INTRODUCES MR. SOO.
It was a busy night for Captain Talham. The clocks were striking
three when he hailed a taxi-cab. Tillizinni joined him as he stood on
the edge of the pavement, and the two conversed together for some
time. Then they entered a cab, and drove off.
The man who watched them from the opposite side of the road followed.
His car waited in a side street at no great distance, and it was a car
which readily overtook the cab which carried the two men eastward.
They passed through the stone archway of Scotland Yard, and the
pursuing car continued its way along the Embankment, and in obedience
to the instructions given through the speaking tube, slowed in Horse
Guards Avenue to allow the occupant to alight.
He was dressed irreproachably in the evening dress of civilisation,
and carried himself with ease and confidence. He walked back the way
the car had come, turned into Scotland Yard without hesitation, and
found the constable on duty very ready to carry a message to
Tillizinni.
The Italian received him alone, and the visitor favoured him with a
ceremonious bow.
Tillizinni took him in from foot to crown in one sweeping and
comprehensive bow.
The newcomer was unquestionably Chinese, though he did not wear a
_queue_ which distinguished the Manchu before the rebellion. His face
was good-looking for a Chinaman, his features clean-cut, his eyes
alone betrayed his nationality. His lips, straight and thin, were
expressionless, and Tillizinni noticed that this strange man, dressed
in the height of fashion, yet with the restraint which marked the
gentleman, wore in one eye a gold-rimmed monocle.
When he spoke there was no trace of a foreign accent.
“Mr. Tillizinni?” he said, and the other nodded. “My name is
Soo--L’ang T’si Soo--and I am, as you may suppose, a compatriot of the
unfortunate man who was murdered to-night.”
Tillizinni nodded again.
“I know the Prince slightly,” said Soo, as he seated himself, “and
naturally I am distressed at the tragic news.”
“News travels very fast,” responded Tillizinni dryly. “The Ambassador
has not been dead very long.”
Soo inclined his head easily.
“I was passing the Embassy, and I saw a number of distracted
servants--one of whom you sent to find a policeman,” he explained.
“Naturally the servants being commonplace Chinamen and inveterate
gossips, were ready to talk to one of their race.”
This was plausible enough. Tillizinni, at any rate, could find no
fault with the explanation. He wondered why this Chinese exquisite
should have sought him at three o’clock in the morning.
“It is very sad,” continued L’ang T’si Soo, shaking his head, “that
one so learned as his Excellency should have been cut off so
ruthlessly.”
“It is sadder to me,” said Tillizinni, “that the ‘Star above the
Yamen’ should also have been sacrificed.”
What made him say this he could not understand. There was no reason at
all why he should mention the second man.
The effect on his visitor was electrical. He rose instantly and
noiselessly from his chair, the monocle dropped from his eye, and the
eyelids lowered till the detective saw no more than two straight,
glittering slits of black.
“‘Star above the Yamen’?” he repeated. “What do you mean?”
All the suaveness, all the languid drawl had gone out of his voice: it
was harsh and metallic. The white-gloved hands were clenched till the
delicate kid was stretched to breaking point. He stood erect and
tense; there was something animal in his poise, something tigerish in
his attitude.
“What I mean,” said Tillizinni slowly, “is just this. In addition to
the Ambassador, a man was killed--shot from behind, evidently by his
confederates. As I have reconstructed the crime, the murderers were
disguised in the livery of the Embassy, and made their escape in the
confusion. ‘Star above the Yamen’ was probably killed because his
murderers desired something which he had. He has been identified by
this.”
The detective took a sheet of paper from his pocket, and handed it
across the desk to the other.
Soo looked at the Chinese characters long and earnestly.
“It is copied from the man’s _hong_, which was given to Captain Talham
this afternoon by the man himself.”
With a supreme effort T’si Soo recovered his self-possession. Without
a word he handed back the sheet, fixed his eyeglass mechanically and
relaxed into his chair.
“That is interesting,” he said calmly. “Once I knew a ‘Star above the
Yamen,’ but this is evidently another man. The characters change a
little as between North and South China, and my friend does not use
this _hong_.”
Tillizinni’s observant eye saw the tip of the visitor’s tongue pass
over the dry lips.
“Doubtless you wonder why I have come,” said the Chinaman, “and it is
only fair to you that I should explain who I am. Your companion----”
“My companion?” asked Tillizinni sharply.
