CHAPTER XL
COIL OF THE PIGTAIL
The inner room was in darkness and the fume-laden air almostunbreathable. A dull and regular moaning sound proceeded from the cornerwhere the bed was situated, but of the contents of the place and ofits other occupant or occupants Kerry had no more than a hazy idea. Hisimagination supplied those details which he had failed to observe. Mrs.Monte Irvin, in a dying condition, lay upon the bed, and someone or something crouched on the divan behind Kerry as he lay stretched upon thematting-covered floor. His wrists, tied behind him, gave him great pain;and since his ankles were also fastened and the end of the rope drawntaut and attached to that binding his wrists, he was rendered absolutelyhelpless. For one of his fiery temperament this physical impotence wasmaddening, and because his own handkerchief had been tied tightlyaround his head so as to secure between his teeth a wooden stopperof considerable size which possessed an unpleasant chemical taste andsmell, even speech was denied him.
How long he had lain thus he had no means of judging accurately; buthours--long, maddening hours--seemed to have passed since, withthe muzzle of Sin Sin Wa's Mauser pressed coldly to his ear, he hadsubmitted willy-nilly to the adroit manipulations of Mrs. Sin. At firsthe had believed, in his confirmed masculine vanity, that it would be asimple matter to extricate himself from the fastenings made by a woman;but when, rolling him sideways, she had drawn back his heels and runthe loose end of the line through the loop formed by the lashing ofhis wrists behind him, he had recognized a Chinese training, and hadresigned himself to the inevitable. The wooden gag was a sore trial,and if it had not broken his spirit it had nearly caused him to break anartery in his impotent fury.
Into the darkened inner chamber Sin Sin Wa had dragged him, and thereKerry had lain ever since, listening to the various sounds of the place,to the coarse voice, often raised in anger, of the Cuban-Jewess, to thecrooning tones of the imperturbable Chinaman. The incessant moaning ofthe woman on the bed sometimes became mingled with another sound moreremote, which Kerry for long failed to identify; but ultimately heconcluded it to be occasioned by the tide flowing under the wharf. Theraven was silent, because, imprisoned in his wicker cage, he had beenplaced in some dark spot below the counter. Very dimly from time to timea steam siren might be heard upon the river, and once the thudding ofa screw-propeller told of the passage of a large vessel along LimehouseReach.
In the eyes of Mrs. Sin Kerry had read menace, and for all their darkbeauty they had reminded him of the eyes of a cornered rat. Beneath thecontemptuous nonchalance which she flaunted he read terror and remorse,and a foreboding of doom--panic ill repressed, which made her dangerousas any beast at bay. The attitude of the Chinaman was more puzzling. Heseemed to bear the Chief Inspector no personal animosity, and indeed,in his glittering eye, Kerry had detected a sort of mysterious light ofunderstanding which was almost mirthful, but which bore no relation toSin Sin Wa's perpetual smile. Kerry's respect for the one-eyedChinaman had increased rather than diminished upon closer acquaintance.Underlying his urbanity he failed to trace any symptom of apprehension.This Sin Sin Wa, accomplice of a murderess self-confessed, evident headof a drug syndicate which had led to the establishment of a Home officeinquiry--this badly "wanted" man, whose last hiding-place, whose keep,was closely invested by the agents of the law, was the same Sin Sin Wawho had smilingly extended his wrists, inviting the manacles, whenKerry had first made his acquaintance under circumstances legally verydifferent.
Sometimes Kerry could hear him singing his weird crooning song, andtwice Mrs. Sin had shrieked blasphemous execrations at him because ofit. But why should Sin Sin Wa sing? What hope had he of escape? In thecase of any other criminal Kerry would have answered "None," but theease with which this one-eyed singing Chinaman had departed from hisabode under the very noses of four detectives had shaken the ChiefInspector's confidence in the efficiency of ordinary police methodswhere this Chinese conjurer was concerned. A man who could convert anelaborate opium house into a dirty ruin in so short a time, too, wascapable of other miraculous feats, and it would not have surprised Kerryto learn that Sin Sin Wa, at a moment's notice, could disguise himselfas a chest of tea, or pass invisible through solid walls.
For evidence that Seton Pasha or any of the men from Scotland Yard hadpenetrated to the secret of Sam Tuk's cellar Kerry listened in vain.What was about to happen he could not imagine, nor if his life was tobe spared. In the confession so curiously extorted from Mrs. Sin by herhusband he perceived a clue to this and other mysteries, but strove invain to disentangle it from the many maddening complexities of the case.
