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Tales of Chinatown

S >> Sax Rohmer >> Tales of Chinatown




"Come on, Knox," he said, standing up suddenly, "I think this
matter calls for speedy action."

"What! Do you think the man's story was true?"

"I think nothing. I am going to look at Kwen Lung's joss."

Without another word he led the way downstairs and out into the
deserted street. The first gray halftones of dawn were creeping
into the sky, so that the outlines of Limehouse loomed like dim
silhouettes about us. There was abundant evidence in the form of
noises, strange and discordant, that many workers were busy on
dock and riverside, but the streets through which our course lay
were almost empty. Sometimes a furtive shadow would move out of
some black gully and fade into a dimly seen doorway in a manner
peculiarly unpleasant and Asiatic. But we met no palpable
pedestrian throughout the journey.

Before the door of a house in Pennyfields which closely resembled
that which we had left in Wade Street, in that it was flatly
uninteresting, dirty and commonplace, we paused. There was no
sign of life about the place and no lights showed at any of the
windows, which appeared as dim cavities--eyeless sockets in the
gray face of the building, as dawn proclaimed the birth of a new
day.

Harley seized the knocker and knocked sharply. There was no
response, and he repeated the summons, but again without effect.
Thereupon, with a muttered exclamation, he grasped the knocker a
third time and executed a veritable tattoo upon the door. When
this had proceeded for about half a minute or more:

"All right, all right!" came a shaky voice from within. "I'm
coming."

Harley released the knocker, and, turning to me:

"Ma Lorenzo," he whispered. "Don't make any mistakes."

Indeed, even as he warned me, heralded by a creaking of bolts and
the rattling of a chain, the door was opened by a fat, shapeless,
half-caste woman of indefinite age; in whose dark eyes, now
sunken in bloated cheeks, in whose full though drooping lips, and
even in the whole overlaid contour of whose face and figure it
was possible to recognize the traces of former beauty. This was
Ma Lorenzo, who for many years had lived at that address with old
Kwen Lung, of whom strange stories were told in Chinatown.

As Bill Jones, A.B., my friend, Paul Harley, was well known to Ma
Lorenzo as he was well known to many others in that strange
colony which clusters round the London docks. I sometimes
enjoyed the privilege of accompanying my friend on a tour of
investigation through the weird resorts which abound in that
neighbourhood, and, indeed, we had been returning from one of
these Baghdad nights when our present adventure had been thrust
upon us. Assuming a wild and boisterous manner which he had at
command:

"'Urry up, Ma!" said Harley, entering without ceremony; "I want
to introduce my pal Jim 'ere to old Kwen Lung, and make it all
right for him before I sail."

Ma Lorenzo, who was half Portuguese, replied in her peculiar
accent:

"This no time to come waking me up out of bed!"

But Harley, brushing past her, was already inside the stuffy
little room, and I hastened to follow.

"Kwen Lung!" shouted my friend loudly. "Where are you? Brought
a friend to see you."

"Kwen Lung no hab," came the complaining tones of Ma Lorenzo from
behind us.

It was curious to note how long association with the Chinese had
resulted in her catching the infection of that pidgin-English
which is a sort of esperanto in all Asiatic quarters.

"Eh!" cried my friend, pushing open a door on the right of the
passage and stumbling down three worn steps into a very evil-
smelling room. "Where is he?"

"Go play fan-tan. Not come back."

Ma Lorenzo, having relocked the street door, had rejoined us, and
as I followed my friend down into the dim and uninviting
apartment she stood at the top of the steps, hands on hips,
regarding us.

The place, which was quite palpably an opium den, must have
disappointed anyone familiar with the more ornate houses of
Chinese vice in San Francisco and elsewhere. The bare floor was
not particularly clean, and the few decorations which the room
boasted were garishly European for the most part. A deep divan,
evidently used sometimes as a bed, occupied one side of the room,
and just to the left of the steps reposed the only typically
Oriental object in the place.

It was a strange thing to see in so sordid a setting; a great
gilded joss, more than life-size, squatting, hideous, upon a
massive pedestal; a figure fit for some native temple but
strangely out of place in that dirty little Limehouse abode.

I had never before visited Kwen Lung's, but the fame of his
golden joss had reached me, and I know that he had received many
offers for it, all of which he had rejected. It was whispered
that Kwen Lung was rich, that he was a great man among the
Chinese, and even that some kind of religious ceremony
periodically took place in his house. Now, as I stood staring at
the famous idol, I saw something which made me stare harder than
ever.

