The Detective Megapack

by Various Writers

It had been the telegraphy of Chu Chul! God!

  But still Noel sat as one transfixed…and his mind named each of the five notes as he heard them, names that would have meant nothing to an American, even when translated, yet which in themselves gave a note of mystery, as the five-note flute ran its weird scale. Noel’s lips shaped the names of the notes: Hung, Ssu, Chang, Chur, Fan, and his brain translated their senselessness into English: labor, four, top, measure and reverse. He kept repeating them over and over again, while inside him the still small voice of warning began to cry out louder and louder.

  “Don’t concentrate on the five-note fiute. Don’t concentrate on the five-note fiute! Don’t speak the names of the notes, either in Chinese or English!”

  With a distinct effort of will, for it seemed almost as though he were being gradually fastened to his chair, Dorus Noel leaped up and raced to his kitchen. There, beside a cold stove, his eyes set in a fixed stare, his face streaked with oily sweat, sat Liu Wong, his “boy.” Liu Wong did not hear him come. He did not look up. His lips caressed the end of a flute Noel had never seen—or had he? Liu Wong swayed from side to side…and his lips ran the five-note scale without emotion, as though the lips had been dead, or the man himself had been performing in some strange hypnosis, or were a puppet pulled-by strings in the hands of an invisible prompter.

  At Liu Wong’s feet was a brazier from which rose a thin spiral of yellow smoke, writhing and twisting like a nightmare snake as it rose to curl its tendrils about the face and head of Liu Wong. The smoke from incense powder, Dorus Noel knew instantly…and something more. He put his face over the smoke, inhaled a little, merely sniffing. His senses reeled. He staggered back. Then he jumped in, struck the flute from the hands of Liu Wong, jerked the boy away from the brazier, pulled him to a window which he flung open. Then he began to slap the boy on either cheek with his open palm.

  Even as he labored with Liu Wong, Dorus Noel’s lips shaped words in mandarin:

  “Sheng Huang!”

  It was the name of a poison which could be administered in burning incense powder. A little of it stupefied much of it killed. Noel struck the boy until Liu Wong’s face was almost a livid bruise. Dully, his eyes looking far away, his face empty and stupid, Liu Wong began to regain consciousness. Noel darted to a taboret and brought a small drink of rice wine. Liu Wong gulped it and gagged, but his brain was reacting.

  “You strike me, master,” he said, his voice dull, lifeless, but no longer stupid. “Why?”

  Dorus Noel whirled the boy around.

  “Look!” he said.

  Liu Wong looked at the flute and the smoking brazier. His face showed instantaneous fear. Then it became stolid, expressionless. One who did not know Chinese would have thought him unconcerned. Noel knew that inside Liu Wong strange fires were raging. He knew what Noel knew; that here was warning of impending death, both to Liu Wong and to Dorus Noel.

  “So,” said Liu Wong softly, “Chu Chul is not dead! He is here, in New York. He always said he would have revenge, master!”

  “Yes,” said Noel. “It is either The Cricket or one of his advance agents.”

  “How could he enter the United States?” asked the boy, but the answer didn’t really matter, though Liu Wong waited for it.

  “Who is there,” said Noel, hopelessness in his voice, “to prevent The Cricket from entering anywhere? What happened? How did it happen?” Liu Wong shrugged.

  “I do not know,” he replied. “I became sleepy. I slept. I wakened, and it was like swimming up from a deep well, to find my master slapping my face.”

  “You were swaying over the yellow smoke,” explained Noel, “and you were playing the flute of five notes. I heard it in my study. I listened, unbelieving. I almost lost, Liu Wong, do you understand? He almost had me. I might have become unconscious…had I listened to the five notes long enough…and then Chu Chul could have entered, and…”

  Liu Wong straightened.

  “It is a warning,” he said. “It is like Chu Chul. It pleased him to try to destroy you by using me, who worship you! It is Chu Chul’s way of jesting.”

  Liu Wong held the burning brazier under a water faucet. He moved like a man under the influence of liquor. His face was blank, still sweating. When he had quite finished and the room had been fanned clear of the stifling fumes, Liu Wong spoke to his master.

