“Right-o!” agreed Don airily. “I don’t remember any secret passage through your shop.”
“You made the last trip to the comrades’ quarters by way of Cho-San’s house, André,” Lotus murmured, taking Don’s hand. “Follow me closely now, and don’t put out your hand to touch the walls!”
As she spoke a panel slid noiselessly open in the side of the room. Cho-San raised his hand to the light switch. Glancing back Don noted with surprise that the big rolling doors of the garage were now shut, though no sound had betrayed their closing.
Darkness descended like a blow as he turned his head. Don could not hear Cho-San’s footsteps, though he guessed that the Chinese was moving toward him. Lotus’ gentle grasp on his hand was the only thing that seemed real in that Stygian blackness. Like a blind man he followed her lead.
Meantime, several blocks away, Red Pennington perched anxiously on the seat of a skidding taxi. The driver he had picked up outside the Empire Hotel was good at this game of trailing a car on the dodge, but Ko Loo had been giving him the works.
Both the driver and his fare realized this at the same moment.
“It’s this blasted fog, sir!” the former complained, straightening out after a turn on two wheels. “I can’t get close enough to see if that car ahead’s the same one we’re after. Not without rammin’ his rear bumper! Seems to me that guy cut in from behind us while we was dodgin’ cross-traffic a mile back!”
“I got the same idea, so you must be right,” groaned Red, peering through the misted glass. “Look! That car’s stopping—pulling over to the curb. Suppose you pull in ahead of it. I just saw something else....”
“Yeah? Well, all right!” grunted the driver, jamming on his brakes. “That car we just passed ain’t the one we was chasin’ first, so what’s the diff? The meter reads ten miles an’ a quarter!”