There ensued an exchange of courtesies in which only two Orientals could seriously indulge. Then—
“My business, Mr. Okawa,” Song Kee said, “is of small importance—a question about a Mr. Grover whom I believe you knew.”
Sito Okawa made a gesture of sadness.
“Ah, that poor young man,” he said in tone of deepest melancholy.
“You believe him guilty then of the killing of this dancing woman?”
“I?” Okawa shrugged his shoulders. “I believe nothing, really. How should I? All I know is what the papers printed about the unfortunate affair. But your question, my dear friend?”
“Quite so,” Song Kee answered briskly. “It is about the appointment he is said to have had with you on the night of the murder. Are you quite sure it was for eight-fifteen rather than seven-fifteen as he has stated?”
Okawa contemplated the end of his cigarette consideringly.
“Sure, Mr. Song Kee?” he said at length. “How can we be sure of anything in this most remarkable world? Still, I have the distinct impression that the hour set for our meeting was eight-fifteen.”
“When did you make this appointment?”
“That same day at luncheon.”
Song Kee sighed deeply.
“The poor fellow,” he said. “I’m afraid there is nothing one can do for him. I have tried, but—” he sighed again.
Then he pulled himself together and extended his hand.
“It is most good of you to have received me so kindly. I will relieve you now of my troublesome presence, as I can see that you are busy.” He pointed to the half-completed packing. “You are leaving town?”
“Tomorrow or the next day,” Okawa replied. “My duties at the legation will require my presence in Washington. And I prepare for the possibility of a sudden start.”
Song Kee made his adieux. He bowed low and still lower backing toward the door. In his passage he stumbled against the bundle of umbrellas and canes leaning against the chair and knocked them with a clatter to the floor.
His apologies for his awkwardness were absurdly profuse. He picked up the things he had knocked down and stood fingering them nervously while he called himself several kinds of a clumsy, ungainly fool.
Okawa smilingly waved the apologies aside and relieving him of the bundle accompanied him to the door.
Song Kee looked out into the hall.
“It was just here in front of this door that the tragedy occurred, was it not?” he asked.
Okawa shook his head.
“No, my friend. A few feet further toward the elevator. There—just beneath that electric globe.”
Song Kee advanced to the spot indicated. Slowly Okawa followed him.
The Chinaman stood silent for a moment.
“So,” he said finally, “the dancing woman was about here, going in the direction of the elevator?”
“And Mr. Grover came along about here,” Okawa turned around so that he faced Song Kee.
The little Chinaman seemed to have forgotten Okawa’s presence. His eyes traveled slowly, as though measuring distance, down the hall. They stopped at a point on the wall perhaps twenty feet away. Then he smiled contentedly as one quite satisfied with the progress of events.
A discreet cough from Okawa brought him to himself. He turned and again thanking the Japanese for his courtesy, hurried off down the hall.
At the desk downstairs he drew the clerk aside and presented a card bearing Delaney’s name and a request to the hotel management to give the bearer what assistance he might require.
“Tell me,” he said, “who occupied the room four doors down the hall from Mr. Okawa on the night Miss Grenville was killed?”
The clerk consulted the guests’ list.
“That will be room four-thirty-eight. The room was empty that night,” he announced.
“And when rooms are empty are they left unlocked?”
“As a rule, no. But the maids are sometimes careless. We cannot watch all the time.”
“And the room opposite?” Song Kee asked,
“Let’s see. That is Count Angellotti’s bedroom.”
“Thank you,” Song Kee said as he turned away.
It was a smiling and somewhat excited Song Kee who stood at the entrance of the hotel and consulted his watch.
He hurried to a little Chinese restaurant on Fourth Avenue where he indulged in strange dishes with stranger names never printed on a Chinese-American menu. Then he dashed into the Subway and was borne swiftly southward.
He came to the surface of the Bridge. He journeyed north on Park Row until it changed into the Bowery. Then he turned into a side street leading through a ravine of ill-kept tenements toward the East River. At a house not far from the corner he stopped. He descended into the basement and knocked vigorously on a black, greasy door.
A minute or so later, the door was opened ever so slightly and from out of the darkness gleamed a pair of slanting eyes.
Song Kee said a few words in a southern Chinese dialect and was admitted to the house.
“Take me to your most respected master,” he said in the same tongue.
His guide led him along an evil smelling hall, up a flight of rickety stairs ending in a sheet metal door. With a key which dangled at his waist the guide opened the door and drew aside for Song Kee to pass.
The room Song Kee entered seemed only an ante-chamber to still another apartment. It was empty, but through a door at the rear could be heard the sound of many voices.
“Wait here,” the guide said with great respect, “and I will call my master.”
He disappeared into the inner room, returning shortly with another Chinaman. He was a man of many years whose emaciated frame was accentuated by the long plum-colored robe which hung in loose, rich folds from his shoulders. When he recognized his visitor he bowed almost to the floor.
“You do my poor house great honor,” he said in a thin, quavering voice.
Song Kee drew near and spoke in low, peremptory tones.
The aged Chinaman bowed again. Then he turned to the servant.
“Go,” he ordered, “to the barbarian they name the ‘Rat’ and say to him that I would borrow the tools of his trade for an evening.”
Fifteen minutes later Song Kee left the house carrying in his pocket a ring of strangely shaped keys.
He returned to the Ralston Hotel. This time he did not enter through the main doorway which faced the Avenue but through a lesser entrance on the side street. Unconcernedly he strolled through the corridors until he reached a stairway leading to the upper floors. When he was quite certain that he was unnoticed by any of the hotel employees he ran quickly up this stairway until it curved around the elevator shaft and he was free from observation. Then he made his way more slowly until he reached the fourth floor.
Down the hallway in which Irene Grenville had been killed he moved cautiously until he reached a certain doorway. A great sigh of relief came through his parted lips as, looking up, he saw that the transom was dark. As quickly as though he were a professional thief he drew the ring of oddly shaped keys from his pocket and tried them one by one until the lock beneath his hand turned. Softly as though stealing into a chamber of death he stole into the room.
His errand within took him no more than five or perhaps ten minutes to complete. Then as silently and as cautiously as he had entered, he withdrew, relocking the door behind him.
But he did not come away empty banded. Under his loose coat he clung firmly to something, holding it eagerly as though it were of great value to him.
Not caring now whether or not he were seen, he walked boldly down the hall and waited for the elevator, which a moment later bore him to the main corridor below.
Now his hurry and excitement were over. What he had set out to do he had accomplished. Leisurely he turned his steps homeward. At a corner drug store he stopped, and spent a few moments telephoning. A half hour later he was in bed sleeping as quietly as a tired child.