you keep showing me that, right along; and,” with a quick heave of
his great shoulders, “I don’t mind saying that I sometimes find it
aggravating.”
“Personal feelings should never tinge matters of business. That’s a
useful rule.”
“I realize its value. But, then, human nature is human nature. A man is
bound to grouch more or less when he finds himself displaced. However,
you’ve done more in twenty-four hours than all the rest of us combined.”
“Thanks. You are very good.”
“I must say that I don’t quite understand it all; but the results are
what counts and are what I want to see. Farbush is quite carried away
by your success; but your, as he calls it, boldness, has about taken
his breath. He would prefer less spectacular effects. You see, these
old money-squeezing fellows are like moles; they get their victories
by digging underground; and to do things as openly as you have done,
frightens them.”
“He’ll have to steady his nerves. There is no telling what sort of
moves are on their way, you know.”
“You can’t frighten me,” replied Forrester. “As the matter stands it
can’t progress too rapidly to please me. I’m in a hurry to get it over.”
They had stopped upon the corner of Canal Street; it was late and a
haze clung about the roof tops. From the North River came the constant
shriek of fog-whistles and now and then the boom of a bell; the
numerous night sounds from the river front came faintly to them, for
already the farm wagons were coming in, and the great markets on the
lower west side were beginning to make ready for the coming dawn.
Kenyon was silent. He cautiously determined to follow the other’s lead.
But Forrester did not hesitate; he went steadily on.
“We waited for you at the ‘Far East,’” continued he. “The Stalker
reported that he had given you Farbush’s instructions.”
“The Stalker?” Kenyon looked at the other inquiringly.
“Of course. Didn’t he meet you as you left Selden’s Square last night?”
Kenyon’s mind went quickly back to the night before, and immediately
the stealthy figure that had arisen out of the shadows recurred to him.
“Ah, yes, I remember. But his words did not impress themselves upon
my memory, for he sort of mumbled them over quickly and vanished. He
seemed to be rather in a hurry.” Kenyon paused a moment and then added:
“Was there any urgent reason for his haste, I wonder.”
Forrester made a gesture that showed distaste.
“Perhaps there was,” said he shortly.
“He formed, I think, a committee of one, to receive the man from Butte.”
“You are not lacking in observation.”
“It is part of my stock in trade. And it’s a faculty the possession of
which depends upon one’s constant exercise of it.”
“No doubt. But when we found that you did not keep the supposed
appointment, Yo suggested that I meet you at Union Square, according to
the general understanding, as there might be reasons why you would not
want to be seen at the ‘East.’ I had waited more than an hour when you
came along; and when you did not stop, I thought you might be followed.”
“Would there be any use in our going to the Far East now?” asked Kenyon.
“Of course,” eagerly. “They are anxious to see you, for there are many
points that they desire to make clear.”
“That is just what I’m after,” replied Kenyon. And for an instant he
feared the result of his words; for he had allowed, unconsciously, a
great deal of significance to creep into them. But Forrester did not
catch this; apparently he was too much engaged with his own purposes.
“It’s no great distance from here,” he said, “and we might as well
walk.”
“That suits me,” returned Kenyon, promptly.
And so they struck eastward along Canal and turned down an ill-lit
street which was strange to the ex-lieutenant of Nunez. A maze of
alleys and narrow ways were traversed, Forrester leading the way. And
as they hurried on, Kenyon gradually became obsessed with the notion
that a dark figure was lurking in their track. Several times he was
upon the point of mentioning the matter to Forrester; but each time he
thought better of it.
“It might be a little private arrangement of his own,” reasoned Kenyon,
silently. “This would be a most excellent neighborhood for an artistic
piece of assassination, and I shouldn’t wonder if that was his friend
the Stalker back there. But,” and he gave a quick, puzzled look over
his shoulder, “somehow I can’t get quite rid of the impression that
it’s a woman.”
At any rate he quietly drew off his right-hand glove; and there was
much comfort in the feel of the long, heavy Colt buried so deeply in
his overcoat pocket.
IX
KENYON GOES BLINDLY ON
“Mott Street is as safe as Fifth Avenue--but you must keep your eyes
open.”
--_The Lieutenant in Chinatown._
THROUGH the dim, chasm-like streets Kenyon followed Forrester; and
always there clung to him the feeling that there was lurking along, in
the thicker shadows behind them, a soft-footed someone whose intentions
were as unknown as him- or her-self.
