Tales of Chinatown

by Sax Rohmer

  "Let me have that envelope I left with you," he directed. "And have someone 'phone for a taxi; they are to keep on till they get one. Where is Sergeant Durham?"

  "At the mortuary."

  "Ah!"

  "Any developments, Chief Inspector?"

  "Yes. But apart from keeping a close watch upon the house of Zani Chada you are to do nothing until you hear from me again."

  "Very good," said the inspector. "Are you going to wait for Durham's report?"

  "No. Directly the cab arrives I am going to wait for nothing."

  Indeed, he paced up and down the room like a wild beast caged, while call after call was sent to neighbouring cab ranks, for a long time without result. What did it mean, his wife's failure to answer the telephone? It might mean that neither she nor their one servant nor Dan was in the house. And if they were not in the house at this hour of the night, where could they possibly be? This it might mean, or—something worse.

  A thousand and one possibilities, hideous, fantastic, appalling, flashed through his mind. He was beginning to learn what Zani Chada had meant when he had said: "I have followed your career with interest."

  At last a taxi was found, and the man instructed over the 'phone to proceed immediately to Limehouse station. He seemed so long in coming that when at last the cab was heard to pause outside, Kerry could not trust himself to speak to the driver, but directed a sergeant to give him the address. He entered silently and closed the door.

  A steady drizzle of rain was falling. It had already dispersed the fog, so that he might hope with luck to be home within the hour. As a matter of fact, the man performed the journey in excellent time, but it seemed to his passenger that he could have walked quicker, such was the gnawing anxiety within him and the fear which prompted him to long for wings.

  Instructing the cabman to wait, Kerry unlocked the front door and entered. He had noted a light in the dining room window, and entering, he found his wife awaiting him there. She rose as he entered, with horror in her comely face.

  "Dan!" she whispered. "Dan! where is ye'r mackintosh?"

  "I didn't take it," he replied, endeavouring to tell himself that his apprehensions had been groundless. "But how was it that you did not answer the telephone?"

  "What do ye mean, Dan?" Mary Kerry stared, her eyes growing wider and wider. "The boy answered, Dan. He set out wi' ye'r mackintosh full an hour and a half since."

  "What!"

  The truth leaped out at Kerry like an enemy out of ambush.

  "Who sent that message?"

  "Someone frae the Yard, to tell the boy to bring ye'r mackintosh alone at once. Dan! Dan———"

  She advanced, hands outstretched, quivering, but Kerry had leaped out into the narrow hallway. He raised the telephone receiver, listened for a moment, and then jerked it back upon the hook.

  "Dead line!" he muttered. "Someone has been at work with a wire- cutter outside the house!"

  His wife came out to where he stood, and, clenching his teeth very grimly, he took her in his arms. She was shaking as if palsied.

  "Mary dear," he said, "pray with all your might that I am given strength to do my duty."

  She looked at him with haggard, tearless eyes.

  "Tell me the truth: ha' they got my boy?"

  His fingers tightened on her shoulders.

  "Don't worry," he said, "and don't ask me to stay to explain. When I come back I'll have Dan with me!"

  He trusted himself no further, but, clapping his hat on his head, walked out to the waiting cab.

  "Back to Limehouse police station," he directed rapidly.

  "Lor lumme!" muttered the taximan. "Where are you goin' to after that, guv'nor? It's a bit off the map."

  "I'm going to hell!" rapped Kerry, suddenly thrusting his red face very near to that of the speaker. "And you're going to drive me!"

  VI. THE KNIGHT ERRANT

  Recognizing the superior strength of his captors, young Kerry soon gave up struggling. The thrill of his first real adventure entered into his blood. He remembered that he was the son of his father, and he realized, being a quick-witted lad, that he was in the grip of enemies of his father. The panic which had threatened him when first he had recognized that he was in the hands of Chinese, gave place to a cold rage—a heritage which in later years was to make him a dangerous man.

