Sax Rohmer

“ He was ruddy of complexion, and he looked out unblinkingly upon the world with a pair of steel-blue eyes. Neat he was to spruceness, and while of no more than medium height, he had the shoulders of an athlete.
The detective who stood beside him, by name John Durham, had one trait in common with his celebrated superior. This was a quick keenness, a sort of alert vitality, which showed in his eyes, and indeed in every line of his thin, clean-shaven face. Kerry had picked him out as the most promising junior in his department. ”

“ There is a night life in Limehouse, as he had learned, but it is a mole life, a subterranean life, of which no sign appears above ground after a certain hour. Nevertheless, as he entered the area which harbors those strange, hidden resorts the rumor of which has served to create the glamor of Chinatown, he found himself to be thinking of the great influence said to be wielded by Huang Chow, and wondering if unseen spies watched his movements.
Lalá was Oriental, and now, alone in the night, distrust leaped into being within him. ”

“ He recognized the smell of that strange storeroom, which, as Mr. Hampden, he had recently visited.
For one moment he thought he could detect the distant note of a bell. But, listening, he heard nothing, and was reassured.
He rested the trapdoor back against the frame, and shone the ray of an electric torch down into the darkness beneath him. The light fell upon the top of a low carven table, dragon-legged and gilded. Upon it rested the model pagoda constructed of human teeth, and there was something in this discovery which made Durham feel inclined to shudder. ”

“ Police whistles were skirling around the house of Huang Chow. The hidden men came running into the court.
“You heard the shot?” cried the sergeant in charge. “I warned him not to go alone. Don't waste time on the door. One man stay on duty there; the rest of you follow me.”
In a few moments, led by the sergeant, the party came dropping heavily through the skylight into the treasure-house of Huang Chow, in which every lamp was now alight. A trap was open near the foot of the stairs, and from beneath it muffled cries proceeded. In this direction the sergeant headed.
“Hallo, Mr. Durham!” ”

“ But my father is rich, and it is dreadful to think that we live here when there are so many more beautiful places to live in.”
“Then why does he stay?” asked Durham with curiosity.
“For money, always for money,” answered Lalá, shrugging her shoulders. “Yet if it is not to bring happiness, what good is it?”
“What good indeed?” murmured Durham.
“There is no fun for me,” said the girl pathetically. “Sometimes some one nice comes to do business, but mostly they are dirty and ill-bred; many of them foreigners.” ”

“ Ah Fu apparently had set the lantern upon a table, and into the radius of its light there presently moved a stooping figure. Durham recognized Huang Chow, and felt his heartbeats increasing in rapidity.
Clutching the framework of the trap with his hands, he moved his head cautiously, so that presently he was enabled to see the two Chinamen. They were standing beside the lacquered coffin upon its dragon-legged pedestal. Durham stifled an exclamation. ”

“ Old Huang Chow was too cunning for that. If he was to learn how the man Cohen had died, he must follow the same path to the bitter end. But there were men on duty round the house, and he believed that he had placed them so secretly as to deceive even this master of cunning with whom he was dealing. ”

“ The floor of the warehouse, which was partly of stone, was covered with thick matting, and spread upon it were rugs and carpets of Karadagh, Kermanshah, Sultanabad, and Khorassan, with lesser-known loomings of almost equal beauty. Skins of rare beasts overlay the divans. Furniture of ivory, of ebony and lemonwood, preciously inlaid, gave to the place an air of cunning confusion. There were tall cabinets, there were caskets and chests of exquisite lacquer and enamel, loot of an emperor's palace; robes heavy with gold ”

“ GENTLY Durham raised the trap in the roof of Huang Chow's treasure house. He was prepared for snares and pitfalls. No sane man, on the evidence which he, Durham, had been compelled to leave behind, would have neglected to fasten the skylight which so obviously afforded a means of entrance into his premises. ”

“ Poland had a persistent belief that Cohen had known where the fabled hoard of Huang Chow was concealed.
Durham began a deliberate inspection of the place. He thought it unlikely that a wily old Chinaman, assuming that he possessed hidden wealth, would keep it in so accessible a spot as this. It was far more probable that he had a fireproof safe in the room upstairs, perhaps built into the wall. Yet, according to Poland's account, it was in this room and not in any other that death came to Diamond Fred. ”

“ Some are nice, though. I think it is the same with every kind of people; there are good and bad.”
“Were you ever in America?” asked Durham.
“No.”
“I was just thinking,” he explained, “that I have known several Americans who were quite good fellows.”
“Yes?” said Lalá, looking up at him naïvely, “I met one not long ago. He was not nice at all.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Durham, startled by this admission, which he had not anticipated. “One of your father's customers?”
“Yes, a man named Cohen.”
“Cohen?”
“A funny little chap,” continued the girl. “He tried to make love to me.” ”

