cat. Everywhere was a constant jabbering of excited comment. Chinese were afraid to remain on the street, afraid to stay at home. It was, for Chinatown, a night of terror.

Police were throwing a cordon about all Chinatown. Tourists were gathered up and told to get out of the district. Licensed guides were notified to go on home and forget Chinatown for a night. Grimly, determinedly, the police were continuing the hunt.

I slipped past the fatal corner, swiftly, noiselessly, yet not as though I was seeking concealment.

The red roadster was still there.

And there was more.

Sitting atop one of those sinister, black dead-wagons which are used to convey corpses to undertaking parlors was “The Buzzard.”

Who he was I did not know, except that he was, in some way, in with the ring of crooks that were in control of many branches of the city government. He was tall, angular, awkward, long of neck and with a constantly twitching nose. Twice before I had seen him, and each time an attempt had been made on my life. Evidently he furnished a convenient method for relieving the crooks of such corpses as they found it inconvenient to dispose of.

But if they should kill me, they would no longer need to be secretive about disposing of my body. They could and would blazen it forth to the world that Ed Jenkins was dead... and the sombre dead-wagon was parked next to the red roadster!

My lips set in a grim line, and at the same time, I could feel the cold sweat on my forehead.

Once more I must take a chance. Trap or no trap, I would go to her.

There was the flutter of a skirt.

Ngat T’oy walked up and down the street, casually, as though she wanted to get out of the close atmosphere of her living quarters.

I waited until she turned, and slipped along behind her, walking slightly faster.

“Little Sun,” I whispered, when I was three feet away.

She did not move her head, made no slightest sign of having heard, but one of the hands which was clasped behind her back wriggled slightly, and I saw a piece of paper in the fingers.

I took it as I slipped by. A watcher could not have told we had any interest in each other.

It would have been more prudent to have waited before reading that message, but I dared not risk delay. I turned in at a café, ordered some tea, and spread the paper under the shelter of the table cloth.

The note was unsigned, save for a small circle with radiating lines — a little sun. The accompanying diagram was full and complete. Generally, I knew the location of the joss room. In it were kept a great assortment of various gods. There were the six great Chinese idols that were carried in the parades, and there were twelve boxes of assorted ivory idols, each group having some peculiar significance to the Oriental.

The situation was desperate. Helen Chadwick in Chinatown! Chuck Gee, head of a hundred gunmen, doing the will of Paul Boardman, safe in the knowledge that any police investigation would be controlled.

It is not unusual for people to disappear in Chinatown. Such white persons as roam the narrow, crooked streets after the usual tourist traffic has ceased are expected to know the risks they take.

Boardman had a perfect alibi. He had merely been a visitor in Chinatown, waiting to see justice done to Ed Jenkins. The killing of Captain Ransome had upset him. He had gone home. He didn’t even know Helen Chadwick was in Chinatown, otherwise he would have been only too pleased to have escorted her home.

The police had advised her that the telephone call had been a mistake; that not only was she at liberty to go home, but she was advised to do so at once. They had probably offered her a police escort.

Then had come Chuck Gee, shuffling along, and grinning that evil, pockmarked grin of his. He had slipped a note in her hand, a clever forgery. It had purported to come from me, probably telling her to trust the bearer and he would guide her to me.

After that, a hidden signal, Chuck Gee shuffling away and Helen Chadwick following. Another white girl disappears in Chinatown. The newspapers dish up the news to readers who want to feel the creeps going up and down their spines, the police make an “investigation,” and finally unearth the “information” that the girl was really mixed up in certain matters which made her want to disappear. They guardedly suggest to anxious friends that it is better not to press the matter too far, that it might unearth a scandal.

Such is the usual course in such matters. A murder crowds the story off the front page, the police drop it, and the mystery remains unsolved.

