XII
THE "DOPE TRUST"
As we hurried into Chinatown from Chatham Square we could see that thedistrict was celebrating its holidays with long ropes of firecrackers,and was feasting to reed discords from the pipes of its most famousmusicians, and was gay with the hanging out of many sunflags, red withan eighteen-rayed white sun in the blue union. Both the new tong truceand the anniversary were more than cause for rejoicing.
Hurried though it was, the raid on the Hep Sing joint had beencarefully prepared by O'Connor. The house we were after was one of theoldest of the rookeries, with a gaudy restaurant on the second floor, acurio shop on the street level, while in the basement all that wasvisible was a view of a huge and orderly pile of tea chests. A momentbefore the windows of the dwellings above the restaurant had been fullof people. All had faded away even before the axes began to swing onthe basement door which had the appearance of a storeroom for the shopabove.
The flimsy outside door went down quickly. But it was only a blind.Another door greeted the raiders. The axes swung noisily and thecrowbars tore at the fortified, iron-clad, "ice box" door inside. Afterbreaking it down they had to claw their way through another just likeit. The thick doors and tea chests piled up showed why no sounds ofgambling and other practices ever were heard outside.
Pushing aside a curtain we were in the main room. The scene was one ofconfusion showing the hasty departure of the occupants.
Kennedy did not stop here. Within was still another room, for smokers,anything but like the fashionable place we had seen uptown. It was low,common, disgusting. The odour everywhere was offensive; everywhere wasfilth that should naturally breed disease. It was an inferno reekingwith unwholesome sweat and still obscured with dense fumes of smoke.
Three tiers of bunks of hardwood were built along the walls. There wasno glamour here; all was sordid. Several Chinamen in various stages ofdazed indolence were jabbering in incoherent oblivion, a state Isuppose of "Oriental calm."
There, in a bunk, lay Clendenin. His slow and uncertain breathing toldof his being under the influence of the drug, and he lay on his backbeside a "layout" with a half-cooked pill still in the bowl of his pipe.
The question was to wake him up. Craig began slapping him with a wettowel, directing us how to keep him roused. We walked him about, up anddown, dazed, less than half sensible, dreaming, muttering, raving.
A hasty exclamation from O'Connor followed as he drew from the scantcushions of the bunk a long-barreled pistol, a .44 such as the tongleaders used, the same make as had shot Bertha Curtis and Nichi. Craigseized it and stuck it into his pocket.
All the gamblers had fled, all except those too drugged to escape.Where they had gone was indicated by a door leading up to the kitchenof the restaurant. Craig did not stop but leaped upstairs and then downagain into a little back court by means of a fire-escape. Through asort of short alley we groped our way, or rather through an intricatemaze of alleys and a labyrinth of blind recesses. We were apparentlyback of a store on Pell Street.
It was the work of only a moment to go through another door and intoanother room, filled with smoky, dirty, unpleasant, fetid air. Thisroom, too, seemed to be piled with tea chests. Craig opened one. Therelay piles and piles of opium tins, a veritable fortune in the drug.
Mysterious pots and pans, strainers, wooden vessels, and testinginstruments were about. The odour of opium in the manufacture wasunmistakable, for smoking opium is different from the medicinal drug.There it appeared the supplies of thousands of smokers all over thecountry were stored and prepared. In a corner a mass of the finishedproduct lay weltering in a basin like treacle. In another corner wasthe apparatus for remaking yen-shee or once-smoked opium. This I feltwas at last the home of the "dope trust," as O'Connor had once calledit, the secret realm of a real opium king, the American end of the richShanghai syndicate.
A door opened and there stood a Chinaman, stoical, secretive,indifferent, with all the Oriental cunning and cruelty hall-marked onhis face. Yet there was a fascination and air of Eastern culture abouthim in spite of that strange and typical Oriental depth of intrigue andcunning that shone through, great characteristics of the East.
No one said a word as Kennedy continued to ransack the place. At lastunder a rubbish heap he found a revolver wrapped up loosely in an oldsweater. Quickly, under the bright light, Craig drew Clendenin'spistol, fitted a cartridge into it and fired at the wall. Again intothe second gun he fitted another and a second shot rang out.
Out of his pocket came next the small magnifying glass and twounmounted microphotographs. He bent down over the exploded shells.
"There it is," cried Craig scarcely able to restrain himself with thekeenness of his chase, "there it is--the mark like an 'L.' Thiscartridge bears the one mark, distinct, not possible to have been madeby any other pistol in the world. None of the Hep Sings, all with thesame make of weapons, none of the gunmen in their employ, couldduplicate that mark."
"Some bullets," reported a policeman who had been rummaging further inthe rubbish.
"Be careful, man," cautioned Craig. "They are doped. Lay them down.Yes, this is the same gun that fired the shot at Bertha Curtis andNichi Moto--fired narcotic bullets in order to stop any one whointerfered with the opium smuggling, without killing the victim."
