TREASURE HUNTING.
Harry and Detective Leggett carried Ah Lung out into the long corridor
head and heels.
Here they ran into a bunch of Chinks just coming out of the main club
room.
There were friends of Ah Lung's among them, and a tremendous pow-wow
and excitement followed, all in Chinese.
Alice explained that it was partly sympathy, partly indignation against
Dr. Garshaski, who was a club member, and partly about the presence of
detectives in the House of the Seven Delights.
Ah Lung quieted them, however.
"Leave me now," he said. "I am in the hands of my friends. They will do
all for me that can be done. They are not willing that you should enter
the club room."
So the detectives were escorted back to earth by the way Old King Brady
and Leggett had come down into these lower regions and glad enough they
were to find themselves safe on China alley.
Parting from Leggett, they started, reaching it shortly before midnight.
Alice was so exhausted that Old King Brady insisted that she should
postpone her story till morning.
"I don't know that it will do any good to tell it now," she said. "But I
must give you a hint. There is buried or hidden money at the bottom of
all this business."
"Yes, yes, I know," said Old King Brady. "I heard Garshaski call out
about it. Do you know where the hiding place is?"
"In an old house down by the North Beach."
"Does he know?"
"He does. He has had plenty of time to get there and get the treasure if
it still exists."
"If that is the case," said the old detective, "then I think the best
thing that all of us can do is to go to bed."
They did so and it was not until the next morning at breakfast in the
private parlor of the detective's suite that Alice's story was told.
We need only take it up at the scene in the torture room when the
princess fainted and Alice thought her dead.
"They ran me out then," she said, "so I don't know exactly what the
yellow fiends did to her after that.
"They tied me to the chair and I think Garshaski meant mischief.
"After a little he brought the princess into the room and laid her on
the bed. She was in a dreadful condition, but she was game still. She
had not given the secret away. I begged Garshaski to untie me and allow
me to attend to her, but he wouldn't hear to it.
"'She'll come around all right,'" he declared; adding:
"'And for your interference you have to suffer, Alice. I will make you
feel sorry you ever insulted me in the way you did.' He then left us,
and I tried to question the princess, but she would not talk about
herself.
"'Listen, Alice,' she said. 'That fiend has killed my cousin Wang Foo.
He told me so. He means to kill me, I know it, but I will never tell him
where my grandfather hid his money. I will tell you, though, for you may
live to get out of this and I want you, if you do, to go and get that
money and give it to Ah Lung. Promise me that.'
"I gave her the promise and asked how much the money amounted to.
"She declared that her grandfather's letter did not state.
"She then went on to tell me that it was hidden under the headstone of
an old house near the North Beach, the location of which she described
so carefully that I am sure I can find it. It appears that her
grandfather, although he lived in Chinatown, carried on business in this
house selling cigars, soda water and so on, probably doing a little
opium smuggling on the sly."
"Let's see!" exclaimed Old King Brady. "What was the old fellow's name
again? I heard Garshaski speak it, but I forget."
"His name was Gong Schow," Alice replied.
"Why, I knew him!" cried the old detective. "Of course, he smuggled
opium. The cigar and soda water business was only a blind. I can locate
that house if you can't Alice. But do you suppose it is still standing?"
"The princess thinks so at all events. That is all I know about it."
"Very likely it is then. We must go down there at once. On the way we
will look in at Lung & Lung's and learn how it fares with Garshaski's
unfortunate victim."
"Go on with your story," said Harry.
"There is little more to tell," replied Alice. "Garshaski must have had
his ear at some listening hole, for he now burst in on us and, gagging
me carried Skeep Hup off, declaring that he had heard all."
And this ended what Alice had to say.
They started away right after breakfast.
Meanwhile Old King Brady called up Mr. Narraway on the telephone and
suggested--for he was in no position to order it--the immediate arrest
of Volckman.
"That has already been attended to," replied the Secret Service
commissioner over the wire, "Leggett was at my house early this morning
and told me what happened last night."
At Lung & Lung's they ran into Wun Lung.
"Ah was still at his club," he said. "He had seen him that morning. Dr.
Gim Suey thought he would recover." That was all he could say.
The Bradys and Alice now went to the North Beach.
Here they met with disappointment.
They passed on to a point at some distance from the bathing houses to a
place where there had once been quite a little grouping of little shacks
where various kinds of small business had once been carried on.
