They carried him to the end of the cul-de-sac opposite the boarded end of the alley where the street was. A panel opened. Two shadows, carrying between them a figure which sat on air, as though it were Buddha, passed into utter darkness…moving down a flight of steps.
On a roof two houses removed from Noel’s, a crouching third shadow chuckled. A yellow hand tucked a flute into a long sleeve. The shadow darted across the housetop, dropped over the edge…and darkness swallowed it. A pale yellow face was touched for an instant by a ray of vagrant light, before it vanished.
But Dorus Noel, who sat in midair in a Buddha-like posture, was not unconscious, not under the spell of any hypnosis. He had fought back from it at the last moment. Perhaps he could fool Chu Chul into believing him a victim of hypnosis—“power-over-you”—and then he could remember every twist and turn of any labyrinth through which he might be taken.
The two who carried him stopped in the darkness, in the midst of a dank smell—and rapped lightly on the panels of a door. The door was swung open, and over Noel’s ears, all about him, poured the chattering laughter of Chu Chul. There was no mistake then, and Chu Chul was in New York, gathering strings of terror into his hands.
“Take him to the brazier,” said Chu Chul in English. Since Chu Chul did not speak Cantonese he had to use English, for the Cantonese of Chinatown spoke but the two, English and Cantonese. It was odd that Chinese must address Chinese in English.
Then Noel knew that he hadn’t fooled Chu Chul with his fake hypnosis. However, perhaps the man just would not chance it. Noel decided to continue the trick, even when, sitting on the floor in the position he had assumed and had never changed, his head was thrust into the yellow smoke which he could see through his widely staring eyes. It was almost impossible not to blink, but he managed even that.
And Chu Chul laughed.
“Fool!” he said. “Do you think to trick Chu Chul so easily? This time I shall give you something to remember!”
To get it over with quickly, Noel inhaled the Sheng Huang…and darkness filled with bobbing lights flowed over him. He did not even know it when he was lifted again and borne away.
He came to himself with his head throbbing. In his nightmare, preceding his awakening, he had heard the golden ball on one of his clocks roll, down four steps…three o’clock in the morning. Now his wrist-watch, on the hand directly before his eyes when he began to come awake, assured him that it was three in the morning. He did not even puzzle over the seeming coincidence. To one who knew the mysteries of China, that his dream coincided with the fact was trivial, of no consequence.
Chattering laughter. He turned his head dully.
Sitting at one end of a long room, on a dais, dressed in the royal robes of China—a travesty of empire—was Chu Chul, The Cricket! He was small enough to be a Cantonese. His skin was yellow, pitted with smallpox scars. His black eyes seemed to have no pupils. His hands were like claws. He was beardless. He sat leaning forward, stoopingly. It was thus he walked, too…a twisted caricature of a man.
“So, we meet again, Dorus Noel,” he said. “Did you think I would be so foolish as to think I could gain power over you across the housetops as I could Liu Wong? You were smart, as usual, but not smart enough—also as usual. I thought it better to put you out entirely, in order that you might not, if I allow you to escape, remember the way back here with the stupid police who, stupid though they are, are still too strong for Chu Chul—at least yet! When will you learn that you are a baby in the hands of Chu Chul?”
Noel said nothing. Let Chu Chul enjoy his gloating, while Noel recovered his wits entirely, after his dose of the Sheng Huang. Noel was husbanding his strength. His side hurt where he had been kicked. His dull eyes studied Chu Chul’s retainers, all Cantonese but one! There were a dozen of them. Yes, Chu Chul had started an organization. It would specialize, if Chu Chul remained Chu Chul, in murder, robbery, kidnaping—everything that would bring terror to men and wealth to the coffers of The Cricket.
“I thought you were dead,” said Noel.
“No Dorus Noel will ever slay Chu Chul,” replied The Cricket. “I decided to change for a while. I came here. Strange that you should follow. I like it here. There are greater opportunities.”
“Who killed Liu Wong? Oh, I know that you ordered it. Who did it?”
Chu Chul smiled. His eyes played over the faces of his minions. They shifted uneasily. Noel watched the traveling eyes of Chu Chul, which rested for a fleeting moment on the face of one man. Noel spoke quickly in Tientsinese.