The place was lighted by a hanging lamp from which depended bits
of coloured paper and several gilded silk tassels; but dim as the
light was it could not conceal those tell-tale stains.

There was blood on the feet of the golden idol!

All this I detected at a glance, but ere I had time to speak:

"You can't tell me that tale, Ma!" cried Harley. "I believe 'e
was smokin' in 'ere when we knocked."

The woman shrugged her fat shoulders.

"No, hab," she repeated. "You two johnnies clear out. Let me
sleep."

But as I turned to her, beneath the nonchalant manner I could
detect a great uneasiness; and in her dark eyes there was fear.
That Harley also had seen the bloodstains I was well aware, and I
did not doubt that furthermore he had noted the fact that the
only mat which the room boasted had been placed before the joss--
doubtless to hide other stains upon the boards.

As we stood so I presently became aware of a current of air
passing across the room in the direction of the open door. It
came from a window before which a tawdry red curtain had been
draped. Either the window behind the curtain was wide open,
which is alien to Chinese habits, or it was shattered. While I
was wondering if Harley intended to investigate further:

"Come on, Jim!" he cried boisterously, and clapped me on the
shoulder; "the old fox don't want to be disturbed."

He turned to the woman:

"Tell him when he wakes up, Ma," he said, "that if ever my pal
Jim wants a pipe he's to 'ave one. Savvy? Jim's square."

"Savvy," replied the woman, and she was wholly unable to conceal
her relief. "You clear out now, and I tell Kwen Lung when he
come in."

"Righto, Ma!" said Harley. "Kiss 'im on both cheeks for me, an'
tell 'im I'll be 'ome again in a month."

Grasping me by the arm he lurched up the steps, and the two of us
presently found ourselves out in the street again. In the
growing light the squalor of the district was more evident than
ever, but the comparative freshness of the air was welcome after
the reek of that room in which the golden idol sat leering, with
blood at his feet.

"You saw, Harley?" I exclaimed excitedly. "You saw the stains?
And I'm certain the window was broken!"

Harley nodded shortly.

"Back to Wade Street!" he said. "I allow myself fifteen minutes
to shed Bill Jones, able seaman, and to become Paul Harley, of
Chancery Lane."

As we hurried along:

"What steps shall you take?" I asked.

"First step: search Kwen Lung's house from cellar to roof.
Second step: entirely dependent upon result of first. The Chinese
are subtle, Knox. If Kwen Lung has killed his daughter, it may
require all the resources of Scotland Yard to prove it."

"But------"

"There is no 'but' about it. Chinatown is the one district of
London which possesses the property of swallowing people up."




III

"CAPTAIN DAN"



Half an hour later, as I sat in the inner room before the great
dressing-table laboriously removing my disguise--for I was
utterly incapable of metamorphosing myself like Harley in seven
minutes--I heard a rapping at the outer door. I glanced
nervously at my face in the mirror.

Comparatively little of "Jim" had yet been removed, for since
time was precious to my friend I had acted as his dresser before
setting to work to remove my own make-up. There were two
entrances to the establishment, by one of which Paul Harley
invariably entered and invariably went out, and from the other of
which "Bill Jones" was sometimes seen to emerge, but never Paul
Harley. That my friend had made good his retirement I knew, but,
nevertheless, if I had to open the door of the outer room it must
be as "Jim."

Thinking it impolite not to do so, since the one who knocked
might be aware that we had come in but not gone out again, I
hastily readjusted that side of my moustache which I had begun to
remove, replaced my cap and muffler, and carefully locking the
door of the dressing-room, crossed the outer apartment and opened
the door.

It was Harley's custom never to enter or leave these rooms except
under the mantle of friendly night, but at so early an hour I
confess I had not expected a visitor. Wondering whom I should
find there I opened the door.

Standing on the landing was a fellow-lodger who permanently
occupied the two top rooms of the house. Paul Harley had taken
the trouble to investigate the man's past, for "Captain Dan," the
name by which he was known in the saloons and worse resorts which
he frequented, was palpably a broken-down gentleman; a piece of
flotsam caught in the yellow stream. Opium had been his
downfall. How he lived I never knew, but Harley believed he had
some small but settled income, sufficient to enable him to kill
himself in comfort with the black pills.

As he stood there before me in the early morning light, I was
aware of some subtle change in his appearance. It was fully six
months since I had seen him last, but in some vague way he looked
younger. Haggard he was, with an ugly cut showing on his temple,
but not so lined as I remembered him. Some former man seemed to
be struggling through the opium-scarred surface. His eyes were
brighter, and I noted with surprise that he wore decent clothes
and was clean shaved.

