THE FATE OF AN INFORMER.
And after all these efforts the Bradys seemed to have accomplished nothing more than to find themselves with a dead Chinaman on their hands, besides the recovery of the cash.
"What are we to do?" demanded Harry when at last they had finished their examination and talk.
"I suppose we may as well go for the girl," said Old King Brady. "That's our job, I believe."
"And to recover the money and the papers."
"The money we have already got; the papers, I think, will come; perhaps they may prove useless now. The boy has evidently been diving for the treasure. Very likely he has recovered it. Hard to say."
"And this dead Chink?"
"All we can do is to report his presence here to the police, but I shall not be in a hurry. I don't propose to let this lump of dead flesh interfere with the progress of our case."
Thus saying, Old King Brady started up the pier.
He was disgusted to think that he had been just too late.
Still it was something to have recovered the money.
As for Ed, the old detective was not so anxious now.
It looked to him somewhat as if the boy might have gone in with Pow Chow on the deal.
Still he was determined to find Ed, for he felt sure that he had been carried off by the two Chinamen against his will.
They all advanced to the cottage now.
The house was dark save for a light in the kitchen window burning behind a drawn shade.
Old King Brady rapped smartly on the door.
There was a stir inside immediately.
Ethel had been told by her husband how to say in Chinese, "Is that you, Pow?" and the answer was to be in Chinese before she opened the door.
She said it.
Alice caught on to the situation.
"Yes, it is Pow," she answered, imitating a man's voice, which she is perfectly able to do.
Ethel was fooled and she opened the door.
Evidently she had received a description of the old detective, for she drew back, breathing his name.
Then she tried to shut the door, but Harry prevented that with his foot.
"Hold on, Mrs. Pow Wow! We have something to tell you, ma'am!" Old King Brady exclaimed.
"My name is not Pow Wow! It is Pow Chow, and it is as good as any other name!" flashed Ethel. "You go on about your business, you horrid old man. I just won't go back to Albany! I'll marry as many Chinamen as I choose."
"You better not marry more than one at a time unless you want to get arrested for bigamy," replied the old detective dryly as he pushed his way inside.
Ethel ordered them back and began to scream.
"Wait!" said Old King Brady. "You want to stop that noise. We aren't going to murder you. What's more, you have something real to cry for if you really love that Chinese husband of yours."
Evidently she did.
Ethel went into wild hysterics when Old King Brady broke the news to her.
It was easy to see that her grief was real even if afterward it should not prove to have been so very deep.
It took time to quiet her down and get her to the talking point.
At first Ethel refused to talk.
"Look here," said Old King Brady, "it's one of two things. Either we turn you over to your mother, who is in town, or we turn you over to the police. It is up to you."
This settled it.
"I'll talk if I can see my husband—if I know that he is really dead," Ethel then said.
But she talked before that, told all she knew, and gave up the papers.
The briefest kind of an examination was all that was needed to confirm the Bradys' Chinese clew.
Old Fen Wix had told the truth.
Ethel also told about the two Chinamen whom she had seen lurking outside the cottage.
The case seemed plain.
Ed had got the tin case, presumably containing the defaulting pension agent's treasure, and these two Chinks had got Ed.
"This throws our case back into Chinatown," observed Old King Brady. "But we must clean up here first."
They took Mrs. Pow to the pier.
Here there was another scene.
She wanted the Bradys to carry the remains to the cottage.
Old King Brady made her understand that this was impossible until the coroner had viewed them.
They went to the nearest station then and put it up to a police sergeant, explaining nothing further than that a dead Chinaman had been found on the pier; that they had seen two other Chinamen pulling away in a boat, and that Mrs. Pow had identified the dead man.
Then for lack of a better plan the Bradys took Mrs. Pow to their own home, where Alice remained with her until morning, when her mother was telegraphed to come and get her.
Harry and Alice remained behind to wait for the woman, while Old King Brady went to the office.
He was glad he did so, for upon arriving who should he find waiting for him but Mr. Clemmens, the New York Secret Service Commissioner.
"Look here, Brady, you are working up a case for an employee in the Albany pension office, are you not?" Mr. Clemmens asked.
"I am," was the reply.
"A man named Butler?"
"Yes."
"He died last night."
"Indeed?"
"Yes."
"Of what?"
"He has been an invalid for a long time, it seems; heart trouble. When the doctors told him he couldn't live, he sent for the Secret Service Commissioner at Albany and told him a weird story about finding hidden papers relating to the Bradford defalcation in the Albany pension office ten years ago. Said that he meant to give up the money if he succeeded in getting it, but this is doubtful they think up there. At all events, he gave the whole thing away when he found he was dying."
"Did he then!" cried Old King Brady. "Did he say anything about his wife?"
"Yes, that she had run away from him and was after the treasure on her own account. His stepdaughter ran away with a Chinaman and stole the papers."
"That's my case all right," said Old King Brady. "We may as well compare notes."
They did so and the result was some excitement on Mr. Clemmens' part.
He had not altogether believed the story, it seemed.
He immediately called up the Secret Service Bureau at Washington and made a full report of the matter.
They had already heard of it from Albany it appeared.
The result was Old King Brady received orders to go ahead and wind up the case as speedily as possible.
