his ears! He stood there quivering in every nerve, as: “Help!
Help!” followed by a choking, inarticulate cry, came, muffled, from
somewhere--he could not determine where.
But the voice was the voice of Helen Cumberly. He raised his left fist
and beat his brow as if to urge his brain to super-activity. Then,
leaping, he was off.
Door after door he threw open, crying, “Miss Cumberly! Miss Cumberly!
Where are you? Have courage! Help is here!”
But the silence remained unbroken--and always his wild search brought
him back to the accursed cave of the golden dragon. He began to grow
dizzy; he felt that his brain was bursting. For somewhere--somewhere but
a few yards removed from him--a woman was in extreme peril!
Clutching dizzily at the pedestal of the dragon, he cried at the top of
his voice:--
“Miss Cumberly! For the good God's sake answer me! Where are you?”
“Here, M. Max!” he was answered; “the door on your right... and then to
your right again--quick! QUICK! Saints! she has killed me!”
It was Gianapolis who spoke!
Max hurled himself through the doorway indicated, falling up against the
matting wall by reason of the impetus of his leap. He turned, leaped on,
and one of the panels was slightly ajar; it was a masked door. Within
was darkness out of which came the sounds of a great turmoil, as of wild
beasts in conflict.
Max kicked the door fully open and flashed the ray of the torch into the
room. It poured its cold light upon a group which, like some masterpiece
of classic statuary, was to remain etched indelibly upon his mind.
Helen Cumberly lay, her head and shoulders pressed back upon the silken
pillows of the bed, with both hands clutching the wrist of the Eurasian
and striving to wrench the latter's fingers from her throat, in the
white skin of which they were bloodily embedded. With his left arm about
the face and head of the devilish half-caste, and grasping with his
right hand her slender right wrist--putting forth all his strength to
hold it back--was Gianapolis!
His face was of a grayish pallor and clammy with sweat; his crooked eyes
had the glare of madness. The lithe body of the Eurasian writhing in his
grasp seemed to possess the strength of two strong men; for palpably
the Greek was weakening. His left sleeve was torn to shreds--to bloody
shreds beneath the teeth of the wild thing with which he fought; and
lower, lower, always nearer to the throat of the victim, the slender,
yellow arm forced itself, forced the tiny hand clutching a poniard no
larger than a hatpin but sharp as an adder's tooth.
“Hold her!” whispered Gianapolis in a voice barely audible, as Max burst
into the room. “She came back for this and... I followed her. She has
the strength of... a tigress!”
Max hurled himself into the melee, grasping the wrist of the Eurasian
below where it was clutched by Gianapolis. Nodding to the Greek to
release his hold, he twisted it smartly upward.
The dagger fell upon the floor, and with an animal shriek of rage, the
Eurasian tottered back. Max caught her about the waist and tossed her
unceremoniously into a corner of the room.
Helen Cumberly slipped from the bed, and lay very white and still upon
the garish carpet, with four tiny red streams trickling from the nail
punctures in her throat. Max stooped and raised her shoulders; he
glanced at the Greek, who, quivering in all his limbs, and on the verge
of collapse, only kept himself upright by dint of clutching at the side
of the doorway. Max realized that Gianapolis was past aiding him; his
own resources were nearly exhausted, but, stooping, he managed to lift
the girl and to carry her out into the corridor.
“Follow me!” he gasped, glancing back at Gianapolis; “Morbleu, make an
effort! The keys--the keys!”
Laying Helen Cumberly upon one of the raised divans, with her head
resting upon a silken cushion, Max, teeth tightly clenched and
dreadfully conscious that his strength was failing him, waited for
Gianapolis. Out from the corridor the Greek came staggering, and Max now
perceived that he was bleeding profusely from a wound in the breast.
“She came back,” whispered Gianapolis, clutching at the Frenchman for
support... “the hellcat!... I did not know... that... Miss Cumberly
was here. As God is my witness I did not know! But I followed...
HER--Mahara... thank God I did! She has finished me, I think, but”--he
lowered the crooked eyes to the form of Helen Cumberly--“never mind...
Saints!”
He reeled and sank upon his knees. He clutched at the edge of his
coat and raised it to his lips, wherefrom blood was gushing forth. Max
stooped eagerly, for as the Greek had collapsed upon the floor, he had
heard the rattle of keys.
“She had... the keys,” whispered Gianapolis. “They have... tabs... upon
them... Mrs. Leroux... number 3 B. The door to the stair”--very, very
slowly, he inclined his head toward the ebony door near which Max was
standing--“is marked X. The door... at the top--into garage... B.”
