by Sax Rohmer
CHAPTER XXXVI. SAM TUK MOVES
Chinatown was being watched as Chinatown had never been watched before,even during the most stringent enforcement of the Defence of the RealmAct. K Division was on its mettle, and Scotland Yard had sent to aidChief Inspector Kerry every man that could be spared to the task. TheRiver Police, too, were aflame with zeal; for every officer in theservice whose work lay east of London Bridge had appropriated to himselfthe stigma implied by the creation of Lord Wrexborough's commission.
"Corners" in foodstuffs, metals, and other indispensable commodities areappreciated by every man, because every man knows such things toexist; but a corner in drugs was something which the East End policeauthorities found very difficult to grasp. They could not free theirminds of the traditional idea that every second Chinaman in the Causewaywas a small importer. They were seeking a hundred lesser stores insteadof one greater one. Not all Seton's quiet explanations nor Kerry'ssavage language could wean the higher local officials from theirancient beliefs. They failed to conceive the idea of a wealthy syndicateconducted by an educated Chinaman and backed, covered, and protected bya crooked gentleman and accomplished man of affairs.
Perhaps they knew and perhaps they knew not, that during the periodruled by D.O.R.A. as much as L25 was paid by habitues for one pipe ofchandu. The power of gold is often badly estimated by an official whosehorizon is marked by a pension. This is mere lack of imagination, and nomore reflects discredit upon a man than lack of hair on his crown or ofcolor in his cheeks. Nevertheless, it may prove very annoying.
Towards the close of an afternoon which symbolized the worst thatLondon's particular climate can do in the matter of drizzling rain andgloom, Chief Inspector Kerry, carrying an irritable toy spaniel, cameout of a turning which forms a V with Limehouse Canal, into a narrowstreet which runs parallel with the Thames. He had arrived at theconclusion that the neighborhood was sown so thickly with detectivesthat one could not throw a stone without hitting one. Yet Sin Sin Wa hadquietly left his abode and had disappeared from official ken.
Three times within the past ten minutes the spaniel had tried tobite Kerry, nor was Kerry blind to the amusement which his burden hadoccasioned among the men of K Division whom he had met on his travels.Finally, as he came out into the riverside lane, the ill-tempered littleanimal essayed a fourth, and successful, attempt, burying his wickedwhite teeth in the Chief Inspector's wrist.
Kerry hooked his finger into the dog's collar, swung the yapping animalabove his head, and hurled it from him into the gloom and rain mist.
"Hell take the blasted thing!" he shouted. "I'm done with it!"
He tenderly sucked his wounded wrist, and picking up his cane, which hehad dropped, he looked about him and swore savagely. Of Seton Pasha hehad had news several times during the day, and he was aware that theHome office agent was not idle. But to that old rivalry which had leaptup anew when he had seen Seton near Kennington oval had succeeded asort of despair; so that now he would have welcomed the informationthat Seton had triumphed where he had failed. A furious hatred of theone-eyed Chinaman around whom he was convinced the mystery centred hadgrown up within his mind. At that hour he would gladly have resigned hispost and sacrificed his pension to know that Sin Sin Wa was under lockand key. His outlook was official, and accordingly peculiar. He regardedthe murder of Sir Lucien Pyne and the flight or abduction of Mrs. MonteIrvin as mere minor incidents in a case wherein Sin Sin Wa figured asthe chief culprit. Nothing had acted so powerfully to bring aboutthis conviction in the mind of the Chief Inspector as the inexplicabledisappearance of the Chinaman under circumstances which had apparentlyprecluded such a possibility.
A whimpering cry came to Kerry's ears; and because beneath the mask offerocity which he wore a humane man was concealed: "Flames!" he snapped;"perhaps I've broken the poor little devil's leg."
Shaking a cascade of water from the brim of his neat bowler, he set offthrough the murk towards the spot from whence the cries of the spanielseemed to proceed. A few paces brought him to the door of a dirty littleshop. In a window close beside it appeared the legend:
SAM TUK BARBER.
The spaniel crouched by the door whining and scratching, and as Kerrycame up it raised its beady black eyes to him with a look which, whileit was not unfearful, held an unmistakable appeal. Kerry stood watchingthe dog for a moment, and as he watched he became conscious of anexhilarated pulse.
He tried the door and found it to be open. Thereupon he entered a dirtylittle shop, which he remembered to have searched in person in the greydawn of the day which now was entering upon a premature dusk. The dogran in past him, crossed the gloomy shop, and raced down into a tinycoal cellar, which likewise had been submitted during the early hoursof the morning to careful scrutiny under the directions of the ChiefInspector.
A Chinese boy, who had been the only occupant of the place on thatoccasion and who had given his name as Ah Fung, was surprised by thesudden entrance of man and dog in the act of spreading coal dust withhis fingers upon a portion of the paved floor. He came to his feet witha leap and confronted Kerry. The spaniel began to scratch feverishlyupon the spot where the coal dust had been artificially spread. Kerry'seyes gleamed like steel. He shot out his hand and grasped the Chinamanby his long hair. "Open that trap," he said, "or I'll break you inhalf!"
Ah Fung's oblique eyes regarded him with an expression difficult toanalyze, but partly it was murder. He made no attempt to obey the order.Meanwhile the dog, whining and scratching furiously, had exposed thegreater part of a stone slab somewhat larger than those adjoining it,and having a large crack or fissure in one end.
