Читать книгу President Fu Manchu - Arthur Henry Ward - Страница 10
ОглавлениеCHAPTER EIGHT
THE BLACK HAT
A Lotus cab, conspicuous by reason of its cream bodywork and pink line, drew up at the corner of Mulberry and Bayard streets. The passenger got out; a small man, very graceful of movement, dark, sleek, wearing a gray waterproof overcoat and a soft black hat. He stood for a moment beside the driver as he paid his fare, glancing back along the route they had followed.
His fare paid, he crossed Pell Street and began to walk east.
The driver turned his cab, but then made a detour, crossing Mott Street. He pulled up before Wu King’s Bar and went in. He came out again inside three minutes and drove away.
Meanwhile, the man in the black hat continued to walk east. A trickle of rain was falling, and a bleak wind searched the Chinese quarter. He increased his pace. Bright lights shone out from stores and restaurants, but the inclement weather had driven the Asiatic population under cover. In those pedestrians who passed him in the drizzle the man in the black hat seemed to take no interest whatever. He walked on with an easy, swinging stride as one confident that no harm would come to him in Chinatown.
When he passed an open door, to his nostrils came a whiff of that queer commingling of incense and spice which distinguishes the quarter. The Chinaman is a law-abiding citizen. His laws may be different from those of the Western world, but to his own codes he conforms religiously. Only a country cousin on a sightseeing expedition could have detected anything mysterious about the streets through which the man in the black hat hurried. Even Deputy Inspector Gregory of the branch accountable for the good behavior of Chinatown had observed nothing mysterious in his patrol of the public resorts and private byways.
Except for a curious hush when he had stopped in at Wu King’s Bar for a chat with the genial proprietor and a look around for a certain Celestial, there was nothing in the slightest degree suspicious in the behavior of the people of the Asiatic quarter. This impression of a hush which had fallen at the moment of his entrance he had been unable to confirm—it might have been imaginary. In any event Wu King’s was the headquarters of the Hip Sing Tong, and if it meant anything it probably meant a brewing disturbance between rival Chinese societies.
He was still considering the impression which this hush, real or imaginary, had made upon his mind when, turning a corner, he all but bumped into the man with the black hat.
The black hat was lowered against the keen wind: the detective, wind behind him, was walking very upright. Then, in a flash, the black-hatted man had gone. Momentarily the idea crossed the detective’s mind that he had not seen the man’s face—it might have been the face of a Chinaman, and he was anxious to meet a certain Chinaman.
He turned for a moment, looking back.
The man in the black hat had disappeared.
It was a particularly foul night, and Gregory had more than carried out his instructions. He trudged on through the icy drizzle to make his report. Secret orders had been received from headquarters calling upon all officers to look out for a very old Chinaman known in London as Sam Pak, and now believed to be posing as a residing alien. His description was vividly etched upon the detective’s mind. The man in the black hat could not possibly fill the part, for this Sam Pak was very old. What this very old man could be wanted for was not clear to the deputy inspector. Nevertheless, that momentary instinct would have served him well had he obeyed it....
The man whose features he had failed to see turned the first corner behind the police officer. When Gregory looked back the man was watching. Seeing Gregory walk on, he pursued his way. This led him past the corner occupied by Wu King’s Bar and right to the end of the block. Here the man in the black hat paused in shelter of a dark doorway, lighting a cigarette and shielding the light with an upraised hand. He then consulted a typewritten sheet which he drew from his raincoat pocket. Evidently satisfied that he had not misunderstood his instructions, he replaced the lighter and glanced swiftly right and left along the street. This inspection assured him that none of the few pedestrians in sight was Gregory (whom he had recognized for a police officer). He groped along the wall on his right, found and pressed a bell.
Then again he looked out cautiously. Only one traveler, a small, furtive Asiatic figure, was approaching in his direction. A slight sound told the man in the black hat that a door had opened. He turned, stepped forward and paused, seeking now with his left hand. He found a switch and depressed it. He heard the door close behind him. A moment more he waited, then, fumbling again in the darkness, he discovered a second switch, and light sprang up in the narrow passage in which he stood. The door which had opened to admit him was now shut. Another closed door was at the end of the passage. There was a bell-push beside it. He pressed the bell seven times—slowly....
2
Deputy Inspector Gregory had not quite reached the end of the block, when heading towards him through the mist and rain he saw a tall, gaunt figure, that of a Salvation Army captain, gray mustached and bespectacled. He would have passed on, for the presence of Salvation Army officials in unlikely quarters and the most inclement weather was a sight familiar enough. But the tall man pulled up directly in his path, and:
“Excuse me if I am wrong,” he said, speaking slowly and harshly, “but I think you are a police officer?”
Gregory glanced the speaker over and nodded.
“That’s right,” he replied. “What can I do for you?”
“I am looking,” the harsh voice continued, “for a defaulter, a wayward brother who has fallen into sin. I saw him not five minutes ago, but lost him on the corner of Pell Street. As you were coming from that direction it is possible that you passed him.”
