The newcomer was one of the hatchetmen, one of the outposts.
“And does Soo Hoo Duck know that his instructions will reach their destination? Is he, perhaps, like the wireless stations of the white man to send forth noise upon the night air and have it received in all places at once?”
The hatchetmen shrugged his shoulders.
“It was Little Sun herself who gave me the signed order and told me to run with it to the joss room.”
Chuck Gee scowled, his eyes squinting in thought. Dared he disobey the mandate of the uncrowned king of Chinatown? With a hundred hatchetmen at his back he was supreme from the point of physical power, but Chinese politics are tricky things to monkey with.
And then there came another sound from the teakwood door. Momentarily I was expecting that my disappearance within the worship chamber would be noted, reported, a search started. But events were piling up with too great rapidity for the disappearance of one worshiper to attract too great attention.
The two men who strode into the back part of the room were important actors. One a Chinese guardian of the outer passage. The other a tall, loose-jointed, flapping figure of ungainly awkwardness, a white man so far as skin went, black as coal as to heart — he whom for want of a better name I had called The Buzzard, the driver of the black death wagon.
“I’ve got the wagon backed in the alley behind Lip Kee’s. It’s dark there and you can load her, see?”
The Chinese who accompanied him shrilled forth a swift sentence.
“There is something strange. One came to worship and did not return, nor is he before the prayer papers...”
Chuck Gee shut him off. His mind was balancing a nice problem. Should he take the gold of the white man and chance the displeasure of Soo Hoo Duck; should he strike first and explain afterward, or should he meekly accept the mandate of the old man?
He reached his decision swiftly.
“He has not the right to give such instructions except in the proper method,” muttered Chuck Gee. “I will go to him for an explanation. In the meantime, perhaps a man will come who has not heard of the instructions. Perhaps he may carry my orders into effect before he learns that they have been irregularly countermanded.
“You,” to the Buzzard, “wait at Lip Kee’s. If you do not hear from me within fifteen minutes take your wagon and go.”
“You,” to the guide, “make a search for this man who has vanished. It may well be that the man who vanishes is he who vanishes from the white men, the man who is like the phantom. There would be much money for the capture of such a man, but it is orders that his lips shall cease their talk before his capture is made.”
With the words Chuck Gee swept to his feet and made for the door. At his heels came the Buzzard, flapping, ungainly, the taper lights illuminating the long, thin neck, the black clothes, the prominent nose, the red-rimmed eyes.
The teakwood door slammed and I was crawling out through the idol, out through the flap I had cut in the front. There was a chance for me to take. I left the paper flap slightly open and against it I placed one of the peanut oil lamps.
Behind me, they gabbled a bit before starting their search. Had Chuck Gee meant for them to strike home with dagger before he could countermand instructions, or had he intended to send in a new executioner?
As they concluded that he dared not send in a new man, but that he had meant for them to proceed in his absence, I reached the teakwood door, opened and closed it, so it would sound as though I had just entered there, walked with rapid, confident steps straight past the semi-circle of grinning gods.
“Soo Hoo Duck has spoken, and I am his messenger,” I said, as I made toward the lighted taper.
They fell back, muttering. The man with the dagger fingered it hungrily.
She was bound to the chair as I had surmised.
To falter would be fatal. Nothing but sheer American bluff would cany it through. And time was short. I surmised that the first instructions had come from Little Sun rather than from Soo Hoo Duck. How far the old despot dared go in thwarting the organized gunmen was another question.
My knife confidently cut the cunningly knotted ropes.
“Your authority for this?”
It was the highbinder with the jade-handled dagger, and the knife was pointed at my throat, balanced.
Carelessly I extended my hand. The gold ring of the green dragon caught the dancing, reddish light, glittered up at him.
In that moment I was ready for what might come. Helen was free, there was a back passageway. These men could never get past me until she had escaped. It was only my own life that then hung in the balance.
They grunted incredulous surprise.
With confident feet I made my way toward the back entrance, the one which led into the dark alley. One of the men slipped from the group, started on swift feet to seek Chuck Gee to apprise him of what had happened, to gather reinforcements, perhaps.
And then he caught the significance of the flickering shadows which danced upon the front wall of the room. And it was time he did so. The other men had started forward, grim, determined.
It is a peculiar quality of the Chinese mind that it cannot function in the face of unusual events. Given an ordinary situation and they work with efficient cunning. They would have held me, or tried to hold me, had the significance of those flickering lights not dawned upon them.
The center god was afire. The flap of paper soaked in peanut oil, caught in the flame of the taper, was blazing up. Momentarily the room became lighter.
The Chinese stood, dismayed, confronted with the greatest danger Chinatown can face with its huddled tinder boxes, its rabbit warrens of flimsy partitions — fire!
“You come thisa way, ladee,” I muttered to Helen, and darted for the back entrance.
Behind me I could see the semi-circle of grinning gods staring calmly out over the peanut oil lamps, out over the ruddy flames that twisted and licked up around the paper base of the center god, could see the influx of excited, jabbering Chinese figures with Chuck Gee in the lead.
She followed me, but I could see she was on guard against treachery. For aught she knew, this was a scheme to entice her into some hidden passageway and murder her without witnesses.
“Faster,” I said, and increased my pace.
The cold air of the alley came upon my face. At one end the Buzzard would have his death car parked. The other exit led to a main street down which Helen’s red roadster was standing.
I led the way through the darkness.
“You savvy Mister Jenkins?” she asked, and there was a hunger in her voice, hunger and anxiety.
“No savvy, ladee,” I said, trudging onward through the dark alley.
“I must learn if he is safe,” she muttered.
I saw that I must improvise.
“One piecee white man he sent me turn you loose. He heap makum laugh policee man. He heap smart.”
That reassured her.
“Will you tell him I am safe?”
It was like her, thoroughbred that she was. She had just been rescued from certain death, and her thoughts were with The Phantom Crook, with his safety.
“Maybe so. You hurry.”
She held back slightly.
“You will see him then?”
She was frittering away precious seconds. I reached back and touched her arm, trying to force her to greater speed.
Who can tell of the subtle psychic organism that we call woman? I was disguised so that I could flit through Chinatown at will. More, I was disguised as a Chinaman, one of the coolie class who would be repulsive to a white girl, and yet no sooner had my hand touched her arm there in the darkness of that smelly alley than she knew me.
“Ed!” she cried, then quivered slightly and stopped in her tracks.