by Sax Rohmer
“There was no one there when the boy was brought in.”
“No, but there is now. Father!” He took a step forward. “I’m trapped. They sha’n’t take me. You won’t let them take me?”
Zani Chada stirred not a muscle, but:
“To-night,” he said, “your mad passion has brought ruin to both of us. For the sake of a golden doll who is not worth the price of the jewels she wears, you have placed yourself within reach of the hangman.”
“I was mad, I was mad,” groaned the other.
“But I, who was sane, am involved in the consequences,” retorted his father.
“He will be silent at the price of the boy’s life.”
“He may be,” returned Zani Chada. “I hate him, but he is a man. Had you escaped, he might have consented to be silent. Once you are arrested, nothing would silence him.”
“If the case is tried it will ruin Pat’s reputation.”
“What a pity!” said Zani Chada.
In some distant part of the house a gong was struck three times.
“Go,” commanded his father. “Remain at Kwee’s house until I send for you. Let Ah Fang go to the room above and see that the woman is silent. An outcry would ruin our last chance.”
Lou Chada raised his hands, brushing the hair back from his wet forehead, then, staring haggardly at his father, turned and ran from the room.
A minute later Kerry was ushered in by the Chinese servant. The savage face was set like a mask. Without removing his hat, he strode across to the table and bent down so that fierce, wide-open blue eyes stared closely into long, half-closed black ones.
“I’ve got one thing to say,” explained Kerry huskily. “Whatever the hangman may do to your slimy son, and whatever happens to the little blonde fool he kidnapped, if you’ve laid a hand on my kid I’ll kick you to death, if I follow you round the world to do it.”
Zani Chada made no reply, but his knuckles gleamed, so tightly did he clutch the knobs on the chair arms. Kerry’s savagery would have awed any man, even though he had supposed it to be the idle threat of a passionate man. But Zani Chada knew all men, and he knew this one. When Daniel Kerry declared that in given circumstances he would kick Zani Chada to death, he did not mean that he would shoot him, strangle him, or even beat him with his fists; he meant precisely what he said — that he would kick him to death — and Zani Chada knew it.
Thus there were some moments of tense silence during which the savage face of the Chief Inspector drew even closer to the gaunt, yellow face of the Eurasian. Finally:
“Listen only for one moment,” said Zani Chada. His voice had lost its guttural intonation. He spoke softly, sibilantly. “I, too, am a father —— —”
“Don’t mince words!” shouted Kerry. “You’ve kidnapped my boy. If I have to tear your house down brick by brick I’ll find him. And if you’ve hurt one hair of his head — you know what to expect!”
He quivered. The effort of suppression which he had imposed upon himself was frightful to witness. Zani Chada, student of men, knew that in despite of his own physical strength and of the hidden resources at his beck, he stood nearer to primitive retribution than he had ever done. Yet:
“I understand,” he continued. “But you do not understand. Your boy is not in this house. Oh! violence cannot avail! It can only make his loss irreparable.”
Kerry, nostrils distended, eyes glaring madly, bent over him.
“Your scallywag of a son,” he said hoarsely, “has gone one step too far. His adventures have twice before ended in murder — and you have covered him. This time you can’t do it. I’m not to be bought. We’ve stood for the Far East in London long enough. Your cub hangs this time. Get me? There’ll be no bargaining. The woman’s reputation won’t stop me. My kid’s danger won’t stop me. But if you try to use him as a lever I’ll boot you to your stinking yellow paradise and they’ll check you in as pulp.”
“You speak of three deaths,” murmured Zani Chada.
Kerry clenched his teeth so tightly that his maxillary muscles protruded to an abnormal degree. He thrust his clenched fists into his coat pockets.
“We all follow our vocations in life,” resumed the Eurasian, “to the best of our abilities. But is professional kudos not too dearly bought at the price of a loved one lost for ever? A far better bargain would be, shall we say, ten thousand pounds, as the price of a silk handkerchief —— —”
Kerry’s fierce blue eyes closed for a fraction of a second. Yet, in that fraction of a second, he had visualized some of the things which ten thousand pounds — a sum he could never hope to possess — would buy. He had seen his home, as he would have it — and he had seen Dan there, safe and happy at his mother’s side. Was he entitled to disregard the happiness of his wife, the life of his boy, the honourable name of Sir Noel Rourke, because an outcast like Peters had come to a fitting end — because a treacherous Malay and a renegade Chinaman had, earlier, gone the same way, sped, as he suspected, by the same hand?