“Tell me,” said Max, his arm about the dying man's shoulders--“try to
tell me: who killed Mrs. Vernon and why?”
“MR. KING!” came in a rattling voice. “Because of the... carelessness
of someone... Mrs. Vernon wandered into the room ... of Mrs. Leroux. She
seems to have had a fit of remorse... or something like it. She begged
Mrs. Leroux to pull up... before... too late. Ho-Pin arrived just as she
was crying to ... Mrs. Leroux... and asking if she could ever forgive
her ... for bringing her here.... It was Mrs. Vernon who... introduced
Mrs.... Leroux. Ho-Pin heard her... say that she ... would tell...
Leroux the truth... as the only means”...
“Yes, yes, morbleu! I understand! And then?”
“Ho-Pin knows... women... like a book. He thought Mrs. Vernon would...
shirk the scandal. We used to send our women ... to Nurse Proctor's,
then... to steady up a bit... We let Mrs. Vernon go... as usual. The
scene with... Mrs. Leroux had shaken... her and she fainted... in the
car... Victoria Street.... I was with her. Nurse Proctor had... God!
I am dying!... a time with her;... she got so hysterical that they had
to... detain her... and three days later... her husband died; Proctor,
the... fool... somehow left a paper containing the news in Mrs. Vernon's
room.... They had had to administer an injection that afternoon... and
they thought she was... sleeping.”...
“Morbleu! Yes, yes!--a supreme effort, my friend!”
“Directly Ho-Pin heard of Vernon's death, he knew that his hold ... on
Mrs. Vernon... was lost.... He... and Mahara... and... MR. KING... drove
straight to... Gillingham... Street... to... arrange.... Ah!... she
rushed like a mad woman into the street, a moment before... they
arrived. A cab was passing, and”...
“I know this! I know this! What happened at Palace Mansions?”
The Greek's voice grew fainter.
“Mr. King followed... her... upstairs. Too late;... but whilst Leroux
was in... Cumberly's flat... leaving door open ... Mr. King went...
in... Mahara... was watching... gave signal... whistle... of someone's
approach. It was thought... Mr. King... had secured ALL the message...
Mrs. Vernon... was... writing.... Mr. King opened the door of ... the
lift-shaft... lift not working... climbed down that way... and out by
door on... ground floor... when Mr.... the Member of Parliament... went
upstairs.”...
“Ah! pardieu! one last word! WHO IS MR. KING?”
Gianapolis lurched forward, his eyes glazing, half raised his
arm--pointing back into the cave of the dragon--and dropped, face
downward, on the floor, with a crimson pool forming slowly about his
head.
An unfamiliar sound had begun to disturb the silence of the catacombs.
Max glanced at the white face of Helen Cumberly, then directed the ray
of the little lamp toward the further end of the apartment. A steady
stream of dirty water was pouring into the cave of the dragon through
the open door ahead of him.
Into the disc of light, leaped, fantastic, the witch figure of the
Eurasian. She turned and faced him, threw up both her arms, and laughed
shrilly, insanely. Then she turned and ran like a hare, her yellow silk
dress gleaming in the moving ray. Inhaling sibilantly, Max leaped after
her. In three strides he found his foot splashing in water. An instant
he hesitated. Through the corridor ahead of him sped the yellow figure,
and right to the end. The seemingly solid wall opened before her; it was
another masked door.
Max crossed the threshold hard upon her heels. Three descending steps
were ahead of him, and then a long brick tunnel in which swirled fully
three feet of water, which, slowly rising, was gradually flooding the
cave of the dragon.
On went the Eurasian, up to her waist in the flood, with Max gaining
upon her, now, at every stride. There was a damp freshness in the air
of the passage, and a sort of mist seemed to float above the water. This
mist had a familiar smell....
They were approaching the river, and there was a fog to-night!
Even as he realized the fact, the quarry vanished, and the ray of light
from Max's lamp impinged upon the opening in an iron sluice gate. The
Eurasian had passed it, but Max realized that he must lower his head if
he would follow. He ducked rapidly, almost touching the muddy water with
his face. A bank of yellow fog instantly enveloped him, and he pulled up
short, for, instinctively, he knew that another step might precipitate
him into the Thames.
He strove to peer about him, but the feeble ray of the lamp was
incapable of penetrating the fog. He groped with his fingers, right and
left, and presently found slimy wooden steps. He drew himself closely
to these, and directed the light upon them. They led upward. He mounted
cautiously, and was clear of the oily water, now, and upon a sort of
gangway above which lowered a green and rotting wooden roof.