  He lay quite passively in the grasp of someone who held him fast, and learned, by breathing quietly, that the presence of the muffler about his nose and mouth did not greatly inconvenience him. There was some desultory conversation between the two men in the car, but it was carried on in an odd, sibilant language which the boy did not understand, but which he divined to be Chinese. He thought how every other boy in the school would envy him, and the thought was stimulating, nerving. On the very first day of his holidays he was become the central figure of a Chinatown drama.

  The last traces of fear fled. His position was uncomfortable and his limbs were cramped, but he resigned himself, with something almost like gladness, and began to look forward to that which lay ahead with a zest and a will to be no passive instrument which might have surprised his captors could they have read the mind of their captive.

  The journey seemed almost interminable, but young Kerry suffered it in stoical silence until the car stopped and he was lifted and carried down stone steps into some damp, earthy-smelling place. Some distance was traversed, and then many flights of stairs were mounted, some bare but others carpeted.

  Finally he was deposited in a chair, and as he raised his hand to the scarf, which toward the end of the journey had been bound more tightly about his head so as to prevent him from seeing at all, he heard a door closed and locked.

  The scarf was quickly removed. And Dan found himself in a low- ceilinged attic having a sloping roof and one shuttered window. A shadeless electric lamp hung from the ceiling. Excepting the cane-seated chair in which he had been deposited and a certain amount of nondescript lumber, the attic was unfurnished. Dan rapidly considered what his father would have done in the circumstances.

  "Make sure that the door is locked," he muttered.

  He tried it, and it was locked beyond any shadow of doubt.

  "The window."

  Shutters covered it, and these were fastened with a padlock.

  He considered this padlock attentively; then, drawing from his pocket one of those wonderful knives which are really miniature tool-chests, he raised from a grove the screw-driver which formed part of its equipment, and with neatness and dispatch unscrewed the staple to which the padlock was attached!

  A moment later he had opened the shutters and was looking out into the drizzle of the night.

  The room in which he was confined was on the third floor of a dingy, brick-built house; a portion of some other building faced him; down below was a stone-paved courtyard. To the left stood a high wall, and beyond it he obtained a glimpse of other dingy buildings. One lighted window was visible—a square window in the opposite building, from which amber light shone out.

  Somewhere in the street beyond was a standard lamp. He could detect the halo which it cast into the misty rain. The glass was very dirty, and young Kerry raised the sash, admitting a draught of damp, cold air into the room. He craned out, looking about him eagerly.

  A rainwater-pipe was within reach of his hand on the right of the window and, leaning out still farther, young Kerry saw that it passed beside two other, larger, windows on the floor beneath him. Neither of these showed any light.

  Dizzy heights have no terror for healthy youth. The brackets supporting the rain-pipe were a sufficient staircase for the agile Dan, a more slippery prisoner than the famous Baron Trenck; and, discarding his muffler and his Burberry, he climbed out upon the sill and felt with his thick-soled boots for the first of these footholds. Clutching the ledge, he lowered himself and felt for the next.

  Then came the moment when he must trust all his weight to the pipe. Clenching his teeth, he risked it, felt for and found the t
hird angle, and then, still clutching the pipe, stood for a moment upon the ledge of the window immediately beneath him. He was curious respecting the lighted window of the neighbouring house; and, twisting about, he bent, peering across—and saw a sight which arrested his progress.

  The room within was furnished in a way which made him gasp with astonishment. It was like an Eastern picture, he thought. Her golden hair dishevelled and her hands alternately clenching and unclenching, a woman whom he considered to be most wonderfully dressed was pacing wildly up and down, a look of such horror upon her pale face that Dan's heart seemed to stop beating for a moment!

  Here was real trouble of a sort which appealed to all the chivalry in the boy's nature. He considered the window, which was glazed with amber-coloured glass, observed that it was sufficiently open to enable him to slip the fastening and open it entirely could he but reach it. And—yes!—there was a rain- pipe!

  Climbing down to the yard, he looked quickly about him, ran across, and climbed up to the lighted window. A moment later he had pushed it widely open.

