“All quiet?” I asked of my guards, as we took our way down the street.
“All quiet,” said Porter.
“You'd better tell him,” said Barkhouse.
“Oh, yes,” said Porter, as if in sudden recollection. “Dicky Nahl was along here, and he said Terrill and Meeker and the other gang was holding a powwow at Borton's, and we'd best look out for surprises.”
“Was that all?”
“Well, he said he guessed there was a new deal on hand, and they was a-buzzin' like a nest of hornets. It was hornets, wasn't it, Bob?”
“Hornets was what he said,” repeated Barkhouse stolidly.
“Where's Dicky now?” I asked.
“I ain't good at guessing,” said Porter, “and Bob's nothing at all at it.”
“Well,” said I, “we had better go down to Borton's and look into this matter.”
There was silence for a time. My guards walked beside me without speaking, but I felt the protest in their manner. At last Barkhouse said respectfully:
“There's no use to do that, sir. You'd better send some one that ain't so likely to be nabbed, or that won't matter much if he is. We'd be in a pretty fix if you was to be took.”
“Here comes Dicky, now,” said Porter, as a dark figure came swinging lightly along.
“Hullo!” cried Dicky, halting and shading his eyes from the gaslight. “I was just going up to look for you again.”
“What's up, Dicky?”
“I guess it's the devil,” said Dicky, so gravely that I broke into a laugh.
“He's right at home if he's come to this town,” I said.
“I'm glad you find it so funny,” said Dicky in an injured tone. “You was scared enough last time.”
I had put my foot in it, sure enough. I might have guessed that the devil was not his Satanic Majesty but some evil-minded person in the flesh whom I had to fear.
“Can it be Doddridge Knapp?” flashed across my mind but I dismissed the suspicion as without foundation. I spoke aloud:
“Well, I've kept out of his claws this far, and it's no use to worry. What's he trying to do now?”
“That's what I've been trying to find out all the evening. They're noisy enough, but they're too thick to let one get near where there's anything going on—that is, if he has a fancy for keeping a whole skin.”
“Suppose we go down there now,” I suggested. “We might find out something.”
Dicky stopped short.
“Cæsar's ghost!” he gasped; “what next? Wouldn't you like to touch off a few powder-kegs for amusement? Won't you fire a pistol into your mouth to show how easy you can stop the bullet?”
“Why, you have been down there and are all right,” I argued.
“Well, there's nothing much to happen to me, but where would you be if they got hold of you? You're getting off yourcabesa, old fellow,” said Dicky anxiously.
“If I could see Mother Borton I could fix it,” I said confidently.
“What! That she-devil?” cried Dicky. “She'd give you up to have your throat cut in a minute if she could get a four-bit piece for your carcass. I guess she could get more than that on you, too.”
Mother Borton's warnings against Dicky Nahl returned to me with force at this expression of esteem from the young man, and I was filled with doubts.
“I came up to tell you to look out for yourself,” continued Dicky. “I'm afraid they mean mischief, and here you come with a wild scheme for getting into the thick of it.”
“Well, I'll think better of it,” I said. “But see if you can find out what is going on. Come up and let me know if you get an inkling of their plans.”
“All right,” said Dicky. “But just sleep on a hair-trigger to-night.”
“Good night,” I said, as I turned toward my room, and Dicky, with an answering word, took his way toward the Borton place.
I had grown used to the silent terrors of my house. The weird fancies that clung around the gloomy halls and dark doorways still whispered their threatening tales of danger and death. The air was still peopled with the ghosts of forgotten crimes, and the tragedy of the alley that had changed my life was heavy on the place. But habit, and the confidence that had come to me with the presence of my guards, had made it a tolerable spot in which to live. But as we stumbled up the stairway the apprehensions of Dicky Nahl came strong upon me, and I looked ahead to the murky halls, and glanced at every doorway, as though I expected an ambush. Porter and Barkhouse marched stolidly along, showing little disposition to talk.
“What's that?” I exclaimed, stopping to listen.
“What was it?” asked Barkhouse, as we stopped on the upper landing and gazed into the obscurity.
“I thought I heard a noise,” said I. “Who's there?”
“It was a rat,” said Porter. “I've heard 'em out here of nights.”
“Well, just light that other gas-jet,” I said. “It will help to make things pleasant in case of accidents.”
The doors came out of the darkness as the second jet blazed up, but nothing else was to be seen.
