"There's another thing," he said. "I'm goin' into strange parts and amongst strange folks. And I ain't a-goin' wivout my revolver. Hand it over, guv'nor. As it was, mind."
The Chinaman produced the revolver, showed Hankinson that it was fully loaded, and calmly dropped it into his own pocket.
"I will hand that to you in the street," he said. "I am going to walk a little way with you. Now let us go."
And he led Hankinson out of the house into-the night. As they passed out the younger Chinaman hastened to a window which commanded the way by which they went. He saw them pass in and out of the lights of the lamps — and suddenly he saw a couple of vague, shadowy figures emerge from a dark place and steal after them. In his eagerness and excitement to see that part of the proceedings, he threw up the sash of the window and leaned out. And in that instant the yellow dog, which had been tied up in that room, completed its day's task of eating through the stout cord that had prisoned it. The young Chinaman, leaning through the window, was conscious for a second of a sinuous body hurling itself past him. Before he had time to comprehend matters he saw that body vanishing round the corner. He shut the window then and retired to resume his usual sphinx-like demeanor.
Presently the big man came back and grinned at his compatriot.
"They are after him," he said briefly.
"I saw them," replied the other.
The big man grinned again.
"It is fortunate that this fellow fell at my door," he said. "He has served us well. Certainly he will never fall there again. We benefit very well. We have what he brought in — and he has some worthless bits of paste. It is good!"
The younger man made no answer to this. Nor did he mention that the dog had escaped.
"It is time that I go now," he observed.
And without further remark he proceeded to divest himself of his Oriental garments and to put on the inconspicuous suit of grey tweed which Hankinson had recently taken off.
IV
Ten minutes later a figure dressed in Hankinson's clothes, much muffled about the neck and face, and having Hankinson's cap pulled down over its nose, slipped out of that quiet house and went away by devious paths to other and safer parts. No figure followed it; the two figures that had lurked in waiting for it since dark were following Hankinson.
And Hankinson went on, knowing nothing. He was beginning to feel himself safe, and he did not care how much people stared at him as he walked in the glare of the gas. He had what he believed to be diamonds in his pocket. It had never even occurred to him that the big Chinaman might or would substitute paste for the genuine article. He had a prospect of selling them to advantage. And he had his revolver. Therefore, being a bit of an actor, he went onward, always smiling blandly.
Hankinson knew the nearest way to the wharf of which the big Chinaman had spoken, and it took him little time to get down there. All his thoughts were of his own business, and he had no idea that two yellow-faced, slit-eyed fellows, clad in slop suits of blue serge, were dogging his every footstep. Nor did he know that an ugly, uncanny-looking, one-eyed mongrel was slinking behind him, keeping close to walls and to the fronts of shops, that one eye perpetually fixed on its object of pursuit.
Hankinson never saw that dog until he had walked on to the wharf — a deserted, desolate, cold expanse of timber, on which there was no business doing at that hour of the evening. There was a pale gleam of yellow from the window of a waterside inn at the other end of the wharf; a half-moon was far up in the cloudy sky; here and there a faint gas flame burned. In this poor light Hankinson suddenly saw the yellow dog's one eye — baleful, malevolent. It turned him hot and cold, and he could do nothing but stare at it.
He saw nothing of a boat putting off from any vessel; thereabouts, indeed, nothing of any sort seemed to be doing. There was, in fact, no sign of life on the wharf but in his own and the dog's presence. And the dog had sat down now, and did nothing but watch him. When the clouds cleared off the moon Hankinson saw the dog's one eye — and he cursed it under his breath in plain Cockney English.
It was in the midst of these muttering curses that the two slinking figures suddenly leapt out on Hankinson as he passed the stack of timber. There was a flashing of steel in the moonlight, and two knives went swiftly in and out of the soft silks in which Hankinson was masquerading. He fell over on his back as the knives were withdrawn, and convulsively twisted up and on to his side. He knew that blood was running from him like the spurts from a suddenly pricked wineskin, but his brain was clear enough yet, and he mechanically snatched at his revolver and fired, left and right, at the two figures which were drawing back from him. And as his own eyes began to glaze he saw the two figures sway and fall — fall in the unmistakable fashion.
"Lor'!" gasped Hankinson, as his head dropped. "Got — 'em — both!"
Then Hankinson died, and the yellow dog came near and looked at him.
When you find the bodies of three dead men lying in the moonlight on a Thames-side wharf, one of them an Englishman dressed in Chinese garb, two of them Chinese men attired in reach-me-down slop suits, the Englishman stabbed, the Chinese shot, the Englishman with a collection of paste diamonds on him, the Chinese with next to nothing, and all three watched by a miserable, one-eyed yellow dog, you have> all the elements of a first-class mystery. There were two Orientals in different places who could have solved that mystery, but your true Oriental knows how to keep a still tongue. And the yellow clog, unfortunately, was unable to make humans comprehend him.
Bulling the bulls
by Walter Scott Story
I
Young Ryan looked down the Worcester platform through the canyon formed by the mail and express cars. Catching the desired final signal, he passed the word to his chief, Carruthers.
Carruthers unthrottled the giant at his command; and the long heavy Boston express got under way, with a deep and mighty puffing of the engine, the dull grind of its reluctant wheels, the clank of trucks and the clink-clank of the couplings as each preceding coach began to move and communicated motion to the following.
As the train gathered way rapidly — fifteen minutes behind schedule on its way to Boston — a tall man in a dark blue suit emerged from somewhere among the clutter of trunks and crates and bales and, running alongside of the smoking car, grasped the rail of the end of the car and after a few paces swung himself aboard, going swiftly up the steps and entering the coach.
He passed up the car looking from left to right. The car was exceedingly crowded, some men sitting on the arm rests of the seats, and even then in the middle of the afternoon it was almost dusky because of tobacco smoke.
The tall man went up the car slowly, but saw no vacant seat. There were two or three groups of card players, but, notwithstanding this, all the seats seemed to be taken.
The traveler who had made the train by the skin of his teeth, as the saying is, passed the groups of players and went on.
The fourth seat from the front of the coach on the right-hand side was occupied by but one person — a stout, sleek, prosperous-looking man of fifty or thereabouts, dressed in a neat gray suit and wearing a mouse-colored fedora. At this seat, the tall man halted.
"Seat engaged?" he asked.
The other man looked up and smiled slightly in good humor. He had a merry, but very keen blue eye, and his face had a healthy glow of red and tan — the face of an outdoor man or of a business man who is faithful to his golf. He shook his head and moved in a trifle farther toward the window.