Kitabı oku: «The Bradys After a Chinese Princess: or, The Yellow Fiends of 'Frisco», sayfa 5
"Your Chinese puzzle isn't it, Mr. Brady," whispered Leggett. "Is there any end to the mysteries with which these Chinks like to surround themselves?"
"None, absolutely none," replied the old detective. "It makes one tired to try to follow their curves. But listen a moment. We may catch on to something."
"It's a blame sight more likely that someone will catch on to us," growled Leggett.
"Hush! Hush! Listen!"
He had scarcely spoken when someone behind the middle door called out in a loud voice in English:
"Now, Ah Lung, I've got you. You scoundrel! It was I myself who kidnapped your princes! The secret of Gong Schow's hidden treasure is mine! Now you die!"
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Three shots were instantly fired.
"This is murder!" cried Old King Brady, and he threw himself against the middle door from behind which the shots came.
CHAPTER IX
THE BRADYS GET TOGETHER ONCE AGAIN. BUT THE PRINCESS SLIPS THROUGH THEIR FINGERS
Urged by Harry, Ah Lung jumped to the outer door of the smoking room as this part of the House of the Seven Delights was called.
Young King Brady hastily adjusting his clothes – he had taken off his coat and vest after the manner of opium smokers – prepared to follow him, but Ah Lung was back before he could get ready.
"Well?" he demanded.
"I know where he went," replied Lung. "Are you ready?"
"Yes."
"Then come with me."
They passed out into the corridor.
There were the "two Chinamen" seen by Old King Brady and Leggett.
"Where did he go?" demanded Harry.
"Listen," replied Lung. "We – the organization, I mean – don't make use of all this big building. Our part is only on this side. There are rooms on the other side which we rent, some to secret societies, others to individuals; most of them are vacant just now. The Doctor went in through a door leading to a suite of these supposed-to-be vacant rooms and here it is."
He paused before the door which Dr. Garshaski had called the "Door of Death."
It carried no red paper on it now, but a Chinese character painted on the panel.
"What does that say?" asked Harry, pointing to it.
"Flat to let," replied Ah Lung, "but I strongly suspect that our janitor is allowing the Doctor to use it for purposes of his own. Otherwise why should he be going through that door? Still it may have been rented to him for all I know. Anyhow that's where he went. What do you think of it? Shall we attempt to follow him up?"
"By all means," replied Harry. "Let me tell you something. I know this Dr. Garshaski. He is an infamous scoundrel."
Ah Lung shrugged his shoulders.
"We meet all kinds," he replied. "They are necessary to make up the world. But you heard what was said; you heard him try to blackmail me. Do you believe he really knows anything about the princess, or is it all bluff? There was nothing that he said he had not heard from me before."
"I don't believe it was bluff and I do believe he has the princess," replied Harry, "and I'll tell you why."
He went on to explain about Alice, and this while he was trying his skeleton keys.
"I believe he has Miss Montgomery a prisoner in the rooms you speak of," he declared, "and it would not surprise me a bit if the princess was there too. Hello! I've got the door open now. Shall we go exploring and see what we find?"
"Surely. If that is your belief. I am with you, of course," replied Ah Lung. "But lock the door behind you," he added. "We don't want anybody prowling after us."
Harry scarcely saw the necessity of it, but he locked the door.
The long corridor was dimly lighted by a solitary gas jet.
"Why this is strange," said Ah Lung. "I never was in this part of the building before."
"This corridor surely leads in under the next building," said Harry.
"Of course, it does, I never knew of its existence. I shall inquire into this."
"Sure you've got the right door?"
"Positive. Come on."
At the end of the corridor they made the same turns Alice took and at last found themselves up against three doors.
The ones on the right and the left were locked, but the middle one stood slightly open.
Harry pushed it wide open and flashed his light inside, having already drawn his revolver in case of emergency.
The room was entirely unfurnished.
Ah Lung stepped in and looked around.
"Nothing here," he remarked, when the door shut with a bang.
Harry sprang to it, but all too late.
Somebody must have been watching them, for now somebody had bolted that door on the other side.
"Well, upon my word!" cried Ah Lung, "we have walked right into a trap."
