The Bradys After a Chinese Princess Part 22

There was no reply.

"Lung! Speak! Where are you hit?" persisted Harry.

Still no answer.

The banging kept right up.

"He is dead," thought Young King Brady. "Merciful heavens! What about Alice's fate in the hands of that yellow fiend?"

Just then came a crash. Hurrying footsteps were heard overhead.

"Why there is n.o.body here, Leggett!" Old King Brady's voice exclaimed.

"Upon my word!" thought Harry. "And just in the nick of time!

"Governor! Oh, Governor!" he shouted.

"Harry, my dear boy, where are you?" cried Old King Brady, for like Harry and Ah Lung, he and the Secret Service man had penetrated into a seemingly vacant room.

"I fancy I am in the room below you!" replied Harry. "So? Who fired those shots? You?"

"No, that yellow fiend, Garshaski!"

"As I supposed. You are not hurt, I judge from the way you speak."

"I am not, Governor, but poor Ah Lung who is here with me got it in the neck and I greatly fear he is dead."

"Well, well, that's a bad job. Do you know anything of Alice?"

"Only that Garshaski said she is far enough away if you can believe him, which is more than I can. Can't you come down here?"

"I must try to get there. Are you locked in?"

"Bolted in, most securely."

"There seems to be but one door here; I daresay there is another, a secret door. But I am going to take the back track and try it another way."

"I don't care what way you try it as long as you get here. I'm in a bad enough fix. I have no doubt Ah Lung is dead."

All this talk took place in the dark.

Harry was so rattled that he did not turn on his flash light. He never even thought of it until now, and he flashed it on Ah Lung.

Evidently the Chinaman had been hit in the head for his face was all covered with blood.

He was breathing, however. There seemed to be some slight hope.

Meanwhile Old King Brady, who had broken the door down after several attempts, returned to the semi-circular hall outside.

"This is a great piece of business, Leggett!" he exclaimed. "We must make haste and get Harry out."

As he said it there came a loud pounding on the door at their left and Alice's voice called:

"Mr. Brady! Oh, Mr. Brady!"

"Well, upon my word!" exclaimed Leggett.

"Alice, are you all right?" cried the old detective with deep anxiety in his tone.

"As right as I can be under the circ.u.mstances," replied the voice behind the door, "but they have taken the poor little princess away. This is Garshaski's work. Perhaps you don't know?

"Oh, I know. I had as soon see you in the clutches of the arch fiend himself as in that man's power."

"Yes, he's a fiend, all right, and don't you forget it," replied Alice, "and a yellow one at that. I have a lot to tell you, Mr. Brady, but if Harry needs you, do attend to him first."

"He can wait. Patience a moment. I have unbolted the door. I shall soon find a key to fit."

The old detective was trying his skeletons and in a moment he had the door open.

It was the same room in which Alice had pa.s.sed those dreary days with the princess.

But now she was alone and the room was all in disorder.

As for Alice herself she was tied in her chair, being bound hand and foot.

She had been gagged also, she explained, a handkerchief having been tied over her mouth, but this she managed to work off.

"I heard you when you called murder," she said, "but I couldn't speak then. Who fired? Who was killed?"

"Ah Lung," replied the old detective, and he explained as he cut Alice's bonds.

"As for my story, it is too long to tell now," she said. "Go for Harry."

"If we can get there. We seem to have taken another door than the one we intended."

"From that long corridor?"

"Yes."

"I came in at the Door of Death as they call it. It has nearly been the death of me."

She shuddered at the recollection of the cruelties she had witnessed in the torture room.

They hurried down stairs and pa.s.sed out into the corridor again.

Alice could see no "Door of Death" now.

"This next door says To Let," she said. "Suppose you try that."