Evening star. [volume], July 21, 1929, Page 4, Image 78

About Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972

Image provided by: Library of Congress, Washington, DC

                
4
THREE ON A MATCH
By Emma
LindsaySquier
The Fate of a
Beautiful Girl and
- Two Men Hung on
- the Accuracy of a
Single Shot—But
You Must Read the
Story to Find Out
Just What Hap
... • * -7i ’ ’ •
pened and How It
All Came About.
at midnight is a place of
f I heavy stillness, where lurking shadows
# dissolve into stealthy, shuffling move
■ J meat, and where slits of yellow light
gleam momentarily like swiftly drawii
knives, only to be sheathed in the smelly dark
ness once more. Prowling cats; the sibilant
sputter of an arc-light harassed by blinded
beetles; the hoarse rumble of a belated trol
ley-car—and always, under the thin crust of
deceptive silence, the steady flow of hidden life
hhe a subterranean river.
By the river there is a doorway carved and
-painted; lettered, too, unostentatiously, an
nouncing a tea and pottery shop within. The
characters that make ap the name "Toeo Lee”
may well be small, and of a convenient dingi
ness. For does not the hawk wear dun-colored
plumage that he may better pounce upon his
brighter brethren? Does not the puma drift
like a gray shadow in the midst of the forest’s
blatant gold and green?
Above, upon the street, darkness. In the
closely shuttered shop, heavier darkness, over
laid with dim edocs of incense and tea. But
underneath the shop a long, high room, with
dragon panels of golden threads, whose shut
tered windows were barely above the incessant
lapping of the river. A room tightly shut
against the outside night, and curiously
deadening to the eenscs. A hot, bright room,
in which voices made dull sounds that never
reached beyond the tarlosing walls. And here,
facing each ether as from the points of a tri
angle marked upon the floor, throe men with
hate in their eyes, but with lips grim and
disciplined:
'T'WO of them were gray-eyed, white of skin;
A aliens of the glittering Oriental splendor
of the place. The third was he whose name
was painted so unostentatiously on the street
door above, Toen Lee. A heavy, Asian-faced
man robed in a heavy gown of black silk em
broidered In gold with a creeping dragon that
stirred Xke a living thing as the man leaned
toward from the carved teekwood chair in
which he eat.
“You have come to my unworthy house—for
what?”
It was Benjamin Usher, chief of the China
town squad, who ahswered him. A slight ges
ture of his hand had checked the sudden
movement of the younger man near him.
"Bever mind the evasions, Tsen Lee. We know
you have this girl, Loya Thom, and we are
here to get her back without trouble. We dent
want another tong war on our hands, or I'd
have you locked up this minute.”
The yellow-faced man permitted himself the
slightest smile.
“You speak so positively. Honorable Detec
tive. You cannot be certain that I have the
girl. Neither can you know surely whether she
is atone—or dead.”
At this, the youngest man made a sound in
his throat. A harsh rasping sound.
“If she isn't alive—end unhurt ” But
Usher’s sharp gray eyes flashed him an im
perative command and the boy into
silence.
The detective went on mitter-of-factiy. He
would not even wipe the sweat that was drip
ping down into his eyes. He disregarded the
stifling heat of the room. "Tsen Lee, you kid
naped Loya Thom from the Mission, where
she is a teacher. She is this chap’s fiancee—
you know whphe is—Bn*ee Norton.”
The listening Oriental flicked a. glance at
the younger man, with his white face and
biasing blue eyes. He flicked another at Usher.
“The girl is Chinese,” he said tunelessly;
“she is an orphan, and is the ward of the Yet
Sing Tang, which unworthy I have the honor
to represent.”
. “You lie!” Bruce Norton's voice came thick
'»nd hot. "Her father was white—an American
THE SUNDAY STAR WASHINGTON D. C, JULY 21, 1029— PART 7.
Bruce Norton had nltvavs prided himself on his careless , confident mastery of a gun. But nou—life and death stood at his
side, looking doun the shining, wavering barrel. He knew that there would be time but for one shot
mfrulonary. And her mother *u only half
Chinese. You pretended to take an interest in
the Mtoaton school, didn't you? You had her
fooled, but not me, you—you "
“Oh, shut up, Bruce”—the detective’s voice
brusque—“we don’t have to go into details;
we all know what* happened, and Tsen Lee
knows we base him dead to rights. Give her up
quietly, and 111 see that this doesn’t get on
the blotter. Make trouble for me, and I’ll have
Chinatown shot from under you!” *
Tsen Lee's black, opaque eyes did not waver.
Beside him, on a carven table that served for
a desk, and was aclutter with red papers, paint
brushes and newspapers, a stick of incense sud
denly dropped a thin gray streamer of ash on
his hand. He brushed it off absent-mindedly,
his eyes still fixed on the face of the detective.
