The Living Joss

CHAPTER XXIII. CARDONA’S STRATEGY

THE next night found Detective Joe Cardona engaged in conference with Inspector Timothy Klein. The star sleuth was emphatically propounding his beliefs regarding the disappearance of Doctor Ward Zelka.

“Moultrie has told us plenty,” he informed the inspector. “He and Zelka stood in line to make some real dough if Hartnett, Goodall, and Schofield were out. Zelka mentioned that very fact, so Moultrie says.

“Then two men died and one disappeared. Moultrie was ready to squeal, but he didn’t know for sure. He was afraid it would put him in wrong because Zelka was so foxy. He’s given us the Chinese tie-up. Zelka is pretty near to being a Chinaman himself. Knows the language; spent years in China.”

“Good work,” commented Klein.

“Now here’s the line-up,” insisted Cardona. “There’s only one way it could have been worked. A big shot in Chinatown — a smart man buried there — giving orders to the Chinese. Believe me, that’s what Zelka has been doing.”

“Evidence?” questioned Klein.

“I’ve been looking into matters down there,” remarked Cardona. “No luck, until late last night. Then, just after all this had come out, one of my men came in to tell me that he had gotten wind of some big Mogul down in the district. Some fellow who has them woozy.”

“What else?”

“That’s all. No definite clews. But I’m after one; and I’m playing a hunch. Listen, inspector. This guy, Hugo Urvin. He must have been in it kind of deep. That funny way he was poisoned — well, I think he picked up something down in Chinatown.”

“You mean be may have contacted with some Chinese leader?”

“That’s it. Now we can’t find out anything from them. But a great idea hit me. There aren’t many Americans around Chinatown. All right; any Americans down there would be the best ones to spot another American, wouldn’t they?”

“Yes,” agreed Klein, “but you’re talking in circles, Joe. You just said there are no Americans down there—”

“Not many living down there,” interrupted Cardona, with a wise grin, “but some who are there a lot. Those fellows that work as guides on the big Chinatown busses.”

“Say, Joe!”

“Yes,” smiled Cardona, “I’ve got them coming in to see the body. Over at the morgue — one by one — to look at Hugo Urvin. That’s where I’m headed right now. Markham is on the job, talking with the first ones who have come in.”

WHEN Joe Cardona reached the morgue, he was greeted by Markham. The detective sergeant seemed excited. He hurried Cardona to the room where Hugo Urvin’s body lay. A uniformed Chinatown guide was looking at the inert form.

“This is the guy,” he asserted, as the sleuths appeared beside him.

“Who?” questioned Cardona.

“The bloke who made about three trips with me,” responded the guide. “Say — what do you want to know about him?”

“We figure he had business in Chinatown,” declared Cardona. “You say he was on your bus three trips. Did he act suspiciously at any time?”

“Suspiciously?” queried the guide. “Say — after you’ve seen Chinatown once — the way we show it — you’ve seen it forever. This is the first mug I ever saw make a repeat trip — that is, alone. That’s suspicious, ain’t it?”

“All right,” admitted Cardona. “But I want to know what he did down there.”

“He just trailed along with us. That’s all.”

“No place where he could have stopped off to see anyone? No way he could have received some message — some object, maybe, that could have killed him with a deadly poison?”

The guide was slowly shaking his head. Suddenly he began to blink. He gripped Cardona’s arm excitedly, and blurted forth a sudden idea.

“I got it!” was the guide’s cry. “There’s a phony Buddhist temple down there — a racket run by a man named Chon Look. Say — there’s something that guy does that I’ve never figured out. Every now and then he gives stuff away — free packages — no charge — to the sightseers.

“There’s no telling when he’s going to do it. I just figured it was some fool idea. You can’t ever figure what the Chinese are thinking about anyway. But maybe this guy got a package there. Come to think of it, I believe I did see Chon Look pass him one.”

“That’s enough.” Cardona turned to Markham. “We’ll go down there and raid this temple. No — wait a moment. What kind of a place is it?”

“Nothing but one room,” explained the guide. “I don’t know what’s in back of it—”

“Make a diagram,” ordered Cardona. “You know the district. Show me streets and all.”

The guide went to a table, and drew a rough map. Cardona noticed that the shrine of Chon Look fronted on a narrow street, midway in a block. The detective tapped the diagram with his finger.

“There may be a hide-out in back of Chon Look’s,” asserted the detective. “If there is, it will have another entrance. Not on this lighted street here — but we’ll have the regular patrol watching there anyway.

“We’re going to spread-out, Markham. We’re not going down there in wagons. We’ll load a whole crew of plain-clothes men in this fellow’s bus, and let him take us to the temple. When we get there, we spread. Get it? Into every door on those three streets, with the men in uniform on the fourth side. Come along!”

HALF an hour later, a big Chinatown bus rolled into a garage. More than thirty men piled through the door, and rested back against the comfortable cushions.

The huge vehicle lumbered to Forty-second Street. It went eastward on that thoroughfare to Broadway.

It took up the usual route toward Chinatown. The guide at the front seat began his usual jocular line of patter as he pointed out the sights of Manhattan.

The bus stopped on the outskirts of the Chinese district. The men filed forth.

Herding together, they followed the guide as he turned into a narrow alley toward the twinkling lights of Chinatown.

Close behind the guide was Detective Joe Cardona, with Markham at his side. The detail was on its way to the Buddhist shrine of Chon Look.

A spectacular raid was on tonight — one that had been planned by a clever sleuth. Joe Cardona had stolen an idea from the Living Joss. He was using Kwa’s own method of bringing Americans to Chinatown in a fashion that would avoid suspicion.

Where Kwa had smuggled in one passenger aboard a bus, Cardona had unloaded a raiding squad of thirty men!