“He’s the only North Chinese with you,” he said…and saw by the larger man’s face that he had understood. “In the United States, when a man slays another human being, he dies. What is his name?”
He saw sweat break out on the fellow’s face.
Chu Chul, enjoying the by-play, answered.
“Sung Liao!”
The body of the North Chinese jerked at mention of his name as though he had been pricked with a needle. He was larger and darker than his Cantonese brethren. Noel rose to his feet.
“Well,” he said, “what are you going to do with me?”
“I’m not going to kill you,” replied Chu Chul. “Not when I know that within twenty-four hours of your death the police will turn Chinatown upside down to find you! Let’s see, these were the words you said over the telephone to your plainclothes superior who lives on Park Avenue…”
And Chu Chul gave the telephone number and the exact words that had passed between Noel and his employer. Noel’s heart sank.
“You’ve already got to the police with your bribes,” he said bitterly. “So they’ve tapped Mr. Blank’s telephone wires? Well, what are you going to do, then?”
Chu Chul laughed, the laughter breaking off into a chuckle.
“One can be electrocuted for a slaying,” he said, “but when one puts out the eyes of an enemy one cannot be so severely punished…and one is then forever free of the danger of being spied upon by a man, little and insignificant though he is, Noel, who can be so irritating. So, I shall put out your eyes…and let you find your way out of here and out of Chinatown!”
Noel’s face did not change expression at all. For he still had an ace in the hole. There was one thing about him Chu Chul did not knower…that he was the master of the art of ta chuen, Chinese equivalent of jiu-jitsu.
“Bind him and bring him to me!” snapped Chu Chul.
* * * *
The Cricket leaned forward over a burning charcoal brazier at his feet. It was the one un-Chinese thing in a room decked out with true oriental splendor—for the charcoal burner was a Japanese hibachi. Chu Chul lifted from the coals a pronged piece of steel. The tips of it were white-hot. They would pass easily astride his nose. The tips of white-hot steel would put out the world’s light for him forever, in the batting of an eye.
“Jump quickly, the man is tricky!” snapped Chu Chul.
The Cantonese, while Sung Liao held back fearfully—wondering what manner of white man this was who spoke the Tientsin dialect—jumped in at Dorus Noel, who waited until the last moment, and went into amazing action. He was still loggy from the Sheng Huang, but his strength, coupled with his knowledge of ta chuen, placed on his side the element of surprise. A hand reached for him. He grabbed the wrist with his left hand, thrust his right under the elbow, reached up over it, caught the wrist he held—and bore down swiftly with all his strength.
The Cantonese squealed in agony as his right arm snapped. He fell back, screaming…and from the hand of Chu Chul darted a black, gleaming thing. It struck the Cantonese of the broken arm in the side…and in a trice he was down, writhing as Liu Wong had writhed—while the black streak which had struck him returned to the hand of Chu Chul.
Chu Chul laughed.
“I do not like failures in my organization, new as it is.” he said.
To Noel, fighting now against the remainder of the Cantonese, that black streak meant much. It was a knife, fastened to a rubber about the wri
st of Cbu Chul. The knife had been suspended above a brazier in which Pi Hsuang—a poison resembling spun candy or glass—had been burning, mixed with any sort of fat which would congeal into a coating of grease, on anything touched by the poisoned smoke.
After such treatment the knife—the nang tze which had tortured and slain Liu Wong—would be black with the grease, and the grease filled with Pi Hsuang.
* * * *
Sight of what had happened to their fellow spurred the Cantonese to greater effort. They attacked Noel with the desperate fury of wild beasts. Noel broke another arm, and the man came in still fighting, with the arm dangling grotesquely, and his face ravaged with agony. But even as the wounded man fought, he glanced ever and anon at the grinning, evil face of Chu Chul. Chu Chul, by his barbarous cruelty, by his slaying of the one, and Liu Wong, was proving his strength to the Cantonese. Give him six months and he would be able to laugh at the police of New York City.
