[Illustration]
A taxicab stopped on the corner, and two people got out. They formed a
decidedly incongruous pair; for the first to alight was a diminutive
Chinese boy, scantily dressed, while his companion appeared to be a
portly white man.
It was impossible to be sure of this fact, however, as this second
passenger wore a long overcoat, with its ulster collar turned up around
his face, and a dark cloth cap with the visor drawn down over his
forehead and eyes.
Evidently the cab driver had been paid in advance, for he swung out from
the curb as soon as his fares had dismounted, and was soon out of sight.
The Chinese boy glanced at his companion, then set off silently up a
street whose central portion was paved with cobblestones.
He seemed to know just where he was going. He paused only once, to cast a
fleeting glance over his shoulder. Then he resumed his journey.
He had seen that the man in the ulster was following; and now, after
traversing half a block of squalid, deserted street, the youngster turned
abruptly into a pestilential-looking alley. This alley lay close to the
top of a hill, and for a moment the man and the boy, who appeared to be
his guide, could look down over the roofs to where the gay lights of
Chinatown twinkled alluringly.
Presently the diminutive Oriental paused just outside a doorway. The
man who had been following him came up, with a curious suggestion of
eagerness and suspicion. Looking over the shoulder of the figure before
him, he was able to make out the entrance to a narrow flight of unlighted
stairs, which plunged steeply into the earth beneath a dilapidated
building.
“Do we have to go down there, boy?” the man demanded.
“All a-same down here, master,” the youngster replied. “You come close—I
show you!”
He began to descend as he spoke; and the man, after a moment of
hesitation, plunged through the doorway after him. His manner was that of
one who is taking a horribly unpleasant remedy, hoping to cure a still
more horrible disease.
The diminutive Chinaman reached the bottom of the stairs and waited for
his companion. When he felt the man’s heavy hand on his shoulder, he
turned to his right, advancing cautiously through an almost impenetrable
darkness.
There was a smell of dry rot in this basement, and around their feet rats
scampered and squeaked. The man’s hand shook, and his breath came with a
hissing sound through his clenched teeth.
“Now we go down again, master,” the boy announced presently. He had
paused and turned again to the right. “You keep close—I show you!”
A step at a time, they descended a second flight of stairs. On either
side were rough stone walls, powdery with mildew. The man discovered this
with his free left hand. Strange odors came to him. Abruptly a bell rang,
somewhere in the bowels of the darkness below them.
The boy stopped in his tracks.
“Now you go down, master,” he commanded. “Ah Wing waiting for you—you go
slow. Goo’-by!”
He slipped out from under the heavy hand that would have detained him,
and the man heard him go scampering like one of the rats up the stairs
and away through the upper corridors.
Terror gripped the man left alone there on the stairs. He felt that he
was in a trap—and he had been evading traps so long now that they had
become an obsession with him.
He cried out, hoarsely, and as he did so a door opened below and a flood
of light shone out.
“Pray continue your descent, Colonel Knight,” a cultured voice commanded
from somewhere within the lighted room whose door had just opened. “The
stairs are quite secure, and I am awaiting you!”
With a plunge that hinted at desperation, the man addressed as “Colonel
Knight” reached the bottom of the stairs and crossed to the door. He
paused there for a moment, till his eyes adjusted themselves to the
change in illumination. Then he stepped inside, and heard the heavy door
close behind him.
The room he had entered was of considerable extent, but was almost
destitute of furniture. There were bare walls, dusty with green mildew;
and bare floors, covered with layers of dust and litter. There were two
chairs, one of which was already occupied.
And as the newcomer’s eyes rested on the occupant of that chair, all his
doubts and fears returned to him. He had come to this unearthly spot
to get away from almost certain death. Now he was not certain that the
remedy would not prove worse than the disease.
The man sitting there, facing him, was dressed like a Chinaman, in silk
trousers and coat, satin slippers, and black silk cap; but his eyes were
of a metallic gray, and his high, thin-bridged nose spoke of Nordic
blood. He would have been tall had he been standing. His hands were lying
passive in his lap, but they were the hands of a man of great physical
power.
And above all these details and beyond them was something the man in the
ulster could not quite define—a radiation of power, as if the intellect
and will of this strange being seated before him saturated the atmosphere
of the empty room.
“Pray be seated, Colonel Knight!” the man in the chair said courteously.
“I am glad to meet you. You have been recommended to me by a former
student of mine—you know that I take only a few cases. It will be best
for you to tell me your story, fully and accurately.”
Colonel Knight lowered himself into the empty chair. His eyes still
peered out through the gap in his collar, and seemed to be fastened on
the face of the man before him.
Then, slowly and grudgingly he removed his cap and turned down his
collar, disclosing the pouchy face of a man well advanced into middle
age. It was a face suggesting daring and resourcefulness, this face of
Colonel Knight; and for a few moments the two sat staring curiously at
each other.
