The impostor who had masqueraded as Chang Loo lay dead on the floor of the room, a pistol clutched in his hand, his bright yellow robe splashed and stained from the pool of blood collected around his head.
“What a mess!” Driscoll breathed, kneeling down beside the body. “Put the muzzle in his mouth and pulled the trigger! Blew out the back of his head... Hey, Sarge, look! There’s the parrot!”
The green Feather Devil was perched on the back of a chair, glaring at them with hostile intensity. “Rawk-awk!” it trumpeted, crisping its claws and ruffling its feathers.
“And look — the table!” Driscoll cried, pointing. “We were just in time! He was gettin’ ready to take it on the lam, with what’s left of the loot.”
O’Hara looked at the preparations for flight — at the disorderly heap of crumpled bills turned out, apparently, from two ginger-jars which lay empty on the floor, at a small camphor-wood casket packed with choice jade carvings in mutton-fat and fei-tsui and ornaments of gold and silver set with precious stones.
“Well, this guy was no piker,” Driscoll commented. “It was all or nothing, and he sure gave us a run for our money. You’d think a smart guy like him would’ve fixed himself for a fast getaway. This room’s like a jail-cell — bars on the windows, iron on the door.”
“They all make mistakes,” O’Hara said. He went over to the windows and tapped his finger against the metal bars, then opened a closet and sounded the walls briefly. Frowning in thought, he stood looking down at the dead man. “Funny we didn’t hear the shot.”
“Through that iron door?” Driscoll scoffed. “Say, he could have kicked off with a cannon while you were banging away with the axe.”
“Too bad we didn’t get him alive,” O’Hara remarked slowly. “There are a lot of questions I’d like to ask.”
Driscoll was busy searching the dead man’s clothing. “Look, Sarge, here are the identification papers he stole from Chang Loo, even the little jade luck-piece... Recognize it, Chang?”
“Yiss, yiss!” young Chang cried, darting forward to clutch his luckpiece, while O’Hara examined the papers — the telegram which had summoned Chang Loo, his chock-gee and hu-chao.
“Hello — what’s this!” O’Hara exclaimed, smoothing but a strip of red paper. “Chinese writing. Is this yours, Chang?”
Chang Loo ran his eye over the “broken stick” symbols, and his voice quivered with excitement as he said, “Not see this writing before, Tajen, but it is for me — a letter from my dead uncle Chang.
“This writing, by the hand of Chang Pao, for the eyes of his nephew, Chang Loo.
Having great fear of thieves and night-robbers, who have thrice broken into my house in search of plunder, I have hidden the greater of my wealth in a secret place, safe from all searching, even by eyes sharp as the needle. Trusting no man, I leave the key to this hiding place in the keeping of Shao, my Feather Devil. Hearken to the three words he will speak — from those three words make one word — and that one will guide you to the hidden treasure. Use thy wealth with wisdom, son of my brother, so that the House of Chang may ever be held in honor.”
For a few moments there was absolute silence after Chang Loo’s voice was still, then Driscoll burst out excitedly: “There’s your parrot clue, Sarge! Now we know why this phoney Chang hung on to the parrot through thick and thin! He wanted to get at old Chang’s hidden treasure, and he couldn’t make the parrot talk! That’s why he poked it with a stick and made it drunk with samshu — he wanted to make it speak those three words!”
“Hoya!” young Chang Loo exclaimed. “It is plain as the rising sun!”
“Yes, and it’s also plain that he never did get those three words out of Shao,” O’Hara put in. “He was still working on that parrot tonight, when Chang Loo sent out his message. So the treasure is still hidden where old Chang left it, and the parrot still has the secret!”
Chapter Four
Triple Fire
With a single motion they all turned to face the green Feather Devil, sidling along its perch, staring back at them with a sullen hostility, as if defying them to wrest its secret by fair means or foul.
“Come on, Feather Devil, speak up!” Driscoll coaxed, scratching its crest. “Give us those three little words!”
“Rawk-awk!” said the parrot, and drew blood from Driscoll’s finger with a nip of its sharp beak.
“Nice birdie!” Driscoll said soothingly. “Give us those three little words — so I can wring that blasted neck of yours!”
“You’ve got a job on your hands,” O’Hara said. “Shao’s been worked on by experts.”
While Driscoll went on trying to coax the precious words from the stubborn parrot, O’Hara heard Burke’s voice shouting up to him excitedly from downstairs.
“Hey, Sarge! Here’s Tai Gat!”
“Send him up!” O’Hara called back, and the limping mafoo came hurrying up the stairs, bursting with excited questions about the broken doors, the bullet-scarred halls, the Blue Coat Man’s tale that the New Master was lying dead.
With grim brevity O’Hara pointed to the sprawled body lying there on the stained floor, and recounted what had taken place in crisp, terse sentences that left the mafoo gasping with astonishment.
“Chang Loo not real Chang Loo!” he stammered. “Can there be two moons in the sky? Ai-yee! It is a devil-work past all belief! Sah-jin, I leave house after rice-time to burn prayers for Old Master at Plum Blossom Joss House. Young Master say he go to fan-tan game — now he is gone to ancestors. Hoya! The ways of the Lords of Destiny are hidden from the eyes of men.”
O’Hara questioned Tai Gat about the arrival of the false Chang Loo. The mafoo replied that the impostor had simply rung the bell and presented the telegram as introduction. The silversmith had already lapsed into the coma which endured until the hour of his death, and Tai Gat declared that he had observed nothing to arouse suspicion about the stranger’s identity.
Regarding Chang Pao’s hidden treasure, Tai Gat professed complete ignorance. The Old Master had grown secretive and suspicious in his later years, and kept most of the rooms locked up, day and night. The mafoo was forbidden to enter his master’s private quarters, unless summoned by the gong.
“Didn’t you look after the parrot Shao?” O’Hara asked. “Feeding him, and so on?”
“No, Sah-jin,” Tai Gat answered. “Shao live in Master’s room until he fall sick. Then I move him to Kwan-Yin room so his noise not wake Master from sleep.”
“Did you ever hear the parrot talk?” O’Hara questioned. “Did you ever hear him speak anything except his name?”
“Not listen, Sah-jin,” Tai Gat replied. “Me not likee Feather Devil. Young ones good for eating, but old ones good for nothing but make noise.”
“Well, you’re wrong about Shao. Shao happens to be the most valuable parrot in the world.” Abruptly, O’Hara turned to Driscoll, who was still trying to wheedle the magic words from the obstinate Feather Devil.
“Give it up, Driscoll,” O’Hara said. “You’re only wasting your time. You won’t coax those three words out of him, not if you worked on it the rest of your life.”
“Why, what do you mean, Sarge?”
“I mean that this parrot isn’t Shao — not old Chang’s bird at all! And it’s not the parrot I picked up in Manchu Place, either!”