“Give the venerable Lo Mong Yung this,” he said.
The other looked at it, snorted. “It is blank,” he said. “It has no writing on it. What foolishness is this?”
“Give it to him,” replied the man who called himself Ho Ling, “Save your questioning till afterwards.” There was a strange note of authority in his voice now, and something in his eye that seemed to command the other’s respect.
“I will do as you say,” the guard said. “But remain here. If you attempt to enter the chamber of Yung before he has given the word, your life will be upon your own conscience.”
Deftly removing one of the automatics hidden in his sleeve, to give the impression that he was unarmed. Sung took the blank card and walked through a doorway. He returned a minute later, and stared at the visitor, Ho Ling, with new respect and a little awe.
“You may enter,” he said, “Lo Mong Yung, the honored and revered father of our tong, will see you.”
THE Manchu passed through the doorway that Sung indicated, swept a curtain aside and found himself in a room that was like an ordinary American business office.
At a glass-topped desk an aged Chinaman sat. His face was withered, parchmentlike. His hands were mere fragile wisps of bone and loose skin; yet his eyes were piercingly bright. He glanced at his visitor, glanced down at a white card lying on his desk, and in those bright eyes was a look of perplexity.
The card, which a moment before when Sung had carried it in had been blank, now showed a black “X,” startlingly revealed on its white surface. Under the rays of the light overhead this “X” had come out.
The old Chinaman’s voice sounded in the room. It was low, thin as tinkling glass, hardly more than a whisper, but it carried the weight of wisdom and authority.
“I do not understand, O stranger. You come bearing the card of a white man — the only white man ever to be taken into our tong and made a brother of the Mingmen. Yet you are not he. You are a Manchu, and one unknown to me who have seen many men.”
The tall Manchu bowed. “O father of the Ming Tong, accept greetings from that white man of whom you speak — and know that I am he, now brother of the Mingmen.”
For seconds the eyes of the two men clashed. The ancient Chinaman shook his head.
“The white man I speak of has surprised me with his deeds before. He is a brother of strange ways and remarkable talents. Yet he once did the Ming Tong a great service, and his actions are always based on the good things whereby men live well and honestly. If you are really he, step close and speak in my ear that word known only to the brothers of my tong.”
The tall Manchu did so. What he whispered was spoken so softly that it did not carry beyond the desk. Yet it satisfied Lo Mong Yung.
“Now I know,” he said, “that whispers I have heard are true. You are he whom they call the ‘Man of a Thousand Faces.’ You are one who fights the dragon of evil. You are—”
The visitor lifted his hand. “Do not speak it, O venerable father! For even here there may be inquisitive ears. Let it be enough that I am a Mingman come to ask words of wisdom from one who has known many years of well-spent life.”
The old Chinaman nodded slowly. “Proceed, O brother,” he said. “If the withered brain of this unworthy servant may humbly aid one of illustrious deeds; the honor blesses the revered fathers of my ancient family.”
The white man in the guise of a Manchu bowed. It seemed utterly incredible that his Mongolian features, slanted eyes and yellow complexion were all parts of a masterly disguise. Yet this was so, for Lo Mong Yung’s visitor was the strange, relentless criminal investigator known as Secret Agent “X,” a man so secretive and mysterious that no living soul had ever knowingly seen him unmasked.
IF it were rumored that “X” was in the building, a cordon of police would be thrown around it at once. Machine guns would be trained on the Ming Tong headquarters, the rooms would be bombarded with tear gas. “X” would have to pause in his investigation to save himself. For the Secret Agent, friend of the law in fact, was misunderstood.
Many times he had been accused of crimes that he was trying in reality to prevent. Many times the guardians of the law had looked upon him as a ruthless, dangerous enemy of society, not knowing that he fought always for society, against the rabid hordes of the underworld of crime.
He was beginning one of his amazing campaigns now. He was about to fight something that threatened to spread over the whole nation like a relentless, sinister blight. He addressed Lo Mong Yung gravely, still using the flowery language of the East.
“Respected master, an evil visitation has come upon us — something as destructive to men as locusts are to a field of young rice. Unless this monster is strangled before it grows too large; unless the country is freed from its evil spell, no man can predict what may happen. There will be a famine of happiness surely, a collapse of human hopes — perhaps utter ruin. I speak, O venerable father, of the drug evil.”
His slender, fragile hands thrust in the great sleeves of his gold-worked, richly embroidered mandarin coat, Lo Mong Yung sat as motionless and inscrutable as the figure of Buddha, wreathed with incense, that squatted in a niche on the opposite wall. Yet the eyes of the aged Chinaman were like fiery coals gleaming from the yellow face of a waxen idol.
“I have heard the story,” he spoke at last in his thin voice. “The evil has permeated the privileged class. The wealthy have succumbed to the pitiless power of drugs. Their bodies writhe for the soothing potency. Their children cry to have their crawling nerves quieted. A dreadful narcotic is making maniacs and criminals of people who were as wealthy and respected as mandarins.”
Secret Agent “X” nodded. “But these children of misfortune have not sought this degradation. It has seeped into their veins, enslaved them unawares. I have discovered, wise father, through the science of my laboratory, that many brands of expensive cigarettes, candies, even lipsticks, have been treated with a powerful narcotic that has worked subtle power over these victims.
“It is a wily method, a masterly stroke of distorted genius on the part of someone to gain addicts for this insidious drug. Yet no money has been demanded so far as I can find out. The drug is being administered free. This is one thing that makes the law helpless. And it makes the mystery of it all as black as a forest of ebony.”
The Agent made a sudden gesture of apology.
“I am presuming upon your tolerance,” he said. “I tax your ears perhaps with what you already know. But let me picture briefly how this thing is being spread.”
Lo Mong Yung motioned with one withered hand for the Agent to continue.
“A wealthy man may drop in at his club,” said “X.” “He may refresh himself at the cocktail hour, not knowing that his liquor is adulterated with this strange drug. He thinks the exhilaration he feels comes from alcohol alone. Even the club manager and the regular attendants have no knowledge of the evil force at work.
“But in a week, two at most, our clubman has become an addict. He is no longer human. He is a fiend with a craving that destroys his integrity, an appetite that will make him lie, slander, sell out his partners, even kill, to get more of this thing that has enslaved him. Yet no one knows who is giving this drug out, or why it is being done.”
Lo Mong Yung threw out his hands, palms upward.
“It is deplorable,” he said. “But why do you confer with my profound ignorance? How may the sum of my blundering experience help you against this blight?”
“Learned father,” said the Secret Agent slowly, “is it possible that the poison of some strange plot has eaten into the hearts of our Mingmen? The tong is powerful. It has ways of reaching all levels of society. I ask you therefore, as the honorable head of the Mings, to speak if you have any suspicion of our brothers.”