“He must not! He must not!” down in Noel’s heart the three words kept repeating themselves. Chu Chul must be beaten, forever. If only there were some way…
Two men were down, both unconscious…one with his head twisted under him at an odd angle. Noel didn’t mind killing…for this organization, when it was strong, would specialize in murder. Now Chu Chul ordered Sung Liao into the fray. Chu Chul was enjoying himself. Noel knew that he was beaten when Sung Liao took a hand. The chances were all in favor of Sung Liao’s knowing ta cheun—else Chu Chul would not have brought him from China as bodyguard.
In desperation Noel decided upon a different sort of move. There was no advantage in beating these Cantonese, even if he were able to do it—for Chu Chul probably had a score of others behind half a dozen panels, awaiting his signal to enter. Noel suddenly broke from the fight, hurled himself at Chu Chul. Chu Chul laughed as Noel darted in—laughed and jumped back. But he held the hot tongs in his hand, menacing the face of Noel. Behind the Cantonese were charging. Sung Liao was now leading them. Noel hesitated. Then he stooped, caught up the hibachi of live coals…and though the hibachi burned his hands to a crisp, he hurled the coals full upon the person of Chu Chul.
Chu Chul’s yellow hand released the pronged length of white-hot steel. It fell to the steps of the dais…and smoke rose from the rich carpet which covered the steps. Chu Chul screamed and tore at his clothing. Noel grabbed for him, but in the instant his hands would have touched his enemy…
Chu Chul laughed through the pain he must have been suffering—a laugh filled with menace…and promise of revenge—and dropped into his dais, pressed something on an arm of it. Instantly the dais whirled so that Chu Coul’s back was to Noel, and shot toward the wall. The wall opened. The “throne” of Chu Chul went through the panel. The panel closed.
Noel whirled back as the Cantonese jumped him, knowing that even though he hadn’t captured Chu Chul, he had almost saved himself—for Chu Chul never would have left the scene of a fight so delightful to a man who liked the sort of jests that Chu Chul liked, had it not been that the coals from the hibachi had set his clothing afire. His own safety came first, vengeance afterward. What if Noel escape? Chu Chul could always get him back…his own life might not be restored to him if he lost it.
So Chu Chul had simply vanished. It was a way he had.
Noel was being borne down by his attackers. But he remembered where the pronged steel had been dropped. He fought with the fury of a wildcat until he drove his enemies back for a moment—not difficult to do now that they were not made desperate by the sight of Chu Chul, who would slay any who failed without compunction—and caught up the steel.
He sprang directly at Sung Liao, the pronged length of steel, now a dull red, held in his left hand. His right hand leaped forward. Sung Liao’s mouth was open in amazement, that this man could move so quickly and surprisingly. Noel grabbed at Sung Liao. The forefinger and middle finger of his right hand went into Sung Liao’s mouth, while his thumb fastened under the jaw. It was as though he pinched the man’s lower jaw with two fingers and thumb.
“Bite down on it, Sung Liao,” he said calmly, “and I’ll yank the lower jaw out of your head…and with this piece of steel I’ll do to you what your master would have done to me.”
He said it in Tientsinese, in the tone a master uses when he commands a servant…and Sung Liao, his face alight with terror, did not even move.
“Now lead me out to The Cricket, Sung Liao,” went on Noel. “Or rather, tell me how to lead you, I’ll keep this hold until we are back in Mott Street.”
The Cantonese charged…but he kept them back with the pronged steel.
“The Master mill slay me,” said Sung Liao, moaning, babbling his words crazily around the fingers of Dorus Noel.
“If that were possible,” said Noel grimly, “it would save the State of New York the trouble. But you are going to burn, Sung Liao, as proof that even Chu Chul cannot save his minion from justice.”
Trembling, Sung Liao pressed something on the wall, and again a panel swung back. Sung Liao nodded. They stepped through into darkness—darkness and the odor of burning clothing and burning flesh—closing the panel in the faces of the charging Cantonese.
With the closing of the panel a light flashed on, to show Chu Chul sitting on his dais, crouched on his “throne,” while tendrils of smoke rose from his rigid body. He appeared to be dead.
“Thank God!” said Dorus Noel.
