She looked me over appraisingly from those slant eyes of hers, and then slipped me a bit of American slang.
“Go to it, big boy,” she said, bowed, smiled at me and vanished through a doorway.
I slipped into another room and took stock of the situation.
The whole upper floors of the block were honeycombed with passages. So far so good. The whole block was surrounded. Not so good. The guards were both Chinese and police. Probably there were underground passages, but Chuck Gee’s men would be guarding them. However, there was one thing in my favor. We hadn’t seen a single Chinaman in the whole tour we had made of the upper floors. We had gone through dining-rooms, sleeping-rooms, gambling rooms, little corridors, rooms of all sorts. In none of them had there been a single human being.
That meant but one thing. They were getting the Chinese out as fast as possible. In some mysterious manner word was being passed for the Chinks to get in the clear. Did that mean they were going to set fire to the block? Perhaps. It would enable them to get me dead rather than alive; but more probably there was some other scheme. A block on fire would be a little hard to handle, even if they did have the fire department under Boardman’s thumb. No, there was something else.
Anyway, I had one thing to go on. The Chinks were being removed from that block.
I opened my blouse and took a wide belt from around my waist. In this belt were many small, compact articles that had been of value more than once. If the police thought I had earned my nickname of The Phantom Crook by depending on one disguise, they were crazy.
Calmly, leisurely I went to work on my features. A white beard, horn-rimmed glasses, a skull cap of blue silk, a stick of grease paint and lines drawn across my face, and I’d do in the right kind of light — an old Chinaman, bent with age, wrinkled of skin, gray of hair and beard, seeking my way out, with trembling, halting steps.
I started for the main flight of stairs that was nearest. Not by any secret passageways would I come down; but right out in the open, down the main stairway.
From a doorway ahead a swift-moving shadow darted into the half-light, poised for a moment, then shuffled to the stairs. Good. I would have a pilot. The Chinaman in front of me would go through the mill first, give me an idea of what to expect.
He opened a door to the street. I was right behind. Hands grasped him. He was held at the doorway for questioning.
“You savee Ah Klim?”
It was the voice of Captain Ransome, the police Captain, who had taken active charge of the man hunt and who had promised that the fugitive would be in custody within forty-eight hours.
“I heap no savee.”
“All right. You stickum fingers in ink, puttem on paper.”
So that was it. They were fingerprinting the Chinks as they left the building.
I hesitated for a moment while they were daubing the fingers of the man ahead.
“We’ve got him trapped sure.” Ransome was talking to one of many bluecoats near him. “Every outlet is blocked. The men are instructed to shoot on sight. However, I’m going to try for him myself. We don’t want him wounded, you know. When you see me shoot, empty your gun in him. All right, let’s put this next fellow through.”
There was a purring complacency about Ransome’s voice which characterizes the crooked police officer when he is wielding a terrific power that is his to use for good or evil.
I turned and darted into a branch hallway. This was no place for me. The disguise might get by for a minute, but the fingerprints would identify me, I was trapped.
From behind came a cry.
“One of em’s going back. He’ll warn Jenkins!”
I could never mistake that deep, booming voice. It was Paul Boardman, the orator, the politician, the crook, who controlled half of the governmental agencies in the State.
“Let him go. He can’t get out.”
That last from Captain Ransome.
So I was surrounded, every channel of escape blocked, and they were fingerprinting the men who left the building. Well, I had been in as tight fixes before, doubtless would be again, but this was the first time I had ever encountered any such organization of pursuit. Beyond doubt I was badly wanted.
I slipped back by another flight of stairs, into the deserted rabbit warren of the upper floors, and heard the voice of “Little Sun.”
“Couldn’t you make it?... Oh, it’s not...”
I straightened and smiled reassuringly at her.
“Yes, but it is, though. I just aged a bit.”
She came straight to me.
“Do you know a Helen Chadwick?”
At the question I stiffened. Helen’s name must not be connected with mine. The police knew something — too much. The underworld, Chinatown, the rank and file of crookdom must never know.
“Helen Chadwick?” I repeated the words vaguely, sparring for time.
“Yes,” went on the girl. “The police were in our apartment a few moments ago getting ready to start a search of the upper floors here. My father told them you had escaped. They telephoned from our apartment to a Helen Chadwick, told her you were dying, and had asked for her. She is on her way here.”
For once I could feel the blood in my veins turn to luke warm water.
Helen Chadwick, drawn into this trap!
The girl saw my expression.
“Perhaps I can help,” she said, simply, and her hand patted my arm.
God knows what there was about this paradoxical character, this girl that had all the mannerisms of the West, all the habits of thought and appearance of the East, but there was a steadying something that nerved me for what was to come. No longer was I under any illusions. They were planning the death of myself and of Helen Chadwick, the two who knew too much to live. I would be killed “while resisting arrest.” Helen Chadwick would disappear — another tourist who had gone into Chinatown and failed to return.
“Go back and try to get in touch with her. Then, don’t let her out of your sight,” I said, after a moment. “I’ll either be out of here or dead within a few minutes.”
She didn’t argue, didn’t ask a lot of questions, didn’t pull any fainting fits. She arose to the emergency with the true Oriental impassivity, and I knew I could depend on her.
Back to the head of the stairs I went. No time now for planning any subtle schemes. I must get out, and I must use my head to do it. Boardman had struck. He wanted to kill two birds with one stone. I must have my liberty. Helen would need help. Boardman needed a lesson.
I had a straggling wisp of white beard fastened to my chin, one of the long drooping beards which strings down from the chins of very old Chinamen. I slipped this beard off, held it in my hand, ready to readjust.
I had noticed a heavy bronze idol in one of the rooms, on a little family shrine. I went back to this, and checked over the last details of the plan in my mind.
The idol sat there, cross-legged, gazing out upon the world through his mask of fatalistic indifference. Before him, little joss sticks gave forth curling wisps of perfumed smoke. Red papers, covered with grotesque Chinese characters, were impaled on sticks and stuck into cans filled with earth. Pieces of roast pig and bowls of cooked rice were before him.
“Old man, I want you to do me a favor,” I told him in mock seriousness.
His enameled eyes stared straight forward in complacent serenity. I stooped and hoisted him from his dais to my shoulder. Then I dashed down the hall. I was working against time.
At the head of the main stairs was a door, a door that opened inward. Gently, I pried it open a foot or two, placed a chair, climbed up and balanced the bronze idol on top of the door, resting slightly against the wall behind, ready to fall at the least motion of the door. Carefully I got down, then made a swift trip of inspection to the little slide which covered the peep-hole.