Obviously, the tide was rising; and, after seeking vainly to peer
through the fog ahead, he turned and descended the steps again, finding
himself now nearly up to his armpits in water. He just managed to get
in under the sluice gate without actually submerging his head, and to
regain the brick tunnel.
He paused for a moment, hoping to be able to lower the gate, but the
apparatus was out of his reach, and he had nothing to stand upon to aid
him in manipulating it.
Three or four inches of water now flooded the cave of the golden dragon.
Max pulled the keys from his pocket, and unlocked the door at the foot
of the steps. He turned, resting the electric lamp upon one of the
little ebony tables, and lifting Helen Cumberly, carried her half-way up
the steps, depositing her there with her back to the wall. He staggered
down again; his remarkable physical resources were at an end; it must
be another's work to rescue Mrs. Leroux. He stooped over Gianapolis, and
turned his head. The crooked eyes glared up at him deathly.
“May the good God forgive you,” he whispered. “You tried to make your
peace with Him.”
The sound of muffled blows began to be audible from the head of the
steps. Max staggered out of the cave of the golden dragon. A slight
freshness and dampness was visible in its atmosphere, and the gentle
gurgling of water broke its heavy stillness. There was a new quality
come into it, and, strangely, an old quality gone out from it. As he
lifted the lamp from the table--now standing in slowly moving water--the
place seemed no longer to be the cave of the golden dragon he had
known....
He mounted the steps again, with difficulty, resting his shaking hands
upon the walls. Shattering blows were being delivered upon the door,
above.
“Dunbar!” he cried feebly, stepping aside to avoid Helen Cumberly, where
she lay. “Dunbar!”...
XL
DAWN AT THE NORE
The river police seemed to be floating, suspended in the fog, which now
was so dense that the water beneath was invisible. Inspector Rogers, who
was in charge, fastened up his coat collar about his neck and turned to
Stringer, the Scotland Yard man, who sat beside him in the stern of the
cutter gloomily silent.
“Time's wearing on,” said Rogers, and his voice was muffled by the
fog as though he were speaking from inside a box. “There must be some
hitch.”
“Work it out for yourself,” said the C. I. D. man gruffly. “We know that
the office in Globe Road belongs to Gianapolis, and according to the
Eastern Exchange he was constantly ringing up East 39951; that's the
warehouse of Kan-Suh Concessions. He garages his car next door to the
said warehouse, and to-night our scouts follow Gianapolis and Max from
Piccadilly Circus to Waterloo Station, where they discharge the taxi
and pick up Gianapolis' limousine. Still followed, they drive--where?
Straight to the garage at the back of that wharf yonder! Neither
Gianapolis, Max, nor the chauffeur come out of the garage. I said, and I
still say, that we should have broken in at once, but Dunbar was always
pigheaded, and he thinks Max is a tin god.”...
“Well, there's no sign from Max,” said Rogers; “and as we aren't ten
yards above the wharf, we cannot fail to hear the signal. For my part
I never noticed anything suspicious, and never had anything reported,
about this ginger firm, and where the swell dope-shop I've heard about
can be situated, beats me. It can't very well be UNDER the place, or it
would be below the level of the blessed river!”
“This waiting makes me sick!” growled Stringer. “If I understand
aright--and I'm not sure that I do--there are two women tucked away
there somewhere in that place”--he jerked his thumb aimlessly into
the fog; “and here we are hanging about with enough men in yards, in
doorways, behind walls, and freezing on the river, to raid the Houses of
Parliament!”
“It's a pity we didn't get the word from the hospitals before Max was
actually inside,” said Rogers. “For three wealthy ladies to be driven
to three public hospitals in a sort of semi-conscious condition, with
symptoms of opium, on the same evening isn't natural. It points to the
fact that the boss of the den has UNLOADED! He's been thoughtful where
his lady clients were concerned, but probably the men have simply been
kicked out and left to shift for themselves. If we only knew one of them
it might be confirmed.”
“It's not worth worrying about, now,” growled Stringer. “Let's have a
look at the time.”
He fumbled inside his overcoat and tugged out his watch.
“Here's a light,” said Rogers, and shone the ray of an electric torch
upon the watch-face.
“A quarter-to-three,” grumbled Stringer. “There may be murder going on,
and here we are.”...
A sudden clamor arose upon the shore, near by; a sound as of
sledge-hammers at work. But above this pierced shrilly the call of a
police whistle.
