Ahead of me a stooped figure shuffled from the door of a café. Soo Hoo Duck, parchment-faced philosopher, reputed to be the uncrowned king of Chinatown, awaited me. Twice before he had sought to interview me, and twice before I had avoided him.
This time I could not avoid him. Nor could the meeting have come at a more inopportune time. Complications were piling up.
I was a fugitive — from the police, but not from justice. And there was a price on my head in the underworld. Ed Jenkins, known in many states as “the Phantom Crook,” immune from arrest in California because of a flaw in the extradition laws, could never hope for peace. Police wanted to blame crimes on me, crimes which they could not solve otherwise. Leaders of the underworld feared me.
At one time the police had promised protection, friendship. But there had been complications. I would neither be a stool-pigeon for the police, nor a crook for the leaders of the underworld.
And so I found myself, disguised as a Chinese cook, stained of face, shabby of clothes, hiding from the bright light of the day, and venturing forth upon the narrow streets of Chinatown only at night.
For myself I did not fear. I would have kept in the open, defied police and underworld alike. But there was Helen Chadwick. I had been of service to her, saved her from the clutches of a powerful crook. She had sworn her friendship, but I had evaded the issue and sunk from sight. A man with my record dares not even analyze his feelings for a society girl of the four hundred.
Yet the girl’s friendship for me, and my feelings for her, were a constant menace. At any time the underworld might seek to reach me through her. At any moment the police might set a trap and bait it with the one bait I could not overlook — threatened injury to Helen Chadwick.
Hence I had adopted a disguise, had slipped through the fingers of police and crooks alike.
And always I was on the alert, pressed every moment by two dangers. One was that I should be recognized, my disguise penetrated by the crooks on the one hand, or the police on the other. The other was that organized Chinatown should demand an accounting of the mysterious Chinaman who remained secreted during the day and came forth only in the dim light of the night.
And now both dangers had materialized at the same moment.
Behind me came mysterious footsteps; ahead of me waited Soo Hoo Duck.
Could I carry through the deception with the old Chinaman? Was my knowledge of that most subtle of all languages, the Cantonese dialect, sufficient to stand the searching scrutiny of the old patriarch?
Even as I contemplated the problem, it was upon me.
My shuffling feet advanced me to the café door and Soo Hoo Duck stepped before me, screwed his wrinkled face into a monkey smile, and peered shrewdly at me over the tops of his horned-rimmed spectacles.
“Hoh shai kai mah!”
It was the Cantonese salutation, a question. Translated literally it meant, “Is the whole world good?”
“Hoh shai kai,” I answered — the conventional reply. “The whole world is good.”
And so, disguised as a Chinaman, I was standing in a dark, narrow street of Chinatown, seeking to account for myself before Soo Hoo Duck. And ever in the back of my mind, during the first few words of that interview, was the disquieting feeling that the old man was laughing at me — that and the knowledge that someone had followed me, was approaching even as I bandied words with the king of Chinatown.
“A stream which runs in a winding course must have mountains in its path,” mused the old man, his eyes peering cunningly over the dark rims of his spectacles.
I bowed gravely.
“And yet, oh Wise One, the stream eventually reaches the ocean. Mountains may obstruct, the stream may swerve, but, in its very swerving, it is fulfilling the law of life.”
The wrinkles about his mouth deepened.
“Perhaps the stream may become surrounded by obstructions. What then?”
He was inquisitive, and yet he seemed friendly.
I matched his smile.
“In that event, Learned One, the stream becomes a lake, and the calm tranquillity of its surface mirrors the obstructions which have given it beauty, serenity; which, by damming it up, have become the very creators of the lake.”
I spoke the words slowly, sparring for time.
“Then,” said Soo Hoo Duck with a trace of impatience in his tone, “you have ceased to be a brook, and have become a lake.”
I met his eyes steadily.
“Your excellency will remember that it is the brook which babbles. When water has ceased to run it becomes silent.”
He was a good sport, this puckery-faced Chink. He laughed at that, and, at that instant, the man who had been shadowing me, walked slowly past, forced into the bright light of the Yat King Café.
Never have I seen a human being who so resembled a vulture. He was tall, stooped, red-eyed. As he walked, his long nose twitched, a continual, spasmodic snuffling. His reddish eyes blinked constantly, as though the light irritated them. His thin neck dropped forward so that his chin hung out over his shoes, and the narrow collar which surrounded that thin neck was like a wedding ring about a lead pencil.
As for clothes, he was dressed entirely in black, and he slipped softly by on rubber-soled shoes.
Abruptly I became conscious that the Chinese philosopher had riveted me with his eyes, had followed my gaze. Of a sudden the kindly look dropped from his face, and his eyes bored into mine as though they had been twin gimlets of cold, black steel.
“Where the buzzards fly there will soon be carrion,” he intoned.
I returned his scrutiny.
“And yet, my brother, it is well known that the buzzard does not kill. He merely devours that which has ceased to live. The wise man should fear the hawk rather than the buzzard.”
With that I turned away, left the aged philosopher digesting a little new philosophy. He had been too quick to compare me with a coursing brook, too ready with his comment about the vulture-like appearance of the man who had followed me. Perhaps that man followed me, thinking I was a Chinaman, believing in my disguise. If so, he followed me at the direction of some powerful Chinese, and Soo Hoo Duck was the uncrowned king of Chinatown.
Yet, and this was the disquieting thought, perhaps my enemies had pierced my disguise, knew that the Chinaman who always circled the block before starting on any errand, was, in fact, Ed Jenkins, the Phantom Crook.
I hurried on, seeking to turn the tables, to become the one who followed, and, behind me, Soo Hoo Duck wrinkled his face in silent mirth.
The buzzard had gained a block. His awkward, ungainly shuffle carried him rapidly over the ground and I lengthened my stride. Then I noticed that there was one ahead of me, a beady-eyed Chinaman who was bearing purposefully down upon the ungainly figure.
I dropped back, waiting, watching. Ahead of me the buzzard quickened his pace until it became almost a trot, the arms flapping loosely from the shoulders as though they had been wings. A taxicab swung around the corner and I heard the voice of the buzzard for the first time as he hailed the cab — a raucous, throaty cry.
I pressed on. There had been pursuit and flight in the actions of those ahead. Perhaps I could get the license number of the cab, find out more concerning the identity of the Chinaman who had engaged in the mysterious pursuit. One thing was certain — that Chinaman had not been following the buzzard when I stopped to chat with Soo Hoo Duck.