"Good morning, Jim," he said; "you remember me, don't you?"

As he spoke I observed, too, that his manner had altered. He who
had consorted with the sweepings af the doss-houses now addressed
me as a courteous gentleman addresses an inferior--not haughtily
or patronizingly, but with a note of conscious superiority and
self-respect wholly unfamiliar. Almost it threw me off my guard,
but remembering in the nick of time that I was still "Jim":

"Of course I remember you, Cap'n," I said. "Step inside."

"Thanks," he replied, and followed me into the little room.

I placed for him the arm-chair which our friend the fireman had
so recently occupied, but:

"I won't sit down," he said.

And now I observed that he was evidently in a condition of
repressed excitement. Perhaps he saw the curiosity in my glance,
for he suddenly rested both his hands on my shoulders, and:

"Yes, I have given up the dope, Jim," he said---"done with it for
ever. There's not a soul in this neighbourhood I can trust, yet
if ever a man wanted a pal, I want one to-day. Now, you're
square, my lad. I always knew that, in spite of the dope; and if
I ask you to do a little thing that means a lot to me, I think
you will do it. Am I right?"

"If it can be done, I'll do it," said I.

"Then, listen. I'm leaving England in the Patna for Singapore.
She sails at noon to-morrow, and passengers go on board at ten
o'clock. I've got my ticket, papers in order, but"--he paused
impressively, grasping my shoulders hard--"I must get on board
to-night."

I stared him in the face.

"Why?" I asked.

He returned my look with one searching and eager; then:

"If I show you the reason," said he, "and trust you with all my
papers, will you go down to the dock--it's no great distance--
and ask to see Marryat, the chief officer? Perhaps you've sailed
with him?"

"No," I replied guardedly. "I was never in the Patna."

"Never mind. When you give him a letter which I shall write he
will make the necessary arrangements for me to occupy my state-
room to-night. I knew him well," he explained, "in--the old
days. Will you do it, Jim?"

"I'll do it with pleasure," I answered.

"Shake!" said Captain Dan.

We shook hands heartily, and:

"Now I'll show you the reason," he added. "Come upstairs."

Turning, he led the way upstairs to his own room, and wondering
greatly, I followed him in. Never having been in Captain Dan's
apartments I cannot say whether they, like their occupant, had
changed for the better. But I found myself in a room
surprisingly clean and with a note of culture in its appointments
which was even more surprising.

On a couch by the window, wrapped in a fur rug, lay the prettiest
half-caste girl I had ever seen, East or West. Her skin was like
cream rose petals and her abundant hair was of wonderful lustrous
black. Perhaps it was her smooth warm colour which suggested the
idea, but as her cheeks flushed at sight of Captain Dan and the
long dark eyes lighted up in welcome, I thought of a delicate
painting on ivory and I wondered more and more what it all could
mean.

"I have brought Jim to see you," said Captain Dan. "No, don't
trouble to move dear."

But even before he had spoken I had seen the girl wince with pain
as she had endeavoured to sit up to greet us. She lay on her
side in a rather constrained attitude, but although her sudden
movement had brought tears to her eyes she smiled bravely and
extended a tiny ivory hand to me.

"This is my wife, Jim!" said Captain Dan.

I could find no words at all, but merely stood there looking very
awkward and feeling almost awed by the indescribable expression
of trust in the eyes of the little Eurasian, as with her tiny
fingers hidden in her husband's clasp she lay looking up at him.

"Now you know, Jim," said he, "why we must get aboard the Patna
to-night. My wife is really too ill to travel; in fact, I shall
have to carry her down to the cab, and such a proceeding in
daylight would attract an enormous crowd in this neighbourhood!"

"Give me the letters and the papers," I answered. "I will start
now."

His wife disengaged her hand and extended it to me.

"Thank you," she said, in a queer little silver-bell voice; "you
are good. I shall always love you."




IV

THE SECRET OF MA LORENZO



It must have been about eleven o'clock that night when Paul
Harley rang me up. Since we had parted in the early morning I
had had no word from him, and I was all anxiety to tell him of
the quaint little romance which unknown to us had had its setting
in the room above.

In accordance with my promise I had seen the chief officer of the
Patna; and from the start of surprise which he gave on opening
"Captain Dan's" letter, I judged that Mr. Marryat and the man who
for so long had sunk to the lowest rung of the ladder had been
close friends in those "old days." At any rate, he had proceeded
to make the necessary arrangements without a moment's delay, and
the couple were to go on board the Patna at nine o'clock.