So he mused, wearily, listening to the moaning of his fellow captive,and wondering, since no sign of life came thence, why he imaginedanother presence in the stuffy room or the presence of someone or ofsome thing on the divan behind him. And in upon these dreary musingsbroke an altercation between Mrs. Sin and her husband.
"Keep the blasted thing covered up!" she cried hoarsely.
"Tling-a-Ling wantchee catchee bleathee sometime," crooned Sin Sin Wa.
"Hello, hello!" croaked the raven drowsily."Smartest--smartest--smartest leg."
"You catchee sleepee, Tling-a-Ling," murmured the Chinaman. "Mrs. Sin nolikee you palaber, lo!"
"Burn it!" cried the woman, "burn the one-eyed horror!"
But when, carrying a lighted lantern, Sin Sin Wa presently came into theinner room, he smiled as imperturbably as ever, and was unmoved so faras external evidence showed.
Sin Sin Wa set the lantern upon a Moorish coffee-table which once hadstood beside the divan in Mrs. Sin's sanctum at the House of a HundredRaptures. A significant glance--its significance an acute puzzle to therecipient--he cast upon Chief Inspector Kerry. His hands tucked in theloose sleeves of his blouse, he stood looking down at the woman who laymoaning on the bed; and:
"Tchee, tchee," he crooned softly, "you hate no catchee die, mybeautiful. You sniffee plenty too muchee 'white snow,' hoi, hoi! Vellybad woman tly makee you catchee die, but Sin Sin Wa no hate got forkillee chop. Topside pidgin no good enough, lo!"
His thick, extraordinary long pigtail hanging down his back and gleamingin the rays of the lantern, he stood, head bowed, watching Rita Irvin.Because of his position on the floor, Mrs. Irvin was invisible fromKerry's point of view, but she continued to moan incessantly, and heknew that she must be unconscious of the Chinaman's scrutiny.
"Hurry, old fool!" came Mrs. Sin's harsh voice from the outer room."In ten minutes Ah Fung will give the signal. Is she dead yet--thedoll-woman?"
"She hate no catchee die," murmured Sin Sin Wa, "She still vellabeautiful--tchee!"
It was at the moment that he spoke these words that Seton Pasha enteredthe empty building above and found the spaniel scratching at the pavedfloor. So that, as Sin Sin Wa stood looking down at the wan face of theunfortunate woman who refused to die, the dog above, excited by Seton'spresence, ceased to whine and scratch and began to bark.
Faintly to the vault the sound of the high-pitched barking penetrated.
Kerry tensed his muscles and groaned impotently feeling his heartbeating like a hammer in his breast. Complete silence reigned in theouter room. Sin Sin Wa never stirred. Again the dog barked, then:
"Hello, hello!" shrieked the raven shrilly. "Number one p'lice chop, lo!Sin Sin Wa! Sin Sin Wa!"
There came a fierce exclamation, the sound of something being hastilyoverturned, of a scuffle, and:
"Sin--Sin--Wa!" croaked the raven feebly.
The words ended in a screeching cry, which was followed by a sound ofwildly beating wings. Sin Sin Wa, hands tucked in sleeves, turned andwalked from the inner room, closing the sliding door behind him with amovement of his shoulder.
Resting against the empty shelves, he stood and surveyed the scene inthe vault.
Mrs. Sin, who had been kneeling beside the wicker cage, which was upset,was in the act of standing upright. At her feet, and not far from themotionless form of old Sam Tuk who sat like a dummy figure in hischair before t
he stove, lay a palpitating mass of black feathers. Otherdetached feathers were sprinkled about the floor. Feebly the raven'swings beat the ground once, twice--and were still.
Sin Sin Wa uttered one sibilant word, withdrew his hands from hissleeves, and, stepping around the end of the counter, dropped upon hisknees beside the raven. He touched it with long yellow fingers, thenraised it and stared into the solitary eye, now glazed and sightless asits fellow. The smile had gone from the face of Sin Sin Wa.
"My Tling-a-Ling!" he moaned in his native mandarin tongue. "Speak tome, my little black friend!"
