by Sidney Herschel Small
A dying man, a headless idol and the flight of a bee tell Wentworth a tale of frightful crime and — Kong Gai!
Chapter I
The Missing Children
“And what I don’t know, I can’t tell you,” said Captain Dunand, attempting honestly to answer the shrewd queries of the reporters as he sat behind his desk in San Francisco’s Hall of Justice. He went on doggedly, “You boys seem to think I’m trying to get out of making an arrest. That ought to make you happy, because as long as the Whitcomb case remains unsolved, your papers can keep on calling me a doddering old fool—”
“Then you refuse to admit that Whitcomb and his three children are victims of a gang outrage?” demanded the News-Call reporter. “You refuse to admit that they are being held for ransom? You refuse to admit—”
“I’m not admitting what I don’t know,” persisted the gray-haired captain of detectives. “Not if you keep after me all day, boys.”
The Enquirer man drawled, “We’ve been after you six days, cap, and you haven’t come across with one printable line. You play with us, and we’ll play with you. The public have a right to know what’s being done to clear up Whitcomb’s disappearance. They’re pretty worked up about it, too. A man and three youngsters can’t vanish without leaving some sort of clew—”
Captain Dunand stared out of the window, and blinked as the last rays of sun glinted off the roofs of Chinatown and were reflected into his eyes. He said finally, “I agree with you, Haynes. I don’t want to fool anybody, except the criminals involved in the case. The department had one clew, and gave it to you.”
“The fellow who came to Whitcomb’s office and threatened him?”
“That’s the man. Martin Cravens.”
“Well,” insisted Haynes, “how about finding him in time for my next edition?”
Dunand said wearily, “I told you boys that if you plastered his name all over the front pages he’d go into hiding.”
“Well, how ’bout the chauffeur of Whitcomb’s machine, cap? He’d do to keep our jobs for us.”
Dunand was about to reply that the department was making every effort to find the missing chauffeur when he heard a whisper, followed by a laugh. He asked abruptly, “What’s funny, Haynes? Let us in on it.”
“I just said it was too bad it wasn’t a couple of elephants your dicks were looking for, cap. They could probably find a pair of elephants, provided the animals stayed on Market Street—”
Leaning back in his chair, Dunand said, “Let’s go over this thing, boys. And” — solemnly — “anything I may say isn’t for publication. Right?”
The oldest reporters pledged their words with a quiet, “Shoot, captain.”
“Six days ago,” Dunand began, “Ronald Whitcomb left his house and went to his office. He arrived at nine o’clock, about. A few minutes later the man Martin Cravens, a clerk at the Consolidated Oil, came to see him. There was an argument. It seems that Cravens had bought stock on Whitcomb’s say so, and lost his shirt. Cravens said some dangerous words; he was heard to say them by people in the outer office.”
“We know all this, cap!”
“Wait. Let me finish, Haynes. Cravens leaves, promising to get even. At a few minutes past ten, Whitcomb’s own car takes him away.
“Then we learn that somebody telephoned his home, ordering the three children to come to Maginn-Duane’s, the department store, and meet their father. The children are taken there in a taxi—”
“What taxi, cap?”
“Not the one phoned for,” said Dunand, “because the maid at the house said a second cab came, a few minutes after the first one. Let me go ahead, boys, will you? You know all this, anyhow.
“The cab didn’t go to the department store, so far as we can learn. Whitcomb is gone. His three children are gone. It looks like the work of a number of men, but there’s been no demand yet for ransom. Martin Cravens couldn’t do it by himself. He’s only a clerk, and, as you boys’ve found out, a fellow with a good reputation.
“Whitcomb’s chauffeur is also an honest man; been with him eleven years. So I tell you that it looks to me like the work of a gang of men, just as you fellows have been trying to get me to say, but” — his big finger waving at the listeners — “I want it to appear as if all suspicion is on this man Cravens! If he’s in with a gang, I want ’em to push him forward when the time comes for dickerin’. In other words, boys, I want the department to appear dumb, and according to you fellows that ought to be easy.”
“Do you realize, cap, that you’ve not told us a single new fact?”
“I’ve never lied to you, boys, and I’m not starting to do it now!”
The News-Call man said thoughtfully, “We’ve all printed stories that it looks like a gang outrage, captain.”
“Sure. But the department hasn’t backed up your statements.”
Haynes said suddenly, “We’re not blaming you, cap, but our city editors are all riding us to get some sort of story. Here’s an idea. Why don’t you put Wentworth on the case? It would let us print a lot of hooey, and we’d get by with it, and in the meantime put the real gang clear off any notion that they’re suspected. Let us cook up a tale about the trail leading to Chinatown! We can use Wentworth’s photograph, and rehash some of the stories about arrests he’s made. Be a good guy, cap. All you got to say is ‘Sergeant Wentworth has been assigned to the Whitcomb case’ and we’ll do all the necessary fiction writing.”
“Wentworth’s only the patrolman on the Chinatown beat,” said Dunand.
“I’ll leave it to the boys.”
“You said it,” agreed the newspaper men in chorus.
Dunand instantly attempted to retreat behind his last line of defense: “Then I wasn’t talking for publication,” he growled.
“No go,” the veteran police reporter decided fairly. “You’re protected in anything you said about the Whitcomb case, but this came later. If Haynes wishes to use it, he can. We all can, and we all probably will, because we haven’t anything else to turn in. It makes a good yarn, and can’t do any harm.”
“If I assign Wentworth to the case for one day, does that satisfy you?”
“One minute’ll satisfy me,” grunted Haynes. “Now, call Wentworth up here, and let us talk to him.”
Dunand was trapped, and knew it. He reached for his desk telephone, and said into the transmitter, “Chinatown squadron. Manning? Dunand. Is Sergeant Wentworth in? He is? Tell him I want him. Eh? Yes, I’ll speak to him on the phone first—”
There was a pause, and then the captain of detectives said, “Hullo, sergeant. I want… hullo… oh, it’s you, Manning? What? Busy? Well, let me talk to him on the phone. There’re some newspaper men here, and they want a word about the Whitcomb case.”
Silence again; when Dunand said, “I’m listening, Manning. He said… what? Oh, he said that, did he? Hmm, well, well, well.” A slow grin was spreading over the gray-haired captain’s stolid face. “Very well, Manning,” he concluded. “Just say to the sergeant that I’ll wait for him here.”
Haynes was looking at his watch. “Have him make it snappy,” he said, as Dunand replaced the telephone. “I’ve got a suburban edition to make, cap.”
“Sergeant Wentworth said he was busy,” said Dunand placidly.
“Say, who’s in charge of the bureau? You, or Wentworth? How long’ve I got to wait?”
“It takes a long time for boiling water to freeze,” Dunand told him calmly.
“Meaning Wentworth said I could wait until hell froze over?”