That is where outlaw undertakers come into play. An obscure undertaker with a shabby “funeral parlor” in the cheaper part of the city seems to be doing a big business. He buries paupers who are interred simply in the Potter’s field. And he becomes rich. Forged burial permits, a political pull, a dead-wagon that rattles forth at night on mysterious errands — and the body is legally disposed of. There is none of the burial in cellars, none of the amateurish weighting of bodies and chucking them into a lake where they eventually rise to the surface. It is all handled smoothly and efficiently. The burial is in broad daylight. The papers are all in order. Another pauper without friends or relatives has slipped over the great divide and finds a legal resting-place in a shallow, unmarked grave.

Such is the murder system of the big cities when men such as Paul Boardman lend their political influence to ways of crime.

Now I realized why the Buzzard’s dead-wagon waited in Chinatown.

Because I was being hounded from pillar to post; because my life was in constant danger, with a cordon of police thrown about Chinatown, while a hundred highbinders explored the shadows, Paul Boardman thought he was safe, that I dared not try to rescue Helen Chadwick.

Fool!

I am an outcast of society. The courts are closed to me because of my criminal record. I would be laughed out of court if I should try to present even the clearest case. It would make a feature story for the newspapers.

Very well. Society had closed its doors to me. I would organize a society of my own. I would be my own judge and jury. Yes — if occasion demanded — I would be my own executioner. I would condemn Paul Boardman to death.

I left the café and turned my steps toward the gambling house of Lip Kee. From a rear exit of Lip Kee’s place a passage ran to the joss room, the room of which Chuck Gee was the official custodian, the room whose innermost secrets were in his exclusive control, the unofficial headquarters for the gunmen of Chinatown.

I paused for a moment at Lip Kee’s gambling tables, listening to the click of Chinese dominoes and the rattle of Chinese tongues. Gossip was rife. The Chinks were all excited. Play was slow and talk was fast. A police line had been established about the Chinatown district. Every person who sought to leave was being finger-printed. A great census of Chinatown was being taken, a hundred Chinese spies were scouting the shadows. Somewhere in Chinatown, disguised as a Chinese, was Ed Jenkins, the Phantom Crook, and the police had him surrounded, bottled up, were gradually closing the net.

I listened, yawned, and slipped through the back entrance, into a corridor, and then on noiseless feet toward the joss room. Within me, all emotion seemed suspended. I had never been a killer. I had always been on the defensive in a war with society on the one hand, and the underworld on the other. Occasionally I had slipped out of some trap and some other person had taken my place as the corpse — witness the killing of Captain Ransome. Had he not left positive orders that I was to be taken dead rather than alive he would not have fallen victim to the bullets of his own men.

But now I felt differently. Had Helen Chadwick been harmed, Chuck Gee would die, and Paul Boardman would die, and their deaths would be brought about in such a manner that they would know the reason they were being executed.

And yet I did not even have a weapon, nor did I have time to find one. I must depend on my luck and my wits, my ability to turn a situation to my advantage. Single-handed, I must see that justice was done.

As became a humble worshiper, I slipped with bowed head to the teakwood door which guarded the joss room, pushed it back and entered.

At that moment I was ready for anything. Perhaps Chuck Gee figured that I would come, perhaps he was lying in wait with his men. Perhaps there was a police trap set for me. I was not at liberty to plan, to pick and choose. I was working against time, and for the safety of one who meant more to me than life.

This much only did I know: the joss room was open at all times to devout Chinese, and once within the door, I must trust to my wits.

I stepped within.

There was murky gloom. Incense laden half-darkness. Wicks floating in peanut oil gave a weird light. Grouped in a great semi-circle were the six great idols who dominated the room. Each idol a creation of tough, colored paper on a bamboo frame. Each god grinning into space with the same fixity of expression, Behind the gods distorted shadows danced upon the rear walls of the room. Nearer the ceiling were boxes of ivory idols. Before me were bowls of rice, red prayer papers impelled upon pointed sticks, thrust into cans of earth, smoking incense sticks.