“I think I can condense that statement I have to make,” the white man
said finally. “I am a man of wealth. Five years ago, while traveling in
Europe, I had the misfortune to attract the attention of the greatest
gang of international thieves ever organized. Perhaps you have heard of
them? They were called ‘The Evening Wolves,’ and were led by a man who
called himself ‘Count von Hondon’.”
He paused for an instant to regard his companion curiously, but the
Oriental merely bowed and sat impassively waiting.
“These men must have followed me about for some time before they struck.
Finally they saw their chance. I was packed to leave Paris for Belgium,
and they undoubtedly figured that I would have much of wealth with me.
“I did—but I had other things they had overlooked. I had my pistols,
and I am a dead shot. I killed two of the robbers, and the rest fled. I
supposed that would settle the matter, but I was mistaken. Five members
of the gang were left alive, and they swore to be revenged upon me. They
have followed me—”
A bell rang shrilly somewhere close at hand, and Colonel Knight leaped
from his chair and looked wildly at his companion.
“What was that?” he cried. “That bell rang when I was descending the
stairs—”
“Someone followed you here,” the other replied, “and is now trying to
reach us. Pray continue!”
“But that man upon the stairs—”
“We will come to him presently. Let me ask you to finish!”
“There is nothing more! I have been followed for years, and now a
physical trouble is added—my physician tells me I am going blind. I can’t
see to run—”
The Chinaman eyed his companion deliberately.
“Why lie to me, my friend?” he demanded presently. “You come to me for
help, and you wish to steal my ammunition! Now let me reconstruct your
story for you. You yourself are ‘Count von Hondon.’ You were the leader
of the master crooks called ‘The Evening Wolves.’ Five years ago you
and your men made a rich haul, and you decided that a time had come to
retire, or perhaps to go in by yourself. You departed, taking with you
the loot; and ever since it has been a running fight.
“Your old comrades could have shot you outright, but that would not
restore to them the booty you stole. And you have not dared dispose of
it, because it was the only thing that stood between you and death! You
see, you can’t lie to me. Every lie carries its trade-mark with it, to
those who have eyes to see. Now I shall ask you but one question, and let
me warn you—if you lie now, you will never leave this place alive!”
He stood up and thrust an accusing finger toward the cowering thief.
“Tell me,” said the Chinaman, “the name of the person whom you and your
men robbed!”
The beady eyes of Colonel Knight, or “Count von Hondon” as he had once
been known in every capital in Europe, glittered with suspicion and
fear. His breath caught in his throat, and he unfastened his collar with
trembling fingers.
“The name,” he said hoarsely, “was—was—”
Ah Wing crossed toward the heavy door and laid his hand upon the knob.
His metallic eyes blazed, and he looked down with fierce contempt upon
the man trembling before him.
“Will you answer?” he cried. “Or shall I open this door?”
“It was a woman!” Knight whimpered. “Her name was—Madame Celia—”
He broke off and stared at the Chinaman, towering there before the
door. Ah Wing had neither spoken nor moved; but there was in the room a
disturbance as if a great voice had shouted out a curse.
Slowly the Chinaman came back toward his visitor. His face now was the
impassive face of a carved Buddha.
“Colonel Knight,” he said gently, “the high gods have undoubtedly brought
you to me. I am the only person in the world who can save you, for I
work outside of the laws of men. And I will take your case, now that I
fully understand it. But first I will ask you to show me the Resurrection
Pendant which you stole from Madame Celia!”
The white man got slowly to his feet, his hands groping at his throat,
his eyes protruding, his face the color of dough.
“The pendant!” he whispered through ashen lips. “The Resurrection
Pendant! You know—you have heard?”
“Show me the Pendant,” repeated Ah Wing inexorably. “I know that you
brought it with you tonight, just as I know that you intended, in case I
refused to take your case, to try to disappear without returning to your
hotel. Show me the Pendant!”
With faltering hands and without removing his fearful eyes from the face
of his companion, the crook reached inside his ulster and drew forth a
package wrapped in brown paper. This he slowly unfastened, disclosing a
jewel case. More and more slowly his fingers fumbled with the catch.
There came a sound from the door—a voice that seemed to have difficulty
in filtering through the heavy panels.
“Come out of that, Count! We got you over a barrel! Come out—”
The massive door shook under a terrific blow, as from a sledge. The man
in the ulster seemed about to crumple to the floor.
Ah Wing spoke coldly.
“Show me the Pendant!” he repeated. “They cannot break down that door,
but if you trifle with me I will open it!”
With hurried fingers the terror-stricken crook threw back the cover of
the jewel case, disclosing a mass of diamonds, intricately and skilfully
assembled into a great pendant.
_CHAPTER TWO_