But Chu Chul was not dead. Noel wondered if, after all, there were any power on earth or above it that could destroy the baleful creature known as The Cricket. For, with smoke twisting over his features, with the odor of burning cloth and flesh filling the room, so that it stank in the nostrils and sent Noel into a fit of coughing—The Cricket opened his eyes.
Noel had never before looked so deeply into eyes that were so utterly malignant arid baleful. Chu Chul tried to move his hands. The blackened things tried to form themselves stiffly into fists. The mighty will of Chu Chul was driving its awful power to his hands, trying to make them do his bidding. Noel knew what Chu Chul would have willed: that his hands leap forward and clutch about the throat of Chu Chul’s enemy.
But the hands would not be used.
Chu Chul’s lips writhed back from blackened teeth. His gums were raw and bleeding slightly. He looked like some beast, snarling in a trap.
By an effort of will which Noel regarded as miraculous, Chu Chul rose to his feet.
He tried to put out his right hand, but it refused his bidding.
“See?” came hoarsely from Chu Chul. “My hand will not obey me, but even in death it will not be thwarted, for you feel it, Dorus Noel, even when your eyes tell you it does not move! You feel it rising to fasten at your throat. To the end of your days you will waken, night after night, obsessed by fear of Chu Chul, even in your sleep and, until you are fully awake, you will fight like a madman against my strangling fingers!”
It was horrible. Dorus Noel could distinctly feel the fingers as Chu Chul had just said. He knew he would always feel them.
Chu Chul did not cry out to his minions who battered at the door through which Noel had just come with Sung Liao. There was pride, majesty, in Chu Chul’s bearing. If he were destined to die none would witness his passing. It was awful that the smoke rose about The Cricket’s nostrils, yet the man did not cough, his words were clearly, terribly enunciated. Little fires—fires which were too hot for Noel to forge through, even had he been able to release the murderer, Sung Liao to do so—licked at the flesh of The Cricket, and Chu Chul did not seem to notice. He was mighty in defeat, arousing in Noel greater fear of the man than had ever been Noel’s when Chu Chul had had all his faculties.
“Chu Chul is never beaten!” said The Cricket hoarsely. “If the cat has nine lives, Chu Chul has nine times nine…and all of them shall be dedicated to the destruction of Dorus Noel and the working out of the mighty schemes of The Cricket.
Noel wished to beat out the flames, but the very eyes of The Cricket seemed to forbid him e
ven a show of sympathy. Really Noel had none, for here stood a monster whose killings would have bathed Mott Street with blood. But Noel could appreciate the Satanic greatness of the man.
The Cantonese were still battering at the door as Chu Chul, his eyes set in a fixed stare which never left the white face of Noel, bent in the middle and fell back upon his throne. The flames licked up, and the smoke rose in tendrils…and the black eyes of Chu Chul were set in their stare.
The panel cracked. With another charge it would give away and the Cantonese would enter.
Noel was satisfied by his reason—though deep inside him there was a doubt, always would be a doubt—that Chu Chul was dead. He was satisfied that the dead man was truly The Cricket, for he saw the distinguishing marks on the man’s scarred flesh which were the sign manual of The Cricket and his followers.
A vast relief flooded Noel. But even as he turned away hurriedly, while his enemies began to break through into the chamber where Chu Chul had risen to his most exalted heights of greatness, he could feel those unblinking black eyes, boring into his back. All his life, he felt, he would feel them. They would go with him, watching him, spying upon him, no matter where he went or what he did. He tried to shrug his grim impressions away and partially succeeded. He forced Sung Liao to lead him out of that labyrinth. On Canal Street he delivered Sung Liao to a copper.
“For murder,” he said briefly. “Watch him carefully while you call the wagon.”
Then he telephoned the Park Avenue number.
“The Cricket is dead,” he said flatly, doubting his own words as he heard them. “You will find him in the basement of the shop called Graceful Longevity.”
As he clicked up the receiver the sound of heavy traffic came to him from the busy street. The very rule of the whole city, of which this traffic was a part, had just been saved from transfer into awful hands. He grinned as a taxicab rubbed fenders with a truck, and both drivers said, almost at once, the ancient formula:
The Detective Megapack Page 85
