The Perils of Pauline Part 19

They climbed a brightly lighted staircase into one of the ordinary Chinese restaurants of the better sort which are conducted almost entirely for Americans, and where Boston baked beans are as likely as not to nudge almond cakes on the bill of fare and champagne flow as commonly as tea.

They gathered around one of the larger of the cheaply inlaid tables, and Baskinelli took command of the feast.

Harry sat in grim silence, watching Pauline like a protecting dragon.

Lucille was sick at heart and repentant of coming. The others chatted merrily among themselves. But by common consent Pauline seemed to have been surrendered to the attentions of the evening pest, who had become a midnight host.

He leaned toward her with an ardor that he did not even attempt to disguise. "You are the most wonderful woman in--"

"Please make it the universe," pleaded Pauline. "There are so many most wonderful women in the world."

"No, let us say chaos," he whispered. "The chaos of a man's heart can be ruled only by the charming uncertainty of woman."

The intensity of his words brought to Pauline again the twinge of alarm. Unconsciously she looked around for Harry. It was the last thing in the world she had meant to do. She was angry at herself in an instant, for his fixed, guarding gaze was upon her. She met his eyes and turned quickly to Baskinelli.

"Chaos? I've always loved that word," she flashed. "There must be so many lovely adventures where there are no laws."

"I said the chaos in a man's heart could be ruled by a woman," said Baskinelli.

The impudence of this sudden love making moved her unexpectedly to defiance.

"Please let it be ruled, Signor Baskinelli," she said, turning away from him.

Baskinelli had sense enough to see that he had gone too far. He turned to the others as the soft-footed Orientals began to spread the mixed and mysterious viands on the table.

He glanced at Owen. By the slightest movement imaginable, by the least uplift of his black brows, Owen answered. For the first time Baskinelli knew that the lovely quarry he pursued had a protector-- and no mean, no weak protector.

But the arrival of the repast quickly covered the general embarra.s.sment. Everybody could see that Pauline and Harry had had a quarrel and that Pauline, was flirting outrageously with Baskenelli simply for revenge--that is, every one except Harry could see it.

"Pardon me, but is that what you call a graft investigation that you are making, Miss Hamlin?" inquired Baskinelli.

"No, but the food is so funny. There are so many queer things present, but unidentified," laughed Lucille.

"Like a reception to a foreign artist," interrupted Harry with a vindictive glare.

"Or shall we say like the conversation of an unhappy guest," said Baskinelli, smilingly turning to note the entrance of a little party of newcomers at the further end of the restaurant.

A das.h.i.+ng, well-dressed, fiery-eyed foreigner, the tips of whose waxed mustachios turned up like black stalagmites from the comers of his cavernous mouth, was accompanied by two nondescript figures, who seemed to be embarra.s.sed more by the fact that they had been recently cleansed and shaved than by their rough red s.h.i.+rts and mismatched coats and trousers.

The man of the tilted mustachios gave brief, imperative orders to the waiters, whose languid steps seemed to be quickened by his words as by an electric battery. The other two sat silent, like docile dogs in leash.

Only for an instant Baskinelli's eyes rested upon the group.

"And having tasted the food of the G.o.ds, how would you like to visit the G.o.ds themselves?" he asked.

Pauline agreed enthusiastically. "You mean a joss house--a Chinese church, don't you."

"Yes."

The joss house that most visitors see in Chinatown is the little one up under the roof at the meeting of Doyers and Pell streets--at the toe of the twisted horseshoe made by these tiny thoroughfares of black fame, where, in spite of all the modern magic of "reform," men still die silently in the hush of secluded corridors and women vanish into the darkness that is worse than death.

The little joss house is interesting in the same way that an Indian village at a State fair is interesting. Behind its gaudy staginess and commercial appeal it still holds something of reality from which the imagination can draw a picture of an ancient wors.h.i.+p that has held a race of millions in thrall for thousands of years.

But it was not to the little joss house that Signor Baskinelli guided the party. In the little joss house the bells are pounded without respite, the visitors come and go at all hours of the day and night-- save the few set hours when the joss sacrifices profit to true prayer.

Baskinelli took his guests to the joss house of the Golden Screens.

Save for its greater size and more splendid accoutrement, it was little different from the other. But it was walled, in its back alley seclusion, deep behind the outer fronts of Mott street, by a secrecy almost sincerely sacred.

The motor cars remained far behind across the square as Baskinelli led the party through the dismal streets and stopped before a dark doorway.

A dim light flared behind the door and a Chinaman in American dress admitted them.

"I am beginning to be really bored," said Pauline.

"Wait; give the wicked a chance," said Baskinelli.

They climbed three flights of dingy, narrow stairs, lighted with flaring gas jets.

"Wonderful," jeered Pauline. "Not even a secret pa.s.sage or a subterranean den!"

The others followed her laughing lead up the stairs.

A Chinaman came out of the door on the second landing, stopped, started in innocent curiosity at the dazzling visitors and went down the stairs. Everything was as still and commonplace as if they had been in the hallway of a Harlem flat building.

The silence was not broken or the seeming safety disturbed in the slightest by the soft opening of the first landing door, after they had pa.s.sed--that is, after all but Owen had pa.s.sed. No one but Owen saw the piercing black eyes and the tilted mustachios of the face that appeared for an instant at the door.

There was a corridor, not so well lighted, at the top of the third flight of stairs. In the dim turns the women drew their skirts about them, a bit wary of the black, short walls.

The pa.s.sage narrowed. They could move now only in single file, and even then their shoulders brushed the walls.

Only a far, dull glow from a red lamp over a door at the end of a pa.s.sage lighted their way.

Baskinelli tapped lightly on the door.

It was opened by a venerable Chinaman in the flowing robes of a priest. He looked at them doubtfully. Baskinelli spoke three words that his companions did not hear. The priest vanished. Quickly the door was reopened and they stepped into the dim, smoky, stifling presence of the joss.

The choking scent of the punk always at the folded feet of the idol was almost suffocating. The place had other odors less noxious and less sweet. Chinamen were lounging in the room as if it had been a place of rest. Three priests were on their knees before the joss swaying forward till their foreheads almost touched the floor, their outstretched arms moving in mystic symmetry with their rocking bodies.

A great bra.s.s bell hung low beside the idol. But no priest touched the bell.

The joss itself was almost the least impressive thing in the room. It stood, or squatted, six feet high, on a block pedestal at the side of the room. The simple hideousness of the painted features served no impressive purpose, but as contrast to the exquisite decorations of the room.

Screens of carved wood, so delicately wrought that it seemed a touch would break the graven fibers, were flecked with inlay of pearl and covering of gold.

One of the peculiar features of the room was a suit of ancient Chinese armor--a relic that had been rusted and pit-marked by time, but now stood brightly polished beside the statue of the G.o.d. A huge two-edged sword was held upright in the steel glove.

By the dim light behind the idol the shadow of the sword was cast across the blank face of Baskinelli as he moved forward. He stepped back quickly. The shadow fell between him and Pauline.

Again the ancient priest answered a summons at the door. Again he parleyed for a moment--then opened it to the three swarthy foreigners who had been in the restaurant.