The old detective now did some talking on his own account, wanting to know what he should do with Mrs. Butler and Ethel.
His advice was asked, and it was to drop them as he could not see that it would pay to do otherwise, and this he was told to do.
Thus it became a necessity to finish up the case.
Mr. Clemmens left, and shortly afterward Harry and Alice came in.
Mrs. Butler had called, it appeared.
There had been a pretty hot scene between the pair, after which they went away together.
"Let them bury their dead and go about their business," said Old King Brady. "Meanwhile we will go after the boy and the cash."
"If the boy still lives," observed Harry.
"Even so," was the reply; "the chances are those Chinks knocked him over the head and threw him into the Sound. I am free to confess that I have very little hope of finding him alive."
And such was the latest turn in this singular case.
The question now was what should be the first move.
"What we want is another Chinese clew," said Old King Brady. "You two look up Fen Wix and see what he can do to help us out. You may promise him an extra hundred if necessary. I shall be busy with other matters this morning. I'll look in at the room at three o'clock precisely."
They left.
At three o'clock, when Old King Brady turned up at the room, he found Alice there alone looking very grave.
"Well, what's the matter now?" he demanded.
"I am sorry to tell you that the Chinamen have got Harry," was the reply.
"Got him!"
"Yes."
"How?"
"We went to that address Fen Wix gave and found another old Chink there. He said that Fen Wix had gone to Newark and wouldn't be back till two o'clock."
"And you went again to fall into trouble?"
"That's it."
"Same old Chinatown. How in the world did it happen?"
"Why, when we got there——"
"Where is there, Alice?"
"On Mott street."
"I had forgotten. Well?"
"We knocked several times. Receiving no answer, Harry tried the door and found it unfastened. To our surprise the room had been entirely cleaned out between our visits. There wasn't a stick of furniture in the place."
"Fen Wix must have got himself into trouble through his informing."
"It looks so. Of course, Harry began rubbering around."
"And you, too?"
"Naturally. While we were at it I heard a knock on the door. I had made up half Chinese, as I was before, and thinking that my services as an interpreter would be required, I went to the door. No one was outside. I stepped along the hall and looked over the banisters, but could not see any one."
"And when you went back into the room Harry had vanished, I suppose?"
"You anticipate the ending of my story, Mr. Brady; that was precisely it."
"Same old Chinatown," repeated Old King Brady. "If I had my way I should never touch another case down here. But let us go around there, Alice, and see what we can find. Not that I hope to make much out of it, but something has to be done."
Alice was greatly disturbed and not a little chagrined.
The fact is Harry is her devoted lover, and some day they expect to be married.
More than that, she knows the danger of Chinatown only too well.
The house was one of the old tenements on Mott street which had been provided with extensions and raised up several stories.
The rooms were numbered, and the number of the room given by old Fen Wix was on the third floor.
The door proved to be still unfastened as Alice had left it, and with Old King Brady she entered the vacant room.
Here there was considerable rubbish strewn about, which bore evidence of the hasty move.
"And now for the secret panel," said Old King Brady. "It does beat the cars how the Chinks make those things. Probably there is an entrance here into the secret dens of Pell street."
The search began.
The work was such as Old King Brady is most expert at, and it was not long before he had unearthed a secret panel, but it certainly did not look as if it could be the right one.
For it opened upon what seemed to be just a dumbwaiter shaft.
A rope running over a pulley hung down into it; there was no ladder or stairs.
Old King Brady pulled on the rope.
"There seems to be nothing attached to this," he declared.
And so it proved.
When he got the end of the rope up he found that it had been severed with a sharp knife, and the cut looked to be quite fresh.
"Another Chinese mystery," observed Alice.
"No mystery about this business," was the reply. "Our coming has been anticipated, that's all. This means has been taken to head us off. It is plain enough."
"Perhaps there is another panel, Mr. Brady."
"It would be no surprise to me if we found a dozen of them, but, incidentally, Alice, I have been rather stupid."
"How do you mean?"
"Why, this rope works two ways, and I have only pulled one way. Now I propose to proceed to pull the other. Ha! the rope is weighted at the other end!"
Not only that, but the weight was good and heavy.
It was more than Old King Brady wanted to do to pull it up alone.
Alice took hold to help.
Whatever the weight was they could hear it striking the sides of the narrow shaft with a peculiar dull thud.
It both felt and sounded like a human body, and it made Alice fairly sick, for, of course, she could not help thinking of Harry.
"Here! You let go! You'll faint next," muttered Old King Brady.
He was able to read her thoughts.
Indeed, Alice was as white as a sheet.
"Oh, Mr. Brady, do you think it can be poor Harry?" she gasped, continuing to pull.
"Nonsense! Nonsense!" retorted the old detective.
But although he would not admit it, he did think it was Harry just the same.
They kept on pulling, and in a moment the strain was over.
The thing which came up at the end of the rope was, indeed, a human body.
But it was not Young King Brady.
The old detective and Alice found themselves gazing upon the ugly face of Fen Wix.
The rope was tight around his neck—the old man was dead.
"Thank heaven! Not Harry!" gasped Alice.
"I told you so," replied Old King Brady. "Well, well! These Chinese make quick work. And such is the fate of our informer!"