“She’ll get hurt dodging around those rocks!” Don exclaimed. “Where’s she gone, anyway? Why didn’t you stop her, Cho-San?”
“Because she is in no danger—as yet!” purred the big Chinese. “The little Lotus has been brought up in these subterranean passages and rooms. She knows her way where you, my dear count, would lose yours a hundred times over. Just now she has gone to turn up more lights so that you can see to follow.”
As he spoke, the rough passage was flooded with sudden brilliance, far greater than necessary, Don thought. As he stepped away from the elevator toward Lotus’ waiting figure, Cho-San himself volunteered the explanation.
“There are machine guns covering every turn on this passage, Borg,” he chortled evilly. “You cannot see them, so you must take my word. Under these brilliant lights they could mow down any police forces which might be unlucky enough to come this far into Scorpia’s underworld, or anyone trying to escape from it. A very comforting thought, don’t you agree?”
Don’s only answer was a shrug of his smoothly tailored shoulders. The next moment he was at Lotus’ side picking his way over the tunnel’s uneven floor.
Around the second turn the girl halted, and reaching up, inserted her fingers behind an angle of the damp stone. As if by magic a door-sized section of the rock wall moved back, disclosing a furnished apartment.
Don stepped through the opening, closely followed by Cho-San. At the soft click of a falling latch, he did not even bother to turn. The wall through which they had just passed would show no sign of a doorway, he was certain.
For the first time since leaving the car in the garage, the Chinese now seemed to drop his air of ugly suspicion. His moonlike face was almost smiling as he turned to face Don.
“I will leave you, my friend, for a short while,” his deep voice intoned. “The little Lotus will remain to entertain you, so that the time will not pass too heavily. If there is anything more you may desire before I return, simply touch that bell by the table.”
With a parting nod his huge figure vanished behind a tall, carved screen. Don Winslow stood gazing at it thoughtfully for a long moment, then turned to his small companion.