Genevieve realized now that these men were my friends. I felt her relax and removed my hand from her lips.
“What is it, Yat Sing?” I asked.
His beady, glittering eyes bored into mine. “Ngat T’oy,” he said, “go way. No come back.”
Chapter Fifteen
I was on my feet, facing Yat Sing with no recollection of having moved from the davenport. I could feel a deadly, cold rage taking possession of me, sharpening my faculties until I saw the things in that room with a clarity and attention to details that made it seem my eyes were photographing motion pictures upon my brain.
And beneath all of the rage, there was a chill of apprehension.
The people with whom we were dealing knew too much. They had repeatedly made use of information which was closely guarded as a secret locked in the minds of Chinatown’s leaders — and information which is kept secret by an Oriental is very secret indeed.
I met Yat Sing’s eyes and saw the consternation on his face. I looked at Genevieve Hotling sitting on the davenport, still open-mouthed with amazement. I looked at the Chinese who had entered the room with Yat Sing, and knew him instantly for what he was. He was a Foo Tow Chi, a Chinese hatchet man. At one time, these men were the executioners for the tongs, the gunmen who roved about, killing members of rival tongs, chosen for their skill with a gun, their cool nerve and daring.
“How,” I asked, “did it happen?”
Yat Sing said, “Get automobile. Start for see you. My men watch her go; wait for her come. She no come.”
I knew that Ngat T’oy had always prized her freedom of action. She had remonstrated with her father that there was no necessity that he should know where she went or what she did, because of what she was pleased to call her unimportance. But I knew also that her father had instructed Yat Sing to keep an eye on her wherever it was possible to do so, without letting Ngat T’oy know that she was being protected. And a moment’s thought convinced me that Yat Sing had had men on my tail; otherwise he would not have known that I was at the Medville Arms.
I said swiftly, in Chinese, “The woman with hair like straw that has been left in the sun — did you see her?”
“I saw her,” Yat Sing said in his native language.
“You saw her when she came to this apartment house?”
“When she came, and when she left.”
“She came alone?”
“Alone.”
“No one drove her to the place?”
“No one.”
“Was she followed?”
Yat Sing said, without hesitancy, “Not followed. She came from the car that goes over hills, with a bell that clangs. The car stops. She gets off and walks one block to apartment house.”
“The car that is pulled by a rope up the hills?” I asked.
“The same thing,” he affirmed.
“Let’s go,” I said simply to Yat Sing.
“You want me to — stay here?” Genevieve asked.
“Not now,” I said.
“Why?”
“Because you are no longer safe in this apartment house — anywhere in it.”
I turned to Yat Sing and said in English. “This woman is to be given protection. Take her with you. Keep her safe until such time as I tell you there is no longer danger.”
I swung my eyes over to meet Genevieve’s. “This man,” I said, “is my friend. With him you are safe. Go with him. Do as he tells you. It may be inconvenient, but it will be safe.”
She said, somewhat angrily, “Who are you to come to my apartment in the dead of night, involve me in a crime, carry me up to a vacant apartment, hold me there, then turn me over to some Chinaman and tell me to go with him wherever he wants to take me?”
“I am your friend,” I said, “and they will like it better if you refer to them as Chinese rather than as Chinamen.”
She met my eyes for a long moment. Then the flash of anger faded from her eyes. She got up from the davenport. “Very well, friend, I will go with these Chinese,” she said.
I saw the faintest flicker of expression on the face of Yat Sing, nothing so crude as a motion of the facial muscles, but only a very slight softening of the lines of tension about his eyes. I knew then that Yat Sing approved of her, and that she had made a friend.
I said to Yat Sing, “I wish to make certain there are no police remaining to watch the house. I will stay with you until you have told me the coast is clear, and then I will go.”
“Alone?” he asked.
“Alone.”
He glanced toward the Foo Tow Chi and said in Chinese, “Dead enemies can do no harm.”
“Where I am going there is danger for one; for two — death.”
Yat Sing said, “Lead the way.”
We left the apartment, didn’t trust to the elevator, but walked down the stairs, the Foo Tow Chi in front, Yat Sing in the rear, Genevieve and I in the middle. Had any prowler tried to stop us on those stairs that night he would have received a surprise which might well have been fatal.
On the floor below, Genevieve hesitated a moment. “Could I,” she asked, “get a few things from my apartment?”
I shook my head.
“Please. It will only take me a few seconds — less than a minute. I promise.”
We stood there in the corridor while I weighed that which was prudent against the pleading of her eyes.
Her eyes won.
“Very well,” I said, “but you have only a few seconds.”
We moved down the corridor to her apartment. She unlocked the door and went in. It was quite evident that police had been through the place. The blanket rope which I had thrown out of the window had been pulled back and coiled on the floor. Doors had been opened. Clothing had been pulled from the closet and tossed carelessly on the bed, in an effort on the part of police to make certain that I was not hiding behind clothes in the closet.
Abruptly, the telephone started to ring, and the sudden sound of that bell shattered the silence in such strident summons that Genevieve jumped, with that jerky motion which is the fear-inspired reflex of taut nerves.
The sound of that ringing telephone forced me to change my plans instantly.
Either someone had been ringing the telephone at intervals, and it was merely coincidence that the phone happened to ring as we entered the apartment, or someone knew that we had entered the apartment and wished to talk with us.
I whirled to place my hand on Genevieve’s arm, gripping her so she would concentrate her attention upon what I had to say.
“In a moment, Genevieve, you will answer that telephone. Your voice will sound sleepy. You will say that you went out shortly after Daphne left your apartment; that I left at the same time you did, telling you I was going out through the basement; that I said I would return and kill you if you said anything to anyone; that you were terribly frightened. You walked the streets for awhile, then decided that you would return to your apartment because there was no place else for you to go. You found that I had apparently returned in your absence; that I had tom up some of the bedclothes into strips; that I had searched the apartment and thrown clothes onto the floor. You will never admit that the possibility entered your mind that the police had been here and searched the apartment in your absence. You will say that you found other blankets to put on the bed, crawled into bed and went to sleep; that you were awakened by the ringing of the telephone. Do you understand?”
She nodded.
“But you are not to say that, unless your presence in the apartment is questioned,” I warned.