“What’s he like to look at?”
“He is a small man wearing a gray topcoat and a black soft hat. It is not our intention to charge him with his offense, but it is my duty to endeavor to overtake him.”
“He passed me less than two minutes ago,” Gregory replied sharply. “What’s he listed for?”
“Converting money to his own uses; but no soul is beyond redemption.”
The harsh, gloomy voice held that queer note of exaltation which Inspector Gregory had heard so often without being able to determine whether it indicated genuine piety or affectation.
“I’ll step back with you,” he said tersely. “I know the corner he went around, and I know who lives in every house on that street. We’d better hurry!”
He turned and hurried back against the biting wind, the tall Salvation Army official striding along beside him silently. They came to the corner on which Wu King’s Bar was situated—the resort which Gregory had so recently visited; turning around it, they were temporarily sheltered from the icy blast.
“He may have gone into Wu’s,” said Gregory, as they looked along a deserted street, at one or two points of which lights shone out on the rain-drenched sidewalk. “Just stay here, and I’ll check up.”
He pushed open the door of the restaurant. To the nostrils of the Salvation Army official who stood outside was wafted a breath of that characteristic odor which belongs to every Chinatown in the world. In less than a minute the detective was out again.
“Not been in Wu’s,” he reported. “He must have gone in somewhere further along, otherwise there wouldn’t be any object in going that way; unless he’s out for a walk. There’s no other joint open back there. Do you know of any connections he has in this quarter?”
“Probably many,” the harsh voice replied, and there was sadness in the tone. “He’s attached to our Chinatown branch. I’m obliged to you but will trouble you no further, except to ask that if ever you see this man, you will detain him.”
Gregory nodded, turned, and started off.
“No trouble,” he said. “Hope you find the guy.”
The Salvation Army official walked to the end of the street, gloomily scrutinizing closed doors to right and left, seeming to note the names over the shops, the numbers, the Chinese signs. Then turning to the right again at the end of the block, he walked on through the rain for a considerable distance and finally entered an elevated railroad station....
Salvation Army delegates from all over the United States were assembled in New York that week, and a group of the senior officials had been accommodated at the Regal-Athenian Hotel. Therefore, no one in the vast marble-pillared lobby of that palatial establishment was surprised to see the tall and gloomy captain walk in. No confrere was visible in the public rooms through which he passed: the last had retired fully an hour earlier. Entering a tower elevator:
“Thirty-three,” he announced gloomily.
He stepped out on the thirty-third floor, where two deputies from neighboring States were sharing an apartment. He did not go to their apartment, however. He opened a door at the end of the long carpeted corridor and began to mount a stair. He met no one on his way, but at the fortieth floor he opened a door and peered out into another deserted carpeted corridor. ...
Captain Mark Hepburn, pacing restlessly from room to room of the suite at the top of the tower, sometimes looking out of the window at rain-drenched New York below him, sometimes listening to the whine of the elevator, and sometimes exchanging glances with the equally restless Fey, Nayland Smith’s man, who also wandered disconsolately about, suddenly paused in the little vestibule. He had heard quick footsteps.
A moment later the door opened, and a gloomy Salvation Army captain entered.
“Thank God! Sir Denis,” said Hepburn and tried to repress the emotion he felt. “I was getting really worried.”
The Salvation Army captain removed his cap, his spectacles, and, very gingerly, his gray mustache, revealing the gaunt, eager features of Nayland Smith.
“Thanks, Hepburn,” he snapped. “I am sorry to have bothered you. But I was right.”
“What!”
Fey appeared silently, his stoic face a mask.
“A whisky and soda, sir?” he suggested.
“Thanks, Fey, a stiff one.”
A triumphant light danced in Smith’s steely eyes, and:
“It looks as though you had some news,” said Hepburn.
“I have.” Nayland Smith extracted pipe and pouch from the pocket of his uniform jacket. “My guess was right—a pure guess, Hepburn, no more; but I was right. Can you imagine whom I saw down there in Chinatown tonight?”
“Not——”
“No—my luck didn’t go as far as that. But just as I was turning out of Mott Street, right in the light from a restaurant, I saw our friend James Richet—Abbot Donegal’s ex-secretary!”
“Richet?”
“Exactly. One of the key men. Luck was with me. Then, suddenly, it turned. Of all the unimaginable things, Hepburn ... a real Salvation Army officer came up to me! Following a brief conversation he challenged me to establish my identity, and I was forced to do so.”
He pulled back the top of his tunic, revealing the gold badge of a federal agent.
“A clumsy business, Hepburn. But what could I do? In the meantime, I had lost my man. I met a detective officer as I went racing around the corner. He was unmistakable. I know a policeman, to whatever country he belongs, a quarter of a mile away. He had passed my man and he did his best. I have memorized all the possible places into which he may have gone. But one thing is established, Hepburn—Dr. Fu Manchu has a Chinatown base....”
