The boy began to outline certain salient facts.
“Mah Bak Heng has power in Canton. Canton is in revolt against the Nanking government. The Nanking government wishes to unite China to the end that war may be declared upon Japan, over Manchuria. Until the Canton matter is fixed, there can be no war. Canton has money and influence...
“Mah Bak Heng keeps peace from being made. He cables his men to yield to the Nanking government only upon terms that are impossible. Mah Bak Heng is a traitor. He is accepting pay from enemies of China, to keep the revolution alive. If we could prove that, the people of Canton would no longer listen to the voice of the traitor.
“Jee Kit King is my sister. This man is the grandfather. We talked it over. Jee Kit King has studied in the business schools. She can write down the words of a man as fast as a man can speak, and then she can copy those words upon a typewriter. She is very bright. She agreed that she would trap Mah Bak Heng into employing her as his secretary. Then, when the payment for his treason was delivered, she would get sufficient evidence to prove that payment, and would come to us.
“We know she secured that evidence. She left the place of Mah Bak Heng. But on the way here, two men spoke to her. She accompanied them to a cab. She has not been seen since.”
The boy ceased speaking, drew a quivering breath.
The old man puffed placidly upon the last dying embers of the oily tobacco, reached a stained thumb and forefinger into a time-glazed pouch of leather for a fresh portion.
Major Brane squinted his eyes slightly in thought. “Perhaps she went with friends.”
“No. They were enemies.”
“She had the evidence with her?”
“Apparently not.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because, just before I went to you, three men came hurriedly to her room and made a search.”
Major Brane puckered his forehead in thought.
“That means?” he asked.
“That they captured her, searched her but could not find that which they sought, and then went to the room, thinking it was hidden there.”
“And not finding it?” asked Major Brane.
“Not finding it, they will torture Jee Kit King.” The boy wet his lips with the tip of his tongue, gave a motion that was like a shudder. “They are very cruel,” he said. “They can torture well. They remove the clothes, string the body by hands and feet, and build small fires in the middle of the back.”
“The girl will not speak?” inquired Major Brane. “Not even under torture?”
“She will not speak.”
“How can I save her? There is no time. Even now they will have started the torture,” said Major Brane, and he strove to make his tone as kindly as possible.
The boy gave vent to a little scream. His hand flashed out from his pocket. The last vestige of self control left him. He thrust a trembling revolver barrel into the middle of Major Brane’s stomach.
“When she dies,” he screamed, “you die! You can save her! You alone. You have knowledge in such matters. If she dies, you die. I swear it, by the memory of my ancestors!”
Major Brane glanced sideways at the menace of the cocked revolver, the quivering hand. He knew too well the danger in which he was placed. He looked at the old man, saw that he was lighting a fresh bowl of tobacco and that the clawlike hand which held the flaming match was as steady as a rock. The ebony eyes were still fixed upon distance. He had not so much as turned his head.
Major Brane realized several things. “I will do my best,” he soothed, and gently moved backward, as though to get to his feet. The motion pushed the gun a little to one side. “If this girl is your sister,” he said, “why is she a Jee, when your grandfather is a Wong?”
“She is not my sister. I love her. I am to marry her! — You must save her. Fast! Quick! Go and do something, and prepare to die if you do not. Here, you can have money, money in plenty!”
The old man, his eyes still fixed upon space, his head never turning, reached his left hand beneath the folds of his robe and tossed a leather bag toward Major Brane. The mouth of the bag was open, and the light glinted upon a great roll of currency.
“Where does the girl have her room?” asked Major Brane, making no move to reach for the money.
The boy was too nervous to speak. He seemed about to faint or to become hysterical. The shaking hand which held the revolver jiggled the weapon about in a half circle.
“Quick!” snapped Major Brane. “If I am to be of help I must know where she lives.”
But the boy only writhed his lips.
It was the old man who answered. He removed the stained stem of the pipe from his mouth, and Brane was surprised to hear him speak in excellent English.
“She has a room at Number Thirteen Twenty-Two Stockton Street,” he said. “The room maintained in her name.”
Major Brane swung his eyes.
“I’ve seen you somewhere before...” he said, and would have said more. But as though some giant hand had snuffed out the lights, the room became suddenly dark, a pitch black darkness that was as oppressive as a blanket. And the darkness gave forth the rustling sound of bodies, moving with surreptitious swiftness.
Major Brane flung himself to one side. His hand darted beneath the lapel of his coat, clutched the reassuring bulk of the automatic which reposed in the shoulder holster.
Then the lights came on, as abruptly as they had been extinguished. The room was exactly as it had been three or four seconds before, save that Major Brane was the only occupant. The chairs were there. The old man’s pipe, the bowl still smoking and the oily tobacco sizzling against the sides of the metal, was even propped against a small table.
But the old Chinese grandfather and the boy himself had disappeared.
A man came shuffling along the flags of the outer room. It was the same servant who had escorted Major Brane into the room.
“What you want here?” he asked.
“I want to see the master.”
“Master not home. You go out now.”
Major Brane holstered his weapon, smiled affably. “Very well.”
The servant slip-slopped to the courtyard, unlocked the door.
“Good-bye,” he said.
“Good-bye,” observed Major Brane, and stepped out into the street.
A fog was coming in, and its first damp, writhing tendrils were clutching at the dim corners of the mysterious buildings. The sounds of traffic from the main avenues came to him, muffled as though they were the sounds of another world.
Major Brane moved, and as he moved a patch of shadow across the street slipped into furtive motion. A stooped figure hugged the patch of darkness which extended along the front of the dark and silent buildings. Another figure walked casually out of the doorway of a building at the corner, stood in the light, looking up and down the lighted thoroughfare. It might have been waiting for a friend. A bulky figure, padded out with a quilted coat, hands thrust up the sleeves, came from a doorway to the rear and started walking directly toward Major Brane.
Major Brane sighed, turned, and walked rapidly toward the lighted thoroughfare. The fact that the boy had been forced to accost him on the street made it doubly inconvenient. Things which happen upon the streets of Chinatown seldom go unobserved.
Major Brane had no way of knowing who those shadowing figures might be; they might be friends of the people who had employed him, keeping a watch upon him lest he seek to escape the trust which had been thrust upon him, or they might be emissaries of the enemy, seeking to balk him in accomplishing any thing of value.
But one thing was positive. Somewhere in the city a Chinese girl was held in restraint by enemies who were, in all probability, proceeding even now to a slow torture that would either end in speech or death. And another thing was equally positive: unless Major Brane could effect the rescue of that girl, he could count his own life as forfeit. The young man had sworn upon the memory of his ancestors, and such oaths are not to be disregarded. Moreover, there had been the silent acquiescence of the old man.