“What's that?” snapped Rogers, leaping up. “Stand by there!”
The sound of the whistle grew near and nearer; then came a voice--that
of Sergeant Sowerby--hailing them through the fog.
“DUNBAR'S IN! But the gang have escaped! They've got to a motor launch
twenty yards down, on the end of the creek”...
But already the police boat was away.
“Let her go!” shouted Rogers--“close inshore! Keep a sharp lookout for a
cutter, boys!”
Stringer, aroused now to excitement, went blundering forward through
the fog, joining the men in the bows. Four pairs of eyes were peering
through the mist, the damnable, yellow mist that veiled all things.
“Curse the fog!” said Stringer; “it's just our damn luck!”
“Cutter 'hoy!” bawled a man at his side suddenly, one of the river
police more used to the mists of the Thames. “Cutter on the port bow,
sir!”
“Keep her in sight,” shouted Rogers from the stern; “don't lose her for
your lives!”
Stringer, at imminent peril of precipitating himself into the water, was
craning out over the bows and staring until his eyes smarted.
“Don't you see her?” said one of the men on the lookout. “She carries no
lights, of course, but you can just make out the streak of her wake.”
Harder, harder stared Stringer, and now a faint, lighter smudge in the
blackness, ahead and below, proclaimed itself the wake of some rapidly
traveling craft.
“I can hear her motor!” said another voice.
Stringer began, now, also to listen.
Muffled sirens were hooting dismally all about Limehouse Reach, and he
knew that this random dash through the night was fraught with extreme
danger, since this was a narrow and congested part of the great highway.
But, listen as he might, he could not detect the sounds referred to.
The brazen roar of a big steamer's siren rose up before them. Rogers
turned the head of the cutter sharply to starboard but did not slacken
speed. The continuous roar grew deeper, grew louder.
“Sharp lookout there!” cried the inspector from the stern.
Suddenly over their bows uprose a black mass.
“My God!” cried Stringer, and fell back with upraised arms as if hoping
to fend off that giant menace.
He lurched, as the cutter was again diverted sharply from its course,
and must have fallen under the very bows of the oncoming liner, had not
one of the lookouts caught him by the collar and jerked him sharply back
into the boat.
A blaze of light burst out over them, and there were conflicting voices
raised one in opposition to another. Above them all, even above the
beating of the twin screws and the churning of the inky water, arose
that of an officer from the bridge of the steamer.
“Where the flaming hell are YOU going?” inquired this stentorian voice;
“haven't you got any blasted eyes and ears”...
High on the wash of the liner rode the police boat; down she plunged
again, and began to roll perilously; up again--swimming it seemed upon
frothing milk.
The clangor of bells, of voices, and of churning screws died, remote,
astern.
“Damn close shave!” cried Rogers. “It must be clear ahead; they've just
run into it.”
One of the men on the lookout in the bows, who had never departed
from his duty for an instant throughout this frightful commotion, now
reported:
“Cutter crossing our bow, sir! Getting back to her course.”
“Keep her in view,” roared Rogers.
“Port, sir!”
“How's that?”
“Starboard, easy!”
“Keep her in view!”
“As she is, sir!”
Again they settled down to the pursuit, and it began to dawn upon
Stringer's mind that the boat ahead must be engined identically with
that of the police; for whilst they certainly gained nothing upon her,
neither did they lose.
“Try a hail,” cried Rogers from the stern. “We may be chasing the wrong
boat!”
“Cutter 'hoy!” bellowed the man beside Stringer, using his hands in lieu
of a megaphone--“heave to!”
“Give 'em 'in the King's name!'” directed Rogers again.
“Cutter 'hoy,” roared the man through his trumpeted hands,--“heave
to--in the King's name!”
Stringer glared through the fog, clutching at the shoulder of the
shouter almost convulsively.
“Take no notice, sir,” reported the man.
“Then it's the gang!” cried Rogers from the stern; “and we haven't made
a mistake. Where the blazes are we?”
“Well on the way to Blackwall Reach, sir,” answered someone. “Fog
lifting ahead.”
“It's the rain that's doing it,” said the man beside Stringer.
Even as he spoke, a drop of rain fell upon the back of Stringer's hand.
This was the prelude; then, with ever-increasing force, down came
the rain in torrents, smearing out the fog from the atmosphere, as a
painter, with a sponge, might wipe a color from his canvas. Long tails
of yellow vapor, twining--twining--but always coiling downward, floated
like snakes about them; and the oily waters of the Thames became
pock-marked in the growing light.
