Anthony Melville Rud

“ Cube explained and demonstrated, and then the two approached the section of wall in which the door to the secret passage was located. Lacey realized that perhaps his greatest danger now would come from the weapon in his companion’s hands, yet between himself and Krahn lay an unexpressed kinship of liking for unusual adventure which possesses an etiquette of silence all its own. Men will risk serious injury or even death itself for it, rather than take the obvious and commonsense course of obviating risk to which they have committed themselves. ”

“ Nearing the house Lacey saw him act in a peculiar manner. Suddenly breaking into a run he hastened awkwardly for six or seven steps, and then launched himself in a gigantic stride which covered at least two yards of the brick paving, and which landed him at the foot of the steps. Carried forward by his own impetus he took the latter three at a time, opened a pair of doors, and disappeared, carefully slamming these behind him.
Lacey whistled. Playful skittishness in a stern man of middle age is too unusual a trait not to excite wonder. ”

“ Cube’s only comfort lay in the fact that he could not distinguish a woman’s voice— yet Irene might be dead by now. One day and two nights she had been in the hands of the tong. Cube gripped his automatic, but his lips smiled.
Moy shifted something between his hands as he came to the last doorway. Cube, from the tail of his eye, saw that it was a loop of silk cord. Moy, bowing, stood aside as if to usher in his guest. As Cube reached Moy’s side he brought up the silk loop. It never reached its mark. Dropping the parrot cage, Cube shot through his jacket pocket. Moy dropped with a grunt. ”

“ NOAH LACEY.
P. S. When you reach an age of discretion you night do much worse than marry Miss Jeffries. She’s a corker. If I’d been ten years younger I’d have proposed to her, myself.
N.L.
Krahn exhaled sharply. “If I were in your place, Lacey,” he advised, “I’d get rid of those confounded things just as fast as I could!”
Cube nodded. “Yes, they’re stolen goods,” he said. “We have no right to them. The first feature is to find Irene and Sherrod, however, and I believe a glimmering of an idea of how to accomplish it is creeping into my head!”
“How?” demanded Krahn.
“Ask the parrot!” ”

“ Because we know that you are not sufficiently skilled to betray any of the secrets, without the manuals by which to proceed, we offer to you, to Kuban Lacey, and to the woman known as Irene Jeffries freedom and life in exchange for complete restitution of that which we seek. Otherwise—” He motioned significantly at the trickling sand.
The offer was almost as intelligible to Sherrod Guest as if it had been couched in Sanskrit. He realized that this was indeed an assemblage of the T’ao tong, and that the quiet yellow men before him were not of the type that wastes either words or actions. ”

“ Common house parrots might yield to such blandishments, but not Sun Yat, who had dwelt many decades among men whose wisdom he respected much more than that of this foolish American who tried to tempt him with baby talk and empty promises. He squawked his disapproval, and, when pursued from perch to perch by Cube, leaned forward suddenly and pecked a sizable strip of skin from the back of the young man’s extended hand.
“Damn!” exploded Lacey, staring down at a spot from which the blood was beginning to stream. ”

“ Time had not been given for tracing the movements of Sherrod Guest, but the latter was too disturbed for careful thinking. He cried out warnings and appeals for help at the top of his lungs. The parrot, still perched upon the sand spout, squawked out his agonized cries in ghastly imitation.
IX Cube lacey was so interested in the possibilities held forth by the half-promise given him by Krahn, the scientist, that he prevailed upon the latter to phone immediately to the botanist McKenzie. “Never get him at this time of day,” cried Krahn. “He’s too busy.” ”

“ All in one day, twenty-four hours, we find ourselves beset by Chinese. One followed me all the way up to Brick Knob. Guess I didn’t mention that before. These attentions from yellow men are subsequent to a phone call from Noah Lacey. I go out to his house to find it crammed with objects of Oriental art. He hints to me— though at the moment I confess I thought it nothing but rather clumsy subterfuge to get me out there to live with him— of certain detective work he proposes to me to do. He even admits that his life is in danger, but I only half believe him. ”