The section was strange to Kenyon. Overhead the mist seemed to cling
stickily to a wilderness of fire-escapes, and by degrees the air became
impregnated with a peculiar odor.
“It’s decidedly Asiatic,” commented Kenyon, as he sniffed this. “Unless
I am very much mistaken we are approaching New York’s Chinatown.”
“You are right,” answered Forrester. “We’ll be in the midst of it in a
moment.”
True to his word they suddenly turned a corner, and a little way ahead
saw the glare of incandescent lights, the strange, oriental-looking
shops and filthy doorways of the Yellow Quarter. The slant-eyed
Celestials thronged the streets, some lank and wolf-like, others fat
and placid, but all members of murderous Tongs, and for the most part
carrying deadly weapons concealed in their loose blouses. Here and
there was a blue-coated policeman; now and then a white woman with
painted cheeks and sunken eyes could be seen staring through the dirty
panes of an upper window. Suddenly a great, illuminated sign flared
into view which bore the name in letters formed of hideous green light:
THE FAR EAST
“This, I suppose, is the place you spoke of,” said Kenyon.
Forrester nodded.
“This way,” he directed. They did not enter by the wide, glaring door
of the place, in which stood some drunken marines, a Chinaman or two,
and a clump of women of the street. Instead they used a small, dark,
side door, and after descending a narrow passage found themselves
in a room in which a fat old Chinese woman sat crouched upon a mat
before what looked like an iron pot full of red coals. Immediately
upon their entrance she began a muttering in her own sing-song tongue,
but never once lifted her eyes. Before going to South America to
join Nunez in his expedition against Uruguay, Kenyon had served the
Chinese Government in the brief war with Japan. So he was more or less
familiar with the language.
“Curse-laden beast of a white devil!” crooned the hag. “And have you
come back, once more? May there be no dawn in your days, forever; and
may the gates of sorrow close you in!”
“A very gentle-dispositioned old lady,” was Kenyon’s amused thought.
“Apparently Forrester is not very popular with her.”
But Forrester did not understand the old woman’s words, nor did he pay
the slightest attention to her.
“I’ll have to ask you to remain here for a few moments,” said he to
Kenyon, in an apologetic tone. “You see, it’s necessary for me to
locate the people we want; and these places are regular rabbit warrens
when you get into them right.”
He left the room by another door. Kenyon sat upon the edge of a table
and listened to the mutterings of the hag, for she had continued in her
reviling, still keeping her eyes bent downward.
“Fatherless worm!” she proclaimed. “Your pale eyes are like the fish,
and your soul is as narrow as my thumb-nail.”
From somewhere in the distance came a fit of coughing, weak, ominous,
rattling.
“Yo has the mind of an infant to trust to the white devils. The more
he coughs the more he trusts.” She held her fat, lumpy hands over the
coals and spat contemptuously upon the floor. “He should keep his eyes
and his knife sharp. The ghosts of his holy ancestors watch from the
past and expect much.”
“One of the unassimilated,” thought Kenyon.
As the woman paid no heed to him he approached a curtained space from
beyond which came the sound of many voices. Drawing the curtain he
saw a huge, low-ceilinged room with walls painted with gaudy dragons,
scenes from the Chinese mythology, and glaring with electric lights.
It was crowded with people, gathered about small tables, drinking tea
from tiny cups, and eating of the many and curious Chinese dishes which
the place supplied. The hard-faced youth from the lower east side was
there, in plenty, with his “girl”; a slumming party of scared-looking
women and embarrassed young men occupied a far corner; meek,
hollow-chested celestials of the cooley class smoked cheap cigarettes
over their pots of tea, while those of the dominant type, attired in
loud American dress, discussed their many trades and filthy incomes in
the unknowable slang of their kind.
“The regular thing, as far as I can see,” thought Kenyon. “I suppose
Mr. Hong Yo is the head of the company and a thrifty man of business.
But I’ll do well not to be taken in by appearances, however. These
yellow fellows have the ingenuity of the devil for blinds of different
sorts. While the ‘Far East,’ as they call it, may be a very pretty
business proposition, still it may serve to cloak a less conventional
trade than restaurant keeping.”