A bead of blood, like a ruby, dropped from the raven's beak. Sin SinWa bowed his head and knelt awhile in silence; then, standing up, hereverently laid the poor bedraggled body upon a chest. He turned andlooked at his wife.
Hands on hips, she confronted him, breathing rapidly, and her glance ofcontempt swept him up and down.
"I've often threatened to do it," she said in English. "Now I've doneit. They're on the wharf. We're trapped--thanks to that black, squallinghorror!"
"Tchee, tchee!" hissed Sin Sin Wa.
His gleaming eye fixed upon the woman unblinkingly, he began verydeliberately to roll up his loose sleeves. She watched him, contempt inher glance, but her expression changed subtly, and her dark eyes grewnarrowed. She looked rapidly towards Sam Tuk but Sam Tuk never stirred.
"Old fool!" she cried at Sin Sin Wa. "What are you doing?"
But Sin Sin Wa, his sleeves rolled up above his yellow, sinewy forearms,now tossed his pigtail, serpentine, across his shoulder and touched itwith his fingers, an odd, caressing movement.
"Ho!" laughed Mrs. Sin in her deep scoffing fashion, "it is for meyou make all this bhobbery, eh? It is me you are going to chastise, mydear?"
She flung back her head, snapping her fingers before the silentChinaman. He watched her, and slowly--slowly--he began to crouch, lowerand lower, but always that unblinking regard remained fixed upon theface of Mrs. Sin.
The woman laughed again, more loudly. Bending her lithe body forward inmocking mimicry, she snapped her fingers, once--again--and again underSin Sin Wa's nose. Then:
"Do you think, you blasted yellow ape, that you can frighten me?" shescreamed, a swift flame of wrath lighting up her dark face.
In a flash she had raised the kimona and had the stiletto in her hand.But, even swifter than she, Sin Sin Wa sprang...
Once, twice she struck at him, and blood streamed from his leftshoulder. But the pigtail, like an executioner's rope, was about thewoman's throat. She uttered one smothered shriek, dropping the knife,and then was silent...
Her dyed hair escaped from its fastenings and descended, a ruddytorrent, about her as she writhed, silent, horrible, in the death-coilof the pigtail.
Rigidly, at arms-length, he held her, moment after moment, immovable,implacable; and when he read death in her empurpled face, a miraculousthing happened.
The "blind" eye of Sin Sin Wa opened!
A husky rattle told of the end, and he dropped the woman's body from hissteely grip, disengaging the pigtail with a swift movement of his head.Opening and closing his yellow fingers to restore circulation, he stoodlooking down at her. He spat upon the floor at her feet.
Then, turning, he held out his arms and confronted Sam Tuk.
"Was it well done, bald father of wisdom?" he demanded hoarsely.
But old Sam Tuk seated lumpish in his chair like some grotesque idolbefore whom a human sacrifice has been offered up, stirred not. Thelength of loaded tubing with which he had struck Kerry lay beside himwhere it had fallen from his nerveless hand. And the two oblique, beadyeyes of Sin Sin Wa, watching, grew dim. Step by step he approached theold Chinaman, stooped, touched him, then knelt and laid his head uponthe thin knees.
"Old father," he murmured, "Old bald father who knew so much. Tonightyou know all."
For Sam Tuk was no more. At what moment he had died, whether in theexcitement of striking Kerry or later, no man could have presumedto say, since, save by an occasional nod of his head, he had oftensimulated death in life--he who was so old that he was known as "TheFather of Chinatown."
Standing upright, Sin Sin Wa looked from the dead man to the dead raven.Then, tenderly raising poor Tling-a-Ling, he laid the great dishevelledbird--a weird offering--upon the knees of Sam Tuk.
"Take him with you where you travel tonight, my father," he said. "He,too, was faithful."
A cheap German clock commenced a muted clangor, for the little hammerwas muffled.
Sin Sin Wa walked slowly across to the counter. Taking up the gleamingjoss, he unscrewed its pedestal. Then, returning to the spot where Mrs.Sin lay, he coolly detached a leather wallet which she wore beneath herdress fastened to a girdle. Next he removed her rings, her banglesand other ornaments. He secreted all in the interior of the joss--histreasure-chest. He raised his hands and began to unplait his longpigtail, which, like his "blind" eye, was camouflage--a false queueattached to his own hair, which he wore but slightly longer than someEuropeans and many Americans. With a small pair of scissors he clippedoff his long, snake-like moustaches....