“ Strangely enough, McKenzie’s interest seemed to center upon the change of complexion in Noah Lacey immediately prior to his death, and the fetid vats of green slime which Cube had discovered in the laboratory.
“Take me right out to that place!” McKenzie demanded seriously, every trace of joviality gone from his manner. “I think that you two have made a very striking discovery, one hitherto unknown either in botany or physiology. A fungus! One that grows in the blood stream of human beings just like its relatives live in sea water!” ”

“ In that second the detective dove, crushing the green plumage in his arms just as Sun Yat decided that the vicinity of floor he had chosen had become dangerous. “Got you now!” Lacey gasped, the breath knocked from his lungs by his sudden header to the brick floor, He clasped the bird’s head expertly between two fingers, seeing to it that the fiendish beak got no chance at his flesh.
“Aw hell!” remarked Sun Yat disgustedly. “We got a lady now. A lady! Haw!”
“A lady?” cried Cube, horrified that the bird might be repeating real information he had heard somewhere. ”

“ The dank smell of earth mingled now with odors of humanity. Guest knew that they were below street level, in some sort of basement.
At the bottom of the stairs a single candle guttered in drafts from three corridors. Moy stopped. “Follow this hallway to the end!” he directed. “Take the candle, for there are two stairs down which you might stumble. It is better that I do not go with you to Charley Sing, but those you will find in that last chamber will direct you.” Presently, with a bow and final smile, in which Guest imagined he detected an odd glint of malignity, Moy was gone. ”

“ Lacey saw a tall, thin man clad in black; a man who stooped slightly as he walked, yet whose figure suggested wiry strength and a resilience of sinew not yet corroded by age. The man probably would prove to be a house servant, though he seemed almost too serious and earnest for such a place. The yard across which he passed was drifted with half an inch of light snow, yet Lacey discerned that the newspapers had told the truth. It was paved entirely with brick. ”

“ He was the skilled crime investigator in pursuit of working data. As he sprang to the side of the unconscious man little doubt was in his mind concerning what he should find. Yet his guess was wrong. Noah Lacey was not dead, though only the faintest flicker of a heart beat testified to continued existence. Beside him stood a small table with a decanter and a few glasses. Cube smelled the liquor hastily and found it to be French brandy. ”

“ Sickening certainty began to descend upon Cube. Guest had gone after information and had been trapped by members of the suspected tong. Cube himself knew little of such organizations, yet in newspaper offices he had heard gruesome tales of Oriental torture and punishment. He shuddered. For the time being he would have to abandon this end of the investigation, for duty to a living friend superseded duty to a dead man. Irene agreed with him. ”

“ Guest found himself blinking in the smoky radiance of seven large lamps with floating wicks. The oil being consumed possessed a strange, sickly sweet aroma; it furnished a yellowish-green glare of light most unpleasant to Occidental eyes. ”

“ Will you exchange the lives of us whom you hold captive for possession of the manuals?”
The Oriental was silent half a minute. “There is no need,” he answered then, deliberately. “We cannot afford to release you. We can obtain the manuals, since you acknowledge that you know where they are. Then we shall kill you all— mercifully. You may choose your own deaths. Perhaps opium, gold leaf for the throat, or the strangler’s cord? Otherwise, torture awaits all four of you. ”

“ Forthwith from his horny beak there issued a stream of blasphemy and denunciation which would have made a Tien-Tsin desperado blush for shame.
Cube, staunching the blood with his handkerchief, was more wary about approaching the feathered demon, yet he stuck with the job pertinaciously, not suspecting that the bird could elude him. He overlooked one of the narrow, barred windows above the level of the ground, however. One pane of glass had been removed neatly from this. Sun Yat, driven from one place to another, decided finally that he did not care for the basement after all. ”

“ He found a bell at one side, however, and pressed the button. While he waited, he noted the curious fact that this door seemed to be of solid, wrought bronze, as massive as cathedral doors of the Old World. It could have withstood an assault by anything less potent than nitroglycerine.
Five minutes passed. Then a sharp click drew his attention. At the center of the door a panel had been slid aside; in the oblong aperture was framed the stern forbidding face of a man of middle age, lean, clean-shaven, and with grayish skin drawn tightly across protuberant cheek bones. ”