Suddenly there was a scramble, and something sprang up before my door. Porter and I raised the revolvers that were ready in our hands, but Barkhouse sprang past us, and in an instant had closed with the figure and held it in his arms.
There was a volley of curses, oaths mingled with sounds that reminded me of nothing so much as a spitting cat, and a familiar voice screamed in almost inarticulate rage:
“Let me go, damn ye, or I'll knife ye!”
“Good heavens!” I cried. “Let her go, Barkhouse. It's Mother Borton.”
Mother Borton freed herself with a vicious shake, and called down the wrath of Heaven and hell on the stalwart guard.
“You're the black-hearted spawn of the sewer rats, to take a respectable woman like a bag of meal,” cried Mother Borton indignantly, with a fresh string of oaths. “It's fire and brimstone you'll be tasting yet, and you'd 'a' been there before now, you miserable gutter-picker, if it wasn't for me. And this is the thanks I git from ye!”
“I'll apologize for his display of gallantry,” said I banteringly. “I've always told him that he was too fond of the ladies.”
I was mistaken in judging that this tone would be the most effective to restore her to good humor. Mother Borton turned on me furiously.
“Oh, it's you that would set him on a poor woman as comes to do you a service. I was as wide-awake as any of ye. I never closed my eyes a wink, and you has to come a-sneakin' up and settin' your dogs on me.” Mother Borton again drew on an apparently inexhaustible vocabulary of oaths. “Oh, you're as bad as him,” she shouted, “and I reckon you'd be worse if you knowed how.” And she spat out more curses, and shook her fist in impotent but verbose rage.
“Come in,” I said, unlocking the door and lighting up my room. “You can be as angry as you like in here, and it won't hurt anything.”
Mother Borton stormed a bit, and then sullenly walked in and took a chair. Silence fell on her as she crossed the threshold, but she glowered on us with fierce eyes.
“It's quite an agreeable surprise to see you,” I ventured as cheerfully as I could, as she made no move to speak. My followers looked awkward and uncomfortable.
At the sound of my voice, Mother Borton's bent brows relaxed a little.
“If you'd send these fellows out, I reckon we could talk a bit better,” she said sourly.
“Certainly. Just wait in the hall, boys; and close the door.”
Porter and Barkhouse ambled out, and Mother Borton gave her chair a hitch that brought us face to face.
“You ain't so bad off here,” she said, looking around critically. “Can any one git in them winders?”
I explained that the west window might be entered from the rear stairway by the aid of the heavy shutter, if it were swung back and the window were open. I added that we kept it closed and secured.
“And you say there's a thirty-foot drop from this winder?” she inquired, pointing to the north.
I described the outlook on the alley.
She nodded as if satisfied.
“I reckon you don't think I come on a visit of perliteness?” she said sharply, after a brief silence.
I murmured something about being glad to entertain her at any time.
“Nonsense!” she sniffed. “I'm a vile old woman that the likes of you would never put eyes on twice if it wasn't for your business—none knows it better than me. I don't know why I should put myself out to help ye.” Her tone had a touch of pathos under its hardness.
“I know why,” I said, a little touched. “It's because you like me.”
She turned a softened eye on me.
“You're right,” she said almost tenderly, with a flash of womanly feeling on her seamed and evil face. “I've took a fancy to ye and no mistake, and I'd risk something to help ye.”
“I knew you would,” I said heartily.
“And that's what I come to do,” she said, with a sparkle of pleasure in her eye. “I've come to warn ye.”
“New dangers?” I inquired cheerfully. My prudence suggested that I had better omit any mention of the warning from Dicky Nahl.
“The same ones,” said Mother Borton shortly, “only more of 'em.”
Then she eyed me grimly, crouching in her chair with the appearance of an evil bird of prey, and seemed to wait for me to speak.
“What is the latest plot?” I asked gravely, as I fancied that my light manner grated on my strange guest.
“I don't know,” she said slowly.
“But you know something,” I argued.
“Maybe you know what I know better than I knows it myself,” growled Mother Borton with a significant glance.
I resigned myself to await her humor.
“Not at all,” said I carelessly. “I only know that you've come to tell me something, and that you'll tell it in your own good time.”
“It's fine to see that you've learned not to drive a woman,” she returned with grim irony. “It's something to know at your age.”
I smiled sympathetically upon her, and she continued:
“I might as well tell ye the whole of it, though I reckon my throat's jist as like to be slit over it as not.”
