The Seventh Noon Part 10

"Have n't any address I suppose--don't know his favorite joint?"

"I don't know a thing about him except that he has been down there before--that he lit out again a little over an hour ago, half mad--and that I must find him."

"An hour ago, eh? That helps, some. There 's only a few of 'em open to the public at that time. But say, is there any special hurry? He's had time to get his dope by now. I 've got some work there in the morning."

"There's a girl waiting for him, Beefy, a girl who is paying big for every hour he's gone."

"So? Well, m' boy, guess we 'll have to get him then. I 'll be down in ten minutes. Make yourself at home on the doorstep."

Donaldson waited in the taxicab. For the first time in his life he computed the value of one-sixth of an hour. So long as he had been with the girl--or so long as he had been active in her behalf--the minutes were filled with sufficient interest to make them pa.s.s unreckoned. But to sit here and wait, to sit here and watch the seconds wasted, to sit here and be conscious of each one of them as it bit, like a thieving wharf rat, into his dwindling Present and carried the morsel of time back to the greedy Past, was a different matter.

When finally Saul appeared with a fat cigar in one corner of his chubby mouth, Donaldson was halfway across the sidewalk to meet him.

"Good Lord!" he laughed excitedly, almost pus.h.i.+ng the big man toward the cab, "I thought you were lost up there."

Saul paused with one foot already on the step. Then turning back, he struck a match for his cigar. The flare revealed Donaldson's eager eyes, his tense mouth. He carelessly snapped the burnt match to the lapel of Donaldson's coat and stooping to pick it off took occasion to whiff the latter's breath.

"The sooner we start--" suggested Donaldson, impatiently.

Saul stepped in, his two hundred pounds making the springs squeak, and sinking into a corner waited to see what he might learn from Donaldson's talk. The suspicion had crossed his mind that possibly the latter had got into some such way himself--it was over a year since he had seen him--and was taking this method to hunt up an all-night opium joint. His experience made him constantly suspicious, but unlike the regular police, a suspicion with him remained a suspicion until proven.

It never gained strength merely by being in his thought. At the end of five minutes he had discarded this theory. Stopping the machine, he gave the cabby a real address in the place of the fict.i.tious one he had first given in Donaldson's hearing. The latter's mind, supernormally alert, detected the ruse instantly. He placed a hand upon Saul's knee.

"Beefy, you didn't suspect me, did you?"

"What the devil is the matter with you then?" demanded Saul.

"Nothing. What makes you think there is?"

"The mouth, man, the mouth! You don't get those wrinkles in the corner and a tight chin by being left alone five minutes, if all that is troubling you is a lost friend."

"You 're too confounded suspicious. It's only that I 've so many things to do, Beefy."

"Business picked up?"

Donaldson smiled. Saul had known his Grub Street life. As the cab sped on he regained his self-control. Action, movement was all he needed. For the next ten minutes he surprised Saul with his enthusiasm and loquacity. The latter having known him as a quiet and rather reserved fellow, finally decided that it was a clear case of woman.

The questions he asked about young Arsdale, in securing a minute description of the man, confirmed this impression.

The cab turned into the narrow cobbled streets of Chinatown, past the dark windows, Chinese stores and restaurants, a region that, deserted now, appeared in the early morning quiet ominous rather than peaceful.

Dark alleys opened out frequently--alleys which coiled like snakes past cellar entrances, noisome rears of tottering tenements, to grease-fingered doors as impa.s.sive as the stolid faces of guards who drowsed behind them asleep to all save those who knew the deadly pa.s.s-word. Paradoxical doors which shut in, instead of out, danger!

But Saul knew them and they knew Saul. He knew further the haunts of beginners, where opium is high and the surroundings are fairly clean, he knew the haunts of the confirmed, where opium is cheaper and where surroundings do not matter at all. Also he knew Wun Chung, who does not smoke, but who, being rich, controls the trade and so keeps in touch with all who buy.

On the way to Chung's Saul made one stop. With Donaldson at his heels, he darted down a side street, pushed open, without knocking, a dingy door, went up a flight of stairs, along a dark hallway and down another flight, where he was stopped by a shadow. The big man spoke his name, and the shadow turned instantly from a guard to an obsequious servant.

He opened the door and Saul strode across a narrow yard, stooping to brush beneath the stout clothes-line hung with blankets, an innocent appearing wash, which however served as an effective barrier to any one who might approach at a run. They entered the rear of a second tenement which faced a parallel street, but which, oddly enough, had no entrance to its rear rooms from the front. Another shadow rose before them only to vanish as the round red face of Saul appeared. He pushed on into a long, low-ceilinged room lined with bunks, the air heavy with the acrid dead smoke of opium.