  “I shall seek Chu Chul,” he said. “I shall slay him before he touches my master. I go to the house of the joss to pray for good fortune.”

  Noel placed a sympathetic hand on the shoulder of the boy.

  “You know you are helpless, Liu,” he said softly. “He has but to see you to command you…even to returning to slay me, your master! He ruled you too many years with his will.”

  “I shall go to the joss house and burn candles and make a prayer,” insisted Liu Wong. “Then I return to make food for you, for never must you take food from any hand save that of Liu Wong.”

  “And while you are gone?”

  “Chu Chul will not hurry. It pleased him to warn you. Now be will leave you to grovel in fear until he strikes again. It is Chu Chul’s way.”

  Liu Wong stepped out onto the street and Noel watched him walk down Mott Street toward the nearest joss house.

  “Poor devil!” muttered Noel.

  He returned to his desk, his back against a wall, to await the return of Liu Wong. Now that he was warned he had no fear. He had crossed mystic sabers too often with Chu Chul to really fear him after the first shock of discovering that the evil genius of North China was not dead, but living. His thoughts were busy.

  The eight little figures danced the minuet.

  The golden ball rolled down eight steps. Liu Wong had been gone almost an hour. Fear for his safety at last broke in upon Noel’s musings. Had Chu Chul regained control of his onetime minion? Would his next attack on Noel be in the shape of a rush by Liu Wong himself, knife in hand? It was not possible. Noel looked toward the door, but it was masked by the twisted screen which kept out evil spirits. Even as Noel looked, however, he heard dragging steps on the pavement outside and the screen fell into the room with a crash.

  And crashing down atop the screen, Liu Wong fell on his face.

  From his lips he poured out his soul in mandarin.

  “He tried to send me against you, master, but he failed. For this once the will of Liu Wong was stronger than the will of Chu Chul!”

  Noel jumped to the fallen man, turned him over. At the same time, out on Mott Street, a police whistle sounded shrilly. Somebody had seen this thing which now rested at Noel’s feet and had notified the police. Far away a siren began screaming. But Noel scarcely heard it. Curious Cantonese who must have followed Liu Wong from the joss house had entered and were standing all around Noel and the supine man. Noel looked quickly at their faces. All were extremely “American,” though all were Chinese. Chu Chul was not among them, nor any of his minions, Noel was sure.

  Now he looked down into the face of Liu Wong. The man was suffering agonies and was trying not to show that he suffered. His face was a bloated horror. His body writhed and twisted in spite of all he could do to prevent it. His face was mottled like a bird’s egg…and it had been savagely slashed to the very bone by what might have been the talons of an evil night bird of prey. A fighting cock, with steel spurs on every toe, might have made such marks…provided his legs had had the strength of a strong man’s arms. In a matter of seconds, Liu Wong would be dead, of horribly administered poison.

  Dorus Noel’s face was hard, as expressionless as that of any Chinese face around him.

  He spoke in quick mandarin to the dying man. The Cantonese audience looked at one another. None was likely to know mandarin, so widely different from Cantonese.

  “What did it, Liu?” Noel whispered.

  “Nang tze, the two edged knife,” came writhing through the puffed blue lips of Liu Wong, “it happened—it came out of nowhere—when I fought the spell and refused to turn against my master.”
/>
  “Who did it? Chu Chul?”

  “Not Chu Chul. Another…a minion of The Cricket.”

  Then, with a great convulsive writhing, Liu Wong was dead. At that moment two uniformed officers entered, trailing a man in plain clothes who smoked a cigar and stared with arrogance at the circle of yellow faces around the dead man. The Cantonese exchanged glances which meant nothing to Detective Lieutenant Hamas, but spoke volumes to Dorus Noel. Said the glances: “Here this pompous fool is back again, trying to unravel one of our mysteries. Smart as he thinks he is he can’t see his two hands in front of his stupid face.”

  All this and more Noel could read in the glances.

  “Who are you?” the plainclothes man snapped at Noel.

  “Dorus Noel.”

  “What-cha doin’ in Chinatown?”

  “I live here.”

  “Hell of a place to live. No place for a white man who don’t know Chinamen. Better move out. Takes fellows that knows these birds to get along with ’em. Who killed this jaybird? Did you?”