“The gentleman who is waiting in the next room,” said the suave
Oriental, “until I have gone. His Excellency Ho-tao, which in our
language means the River Mandarin, or as you would call him, Captain
Talham, he would know me. I am the son of the Governor of T’si-lu: to
all intents and purposes, I am the governor.”
Tillizinni bowed.
He knew something of this man, who was educated at Oxford, rented the
most expensive of Piccadilly flats, and was reputedly wealthy.
Soo rose to go.
“I am afraid I have allowed my curiosity and my natural interest in
the fate of my countryman to trespass upon your time,” he said. “Here
is my address: if I can be of any assistance to you, please command
me.”
He put his card upon the table, and with a little bow, withdrew.
Three minutes later he was speeding eastward as fast as his car could
go. He swept round from the Embankment to Blackfriars Bridge, and
crossed the river. He alighted near the Borough.
“Wait for me!” he said briefly, and the muffled chauffeur answered in
Cantonese.
In a tiny thoroughfare leading off Southwark Street were a number of
small shops, shuttered and silent at this hour of the morning.
Soo tapped on the shutters of one. It was a gentle tattoo that he
beat, yet the door which flanked the windows was instantly opened and
he passed in. The shop was evidently a laundry, and a Chinese laundry
at that. He passed swiftly across the shop through the living-room at
the back, in which one feeble light burned, and without hesitation
turned sharply and descended the stairs which led directly from the
living-room to the cellars below.
At the bottom of the stairs was a door. Again he knocked, and again
the door was opened by a Chinaman in his shirt-sleeves.
The man removed his pipe as Soo entered, and made a profound
obeisance.
The cellar was a large one, and its walls were covered with blood-red
paper on which were painted crude, black drawings and characters
illustrating the “Song of Lament.” There was one table above which an
oil-lamp swung, and about were seated half a dozen men in various
conditions of dishabille. Despite the coldness of the night, the
cellar was uncomfortably hot, for a big charcoal brazier glowed in a
wall recess where in some forgotten age had stood a European stove.
The men rose as Soo entered, concealing their hands in their sleeves.
“Where is my brother?” asked Soo quickly.
He addressed a cadaverous old Chinaman who stood nearest the brazier.
“Lord,” said the man, “your illustrious brother has not returned.”
“Where are Yung-ti and Hop-lee?” demanded Soo.
“Lord, they have not returned,” answered the other.
Soo looked at his watch.
“Ming-ya says----” began the old man, but stopped as if he thought
better of it.
“Ming-ya says--what?” asked Soo. “Answer me, old fool, quickly!”
The old man bowed.
“The seven blessings of heaven upon your highness,” he said humbly.
“But Ming-ya says that neither Yung-ti nor Hop-lee will return.”
Ming-ya, a youthful Cantonese with the dull eye of an opium sot,
nodded.
“That is true,” he croaked hoarsely; “for these two men I heard
speaking to-night when I was taking my pipe, and they thought I could
not hear them--they go to China to-night.”
Soo waited for a time; his head sank on his chest, buried in thought.
Then his eye singled out a thoughtful face which had been turned to
him from the moment he entered. It was the face of a young man who
stood where the shadow of the lamp fell--for one side of the lamp had
been shaded so that no gleam of direct light could be detected from
the street above. With a jerk of his head Soo signed for him to
follow, and without another word the two men left the cellar, the door
closing behind them with a click.
In the shop above T’si Soo turned to his companion.
“Lo-Rang,” he said, “these two men have killed my brother--and yours,
for we of the Society of Good Intention are all brothers, having sworn
by our ancestors to keep faith. Also they have taken away a certain
paper which I sent them to get.”
The younger man inclined his head obediently.
“I sent my brother with them because I feared treachery. He it was--so
the foreigners say--who found the paper, and because they needed it
for their treachery and could get it no other way, they have killed
him.”
“Excellency,” said Lo-Rang meekly, “all this I know. Tell me what I
shall do?”
“Find those men,” said Soo, “and _shah!_”
The young man bowed reverently and turned, disappearing into the back
of the shop.
He returned with a tiny bundle of clothes, and a long, narrow-bladed
knife.
“This is the knife with which I killed a man in Hoo Sin,” he said
proudly, and Soo nodded his acknowledgment.