“I'll never breathe a word of it,” I replied fervently.
“I'd trust ye,” she said. “Well, there was a gang across the street to-night—across from my place, I mean—and that sneaking Tom Terrill and Darby Meeker, and I reckon all the rest of 'em, was there. And they was runnin' back and forth to my place, and a-drinkin' a good deal, and the more they drinks the louder they talks. And I hears Darby Meeker say to one feller, 'We'll git him, sure!' and I listens with all my ears, though pretendin' to see nothin'. 'We'll fix it this time,' he said; 'the Old Un's got his thinkin' cap on.' And I takes in every word, and by one thing and another I picks up that there's new schemes afoot to trap ye. They was a-sayin' as it might be an idee to take ye as you come out of Knapp's to-night.”
“How did they know I was at Knapp's?” I asked, somewhat surprised, though I had little reason to be when I remembered the number of spies who might have watched me.
“Why, Dicky Nahl told 'em,” said Mother Borton. “He was with the gang, and sings it out as pretty as you please.”
This gave me something new to think about, but I said nothing.
“Well,” she continued, “they says at last that won't do, fer it'll git 'em into trouble, and I reckon they're argyfying over their schemes yit. But one thing I finds out.”
Mother Borton stopped and looked at me anxiously.
“Well,” I said impatiently, “what was it?”
“They're a-sayin' as how, if you're killed, the one as you knows on'll have to git some one else to look after the boy, and mebbe he won't be so smart about foolin' them.”
“That's an excellent idea,” said I. “If they only knew that I was the other fellow they could see at once what a bright scheme they had hit upon.”
“Maybe they ain't a-goin' to do it,” said Mother Borton. “There's a heap o' things said over the liquor that don't git no further, but you'll be a fool if you don't look out. Now, do as I tell you. You just keep more men around you. Keep eyes in the back of your head, and if you see there's a-goin' to be trouble, jest you shoot first and ax questions about it afterward. They talked of getting you down on the water-front or up in Chinatown with some bogus message and said how easy it would be to dispose of you without leaving clues behind 'em. Now, don't you sleep here without three or four men on guard, and don't you stir round nights with less than four. Send Porter out to git two more men, and tell him to look sharp and see if the coast's clear outside. I reckon I'll slide out if no one's lookin'.”
“I've got some men on the next floor,” I said. “I thought it would be just as well to have a few around in case of emergencies. I'll have two of them out, and send Porter to reconnoiter.”
“Who told you to git your men together?”
“A little idea of my own.”
“You've got some sense, after all.”
The reinforcements were soon ready to take orders, and Porter returned to bring word that no suspicious person was in sight in the street.
“I reckon I'd best go, then,” said Mother Borton. “I don't want no knife in me jest yit, but if there's no one to see me I'm all right.”
I pressed Mother Borton to take two of my men as escort, but she sturdily refused.
“They'd know something was up if I was to go around that way, and I'd be a bloody ghost as soon as they could ketch me alone,” she said. “Well, good night—or is it mornin'? And do take keer of yourself, dearie.” And, so saying, Mother Borton muffled herself up till it was hard to tell whether she was man or woman, and trudged away.
Whatever designs were brewing in the night-meeting of the conspirators, they did not appear to concern my immediate peace of body. The two following days were spent in quiet, and, in spite of warnings, I began to believe that no new plan of action had been determined on.
“Don't you feel too sure of yourself,” said Dicky Nahl, to whom I confided this view of the situation. “You won't feel so funny about it if you get prodded in the ribs with a bowie some dark night, or find your head wrapped up in a blanket when you think you're just taking a 'passy-ar' in Washington Square in the evening.”
Dicky looked very much in earnest, and his bright and airy manner was gone for the moment.
“You seem to get along well enough with them,” I suggested tartly, remembering Mother Borton's stories with some suspicion.
“Of course,” said Dicky. “Why shouldn't I? They're all right if you don't rub the fur the wrong way. But I haven't got state secrets in my pockets, so they know it's no use to pick 'em.”
I was not at all sure of Dicky's fidelity, in spite of his seeming earnestness, but I forbore to mention my doubts, and left the garrulous young man to go his way while I turned to the office that had been furnished by Doddridge Knapp. I hardly expected to meet the King of the Street. He had, I supposed, returned to the city, but he had set Wednesday as the day for resuming operations in the market, and I did not think that he would be found here on Monday.
