by Sax Rohmer
“Yes, right away.”
Mrs. Kerry was sewing by the fire in the dining room when her son came in with the news, his blue eyes sparkling excitedly. She nodded her head slowly.
“Ye’ll want ye’r Burberry and ye’r thick boots,” she declared, “a muffler, too, and ye’r oldest cap. I think it’s madness for ye to go out on such a night, but — —”
“Father said I could,” protested the boy.
“He says so, and ye shall go, but I think it madness a’ the same.”
However, some ten minutes later young Kerry set out, keenly resenting the woollen muffler which he had been compelled to wear, and secretly determined to remove it before mounting the tram. Across one arm he carried the glistening overall which was the Chief Inspector’s constant companion on wet nights abroad. The fog had turned denser, and ten paces from the door of the house took him out of sight of the light streaming from the hallway.
Mary Kerry well knew her husband’s theories about coddling boys, but even so could not entirely reconcile herself to the present expedition. However, closing the door, she returned philosophically to her sewing, reflecting that little harm could come to Dan after all, for he was strong, healthy, and intelligent.
On went the boy through the mist, whistling merrily. Not twenty yards from the house a coupe was drawn up, and by the light of one of its lamps a man was consulting a piece of paper on which, presumably, an address was written; for, as the boy approached, the man turned, his collar pulled up about his face, his hat pulled down.
“Hallo!” he called. “Can you please tell me something?”
He spoke with a curious accent, unfamiliar to the boy. “A foreigner of some kind,” young Kerry determined.
“What is it?” he asked, pausing.
“Will you please read and tell me if I am near this place?” the man continued, holding up the paper which he had been scrutinizing.
Dan stepped forward and bent over it. He could not make out the writing, and bent yet more, holding it nearer to the lamp. At which moment some second person neatly pinioned him from behind, a scarf was whipped about his head, and, kicking furiously but otherwise helpless, he felt himself lifted and placed inside the car.
The muffler had been thrown in such fashion about his face as to leave one eye partly free, and as he was lifted he had a momentary glimpse of his captors. With a thrill of real, sickly terror he realized that he was in the hands of Chinamen!
Perhaps telepathically this spasm of fear was conveyed to his father, for it was at about this time that the latter was interviewing Zani Chada, and at about this time that Kerry recognized, underlying the other’s words, at once an ill-concealed suspense and a threat. Then, a few minutes later, had come the three strokes of the gong; and again that unreasonable dread had assailed him, perhaps because it signalized the capture of his son, news of which had been immediately telephoned to Limehouse by Zani Chada’s orders.
Certain it is that Kerry left the Eurasian’s house in a frame of mind which was not familiar to him. He was undecided respecting his next move. A deadly menace underlay Chada’s words.
“Consult your wife,” he kept muttering to himself. When the door was opened for him by the Chinese servant, he paused a moment before going out into the fog. There were men on duty at the back and at the front of the house. Should he risk all and raid the place? That Lady Rourke was captive here he no longer doubted. But it was equally certain that no further harm would come to her at the hands of her captors, since she had been traced there and since Zani Chada was well aware of the fact. Of the whereabouts of Lou Chada he could not be certain. If he was in the house, they had him.
The door was closed by the Chinaman, and Kerry stood out in the darkness of the dismal, brick-walled street, feeling something as nearly akin to dejection as was possible in one of his mercurial spirit. Something trickled upon the brim of his hat, and, raising his head, Kerry detected rain upon his upturned face. He breathed a prayer of thankfulness. This would put an end to the fog.
He began to walk along by the high brick wall, but had not proceeded far before a muffled figure arose before him and the light of an electric torch was shone into his face.
“Oh, it’s you, Chief Inspector!” came the voice of the watcher.
“It is,” rapped Kerry. “Unless there are tunnels under this old rat-hole, I take it the men on duty can cover all the exits?”