The room was silent, impregnated with that heavy blanket of suffocating silence which hints of hidden menace. There was no living soul within the room that I could see, but my vision was cut midway by the great semi-circle of paper gods. That part of the room which lay behind them was shrouded in gloom, and some intuition warned me that it would be death to step back of that sacred semi-circle.

The six gods stood shoulder to shoulder, barely four feet between the bases of each, forming a great semi-circle. They were some twelve or fifteen feet high, massive in appearance, yet light in weight, made to be readily transported at times of festival parade.

I advanced to the center of the semi-circle, bowed down as though to worship, lifted a prayer paper or two so that my hands might be legitimately occupied in case I was questioned.

One of these gods was the god of battle, and while I bent there I almost breathed a prayer to him. There was something heartening in the manner of those huge idols as they grinned away into space. After all, life is but a game, the significance of which is not in the result but in the playing. These gods stood cheek by jowl and grinned fixedly into space, seeming to see beyond the feverish futility of mortal action. Their grim humor strengthened me at the same time their huge bulk emphasized my puny insignificance. I could feel my face twist into a grim grin which matched their own, and, with that grin, I felt a confident strength in my mind. It was as though the god of battle had smiled upon me.

The six great paper gods sat there in a semi-circle, grinning fixedly. I crouched at their base, facing an unknown danger which must be mastered, and, also, grinned. And in that minute I sensed that death was close, knew also that death loses its terror to him who grimly grins into the face of the unknown.

As though moved by inspiration, my hands sought my pocket, took out my razor-edged pocket-knife, and then I bowed reverently before the huge girth of the center god and inserted the knife.

The paper cut easily, silently. My blade was sharp and the paper held on a tension by the bamboo frame. Quickly I cut a little flap, wide enough for a door, looked about to see if my motions were detected, and then crawled inside.

Within was a circle some seven or eight feet in diameter, surrounded by hoops of bamboo, covered with painted paper. Crouching in this circle of darkness, I listened carefully. There was no sound.

I took my knife, crept to the other side, inserted the blade, surreptitiously cut a small peephole.

Behind me I could hear the teakwood door of the chamber open and close. Another worshiper? I turned toward the flap I had cut in the god. I had pulled the paper back into place, but a fine line of light showed where the cut had been made. It would stand casual inspection, but a close examination would result in instant detection. Tensed, ready, I waited.

The steps did not approach the idol, but worked toward one end of the semi-circle of grinning gods. I returned to my peephole.

From the darkness of my concealment I could see what was taking place in the back part of the room, back where the shadows of the huge gods blended into a thick gloom of invisible menace.

At first my eyes made out merely a huddled patch of darkness, but a flicker of motion showed, the darkness separated into forms, outlines. Someone was in a chair, sitting with the rigidity of a bound captive. Two other forms moved about, looking like black witches getting ready a hell broth.

So there were only two, then?

I reached forward with the knife, and then another shadow came into view.

“Soo Hoo Duck orders that the woman be released at once and returned unharmed to her car.”

The words were intoned in excited Cantonese.

A match scraped, a light flickered, another taper floated around in its container of peanut oil.

Two Chinese inspected the newcomer, and the light of the floating wick illuminated the three faces. There was Chuck Gee, heavy of feature, the broad nostrils of his coarse nose shadowing his cheeks as the light flared upward. His eyes glittered above the shadow of his nostrils; weird, evil eyes.

One other, his face an impassive mask of incarnate evil. He looked at Chuck Gee impassively. A jade-handled dagger was in his hand.

The newcomer was one of the hatchetmen, one of the outposts.

“And does Soo Hoo Duck know that his instructions will reach their destination? Is he, perhaps, like the wireless stations of the white man to send forth noise upon the night air and have it received in all places at once?”

The hatchetmen shrugged his shoulders.

“It was Little Sun herself who gave me the signed order and told me to run with it to the joss room.”