“My resources are unusual,” added Chada, speaking almost in a whisper. “I have cash to this amount in my safe —— —”
So far he had proceeded when he was interrupted; and the cause of the interruption was this:
A few moments earlier another dramatic encounter had taken place in a distant part of the house. Kerry Junior, having scientifically tested all the possible modes of egress from the room in which Lady Pat was confined, had long ago desisted, and had exhausted his ingenuity in plans which discussion had proved to be useless. In spite of the novelty and the danger of his situation, nature was urging her laws. He was growing sleepy. The crowning tragedy had been the discovery that he could not regain the small, square window set high in the wall from which he had dropped into this luxurious prison. Now, as the two sat side by side upon a cushioned divan, the woman’s arm about the boy’s shoulders, they were startled to hear, in the depths of the house, three notes of a gong.
Young Kerry’s sleepiness departed. He leapt to his feet as though electrified.
“What was that?”
There was something horrifying in those gong notes in the stillness of the night. Lady Pat’s beautiful eyes grew glassy with fear.
“I don’t know,” replied Dan. “It seemed to come from below.”
He ran to the door, drew the curtain aside, and pressed his ear against one of the panels, listening intently. As he did so, his attitude grew tense, his expression changed, then:
“We’re saved!” he cried, turning a radiant face to the woman. “I heard my father’s voice!”
“Oh, are you sure, are you sure?”
“Absolutely sure!”
He bent to press his ear to the panel again, when a stifled cry from his companion brought him swiftly to his feet. The second door in the room had opened silently, and a small Chinaman, who carried himself with a stoop, had entered, and now, a menacing expression upon his face, was quickly approaching the boy.
What he had meant to do for ever remained in doubt, for young Kerry, knowing his father to be in the house and seeing an open door before him, took matters into his own hands. At the moment that the silent Chinaman was about to throw his arms about him, the pride of the junior school registered a most surprising left accurately on the point of Ah Fang’s jaw, following it up by a wilful transgression of Queensberry rules in the form of a stomach punch which temporarily decided the issue. Then:
“Quick! quick!” he cried breathlessly, grasping Lady Pat’s hand. “This is where we run!”
In such fashion was Zani Chada interrupted, the interruption taking the form of a sudden, shrill outcry:
“Dad! dad! Where are you, dad?”
Kerry spun about as a man galvanized. His face became transfigured.
“This way, Dan!” he cried. “This way, boy!”
Came a clatter of hurrying feet, and into the low, perfumed room burst Dan Kerry, junior, tightly clasping the hand of a pale-faced, dishevelled woman in evening dress. It was Lady Rourk
e; and although she seemed to be in a nearly fainting condition, Dan dragged her, half running, into the room.
Kerry gave one glance at the pair, then, instantly, he turned to face Zani Chada. The latter, like a man of stone, sat in his carved chair, eyes nearly closed. The Chief Inspector whipped out a whistle and raised it to his lips. He blew three blasts upon it.
From one — two — three — four points around the house the signal was answered.
Zani Chada fully opened his long, basilisk eyes.
“You win, Chief Inspector,” he said. “But much may be done by clever counsel. If all fails —— —”
“Well?” rapped Kerry fiercely, at the same time throwing his arm around the boy.
“I may continue to take an interest in your affairs.”
A tremendous uproar arose, within and without the house. The police were raiding the place. Lady Rourke sank down, slowly, almost at the Eurasian’s feet.
But Chief Inspector Kerry experienced an unfamiliar chill as his uncompromising stare met the cold hatred which blazed out of the black eyes, narrowed, now, and serpentine, of Zani Chada.