  He was greeted by a stifled cry, but, cautiously transferring his weight from the friendly pipe to the ledge, he got astride of it, one foot in the room. Then, by exercise of a monkey-like agility, he wriggled his head and shoulders within.

  "It's all right," he said softly and reassuringly; "I'm Dan Kerry, son of Chief Inspector Kerry. Can I be of any assistance?"

  Her hands clasped convulsively together, the woman stood looking up at him.

  "Oh, thank God!" said the captive. "But what are you going to do? Can you get me out?"

  "Don't worry," replied Dan confidently. "Father and I can manage it all right!"

  He performed a singular contortion, as a result of which his other leg and foot appeared inside the window. Then, twisting around, he lowered himself and dropped triumphantly upon a cushioned divan. At that moment he would have faced a cage full of man-eating tigers. The spirit of adventure had him in its grip. He stood up, breathing rapidly, his crop of red hair more dishevelled than usual.

  Then, before he could stir or utter any protest, the golden- haired princess whom he had come to rescue stooped, threw her arms around his neck, and kissed him.

  "You darling, brave boy!" she said. "I think you have saved me from madness."

  Young Kerry, more flushed than ever, extricated himself, and:

  "You're not out of the mess yet," he protested. "The only difference is that I'm in it with you!"

  "But where is your father?"

  "I'm looking for him."

  "What!"

  "Oh! he's about somewhere," Dan assured her confidently.

  "But, but——" She was gazing at him wide-eyed, "Didn't he send you here?"

  "You bet he didn't," returned young Kerry. "I came here on my own accord, and when I go you're coming with me. I can't make out how you got here, anyway. Do you know whose house this is?"

  "Oh, I do, I do!"

  "Whose?"

  "It belongs to a man called Chada."

  "Chada? Never heard of him. But I mean, what part of London is it in?"

  "Whatever do you mean? It is in Limehouse, I believe. I don't understand. You came here."

  "I didn't," said young Kerry cheerfully; "I was fetched!"

  "By your father?"

  "Not on your life. By a couple of Chinks! I'll tell you something." He raised his twinkling blue eyes. "We are properly up against it. I suppose you couldn't climb down a rain-pipe?"

  VII. RETRIBUTION

  It was that dark, still, depressing hour of the night, when all life is at its lowest ebb. In the low, strangely perfumed room of books Zani Chada sat before his table, his yellow hands clutching the knobs on his chair arms, his long, inscrutable eyes staring unseeingly before him.

  Came a disturbance and the sound of voices, and Lou Chada, his son, stood at the doorway. He still wore his evening clothes, but he no longer looked smart. His glossy black hair was dishevelled, and his handsome, olive face bore a hunted look. Panic was betoken by twitching mouth and fear-bright eyes. He stopped, glaring at his father, and:

  "Why are you not gone?" asked the latter sternly. "Do you wish to wreck me as well as yourself ?"

  "The police have posted a man opposite Kwee's house. I cannot get out that way."

  "There was no one there when the boy was brought in."

  "No, but there is now. Father!" He took a step forward. "I'm trapped. They sha'n't take me. You won't let them take me?"

  Zani Chada stirred not a muscle, but:

  "To-night," he said, "your mad passion has brought ruin to both of us. For the sake of a golden doll who is not worth the price of the jewels she wears, you have placed yourself within reach of the hangman."

  "I was mad, I was mad," groaned the other.

  "But I, who was sane, am involved in the consequences," retorted his father.

  "He will be silent at the price of the boy's life."

  "He may be," returned Zani Chada. "I hate him, but he is a man. Had you escaped, he might have consented to be silent. Once you are arrested, nothing would silence him."

  "If the case is tried it will ruin Pat's reputation."

  "What a pity!" said Zani Chada.

  In some distant part of the house a gong was struck three times.

  "Go," commanded his father. "Remain at Kwee's house until I send for you. Let Ah Fang go to the room above and see that the woman is silent. An outcry would ruin our last chance."

  Lou Chada raised his hands, brushing the hair back from his wet forehead, then, staring haggardly at his father, turned and ran from the room.

