The diminutive Chinaman reached the bottom of the stairs and waited for his companion. When he felt the man’s heavy hand on his shoulder, he turned to his right, advancing cautiously through an almost impenetrable darkness.
There was a smell of dry rot in this basement, and around their feet rats scampered and squeaked. The man’s hand shook, and his breath came with a hissing sound through his clenched teeth.
“Now we go down again, master,” the boy announced presently. He had paused and turned again to the right. “You keep close—I show you!”
A step at a time, they descended a second flight of stairs. On either side were rough stone walls, powdery with mildew. The man discovered this with his free left hand. Strange odors came to him. Abruptly a bell rang, somewhere in the bowels of the darkness below them.
The boy stopped in his tracks.
“Now you go down, master,” he commanded. “Ah Wing waiting for you—you go slow. Goo’-by!”
He slipped out from under the heavy hand that would have detained him, and the man heard him go scampering like one of the rats up the stairs and away through the upper corridors.
Terror gripped the man left alone there on the stairs. He felt that he was in a trap—and he had been evading traps so long now that they had become an obsession with him.
He cried out, hoarsely, and as he did so a door opened below and a flood of light shone out.
“Pray continue your descent, Colonel Knight,” a cultured voice commanded from somewhere within the lighted room whose door had just opened. “The stairs are quite secure, and I am awaiting you!”
With a plunge that hinted at desperation, the man addressed as “Colonel Knight” reached the bottom of the stairs and crossed to the door. He paused there for a moment, till his eyes adjusted themselves to the change in illumination. Then he stepped inside, and heard the heavy door close behind him.
The room he had entered was of considerable extent, but was almost destitute of furniture. There were bare walls, dusty with green mildew; and bare floors, covered with layers of dust and litter. There were two chairs, one of which was already occupied.
And as the newcomer’s eyes rested on the occupant of that chair, all his doubts and fears returned to him. He had come to this unearthly spot to get away from almost certain death. Now he was not certain that the remedy would not prove worse than the disease.
The man sitting there, facing him, was dressed like a Chinaman, in silk trousers and coat, satin slippers, and black silk cap; but his eyes were of a metallic gray, and his high, thin-bridged nose spoke of Nordic blood. He would have been tall had he been standing. His hands were lying passive in his lap, but they were the hands of a man of great physical power.
And above all these details and beyond them was something the man in the ulster could not quite define—a radiation of power, as if the intellect and will of this strange being seated before him saturated the atmosphere of the empty room.
“Pray be seated, Colonel Knight!” the man in the chair said courteously. “I am glad to meet you. You have been recommended to me by a former student of mine—you know that I take only a few cases. It will be best for you to tell me your story, fully and accurately.”
Colonel Knight lowered himself into the empty chair. His eyes still peered out through the gap in his collar, and seemed to be fastened on the face of the man before him.
Then, slowly and grudgingly he removed his cap and turned down his collar, disclosing the pouchy face of a man well advanced into middle age. It was a face suggesting daring and resourcefulness, this face of Colonel Knight; and for a few moments the two sat staring curiously at each other.
“I think I can condense that statement I have to make,” the white man said finally. “I am a man of wealth. Five years ago, while traveling in Europe, I had the misfortune to attract the attention of the greatest gang of international thieves ever organized. Perhaps you have heard of them? They were called ‘The Evening Wolves,’ and were led by a man who called himself ‘Count von Hondon’.”
He paused for an instant to regard his companion curiously, but the Oriental merely bowed and sat impassively waiting.
“These men must have followed me about for some time before they struck. Finally they saw their chance. I was packed to leave Paris for Belgium, and they undoubtedly figured that I would have much of wealth with me.
“I did—but I had other things they had overlooked. I had my pistols, and I am a dead shot. I killed two of the robbers, and the rest fled. I supposed that would settle the matter, but I was mistaken. Five members of the gang were left alive, and they swore to be revenged upon me. They have followed me—”
A bell rang shrilly somewhere close at hand, and Colonel Knight leaped from his chair and looked wildly at his companion.