The room was cold and cheerless, and the dingy books in law-calf appeared to gaze at me in mute protest as I looked about me.
The doors that separated me from Doddridge Knapp's room were shut and locked. What was behind them? I wondered. Was there anything in Doddridge Knapp's room that bore on the mystery of the hidden boy, or would give the clue to the murder of Henry Wilton? As I gazed on the panels the questions became more and more insistent. Was it not my duty to find the answer? The task brought my mind to revolt. Yet the thought grew on me that it was necessary to my task. If vengeance was to be mine; if Doddridge Knapp was to pay the penalty of the gallows for the death of Henry Wilton, it must be by the evidence that I should wrest from him and his tools. I must not stop at rummaging papers, nor at listening at keyholes. I had just this morning secured the key that would fit the first door. I had taken the impression of the lock and had it made without definite purpose, but now I was ready to act.
With a sinking heart but a clear head I put the key cautiously to the lock and gently turned it. The key fitted perfectly, and the bolt flew back as it made the circle. I opened the door into the middle room. The second door, as I expected, was closed. Would the same key fit the second lock, or must I wait to have another made? I advanced to the second door and was about to try the key when a sound from behind it turned my blood to water.
Beyond that door, from the room I had supposed to be empty, I heard a groan.
I stood as if petrified, and, in the broad daylight that streamed in at the window, with the noise and rush of Clay Street ringing in my ears, I felt my hair rise as though I had come on a ghost. I listened a minute or more, but heard nothing.
“Nonsense!” I thought to myself; “it was a trick of the imagination.”
I raised my hand once more to the lock, when the sound broke again, louder, unmistakable. It was the voice of one in distress of body or mind.
What was it? Could it be some prisoner of Doddridge Knapp's, brought hither by the desperate band that owned him as employer? Was it a man whom I might succor? Or was it Doddridge Knapp himself, overwhelmed by recollection and remorse, doing penance in solitude for the villainy he had done and dared not confess? I listened with all my ears. Then there came through the door the low, stern tones of a man's voice speaking earnestly, pleadingly, threateningly, but in a suppressed monotone.
Then the groan broke forth again, and it was followed by sobs and choked sounds, as of one who protested, yet, strangely, the voice was the same. There was one man, not two. It was self-accusation, self-excuse, and the sobs seemed to come in answer to self-reproaches.
Then there was sound as of a man praying, and the prayer was broken by sobs; and again I thought there were two men. And then there was noise of a man moving about, and a long smothered groan, as of one in agony of spirit. Fearful that the door might be flung open in my face, I tiptoed back to my room, and silently turned the key, as thoroughly mystified as ever I had been in the strange events that had crowded my life since I had entered the city.
I stood long by my own door, irresolute, listening, hoping, fearing, my brain throbbing with the effort to seize some clue to the maze of mysteries in which I was entangled. Was the clue behind those locked doors? Did the man whose groans and prayers had startled me hold the heart of the mystery?
The groans and prayers, if they continued, could be heard no longer through the double doors, and I seated myself by the desk and took account of the events that had brought me to my present position. Where did I stand? What had I accomplished? What had I learned? How was I to reach the end for which I struggled and bring to justice the slayer of my murdered friend? As I passed in review the occurrences that had crowded the few weeks since my arrival, I was compelled to confess that I knew little more of the mysteries that surrounded me than on the night I arrived. I knew that I was tossed between two opposing forces. I knew that a mysterious boy was supposed to be under my protection, and that to gain and keep possession of him my life was sought and defended. I knew that Doddridge Knapp had caused the murder of Henry Wilton, and yet for some unfathomable reason gave me his confidence and employment under the belief that I was Henry Wilton. But I had been able to get no hint of who the boy might be, or where he was concealed, or who was the hidden woman who employed me to protect him, or why he was sought by Doddridge Knapp. Mother Borton's vague hints seemed little better than guess-work. If she knew the name of the boy and the identity of the woman, she had some good reason for concealing them. It flashed over my mind that Mother Borton might herself be the mysterious employer. I had never yet seen a line of her handwriting, and the notes might have come from her. It was she who first had told me that my men were already paid, and a few hours later I had found the note from my employer assuring me that the demands were fully settled. Could it be that she was the woman with whom Doddridge Knapp was battling with a desperate purpose that did not stop at murder? The idea was gone as soon as it came. It was preposterous to suppose that these two could feel so overwhelming an interest in the same child.