Chuck Gee scowled, his eyes squinting in thought. Dared he disobey the mandate of the uncrowned king of Chinatown? With a hundred hatchetmen at his back he was supreme from the point of physical power, but Chinese politics are tricky things to monkey with.

And then there came another sound from the teakwood door. Momentarily I was expecting that my disappearance within the worship chamber would be noted, reported, a search started. But events were piling up with too great rapidity for the disappearance of one worshiper to attract too great attention.

The two men who strode into the back part of the room were important actors. One a Chinese guardian of the outer passage. The other a tall, loose-jointed, flapping figure of ungainly awkwardness, a white man so far as skin went, black as coal as to heart — he whom for want of a better name I had called The Buzzard, the driver of the black death wagon.

“I’ve got the wagon backed in the alley behind Lip Kee’s. It’s dark there and you can load her, see?”

The Chinese who accompanied him shrilled forth a swift sentence.

“There is something strange. One came to worship and did not return, nor is he before the prayer papers...”

Chuck Gee shut him off. His mind was balancing a nice problem. Should he take the gold of the white man and chance the displeasure of Soo Hoo Duck; should he strike first and explain afterward, or should he meekly accept the mandate of the old man?

He reached his decision swiftly.

“He has not the right to give such instructions except in the proper method,” muttered Chuck Gee. “I will go to him for an explanation. In the meantime, perhaps a man will come who has not heard of the instructions. Perhaps he may carry my orders into effect before he learns that they have been irregularly countermanded.

“You,” to the Buzzard, “wait at Lip Kee’s. If you do not hear from me within fifteen minutes take your wagon and go.”

“You,” to the guide, “make a search for this man who has vanished. It may well be that the man who vanishes is he who vanishes from the white men, the man who is like the phantom. There would be much money for the capture of such a man, but it is orders that his lips shall cease their talk before his capture is made.”

With the words Chuck Gee swept to his feet and made for the door. At his heels came the Buzzard, flapping, ungainly, the taper lights illuminating the long, thin neck, the black clothes, the prominent nose, the red-rimmed eyes.

The teakwood door slammed and I was crawling out through the idol, out through the flap I had cut in the front. There was a chance for me to take. I left the paper flap slightly open and against it I placed one of the peanut oil lamps.

Behind me, they gabbled a bit before starting their search. Had Chuck Gee meant for them to strike home with dagger before he could countermand instructions, or had he intended to send in a new executioner?

As they concluded that he dared not send in a new man, but that he had meant for them to proceed in his absence, I reached the teakwood door, opened and closed it, so it would sound as though I had just entered there, walked with rapid, confident steps straight past the semi-circle of grinning gods.

“Soo Hoo Duck has spoken, and I am his messenger,” I said, as I made toward the lighted taper.

They fell back, muttering. The man with the dagger fingered it hungrily.

She was bound to the chair as I had surmised.

To falter would be fatal. Nothing but sheer American bluff would cany it through. And time was short. I surmised that the first instructions had come from Little Sun rather than from Soo Hoo Duck. How far the old despot dared go in thwarting the organized gunmen was another question.

My knife confidently cut the cunningly knotted ropes.

“Your authority for this?”

It was the highbinder with the jade-handled dagger, and the knife was pointed at my throat, balanced.

Carelessly I extended my hand. The gold ring of the green dragon caught the dancing, reddish light, glittered up at him.

In that moment I was ready for what might come. Helen was free, there was a back passageway. These men could never get past me until she had escaped. It was only my own life that then hung in the balance.

They grunted incredulous surprise.

With confident feet I made my way toward the back entrance, the one which led into the dark alley. One of the men slipped from the group, started on swift feet to seek Chuck Gee to apprise him of what had happened, to gather reinforcements, perhaps.

And then he caught the significance of the flickering shadows which danced upon the front wall of the room. And it was time he did so. The other men had started forward, grim, determined.

It is a peculiar quality of the Chinese mind that it cannot function in the face of unusual events. Given an ordinary situation and they work with efficient cunning. They would have held me, or tried to hold me, had the significance of those flickering lights not dawned upon them.

