The Mystery of the Hidden Room Part 40

"Yes, sir," answered Jenkins, blinking.

"Don't fall asleep, as it may mean our lives," repeated McKelvie impressively.

"No, sir. I'll stay awake. You can depend on me, sir," said Jenkins in a hurt tone.

"Yes, I know I can," returned McKelvie. "Come on, Mr. Davies."

McKelvie swung toward me and then began to laugh. "You're far too clean.

They'd spot you for a fake in a moment."

He took what looked like a box of lampblack from his pocket and applied it to my face. As we hurried down the hall I glanced at my reflection in the mirror. My face was a dirty gray, sallow, unshaved. I smiled as I followed McKelvie into the outer hall.

"Ever read Gaboriau?" he asked as we crept stealthily down the stairs.

"Yes."

"Then you know the advice that Lecoq gave his men when they wanted to disguise themselves. 'Change the eye,' he said. 'The eye is the important factor in disguise.' He was right and I have spent some time practising the maxim. Try to look stupid and your eyes will deaden. Not that way," and he caught my arm as I made for the lobby. "The back entrance for ours unless we want to land in a cell at the police station."

We sneaked out into the back yard, around the building, and out into the street, where a motor car was waiting.

"All right, Wilkins. Full speed ahead," said McKelvie as we got in. With a jerk we were off toward the Park.

"Now," I demanded, "what's it all about?"

"You've got your pistol with you?" he asked, and when I answered in the affirmative, he went on, "Don't use it unless I give you leave. The less shooting the better for us, I expect."

"Is it Lee?" I inquired.

"Yes. My offer of reward hustled things up a bit." McKelvie leaned forward and called out, "Faster, Wilkins. We'll never make it at this rate."

"He's in danger, then," I said, as we tore around corners and down side streets to avoid the cops.

"Yes. But let me begin at the beginning. Wilkins got onto the track of a mysterious taxi that had been seen on Mott Street about four-fifteen the afternoon of October the eighth, and while he was hanging around one of those Chinese joints, he saw two toughs lounging down Pell Street, and evidently discussing the reward, since one of them was waving the hand-bill in the other's face. Wilkins followed them into an eating-house and by securing a table next to them, overheard their conversation. It seemed that they had identified Lee as the young man they had kidnapped and they were weighing the respective merits of giving their information to me or blackmailing the 'old man,' as they called whoever had hired them. The younger tough was for telling me, but the older one seemed to think they could make more from the 'old man.'

Whereupon the younger one declared that the old fellow was stingier than h.e.l.l and reminded his companion that Hi Ling had tipped them that the young man was to disappear that night, after the boss's visit at one o'clock. When the men separated Wilkins followed the younger one and by many judicious hints and the added compensation of some money and promised immunity from the police, he got the rest of the story.

"This fellow and his companion had been hired to kidnap a young chap and they had deposited him in Hi Ling's back shop in an upstairs room. There was something the young man knew that the 'old man' wanted to learn so much, he had gathered from the Chinaman who kept the shop. In other words, Lee knew something of the murder and the criminal wanted to find out just how much, or else he wanted to keep Lee from giving evidence.

It doesn't matter which. The main fact remains, that he is holding the boy a prisoner.

"Well, when he realized that through my efforts I was bound to learn where Lee was, since he did not trust the toughs, he gave orders that when he had paid the boy his customary visit at one o'clock, they were to get rid of Lee for him. One more murder wouldn't disturb his conscience very much, I guess. Our only chance lies in getting there ahead of the criminal."

"How do you know it's not a trap?" I asked.

"I've provided for that by my orders to Jenkins. If it's a trap the police will have to rescue us, that's all. I feel conscience-stricken, lugging you into what may turn out to be a fight for life," he added.

"You needn't. I wouldn't have missed it for anything," I returned. "But why don't you surround the place with the police right away?"

"Do you know where we are going?" he asked curiously.

"To Chinatown, I should judge," I answered.

