Monte and the “Kid” went back to the city that same evening, but early
next morning the leader of the Wolves returned to the neighborhood where
they had picked up the trail of Colonel Knight.
Monte had caught sight of a “For Rent” sign in the upper window of a
cottage half a mile from the big house, and he wasted no time in hunting
up the rental agent and signing a lease. By evening he had his men with
him, and the battle lines were established for the final conflict.
“We got to get all the dope on this Chink and his layout we can,” Monte
explained to his companions, as they sat smoking in the parlor of their
new home. “We might try to rush the house, but I don’t like the looks of
it. Chances are that Chink’s got a machine gun or a bunch of sawed-off
pump guns there. We’ll have to size things up.”
He paused to stare at his men.
“Any kicks on that? All right, it’s settled. Louie, it’s your turn for
sentry duty, and you better get over to the Chink’s castle now. At two
o’clock I’ll send Doc over to relieve you. You might take a look at the
windows, and see if any of them can be handled without a saw—there may be
some loose bars!”
Louie Martin, the gem expert, was a little tallow-faced man with a
straggling, peaked beard and shifty eyes. He had no real appetite for
this sort of thing, but for personal reasons he was more willing than
usual to go on duty tonight.
Slipping his automatic into the holster under his arm, he struck off
along the road toward the house of Ah Wing, whose gables were visible
from the cottage. A light wind was blowing from the southeast, and he
could see the mist rising over the marshes. Somewhere from the steamy air
above a night heron screamed raucously. Involuntarily, Louie shivered.
He was glad to turn his thoughts to his own immediate affairs. Louie
Martin had made up his mind to strike out for himself. He had always
admired Colonel Knight—or “Count von Hondon”—for the shrewd stroke of
business he had done; and Louie was keen enough to perceive that Monte
Jerome was not equal to the task of holding the Wolves together. At the
present time there was open dissension among them. One of these days
one of them would squeal on the others—that was the way this mob stuff
usually ended.
No, Louie had made up his mind to watch his chance for a crack at the
jewels—and then a clean getaway.
He reached the private road leading to the Chinaman’s house, paused for
a moment to listen and reconnoiter, then stealthily struck into the
grounds. Five minutes later he had skirted the west wing and was peering
up through the shrubbery at the lighted windows of Colonel Knight’s
apartment. Their location had been sketched for him by Monte.
“So that’s where the old devil is!” thought Louie. “Let’s just have a
look-see!”
He climbed into a pepper tree—the same from which Monte and the “Kid” had
seen Knight—and stared into the room. It was lighted, but there was no
one in sight. Then, through a vista of open doors, he saw the man whom
he had been sent to watch, walking slowly about with his hands clasped
behind him, a cigar between his lips.
“Had a good supper, and now he’s enjoying a smoke!” Louie mumbled
enviously. “Well, that’s good enough for me, too! Let’s have a look at
that window!”
He slipped down from the tree and glanced about. At the corner of the
house was a galvanized iron can, evidently used for lawn clippings. Louie
lifted this cautiously and carried it over under the end window. Then he
climbed upon it, raising his head cautiously till he was standing just
beside the half-open window.
A silent inspection of the bars showed him that they were all securely
fastened, with one possible exception: the bottom bar seemed to be loose
in its niche. Louie climbed down, changed the can over to the opposite
side, and examined the opposite end. Sure enough, it showed a crumble of
concrete around the bolt which was supposed to hold it in place. With the
utmost caution, fearing that the loose bar might be connected with an
alarm system, the crook tested it.
A smile twisted his thin lips. It could be moved in and out of its niche.
A sound came from somewhere close at hand; and with the speed and silence
of a wolf Louie Martin leaped to the ground, caught up the can, and
replaced it where he had found it. Next instant he was hidden in a clump
of flowering shrubs.
From this position he could see the top of a flight of steps leading down
to the basement of the house of Ah Wing. He stood listening and watching,
and presently he heard a door open and close, followed by steps ascending
the stairs. Then some one came up out of the basement, and he saw the
figure of a tall Chinaman walking deliberately toward the bush in which
he was hiding. Louie reached under his coat for his pistol—
Ah Wing turned, and Louie saw that he was following a graveled path. And
he was carrying something in one hand—a contrivance of twisted wires,
like an iron basket.
As Ah Wing disappeared into the mist, Louie made up his mind. Tonight,
after Knight had gone to bed, he would strike: he was not to be relieved
till two o’clock, and that would give him time to put through his coup.
But now he meant to follow Ah Wing. He needed all the information he
could secure about the master of this silent house.
The Chinaman had disappeared into the eddying mist, but Louie struck into
the path and soon came within hearing of the crisp footsteps. Ah Wing
reached the edge of the grounds and crossed over into a marshy field.
Instinctively, the crook worked closer to the man he was shadowing. There
was something oddly menacing about this night, with its mist and its
fitful, salt-laden wind.
Suddenly through the swirling fog there appeared a light, which seemed to
be suspended ten feet or so above the ground. It was moving slowly along
in front of them—a murky light, like a blood-red mist.
Then Louie saw that it was the light suspended from the mast of a boat,
and that the boat itself was moving slowly along before them, almost
hidden by the banks of the canal. The tide must be out, he thought.
