Lord John in New York Part 16

Irene could not hide her curiosity; but she dared not stand staring in the hall. She went on, as if to go to the lift: but I learned later that she took refuge in the maid's room, to see (without being seen) what I might do next.

What I did do was to return for a moment to my own room. And there, despite the alleged "pressing" importance of the second letter, I opened Maida's first.

"Please don't feel in any way bound to me," she wrote. "Indeed, there's no real reason why you should: but lest there should be the slightest shadow over your happiness, I wish to tell you that most probably I shall become a life member of the Sisterhood. I must write Roger before deciding, but when he knows that after these many weeks I have less longing than ever for the world, I think he will withdraw his objections.--Yours ever sincerely, M.O."

This was a blow over the heart. I had hoped so much, since the wonderful night when she had let me take her home to Roger! True, she had gone back next day to the Sisterhood House, but I had thought I might read between the lines of the message left for me, and other messages since then.

I did not think of any connection between Irene Allendale and Maida's change of mind, but attributed the adverse influence wholly to the Head Sister. I determined to see Maida somehow: and then remembered the letter which I had not yet opened. Envelope and paper were of the cheapest, and the handwriting was crude, most of the words being absurdly spelt.

"If yu haven't furgot yur old friend Donald Allendale and wud like to help him in grate truble c.u.m at wuns with the messenger and dont wate a secund or it may be tu late."

Nothing else could have taken me out of myself in a moment of deep depression, as did this cry from the grave of a lost friend. I had said to Irene "we have no proof of his death," yet I had hardly doubted it: and it was now as if I heard the voice of a dead man. If I had stopped to reflect I might have reasoned that the letter was more than likely a trick of the "enemy," as I named the Egyptian doctor to myself and Teano: but even if I had, I should have chanced it, for the call was too urgent to admit of delays--such as telephoning Teano to meet me, for instance. I ought to have seen (and perhaps did sub-consciously see) that the appeal for haste was in itself suspicious, framed in the hope of inducing me to do precisely what I did do, rush off on the instant without taking any companion or leaving word in the hotel that I was bound for an errand that might be dangerous.

The man who had brought the letter had prudently gone to wait outside, where, if needful, he could make a quick "getaway." This detail seemed of small importance at the time, but its influence on the fate of two others besides myself was great. If Lady Allendale had seen me starting with the messenger, she would have known that I was not going out in answer to the letter written on grey paper--the letter she believed to be from Maida Odell. Pauline's window overlooked the noisy front entrance of the otherwise quiet hotel. From behind the curtains Irene could see anyone coming or going. If the messenger had waited outside my door, she would have seen us together: but as he stood close against the wall, she could see only that I stopped to speak with someone. She could not hear the man explaining that he had been directed to travel back to New York in the taxi which had brought him to Long Island, and that instead of accompanying, I was to trail him.

"Somebody's afraid I might get something out of you--what?" said I.

Since argument with such a person was useless, Irene must have heard me order a taxi, and have telephoned down for one herself. If I'd suspected the interest she still felt in my movements, I might have been more on the alert, and have noticed a taxi always pursuing mine: but my eyes were for the one ahead.

When my leader's taxi drew up at last, it was the signal agreed upon for me to do the same. The neighbourhood was unfamiliar, but as I followed the man on foot I soon saw that we were in the heart of Chinatown. It was agreed that I should not try to speak with him again, but simply to go where I saw him go. He entered a Chinese restaurant which made no pretence at picturesqueness for the attraction of sightseers. I, close upon his heels, entered also, and had scarcely an instant to take in the scene, so promptly did the man make for a row of doors at the back of a large, smoke-dimmed room. Determined not to be left behind, I too made for the little low-browed door he chose in the row, and saw a private dining-room just comfortably big enough for two.

"This is where you're to wait," my man announced, "and where my part of the business is done. Good night. I expect you won't be kept long."

I offered him money, which he refused. "I've been paid, thank you," he said; and touching his shabby cap with an attempt at a military salute, returned to the main restaurant. He shut the door behind him, but not quickly enough to prevent my recognising a face in the room outside: the face of Donald Allendale's valet.

"By Jove!" I heard myself say half aloud. I remembered now that the man--Hanson or some name like that--had left his master in England, not wis.h.i.+ng, he explained, to go to America. Yet here he was; and I sprang to the rash conclusion that it was he who had sent for me with this mysterious ceremony.