"Exactly. They keep scouts on the watch at those places, which are respectable without and--h.e.l.ls within. The moment they saw the sight of a uniform Lee Darwin would disappear and no one would ever learn what had become of him. Days later an unrecognizable corpse would be dragged from the river."

I shuddered. What a horrible end for the boy if we should fail to reach him in time!

At this juncture the car stopped with a jerk at the corner of Mott and Hester streets, and we piled out.

"Wait here for us. If we do not come by one-thirty, you can go home,"

said McKelvie.

The man turned off his engine and settled himself to wait, and the next moment we were hurrying toward Pell Street. Then we turned another corner and modifying our pace, lounged carelessly toward the back entrance of Hi Ling's curio shop.

Remembering Lecoq's advice I tried to look dull and stupid as McKelvie opened the door. We stepped inside the shop and faced the Chinaman seated behind a counter at the rear of the room. He was a fat old Chinaman and he gazed at us stolidly as he smoked his pipe.

In a coa.r.s.e voice McKelvie asked whether the "old man" had come, saying he had sent us to stay with the prisoner until his arrival.

The Chinaman looked at us unblinkingly for five steady minutes, then he waved his pipe toward a rear door. We shuffled toward it as fast as we dared, and I for one, expected that every minute he would call us back and question us more closely. But he did not move and we gained the doorway and saw before us, in the flickering light of a gas-jet from above, a staircase, steep, narrow, dirty. This we climbed and found ourselves in a small entry with a door at the back. Stealing to this door, McKelvie listened intently for a moment, then drew his revolver and tried the door softly. It was locked. Shifting the gun to his left hand he took out a long, narrow steel instrument, which he inserted in the lock. As the door yielded silently, he stole into the room and I followed him closely.

I did not hear but I knew he had closed the door behind us, and then his flash glowed and the disk of light darted here and there over the black interior of the room, or, rather, hole, in which we found ourselves. It was empty save for a narrow cot, on which lay an inert figure, apparently asleep. We moved closer to the cot and McKelvie let the disk of light rest upon the face of the man before us.

It was Lee Darwin, I could not be mistaken, but he looked as though he were in the last stages of some terrible disease. His form was quite wasted, his eyes were mere sunken hollows in his ghastly face, and his cheekbones stood out prominently where the flesh had fallen away. I contemplated him in horrified silence, until a touch on my arm recalled me to action.

"I'm afraid he's too far gone to walk," whispered McKelvie. "We'll have to carry him. The main thing is to get him out before the criminal arrives. I don't think the old c.h.i.n.k will give us much trouble."

Silently McKelvie bent over Lee and shook him into consciousness. The boy opened his haggard eyes, stared at the flash, then shuddered away from McKelvie's restraining hand.

"Go away," he said feebly. "I have nothing to tell you. Nothing, I say."

"Mr. Darwin," said McKelvie soothingly, "it's all right. We only want to help you get away."

Lee turned toward the sound of the voice, a dawning wonder in his eyes, then as the sense of McKelvie's words penetrated his dulled brain and the sound of McKelvie's rich voice fell like balm on his spirit, which had been hara.s.sed for days by harsh voices and coa.r.s.e threats, he put out his hand and pushed aside the flash which McKelvie still kept focused on his face.

"Help me--get up," he said.

In the darkness we helped him to his feet and got him out into the corridor, where he collapsed again. So we lifted him by his head and feet and carried him down the stairs.

When we reached the bottom we looked across into the placid face of the old Chinaman contemplating us fixedly from the doorway!

CHAPTER x.x.xI

THE RESCUE

"Lord," McKelvie muttered low, as we set Lee down upon the lowest step.

"He's evidently in the game, too. No wonder he was so obliging about letting us pa.s.s, since there probably is no outlet yonder," and he jerked his head toward the top of the stairs.

He pulled out his gun and leveled it at the Chinaman. "Now then, Hi, or whatever your name is, just raise your arms above your head and back into that room, or you'll get a taste of this," and he tapped his revolver menacingly, but the Chinaman only continued to regard us placidly, with no change of expression on his yellow countenance.