THE PIGTAIL OF HI WING HO
I
HOW I OBTAINED IT
Leaving the dock gates behind me I tramped through the steady drizzle, going parallel with the river and making for the Chinese quarter. The hour was about half-past eleven on one of those September nights when, in such a locality as this, a stifling quality seems to enter the atmosphere, rendering it all but unbreathable. A mist floated over the river, and it was difficult to say if the rain was still falling, indeed, or if the ample moisture upon my garments was traceable only to the fog. Sounds were muffled, lights dimmed, and the frequent hooting of sirens from the river added another touch of weirdness to the scene.
Even when the peculiar duties of my friend, Paul Harley, called him away from England, the lure of this miniature Orient which I had first explored under his guidance, often called me from my chambers. In the house with the two doors in Wade Street, Limehouse, I would discard the armour of respectability, and, dressed in a manner unlikely to provoke comment in dockland, would haunt those dreary ways sometimes from midnight until close upon dawn. Yet, well as I knew the district and the strange and often dangerous creatures lurking in its many burrows, I experienced a chill partly physical and partly of apprehension to-night; indeed, strange though it may sound, I hastened my footsteps in order the sooner to reach the low den for which I was bound — Malay Jack’s — a spot marked plainly on the crimes-map and which few respectable travellers would have regarded as a haven of refuge.
But the chill of the adjacent river, and some quality of utter desolation which seemed to emanate from the deserted wharves and ramshackle buildings about me, were driving me thither now; for I knew that human companionship, of a sort, and a glass of good liquor — from a store which the Customs would have been happy to locate — awaited me there. I might chance, too, upon Durham or Wessex, of New Scotland Yard, both good friends of mine, or even upon the Terror of Chinatown, Chief Inspector Kerry, a man for whom I had an esteem which none of his ungracious manners could diminish.
I was just about to turn to the right into a narrow and nameless alley, lying at right angles to the Thames, when I pulled up sharply, clenching my fists and listening.
A confused and continuous sound, not unlike that which might be occasioned by several large and savage hounds at close grips, was proceeding out of the darkness ahead of me; a worrying, growling, and scuffling which presently I identified as human, although in fact it was animal enough. A moment I hesitated, then, distinguishing among the sounds of conflict an unmistakable, though subdued, cry for help, I leaped forward and found myself in the midst of the melee. This was taking place in the lee of a high, dilapidated brick wall. A lamp in a sort of iron bracket spluttered dimly above on the right, but the scene of the conflict lay in densest shadow, so that the figures were indistinguishable.
“Help! By Gawd! they’re strangling me —— —”
From almost at my feet the cry arose and was drowned in Chinese chattering. But guided by it I now managed to make out that the struggle in progress waged between a burly English sailorman and two lithe Chinese. The yellow men seemed to have gained the advantage and my course was clear.
A straight right on the jaw of the Chinaman who was engaged in endeavouring to throttle the victim laid him prone in the dirty roadway. His companion, who was holding the wrist of the recumbent man, sprang upright as though propelled by a spring. I struck out at him savagely. He uttered a shrill scream not unlike that of a stricken hare, and fled so rapidly that he seemed to melt in the mist.
“Gawd bless you, mate!” came chokingly from the ground — and the rescued man, extricating himself from beneath the body of his stunned assailant, rose unsteadily to his feet and lurched toward me.
As I had surmised, he was a sailor, wearing a rough, blue-serge jacket and having his greasy trousers thrust into heavy seaboots — by which I judged that he was but newly come ashore. He stooped and picked up his cap. It was covered in mud, as were the rest of his garments, but he brushed it with his sleeve as though it had been but slightly soiled and clapped it on his head.
He grasped my hand in a grip of iron, peering into my face, and his breath was eloquent.
“I’d had one or two, mate,” he confided huskily (the confession was unnecessary). “It was them two in the Blue Anchor as did it; if I ‘adn’t ‘ad them last two, I could ‘ave broke up them Chinks with one ‘and tied behind me.”
“That’s all right,” I said hastily, “but what are we going to do about this Chink here?” I added, endeavouring at the same time to extricate my hand from the vise-like grip in which he persistently held it. “He hit the tiles pretty heavy when he went down.”