"That is certainly what we have done," replied Harry disgustedly, "and the worst of it is here I've been talking. I suppose every word we have spoken has been overheard."
"Every word, Mr. Young King Brady," spoke a voice above them.
"Garshaski, you villain! What do you mean by this?" shouted Ah Lung, recognizing the Doctor's voice.
"Business," was the reply. "You would not accede to my very modest request so I have to do the best I can for myself. So Young King Brady was your deaf and dumb friend in the next alcove, was he? Say, Lung, I'm going to read you a lesson. I'm going to teach you how dangerous it is to muss with me. As for little Brady he knows how I love him and what good reasons I have for my extreme affection. But you are dead wrong if you think the fair Alice is here, Harry."
"Did you kidnap her, Garshaski?" demanded Harry.
"Did I? Why sure I did," was the reply. "Who else? And I bagged your princess, too, my bold Lung. Listen, brother Chink; the plot was all mine. It was I who put up the job with Wung Foo. He brought your little would-be bride over to the boat on the Dover Castle. Same boat we brought that hop on, Lungy, old man! To avoid trouble, for Wang Foo had to be smuggled in as well as the hop, I drugged your pretty princess and boxed her up. Then in butted the Bradys after their usual fashion, but I watched my chance and got there and, Harry, I got your Alice, too. That pleased me more than all."
From where was the man speaking?
The sound of his voice seemed to be from above.
At the beginning of it Harry shut off his flash light and they had been standing there in the dark, but now he turned it on again and flashed it around.
There was no one to be seen. He could see no opening in the ceiling overhead.
"Hide and seek! You can't find me!" cried the voice with a chuckle. "Say, Lungy, old man. I know why you were so stuck on marrying Skeep Hup. I know her secret! Did you think I'd sell out for any $5,000? No, not for five times five. I'm out for bigger game."
"Has she betrayed the secret to you?" cried Ah Lung quickly.
There was no answer.
Again and again the merchant repeated the demand, but it was just the same until all at once the voice fairly shouted:
"Now, Ah Lung, I've got you! It was myself who kidnapped your princess! The secret of Gong Schow's hidden treasure is mine. Now you die!"
As he spoke these ominous words three shots were fired in quick succession through some hole in the ceiling.
Instantly Harry shut off the light.
Probably he was not quick enough to prevent the would-be murderer from taking some sort of aim, for Ah Lung with a deep groan dropped to the floor.
At the same time a violent banging was heard overheard.
Harry held his breath and waited, not daring to turn on the light.
"Lung, are you badly hurt?" he breathed.
There was no reply.
"Lung! Speak! Where are you hit?" persisted Harry.
Still no answer.
The banging kept right up.
"He is dead," thought Young King Brady. "Merciful heavens! What about Alice's fate in the hands of that yellow fiend?"
Just then came a crash. Hurrying footsteps were heard overhead.
"Why there is nobody here, Leggett!" Old King Brady's voice exclaimed.
"Upon my word!" thought Harry. "And just in the nick of time!
"Governor! Oh, Governor!" he shouted.
"Harry, my dear boy, where are you?" cried Old King Brady, for like Harry and Ah Lung, he and the Secret Service man had penetrated into a seemingly vacant room.
"I fancy I am in the room below you!" replied Harry. "So? Who fired those shots? You?"
"No, that yellow fiend, Garshaski!"
"As I supposed. You are not hurt, I judge from the way you speak."
"I am not, Governor, but poor Ah Lung who is here with me got it in the neck and I greatly fear he is dead."
"Well, well, that's a bad job. Do you know anything of Alice?"
"Only that Garshaski said she is far enough away if you can believe him, which is more than I can. Can't you come down here?"
"I must try to get there. Are you locked in?"
"Bolted in, most securely."
"There seems to be but one door here; I daresay there is another, a secret door. But I am going to take the back track and try it another way."
"I don't care what way you try it as long as you get here. I'm in a bad enough fix. I have no doubt Ah Lung is dead."
All this talk took place in the dark.
Harry was so rattled that he did not turn on his flash light. He never even thought of it until now, and he flashed it on Ah Lung.
Evidently the Chinaman had been hit in the head for his face was all covered with blood.