The door was shut in my face before I could even jump up from the chair into which I had subsided; and when I threw the door open again to look out, the face had vanished. A number of Europeans of middle-cla.s.s and a few Chinese, apparently respectable merchants, were dining at little tables. Some were already going: others were coming in: and I saw at the street door a tall woman in a long dark cloak and a kind of motor bonnet covered with a thick blue veil. She had the air of peering about through the veil, to find someone she expected to meet: and if I had ever happened to see Lady Allendale's maid Pauline in automobile get-up, when motoring with her mistress, my thoughts might possibly have flashed to Irene. They did not, however, and I should have pa.s.sed the woman without remark if she had not darted at a man just making his exit. I didn't recall Don's valet well enough from Indian days to be as sure of his back as of his face, but I wondered if it were Hanson whom the veiled woman sought. I was half inclined to step out and accost him: but I knew by experience what errors arise from a change in the programme when an appointment has been planned. Possibly Hanson was not the person who should meet me here, and in following the valet I might miss my aim. After a few seconds' hesitation I went back into the tiny room and reluctantly closed the door.

It was a dull little hole, though clean. The walls or part.i.tions which divided the place from others of its kind seemed to be of thin wood, papered with red and hung with cheap Chinese banners. Even the back wall was of wood, and boasted as decoration a large, ugly picture of a Chinese hunter, in a bamboo frame. The only furniture consisted of two chairs, and a small table laid for two persons. In one of these chairs I sat, staring at the door, hoping that it might soon open for Hanson or another.

Hanson, I learned afterwards, had never intended to meet me or be seen by me. His business in the restaurant concerned me, to be sure, but only indirectly: and catching sight of my face in the door of the private room, he had made a dash for the door of the street, to be stopped by the veiled woman on the threshold. The veil was impenetrable, but recognising the voice that spoke his name, he tried to shove her aside and escape. She seized his arms, however, obliging him to stop inside the restaurant or risk a street scene. She inquired why he had come to America, and if he had been with Sir Donald.

"No, your ladys.h.i.+p," the man stolidly answered to both questions, doubtless longing to ask some of his own in return. He mumbled that he had come to New York after his master died, for no object connected with Sir Donald--merely wis.h.i.+ng to "find a good job with some rich American," a wish not yet realised. When asked if he had seen and recognised in the restaurant his master's old friend Lord John Hasle, at first he said, "No, he hadn't noticed anyone like him." But the next words, following swiftly and excitedly, for some reason quickened his memory as if by magic.

"Well, he is there. I saw him go in!" the veiled Lady Allendale insisted. "I believe you know he is there. I'm sure there's a _woman_ in the case!"

On this, Hanson admitted that he had seen "a man who looked a bit _like_ his lords.h.i.+p," and there was a woman with him, _not_ the kind of woman her ladys.h.i.+p would want to know.

"I've got to get somewhere in a hurry," he added, "but if I might advise, the best thing for your ladys.h.i.+p is to do the same--go somewhere else, most _anywhere_ else, in a hurry too."

With this, he took advantage of a relaxed hold on his arm, and was off like a frightened rabbit, old custom forcing him to touch his hat as he fled.

He doubtless hoped that Lady Allendale would be terrified into abandoning her project, whatever it might be: and intended to disclaim responsibility if she lingered. As it happened she did linger, summoning courage to enter the restaurant and take a table close to the door where, for an instant, she had seen me appear.

"He was looking for _her_!" Irene said to herself; and as no woman had pa.s.sed in while she talked to Hanson in the street, she determined to wait close to the door. It was almost incredible that Maida Odell should come from the house of the Grey Sisterhood to such a place as this, but Lady Allendale was in a mood when anything seemed possible.

Anyhow, if it were not Maida, it was some other--some other about whose existence she might let Maida know--since Maida continued to write letters to the guilty one! Irene ordered food as an excuse to keep the table; but when it came she did little more than pretend to eat.

Alternately she consulted her wrist-watch and frowned at the closed door.

All this time she supposed me to be sitting alone, fuming with impatience for the arrival of an unexpected woman: but as a matter of fact while she questioned Hanson the door had quickly opened and shut.

It had admitted a man: and that man was with me when Lady Allendale sat down at her table near by to watch.