  “No. He was my servant.”

  “Don’t look like any Chinaman I know.”

  “He’s a Tientsin man.”

  Hamas stared at Noel, plainly uncomprehending. Noel didn’t think it necessary to tell him that Tientsin was a city in North China. Obviously it would have been news to Hamas.

  “Yeah, or, yeah,” said Hamas, nodding. “I thought so! What killed him, did you say? Or do you know who done it?”

  Noel spoke the two words Liu Wong had just used.

  “Nang tze!”

  Hamas whirled on the two officers.

  “Go out an’ scour this rabbit warren until you grab a guy named Nang…Nang…well, his last name sounds like a bee buzzin’. You may have to handle some Chinamen rough, but get me this Nang…Nang…whatever his name is. This is the fastest I ever wound up a case!”

  He knelt over Liu Wong.

  “Lord, certainly carved him, eh? Never saw anybody bloated an’ lookin’ quite so awful as this. Hope we can sweat outa this Nang…Nang…what he used. The newspapers will eat it up, if it’s oriental enough.”

  “You’ll need me?” asked Noel. “I live right here. Just moved in. If I may go?”

  “Oh, sure, this is simple. Dorus Noel? Fine. I’ll send for you if I need you. Better take my advice and get outa here. Gotta know Chinamen to live among ’em.”

  Noel didn’t answer. He donned his hat and strode down Mott Street, hoping that he could follow the back trail of Liu Wong, feeling all the time how futile it was to try, since Chu Chul would come to him if he gave him time.

  “Chinatown knows him!” Noel thought. “He’s already cast his spell over the Cantonese. I can’t expect any help from them, not even if I give away who I am. He will rob them blind, bleed them of all their wealth, and they won’t open their mouths. It’s up to me, and I have to travel alone. But that’s best. See what Liu Wong got for his loyalty to me. I can never again ask anyone to share my feud with Cho Chul. But how to find him?”

  This was Chinatown at night. Lights showed dimly behind smoke blackened windows. Sprawling characters indicated the type of business which went on behind those windows. Noel knew the characters…for characters did not change with different dialects…China had but one written language. He read the names of shops, “delicious fragrance,” “fragile willow tree,” “graceful longevity,” “gorgeous good fortune,”—it was almost like being back in China.

  Dorus Noel stopped dead in his tracks. People bumped into him. He didn’t mind, didn’t feel them. Would Chu Chul dare, here in the United States, to do the things he had done in China? Would he dare, actually, to destroy and torture a white man, almost in the heart of New York? Noel knew he would, but he must take a chance somewhere. He hadn’t yet had time to learn the rabbit warrens of Chinatown, if indeed he would ever be permitted to learn them. Here he wasn’t known, because he was under cover, save to the man, far out on Park Avenue, who had given him his police job in Chinatown. Of that man on Park Avenue he knew only that he was connected with the police, a very high connection, too. He had given Noel a telephone number, to be called in case of grave emergency.

  Noel hurried to Canal Street, crossed it, strode west to Lafayette, already in New York, in contrast to Chinatown—and entered a cigar store. He called the secret number, that of his secret police superior, on Park Avenue. The voice he remembered answered. Noel spoke his name by way of identification, and was answered.

  “If,” said Noel, “I have not been heard from by you within twenty-four hours from this moment, turn Chinatown upside down to find me. Remember I told you of The Cricket?”

  “Yes,” the far voice was low and soft, but with a hint of steel in it.

  “He’s in New York, in Chinatown. He or one of his men has just killed my servant, Liu Wong. I’m going after him, in my own way. Know Detective Hamas?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let him play with the Liu Wong case. He can’t do any harm. I know how it was done…all of it but not, exactly, by whom. I shall discover that, or die.”

  “You’d die to avenge a Chinaman?”

  “He died for loyalty to me, sir,” said Noel sternly. “How could I do less? And let me tell you something: a Chinese is not a Chinaman, he’s a Chinese!”

  Then Noel, the ghost of a smile on his face, clicked up the receiver. He took a deep breath, turned back into Chinatown. He locked his doors, and windows, with the exception of one window—the window by which someone had entered his house, lighted the poisoned brazier at the feet of the sleeping Liu Wong and thrust the five-note fiute into the “boy’s” hand.