“All the main exits,” was the reply. “But, as you say, it’s a strange house, and Zani Chada has a stranger reputation.”
“Do nothing until you hear from me.”
“Very good, Chief Inspector.”
The rain now was definitely conquering the fog, and in half the time which had been occupied by the outward journey Kerry was back again in Limehouse police station. Unconsciously he had been hastening his pace with every stride, urged onward by an unaccountable anxiety, so that finally he almost ran into the office and up to the desk where the telephone stood.
Lifting it, he called his own number and stood tapping his foot, impatiently awaiting the reply. Presently came the voice of the operator: “Have they answered yet?”
“No.”
“I will ring them again.”
Kerry’s anxiety became acute, almost unendurable; and when at last, after repeated attempts, no reply could be obtained from his home, he replaced the receiver and leaned for a moment on the desk, shaken with such a storm of apprehension as he had rarely known. He turned to the inspector in charge, and:
“Let me have that envelope I left with you,” he directed. “And have someone ‘phone for a taxi; they are to keep on till they get one. Where is Sergeant Durham?”
“At the mortuary.”
“Ah!”
“Any developments, Chief Inspector?”
“Yes. But apart from keeping a close watch upon the house of Zani Chada you are to do nothing until you hear from me again.”
“Very good,” said the inspector. “Are you going to wait for Durham’s report?”
“No. Directly the cab arrives I am going to wait for nothing.”
Indeed, he paced up and down the room like a wild beast caged, while call after call was sent to neighbouring cab ranks, for a long time without result. What did it mean, his wife’s failure to answer the telephone? It might mean that neither she nor their one servant nor Dan was in the house. And if they were not in the house at this hour of the night, where could they possibly be? This it might mean, or — something worse.
A thousand and one possibilities, hideous, fantastic, appalling, flashed through his mind. He was beginning to learn what Zani Chada had meant when he had said: “I have followed your career with interest.”
At last a taxi was found, and the man instructed over the ‘phone to proceed immediately to Limehouse station. He seemed so long in coming that when at last the cab was heard to pause outside, Kerry could not trust himself to speak to the driver, but directed a sergeant to give him the address. He entered silently and closed the door.
A steady drizzle of rain was falling. It had already dispersed the fog, so that he might hope with luck to be home within the hour. As a matter of fact, the man performed the journey in excellent time, but it seemed to his passenger that he could have walked quicker, such was the gnawing anxiety within him and the fear which prompted him to long for wings.
Instructing the cabman to wait, Kerry unlocked the front door and entered. He had noted a light in the dining room window, and entering, he found his wife awaiting him there. She rose as he entered, with horror in her comely face.
“Dan!” she whispered. “Dan! where is ye’r mackintosh?”
“I didn’t take it,” he replied, endeavouring to tell himself that his apprehensions had been groundless. “But how was it that you did not answer the telephone?”
“What do ye mean, Dan?” Mary Kerry stared, her eyes growing wider and wider. “The boy answered, Dan. He set out wi’ ye’r mackintosh full an hour and a half since.”
“What!”
The truth leaped out at Kerry like an enemy out of ambush.
“Who sent that message?”
“Someone frae the Yard, to tell the boy to bring ye’r mackintosh alone at once. Dan! Dan —— —”
She advanced, hands outstretched, quivering, but Kerry had leaped out into the narrow hallway. He raised the telephone receiver, listened for a moment, and then jerked it back upon the hook.
“Dead line!” he muttered. “Someone has been at work with a wire-cutter outside the house!”
His wife came out to where he stood, and, clenching his teeth very grimly, he took her in his arms. She was shaking as if palsied.
“Mary dear,” he said, “pray with all your might that I am given strength to do my duty.”
She looked at him with haggard, tearless eyes.
“Tell me the truth: ha’ they got my boy?”
His fingers tightened on her shoulders.
“Don’t worry,” he said, “and don’t ask me to stay to explain. When I come back I’ll have Dan with me!”