It was with a sense of having done at least one good deed that I
finally quitted our Limehouse base and returned to my rooms.
Now, at eleven o'clock at night:

"Can you come round to Chancery Lane at once?" said Harley. "I
want you to run down to Pennyfields with me."

"Some development in the Kwen Lung business?"

"Hardly a development, but I'm not satisfied, Knox. I hate to be
beaten."

Twenty minutes later I was sitting in Harley's study, watching
him restlessly promenading up and down before the fire.

"The police searched Kwen Lung's place from foundation to tiles,"
he said. "I was there myself. Old Kwen Lung conveniently kept
out of the way--still playing fan-tan, no doubt! But Ma Lorenzo
was in evidence. She blandly declared that Kwen Lung never had a
daughter! And in the absence of our friend the fireman, who
sailed in the Seahawk, and whose evidence, by the way, is legally
valueless--what could we do? They could find nobody in the
neighbourhood prepared to state that Kwen Lung had a daughter or
that Kwen Lung had no daughter. There are all sorts of fables
about the old fox, but the facts about him are harder to get at."

"But," I explained, "the bloodstains on the joss!"

"Ma Lorenzo stumbled and fell there on the previous night,
striking her skull against the foot of the figure."

"What nonsense!" I cried. "We should have seen the wound last
night."

"We might have done," said Harley musingly; "I don't know when
she inflicted it on herself; but I did see it this morning."

"What!"

"Oh, the gash is there all right, partly covered by her hair."

He stood still, staring at me oddly.

"One meets with cases of singular devotion in unexpected quarters
sometimes," he said.

"You mean that the woman inflicted the wound upon herself in
order------"

"To save old Kwen Lung--exactly! It's marvellous."

"Good heavens!" I exclaimed. "And the window?"

"Oh! it was broken right enough--by two drunken sailormen
fighting in the court outside! Sash and everything smashed to
splinters."

He began irritably to pace the carpet again.

"It must have been a devil of a fight!" he added savagely.

"Meanwhile," said I, "where is old Kwen Lung hiding?"

"But more particularly," cried Harley, "where has he hidden the
poor victim? Come along, Knox! I'm going down there for a final
look round."

"Of course the premises are being watched?"

"Of course--and also, of course, I shall be the laughing stock of
Scotland Yard if nothing results."

It was close on midnight when once more I found myself in
Pennyfields. Carried away by Harley's irritable excitement I had
quite forgotten the romance of Captain Dan; and when, having
exchanged greetings with the detective on duty hard by the house
of Kwen Lung, we presently found ourselves in the presence of Ma
Lorenzo, I scarcely knew for a moment if I were "Jim" or my
proper self.

"Is Kwen Lung in?" asked Harley sternly.

The woman shook her head.

"No," she replied; "he sometimes stop away a whole week."

"Does he?" jerked Harley. "Come in, Knox; we'll take another
look round."

A moment later I found myself again in the room of the golden
joss. The red curtain had been removed from before the shattered
window, but otherwise the place looked exactly as it had looked
before. The atmosphere was much less stale, however, but there
was something repellent about the great gilded idol smiling
eternally from his pedestal beside the door.

I stared into the leering face, and it was the face of one who
knew and who might have said: "Yes! this and other things
equally strange have I beheld in many lands as well as England.
Much I could tell. Many things grim and terrible, and some few
joyous; for behold! I smile but am silent."

For a while Harley stared abstractedly at the bloodstains on the
pedestal of the joss and upon the floor beneath from which the
matting had been pulled back. Suddenly he turned to Ma Lorenzo:

"Where have you hidden the body?" he demanded.

Watching her, I thought I saw the woman flinch, but there was
enough of the Oriental in her composition to save her from self-
betrayal. She shook her head slowly, watching Harley through
half-closed eyes.

"Nobody hab," she replied.

And I thought for once that her lapse into pidgin had been
deliberate and not accidental.

When finally we quitted the house of the missing Kwen Lung, and
when, Harley having curtly acknowledged "good night" from the
detective on duty, we came out into Limehouse Causeway.

"You have not overlooked the possibility, Harley," I said, "that
this woman's explanation may be true, and that the fireman of the
Seahawk may have been entertaining us with an account of a weird
dream?"

"No!" snapped Harley--"neither will Scotland Yard overlook it."

