“There is no door,” declared Wing Toy. “That is a wall, at the other end. A wall, made to look like a door. The window is of glass that cannot be broken.”
“What’s the idea?”
The Chinaman walked across the room, opened a closet to reveal an electric switch on a panel.
He pulled the switch. A sheet of steel dropped like a curtain, closing the panel. Both Shargin and Elvers uttered an exclamation of surprise.
“That little tunnel,” explained Wing Toy, “goes also under the landing. But it is made easy to find. It is made to coax people to enter.
“When one person enters it, another person, in this closet, can make that person stay.”
“A trap!” exclaimed Moose.
“The Chinese look for secret places,” said Wing Toy solemnly. “Some of them have found this. They have gone in, because that little window has coaxed them. Never has one failed to go in. Never has one come out — by himself.”
“Why?”
The Chinaman pointed to a cord beside the switch. “When this is drawn,” he explained, “a gas will enter that closed tunnel. That gas will kill.”
“I get you!” exclaimed Moose. “You figure we can let The Shadow come in here, find the tunnel and go in — then some one in this closet—”
Wing Toy nodded. He indicated an opening in the carved door of the closet. It made a perfect peephole, so that a man hidden there could see what happened in the room.
“Who will be there?” asked Moose.
The Chinaman pointed to Garry Elvers.
“But if The Shadow knows we came in here,” objected Moose, “he’ll wonder why Garry hasn’t come out—”
“I shall take care of that,” said Wing Toy. He picked up a hat and overcoat from a taboret in the corner. Donning the garments, he pointed to the door.
The three men went through the right-angled passages until they came to the outer door. There, Wing Toy pressed a latch. They stepped out into the corridor.
The Mongolian guard, his hands nestled in his bosom, leaned forward to scan the faces of Moose Shargin and Garry Elvers, as though to make sure that they were the two men who had entered.
Moose had not noticed the man’s face before. Even now, it was obscure in the dimness. But he detected an odd sparkle in the eyes. They seemed to glow like beads of light in the hollows of that yellow face.
The big Chinaman appeared to be staring at the visitor through a mask.
During this scrutiny, the Mongolian’s back was toward Wing Toy. Having finished his inspection of Shargin, the big man studied Elvers. He then turned to the door to make sure that it was tightly closed.
He did not face Wing Toy at all. The Tong leader spoke while the big man’s back was turned. Wing Toy’s words were in Chinese; the Mongolian uttered a low reply in the same language. Wing Toy spoke again, the man grunted a reply.
Wing Toy motioned to Moose and Garry to follow as he went toward the street door.
The three stood within the door, Wing Toy speaking in a low undertone while he glanced back at the guardian of the door.
“When we get out of here,” he said, “make it plain that we are separating to rejoin later. Then if we are overheard—”
Moose and Garry nodded.
“You” — Wing Toy indicated Garry — “go to the Manchu Restaurant, in the next street.” He drew a card from his coat pocket and slipped it into Garry’s hand. “Ask for Looey Look. Give him this. He will take you back to the room.
“You” — Wing Toy turned to Moose — “go in there a little later. Also ask for Looey Look. You will find me there.”
“What about the guy by the door?” Moose indicated the big Mongolian with his thumb.
“He will follow directly after us.”
Wing Toy threw a last look toward the big guard. Wing Toy’s brow furrowed slightly. He watched. The man made no movement whatever.
The Tong leader seemed satisfied. He opened the door to the street.
GARRY ELVERS separated from his companions while Moose was talking rather loudly to Wing Toy. Glancing back over his shoulder, Garry saw the two men walk away in the opposite direction.
Garry strolled around the block, spied the door of the Manchu Restaurant, and entered. He asked for Looey Look.
Garry was taken to a Chinaman who wore a perfect-fitting Tuxedo. Looey Look received the card.
“Come in the office,” said Look.
He led the way up a flight of steps, turned abruptly, and went into a little room. He closed the door and opened a full-length mirror from the wall. This revealed a passage.
Garry followed him to the end; there Looey Look pushed open a barrier and they entered another room. This opening also proved to be a mirror. The Chinaman unlocked a door.
Garry found himself on the little landing in the labyrinth of passages that surrounded Wing Toy’s sanctum.
“Go on,” said Looey Look. “Pull the knob. The door will open.”
Garry obeyed. He reached Wing Toy’s room, closed the door behind him, and bestowed himself in the closet.
Garry was no schemer, yet he understood Wing Toy’s cleverness. The door to the room was tricky; so was the panel on the opposite wall, although now that Garry knew of it, he could almost see its edges from the peephole.
These tricks were not too apparent; nor were they too easy to discover.
Garry saw the door of the room tremble. He held his hand against the switch. The door opened.
Garry had expected to see a black-clad form come into the dim light. Instead, it was a Chinaman who entered.
Garry recognized the man as the Mongolian guard, not by the face, which Garry had not noticed closely, but by the man’s posture.
The big Chinaman stood in the center of the room and looked about him. Garry wondered what he was doing here. The man was disobeying orders. Wing Toy had told him to leave — at least, so Wing Toy had said.
The Chinaman was scrutinizing every part of the room. Garry could see his eyes gleam. The gangster sensed danger from this man.
With his left hand still on the switch, Garry drew an automatic with his right. No use to let this fellow spoil the game. Garry decided to step out of the closet and order the man to depart.
At that instant, something made the gangster delay.
The Chinaman was looking at the secret panel that led to the blind tunnel. He strode across the room and placed his hand upon it. The panel opened suddenly. The man walked in.
Acting instinctively, Garry pulled the switch. The steel curtain dropped.
Garry laughed gleefully, like a child with a new plaything. He had trapped the intruder — the man who had disobeyed!
Still chuckling mercilessly, Garry reached for the cord to release the flow of gas.
CHAPTER XVIII
GARRY ELVERS smiled as his fingers felt the smooth rope. His murderous instinct was at its highest pitch. He had shot men down in gang wars; but never before had he known the elation of tricking a victim to his unexpected doom.
Garry’s killings had usually been followed by flight. Here was his first chance to gloat over a helpless foe. He paused to wonder whether the gas would poison or simply overpower.
In that moment of hesitation, Garry realized that he was making a mistake. He had been placed here to trap The Shadow — not to capture and dispose of a prying Chinaman.
Suppose he should overpower or kill the man. What would Wing Toy say? Garry had no desire to incur the disfavor of the Tong leader.
But there was another thought — more restraining than the first one. That was the thought of Moose Shargin. A mental picture formed in Garry’s mind — Moose, indignant at his stupidity for wasting the trap that had been laid for The Shadow!
Garry was worrying as he let go the cord and pushed open the door of the closet.