He still stood with the curtain in his hand, peering through into the
main room of the place, when the door from the street swung open and
a man and woman entered the restaurant. At sight of the latter Kenyon
grew suddenly rigid and his breath hissed through his teeth. Not that
he could see her face, for a heavy veil concealed that, nor her form,
for she was wrapped in a long, loose cloak. But there was something
about her, in her way of holding herself, in her supple walk, in the
proud uplift of her head, that brought back to him the girl of the
hansom cab.
“It’s she,” he whispered. “It is she. But what under heaven is she
doing here, and in the company of a man like that?”
Her escort was indeed a most remarkable-looking person. He was a
well-built, determined-looking man; but his face was death-like in
its pallor and his head was swathed in bandages. As he walked toward
a corner table, he swayed weakly and the girl kept him upon his feet.
But the frequenters of the “Far East” were accustomed to strange night
sights and the newcomers got scarcely a glance save from the slumming
party.
They had barely got seated when Kenyon heard a step behind him, and,
turning, found Forrester just closing the door.
“Ah, you’ve been surveying the outer circle,” smiled the giant,
good-naturedly. “You have nothing quite like it in South America, I
think.”
“Not exactly. But there are strange sights there, also. The low coffee
houses at Rio are as picturesque; and even the Chinese have little the
advantage of the Latin when it comes to vice.”
“No doubt you are right. But Hong Yo and Farbush are awaiting you in
Hong’s place.” He looked inquiringly at Kenyon, and after a pause of
some length asked: “I say, what is your candid opinion of Farbush?”
Kenyon shrugged his shoulders.
“How can I form an opinion of a person of whom I know so very little,”
he replied, cautiously.
“Well, you have heard how he has conducted his share of the game.
Surely you must have arrived at some sort of a conclusion, from that.”
Kenyon shook his head slowly; his assumption of calm neutrality was
perfect.
“You will pardon me, I know,” he said, suavely. “But I’d rather not
express myself upon so, to me, vague a point.”
“I would like to know, and Hong would like to know, just how you stand,
right there.” There was a serious note in the young man’s voice that at
once caught Kenyon’s attention. “I don’t want to give you the notion,
though, that we have split into factions, or are even inclined to do
so,” he added, hastily.
“I should hope not,” added Kenyon, gravely.
“But we should like some sort of an expression from you, just the
same,” persisted Forrester.
“At a later time I shall be only too glad to express myself fully
and completely.” There was a finality in Kenyon’s tone that was
unmistakable. “Until that time comes, I prefer not to go upon record.”
“Very well, then,” replied Forrester, sulkily. “Of course it is no
great matter either way. But I, for one, prefer to have a good clear
light upon my path and not to leave anything to the future.” Then he
crossed to the old hag, and bending over her began whispering.
“Not leave anything to the future!” was Kenyon’s mental exclamation.
“Great Cæsar! What would he do in my shoes, I wonder? I am banking upon
the future, entirely, for my light; the present seems only to intensify
the darkness.”
Forrester continued his whispering to the woman; so Kenyon once more
drew aside the curtain and looked into the large room where sat the
people of the night. His first rapid glance was directed toward the
corner where he had last seen the girl and the man with the bandaged
head; but they were not there, and his keen eyes ran over the room
eagerly.
“They have gone!” he breathed. “And where?” But he had little time to
think about it, for Forrester spoke to him, and he had to give him his
attention.
“Faing Sen, here, will lead you to those whom you are to meet,” said
Forrester, indicating the hag. “Follow her, and don’t wonder at the
road or anything you might see. As I remarked before, this is a regular
rabbit warren.”
The fat old woman arose.
“May seven times seven hundred evils beset your path,” she wished, in
her confidence that she was not understood. “And may the gods look
darkly upon your children’s birth.”
That he understood what the old woman said Kenyon kept to himself. But
he remarked to Forrester, with a laugh, “Faing Sen does not seem to be
in a good temper to-night.”
“No. But then that is her normal condition. She hates the white devil,
I understand. I know nothing of her lingo, and she pretends to know
scarcely any English. But I succeed in getting along, somehow, when I’m
here.”
“Will the tall devil follow Faing Sen?” inquired the old woman,
beckoning Kenyon. She had lighted a candle and stood awaiting him
in the doorway which Forrester had used. “Has he no manners that he
should keep her waiting. Much fine-smelling wood shall she burn to the
four-handed joss to-morrow, that the white devil’s eyes turn to water
in his head.”
She passed through the doorway and Kenyon followed; as he turned, about
to close the door after him, he caught a glimpse of Forrester as he
stealthily drew aside the curtains and looked into the public room.