In appearance he was a Chinaman, a very tall, respectably dressed Chinaman with a flat-brimmed hat shading his eyes, and a generous pigtail whipping his back. But his long dark eyes were not Chinese eyes, though Eastern they might be. He was magnificently made up, so well that my impression of his falseness came by instinct rather than by reason. I would have given much if my brain had carried away a clearer picture of the "man with the scar" from the theatre, on the first night of the play. If I could have got nearer to him then, the difficulty of identifying him with Doctor Rameses might have disappeared altogether, despite the Egyptian's genius for establis.h.i.+ng an alibi whenever I clamoured to the police. Now, in trying to pierce the surface calm of the dark eyes I should have had certainty to go upon, one way or the other. As it was I could only ask myself, "Is this the everlasting enemy? Or--am I a monomaniac on that subject?"

If it were Rameses, I could hardly help admiring his impudence in sending for and meeting face to face--even in disguise--the man whose business in life it had become to ruin him.

"Good evening, sir," he began politely, with the accent of an educated man and a suggestion of Chinese lisp--or a good imitation. "I am part owner of this place. I have come to know through my partner a sad case of a client of his, a poor man who was a friend of yours in another country. My partner is a good man but he is hard. He would have put this fellow out and not cared; but I said, keep him and I will send word to that friend he talks about, that Lord John Hasle. Maybe something can be done to help. My partner did not wish me to do this thing, because there might be danger for him, from the police. If you go further, you will soon understand why. But I have been years in England. I know Englishmen. I said to my partner, if this lord is asked to come alone, in a hurry, for the sake of his friend, he will not be a traitor. That is why I had to do things in a prudent way. I was right. You are here. But this is not all you have to do. You give me your word you will make no noise if I show you the secret of our place?"

"As to that, I give you my word," I said, curious, but far from trustful. "The message I received hints that Sir Donald Allendale didn't die. Is he here?"

"He is downstairs," replied the alleged Asiatic.

As he spoke, he touched one of the big, bra.s.s-headed tacks which appeared crudely to keep in place the bamboo frame of the Chinese Hunter. Instantly the picture moved out of the frame, like a sliding panel, and showed an opening or door in the wooden wall at the back of the room.

I felt that the long eyes watched to see if I "funked," but I think my features remained as noncommittal as those of Buddha himself. As a matter of fact I was scarcely surprised to find myself in one of those secret rabbit warrens of which I had read. I guessed that each of the private dining-rooms in the row I had seen, possessed a concealed door leading down to a hidden "opium den" underneath. I guessed, too, that only certain trusted habitues of the restaurant were allowed to learn the secret. Whether my being let into it were a compliment, or a sign that I shouldn't get a chance to betray it, I was not sure. But I wished that I had looked to the loading of my revolver which, so far as I remembered, held no more than one cartridge. I fancied that my Chinese friend was Rameses himself, and that he might indeed be a financial "power behind the throne" in the business of this house.

Deliberately I went to the table and selected a steel knife which lay beside one of the plates. The tall Chinaman watched me pocket it, with a benevolent smile, such as he might have bestowed upon a child arming itself with a tin sword to fight a shadow. As he stood statue-like beside the aperture in the wall, two men in Chinese costume, dressed like the waiters of the restaurant, came through the panel-door from the mysterious dusk on the other side. Each had a small tray in his hand, as if to serve at a meal. With a bow for my companion and an extra one for me they moved along the wall, one on either side of the room, pa.s.sing behind us both, and ranging themselves to right and left of the exit to the restaurant.

It was obvious that they were ready to prevent my making a dash if I were inclined to do so. They were big fellows, regular "chuckers out"

in size; and my host himself was more than my equal in height. All the same, if I'd wanted to escape, I thought I could have downed the three, unless they were experts in ju jitsu, where I was an amateur. No such intention, however, was in my mind. I determined to see the adventure to the end, in the hope of finding Allendale. He might have fallen into such hands as these, and be held for some reason which I hoped to learn.

"After you!" I said politely to my guide who would have let me go ahead. We bowed like Chinese mandarins, and then, as if to prove that he meant no harm, he pa.s.sed before me through the panel-door. Whether the two men closed it again in case of a police raid (which must always be dreaded in such a place) I don't know; but I guessed that they were under orders to follow at a distance.