"What's the matter?" asked O'Connor, arriving breathless from thegambling room after hearing the shots. The Chinaman stood, stillsilent, impassive. At sight of him O'Connor gasped out, "Chin Jung!"
"Real tong leader," added Craig, "and the murderer of the white girl towhom he was engaged. This is the goggled chauffeur of the red car thatmet the smuggling boat, and in which Bertha Curtis rode, unsuspecting,to her death."
"And Clendenin?" asked Walker Curtis, not comprehending.
"A tool--poor wretch. So keen had the hunt for him become that he hadto hide in the only safe place, with the coolies of his employer. Hemust have been in such abject terror that he has almost smoked himselfto death."
"But why should the Chinaman shoot my sister?" asked Walker Curtisamazed at the turn of events.
"Your sister," replied Craig, almost reverently, "wrecked though shewas by the drug, was at last conscience stricken when she saw the vastplot to debauch thousands of others. It was from her that the Japanesedetective in the revenue service got his information--and both of themhave paid the price. But they have smashed the new opium ring--we havecaptured the ring-leaders of the gang."
Out of the maze of streets, on Chatham Square again, we lost no time inmounting to the safety of the elevated station before some murderoustong member might seek revenge on us.
The celebration in Chinatown was stilled. It was as though the nervesof the place had been paralysed by our sudden, sharp blow.
A downtown train took me to the office to write a "beat," for the Staralways made a special feature of the picturesque in Chinatown news.Kennedy went uptown.
Except for a few moments in the morning, I did not see Kennedy againuntil the following afternoon, for the tong war proved to be such aninteresting feature that I had to help lay out and direct theassignments covering its various details.
I managed to get away again as soon as possible, however, for I knewthat it would not be long before some one else in trouble wouldcommandeer Kennedy to untangle a mystery, and I wanted to be on thespot when it started.
Sure enough, it turned out that I was right. Seated with him in ourliving room, when I came in from my hasty journey uptown in the subway,was a man, tall, thick-set, with a crop of closely curling dark hair, asharp, pointed nose, ferret eyes, and a reddish moustache, curled atthe ends. I had no difficulty in deciding what he was, if not who hewas. He was the typical detective who, for the very reason that helooked the part, destroyed much of his own usefulness.
"We have lost so much lately at Trimble's," he was saying, "that it islong past the stage of being merely interesting. It is downrightserious--for me, at least. I've got to make good or lose my job. AndI'm up against one of
the cleverest shoplifters that ever entered adepartment-store, apparently. Only Heaven knows how much she has gotaway with in various departments so far, but when it comes to liftingvaluable things like pieces of jewelry which run into the thousands,that is too much."
At the mention of the name of the big Trimble store I had recognised atonce what the man was, and it did not need Kennedy's rapid-fireintroduction of Michael Donnelly to tell me that he was a departmentstore detective.
"Have you no clue, no suspicions?" inquired Kennedy.
"Well, yes, suspicions," measured Donnelly slowly. "For instance, oneday not long ago a beautifully dressed and refined-looking woman calledat the jewellery department and asked to see a diamond necklace whichwe had just imported from Paris. She seemed to admire it very much,studied it, tried it on, but finally went away without making up hermind. A couple of days later she returned and asked to see it again.This time there happened to be another woman beside her who was lookingat some pendants. The two fell to talking about the necklace, accordingto the best recollection of the clerk, and the second woman began toexamine it critically. Again the prospective buyer went away. But thistime after she had gone, and when he was putting the things back intothe safe, the clerk examined the necklace, thinking that perhaps a flawhad been discovered in it which had decided the woman against it. Itwas a replica in paste; probably substituted by one of these clever andsmartly dressed women for the real necklace."
Before Craig had a chance to put another question, the buzzer on ourdoor sounded, and I admitted a dapper, soft-spoken man of middle size,who might have been a travelling salesman or a bookkeeper. He pulled acard from his case and stood facing us, evidently in doubt how toproceed.
"Professor Kennedy?" he asked at length, balancing the pasteboardbetween his fingers.
"Yes," answered Craig. "What can I do for you?"
"I am from Shorham, the Fifth Avenue jeweller, you know," he beganbrusquely, as he handed the card to Kennedy. "I thought I'd drop in toconsult you about a peculiar thing that happened at the store recently,but if you are engaged, I can wait. You see, we had on exhibition avery handsome pearl dogcollar, and a few days ago two women came to--"
"Say," interrupted Kennedy, glancing from the card to the face ofJoseph Bentley, and then at Donnelly. "What is this--a gathering of theclans? There seems to be an epidemic of shoplifting. How much were youstung for?"
"About twenty thousand altogether," replied Bentley with ruefulfrankness. "Why? Has some one else been victimised, too?"