My ghastly duty was performed; I had identified the dreadful thing,
which less than an hour before had been a strikingly beautiful woman,
as my mysterious visitor. The police were palpably disappointed at the
sparsity of my knowledge respecting her. In fact, had it not chanced
that Detective Sergeant Durham was in the station, I think they would
have doubted the accuracy of my story.
As a man of some experience in such matters, I fully recognized its
improbability, but beyond relating the circumstances leading up to my
possession of the pigtail and the events which had ensued, I could do
no more in the matter. The weird relic had not been found on the dead
woman, nor in the cab.
Now the unsavoury business was finished, and I walked along Bow Street,
racking my mind for the master-key to this mystery in which I was become
enmeshed. How I longed to rush off to Harley's rooms in Chancery Lane
and to tell him the whole story! But my friend was a thousand miles
away--and I had to see the thing out alone.
That the pigtail was some sacred relic stolen from a Chinese temple and
sought for by its fanatical custodians was a theory which persistently
intruded itself. But I could find no place in that hypothesis for the
beautiful Jewess; and that she was intimately concerned I did not doubt.
A cool survey of the facts rendered it fairly evident that it was she
and none other who had stolen the pigtail from my rooms. Some third
party--possibly the “yellow man” of whom she had spoken--had in turn
stolen it from her, strangling her in the process.
The police theory of the murder (and I was prepared to accept it) was
that the assassin had been crouching in hiding behind or beside the
cab--or even within the dark interior. He had leaped in and attacked the
woman at the moment that the taxi-man had started his engine; if already
inside, the deed had proven even easier. Then, during some block in the
traffic, he had slipped out unseen, leaving the body of the victim to be
discovered when the cab pulled up at the hotel.
I knew of only one place in London where I might hope to obtain useful
information, and for that place I was making now. It was Malay Jack's,
whence I had been bound on the previous night when my strange meeting
with the seaman who then possessed the pigtail had led to a change of
plan. The scum of the Asiatic population always come at one time or
another to Jack's, and I hoped by dint of a little patience to achieve
what the police had now apparently despaired of achieving--the discovery
of the assassin.
Having called at my chambers to obtain my revolver, I mounted an
eastward-bound motor-bus. The night, as I have already stated, was
exceptionally dark. There was no moon, and heavy clouds were spread over
the sky; so that the deserted East End streets presented a sufficiently
uninviting aspect, but one with which I was by no means unfamiliar and
which certainly in no way daunted me.
Changing at Paul Harley's Chinatown base in Wade Street, I turned my
steps in the same direction as upon the preceding night; but if my
own will played no part in the matter, then decidedly Providence
truly guided me. Poetic justice is rare enough in real life, yet I was
destined to-night to witness swift retribution overtaking a malefactor.
The by-ways which I had trodden were utterly deserted; I was far from
the lighted high road, and the only signs of human activity that reached
me came from the adjacent river; therefore, when presently an outcry
arose from somewhere on my left, for a moment I really believed that my
imagination was vividly reproducing the episode of the night before!
A furious scuffle--between a European and an Asiatic--was in progress
not twenty yards away!
Realizing that such was indeed the case, and that I was not the victim
of hallucination, I advanced slowly in the direction of the sounds,
but my footsteps reechoed hollowly from wall to wall of the narrow
passage-way, and my coming brought the conflict to a sudden and dramatic
termination.
“Thought I wouldn't know yer ugly face, did yer?” yelled a familiar
voice. “No good squealin'--I got yer! I'd bust you up if I could!”
(a sound of furious blows and inarticulate chattering) “but it ain't
'umanly possible to kill a Chink------”
I hurried forward toward the spot where two dim figures were locked in
deadly conflict.
“Take that to remember me by!” gasped the husky voice as I ran up.
One of the figures collapsed in a heap upon the ground. The other
made off at a lumbering gait along a second and even narrower passage
branching at right angles from that in which the scuffle had taken
place.
The clatter of the heavy sea-boots died away in the distance. I stood
beside the fallen man, looking keenly about to right and left; for an
impression was strong upon me that another than I had been witness of
the scene--that a shadowy form had slunk back furtively at my approach.
But the night gave up no sound in confirmation of this, and I could
detect no sign of any lurker.
I stooped over the Chinaman (for a Chinaman it was) who lay at my feet,
and directed the ray of my pocket-lamp upon his yellow and contorted
countenance. I suppressed a cry of surprise and horror.
Despite the human impossibility referred to by the missing fireman, this
particular Chinaman had joined the shades of his ancestors. I think that
final blow, which had felled him, had brought his shaven skull in
such violent contact with the wall that he had died of the thundering
concussion set up.
Kneeling there and looking into his upturned eyes, I became aware that
my position was not an enviable one, particularly since I felt little
disposed to set the law on the track of the real culprit. For this
man who now lay dead at my feet was doubtless one of the pair who had
attempted the life of the fireman of the Jupiter.
That my seafaring acquaintance had designed to kill the Chinaman I did
not believe, despite his stormy words: the death had been an accident,
and (perhaps my morality was over-broad) I considered the assault to
have been justified.
Now my ideas led me further yet. The dead Chinaman wore a rough blue
coat, and gingerly, for I found the contact repulsive, I inserted
my hand into the inside pocket. Immediately my fingers closed upon a
familiar object--and I stood up, whistling slightly, and dangling in my
left hand the missing pigtail!
Beyond doubt Justice had guided the seaman's blows. This was the man who
had murdered my dark-eyed visitor!
I stood perfectly still, directing the little white ray of my flashlight
upon the pigtail in my hand. I realized that my position, difficult
before, now was become impossible; the possession of the pigtail
compromised me hopelessly. What should I do?
“My God!” I said aloud, “what does it all mean?”
“It means,” said a gruff voice, “that it was lucky I was following you
and saw what happened!”
I whirled about, my heart leaping wildly. Detective-Sergeant Durham was
standing watching me, a grim smile upon his face!