There was just enough light in a narrow pa.s.sage behind the panel to prevent those who entered it from stumbling over each other. I saw that it was a long, straight corridor running between the wooden back wall of the row of private dining-rooms and the house wall. Such light as there was came from the end of the pa.s.sage, and from below, where it could be turned off in case of danger. I followed my companion, our feet making no noise on the matting-covered floor: and voices of those in the private rooms were audible through the thin part.i.tion. I smiled rather grimly for my own benefit as my fancy pictured a raid: how an alarm would be sent to those below stairs: an electric bell, perhaps: and how those in a condition to move would swarm up from secret, forbidden regions underground, running like rats through this corridor to take their places in the row of dining-rooms. There they would be found, calmly eating and drinking: and unless the "sleuths" had certain information concerning the concealed doors, there would be no excuse to look further!

At the far end of the pa.s.sage, as I expected, there was a steep stairway. My guide still went in advance, as a proof of good faith.

Having opened a baize door which m.u.f.fled sound, he held it open for me to pa.s.s into a large room lit by green-shaded electric lamps that hung from the low ceiling. There was gas also, which could be used if the electricity failed. Here, men were gambling, silent as gambling ghosts. They played fan tan and other games: Chinese and Europeans, both men and women. n.o.body glanced up when we arrived. We might have been flies for all the interest we excited. I looked over my shoulder as we came to the head of a second staircase leading down another storey, to see if the supposed "waiters" were behind us. They were not to be seen: nevertheless I "felt in my bones" that they were not far off.

The floor below the gambling-room was devoted to the smoking of opium.

There were several doors no doubt leading into private rooms for those who could pay high prices: and ranged along the two side walls were rows of berths protected by curtains. Two "cooks" were at work making the pills to fill the pipes, handed to customers by attendants. There was practically no furniture in the large, low room, which was filled with the peculiar, heady fragrance of cooking opium.

Yet even then we had not reached our destination. A third staircase led down to a deeper cellar; and I could but think as I continued the game of "follow my leader," what a neat trap the fly was allowing the spider to land him in! However, I went quietly on, consoling myself with the thought that it's a wise fly who is up to the spider's tricks and watching for the lid of the trap to fall.

This last cellar was evidently for the cheapest cla.s.s of customers.

There were berths here too, but the curtains were poor, or non-existent, and many Chinamen lay about the floor on strips of matting. The atmosphere was foetid, and thick with opium smoke. As we moved towards a rough part.i.tion at the further end, our figures tore the grey cloud as if it had been made of gauze.

"Your friend lies very sick in a room there," said my guide, speaking for the first time since he had stepped through the panel. "We have paid for his keep a long time now."

I made no answer, only following with my eyes the gesture he made, pointing at the unpainted wooden part.i.tion. In this part.i.tion were three doors, also of rough, unpainted wood. Two stood ajar, showing small rooms which I fancied were used by the attendants and opium "cooks." One door was closed. My companion opened it, indicating, with a smile, that it possessed no lock, only an old-fas.h.i.+oned latch.

"You need not fear to go in and talk with your friend alone," he said, in his low, monotonous voice. "You see, he is not a prisoner! And we cannot make you one."

I shrugged my shoulders, and pa.s.sed him without a word, shutting the door behind me as I entered the wretched den on the other side. It was lit by one paraffin lamp, supported by a bracket attached to the wall, and such light as existed brought out from the shadows the vague lumpish shape of a mattress on the floor. Two or three odds and ends of furniture lurked in corners, but I scarcely saw their squalor. My one thought was for a dark form stretched on the grey heap of bedding.

I bent over it, and a hand seemed to grip my heart. "My G.o.d, poor old Don! What have they done to you?" I broke out.

A skeleton in rags lay on the filthy mattress. The yellow light from the bracket lamp lit his great eyes as they suddenly opened, in deep hollows. Even his face looked fleshless. There were streaks of grey in the dark hair at his temples, and an unkempt beard mingled with the shadows under his cheekbones. This was what remained of Donald Allendale, one of the smartest and handsomest men in the army.

He stared at me dully for an instant, his eyes like windows of gla.s.s With no intelligence behind them. Then abruptly they seemed to come alive. "Jack!" he gasped. "Am I--dreaming you?"

"No, dear old chap, no," I a.s.sured him, down on one knee by the mattress, slipping an arm under his head. "It's Jack right enough, come to take you out of this and make you the man you were again."