Then Kenyon saw the curtains fall back in place, and saw Forrester turn
with an anxious look; hurry through the other door, and disappear.
X
HONG YO STRIKES A BLOW
“Let the knife be sharp. Then strike swiftly, and linger not.”
--_The Creed of the Tongman._
KENYON, following Faing Sen, found himself in a long passage similar
to the one which led from the street, only more dim and evil-smelling.
At the end of this, with much groaning and panting and showering of
evil wishes upon the young man, the hag raised a trap-door and bid him
go down. But he shook his head and motioned for her to go first. Her
little eyes gleamed wickedly in the candle-light; but she went down
into the cellar obediently, Kenyon following close behind.
The place was damp and foul; the yellow flame flickered dimly upon the
slimy walls and threw grotesque dancing shadows before them.
“Beautiful!” muttered Kenyon, as he peered through the darkness. “A
perfectly lovely place to meet a man with a grudge against one.”
But Faing Sen waddled stumpily along, with never a look to the right
or the left. Once the light was extinguished suddenly, and the long
Colt came out like a flash, while Kenyon pressed with tight-shut lips
against the wall. But in a moment a match scratched crackingly, and he
saw Faing Sen calmly rekindling the wick.
Then they moved forward once more. Kenyon counted four times that they
passed through openings cut in the foundation walls; then they came to
a low, heavy door, upon which the hag knocked.
After some whispering, this was opened and they found themselves in a
small, square chamber with plastered walls, some mats upon a cemented
floor, and a large oil lamp which hung from the ceiling. It was a
shriveled old man who had admitted them. His face was small, bony, and
wrinkled like an ape’s; he wore a pair of huge, horn-rimmed Chinese
spectacles, and his toothless jaws were in constant motion. He and the
hag consulted.
“Who, O daughter of Faing Lo, is this whom you have brought to the
place of quietness?”
“A strange white devil whom Hong Yo much wants to see. And he is sharp
like the wolf and does not trust women.”
She cackled with laughter and stole a quick look at the young American.
The old man bared his purple gums in a horrid grin and nodded his
shaven head many times.
“Sometimes men are that way,” mumbled he. “It is wisdom to be so. When
a youth I had seven wives.”
They chuckled and grinned like a couple of gleeful ghouls; then the
old woman took up the candle and made her way back by the way she had
come. The old man turned to Kenyon and motioned for him to be seated
upon a mat under the lamp. He bowed and smiled in what was meant for an
affable manner, while he said in his native tongue:
“Dog of an unbeliever, thou who art too mean to excite the anger of
even the least of the gods, sit there.” Then in English he added:
“Velly nice ‘Melican’ young man! Hong Yo will come in glate hully up.
Me Sing Wang; velly old and velly nice.”
He tottered out of the room through a curtained doorway, leaving Kenyon
looking after him, a smile upon his face.
“You old rat,” muttered the American amusedly. “Yes, you are very nice,
indeed; I’ll venture to say that that shrunken arm of yours has in its
day driven many a knife home into some poor devil’s back.” He looked
curiously about, his keen eyes missing nothing. “Hong Yo takes many
precautions when he receives visitors. I wonder why?”
He waited for some time, but Sing Wang did not return. Then he became
aware of the murmur of voices engaged in altercation, some deep toned
and angry; others shrill and wickedly pitched. Then in the midst of
it came a woman’s scream. His heart, for a second or two, stopped
beating; he recalled the girl who had entered the “Far East,” and
the impressions that she had awakened came back to him like a flash.
Without an instant’s hesitation he tore aside the curtains and leaped
with long, soft-footed, pantherish bounds up a narrow stairway in the
direction of the sounds.
At the head of the stairs was a door which stood partly open; thrusting
this wide, Kenyon found himself in a sort of square hall from which
opened many other doors. They were all closed, but from over one a
bright light shone through an open transom. It was from behind this
door that the voices came; Kenyon softly grasped the knob and gave it
a turn; but the door was fastened. Pausing a moment, wondering what he
had better do, he heard a single high-pitched, but wavering, voice,
demanding.
“Forrester! I want Forrester! He is the man that brought me here first.
I don’t know the rest of you in this matter. He wrote to me at Butte to
come to New York; I had a good thing there, but he said that he had a
better one. And when he got me into that damned hole, Selden’s Square,
he done me up.”