Ah Wing swung on through the night, and presently the man following him
made out the silhouette of a building, perched above the canal. Louie
slunk cautiously forward and saw that the boat, whose lantern he had
previously observed, was making fast at that wharf.
Ah Wing leaped lightly to the sunken deck and disappeared down the
companionway. Before Louie could decide what he was to do, the Chinaman
reappeared and climbed back to the wharf. Louie had just time to slip
into the shelter of a group of piling when the Chinaman passed the corner
of the building.
And in his hand was another of the wire contrivances, filled with
squirming, squeaking rats!
The white man felt his stomach doing queer antics. He had heard of
Chinamen eating rats. Was that what this fellow was up to? What else
could he want with them?
Ah Wing walked swiftly, and the man behind kept as close as he dared.
Again they entered the grounds surrounding the big house, and the
Oriental crossed to the basement stairs and went down. Louie paused in
the bushes.
“I’m going to gamble,” he whispered suddenly to himself. “I’ll just sneak
down those steps, and if he tries to come out before I can duck, I’ll
bean him! I want to know what he’s up to!”
Stealthily, he approached the steps. All that he could see was a murky
hole, into which the cement stairs disappeared. A step at a time he made
his way down—
And then he paused, holding himself bent forward, rigid as a man of
stone. From beyond the door which opened out of this pit came a strange
sound, the like of which he had never before heard. It was like a jet of
steam, or like sand sifting into a tin pail from a considerable height.
Then came another sound—the sing-song voice of the Chinaman, crooning
something in a rhythmic chant. Louie could not understand the words, but
there was a swing and lilt to the thing that had a curious effect on him:
_he felt as if he were being rocked to sleep_.
He threw off this mood with a start. There had come another sound—the
squealing of many rats. And there was a grating noise, as if a heavy
body were dragging itself about the floor. The rat chorus swelled. The
creatures evidently had been turned loose, and were racing about the
floor in an agony of terror.
The chorus thinned. Something was happening to them. Presently the last
of the rats emitted one long, agonized squeal, and was still.
Louie Martin made his way out of the cellarway and hurried dizzily back
to the shelter of the bushes. He didn’t know what had been happening
behind that horrible door, but he knew that it was something which turned
his flesh to ice. A strange smell had come to him from under the door—
Louie noted with relief that the lights in Colonel Knight’s rooms had
been snapped off. That meant that the Colonel had gone to bed. Soon he
would be sleeping, and then Louie could put his plan into execution—that
would enable him to forget this baffling but vaguely horrible experience.
Somehow, he felt as if great unseen creatures were flying about him,
striking at him with black, featherless wings. The air seemed to be in
motion.
He caught himself firmly.
“Got to cut it out!” he mumbled under his breath. “Getting dippy! Likely
to bite somebody! Got to think about something else!”
He began to think about the jewels; and then his mind shifted, and he
was thinking of the woman from whom he and his companions had stolen the
pendant. She had been called “Mother of the Friendless.” The jewels had
been given to her by a rich patron, to assist in the work of providing
for the many who were dependent on her for charity.
The wolves had done a clever bit of work that time. They had caught the
jewels while they were in process of transfer from the original owner to
the old woman—
Another tangent. Louie was thinking with cold amusement of the fate of
Madam Celia, the “Mother of the Friendless.” Luck had turned against
her, with the loss of the jewels. Others who had helped her in her
earlier years had turned away after that—as if the old woman had suffered
contamination by accepting this gift, bequeathed by a certain rather
notorious beauty whose affairs had upset thrones and dynasties.
Yes, a very good joke on the old woman. And she had died in abject
poverty. That was the way that sort of thing went, Louie realized. One
was really a fool to do anything for anyone but one’s self.
A sound came through the half-open window of Colonel Knight’s suite—and
again Louie Martin grinned. The master crook, who had stolen the jewels
from the “Mother of the Friendless,” was now about to pass them on—only
he didn’t know it!
Louie brought the metal barrel over under the window and set it, bottom
up, so as to form a secure means of approach to the room beyond. He had
thrown off his depression now. But he must work fast.
Cautiously, he stepped upon the barrel and raised his hands to the bottom
bar. Twisting it slowly and at the same time pulling, he drew both bar
and bolts from their sockets and tossed them to the ground. He wanted to
laugh! So this was the wisdom of a Chinaman? He might have known!
There was a stone coping a couple of feet above the top of the thing on
which he stood. Louie rested his foot on this coping and laid his hands
on the sill. Lightly he drew himself up against the face of the wall.
He paused to listen. The man within was breathing heavily and regularly.
Louie thrust his head through the opening—nothing in sight to alarm him.
Then, with a quick spring, he threw his weight upon the sill and was
halfway through the window—
Half-way, but no farther; for as his weight descended fully upon the
sill, the upper sash crashed down like the lever of a great engine. The
thief cried out once, a hideous, choking cry that echoed through the room
and on into the house of Ah Wing.
Then he was silent, drooping there like one who has been broken on the
wheel. Blood dripped from his mouth and nostrils, and he had ceased to
breathe. He was caught like a huge rat in a trap!
_CHAPTER SEVEN_