“I'll have to readjust rates, though. I’m only supposed to attend to a removal of the bodies, not to go into the murder business. But they were so insistent that you must absolutely vanish... and old Abe Grue’s the one to fix that up, all right.
“When I get done with you you’ll be a poor little pauper that’s buried all regularly as an indigent dead. Six feet of earth between your face and those who are looking for it. Ha, ha, ha! That’s the way old Abe Grue does things.”
I sat there on the sill, crouched, frozen into immobility. Directly below me was the marble slab and the body of the girl. Her wide eyes, glazed with death, yet staring in horror, seemed to hold my own. I could not jump down without lighting directly on that marble slab.
And then the felt curtain which I had thrust to one side came loose from its fastenings, and fluttered down, coming to a rest directly over the face of the corpse below, covering it completely.
Abe Grue, looking more like a buzzard than ever, crooked his long neck and raised his red-rimmed eyes.
What he saw was a clown, his face dead white, a permanent smile painted in red, thousands of smile wrinkles grinning from the eyes, a peak cap on its head, grinning down at him. Doubtless the sight startled him as much as what I had seen had startled me.
“Eh?” he said. “What’s that?”
I twisted my lips, broadened the painted grin on my face.
“Death, Abe, death. You always thought of me as a skeleton, didn’t you. But I’m not. I’m just a clown, a big joke, and the biggest part of the joke is that it’s on you.”
The words as much as my appearance puzzled him. He blinked rapidly, and then, suddenly, snapped back into the world of reality. His awkward elbow croked into angular action. His hand started back toward his hip pocket.
My own hand reached out, seeking a handhold to aid me in my spring, caught on one of the big bottles that sat on the shelf, and furnished me with an inspiration.
I gave every ounce of strength I could muster into a sweeping throw that took the heavy bottle from its place, plunged it forward and down. It caught the buzzard’s upturned face in a crashing impact of broken glass and ill-smelling fluid.
He toppled backward to the floor amid the jagged fragments of glass, the pistol falling from his nerveless hand.
And I made a great spring, cleared the marble slab, and was at the side of Ngat T’oy.
She was conscious, and she recognized me at the first words of reassurance I poured into her ear. My knife cut the ropes and gag, my hands chafed circulation into her numbed limbs, and I raised her to her feet, turned her so that her eyes did not, perforce, take in the gruesome marble slab and the sprawled form of the outlaw undertaker.
Her arm clung around my neck, her weight resting largely upon me, and I could see she was physically weak, mentally shocked; but as to the thoughts that went on in her mind I was totally ignorant. The almond eyes which she turned upon me were as inscrutable as her father’s had been, as I led her to a couch in an adjoining room.
“Tell me everything, Ngat T’oy. Make it short, sketchy.”
Her face became perfectly expressionless, her slant eyes fixed upon some point beyond the four walls of the room, and she recited, in a matter-of-fact tone a tale of adventures which would have driven a white girl to madness.
“The man you called Sneed told me of a plot against Helen Chadwick. She had been inveigled to attend the policemen’s ball as a red poppy. She was to be kidnapped. A taxi driver had been bribed. He would take her down Second Street, and Chuck Gee was to have men there to take her from the cab. Of course, I suspected a trap. I excused myself and telephoned Helen’s maid. Then I learned that he was right. Helen had just left the house, dressed as a poppy.
“An idea came to me. Perhaps Sneed suggested it. I cannot remember clearly. I would secure the costume of a red poppy. I could get a cab and reach Second Street before Helen did. The Chinese would kidnap me and then leave. When they found out that I was Ngat T’oy, daughter of Soo Hoo Duck, they would release me.
“I asked Sneed where the poppy costume had been obtained, and he said he could find out by telephone, and have a duplicate sent at once.
“The cab driver brought the costume. I changed in the dressing room. I did not come across the street to the fortuneteller, because there was but little time. I told the driver to hurry to Second Street, then to drive slowly, and not to resist anyone who tried to hold us up.
“We met five men who took me from the car. I struggled a bit, but kept my mask on. They took me into another car and drove me off. At the next corner a man got in who was dressed as a monk. He said something in a low tone, and the car whirled around a corner, swung swiftly to the wrong side of the street, and there stood Chuck Gee and three of his men.
“They looked up, and the man who was dressed as a monk leaned forward, over the door of the car. 'I’m Ed Jenkins,’ yelled the man dressed as a monk. Chuck Gee took a swift step toward us, and then the man who was dressed as a monk shot him. The driver stepped on the gas, and the car whizzed away.
“The man took off the monk disguise and I saw he was Sam Sneed. A black wagon such as is used for the dead was parked in the alley and they forced me to crawl into this, slammed the doors and then drove me here. A man sat with me in the car, tied and gagged me as we traveled.
“I told him there was a mistake, that I was Ngat T’oy, took off my mask. He laughed. Then I knew I had been trapped. But I fear for Helen Chadwick.
“We came here. I was taken out under a sheet. The man instructed the undertaker to see that I was properly prepared for burial. I was to be underground at nine o’clock in the morning.
“Then you came. That is all I know.”
There was silence for several seconds. I noticed that the room we were in had been fitted as a funeral chapel. A huge clock mournfully clacked off the seconds of passing time. Through my mind there ran the philosophy of the Chinese, that the present is a part of eternity as much as the future.
“Is there anything you wish to ask me?” she inquired.
I shook my head. I wanted to think.
“Very well,” she said calmly, and fainted — abruptly, without warning.
I opened her clothes, fanned her, placed pillows under her head and opened the window. It was of no avail. I could not bring her to.
Sitting there in the stuffy funeral chapel of the outlaw undertaker, the clock clacking off the seconds, audible evidence of man’s puny effort to measure eternity, I wrestled with the problem, moving from one fact to another.
And then I reached a solution.
There were probably fine points of the game which I did not have, but in the main I could see the plan.
Chuck Gee knew too much. There was a shake-up in the police department impending. The Chief was slated for the discard. They must reach me at any cost. Helen Chadwick knew too much. Ngat T’oy knew too much. I was making powerful friends. Hourly, I was in a better position to fight back. Boardman was becoming afraid. Afraid not only of Helen Chadwick and her friends, of Ngat T’oy and her friends, but afraid of Ed Jenkins, and what he might do.
Therefore Chuck Gee must die. Helen Chadwick must die. Loring Kemper must be removed. Ngat T’oy must tell no tales. And Ed Jenkins, the Phantom Crook, must vanish forever.
They tricked Ngat T’oy to wear the costume of the red poppy when they had found out that Helen Chadwick was going to the ball so attired. A car carrying two people, a monk and a red poppy had boldly driven to the curb in front of the Bing Gung tong house and the monk had shot Chuck Gee. That eliminated Chuck Gee. There were a hundred highbinders who would seek vengeance. What more natural than that they should suppose the two costumed occupants of that murder car were at the policemen’s ball? Vindictive Chinese, bent upon revenge, would slink through the shadows about the hall where the ball was being held. At the proper moment they would strike. The monk and the red poppy would fall, riddled with bullets.