He trusted himself no further, but, clapping his hat on his head, walked out to the waiting cab.
“Back to Limehouse police station,” he directed rapidly.
“Lor lumme!” muttered the taximan. “Where are you goin’ to after that, guv’nor? It’s a bit off the map.”
“I’m going to hell!” rapped Kerry, suddenly thrusting his red face very near to that of the speaker. “And you’re going to drive me!”
VI
THE KNIGHT ERRANT
Recognizing the superior strength of his captors, young Kerry soon gave up struggling. The thrill of his first real adventure entered into his blood. He remembered that he was the son of his father, and he realized, being a quick-witted lad, that he was in the grip of enemies of his father. The panic which had threatened him when first he had recognized that he was in the hands of Chinese, gave place to a cold rage — a heritage which in later years was to make him a dangerous man.
He lay quite passively in the grasp of someone who held him fast, and learned, by breathing quietly, that the presence of the muffler about his nose and mouth did not greatly inconvenience him. There was some desultory conversation between the two men in the car, but it was carried on in an odd, sibilant language which the boy did not understand, but which he divined to be Chinese. He thought how every other boy in the school would envy him, and the thought was stimulating, nerving. On the very first day of his holidays he was become the central figure of a Chinatown drama.
The last traces of fear fled. His position was uncomfortable and his limbs were cramped, but he resigned himself, with something almost like gladness, and began to look forward to that which lay ahead with a zest and a will to be no passive instrument which might have surprised his captors could they have read the mind of their captive.
The journey seemed almost interminable, but young Kerry suffered it in stoical silence until the car stopped and he was lifted and carried down stone steps into some damp, earthy-smelling place. Some distance was traversed, and then many flights of stairs were mounted, some bare but others carpeted.
Finally he was deposited in a chair, and as he raised his hand to the scarf, which toward the end of the journey had been bound more tightly about his head so as to prevent him from seeing at all, he heard a door closed and locked.
The scarf was quickly removed. And Dan found himself in a low-ceilinged attic having a sloping roof and one shuttered window. A shadeless electric lamp hung from the ceiling. Excepting the cane-seated chair in which he had been deposited and a certain amount of nondescript lumber, the attic was unfurnished. Dan rapidly considered what his father would have done in the circumstances.
“Make sure that the door is locked,” he muttered.
He tried it, and it was locked beyond any shadow of doubt.
“The window.”
Shutters covered it, and these were fastened with a padlock.
He considered this padlock attentively; then, drawing from his pocket one of those wonderful knives which are really miniature tool-chests, he raised from a grove the screw-driver which formed part of its equipment, and with neatness and dispatch unscrewed the staple to which the padlock was attached!
A moment later he had opened the shutters and was looking out into the drizzle of the night.
The room in which he was confined was on the third floor of a dingy, brick-built house; a portion of some other building faced him; down below was a stone-paved courtyard. To the left stood a high wall, and beyond it he obtained a glimpse of other dingy buildings. One lighted window was visible — a square window in the opposite building, from which amber light shone out.
Somewhere in the street beyond was a standard lamp. He could detect the halo which it cast into the misty rain. The glass was very dirty, and young Kerry raised the sash, admitting a draught of damp, cold air into the room. He craned out, looking about him eagerly.
A rainwater-pipe was within reach of his hand on the right of the window and, leaning out still farther, young Kerry saw that it passed beside two other, larger, windows on the floor beneath him. Neither of these showed any light.
Dizzy heights have no terror for healthy youth. The brackets supporting the rain-pipe were a sufficient staircase for the agile Dan, a more slippery prisoner than the famous Baron Trenck; and, discarding his muffler and his Burberry, he climbed out upon the sill and felt with his thick-soled boots for the first of these footholds. Clutching the ledge, he lowered himself and felt for the next.
