The big car twisted and turned through the narrow streets, boring deeper
into the dark heart of old Chinatown. Don Winslow, seated between
Cho-San and Lotus, felt his sense of danger rising.
At any moment now, the Chinese chauffeur would pull up at an unfamiliar
building. Then, flanked by two Scorpion spies, the pretended Count Borg
would enter the underworld of Scorpia.
What further tests would he have to pass Don could not guess. He knew
only that if he failed his life would pay the forfeit!
Tensely he told himself that he must not fail. For the honor of the
United States Navy, for the sake of his friends, and of all who prefer
peace to war’s mass murder, _he must not fail_!
Glancing at Cho-San, he saw that the Scorpion leader was studying a
small pocket mirror, cupped in one of his huge hands. The mirror was
held so as to reflect everything that could be seen through the car’s
rear window.
Suddenly with an angry snort, the big Chinese bent forward.
“_Yi kow pu hau-tung sai-kai!_” he cried sharply.
“_Ta hau_,” came the driver’s answering sing-song, “_kia hing_.”
With a jerk the car speeded up, throwing the passengers back against the
cushions. Don felt Lotus’ small, cool hand close down on his finger.
“It’s that car following us, André,” she explained. “Cho-San has just
told Ko Loo, the chauffeur, to speed up and lose it.”
Don twisted to look through the rear window at the criss-crossing
traffic of an intersection. With a short laugh he turned back.
“Cho-San knows best,” he remarked lightly. “I couldn’t tell if one of
those pairs of lights back there were following us. It looks to me as if
they all are. But what’s the difference?”
“None, my dear Borg,” rumbled Cho-San, “considering that Ko Loo has
never yet failed to put an enemy off the trail. As a matter of fact, two
sets of lights are following us at this moment. The trailer is being
trailed by one of our own cars. He will have an unpleasant surprise, in
addition to losing track of us!”
Sharp anxiety shot through Don’s mind. “An unpleasant surprise” might
mean anything from a car accident to murder. And Red Pennington was the
trailer who was going to get it!
However, there was nothing in the world that Don could do to warn his
friend. By this time both cars were out of sight. Ko Loo skidded the big
limousine around two more dim corners at twenty miles an hour, and
pulled up abruptly in front of a dark warehouse.
“_Ki-wo-pu teh shwoh!_” sang out Cho-San’s commanding bass.
“_Ta chang!_” came the answer, as Ko Loo sprang out to obey the order.
In the foggy night the chauffeur’s voice had a curious, muffled sound.
Almost immediately he returned, and the car rolled silently forward into
a black, cavelike opening. As it stopped, Lotus again squeezed Don’s
hand.
“Last time, we came another way—remember, André?” she whispered. “We
are now in the garage next to Cho-San’s curio shop. Of course it doesn’t
look like a garage from the outside with the doors closed....”
“_Yi ko pu hau!_ I shall not need you any more, Ko Loo,” interrupted
Cho-San harshly. “Get out; Lotus. I’ll follow you, Count Borg. Since
your mind is admittedly sick, I would rather not turn my back on you,
even here in my own quarters!”
“Tit for tat, and insult for insult!” smiled Don, as a brilliant light
filled the room from concealed electric lamps. “You can’t make me angry
tonight, though, Cho-San. Not even by breaking up my evening’s date with
your ward! So far, your little game of hide-and-seek is most
fascinating. Even as a boy, I remember....”
“Quite so!” hissed the Chinese furiously. “There is nothing wrong with
your memory, Borg! And I can promise that you will have cause to
remember _this_ night if you live to be a hundred—which is not likely.
Ummm-hummm! Not likely at all! Now, Lotus, if you will lead the way,
please.”
“Which—which way do you wish to take, Cho-San?” asked the girl in a
frightened voice. “The one through the shop?”
“Ummmm, yes. That will do,” rumbled the Oriental. “It will be new, I
think, to Count Borg.”
“Right-o!” agreed Don airily. “I don’t remember any secret passage
through your shop.”
“You made the last trip to the comrades’ quarters by way of Cho-San’s
house, André,” Lotus murmured, taking Don’s hand. “Follow me closely
now, and don’t put out your hand to touch the walls!”
