The license number of the cab I secured. The Chinaman crowded to the edge of the sidewalk, against the shadows of the dingy buildings, and suddenly vanished. As I passed the spot a second later, I could discern no sign of a doorway; yet I knew that in the side of the dark building on my left there was a secret entrance. A hidden door had swung silently open and the Chinaman had vanished within.
Nor did I pause for a careful inspection of the wall of that building. Shuffling steps scuttled along the pavement behind me. Soo Hoo Duck had taken up my trail. His hands were concealed within the loose sleeves of his padded coat and the smile was gone from his wrinkled countenance.
Abruptly, I crossed the street and entered the Mandarin Café, one of the chop suey joints that cater to the tourist trade. For some reason, which I could not quite fathom, Chinatown was becoming too hot for Ed Jenkins. Calmly, impassively, I slippety-slopped my way through the main dining-room, into the kitchen, past the huge range with its brass kettles, into a narrow oblong of darkness which marked a back passageway that went I knew not where.
There were steps, a door, more steps, black darkness, and the feel of the wind on my right cheek. I turned so that this wind was squarely in my face, took a few steps and found myself in a dark alley. Flattening myself against the side of a building, I waited within the damp darkness.
There was the sound of running feet and a slim, stealthy figure entered the alley, paused for a swift glance in both directions, and then trotted toward the patch of dull light which marked the nearest outlet of the alley.
I sighed, and turned back into the passageway, retraced my steps, went through the kitchen, into the main dining-room of the Mandarin Café, and out upon the street. A vacant taxicab stood before the door. I dove within, gave the driver an address, changed it after two blocks, had him drive twice around the next block, and then went directly to the railroad depot where I handed a red-cap a baggage check and waited while he brought me a big suitcase which had been checked at the baggage room. I had previously made all preparations necessary to the changing of my disguise whenever necessity might arise and I could have made a dozen such changes had I cared.
My next address was the most exclusive tourist hotel in the city. I changed my disguises in the cab. The brown stain of the skin remained the same, aiding me in my new role. I had entered the cab as a Chinaman. I left it as a wealthy Mexican. The driver blinked, pocketed the bill I handed him for a tip and drove rapidly away.
Half an hour later I had established myself as Señor Juan Morales, and as Señor Morales I looked up the cab which had borne the buzzard away from Chinatown. The driver consulted his records, pocketed the banknote I gave him, and pointed to a pencilled address with a grimy forefinger.
“There yuh are, boss,” he said.
Schooled as I am to conceal my emotions, I could feel the blood drain from my face. The address was that of Helen Chadwick!
That which I feared had taken place.
For years the police stool-pigeons had sought to find some weak point in my defense. For years organized crooks had tried to work out some method by which they could control me, force me to do their will. Their efforts had been in vain. I had been a lone wolf, a creature of the shadows who kept his own counsel. And then had come Helen Chadwick. Recognizing the utter futility of any romance, knowing the danger to her, I had taken stem steps to see that we were not thrown together, that there should be no opportunity for romance to develop, that her name should never be linked with mine.
But the underworld has a thousand eyes which can see in the dark.
And now I was faced with the horrible certainty — the underworld knew.
“I guess that’s not the one I wanted,” I said to the cab driver, striving to make my voice sound casual, and turned away.
Within fifteen minutes I was frantically undoing the elaborate scheme I had perfected for concealment. Either the underworld or the police were menacing the girl I loved. Through her they sought to strike at me.
Very well. If they wanted to find me they would have no trouble. The disguises I ripped off. The stain upon my skin was removed with a chemical preparation. I had left Chinatown as Yee Dooey Wah, a Chinese cook. I had entered the hotel as Señor Juan Morales, a Mexican millionaire. I left the hotel as Ed Jenkins, the Phantom Crook.
Calling a cab, I stepped within and gave the driver a laconic direction. “The Mandarin Café, in Chinatown.”
He nodded and grinned, thinking that I was a tourist going down into the night life of Chinatown for a thrill. Little could he know just how much of a thrill it would be. Stripped of disguises, flaunting my identity to criminals and police alike, I was headed for the place where I had last encountered danger.
I could defend myself. Crooks and police mean but little to me when I have a free hand. It was not by accident that I had become known from coast to coast as the Phantom Crook. But Helen Chadwick I could not watch. I had not dared to even show my interest in her, lest the very display of such interest should doom her. The underworld works its schemes cleverly, and the police are not asleep. Both capitalize most strongly on that attraction which nature has built up between man and woman. Man desires to be near those whom he loves; he will fight to protect his loved ones.
Many a crook is serving time because the police trapped him by watching the girl who meant more to him than anything in the world. Many a man has been framed because the police could count upon his coming to the rescue of the girl he loved.
And now they were trying it with me.
Very well. It would work. It always works. But there would be no sly, slinking shadow sneaking up to the house of Helen Chadwick, seeking to protect her, no Chinese cook nor Mexican millionaire trying to guard her. It would be Ed Jenkins, the Lone Wolf, the Phantom Crook himself, that would descend upon the underworld, and make that best of all defenses — a counter attack. Trap me through Helen Chadwick, would they? Damn them. I’d walk into their trap and smash it.
The cab lurched to a stop before the Mandarin Café, and I discharged it with a flourish, sneered at the inquisitive faces which peered about me, and went slowly up the flight of narrow steps, my coat over my arm, my jaw set.
Ed Jenkins was back in the underworld.
How the news traveled! A slinking hop-head by the doorway took one look and then dashed madly down the stairs. A whining stool-pigeon who held his head low and glanced at things about him with the flickering eyes of a human jackal, paid his check midway in the course of his meal and scuttled for a telephone. The whole atmosphere of the place became suddenly charged with static electricity.
I selected a table, snapped my fingers to a waiter, gave my order and sat back, watching the curling spirals of eddying smoke from my cigarette, speculating on what the events of the next half hour would be. Those who knew me would know that my very appearance in this place was an invitation to a duel, one of those subtle duels in which the weapons are human pawns and in which no quarter is given or asked.
And yet it was in this way, and in this way alone, that I could save Helen Chadwick. The intrigue of the underworld was clutching at her with its slimy fingers, seeking to control me through her. Now that I had disclosed myself, come out into the spotlight, I could probably count on two things; one was that they would leave her alone, the second was that I would be sucked into the swirling vortex of exciting events.
There was a commotion at the door.
Soo Hoo Duck entered, shuffled across the room and paused before my table.