But these, owing to certain changes, had all been abandoned since the
fire. Many of them had been pulled down and carried away for firewood.
The few which still remained were all unoccupied and fast going to ruin.
Skeep Hup's description of the place would have fitted either one of
those remaining.
Even Old King Brady was at fault, sure as he had been that he could
easily identify the house.
They returned to the North Beach proper and started to inquire.
They could not find any one who remembered old Gong Schow, strange as it
seemed, for the man had been there for several years.
"It looks as though we should have to give it up altogether," remarked
Harry when this stage of the game was reached.
"It does," replied Old King Brady, "and it don't give us the Chinese
Princess either. There is but one way to solve the mystery that I can
think that is to get hold of some old Chink who knew and had business
with Gong Schow."
"But it is doubtful if such a person can be made to tell."
"Very."
"Do you know such a man?"
"I think I do."
"Who is he?"
"Now, Harry, I feel under obligations not to tell you. He is a Chinaman
who was at one time largely engaged in opium smuggling. I knew it, but I
was never called upon to proceed against him, so as he once did me an
important service I made no move. I found out that he was in the hop
business by the merest accident and I swore to him that I would never
tell."
And Harry knew that this was final.
So they gave it up and went back to town, leaving Old King Brady to look
up his man.
Alice was still suffering from the effects of what she had been through
in those underground rooms, so she remained at the hotel while Harry
started out to see what he could do towards locating Dr. Garshaski.
He called first at the Stockton street house and entered the Doctor's
room with a skeleton key.
It was a case of no doctor, but there was evidence that he had recently
been there.
Hardly knowing what to do or where to go, Harry bent his steps towards
the North Beach again.
When he got there the water looked good to him, so he went in swimming.
The day was cool and there were few bathers.
One old white-haired man, a splendid swimmer, particularly attracted
Young King Brady's attention and he fell into conversation with him.
He learned that the old fellow suffered terribly from insomnia.
"Why I often come down here and go in alone at midnight," he said, "and
sometimes in the early morning hours. I was here this morning at a
quarter to one."
"Is the place deserted then?" Harry asked.
"I don't believe the North Beach baths are ever deserted," replied the
old man. "There are always a few old cranks like myself paddling about;
sometimes we see strange sights."
"I suppose so. Suicides for instance?"
"Yes, I have seen more than I like to think of. I have personally
prevented three. Last night I saw something which interested me, but, of
course, I didn't butt in. I never do. I learned long ago to mind my own
business in my nightly wanderings."
"What was that?" inquired Harry carelessly, for he was not paying very
close attention to the old man's talk.
"See those old shacks away down there where the pavilion used to be,"
pointing to the very place which interested Young King Brady most.
"Why, yes. What about them?"
"Last night, just as I came here and before I had undressed--it was
about a quarter to one, I should say--I saw an old-fashioned hack drive
up on the top of the bank and stop. A man got out and then lifted out
what I took to be a little girl, and the hack drove away. Next thing I
knew he was coming down the long steps carrying the girl in his arms."
"Going to drown her!" cried Harry.
"I thought so," replied the old man. "There was nobody here but me. I
determined to prevent it if I could so I sneaked along under the bank
making as good time as possible and managed to get where I could see
what was going on, just as the fellow reached the bottom of the steps.
You can judge of my surprise when I tell you that I saw that he was a
Chinaman, and that what I had taken to be a little girl was actually a
very small Chinese woman, one of the kind with little feet. I hid under
the bank ready to jump on him if he attempted any funny business, but I
now saw that he had no notions of drowning the woman. He wandered about
among the old shacks talking to her in Chinese. They seemed to be trying
to find something."
"And did they succeed?" asked Harry quickly.
"They did not as far as I could judge," replied the swimmer. "They hung
around for half an hour. The Chinawoman apparently could not walk; he
had to carry her all the time. At last they seemed to give it up. He
carried her up the steps again and they got into the hack and were
driven away."
"Garshaski and the princess," thought Harry. "It could have been no one
else. What can it mean? Has he given up the treasure hunt then?"
He asked the old fellow his name and was told that it was Abner Dawson.
They went out of the water now after that and while they were dressing
an idea suddenly occurred to Young King Brady.
"Mr. Dawson," he asked, "is there any other place around San Francisco
which goes by the name of North Beach?"
"There might be, over the Bay," said Dawson. "They have a lot of our San
Francisco names duplicated over there."
Harry left him wondering if there could be anything in his idea.