How long I sat by the desk waiting, thinking, planning, I know not. One scheme of action after another I had considered and rejected, when a sound broke on my listening ears. I started up in feverish anxiety. It was from the room beyond, and I stole toward the door to learn what it might mean.
Again it came, but, strain as I might, I could not determine its cause. What could be going on in the locked office? If two men were there was it a personal encounter? If one man, was he doing violence upon himself? Was the heart of the mystery to be found behind those doors if I had the courage to throw them open? Burning with impatience, I thrust aside the fears of the evil that might follow hasty action. I had drawn the key and raised it once more to the slot, when I heard a step in the middle room. I had but time to retreat to my desk when a key was fitted in the lock, the door was flung open, and Doddridge Knapp stepped calmly into the room.
“Ah, Wilton,” said the King of the Street affably. “I was wondering if I should find you here.”
There was no trace of surprise or agitation in the face before me. If this was the man whose prayers and groans and sobs had come to me through the locked door, if he had wrestled with his conscience or even had been the accusing conscience of another, his face was a mask that showed no trace of the agony of thoughts that might contort the spirit beneath it.
“I was attending to a little work of my own,” I answered, after greeting. If I felt much like a disconcerted pickpocket I was careful to conceal the circumstance, and spoke with easy indifference. “You have come back before I expected you,” I continued carelessly.
“Yes,” said the King of the Street with equal carelessness. “Some family affairs called me home sooner than I had thought to come.”
I had an inward start. Mrs. Knapp's troubled look, Mrs. Bowser's confusion, and the few words that had passed, returned to me. What was the connection between them?
“Mrs. Knapp is not ill, I trust?” I ventured.
“Oh, no.”
“Nor Miss Knapp?”
“Oh, all are well at the house, but sometimes you know women-folks get nervous.”
Was it possible that Mrs. Knapp had sent for her husband? What other meaning could I put on these words? But before I could pursue my investigations further along this line, the wolf came to the surface, and he waved the subject aside with a growl.
“But this is nothing to you. What you want to know is that I won't need you before Wednesday, if then.”
“Does the campaign reopen?” I asked.
“If you don't mind, Wilton,” said the Wolf with another growl, “I'll keep my plans till I'm ready to use them.”
“Certainly,” I retorted. “But maybe you would feel a little interest to know that Rosenheim and Bashford have gathered in about a thousand shares of Omega in the last four or five days.”
Doddridge Knapp gave me a keen glance.
“There were no sales of above a hundred shares,” he said.
“No—most of them ran from ten to fifty shares.”
“Well,” he continued, looking fixedly at me, “you know something about Rosenheim?”
“If it won't interfere with your plans,” I suggested apologetically.
The Wolf drew back his lips over his fangs, and then turned the snarl into a smile. “Go on,” he said, waving amends for the snub he had administered.
“Well, I don't know much about Rosenheim, but I caught him talking with Decker.”
“Were the stocks transferred to Decker?”
“No; they stand to Rosenheim, trustee.”
“Well, Wilton, they've stolen a march on us, but I reckon we'll give 'em a surprise before they're quite awake.”
“And,” I continued coolly, “Decker's working up a deal in Crown Diamond and toying a little with Confidence—you gave me a week to find out, you may remember.”
“Very good, Wilton,” said the King of the Street with grudging approval. “We'll sell old Decker quite a piece of Crown Diamond before he gets through. And now is there anything more in your pack?”
“It's empty,” I confessed. “Well, you may go then.”
I was puzzled to know why Doddridge Knapp should wish to get me out of the office. Was there some secret locked in his room that he feared I might surprise if I stayed? I looked at him sharply, but there was nothing to be read on that impassive face.
Doddridge Knapp followed me to the door, and stood on the threshold as I walked down the hall. There was no chance for spying or listening at keyholes, if I were so inclined, and it was not until I had reached the bottom stair that I thought I heard the sound of a closing door behind me.
As I stood at the entrance, almost oblivious of the throng that was hurrying up and down Clay Street, Porter joined me.
“Did you see him?” he asked.
“Him? Who?”
“Why, Tom Terrill sneaked down those stairs a little bit ago, and I thought you might have found him up there.”
Could it be possible that this man had been with Doddridge Knapp, and that it was his voice I had heard? This in turn seemed improbable, hardly possible.