  A minute later Kerry was ushered in by the Chinese servant. The savage face was set like a mask. Without removing his hat, he strode across to the table and bent down so that fierce, wide- open blue eyes stared closely into long, half-closed black ones.

  "I've got one thing to say," explained Kerry huskily. "Whatever the hangman may do to your slimy son, and whatever happens to the little blonde fool he kidnapped, if you've laid a hand on my kid I'll kick you to death, if I follow you round the world to do it."

  Zani Chada made no reply, but his knuckles gleamed, so tightly did he clutch the knobs on the chair arms. Kerry's savagery would have awed any man, even though he had supposed it to be the idle threat of a passionate man. But Zani Chada knew all men, and he knew this one. When Daniel Kerry declared that in given circumstances he would kick Zani Chada to death, he did not mean that he would shoot him, strangle him, or even beat him with his fists; he meant precisely what he said—that he would kick him to death—and Zani Chada knew it.

  Thus there were some moments of tense silence during which the savage face of the Chief Inspector drew even closer to the gaunt, yellow face of the Eurasian. Finally:

  "Listen only for one moment," said Zani Chada. His voice had lost its guttural intonation. He spoke softly, sibilantly. "I, too, am a father———"

  "Don't mince words!" shouted Kerry. "You've kidnapped my boy. If I have to tear your house down brick by brick I'll find him. And if you've hurt one hair of his head—you know what to expect!"

  He quivered. The effort of suppression which he had imposed upon himself was frightful to witness. Zani Chada, student of men, knew that in despite of his own physical strength and of the hidden resources at his beck, he stood nearer to primitive retribution than he had ever done. Yet:

  "I understand," he continued. "But you do not understand. Your boy is not in this house. Oh! violence cannot avail! It can only make his loss irreparable."

  Kerry, nostrils distended, eyes glaring madly, bent over him.

  "Your scallywag of a son," he said hoarsely, "has gone one step too far. His adventures have twice before ended in murder—and you have covered him. This time you can't do it. I'm not to be bought. We've stood for the Far East in London long enough. Your cub hangs this time. Get me? There'll be no bargaining. The woman's reputation won't stop me. My kid's danger won't stop me. But if you try to use him as a lev
er I'll boot you to your stinking yellow paradise and they'll check you in as pulp."

  "You speak of three deaths," murmured Zani Chada.

  Kerry clenched his teeth so tightly that his maxillary muscles protruded to an abnormal degree. He thrust his clenched fists into his coat pockets.

  "We all follow our vocations in life," resumed the Eurasian, "to the best of our abilities. But is professional kudos not too dearly bought at the price of a loved one lost for ever? A far better bargain would be, shall we say, ten thousand pounds, as the price of a silk handkerchief———"

  Kerry's fierce blue eyes closed for a fraction of a second. Yet, in that fraction of a second, he had visualized some of the things which ten thousand pounds—a sum he could never hope to possess—would buy. He had seen his home, as he would have it— and he had seen Dan there, safe and happy at his mother's side. Was he entitled to disregard the happiness of his wife, the life of his boy, the honourable name of Sir Noel Rourke, because an outcast like Peters had come to a fitting end—because a treacherous Malay and a renegade Chinaman had, earlier, gone the same way, sped, as he suspected, by the same hand?

  "My resources are unusual," added Chada, speaking almost in a whisper. "I have cash to this amount in my safe———"

  So far he had proceeded when he was interrupted; and the cause of the interruption was this:

  A few moments earlier another dramatic encounter had taken place in a distant part of the house. Kerry Junior, having scientifically tested all the possible modes of egress from the room in which Lady Pat was confined, had long ago desisted, and had exhausted his ingenuity in plans which discussion had proved to be useless. In spite of the novelty and the danger of his situation, nature was urging her laws. He was growing sleepy. The crowning tragedy had been the discovery that he could not regain the small, square window set high in the wall from which he had dropped into this luxurious prison. Now, as the two sat side by side upon a cushioned divan, the woman's arm about the boy's shoulders, they were startled to hear, in the depths of the house, three notes of a gong.