Ngat T’oy sensed the electric suspense of the moment, realized that we had not yet made our escape, and once more that mask of inscrutable calm descended upon her features. In silence we three walked on, walked until we were well out of the crowds. The side street down which we were to turn opened before us. For one wild moment I thought that Mansfield was going to insist upon accompanying us home.
And then, abruptly, he changed his manner.
“Well, I guess I’ve gone far enough with you folks, no need of my takin’ you clean home. Remember, now, and play along with me and I’ll treat you square. Get funny with me and you’ll find that I’m a mean fighter. Savvy?”
I bowed courteously to him, a bow which might have been taken as a sign of assent.
Ngat T’oy stepped out of her Chinese impassivity long enough to resume the flapper manner of a flippant generation.
“Bologny!” she said.
He grunted at that, but turned and went away.
What had brought about his sudden change in manner? Why had he been so intent upon arousing the curiosity of Ngat T’oy as to what was happening at the policemen’s ball? Why had he ordered Soo Hoo Duck to let Chuck Gee have a free hand at that ball?
Helen Chadwick would never attend such a ball. It was absurd to think that I would be there. Ngat T’oy did not go to public dances. A cabaret party once in a while, perhaps, but not a policemen’s ball.
As I tried to puzzle out the answers to the questions, feeling that they were all inter-related, all having the same answer, my eye noticed a shadow detach itself from the side of a wall and step out on the sidewalk.
I had seen him as soon as we rounded the corner. He had shown as an indistinct patch of darkness against the half-lit street, and he contrived to give to his manner that surreptitious something that marks the skulker.
A thought flashed through my mind.
Had Captain Mansfield seen this shadow by the wall? Had it been the sight of the shadow which convinced him there was no use of escorting us farther? If so, he had accompanied us to the corner in order to make sure the shadow was there. This man was a pawn in the game he was playing, and a vital pawn.
I had time for only a word of warning to Ngat T’oy, delivered in the Cantonese dialect after the manner of a parent chiding his daughter.
There was time for no further conversation. The shadow was abreast of us. The light from a street lamp disclosed a battered countenance, a face in which evil had plowed deep furrows.
“Got a message for Ngat T’oy,” he mumbled from the side of his mouth as we went past.
She stopped.
“Yes?”
“Not here, not here. Five minutes from now in the Tsoy Far Low Café. And be alone. Not a soul with you. Make it snappy.”
That and he was gone, absorbed in the street shadows as ink is absorbed by a black blotter.
The girl turned to me, a question in her eyes.
“He is Sammy Sneed, a stool-pigeon. He works hand in glove with Mansfield. He had been planted here to wait for us. I would not go to meet him.”
She took a few steps in silence, then threw back her head and laughed.
“Well, I’m going to meet him. That’ll leave you free to make your escape. Otherwise, they’ll be shadowing us to see why and what.”
There was truth in that. Mansfield was running this affair, and he had use for Ngat T’oy.
“Promise me you won’t walk into any trap. Go to the café if you want. Listen to what he has to say. I’ll be waiting across the street, disguised as a fortune-teller. Stop by and let me tell your fortune.”
Her slant eyes widened a bit.
“You’ll do nothing of the sort. Get out of Chinatown and stay out. Chuck Gee is after the price that’s on your head, and he’ll get it if you hang around here.”
It was my turn to laugh.
“He will be worm-food when he gets it,” I said; but it was sheer bluff. Too well I knew the danger I was running; but I felt the fingers of police corruption were clutching at this girl, and I wanted to see her through.
“Would Helen Chadwick go to the policemen’s ball?” she asked abruptly.
I shook my head.
“I should think not. Anyhow, she’s promised me not to go out without a dependable escort — some one who has sufficient influence to keep the police from framing anything on her.”
Ngat T’oy extended her slim brown hand.
“Well, 'father,’ your daughter’s stepping out for the evening. You run along home and read a little philosophy until you see me again.”
“Across the street — remember, the fortune-teller,” I told her, and then shuffled along the dim sidewalk, keeping to the part of old Soo Hoo Duck, Chinese philosopher, father of Ngat T’oy, the Chinese flapper.
I was not followed. Whatever Mansfield’s plans may have been, he apparently had not questioned but what I was the man I seemed. No, his business had been with Ngat T’oy.
I rounded a corner, stepped into an alley, whisked off part of my hastily assembled disguise, adjusted stringy white whiskers, great horn-rimmed spectacles, grayed my face, painted in a few more wrinkles, and risked a light long enough to survey the effect in the little mirror I cupped in the palm of my hand.
I would pass, and this time I would stand a closer inspection.
Shuffling along slowly, moving with bowed head, heedless of the flitting forms which scouted through the shadows, I went to a place opposite the Tsoy Far Low Café. Having procured a stool and a small fable, I set myself up as a fortuneteller.
Minutes passed.
A party of gawking tourists, under the escort of a licensed guide, came around the corner, blocked the narrow street, then slowly moved on.
One or two paused before my little table, making some patronizing comment. Two furtive Chinamen slipped around the corner as silently as shadows. Gunmen these, paid killers in the employ of Chuck Gee. I watched them from the cover of my horn-rimmed spectacles. They moved as men move who have a purpose, some definite goal before them.
One took up his station some ten feet from the corner. The other went to the next corner, and then sought to mingle with the shadows.
There sounded the harsh clickety-clack of heavy-soled shoes, contrasting with the whispering feet of the Chinese.
Almost before he rounded the corner, I knew whom to expect. Captain Mansfield, more stoop-shouldered than ever, yet walking rapidly, cold eyes flickering through the shadowed doorways, mouth grimly set in a thin line.
Had he discovered the fraud I had worked on him? Did he now realize that the real Soo Hoo Duck had been asleep in his rooms while I masqueraded in his clothes?
I could not tell from his expression. This much I did know. He was laying one of his slimy plots, plots in which he pitted the emotions of men one against the other, set the stage for his human pawns, and then watched from the wings, subtly directing the action that was to follow. No man on the force had ever possessed a tenth of his uncanny skill in manipulating human emotions.
He slowed his walk as he came opposite the entrance of the Tsoy Far Low Café, looked casually into the grimy interior of a shop window, stopped to light a cigarette, flicked a little dust from his coat, and looked for some one whom he could engage in conversation.
My table offered him his opportunity. He came to me.
“You savvy me, John?”
He was not in uniform, and I put as much hostility in my voice as I dared.
“Heap no savvy. You likum see Chinatown you catchum guide. Me no savvy.”
He laughed at that.