He was breathing, however. There seemed to be some slight hope.
Meanwhile Old King Brady, who had broken the door down after several attempts, returned to the semi-circular hall outside.
"This is a great piece of business, Leggett!" he exclaimed. "We must make haste and get Harry out."
As he said it there came a loud pounding on the door at their left and Alice's voice called:
"Mr. Brady! Oh, Mr. Brady!"
"Well, upon my word!" exclaimed Leggett.
"Alice, are you all right?" cried the old detective with deep anxiety in his tone.
"As right as I can be under the circumstances," replied the voice behind the door, "but they have taken the poor little princess away. This is Garshaski's work. Perhaps you don't know?
"Oh, I know. I had as soon see you in the clutches of the arch fiend himself as in that man's power."
"Yes, he's a fiend, all right, and don't you forget it," replied Alice, "and a yellow one at that. I have a lot to tell you, Mr. Brady, but if Harry needs you, do attend to him first."
"He can wait. Patience a moment. I have unbolted the door. I shall soon find a key to fit."
The old detective was trying his skeletons and in a moment he had the door open.
It was the same room in which Alice had passed those dreary days with the princess.
But now she was alone and the room was all in disorder.
As for Alice herself she was tied in her chair, being bound hand and foot.
She had been gagged also, she explained, a handkerchief having been tied over her mouth, but this she managed to work off.
"I heard you when you called murder," she said, "but I couldn't speak then. Who fired? Who was killed?"
"Ah Lung," replied the old detective, and he explained as he cut Alice's bonds.
"As for my story, it is too long to tell now," she said. "Go for Harry."
"If we can get there. We seem to have taken another door than the one we intended."
"From that long corridor?"
"Yes."
"I came in at the Door of Death as they call it. It has nearly been the death of me."
She shuddered at the recollection of the cruelties she had witnessed in the torture room.
They hurried down stairs and passed out into the corridor again.
Alice could see no "Door of Death" now.
"This next door says To Let," she said. "Suppose you try that."
"Yes, and I think it is the one," replied Old King Brady, again working his skeleton keys.
Fortunately they found themselves with the corridor at their own disposal.
In a moment they had the door open.
"This is the road I travelled," Alice instantly declared.
This lengthy cross corridor seemed certain to lead them away from the room in which Harry was confined, but Alice explaining its windings they determined to try it.
They were a story lower than the room in which they had been before and when they came to the semi-circular hall with the three doors exactly like the arrangement above Old King Brady felt that they must be right.
"Harry!" he called in a low voice, for he had no desire to bring the Chinks down upon him.
"Here," replied Harry instantly. "Behind the middle door."
Old King Brady shot the bolt and threw back the door, which was not locked.
Ah Lung was sitting up leaning on Harry.
He certainly was a horrible looking object with his face all bathed in blood.
"Not dead!" exclaimed Old King Brady.
"Not dead, but in a mighty bad way," gasped Lung. "The princess!" he added. "I see you have Miss Montgomery all right."
"I'm sorry to say we have seen nothing of the princess," replied the old detective. "I haven't had time to ask Miss Montgomery about her yet. What has become of her, Alice?"
"Dr. Garshaski carried her off," replied Alice.
"Did – did she give away what he wanted to know?" asked Ah Lung.
"I'm afraid she did. They tortured the poor creature terribly."
"We must get you out of here without delay, Ah Lung," interrupted the old detective. "As for the rest it will have to keep. Where shall we take you – home?"
"Wait," said Ah Lung. "Connected with this place is a club of which I am a member. I have a room here where I sometimes sleep. Take me there first and go for Dr. Gim Suey on Sacramento street."
"Oh, you better have an American doctor," protested Harry.
"Not at all," replied Ah Lung, decidedly. "I have doctored both ways, I greatly prefer the Chinese treatment. Dr. Gim Suey will save my life if it can be saved."
CHAPTER X
TREASURE HUNTING
Harry and Detective Leggett carried Ah Lung out into the long corridor head and heels.
Here they ran into a bunch of Chinks just coming out of the main club room.
There were friends of Ah Lung's among them, and a tremendous pow-wow and excitement followed, all in Chinese.