He was in a particularly impossible mood, for he so rarely made
mistakes that to be detected in one invariably brought out those
petulant traits of character which may have been due in some
measure to long residence in the East. Recognizing that he would
rather be alone I parted from him at the corner of Chancery Lane
and returned to my own chambers. Furthermore, I was very tired,
for it was close upon two o'clock, and on turning in I very
promptly went to sleep, nor did I awaken until late in the
morning.

For some odd reason, but possibly because the fact had occurred
to me just as I was retiring, I remembered at the moment of
waking that I had not told Harley about the romantic wedding of
Captain Dan. As I had left my friend in very ill humour I
thought that this would be a good excuse for an early call, and
just before eleven o'clock I walked into his office. Innes, his
invaluable secretary, showed me into the study at the back.

"Hallo, Knox," said Harley, looking up from a little silver
Buddha which he was examining, "have you come to ask for news of
the Kwen Lung case?"

"No," I replied. "Is there any?"

Harley shook his head.

"It seems like fate," he declared, "that this thing should have
been sent to me this morning." He indicated the silver Buddha.
"A present from a friend who knows my weakness for Chinese
ornaments," he explained grimly. "It reminds me of that damned
joss of Kwen Lung's!"

I took up the little image and examined it with interest. It was
most beautifully fashioned in the patient Oriental way, and there
was a little hinged door in the back which fitted so perfectly
that when closed it was quite impossible to detect its presence.
I glanced at Harley.

"I suppose you didn't find a jewel inside?" I said lightly.

"No," he replied; "there was nothing inside."

But even as he uttered the words his whole expression changed,
and so suddenly as to startle me. He sprang up from the table,
and:

"Have you an hour to spare, Knox?" he cried excitedly.

"I can spare an hour, but what for?"

"For Kwen Lung!"

Four minutes later we were speeding in the direction of
Limehouse, and not a word of explanation to account for this
sudden journey could I extract from my friend. Therefore I
beguiled the time by telling him of my adventure with Captain
Dan.

Harley listened to the story in unbroken silence, but at its
termination he brought his hand down sharply on my knee.

"I have been almost perfectly blind, Knox," he said; "but not
quite so perfectly blind as you!"

I stared at him in amazement, but he merely laughed and offered
no explanation of his words.

Presently, then, I found myself yet again in the familiar room of
the golden joss. Ma Lorenzo, in whom some hidden anxiety seemed
to have increased since I had last seen her, stood at the top of
the stairs watching us. Upon what idea my friend was operating
and what he intended to do I could not imagine; but without a
word to the woman he crossed the room and grasping the great
golden idol with both arms he dragged it forward across the
floor!

As he did so there was a stifled shriek, and Ma Lorenzo,
stumbling down the steps, threw herself on her knees before
Harley! Raising imploring hands:

"No, no!" she moaned. "Not until I tell you--I tell you
everything first!"

"To begin with, tell me how to open this thing," he said sternly.

Momentarily she hesitated, and did not rise from her knees, but:

"Do you hear me?" he cried.

The woman rose unsteadily and walking slowly round the joss
manipulated some hidden fastening, whereupon the entire back of
the thing opened like a door! From what was within she
shudderingly averted her face, but Harley, stepping back against
the wall, stopped and peered into the cavity.

"Good God!" he muttered. "Come and look, Knox."

Prepared by his manner for some gruesome spectacle, I obeyed--and
from that which I saw I recoiled in horror.

"Harley," I whispered, "Harley! who is it?"

The spectacle had truly sickened me. Crouched within the narrow
space enclosed by the figure of the idol was the body of an old
and wrinkled Chinaman! His knees were drawn up to his chin, and
his head so compressed upon them that little of his features
could be seen.

"It is Kwen Lung!" murmured Ma Lorenzo, standing with clasped
hands and wild eyes over by the window. "Kwen Lung--and I am
glad he is dead!"

Such a note of hatred came into her voice as I had never heard in
the voice of any woman.

"He is vile, a demon, a mocking cruel demon! Long, long years
ago I would have killed him, but always I was afraid. I tell you
everything, everything. This is how he comes to be dead. The
little one"--again her voice changed and a note of almost
grotesque tenderness came into it--"the lotus-flower, that is his
own daughter's child, flesh of his flesh, he keeps a prisoner as
the women of China are kept, up there"--she raised one fat finger
aloft--"up above. He does not know that someone comes to see
her--someone who used to come to smoke but who gave it up because
he had looked into the dear one's eye. He does not know that she
goes with me to see her man. Ah! we think he does not know!
I--I arrange it all. A week ago they were married. Tuesday
night, when Kwen Lung die, I plan for her to steal away for ever,
for ever."

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