  Noel, in his eyes a dreamy, faraway expression…sat down on the stool which Liu Wong had occupied, on which he had sat to play with senseless lips the flute of his erstwhile master, Chu Chul.

  “A strange manner of returning to China and ways that are dark,” thought Noel, “but it’s one way to get to Chu Chul. Wouldn’t this puzzle Hamas?”

  But he didn’t smile. He talked to himself at random, mustering his courage. Then he placed the flute to his lips and began to run the five-note scale. As he did so he rose to his feet and moved softly, like a sleepwalker, to the window which gave onto darkness. Far away he heard the banging of a gong in some joss house. From next door came the chattering of many Cantonese, busy with chopsticks and rice wine. He heard the shrill, high-pitched laughter of young girls.

  Back and forth he ran the scale…up and down…and as he he did so he listened, carefully. He would never know how to “talk” on this flute; but he knew that somebody would hear it.

  “What is this sound?” the Cantonese would say…and eventually the word would reach someone, maybe several, to whom it would have meaning. In his mind’s eye he could see skulking figures come forth from behind secret panels…sent out by the man who had burned that mark on the skin of his chest. Dark alleys would disgorge the minions of Chu Chul. They would approach the sound of the five-note flute. Then…

  All at once he had his answer.

  It came from somewhere beyond that window of his, which opened on blackness and an alley that ended on a cul-de-sac at either end. His answer came in the same sounds he was making…the voice of a five-note flute. Only the answering flute made a sound like ribald laughter. It was jeering, sneering…almost demoniac. While he listened Noel could almost hear the queer, chattering laughter of Chu Chul…could almost hear it in the voice of the second flute. Chu Chul and his queer laughter…people who heard it might think The Cricket mad. Perhaps he was, but he had a brain that, mad though it might be, was one of the greatest, trickiest, Noel had ever encountered. The man was genius. A genius who was mad for power, a man who possessed strange knowledge not gained from books, even though he was a master of the Classics, and could repeat by heart whole sections from the Book of Changes.

  Chu Chul was a dreadful menace. Once he had all but held North China in the hollow of his hand. He would have, but for Noel. Now he was here, in America…and Am
ericans would be like babies in his hands. He would be able to create an organization which would control the city…the nation…if the whim seized him. So Noel was fighting for something more than mere vengeance for the slaying of Liu Wong.

  But still he hesitated, wondering what he should read into the voice of the second flute. The sound of it was approaching, apparently over the housetops. Sometimes it seemed in the alley outside, sometimes atop Noel’s own house, sometimes in the room with him…but always coming nearer. What was its message? Noel remembered how he had almost been tricked when he had listened to the flute as played by Liu Wong, how he had fought off the numbing hypnosis. Now he would deliberately court it.

  Chu Chul would not slay him…until Chu Chul, inexpressibly vain, had had his opportunity to gloat over his victim. He would be in Chu Chul’s power, and whether he got out of it again, depended upon himself.

  He sat down and ran the five notes twice again. Then he placed the flute beside him on the floor and bent all his will to reading some message into the five notes of the second flute—which now was no longer approaching. His brain caught the names of the notes, ran them through again and again. Hung, ssu, chang, chur, fan—hung, ssu, chang, chur, fan. Over and over he named, the notes as the unseen flutist played them, until the Chinese names—he thought now in the mandarin which was as much his language as English—became like a soothing litany. He knew his limbs were becoming numb, that his will was going out of him—out through the window, into darkness.

  He sat, eyes wide open, staring at the open window.

  Five minutes passed. The flute still played softly, but he did not hear it. He seemed to hear nothing. He did not seem to see the two evil faces which lifted above the window sill, nor the two shadows which seemed almost to flow across the window sill, into the room. He did not appear to feel it when one of the shadows snarled at him, and kicked him viciously in the ribs. He merely shook a little on the stool, and continued to stare straight to the front. They picked him up and carried him to the window…and he was still in the sitting position, knees drawn up. They dropped him to the alley below…and still he was in the sitting position, though he fell on his side…and remained there, motionless.