At the rear of the room was another door, likewise barred in triplicate. Here another lookout grinned friendly at Lanagan and pressed on an innocent-appearing nail head in the wainscoting and the bars dropped and the door opened to a steep ladder. We went down about ten feet into a blind areaway between two buildings.
It was as black as your derby hat. But Lanagan, the marvellous, stepped ahead with assurance and I followed him gropingly. In another moment he rapped faintly on what I took to be a section of the brick base of the building, a click sounded, he took me by the arm, pulled me after him, another click, and the next moment a blaze of electric light discovered us to be in a small lounging room elaborately appointed in Oriental furnishings.
“Hullo, Mist’ Lamagum!”
The voice came from a corpulent, twinkling-eyed, richly garbed Chinaman just arisen from a massive chair of ebony and mother-of-pearl.
“Hello, Fu,” said Lanagan, sinking into another massive chair and motioning me to do likewise.
“My friend Norton, Fu. Norton, Mr. Fu Wong, otherwise known to me as Why Because. You will understand ‘why because’ presently.”
“Why? Becaus’? I tell you,” said Fu Wong, chuckling. “Him funny boy, Mist’ Lamagum. He, whatyoucalem, jolly me. You likem smoke?” He pressed a button on the arm of his chair and a flowing-garbed Chinese boy appeared with rich Havanas on a tray, together with individual teacups and two-piece teapots for three.
“Did you find See Wong?” Lanagan asked abruptly, while I studied Fu, whom I knew by reputation as one of the Chinese merchant princes. “I am in a hurry, Fu.”
“I catchem. He say Charley drive aut-o-mob-eel. Charley live there three, fo’ wicks. She cry one time See bringem tea: ‘Oh, Charley! Charley! Why fo’ you do him? What’s mala you, Charley?’ She stop quick see See. Why? Becaus’? See, he donno. He say Charley he usem, what you call ’em? Hop.”
For the first time since this story broke, that singular flashing, almost like a cat’s eyes, flamed into Lanagan’s dark eyes and they shot a responsive shiver of high tension interest through me, because I knew that at last he had struck the trail.