I took a room down on Third Street, near Minna, and for three weeks I was mighty careful where I went, waiting for the deputy to leave town. I got a few jobs of nursing, so I paid my way for a spell; then I just couldn’t stand it a day more, and I risked getting word to Daddy. So I put another personal in the paper, telling him, the same way as before, to meet me at the old Globe Hotel in Chinatown next night. You know the old Globe used to be right smart of a hotel in early days, but now there are hundreds of Chinamen living in it. It’s like an ant-hill, full of all sorts of ways and corners to get out.
I waited on the steps, keeping a sharp eye out for Daddy. But I hadn’t been there more than ten minutes before I saw—not my dear old Dodo—but the detective who had followed me all the way West. I ran down the steps and walked up Dupont Street as fast as I dared, never looking round once nor letting on I had seen him.
When I got to the corner of Washington Street, only a matter of a block away, I ran smack into a man. He grabbed me in his arms, and was crying over me before I recognised him by his voice as Daddy, for he had a light wig and a dyed mustache, and wore blue spectacles. I had no time to kiss him even. I just whispered to him, “The detective—run for your life!”
Daddy gave one glance over his shoulder, and ran up Washington Street. The detective saw him go, and dashed after him, and I followed them both. They turned up a flight of steps into a big doorway, a little piece up the block.
I saw by the sign over the door that it was a Chinese theatre they had gone into.
But I just had to find out what was going on inside, so I paid the man at the door fifty cents and went up the stairs. I had never been in such a place before, of course, and at first I had no idea what to do or where to go. There was no sign of Daddy or the detective anywhere, and the place was filled with a great crowd of Chinamen on the seats. The only white people I saw were a lady and two men sitting up on one side of the open stage. I was bewildered and frightened to death, for there was a horrible noise of big gongs and squeaking fiddles, and actors in queer costumes singing and talking in shrill voices.
A Chinaman came down the crowded aisle and took me up to a seat beside the tourists on the stage, and there I had to sit in front of that crowd of coolies while the play went on and on and on. I have seen Chinese plays enough since, but then it was all new and terrible, for the orchestra was right near me, making such a noise that I thought I’d go mad, and the actors kept coming in and going out past me reciting in a sing-song. I wanted to scream.
Away up over the stage was a break in the wall where the ceiling went up higher, and there was a little window almost above my head. There, once I saw a head stuck out and a Chinaman looked at me, long and hard. This made me more frightened than ever.
Just when I thought I couldn’t stand it a minute longer, I heard the voice of a white man swearing in the dressing-room behind the stage, and then the detective came through the curtain looking like he was mad enough to kill somebody. Frightened as I was at him, my heart was nigh ready to break with joy, for I knew that Daddy must have escaped from him somehow. He looked over the audience from the floor to the galleries where the women were, and finally went out.
As soon as he was out of sight a Chinaman came up to me and grinned. “You likee see actor dlessing-loom?” he said. Something told me that he was a friend and I got right up and followed him. We went into the dressing-room, where all the costumes were hung on the wall and the actors were putting on queer dresses and painting their faces, then up a flight of stairs. I kept my eyes open sharp, looking everywhere for Daddy. Above the stage was the joss-house room of the theatre with punks burning, but the place was empty. Above that was the kitchen.