“See you later, Goodall,” remarked Urvin, rising. “Thanks for the information about the rooms.”
AFTER strolling through the lobby, Urvin quickened his pace when he reached the outer door. He glanced at his watch. It was half past ten. The young man was tempted to take a taxicab as he neared Forty-seventh and Broadway, until he noticed that a late Chinatown bus was just about to pull out.
Hurrying forward, Urvin paid the driver a half dollar, and took the last vacant seat.
Drawing a folded sheet of paper from his pocket, he began to make meaningless marks in pencil, while he observed the man beside whom he was sitting. Noting that the sightseer was interested in the bus-driver’s palaver, Urvin quickly wrote down a short report of his conversation with Blaine Goodall.
Pocketing the note, he folded it while it was out of sight, and thrust it into a tiny envelope that was loose in his pocket.
It required nearly half an hour for the bus to reach its destination. The guide started the crowd through the streets of Chinatown. Before they reached the principal corner of Mott and Pell, the man conducted his charges down the alleyway that led to the Buddhist shrine.
Chon Look saw Hugo Urvin. After the Chinaman had finished his explanation of the wishing sticks, he observed the American picked them up for examination. He also saw the envelope that Urvin laid beside them.
Briefly terminating his talk, Chon Look conducted the visitors to the door and made a sign to the girls to bring forward gift packages. One of these was given to Hugo Urvin, along with the others.
“Important,” mumbled Urvin, as he took the package from the Buddhist. “Work quickly.”
Chon Look made no response, but Urvin knew that the Chinaman had heard.
The moment that the room was clear, Chon Look hurried over to the wishing sticks, picked up the envelope, and opened the secret passage. He reached the temple, and struck the soundless gong.
The incense burners puffed. The figure of Kwa appeared upon its taboret. Chon Look extended the envelope. Kwa tore it open with his clawing nails, and read the message. A gloating chuckle crackled from his evil lips. He pressed the side of the taboret.
A minute later, a panel opened, and Soy Foon entered. Kwa had signaled for this henchman. The Living Joss handed the note to Soy Foon, and uttered words in Chinese. The merchant bowed.
Before the gesture was ended, the incense burners delivered another terrific puff. Kwa disappeared.
Chon Look and Soy Foon turned. Each left by his own passage. Chon Look returned to idle in the shrine, but Soy Foon hastened away with definite purpose.
Reaching his back room, he uttered a shrill cry. A Chinese boy appeared. Soy Foon spoke to him in English, which seemed to be the language which this American-born child understood.
“Go to find Koy Shan,” ordered Soy Foon.
The boy nodded and left.
FIVE minutes later, a rap on the door announced the arrival of the visitor. Soy Foon admitted the huge Chinaman.
“You are ready, Koy Shan?” questioned Soy Foon.
“As ready as was Chun Shi,” returned the big man.
“Chun Shi has departed,” declared Soy Foon, with a slow smile. “It is your turn, now, to do the same.”
The merchant drew closer to the huge underling, and began to babble in a singsong monotone. A gleam of understanding glistened on the scarred countenance of Koy Shan, the Mighty.
A secret cabal in the heart of Chinatown; orders from Kwa, through his henchman, Soy Foon. This, indeed, was a sinister scene, but it was more than matched by another that occurred not far away from this spot.
In the front of a blackened building on an obscure Chinatown alley, a small grating moved upward from the sidewalk. The head and shoulders of a man were thrust cautiously into view. The body followed. A figure, muffled in an overcoat and hat, stretched upward and moved hastily along the alley, the grating sliding downward as the person left.
Keeping to alleys only, the moving man managed to avoid the light except at the first crossing. There, unseen by anyone, an evil face glowed yellow. It was the same countenance that Harry Vincent had seen on Barton Schofield’s lawn. It was also the face of Kwa!
The evil visage was undergoing a change. Its fiendishness was lessening; but as it gained a more human appearance, the moving man entered another darkened alley. His rapid course led him to the street outside of Chinatown, where the huge structure of the elevated rumbled with the passing of a train overhead.
The figure was moving less swiftly as it entered a poorly lighted store that fronted on the street. The man who had been Kwa went into a dim corner where a telephone box was located on the wall. His face unseen by the store-keeper, the man dropped a coin and lifted the receiver.
The finger that dialed a number was less clawlike than before. It had lost its peculiar identity. The voice had undergone a change also. When this man spoke, his tone was disguised, but it no longer carried the familiar crackle.
Transformed to another person, this man who had been Kwa no longer bore any resemblance to the so-called Living Joss. His back — alone visible within the store — gave him the appearance of a chance New Yorker who had chosen this place at random in order to telephone.
Kwa was no longer Kwa. The demon was nonexistent. In his place was a quiet-speaking man whose low, convincing tones carried without accent into the mouthpiece of the telephone.
Yet in his present guise, Kwa was still a menace. The transformed Living Joss was paving the way for insidious crime.
CHAPTER X. THE CRAFT OF CHUN SHI
WESTLEY HARTNETT’S apartment was a long way uptown. Despite the fact that the lawyer had traveled rapidly in his car, it was nearly midnight when he reached his destination. Had he been riding to a locality in lower Manhattan — Chinatown for instance — he would have been there long before.
Westley Hartnett felt that he had made swift progress coming home. Another car, however, had followed at a much more rapid pace. The Shadow, sensing a menace to the lawyer, had taken up a speedy chase after he had left Harry Vincent. As Hartnett was entering the lobby of his apartment building, a trim coupe was swinging up the avenue less than a dozen blocks away.
Trivial incidents sometimes have important bearing on what is to follow. The elevator door was closing when Westley Hartnett approached. The operator just managed to glimpse the arriving lawyer. He reopened the door.
At the same time, back on the avenue, a taxicab from a cross street collided with a sedan, and traffic was automatically blocked. The driver of a coupe was forced to wait while the cars ahead of him moved into single file to pass the unexpected barricade.
Thus, Westley Hartnett experienced no delay whatever in going up to his apartment, whereas the person who was following his course lost precious minutes in his effort to overtake the lawyer.
Reaching his apartment, Hartnett promptly unlocked the door, and turned on a light in the entry. Had he paused here to remove his hat and coat, he would again have had a chance of thwarting impending doom. But tonight, contrary to his usual procedure, Hartnett walked directly into the large room, and turned on a floor lamp.
The lawyer happened to pick the lamp that was nearest to the window. Deciding that the room was stuffy, he raised the sash. Perhaps the fact that he had not yet doffed his overcoat was the cause for his decision that the room was too hot. Whatever the case might have been, Hartnett was unwittingly making a play into hands that lost no chance for prompt action.
As the lawyer turned from the window, a strange creature sprang in from the outer darkness. Like a human spider, it threw its long arms and legs about the attorney’s body. Westley Hartnett uttered a choking gasp as he wrested forward, trying to shake this insidious clutch from his frame.