“There he is now,” whispered Porter.
I turned my eyes in the direction he indicated, and a shock ran through me; for my eye had met the eye of a serpent. Yes, there again was the cruel, keen face, and the glittering, repulsive eye, filled with malice and hatred, that I had beheld with loathing and dread whenever it had come in my path. With an evil glance Terrill turned and made off in the crowd.
“Follow that man, Wainwright,” said I to the second guard, who was close at hand. “Watch him to-night and report to me to-morrow.”
I wondered what could be the meaning of Terrill's visit to the building. Was it to see Doddridge Knapp and get his orders? Or was it to follow up some new plan to wrest from me the secret I was supposed to hold? But there was no answer to these questions, and I turned toward my room to prepare for the excursion that had been set for the evening.
It was with hope and fear that I took my way to the Pine Street palace. It was my fear that was realized. Mrs. Bowser fell to my lot—indeed, I may say that I was surrounded by her in force, and surrendered unconditionally—while Luella joined Mr. Carter, and Mrs. Carter with Mr. Horton followed.
Corson was waiting for us at the old City Hall. I had arranged with the policeman that he should act as our guide, and had given him Porter and Barkhouse as assistants in case any should be needed.
“A fine night for it, sor,” said Corson in greeting. “There's a little celebration goin' on among the haythens to-night, so you'll see 'em at their best.”
“Oh, how sweet!” gushed Mrs. Bowser. “Is it that dear China New Year that I've heard tell on, and do they take you in to dinner at every place you call, and do they really eat rats? Ugh, the horrid things!” And Mrs. Bowser pulled up short in mid career.
“No, ma'am,” said Corson, “leastways it ain't Chaney New Year for a couple of months yet. As for eatin' rats, there's many a thing gets eaten up in the dens that would be better by bein' turned into a rat.”
Looking across the dark shrubbery of Portsmouth Square and up Washington Street, the eye could catch a line of gay-colored lanterns, swaying in the light wind, and casting a mellow glow on buildings and walks.
“Oh, isn't it sweet! So charming!” cried Mrs. Bowser, as we came into full view of the scene and crossed the invisible line that carries one from modern San Francisco into the ancient oriental city, instinct with foreign life, that goes by the name of Chinatown. Sordid and foul as it appears by daylight, there was a charm and romance to it under the lantern-lights that softened the darkness. Windows and doors were illuminated. Brown, flat-nosed men in loose clothing gathered in groups and discussed their affairs in a strange singsong tongue and high-pitched voices. Here, was the sound of the picking of the Chinese banjo-fiddle; there, we heard a cracked voice singing a melancholy song in the confusion of minor keys that may pass for music among the brown men; there, again, a gong with tin-pan accompaniment assisted to reconcile the Chinese to the long intervals between holidays. Crowds hurried along the streets, loitered at corners, gathered about points of interest, but it seemed as though it was all one man repeated over and over.
“Why, they're all alike!” exclaimed Mrs. Bowser. “How do they ever tell each other apart?”
“Oh, that's aisy enough, ma'am,” replied Corson with a twinkle in his eye. “They tie a knot in their pigtails, and that's the way you know 'em.”
“Laws! you don't say!” said Mrs. Bowser, much impressed. “I never could tell 'em that way.”
“It is a strange resemblance,” said Mr. Carter. “Don't you find it almost impossible to distinguish between them?”
“To tell you the truth, sor, no,” said Corson. “It's a trick of the eye with you, sor. If you was to be here with 'em for a month or two you'd niver think there was two of 'em alike. There's as much difference betwixt one and another as with any two white men. I was loike you at first. I says to meself that they're as like as two pease. But, now, look at those two mugs there in that door. They're no more alike than you and me, as Mr. Wilton here can tell you, sor.”
The difference between the two Chinese failed to impress me, but I was mindful of my reputation as an old resident.
“Oh, yes; a very marked contrast,” I said promptly, just as I would have sworn that they were twins if Corson had suggested it.
“Very remarkable!” said Mr. Carter dubiously.