But his fingers continued to rub the smudge
of the ashes across his yellow skin. Something
seemed to amuse him, for again he smiled
slightly.
“It pleases your honorable self to be a
comedian,” he purred; “you are using that
which the men of your nation call ’Muff’ —Is It
not so? Surely you do not think, Honorable
Chaser of Man Who Do Wrong, that I am
Ignorant of the fact that you and this other
are here—alone? And you must know that I
know why you are here alone? This visit fe—
unofficial, Is & hot? I am honored; I bow;
and It is better so, for, If you had come with
many, If the policeman had disturbed the peace
of my Insignificant house, I should have been
forced for my protection to send word that the
gW should be dispatched—on a long journey.”
pRPCt NORTON leaned forward, trembling.
But again Usher’s warning glance saved
Ha from violent action.
“You would send word, Tsen Lee? Then the
gtafl la not here in your house? You give me
your wend upon a white cock?”
“Upon a white cock,” answered the other
flatly. “And should the girl’s body be found
tomorrow, cut Into very small pieces, It would
be difficult tor you to attach the blame to me,
Honorable Usher, since It can be so easily
proven that I—as yet—have not had her in my
possession.**
How K was the hand of the detective that
clenched. He was suffering in the close, intense
heat of the room, his eyes smarted from the
heavy fragrance of the incense.
He had known the terrific element of danger
Involved. So had Norton. One chance to win
through In the midst of a thousand chances of
disaster. But it had to be taken. Usher had
not been on the Chinatown squad 30 years for
nothing. He knew that, at the first concen
trated movement of rescue, the first official
threat, the girl whose life was so precious
to his Mend would be spirited away, hidden,
disguised—or, as had happened many times
before In Mmilar cases, would be found in the
rt«ar.
“Act as natural as you can,” he bad told
Norton; “If we can put over a bluff of having
the canto all stacked for us, instead of against
us, we may get by with it. Os course, I can
arrest Tsen Lee—but that won't get Loya back
—alive. And don’t stir him up unnecessarily,
for hell deadly. He knows all the tricks of
the trade, and then some!”
He was thinking of it now. Tsen Lee had
known all the tricks of the trade. He had
called his bluff out into the open and named it.
But there was one card that he had counted
on. Then Lee’s power with his tong was grow
ing Ism. Chinatown had been in a turmoil
for years, and peace had been established only
a short while ago. The Mission had powerful
friends among the Kip Yungs, hereditary ene
mies of the Yet Sings. There would surely
be trouble if this kidnaping were dealt with
openly. The Kip Yungs would avenge it, and
the Yet Sings would be drawn into it, though
unwillingly, since It is considered ignoble to
fight for the sake of a mere woman.
As if he had spoken his thoughts aloud, Tsen
Lee made answer.
"If you «1U permit me to quote from the
classics of my own country,” his voice was
silken, suave, “it is written that the wise man
is he who knows when the river Is unsafe to
swim. You speak truly when you remind me
that peace is a possession mote precious than
the quickly tarnishing beauty of a woman.
Therefore, I bow to your honorable desire. Be
seated in friendship, make my unworthy house
glow with gold by drinking my humble tea.
I will send for the girl at once. She will be
here —unharmed, within the half of an hour.
That is my word to you, and Tsen Lee’s word
is never broken.”
Bruce Norton could only look at Benjamin
Usher, putting into his eyes the question that
his lips could not utter.
The detective nodded shortly.
"That’s best for everybody.” He dared not
let his face give a hint of the relief that made
him feel suddenly weak and shaken. “All right,
Tsen Lee,, have your messenger in; but IH do
the ordering myself, if you don't mind. As for
tea, we don’t use it. It might keep us awake—
or put us to sleep.”
Tsen touched the gong beside him on the
table. And, although the sound seemed to fall
bock from the walls, it was evidently beard
without, for the door opened silently, and a
servant appeared.
Usher spoke to him in Chinese:
“The girl the master knows of is to be
brought here at once. No harm is to be done
her. She is to be brought quickly.”
The servant’s eyes went swiftly to the yellow
faced man in the teakwood chair.
“As ordered, so do,” confirmed Tsen Lee.
He did not even look up. “Will you smoke?”
Tsen Lee took a cigarette from a box beside
him.
"Permit me to light your cigarette ”
UE moved across the room with a. muted
X1 sibi lance of the heavy silk robe. Usher's
cigarette glowed from the contact of the flame
—then be moved on. He placed the match
against Bruce Norton's fag. Pi Daily he held
the flame against his own cigarette, blew it
out, stared at It thoughtfully.
“Three on a match—it is a superstition of
your race, is it not, that bad luck always fol
lows?”