"For the last time," said Kerry, drawing the man's head back so that hisbreath began to whistle through his nostrils, "open that trap."
As he spoke he released Ah Fung, and Ah Fung made one wild leap towardsthe stairs. Kerry's fist caught him behind the ear as he sprang, andhe went down like a dead man upon a small heap of coal which filled theangle of the cellar.
Breathing rapidly and having his teeth so tightly clenched that hismaxillary muscles protruded lumpishly, Kerry stood looking at the fallenman. But Ah Fung did not move. The dog had ceased to scratch, andnow stood uttering short staccato barks and looking up at the ChiefInspector. Otherwise there was no sound in the house, above or below.
Kerry stooped, and with his handkerchief scrupulously dusted the stoneslab. The spaniel, resentment forgotten, danced excitedly beside him andbarked continuously.
"There's some sort of hook to fit in that crack," muttered Kerry.
He began to hunt about among the debris which littered one end of thecellar, testing fragment after fragment, but failing to find any pieceof scrap to suit his purpose. By sheer perseverance rather than by anyprocess of reasoning, he finally hit upon the piece of bent wire whichwas the key to this door of Sin Sin Wa's drug warehouse.
One short exclamation of triumph he muttered at the moment that hisglance rested upon it, and five seconds later he had the trapdoor openand was peering down into the narrow pit in which wooden steps rested.The spaniel began to bark wildly, whereupon Kerry grasped him, tuckedhim under his arm, and ran up to the room above, where he deposited thefuriously wriggling animal. He stepped quickly back again and closed theupper door. By this act he plunged the cellar into complete darkness,and accordingly he took out from the pocket of his rain-drenched overallthe electric torch which he always carried. Directing its ray downwardsinto the cellar, he perceived Ah Fung move and toss his hand above hishead. He also detected a faint rattling sound.
"Ah!" said Kerry.
He descended, and stooping over the unconscious man extracted from thepocket of his baggy blue trousers four keys upon a ring. At these Kerrystared eagerly. Two of them belonged to yale locks; the third was asimple English barrel-key, which probably fitted a padlock; but thefourth was large and complicated.
"Looks like the key of a jail," he said aloud.
He spoke with unconscious prescience. This was the key of the door
ofthe vault. Removing his overall, Kerry laid it with his cane upon thescrap-heap, then he climbed down the ladder and found himself in themouth of that low timbered tunnel, like a trenchwork, which owedits existence to the cunning craftsmanship of Sin Sin Wa. Stoopinguncomfortably, he made his way along the passage until the massive doorconfronted him. He was in no doubt as to which key to employ; his mentalcondition was such that he was indifferent to the dangers which probablylay before him.
The well-oiled lock operated smoothly. Kerry pushed the door open andstepped briskly into the vault.
His movements, from the moment that he had opened the trap, had beenswift and as nearly noiseless as the difficulties of the task hadpermitted. Nevertheless, they had not been so silent as to escape theattention of the preternaturally acute Sin Sin Wa. Kerry found the placeoccupied only by the aged Sam Tuk. A bright fire burned in the stove,and a ship's lantern stood upon the counter. Dense chemical fumesrendered the air difficult to breathe; but the shelves, once laden withthe largest illicit collection of drugs in London, were bare.
Kerry's fierce eyes moved right and left; his jaws worked automatically.Sam Tuk sat motionless, his hands concealed in his sleeves, bendingdecrepitly forward in his chair. Then:
"Hi! Guy Fawkes!" rapped Kerry, striding forward. "Who's been lettingoff fire-works?"
Sam Tuk nodded senilely, but spoke not a word.
Kerry stooped and stared into the heart of the fire. A dense coat ofwhite ash lay upon the embers. He grasped the shoulder of the agedChinaman, and pushed him back so that he could look into the blearedeyes behind the owlish spectacles.
"Been cleaning up the 'evidence,' eh?" he shouted. "This joint stinksof opium and a score of other dopes. Where are the gang?" He shook theyielding, ancient frame. "Where's the smart with one eye?"
But Sam Tuk merely nodded, and as Kerry released his hold sank forwardagain, nodding incessantly.
"H'm, you're a hard case," said the Chief Inspector. "A couple ofwitnesses like you and the jury would retire to Bedlam!"
He stood glaring fiercely at the limp frame of the old Chinaman, and ashe glared his expression changed. Lying on the dirty floor not a yardfrom Sam Tuk's feet was a ball of leaf opium!
"Ha!" exclaimed Kerry, and he stooped to pick it up.
As he did so, with a lightning movement of which the most astuteobserver could never have supposed him capable, Sam Tuk whipped a loadedrubber tube from his sleeve and struck Kerry a shrewd blow across theback of the skull.
The Chief Inspector, without word or cry, collapsed upon his knees, andthen fell gently forward--forward--and toppled face downwards before hisassailant. His bowler fell off and rolled across the dirty floor.
Sam Tuk sank deeply into his chair, and his toothless jaws workedconvulsively. The skinny hand which clutched the piece of tubingtwitched and shook, so that the primitive deadly weapon fell from itswielder's grasp.
Silently, that set of empty shelves nearest to the inner wall of thevault slid open, and Sin Sin Wa came out. He, too, carried his handstucked in his sleeves, and his yellow, pock-marked face wore its eternalsmile.
"Well done," he crooned softly in Chinese. "Well done, bald father ofwisdom. The dogs draw near, but the old fox sleeps not."