The center god was afire. The flap of paper soaked in peanut oil, caught in the flame of the taper, was blazing up. Momentarily the room became lighter.

The Chinese stood, dismayed, confronted with the greatest danger Chinatown can face with its huddled tinder boxes, its rabbit warrens of flimsy partitions — fire!

“You come thisa way, ladee,” I muttered to Helen, and darted for the back entrance.

Behind me I could see the semi-circle of grinning gods staring calmly out over the peanut oil lamps, out over the ruddy flames that twisted and licked up around the paper base of the center god, could see the influx of excited, jabbering Chinese figures with Chuck Gee in the lead.

She followed me, but I could see she was on guard against treachery. For aught she knew, this was a scheme to entice her into some hidden passageway and murder her without witnesses.

“Faster,” I said, and increased my pace.

The cold air of the alley came upon my face. At one end the Buzzard would have his death car parked. The other exit led to a main street down which Helen’s red roadster was standing.

I led the way through the darkness.

“You savvy Mister Jenkins?” she asked, and there was a hunger in her voice, hunger and anxiety.

“No savvy, ladee,” I said, trudging onward through the dark alley.

“I must learn if he is safe,” she muttered.

I saw that I must improvise.

“One piecee white man he sent me turn you loose. He heap makum laugh policee man. He heap smart.”

That reassured her.

“Will you tell him I am safe?”

It was like her, thoroughbred that she was. She had just been rescued from certain death, and her thoughts were with The Phantom Crook, with his safety.

“Maybe so. You hurry.”

She held back slightly.

“You will see him then?”

She was frittering away precious seconds. I reached back and touched her arm, trying to force her to greater speed.

Who can tell of the subtle psychic organism that we call woman? I was disguised so that I could flit through Chinatown at will. More, I was disguised as a Chinaman, one of the coolie class who would be repulsive to a white girl, and yet no sooner had my hand touched her arm there in the darkness of that smelly alley than she knew me.

“Ed!” she cried, then quivered slightly and stopped in her tracks.

“Quick, if you care for your own safety — or mine!” I told her. “Little Sun, the Chinese girl you met tonight, is a friend; get her to accompany you out of Chinatown if possible. Get into your roadster. Hurry!”

She started to run for the alley exit then.

“You come, Ed. They are watching Chinatown. You will be unsafe here. Come with me. I’ll drive you out.”

I shook my head.

“They are watching all streets out of the Chinese quarter, and they’ll have your car spotted, give it a thorough search. I’ll give your telephone a ring later on.”

She saw the sense of that, gained the street and started for her car. I remained within the shadows, watched her anxiously. Her red roadster was still parked at the curb. I saw that, and saw something else that warmed my heart. Little Sun was patrolling the street, and she ran toward Helen Chadwick with outstretched arms, calling to her. Helen was safe.

In that moment I saw other things.

Red cars were roaring about filled with blue-coats. They were keeping a reserve force in Chinatown, ready to throw out a police cordon whenever I showed myself. Firing those gods had been all that Chuck Gee needed to proclaim my identity. He had tipped off the police. Once more a dragnet was being thrown out. Once more I was surrounded.

This time, however, I had only myself to think of. Helen Chadwick had learned her lesson. She would get out of Chinatown and stay out of it, and she wouldn’t be obeying mysterious telephone calls. Also she realized just how much and how little she could depend on the police force.

There was gladness in my heart as I stepped lightly back into the dark shadows of the alley. About me the night air trembled with the wailing of sirens, the barking of exhausts, the shrilling of police whistles. Apparently they were surrounding a space of four blocks.

I skipped down the dark alley.

As I had expected, a dark shape loomed among the deepest shadows, the dead wagon of the Buzzard.

I threw back the doors, climbed within, closed the doors behind me, lay down and lit a cigarette.