Alice explained that it was partly sympathy, partly indignation against Dr. Garshaski, who was a club member, and partly about the presence of detectives in the House of the Seven Delights.
Ah Lung quieted them, however.
"Leave me now," he said. "I am in the hands of my friends. They will do all for me that can be done. They are not willing that you should enter the club room."
So the detectives were escorted back to earth by the way Old King Brady and Leggett had come down into these lower regions and glad enough they were to find themselves safe on China alley.
Parting from Leggett, they started, reaching it shortly before midnight.
Alice was so exhausted that Old King Brady insisted that she should postpone her story till morning.
"I don't know that it will do any good to tell it now," she said. "But I must give you a hint. There is buried or hidden money at the bottom of all this business."
"Yes, yes, I know," said Old King Brady. "I heard Garshaski call out about it. Do you know where the hiding place is?"
"In an old house down by the North Beach."
"Does he know?"
"He does. He has had plenty of time to get there and get the treasure if it still exists."
"If that is the case," said the old detective, "then I think the best thing that all of us can do is to go to bed."
They did so and it was not until the next morning at breakfast in the private parlor of the detective's suite that Alice's story was told.
We need only take it up at the scene in the torture room when the princess fainted and Alice thought her dead.
"They ran me out then," she said, "so I don't know exactly what the yellow fiends did to her after that.
"They tied me to the chair and I think Garshaski meant mischief.
"After a little he brought the princess into the room and laid her on the bed. She was in a dreadful condition, but she was game still. She had not given the secret away. I begged Garshaski to untie me and allow me to attend to her, but he wouldn't hear to it.
"'She'll come around all right,'" he declared; adding:
"'And for your interference you have to suffer, Alice. I will make you feel sorry you ever insulted me in the way you did.' He then left us, and I tried to question the princess, but she would not talk about herself.
"'Listen, Alice,' she said. 'That fiend has killed my cousin Wang Foo. He told me so. He means to kill me, I know it, but I will never tell him where my grandfather hid his money. I will tell you, though, for you may live to get out of this and I want you, if you do, to go and get that money and give it to Ah Lung. Promise me that.'
"I gave her the promise and asked how much the money amounted to.
"She declared that her grandfather's letter did not state.
"She then went on to tell me that it was hidden under the headstone of an old house near the North Beach, the location of which she described so carefully that I am sure I can find it. It appears that her grandfather, although he lived in Chinatown, carried on business in this house selling cigars, soda water and so on, probably doing a little opium smuggling on the sly."
"Let's see!" exclaimed Old King Brady. "What was the old fellow's name again? I heard Garshaski speak it, but I forget."
"His name was Gong Schow," Alice replied.
"Why, I knew him!" cried the old detective. "Of course, he smuggled opium. The cigar and soda water business was only a blind. I can locate that house if you can't Alice. But do you suppose it is still standing?"
"The princess thinks so at all events. That is all I know about it."
"Very likely it is then. We must go down there at once. On the way we will look in at Lung & Lung's and learn how it fares with Garshaski's unfortunate victim."
"Go on with your story," said Harry.
"There is little more to tell," replied Alice. "Garshaski must have had his ear at some listening hole, for he now burst in on us and, gagging me carried Skeep Hup off, declaring that he had heard all."
And this ended what Alice had to say.
They started away right after breakfast.
Meanwhile Old King Brady called up Mr. Narraway on the telephone and suggested – for he was in no position to order it – the immediate arrest of Volckman.
"That has already been attended to," replied the Secret Service commissioner over the wire, "Leggett was at my house early this morning and told me what happened last night."
At Lung & Lung's they ran into Wun Lung.
"Ah was still at his club," he said. "He had seen him that morning. Dr. Gim Suey thought he would recover." That was all he could say.
The Bradys and Alice now went to the North Beach.
Here they met with disappointment.
They passed on to a point at some distance from the bathing houses to a place where there had once been quite a little grouping of little shacks where various kinds of small business had once been carried on.
But these, owing to certain changes, had all been abandoned since the fire. Many of them had been pulled down and carried away for firewood. The few which still remained were all unoccupied and fast going to ruin.
