IX.—LITTLE BOW KUM
Since then no Chinaman will go into the room. I had this from Loui Fook, himself an eminent member of the On Leon Tong and a leading merchant of Chinatown. Loui Fook didn't pretend to know of his own knowledge, but spoke by hearsay. He said that the room was haunted. No one would live there, being too wise, although the owner had lowered the rent from twenty dollars a month to ten. Ten monthly dollars should be no inducement to live in a place where, at odd, not to say untoward hours, you hear sounds of scuffling and wing-beating, such as is made by a chicken when its head is chopped off. Also, little Bow Kum's blood still stains the floor in a broad red patch, and refuses to give way to soap and water. The wife of the Italian janitor—who cannot afford to be superstitious, and bemoans a room unrented—has scrubbed half through the boards in unavailing efforts to wash away the dull red splotch.
Detective Raphael of the Central Office heard of the ghost. He thought it would make for the moral uplift of Chinatown to explode so foolish a tale.
Yong Dok begged Raphael not to visit the haunted room where the blood of little Bow Kum spoke in dumb, dull crimson from the floor. It would set the ghosts to talking.
“Then come with me, and act as interpreter,” quoth Raphael, and he threw Yong Dok over his heavy shoulder and began to climb the stairs.
Yong Dok fainted, and lay as limp as a wet bath towel. Loui Fook said that Yong Dok would die if taken to the haunted room, so Raphael forbore and set him down. In an hour Yong Dok had measurably recovered, but Tchin Foo insists that he hasn't been the same man since.
Low Fong, Low Tching and Chu Wah, three hatchet men belonging to the Four Brothers, were charged with the murder. But the coroner let Chu Wah go, and the special sessions jury disagreed as to Low Fong and Low Tching; and so one way and another they were all set free.
It is difficult to uncover evidence against a Chinaman. They never talk, and their faces are as void of expression as the wrong side of a tombstone. In only one way does a Chinaman betray emotion. When guilty, and pressed upon by danger, a pulse beats on the under side of his arm, just above the elbow. This is among the golden secrets known to what Central Office men do duty along Pell, Mott and Doyers streets, but for obvious reasons it cannot be used in court.