A minute or two later the springs swayed as a figure climbed into the driver’s seat.

The engine started and we jolted away over the rough streets of Chinatown. I sat up within the jostling interior, once more opened the pouches in my belt, and took out a mirror, some cotton and a bottle of alcohol. I swabbed my features carefully, washing off the stain.

Chinatown was getting pretty hot for me. It would be some little time before I went back there again — not until after I had convinced the police that I had definitely escaped.

The wagon was halted at the police lines, halted long enough for the Buzzard to show his pass.

“Anyhow, we’ve got to finger-print you,” came the words of a gruff officer. “Them’s the orders from headquarters. They say this Jenkins can disguise himself so he looks like anything from a lamp post to the Prince of Wales.”

There followed a jostling about on the seat while the Buzzard was being finger-printed.

I sat within the wagon and chuckled softly.

Nor did I do as I had planned at first and slip out while we were traveling. I decided to have another look at this Buzzard, this illicit buryer of the murdered dead. It was not until he had parked the wagon at the curb that I slipped open the doors and stepped out upon the sidewalk.

He was just climbing from the driver’s seat.

“I have never got your name. I’ve always had to refer to you in my thoughts as the 'Buzzard,’ ” I told him. “It’s embarrassing, because you seem to have taken quite a prominent part in some of my more recent adventures, and I want to know who to send the flowers to in case I see any more of you. I’m Ed Jenkins.”

He stood there, arms flapping outward like the ungainly wings of an unclean bird, his red-rimmed eyes open until the whites seemed to bulge out over the red, his narrow, thin-lipped mouth sagging open beneath the hooked nose, his Adam’s apple racing up and down in his dry throat.

A sign was thrust in the scanty strip of lawn, and on it appeared the gold letters,

“ABE GRUE — UNDERTAKER.”

“Good night, Mr. Grue,” I said, and strolled away, striving to give to my walk the appearance of a careless saunter.

Two days later I read my newspaper with interest.

Disguised as a South American millionaire, staying in the splendor of the best hotel in the city, with my paper propped before me upon a table covered with the whitest of linen, the most glittering cut-glass, I read two items which interested me strangely.

One was that Mrs. Loring Kemper, the leader of society, had given a party for Miss Helen Chadwick, who had brought with her as a joint guest of honor a Chinese girl, Little Sun. There was an elaborate description of the charming Chinese society girl, and a prediction that she would be very much in evidence at the most exclusive affairs during the coming season. Mrs. Kemper had been particularly gracious, and her attitude was open sesame to the higher circles of inner society.

The second item was a brief description of a complete nervous breakdown by Paul Boardman, the public-spirited financier, who had been devoting so much of his time to civic betterment that his nerves had given way and his doctors had ordered him to the seclusion of a secret sanitarium. It was not mentioned how long he expected to remain, but I knew that only one thing could ever perfectly restore his shattered nerves, and that would be the obituary notice of one Ed Jenkins, sometimes known as The Phantom Crook.

Grimly I folded the paper. I would find out the address of that sanitarium. I needed from Paul Boardman a complete statement which would clear my name of the murder of Bob Garret. After that... well, after that much might be possible; but while I was a fugitive from justice, while I had a price on my head, I could hardly hope to justify the faith that Helen Chadwick and Mrs. Loring Kemper had shown in me.

However, all in good time.

The newspaper contained a front-page story of the steps that were being taken to apprehend Ed Jenkins, The Phantom Crook.

I crumpled it and threw it aside. The piece concerning Paul Boardman I carefully clipped from the second section and put within my notebook.

I was not finished with Paul Boardman. And then another item caught my eye. It was an account of a mysterious fire in a Chinese joss house. It had been extinguished without damage.

I was glad. I liked to think of those six painted gods standing in tranquil silence, grinning into the future.

“Monsieur is pleased?”

It was the voice of the waiter. And then I realized that I, too, was grinning into the future.

“Monsieur is pleased,” I told him.