As if to settle my doubts, the recumbent figure suddenly arose and without a word fled into the darkness and was gone like a phantom. My new friend made no attempt to follow, but:
“You can’t kill a bloody Chink,” he confided, still clutching my hand; “it ain’t ‘umanly possible. It’s easier to kill a cat. Come along o’ me and ‘ave one; then I’ll tell you somethink. I’ll put you on somethink, I will.”
With surprising steadiness of gait, considering the liquid cargo he had aboard, the man, releasing my hand and now seizing me firmly by the arm, confidently led me by divers narrow ways, which I knew, to a little beerhouse frequented by persons of his class.
My own attire was such as to excite no suspicion in these surroundings, and although I considered that my acquaintance had imbibed more than enough for one night, I let him have his own way in order that I might learn the story which he seemed disposed to confide in me. Settled in the corner of the beerhouse — which chanced to be nearly empty — with portentous pewters before us, the conversation was opened by my new friend:
“I’ve been paid off from the Jupiter — Samuelson’s Planet Line,” he explained. “What I am is a fireman.”
“She was from Singapore to London?” I asked.
“She was,” he replied, “and it was at Suez it ‘appened — at Suez.”
I did not interrupt him.
“I was ashore at Suez — we all was, owin’ to a ‘itch with the canal company — a matter of money, I may say. They make yer pay before they’ll take yer through. Do you know that?”
I nodded.
“Suez is a place,” he continued, “where they don’t sell whisky, only poison. Was you ever at Suez?”
Again I nodded, being most anxious to avoid diverting the current of my friend’s thoughts.
“Well, then,” he continued, “you know Greek Jimmy’s — and that’s where I’d been.”
I did not know Greek Jimmy’s, but I thought it unnecessary to mention the fact.
“It was just about this time on a steamin’ ‘ot night as I come out of Jimmy’s and started for the ship. I was walkin’ along the Waghorn Quay, same as I might be walkin’ along to-night, all by myself — b
it of a list to port but nothing much — full o’ joy an’ happiness, ‘appy an’ free— ‘appy an’ free. Just like you might have noticed to-night, I noticed a knot of Chinks scrappin’ on the ground all amongst the dust right in front of me. I rammed in, windmillin’ all round and knocking ’em down like skittles. Seemed to me there was about ten of ’em, but allowin’ for Jimmy’s whisky, maybe there wasn’t more than three. Anyway, they all shifted and left me standin’ there in the empty street with this ‘ere in my ‘and.”
At that, without more ado, he thrust his hand deep into some concealed pocket and jerked out a Chinese pigtail, which had been severed, apparently some three inches from the scalp, by a clean cut. My acquaintance, with somewhat bleared eyes glistening in appreciation of his own dramatic skill — for I could not conceal my surprise — dangled it before me triumphantly.
“Which of ’em it belong to,” he continued, thrusting it into another pocket and drumming loudly on the counter for more beer, “I can’t say, ‘cos I don’t know. But that ain’t all.”
The tankards being refilled and my friend having sampled the contents of his own:
“That ain’t all,” he continued. “I thought I’d keep it as a sort of relic, like. What ‘appened? I’ll tell you. Amongst the crew there’s three Chinks — see? We ain’t through the canal before one of ’em, a new one to me — Li Ping is his name — offers me five bob for the pigtail, which he sees me looking at one mornin’. I give him a punch on the nose an’ ‘e don’t renew the offer: but that night (we’re layin’ at Port Said) ‘e tries to pinch it! I dam’ near broke his neck, and ‘e don’t try any more. To-night” — he extended his right arm forensically— “a deppitation of Chinks waits on me at the dock gates; they explains as from a patriotic point of view they feels it to be their dooty to buy that pigtail off of me, and they bids a quid, a bar of gold — a Jimmy o’ Goblin!”
He snapped his fingers contemptuously and emptied his pewter. A sense of what was coming began to dawn on me. That the “hold-up” near the riverside formed part of the scheme was possible, and, reflecting on my rough treatment of the two Chinamen, I chuckled inwardly. Possibly, however, the scheme had germinated in my acquaintance’s mind merely as a result of an otherwise common assault, of a kind not unusual in these parts, but, whether elaborate or comparatively simple, that the story of the pigtail was a “plant” designed to reach my pocket, seemed a reasonable hypothesis.