Skeep Hup's description of the place would have fitted either one of those remaining.
Even Old King Brady was at fault, sure as he had been that he could easily identify the house.
They returned to the North Beach proper and started to inquire.
They could not find any one who remembered old Gong Schow, strange as it seemed, for the man had been there for several years.
"It looks as though we should have to give it up altogether," remarked Harry when this stage of the game was reached.
"It does," replied Old King Brady, "and it don't give us the Chinese Princess either. There is but one way to solve the mystery that I can think that is to get hold of some old Chink who knew and had business with Gong Schow."
"But it is doubtful if such a person can be made to tell."
"Very."
"Do you know such a man?"
"I think I do."
"Who is he?"
"Now, Harry, I feel under obligations not to tell you. He is a Chinaman who was at one time largely engaged in opium smuggling. I knew it, but I was never called upon to proceed against him, so as he once did me an important service I made no move. I found out that he was in the hop business by the merest accident and I swore to him that I would never tell."
And Harry knew that this was final.
So they gave it up and went back to town, leaving Old King Brady to look up his man.
Alice was still suffering from the effects of what she had been through in those underground rooms, so she remained at the hotel while Harry started out to see what he could do towards locating Dr. Garshaski.
He called first at the Stockton street house and entered the Doctor's room with a skeleton key.
It was a case of no doctor, but there was evidence that he had recently been there.
Hardly knowing what to do or where to go, Harry bent his steps towards the North Beach again.
When he got there the water looked good to him, so he went in swimming.
The day was cool and there were few bathers.
One old white-haired man, a splendid swimmer, particularly attracted Young King Brady's attention and he fell into conversation with him.
He learned that the old fellow suffered terribly from insomnia.
"Why I often come down here and go in alone at midnight," he said, "and sometimes in the early morning hours. I was here this morning at a quarter to one."
"Is the place deserted then?" Harry asked.
"I don't believe the North Beach baths are ever deserted," replied the old man. "There are always a few old cranks like myself paddling about; sometimes we see strange sights."
"I suppose so. Suicides for instance?"
"Yes, I have seen more than I like to think of. I have personally prevented three. Last night I saw something which interested me, but, of course, I didn't butt in. I never do. I learned long ago to mind my own business in my nightly wanderings."
"What was that?" inquired Harry carelessly, for he was not paying very close attention to the old man's talk.
"See those old shacks away down there where the pavilion used to be," pointing to the very place which interested Young King Brady most.
"Why, yes. What about them?"
"Last night, just as I came here and before I had undressed – it was about a quarter to one, I should say – I saw an old-fashioned hack drive up on the top of the bank and stop. A man got out and then lifted out what I took to be a little girl, and the hack drove away. Next thing I knew he was coming down the long steps carrying the girl in his arms."
"Going to drown her!" cried Harry.
"I thought so," replied the old man. "There was nobody here but me. I determined to prevent it if I could so I sneaked along under the bank making as good time as possible and managed to get where I could see what was going on, just as the fellow reached the bottom of the steps. You can judge of my surprise when I tell you that I saw that he was a Chinaman, and that what I had taken to be a little girl was actually a very small Chinese woman, one of the kind with little feet. I hid under the bank ready to jump on him if he attempted any funny business, but I now saw that he had no notions of drowning the woman. He wandered about among the old shacks talking to her in Chinese. They seemed to be trying to find something."
"And did they succeed?" asked Harry quickly.
"They did not as far as I could judge," replied the swimmer. "They hung around for half an hour. The Chinawoman apparently could not walk; he had to carry her all the time. At last they seemed to give it up. He carried her up the steps again and they got into the hack and were driven away."
"Garshaski and the princess," thought Harry. "It could have been no one else. What can it mean? Has he given up the treasure hunt then?"
He asked the old fellow his name and was told that it was Abner Dawson.
They went out of the water now after that and while they were dressing an idea suddenly occurred to Young King Brady.
"Mr. Dawson," he asked, "is there any other place around San Francisco which goes by the name of North Beach?"
"There might be, over the Bay," said Dawson. "They have a lot of our San Francisco names duplicated over there."
Harry left him wondering if there could be anything in his idea.