Then came the moment when he must trust all his weight to the pipe. Clenching his teeth, he risked it, felt for and found the third angle, and then, still clutching the pipe, stood for a moment upon the ledge of the window immediately beneath him. He was curious respecting the lighted window of the neighbouring house; and, twisting about, he bent, peering across — and saw a sight which arrested his progress.
The room within was furnished in a way which made him gasp with astonishment. It was like an Eastern picture, he thought. Her golden hair dishevelled and her hands alternately clenching and unclenching, a woman whom he considered to be most wonderfully dressed was pacing wildly up and down, a look of such horror upon her pale face that Dan’s heart seemed to stop beating for a moment!
Here was real trouble of a sort which appealed to all the chivalry in the boy’s nature. He considered the window, which was glazed with amber-coloured glass, observed that it was sufficiently open to enable him to slip the fastening and open it entirely could he but reach it. And — yes! — there was a rain-pipe!
Climbing down to the yard, he looked quickly about him, ran across, and climbed up to the lighted window. A moment later he had pushed it widely open.
He was greeted by a stifled cry, but, cautiously transferring his weight from the friendly pipe to the ledge, he got astride of it, one foot in the room. Then, by exercise of a monkey-like agility, he wriggled his head and shoulders within.
“It’s all right,” he said softly and reassuringly; “I’m Dan Kerry, son of Chief Inspector Kerry. Can I be of any assistance?”
Her hands clasped convulsively together, the woman stood looking up at him.
“Oh, thank God!” said the captive. “But what are you going to do? Can you get me out?”
“Don’t worry,” replied Dan confidently. “Father and I can manage it all right!”
He performed a singular contortion, as a result of which his other leg and foot appeared inside the window. Then, twisting around, he lowered himself and dropped triumphantly upon a cushioned divan. At that moment he would have faced a cage full of man-eating tigers. The spirit of adventure had him in its grip. He stood up, breathing rapidly, his crop of red hair more dishevelled than usual.
Then, before he could stir or utter any protest, the golden-haired princess whom he had come to rescue stooped, threw her arms around his neck, and kissed him.
“You darling, brave boy!” she said. “I think you have
saved me from madness.”
Young Kerry, more flushed than ever, extricated himself, and:
“You’re not out of the mess yet,” he protested. “The only difference is that I’m in it with you!”
“But where is your father?”
“I’m looking for him.”
“What!”
“Oh! he’s about somewhere,” Dan assured her confidently.
“But, but — —” She was gazing at him wide-eyed, “Didn’t he send you here?”
“You bet he didn’t,” returned young Kerry. “I came here on my own accord, and when I go you’re coming with me. I can’t make out how you got here, anyway. Do you know whose house this is?”
“Oh, I do, I do!”
“Whose?”
“It belongs to a man called Chada.”
“Chada? Never heard of him. But I mean, what part of London is it in?”
“Whatever do you mean? It is in Limehouse, I believe. I don’t understand. You came here.”
“I didn’t,” said young Kerry cheerfully; “I was fetched!”
“By your father?”
“Not on your life. By a couple of Chinks! I’ll tell you something.” He raised his twinkling blue eyes. “We are properly up against it. I suppose you couldn’t climb down a rain-pipe?”
VII
RETRIBUTION
It was that dark, still, depressing hour of the night, when all life is at its lowest ebb. In the low, strangely perfumed room of books Zani Chada sat before his table, his yellow hands clutching the knobs on his chair arms, his long, inscrutable eyes staring unseeingly before him.
Came a disturbance and the sound of voices, and Lou Chada, his son, stood at the doorway. He still wore his evening clothes, but he no longer looked smart. His glossy black hair was dishevelled, and his handsome, olive face bore a hunted look. Panic was betoken by twitching mouth and fear-bright eyes. He stopped, glaring at his father, and:
“Why are you not gone?” asked the latter sternly. “Do you wish to wreck me as well as yourself?”
“The police have posted a man opposite Kwee’s house. I cannot get out that way.”