“What was that?” he cried. “That bell rang when I was descending the stairs—”
“Someone followed you here,” the other replied, “and is now trying to reach us. Pray continue!”
“But that man upon the stairs—”
“We will come to him presently. Let me ask you to finish!”
“There is nothing more! I have been followed for years, and now a physical trouble is added—my physician tells me I am going blind. I can’t see to run—”
The Chinaman eyed his companion deliberately.
“Why lie to me, my friend?” he demanded presently. “You come to me for help, and you wish to steal my ammunition! Now let me reconstruct your story for you. You yourself are ‘Count von Hondon.’ You were the leader of the master crooks called ‘The Evening Wolves.’ Five years ago you and your men made a rich haul, and you decided that a time had come to retire, or perhaps to go in by yourself. You departed, taking with you the loot; and ever since it has been a running fight.
“Your old comrades could have shot you outright, but that would not restore to them the booty you stole. And you have not dared dispose of it, because it was the only thing that stood between you and death! You see, you can’t lie to me. Every lie carries its trade-mark with it, to those who have eyes to see. Now I shall ask you but one question, and let me warn you—if you lie now, you will never leave this place alive!”
He stood up and thrust an accusing finger toward the cowering thief.
“Tell me,” said the Chinaman, “the name of the person whom you and your men robbed!”
The beady eyes of Colonel Knight, or “Count von Hondon” as he had once been known in every capital in Europe, glittered with suspicion and fear. His breath caught in his throat, and he unfastened his collar with trembling fingers.
“The name,” he said hoarsely, “was—was—”
Ah Wing crossed toward the heavy door and laid his hand upon the knob. His metallic eyes blazed, and he looked down with fierce contempt upon the man trembling before him.
“Will you answer?” he cried. “Or shall I open this door?”
“It was a woman!” Knight whimpered. “Her name was—Madame Celia—”
He broke off and stared at the Chinaman, towering there before the door. Ah Wing had neither spoken nor moved; but there was in the room a disturbance as if a great voice had shouted out a curse.
Slowly the Chinaman came back toward his visitor. His face now was the impassive face of a carved Buddha.
“Colonel Knight,” he said gently, “the high gods have undoubtedly brought you to me. I am the only person in the world who can save you, for I work outside of the laws of men. And I will take your case, now that I fully understand it. But first I will ask you to show me the Resurrection Pendant which you stole from Madame Celia!”
The white man got slowly to his feet, his hands groping at his throat, his eyes protruding, his face the color of dough.
“The pendant!” he whispered through ashen lips. “The Resurrection Pendant! You know—you have heard?”
“Show me the Pendant,” repeated Ah Wing inexorably. “I know that you brought it with you tonight, just as I know that you intended, in case I refused to take your case, to try to disappear without returning to your hotel. Show me the Pendant!”
With faltering hands and without removing his fearful eyes from the face of his companion, the crook reached inside his ulster and drew forth a package wrapped in brown paper. This he slowly unfastened, disclosing a jewel case. More and more slowly his fingers fumbled with the catch.
There came a sound from the door—a voice that seemed to have difficulty in filtering through the heavy panels.
“Come out of that, Count! We got you over a barrel! Come out—”
The massive door shook under a terrific blow, as from a sledge. The man in the ulster seemed about to crumple to the floor.
Ah Wing spoke coldly.
“Show me the Pendant!” he repeated. “They cannot break down that door, but if you trifle with me I will open it!”
With hurried fingers the terror-stricken crook threw back the cover of the jewel case, disclosing a mass of diamonds, intricately and skilfully assembled into a great pendant.
_CHAPTER TWO_
UNDER CHINATOWN
Ah Wing took a long stride, which brought him close to the man who held the jewel case.