Warm with anger, now that she had seen to-night the reason for a desire to escape, she paused at the foot of the stairs before going on. She stopped to speak to the smoking guard. She saw that Dude had followed her to the hall. She saw nothing more. She must stop with the guard a minute to calm her anger. Jo might be met upstairs.
Unseen by her, unseen by even the keen-eyed guard, for Rose was in front of him, Dude had climbed to the banister, pulled himself up and over and silently and swiftly climbed to the third floor.
Rose did not see Jo as she ascended. She did not see him in the passage above. She reached the door that led to her apartment and entered. There was Dude. She stilled her surprise and rapidly closed the door behind her.
They were face to face now. He could reach out and grab her. The dare devil nerve of him thrilled her, as he lay on the divan and smiled up at her. The warmth she had felt downstairs during the dance returned, only more insistent. Yet there was dread. Better a rendezvous anywhere but here. Well she knew that the very walls of her room had ears, human ears, concealed even she did not know where.
He started to speak. She hushed him with a quick and imperative gesture. She bent low that he might whisper what he wished to say. His warm breath caressed her ear and neck.
“Rose,” he whispered, “I had to see that swell dance you were doing, again. Will you? Only not with that Chink mother hubbard.”
“I heard you say you’d give both your gats for that kind of a sideshow,” she whispered in return.
Was she trying to get him unarmed? After all, she belonged to China Jo’s tong. But he had made the proposition and he would stand by it. Two guns were flung into a heap of pillows opposite.
HaIf-Breed Rose rushed for the guns He was alert again. But she brought them to him as she glanced fearfully around. She knew well the peril he was in, she did not think of her own danger. She begged him to pocket the gats again.
“I tell you I’ll stand by what I said.” His voice was low but jaunty, taunting. “Now, your part of the bargain.”
Rose looked at him again and almost forgot his danger. She was no quitter. She would come through with the dance.
The kimona had covered her well. When she removed it to begin the dance, she felt almost naked. Dude reclined in blissful expectation, watching the waving of white arms, the flash of the rounded ivory flesh of perfect thighs.
“And to think some dumb guys don’t think a show like this is worth a little risk!” he breathed in her as she passed him.
He half rose and touched her...
The dancing limbs tensed. The knob of the door had been turned. It had not yielded.
But without a pause, before Dude could reach the mass of pillows where his rods lay, an expert aim had smashed the door square at the lock and two Chinamen were in the room. The first covered Dude Jim with a gun. Behind him, safe, walked a short Chink in an elaborate mandarin coat of silk. He waved a fan slowly as he looked through two slits at his half-breed courtesan. The look was brief. He would settle with her later.
The cold, expressionless slits travelled to Dude. He looked at him long. As another gangster prying into the racket of Jo’s tong, he could be dispensed with quickly. There were strong chemicals known among his people that ate the heart’s blood quickly and destroyed the flesh with it.
But they would not do now. This white man deserved worse treatment — much worse.
He had approached China Jo’s woman.
China Jo did not have to pause to think out a scheme. His plans for vengeance were carefully thought out beforehand. A smile of immeasurable cruelty formed on the impenetrable mask of his face as he selected the revenge best fitted to the man before him. With a slight turn of the head he addressed the henchman with the gun.
“Down the shaft with him, to the red dungeon, Hip Sing.”
But Dude’s mind had been working, too, even faster than China Jo’s. His swift conclusion was, “I ain’t over anxious to investigate none of this Chink’s torture instruments in the cellar.”
But he would if he didn’t move quickly! One of the men in front of him was armed, but only one. His own gats were at least four yards away.
But there was a thick glass decanter on a stand nearby. He measured the distance without seeming to do so. He could reach it without making a step.
In a flash, he had seized it and had hit the one gun that covered him. The gun crashed to the floor. There was a shrill cry from the Chinaman as the decanter crashed on his hand. China Jo reached like a flash for the gun on the floor. Dude beat him to it, gripped him by the shoulders and flung the tiny shaking form against the wall. It slumped down and stayed there.
But the other Chink who had fallen back when the glass came hurtling at him, had seized a priceless vase of the Chinese Rain God from a low altar and was at Dude with it. Dude raised his left arm to ward it off. It smashed and splintered. Before the blood showed, before the other had raised an arm again, Dude shot in his right. It had to be sure. There would be others to Jo’s aid any minute. The sharp knuckles met the Chink’s chin with a brittle sound. The Chink fell.
And just in time! Swift feet were heard in the passage beyond the splintered door. Dude looked at Rose.
“So long, cutie! Be back soon!”
He made for the window. He smashed it with a chair he grabbed on the way and was on the sill. Could he make the roof? Just above the corner window where he stood, a huge green dragon formed the eaves and sloped up to the roof.
But it was the only way, anyway, and he heard men in the room behind him. He jumped. He caught a foot of the dragon. Thank God there had been some projection to grip! The thing was metal and slippery. But once he had pulled himself up, he could grasp the coping of the roof. He was on it in a flash, so quickly that he had not even been seen from the street. Maybe the Chinks hadn’t reached the roof yet. He looked and saw no one.
One swift look back. Rose was at the window. “Take me!” she screamed, “or Jo will!”
“Soon, kid,” he called back and was on over the roof, four roofs. The fifth had a loose hatch. He pulled it up and was down the stairs. So far so good. The Chinks were not on the roof yet. Then the thought flashed on him, “Maybe they stayed to shoot the works to Rose.” And he paused a second. “No, that damned Oriental will make it long and lingerin’ and I’ll be back before then.”
And he hurried on down the three flights and peered out into the street. He was safe. People walked the streets. A cop lolled across the way. No one would dare fire at him.
He adjusted his coat, wiped the blood from the arm where the Chinese idol had crashed, and sauntered out into the street. He stopped when he had crossed to the officer.
“Walkin’ my way, O’Neil?” he asked.
“Yeh. I guess so. Ain’t up to anything, are you, Dude?”
“Do I look it?” was Dude’s reply as he started on down the street past China Jo’s and back to his room on the second floor at Poker Maud’s.
He had lost his jaunty air now. He bounded up the stairs and into his room. Fortunately, Pete was there. So far, so good! He wasted no time.
“Get the gang together and follow me to China Jo’s,” was his order. He thought that enough and rushed for the door.
“What are you goin’ to do at Jo’s? Eat?” drawled Pete.
“We’re goin’ to get Half-Breed Rose.” And Dude started for the door again.
“Don’t be a damn fool,” Pete laughed. “You can’t get Rose out of that joint. There’s as many doors in that dive as New York’s got cops.”
Dude had his shoulders in a grip of steel.
“Get this straight, you dumb yegg. We’re gonna get her. We gotta get her now. And what’s more, it’s either Jo’s tong or our gang now. I already been up on that third floor. Get me now? If we don’t get them first, they’ll be here and we ain’t ready. Get the men.”