As she spoke a panel slid noiselessly open in the side of the room.
Cho-San raised his hand to the light switch. Glancing back Don noted
with surprise that the big rolling doors of the garage were now shut,
though no sound had betrayed their closing.
Darkness descended like a blow as he turned his head. Don could not hear
Cho-San’s footsteps, though he guessed that the Chinese was moving
toward him. Lotus’ gentle grasp on his hand was the only thing that
seemed real in that Stygian blackness. Like a blind man he followed her
lead.
* * * * *
Meantime, several blocks away, Red Pennington perched anxiously on the
seat of a skidding taxi. The driver he had picked up outside the Empire
Hotel was good at this game of trailing a car on the dodge, but Ko Loo
had been giving him the works.
Both the driver and his fare realized this at the same moment.
“It’s this blasted fog, sir!” the former complained, straightening out
after a turn on two wheels. “I can’t get close enough to see if that car
ahead’s the same one we’re after. Not without rammin’ his rear bumper!
Seems to me that guy cut in from behind us while we was dodgin’
cross-traffic a mile back!”
“I got the same idea, so you must be right,” groaned Red, peering
through the misted glass. “Look! That car’s stopping—pulling over to
the curb. Suppose you pull in ahead of it. I just saw something
else....”
“Yeah? Well, all right!” grunted the driver, jamming on his brakes.
“That car we just passed ain’t the one we was chasin’ first, so what’s
the diff? The meter reads ten miles an’ a quarter!”
“Take that and keep the change, brother!” replied Red, shoving a bill
with two figures on it into the taxi driver’s hand. “I’m getting out
here. Stick around for a few minutes, in case I need you!”
Not waiting for the man’s thanks, he dodged across the misty street.
Some two hundred feet back, the glare of the taxi’s headlights had
briefly picked out a gilt sign on a darkened shop front. The words Red
had glimpsed were: “CHO-SAN’S _Antiques and Curios_.”
Now, whipping a small flashlight from his pocket, he read the sign
again, from the distance of a few feet. The shop, whose window was
curtained, seemed neither large nor pretentious. On either side were
warehouses closed by high, sliding doors. The blank, uninteresting walls
were in need of paint and spotted with torn bill posters.
“Some dump!” Red Pennington muttered to himself. “Well, I had to take a
look at what was under that sign, even if it didn’t do me a whale of a
lot of good! We lost Don’s car so far back that there’s no use guessing
where it—Huh! THAT’S something I didn’t see before!”
The flashlight beam, pointing downward, had picked out the marks of wet
tire treads crossing the sidewalk at his feet The tracks disappeared
under the big rolling doors of the warehouse to the left of Cho-San’s
shop.
Sometime in the past hour, perhaps in the last few minutes, a car had
gone in there!
As Red stood there pondering, he heard a motor start up behind him. At
the moment, however, it did not seem important. The real problem was to
find proof that the car which had made those wet tracks was the one he’d
been trying to follow.
Bending down, he scrutinized the tread marks by the light of his small
pocket torch. The sidewalk all about them was covered with tiny droplets
of moisture, he noticed. But the marks themselves were barely starting
to mist over.
Acting on a sudden idea, Red threw his light on one of his own
footprints made on the fog-wet sidewalk a few seconds before. Already,
he saw, two or three droplets had formed on the darker spot where his
heel had pressed.
The conclusion was plain. A big car, with new, expensive tires had
entered the warehouse doors _less than five minutes ago_!
As Red Pennington straightened up, he made his decision. He would take
the taxi back to the nearest public telephone, call Hammond at the
office, report what he had found, and then stick around on watch until
relieved by a trained detective. Longer watching might attract
attention, considering that he had come out minus hat or topcoat.
A few quick steps took him across the street to the car which was
waiting at the curb.
“Okay, brother!” he said, jerking open the rear door and ducking inside.
“Back to the nearest phone booth, and make it snappy! There’s another
ten spot in it for you if—Say! What tha ding-dong.... _This isn’t my
taxi!”_