“ The fact that Lacey, in the meantime— well realizing how insecure his life was bound to become at some time— had ensconced himself in the fortress-like Brick Knob, did not balk the tong delegation. Taking their time to search, they located various men who had been employed in building Brick Knob, and learned every feature of the dwelling, including all electrical devices, the tunnel opening for the laboratory into the basement of an apartment building owned by Noah Lacey, and the secret stairs leading downward from the owner’s rooms to his laboratory. ”

“ If you’re any good at all you’ll realize the fact that I have been murdered— if not at first, at least when the tong gets after you. Run them down, if you can. If you can’t, you won’t live long to enjoy the wealth I am leaving to you. Any time you see a Chinaman or a parrot, dodge— and watch your step thereafter! The tong has a method of imparting unpleasant information by a wise old parrot. I imagine he must have been one of the pets of Confucius.
The trouble all has arisen because of the two manuals you find herewith. ”

“ A section of the laboratory ceiling perhaps twelve by thirteen feet in dimension, swung down slowly by one end. Cube saw that the upper side was runged in form of a ladder, The lower end reached the laboratory floor, and almost immediately a stocky individual began to descend. He came down backward, not vouchsafing a glance to the room below. Smiling grimly, Cube replaced the automatic in his pocket and crouched for a leap. In spite of American clothes, he saw the man to be Chinese. Silently he motioned the two scientists not to interfere. ”

“ Harris scowled, but his heavy shoulders came up in a shrug of resignation as Krahn, spying the solitaire on her third finger, thrust out a hand in generous congratulation of his successful rival.
“Never was born lucky!” growled Harris. “But maybe this is the break. With Irene to look after, Lacey, you’ll never have time to butt into my cases any more.”
“Don’t be too sure about that, Mr. Harris!” countered Irene, smiling as her arm replaced itself about the shoulders of her fiance. “Don’t you think we’d make a good team? Cube says we’ll just take the cases that you think are open-and-shut.” ”

“ He stopped a moment at the door. “I’ve just placed you, Lacey,” he observed, smiling condescendingly. “You’re the young chap who’s running that new detective agency with Sherrod Guest, eh? Well, take a tip from an old timer. Be content with the dough the old bird leaves you. Don’t waste time trying to make a mystery out of an open-and-shut case.” He nodded affably, and disappeared.
Cube Lacey was under no delusion regarding a possible share in the wealth left by Noah Lacey. He had been offered such a chance and had declined it. Without doubt Irene Jeffries would inherit ”

“ He grinned weakly at his captor.
“You’ve got us,” he said, sparring for time, “but it cost you a fair price, the way I see it.”
“Price in lives or money is no object,” returned the Chinaman in perfect English, and without betraying the slightest animosity. “For many years we have searched for our stolen property. Now we will have it. Mr. Noah Lacey gave it to you, of course?”
Cube essayed a laugh. “What would you say if I told you that your whole bunch has been barking up the wrong tree?” he asked. “If none of us ever had seen the manuals of which you speak?” ”

“ Cube scowled menacingly. “I’ll get the truth out of him!” he muttered. “Don’t worry about that.” His hand dropped suggestively to the butt of his automatic.
“Violence will not be necessary!” broke in the Chinese unexpectedly. “For me the end has come. I it was who killed your esteemed uncle. My associates now hold the detective whom you are seeking. There is only one way in which you ever will see him alive. Deliver to us the manuals stolen from the T’ao tong by your uncle!” ”

“ No one can enter any room in the house that is occupied without warning the occupant and receiving permission. Provisions and all household deliveries are made through an ingenious arrangement in the wall at the rear. When Irene; Kohler Andrews; or his wife, who is housekeeper, leaves the place she or he must be let out by someone else, or must utilize a secret passage so far known only to Irene and myself.
“Perhaps you can guess now that I could find for you enough work out here to satisfy your detective instinct. Also, in my day I have been an active man. ”