In and out we wound through the oriental city—the fairy-land that stretched away, gay with lanterns and busy with strange crowds, changing at times as we came nearer to a tawdry reality, cheap, dirty, and heavy with odors. Here was a shop where ivory in delicate carvings, bronze work that showed the patient handicraft and grotesque fancy of the oriental artist, lay side by side with porcelains, fine and coarse, decorated with the barbaric taste in form and color that rules the art of the ancient empire. Beyond, were carved cabinets of ebony and sandal-wood, rich brocades and soft silks and the proprietor sang the praises of his wares and reduced his estimate of their value with each step we took toward the door. Next the rich shop was a low den from whose open door poured fumes of tobacco and opium, and in whose misty depths figures of bloused little men huddled around tables and swayed hither and thither. The click of dominoes, the rattling of sticks and counters, and the excited cries of men, rose from the throng.
“They're the biggest gamblers the Ould Nick iver had to his hand,” said Corson; “there isn't one of 'em down there that wouldn't bet the coat off his back.”
“Dear me, how dreadful!” said Mrs. Bowser. “And do we have to go down into that horrible hole, and how can we ever get out with our lives?”
“We're not going down there, ma'am,” interrupted Corson shortly.
“And where next?” asked Luella.
The question was addressed to the policeman, not to me. Except for a formal greeting when we had met, Luella had spoken no word to me during the evening.
“Here's the biggest joss-house in town,” said Corson. “We might as well see it now as any time.”
“Oh, do let us see those delightfully horrible idols,” cried Mrs. Bowser. “But,” she added, with a sudden access of alarm at some recollection of the reading of her school-days, “do they cut people's hearts out before the wicked things right in the middle of the city?”
The policeman assured her that the appetite of the joss for gore remained unsatisfied, and led the way into the dimly-lighted building that served as a temple.
I lingered a moment by the door to see that all my party passed in.
“There's Wainwright,” whispered Porter, who closed the procession.
“Where?” I asked, a dim remembrance of the mission on which I had sent him in pursuit of the snake-eyed man giving the information a sinister twist.
Porter gave a chirrup, and Wainwright halted at the door.
“He's just passed up the alley here,” said Wainwright in a low voice.
“Who? Terrill?” I asked.
“Yes,” said Wainwright. “I've kept him in sight all the evening.”
“Hasn't he seen you?” asked Porter. “I spied you as soon as you turned the corner.”
“Don't know,” said Wainwright; “but something's up. There he goes now. I mustn't miss him.” And Wainwright darted off.
I looked searchingly in the direction he took, but could see no sign of the snake-eyed enemy.
The presence of Terrill gave me some tremors of anxiety, for I knew that his unscrupulous ferocity would stop at nothing. I feared for the moment that some violence might threaten the party, and that perhaps Luella was in danger. Then I reflected that the presence of Doddridge Knapp's daughter was a protection against an attack from Doddridge Knapp's agents, and I followed the party into the heathen temple without further apprehensions.
The temple was small, and even in the dim, religious light that gave an air of mystery to the ugly figure of the god and the trappings of the place, the whole appeared cheap—a poor representative of the majesty of a religion that claims the devotion of four hundred million human beings.
“That's one of the richest carvings ever brought into this country,” said Corson, pointing to a part of the altar mounting. “Tin thousand dollars wouldn't touch one side of it.”
“You don't say!” cried Mrs. Bowser, while the rest murmured in the effort to admire the work of art. “And is that stuff burning for a disinfectant?”
She pointed to numerous pieces of punk, such as serve the small boy on the Fourth of July, that were consuming slowly before the ugly joss.
“No, ma'am—not but they needs it all right enough,” said Corson, “but that's the haythen way of sayin' your prayers.”
This information was so astonishing that Corson was allowed to finish his explanation without further remarks from Mrs. Bowser.
“I'll show you the theater next,” said he, as he led the way out of the temple with Mrs. Bowser giving her views of the picturesque heathen in questions that Corson found no break in the conversation long enough to answer. As I lingered for a moment in some depression of spirit, waiting for the others to file out, a voice that thrilled me spoke in my ear.
“Our guide is enjoying a great favor.” It was Luella, noticing me for the first time since the expedition had started.
“He has every reason to be delighted,” I returned, brightening at the favor I was enjoying.
“Foreign travel is said to be of great value in education,” said Luella, taking my arm, “but it's certainly stupid at times.”
I suspected that Mr. Carter had not been entirely successful in meeting Miss Knapp's ideas of what an escort should be.
“I didn't suppose you could find anything stupid,” I said.
“I am intensely interested,” she retorted, “but unfortunately the list of subjects has come to an end.”
