“You have done more for me than I can ever repay,” said Lanagan at parting. “You are a remarkable man, Fu Wong.”
Fu laughed boyishly.
“Why? Becaus’? You save my sto’ good name? I help you.”
As we went back out the way we came in, Lanagan enlightened me.
“Fu is president of the Suey Sing Tong. There is a Chinaman, Swanson’s cook, See Wong, whom I have been hammering on for two days. Of all the household servants, I have a vague suspicion of him. I couldn’t land him. Finally I looked up his affiliation, found he was a Suey Sing man, and then I enlisted the services of Fu Wong. See Wong would have to talk to his tong leader where the police or the reporters couldn’t drag information out of him with a team of mules. He purely and simply wouldn’t ‘sabe,’ and that’s all the satisfaction you could get.
“‘Why Because’ is not only proprietor of one of the biggest bazaars here and a director of the Chinese Bank, but he is also proprietor—I am telling you Chinatown secrets and not to be repeated—of of the gambling house we came through and several others. He is one of the powers of the quarter.
“There was an English tourist robbed in his bazaar once of a couple of hundred dollars and I was sent up here. Fu laboured under the impression that the entire sixteen pages of the Enquirer were going to be turned over to that particular robbery. He felt the disgrace of the thing keenly, as any high-class Chinaman would, and personally offered the Englishman back the money. That was a good story. For some reason Fu, not understanding the American newspaper idea of ‘human interest,’ elected to think I had written a eulogy of him deliberately. I could have had half his store at that time, I guess, if I had wanted it. But I took a cigar and a cup of tea, and ever since that time I have been taken inside the inner circle up here. The room we were in is a runway through the basement of the bazaar next door in case of a raid.
“‘Charley’ was a chauffeur named Thorne, employed by Mrs. Swanson about three months ago for several weeks. He was one of the numerous wastrels that that woman of unostentatious but magnificent charities had under her protection. There are scores in and about the city, men and women, boys and girls, that she had taken from the under side of life and put on top. I didn’t see him, but some of Leslie’s men did and found nothing suspicious. Had they known he was a ‘hop,’ however, they might have thought differently. It establishes a very clear apparent connection between Swanson and the Palace Hotel and the only definite clue that has been turned up. We will save a lot of time by getting his address from Leslie.”
Lanagan was through with Leslie in a few moments.
“He is going home, but will be on tap with Brady and Wilson if we need him later,” he said. “He got curious when I mentioned Thorne, but promised to lay off until he heard from me. Thorne lives at Lombard and Larkin, where, in view of Mrs. Swanson’s undoubted suspicion that he committed the crime, coupled with See Wong’s charge that he is a ‘hop,’ we will now proceed to call on him.”