“By heaven, it’s the man from Butte!” was Kenyon’s mental exclamation.
“If you want this person, Forrester, why do you come here?” came the
voice of Hong Yo. There was no mistaking the hollow tone, and the slow,
precise English. “We have told you that there is no such man here, and
that we know nothing of him.”
“Don’t take me for a fool,” spoke the voice of the man from the mines,
“I know what he wrote me. I know the game and the players. You say you
don’t know Forrester, eh? Well, let the girl speak; her eyes tell me
that she knows different.”
There was a broken-backed chair in the hall; Kenyon placed it at the
door; when he stood upon it his eyes were on a level with the transom.
In a large chair directly opposite sat Hong Yo. His emaciated figure
was almost lost in the folds of a flowing, flowered robe; his yellow
claws were clasped before him; more than ever his fleshless face and
shaven crown made him look like a death’s-head; his rat-like eyes still
shone from their narrowed, puckered slits. Near the Chinaman sat the
man whom Kenyon at once recognized as the one Webster had described
to him at the Waldorf. Before them, leaning weakly against the edge
of a table, stood the one whom the ex-lieutenant of Nunez had seen in
the public room of the Far East; despite his bandaged head and the
evident pain he was suffering, his front was a bold one. But what
riveted Kenyon’s attention was the girl who was being held in a chair
at one side. Sing Wang and two hard-faced coolies guarded her; and a
handkerchief was tied about her mouth.
And it was _the_ girl! The girl of the hansom cab! The young man’s
heart leaped. Then a fierce anger swept over him, and his hand went
swiftly to the long, smooth-barreled revolver.
“You don’t dare to let her speak,” proceeded the man from Butte,
defiantly. “Because you know you lie. You’ve double crossed me for some
reason, and I’m going to get square. I’ll fix you all; you, you dying
devil,” pointing to Hong Yo, “and you, my respectable Mr. Farbush; for
all your pull and high pretensions, I’m on to your game, and I’ll open
it wide for this whole town of New York to see.”
Kenyon saw Hong Yo rise. It cost him a great effort, but he
stood straight up. A fit of coughing racked him; then he drew a
handkerchief from his blouse and touched his lips, while he took
several steps toward the Westerner.
“You must not do this,” spoke he. He returned the handkerchief to the
bosom of his blouse; and the hand lingered there.
“Must not,” cried the other. “It’s easy to see that you don’t know me.
I’m going to get all your hides for this, and there is nothing that you
can say or do that will stop me.”
As the last words were spoken Kenyon saw the yellow, skeleton-like hand
flash out, and caught the light as it played for a second upon the side
of a knife-blade. Then he leaped down and threw himself like a catapult
against the door. As luck would have it, it opened inward, and his
weight and power told at the very first plunge. The door fell in with
a splintering crash, just as a wild scream broke from the lips of the
girl.
[Illustration: HE STOOD FOR A MOMENT IN THE DOORWAY]
At moments like these Steele Kenyon was like ice. Small things might
shake or annoy him, but sudden perils seemed to steady his nerves and
clarify his thoughts. With one hand plunged into his pocket grasping
the Colt, he stood for a moment in the doorway. Upon the floor before
him lay the man with the bandaged head; Hong Yo had fallen back into
his chair, his breath whistling in his throat, the knife, now dripping
with blood, still held in his hand. Farbush was upon his feet, while
the girl had broken away from those who held her and was gazing with
horror at the stricken man.
“Oh, you cowards,” she whispered, “you have murdered him. He was
helpless and in your power, and you have murdered him.”
Her eyes accusingly sought the face of Hong Yo, then that of Farbush
and lastly Kenyon’s. And the burning scorn that was in them was a thing
to see.
“I did not see you, at first, of course,” she said to Kenyon, and there
was a bitterness in her tone that made him wince. “But I might have
known that you would be present when such work was going forward.”
She gave way a step or two, her eyes filled with horror as he reached
out one hand impulsively toward her. He drew in a sharp breath, like
a man who is suddenly drenched with cold water; but it steadied him
and brought the fact suddenly before him that he was not there to set
himself right in her eyes, but to have an accounting with the others.
From the instant of his entrance the eyes of Hong Yo and Farbush had
never left his face; the three other Chinaman stood stolidly to one
side, apparently awaiting orders. Now Hong Yo spoke, breathlessly, but
his frail body seemed to sway with fury:
“You did not wait then, Mr. Kenyon?”