The Bradys After a Chinese Princess Part 23

"Yes, and I think it is the one," replied Old King Brady, again working his skeleton keys.

Fortunately they found themselves with the corridor at their own disposal.

In a moment they had the door open.

"This is the road I travelled," Alice instantly declared.

This lengthy cross corridor seemed certain to lead them away from the room in which Harry was confined, but Alice explaining its windings they determined to try it.

They were a story lower than the room in which they had been before and when they came to the semi-circular hall with the three doors exactly like the arrangement above Old King Brady felt that they must be right.

"Harry!" he called in a low voice, for he had no desire to bring the c.h.i.n.ks down upon him.

"Here," replied Harry instantly. "Behind the middle door."

Old King Brady shot the bolt and threw back the door, which was not locked.

Ah Lung was sitting up leaning on Harry.

He certainly was a horrible looking object with his face all bathed in blood.

"Not dead!" exclaimed Old King Brady.

"Not dead, but in a mighty bad way," gasped Lung. "The princess!" he added. "I see you have Miss Montgomery all right."

"I'm sorry to say we have seen nothing of the princess," replied the old detective. "I haven't had time to ask Miss Montgomery about her yet.

What has become of her, Alice?"

"Dr. Garshaski carried her off," replied Alice.

"Did--did she give away what he wanted to know?" asked Ah Lung.

"I'm afraid she did. They tortured the poor creature terribly."

"We must get you out of here without delay, Ah Lung," interrupted the old detective. "As for the rest it will have to keep. Where shall we take you--home?"

"Wait," said Ah Lung. "Connected with this place is a club of which I am a member. I have a room here where I sometimes sleep. Take me there first and go for Dr. Gim Suey on Sacramento street."

"Oh, you better have an American doctor," protested Harry.

"Not at all," replied Ah Lung, decidedly. "I have doctored both ways, I greatly prefer the Chinese treatment. Dr. Gim Suey will save my life if it can be saved."

CHAPTER X.

TREASURE HUNTING.

Harry and Detective Leggett carried Ah Lung out into the long corridor head and heels.

Here they ran into a bunch of c.h.i.n.ks just coming out of the main club room.

There were friends of Ah Lung's among them, and a tremendous pow-wow and excitement followed, all in Chinese.

Alice explained that it was partly sympathy, partly indignation against Dr. Garshaski, who was a club member, and partly about the presence of detectives in the House of the Seven Delights.

Ah Lung quieted them, however.

"Leave me now," he said. "I am in the hands of my friends. They will do all for me that can be done. They are not willing that you should enter the club room."

So the detectives were escorted back to earth by the way Old King Brady and Leggett had come down into these lower regions and glad enough they were to find themselves safe on China alley.

Parting from Leggett, they started, reaching it shortly before midnight.

Alice was so exhausted that Old King Brady insisted that she should postpone her story till morning.

"I don't know that it will do any good to tell it now," she said. "But I must give you a hint. There is buried or hidden money at the bottom of all this business."

"Yes, yes, I know," said Old King Brady. "I heard Garshaski call out about it. Do you know where the hiding place is?"

"In an old house down by the North Beach."

"Does he know?"

"He does. He has had plenty of time to get there and get the treasure if it still exists."

"If that is the case," said the old detective, "then I think the best thing that all of us can do is to go to bed."

They did so and it was not until the next morning at breakfast in the private parlor of the detective's suite that Alice's story was told.

We need only take it up at the scene in the torture room when the princess fainted and Alice thought her dead.

"They ran me out then," she said, "so I don't know exactly what the yellow fiends did to her after that.

"They tied me to the chair and I think Garshaski meant mischief.

"After a little he brought the princess into the room and laid her on the bed. She was in a dreadful condition, but she was game still. She had not given the secret away. I begged Garshaski to untie me and allow me to attend to her, but he wouldn't hear to it.

"'She'll come around all right,'" he declared; adding:

"'And for your interference you have to suffer, Alice. I will make you feel sorry you ever insulted me in the way you did.' He then left us, and I tried to question the princess, but she would not talk about herself.

"'Listen, Alice,' she said. 'That fiend has killed my cousin w.a.n.g Foo.

He told me so. He means to kill me, I know it, but I will never tell him where my grandfather hid his money. I will tell you, though, for you may live to get out of this and I want you, if you do, to go and get that money and give it to Ah Lung. Promise me that.'

"I gave her the promise and asked how much the money amounted to.