“You might have begun at the beginning again.”
“He did,” she whispered, “so I thought it time he tried the guide or Aunt Julia.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“Thank him, you mean,” she said gaily. “Now don't be stupid yourself, so please change the subject. Do you know,” she continued without giving me time to speak, “that the only way I can be reconciled to this place and the sights we have seen is to imagine I am in Canton or Peking, thousands of miles from home? Seen there, it is interesting, instructive, natural—a part of their people. As a part of San Francisco it is only vile.”
“Ugh!” said I, as a whiff from an underground den floated up on the night air, and Luella caught her handkerchief to her face to get her breath. “I'm not sure that this rose would smell any sweeter by the name of Canton.”
“I'm afraid your argument is too practical for me to answer,” she laughed. “Yet I'm certain it would be more poetic seven thousand miles away.”
“Come this way,” said Corson, halting with the party at one of the doors. “I'll show you through some of the opium dens, and that will bring us to the stage door of the theater.”
“How close and heavy the air is!” said Luella, as we followed the winding passage in the dim illumination that came from an occasional gas-jet or oil lamp.
“The yellow man is a firm believer in the motto, 'Ventilation is the root of all evil,'” I admitted.
The fumes of tobacco and opium were heavy on the air, and a moment later we came on a cluster of small rooms or dens, fitted with couches and bunks. It needed no description to make the purpose plain. The whole process of intoxication by opium was before me, from the heating of the metal pipe to the final stupor that is the gift and end of the Black Smoke. Here, was a coolie mixing the drug; there, just beyond him, was another, drawing whiffs from the bubbling narcotic through the bamboo handle of his pipe; there, still beyond, was another, lying back unconscious, half-clad, repulsive, a very sorry reality indeed to the gorgeous dreams that are reputed to follow in the train of the seductive pipe.
“Do they really allow them to smoke that dreadful stuff?” asked Mrs. Bowser shrilly. “Why, I should think the governor, or the mayor, or you, Mr. Policeman, would stop the awful thing right off. Now, why don't you?”
“Oh, it's no harm to the haythen,” said Corson. “It's death and destruction to the white man, but it's no more to the yellow man than so much tobacco and whiskey. They'll be all right to-morrow. We niver touches 'em unless they takes the whites into their dens. Then we raids 'em. But there's too much of it goin' on, for all that.”
“This is depressing,” said Luella, with a touch on my arm. “Let's go on.”
“Turn to the right there,” Corson called out, as we led the way while he was explaining to Mr. Carter the method of smoking.
“Let us get where there is some air,” said Luella. “This odor is sickening.”
We hastened on, and, turning to the right, soon came on two passages. One led up a stair, hidden by a turn after half a dozen steps. The other stretched fifty or seventy-five feet before us, and an oil lamp on a bracket at the farther end gave a smoky light to the passage and to a mean little court on which it appeared to open.
“We had better wait for the rest,” said Luella cautiously.
As she spoke, one of the doors toward the farther end of the passage swung back, and a tall heavy figure came out. My heart gave a great bound, and I felt without realizing it at the moment, that Luella clutched my arm fiercely.
In the dim light the figure was the figure of the Wolf, the head was the head of the Wolf, and though no light shone upon it, the face was the face of the Wolf, livid, distorted with anger, fear and brutal passions.
“Doddridge Knapp!” I exclaimed, and gave a step forward.
It flashed on me that one mystery was explained. I had found out why the Doddridge Knapp of plot and counterplot, and the Doddridge Knapp who was the generous and confidential employer, could dwell in the same body. The King of the Street was a slave of the Black Smoke, and, like many another, went mad under the influence of the subtle drug.
As I moved forward, Luella clung to me and gave a low cry. The Wolf figure threw one malignant look at us and was gone.
“Take me home, oh, take me home!” cried Luella in low suppressed tones, trembling and half-falling. I put my arm about her to support her.
“What is it?” I asked.
She leaned upon me for one moment, and the black walls and gloomy passage became a palace filled with flowers. Then her strength and resolution returned, and she shook herself free.
“Come; let us go back to the others,” she said a little unsteadily. “We should not have left them.”
“Certainly,” I replied. “They ought to be here by this time.”
But as we turned, a sudden cry sounded as of an order given. There was a bang of wood and a click of metal, and, as we looked, we saw that unseen hands had closed the way to our return. A barred and iron-bound door was locked in our faces.