"Light," demanded Saul.

The sleepy proprietor brought a kerosene lamp, the chimney befouled with soot and grease. It was an old trick. These fellows protect their customers and through a sooted chimney the feeble light makes scarcely more than shadows in which it is very difficult to identify a man. Seizing the slant-eyed ghoul by the arm Saul held the lamp within an inch of the yellow face, so close that it burned.

"Don't try such fool things on me, Tong," he warned. "Bring me a light."

The Chinaman squirmed in terror, and when loosed was back again in a hurry with a lamp that lighted the whole room. Saul took it and examined the nearest bunk. Donaldson glanced at the first face. That was enough. He retreated to the door for fresh air. Down the line went Saul, looking like some devil in h.e.l.l making tally of lost souls.

He reached in and turned them, one after the other, face to the light, while Donaldson stood outside, dreading the call that should force him to look again. He was no man of the world and the reek of the place appalled him. Nothing he had ever read conveyed anything of the plain sordidness of it,--the unrelieved pall of it which burdened like the weary dead stretch of an alkali desert. The scene did not even become romantic to him, until glancing up, he saw above the irregular roof-tops, the stars still bright in the virgin purple, saw the unfouled s.p.a.ces of the planet fields between them. What had such clean things as the stars to do with this mired world below? This jeweled roof was not intended for so squalid a floor. But the stars above brought him back to the girl again, and she to her brother, and her brother to this. Strange cycle! Then the stars and the blue gathered them all into one. Strange one!

"Not here," announced Saul, wiping the oil from his fingers. Donaldson breathed more freely. Without delay they hurried back to the cab.

"I had sort of a hunch that we 'd find him there," said Saul, "but we did n't. Now we 'll have a cup of tea with Chung and set him to work.

It's a darned sight easier and a lot swifter way when you have n't any clue at all to work on."

"And pleasanter," returned Donaldson. "I 've seen enough of this."

"Not so bad when you get used to 'em," answered Saul, lighting a fresh cigar. "But I know how you feel; I 'm just that queer about morgues.

Can't get used to 'em nohow. Get the creeps every time I step inside a morgue. But then I don't hanker after murder work of any sort like some of the boys. It would be just my chance to get a taste of it before I 'm done with the Riverside robberies."

"What are the Riverside robberies?" inquired Donaldson, with a faint remembrance of the name.

"You been out of town?"

"No, but I don't read the papers much."

"I should say not. Four hold-ups in three weeks, all within half a mile of one another on Riverside Drive."

"Riverside Drive?"

He remembered now. The Arsdale home was near Riverside Drive. Barstow had spoken of these crimes.

"You on the case?" he asked indifferently,

"Yes," answered Saul. "I 'm on the case and if another one breaks, the case and the Chief will be on me."

The cab had stopped before an unlighted store. The street light revealed a window filled with a medley of china, teas, silks, and joss-sticks. Above, in big gilt letters, was the sign "Wun Chung and Co."

It was surprising how quickly in response to Saul's knocking a door to the left of the main entrance, and leading upstairs, opened. After a few words with the moon-faced attendant, the light was switched on and the three ascended to a small room, brilliant with gaudy Oriental colors and heavy with ebony furnis.h.i.+ngs. A group of three or four Chinamen sat at a small table soberly drinking their tea with the exaggerated innocence of those who have a deck of cards up their sleeves. The proprietor himself, fat as a b.u.t.ter ball, toddled up to Saul with a grin upon his round, colorless face. He ordered tea for all and they sat down. In two minutes Saul had explained what he wished, and in five a couple of the silent group near had taken Chung's orders and stolen out like ghosts.

Saul swallowed his tea boiling hot and glanced at his watch. It was half-past four.

"Now," he said, "I 'm going back for a wink of sleep. You can sit on here or you can have Chung notify you at your hotel, eh, Chung?"

"Allee light," nodded the proprietor.

"How long do you think it will take?" asked Donaldson quickly.

"Might take till noon to search every place--and then we might not find him if he's an old hand at the game," answered Saul.

"Till noon!" exclaimed Donaldson irritably. "Good Lord, that's eight hours!"

Saul placed his hand affectionately upon Donaldson's shoulder.

"See here, Don," he replied earnestly. "Take my advice and get some sleep."