“ The link with the establishment of Huang Chow was incomplete, and Durham fully recognized that it was up to him to make it sound and incontestable.
Jim Poland was not the only man in the East End who knew that the dead Chinaman had been in negotiation with Huang Chow. Kerry knew it, and had passed the information on to Durham. Also some mystery was known to surround the life of the old dealer, who was said to be a mandarin of high rank; but his exact association with the death, first of the Chinaman, Pi Lung, and second of Cohen, remained to be proved. ”

“ Earmarked for important promotion, he was an interesting figure as he stood there in the gloomy, ill-lighted place, his pose that of an athlete about to perform a long jump, or perhaps, as it might have appeared to some, that of a dancing-master about to demonstrate a new step.
His close-cropped hair was brilliantly red, and so was his short, wiry, aggressive mustache. ”

“ He didn't seem too pleased at my suggestion, but when I pointed out to him that one good turn deserved another, he agreed to give me an introduction to Huang Chow.
I adopted a very simple disguise, just altering my complexion and sticking on a mustache with spirit gum, hair by hair, and trimming it down military fashion. Everything ran smoothly, and I seemed to make a fairly favorable impression upon Lalá Huang, the Chinaman's daughter, who evidently interviews prospective customers before they are admitted to the warehouse.
She is a Eurasian and extremely good looking. ”

“ Durham, mentally reviewing the words of the report, reconstructed the scene in his mind; and now, having come to the end of the lane where the iron post rested, he stood staring up at a place in the ancient wall where several bricks had decayed, and where it was possible, according to the statement of the man Poland, to climb up on to a piece of sloping roof, and thence gain the skylight through which Cohen had obtained admittance on the night of his death. ”

“ Jim Poland bent forward more urgently, again seizing Cohen's wrist, and:
“Huang Chow is a mighty big bug amongst the Chinese,” he whispered, glancing cautiously about him. “He's hellish clever and rotten with money. A man like that wants handling. ”

“ Presently the door was opened by a Chinese boy who wore the ordinary native working dress, and who regarded the man upon the step with oblique, tired-looking eyes.
“Mr. Huang Chow?” asked the caller.
The boy nodded.
“You wantchee him see?”
“If he is at home.”
The boy glanced at the card, which the visitor still held between finger and thumb, and extended his hand silently. The card was surrendered. It was that of an antique dealer of Dover Street, Piccadilly, and written upon the back was the following: “Mr. Hampden would like to do business with you.” The signature of the dealer followed. ”

“ Cohen is his name. And the idea seems to be that he went in at some point between where he was found by the river police and the point at which Jim Poland was arrested.”
Kerry snapped his teeth together audibly.
“I'm open to learn,” he said, “that the house of Huang Chow is within that area.”
“It is.”
“I thought so. He died the same way the Chinaman died awhile ago,” snapped Kerry almost savagely. “It looks very queer.” He glanced aside at the local officer. “Cover him up,” he ordered; and, turning, he walked briskly out of the mortuary, followed by Detective Durham. ”

“ Detective Durham looked surprised and not a little anxious.
“I am doing so for two reasons,” continued the chief inspector. “These two reasons I shall now explain.”
CHAPTER III.
AT HUANG CHOW’S ESTABLISHMENT.
THERE are no show places in Limehouse. The visitor sees nothing but mean streets and dark doorways. The superficial inquirer comes away convinced that the romance of the Asiatic district has no existence outside some men's imagination. Yet here lies a secret quarter, as secret and as strange, in its smaller way, as its parent in China which is called the Purple Forbidden City. ”

“ He's something else as well; he's a big swell in China. But here's the point. He's got business with buyers all over London, and they have to pay cash—no checks. He doesn't bank it: I've proved that. He's got it in gold, or diamonds, or something, being wise to present conditions, hidden there in the house. Pi Lung was after his hoard. He didn't get it. Cohen and me was after it. Where's Cohen?'
“I agreed that it looked very suspicious, and presently:
“'When I went in with Cohen,' continued Poland, 'I knew one thing he didn't know—a short cut into the warehouse. ”

“ The girl laughed in a childish way. “And now I think Ah Fu will have gone in, so I must say good night.”
But when presently Detective Durham found himself walking back along West India Dock Road, his mind's eye was set upon the slinking figure of a Chinaman carrying a birdcage.
CHAPTER VI.
ON DANGEROUS GROUND.
FOUND drowned,” too, is a verdict which has covered many a dark mystery of old Thames, but “Found in the river, death having been due to the action of some poison unknown,” is a finding which even in the case of a Chinaman is calculated to stimulate the jaded official mind. ”