Stringer now quite clearly discerned the quarry--a very rakish-looking
motor cutter, painted black, and speeding seaward ahead of them. He
quivered with excitement.
“Do you know the boat?” cried Rogers, addressing his crew in general.
“No, sir,” reported his second-in-command; “she's a stranger to me. They
must have kept her hidden somewhere.” He turned and looked back into the
group of faces, all directed toward the strange craft. “Do any of you
know her?” he demanded.
A general shaking of heads proclaimed the negative.
“But she can shift,” said one of the men. “They must have been going
slow through the fog; she's creeping up to ten or twelve knots now, I
should reckon.”
“Your reckoning's a trifle out!” snapped Rogers, irritably, from the
stern; “but she's certainly showing us her heels. Can't we put somebody
ashore and have her cut off lower down?”
“While we're doing that,” cried Stringer, excitedly, “she would land
somewhere and we should lose the gang!”
“That's right,” reluctantly agreed Rogers. “Can you see any of her
people?”
Through the sheets of rain all peered eagerly.
“She seems to be pretty well loaded,” reported the man beside Stringer,
“but I can't make her out very well.”
“Are we doing our damnedest?” inquired Rogers.
“We are, sir,” reported the engineer; “she hasn't got another oat in
her!”
Rogers muttered something beneath his breath, and sat there glaring
ahead at the boat ever gaining upon her pursuer.
“So long as we keep her in sight,” said Stringer, “our purpose is
served. She can't land anybody.”
“At her present rate,” replied the man upon whose shoulders he was
leaning, “she'll be out of sight by the time we get to Tilbury or she'll
have hit a barge and gone to the bottom!”
“I'll eat my hat if I lose her!” declared Rogers angrily. “How the
blazes they slipped away from the wharf beats me!”
“They didn't slip away from the wharf,” cried Stringer over his
shoulder. “You heard what Sowerby said; they lay in the creek below the
wharf, and there was some passageway underneath.”
“But damn it all, man!” cried Rogers, “it's high tide; they must be a
gang of bally mermaids. Why, we were almost level with the wharf when we
left, and if they came from BELOW that, as you say, they must have been
below water!”
“There they are, anyway,” growled Stringer.
Mile after mile that singular chase continued through the night. With
every revolution of the screw, the banks to right and left seemed
to recede, as the Thames grew wider and wider. A faint saltiness was
perceptible in the air; and Stringer, moistening his dry lips, noted the
saline taste.
The shipping grew more scattered. Whereas, at first, when the fog had
begun to lift, they had passed wondering faces peering at them from
lighters and small steamers, tow boats and larger anchored craft,
now they raced, pigmy and remote, upon open waters, and through the
raindrift gray hulls showed, distant, and the banks were a faint blur.
It seemed absurd that, with all those vessels about, they nevertheless
could take no steps to seek assistance in cutting off the boat which
they were pursuing, but must drive on through the rain, ever losing,
ever dropping behind that black speck ahead.
A faint swell began to be perceptible. Stringer, who throughout the
whole pursuit thus far had retained his hold upon the man in the bows,
discovered that his fingers were cramped. He had much difficulty in
releasing that convulsive grip.
“Thank you!” said the man, smiling, when at last the detective released
his grip. “I'll admit I'd scarcely noticed it myself, but now I come
to think of it, you've been fastened onto me like a vise for over two
hours!”
“Two hours!” cried Stringer; and, crouching down to steady himself, for
the cutter was beginning to roll heavily, he pulled out his watch, and
in the gray light inspected the dial.
It was true! They had been racing seaward for some hours!
“Good God!” he muttered.
He stood up again, unsteadily, feet wide apart, and peered ahead through
the grayness.
The banks he could not see. Far away on the port bow a long gray shape
lay--a moored vessel. To starboard were faint blurs, indistinguishable,
insignificant; ahead, a black dot with a faint comet-like tail--the
pursued cutter--and ahead of that, again, a streak across the blackness,
with another dot slightly to the left of the quarry...
He turned and looked along the police boat, noting that whereas, upon
the former occasion of his looking, forms and faces had been but dimly
visible, now he could distinguish them all quite clearly. The dawn was
breaking.
“Where are we?” he inquired hoarsely.
“We're about one mile northeast of Sheerness and two miles southwest
of the Nore Light!” announced Rogers--and he laughed, but not in a
particularly mirthful manner.
Stringer temporarily found himself without words.