The detective shrugged; not altogether con
vincingly.
“The bad luck, Tsen Lee, is for the last one
who lights the cigarette.”
“Then you will graciously allow me to thwart
the demon of bad luck in my own fashion? It
is thus in China that we turn bad luck aside
when it comes too near ”
He fumbled with the clutter of documents on
his desk and drew forth incense. Norton’s hand
pressed slightly against the long bulge of a
gun strapped from his shoulder.
But Tsoi Lee merely pulled out three of the
pungent-smelling sticks, pressed them against
the tip of his cigarette, and blew them into
a three-fold replica of its glow. Carefully he
placed them upright in the brass container that
had held the others and carried it to a table
near the center of the room. The intermingled
wisps of scented haze climbed up into the
already over burdened air. Silently he re
turned to his chair, puffed once at his cigarette,
and put it delicately in the beak of a silver
stork placed so near the wall that the thin
little spiral of smoke went drifting up against
the glittering dragon scales of the embroidered
panel that hung down from the ceiling.
“American cigarettes are not quite to my
taste,” he said apologetically.
Benjamin Usher did not answer. A strange
lassitude was creeping over him, a terrible
tiredness that made him long to lose himself
in sleep.
“This room, it’s so hot—so close,” he told
himself. He wished feverishly for the thing
HI
to be over. There was a ion* silence. Then he
realised that Tsen Lee was speaking
"I regret the wait, but my servant had to go
far. The girl—as I assured you—was not in
my house.”
Benjamin Usher looked at Norton. The
young man was feeling the strain of the un
certainty and the deadening weight of the
stifling, smoke-filled air. His face was drawn
into lines of greenish pallor. Usher knew that
Norton had neither slept nor eaten for a night
and a day. He started to speak; to say some
bracing word. He tried—and failed. And
then, with a horrible stab of realization, he
knew the truth. He could not speak.
The awful truth beat like hammer blows
.against his brain. His mind had the abnormal
clarity of a crystal. His inner senses had
quickened into piercing brilliancy, exaggerating
with diabolical emphasis every detail of the
guttering room. He knew it was the effect of
the incense—some insidious, powerful drug
that enslaved the body’s strength even before
the mind was aware of the danger.
He tried to lift his band to the gun under
his armpit. But it was as if it were burled
under a thousand pounds of heavy glass;
visible, but helpless. A panic came upon him,
and he struggled fiercely to throw himself out
of the chair, to lift his hands, if only he could
feel the cool, rounded butt of his gun against
his palm! Inwardly he writhed and fought
Outwardly he sat lumpi&hly, staring at his
hand. The cigarette had fallen from his fingers.
Dimly, yet with enormous ease, he heard
Tsen Lee's voice.
“You are comfortable, I hope? This incense
is called in my unworthy tongue Shui Hsen
Piao, which might be translated into your
honorable language as ‘Though Asleep, the
Mind Watches.’ It affects the body—you have
noticed K, perhaps—but not the inner senses.
In the land of Han it is used much to torture
criminals who have broken the law—or who
have displeased some one In authority ”
His voice trailed Into silence. Then the two
men saw his figure moving toward them, enor
mous, grotesque, warped as though seen
through flawed glass, yet uncannily vital,
hideously dear.
With the part of his mind that was struggling
against the awful bondage of the chained
physical senses. Usher knew that Bruce Norton,
too, was making a terrible, futile effort to
release himself from the enslaving numbness.
If the two of them could but fling themselves
forward upon that malignant, black-robed
figure that was coming nearer—nearer
Usher jras In a gray haze —a hideous unreal
world through which his lowered eyes could
see only a hand—his own; a rug of startling,
yet repellent beauty; the half of a cigarette, still
burning, eating its way into the fabric; and
the slow, intolerable approach of that menacing
figure that was Tsen Lee.
Hr HE black-and-gold figure seemed to sink
gently down through the enveloping mist.
A fat, yellow hand enlarged Into horrifying pro
portions swooped upon the glowing bud of fire
and lifted It.
The voice of Tsen Lee came again.
"This rug, honorable guests, is worth a
hundred women such as she whom you desire
to take from me. Yet I wish to keep them
both—for as long as it pleases me. I do not
permit cigarettes—and men—to come between
me and my will. I dispose of them—so!”
He was back against the wall—his hand
pressed against the dragon tapestry there.
Now Benjamin Usher’s staring, tortured eyes
saw • square of blackness appear in the floor
before him. The rug had swung downward
on a hinged piece of flooring—his abnormally
alert mind grasped the significance of it even
before the lapping of water struck against his
ear-drums. His eyes caught tire flaring arc of
the cigarette’s burning tip as it fell past him.
Even the slight hiss as it was swallowed up by