"Wait here for us. If we do not come by one-thirty, you can go home," said McKelvie.
The man turned off his engine and settled himself to wait, and the next moment we were hurrying toward Pell Street. Then we turned another corner and modifying our pace, lounged carelessly toward the back entrance of Hi Ling's curio shop.
Remembering Lecoq's advice I tried to look dull and stupid as McKelvie opened the door. We stepped inside the shop and faced the Chinaman seated behind a counter at the rear of the room. He was a fat old Chinaman and he gazed at us stolidly as he smoked his pipe.
In a coarse voice McKelvie asked whether the "old man" had come, saying he had sent us to stay with the prisoner until his arrival.
The Chinaman looked at us unblinkingly for five steady minutes, then he waved his pipe toward a rear door. We shuffled toward it as fast as we dared, and I for one, expected that every minute he would call us back and question us more closely. But he did not move and we gained the doorway and saw before us, in the flickering light of a gas-jet from above, a staircase, steep, narrow, dirty. This we climbed and found ourselves in a small entry with a door at the back. Stealing to this door, McKelvie listened intently for a moment, then drew his revolver and tried the door softly. It was locked. Shifting the gun to his left hand he took out a long, narrow steel instrument, which he inserted in the lock. As the door yielded silently, he stole into the room and I followed him closely.
I did not hear but I knew he had closed the door behind us, and then his flash glowed and the disk of light darted here and there over the black interior of the room, or, rather, hole, in which we found ourselves. It was empty save for a narrow cot, on which lay an inert figure, apparently asleep. We moved closer to the cot and McKelvie let the disk of light rest upon the face of the man before us.
It was Lee Darwin, I could not be mistaken, but he looked as though he were in the last stages of some terrible disease. His form was quite wasted, his eyes were mere sunken hollows in his ghastly face, and his cheekbones stood out prominently where the flesh had fallen away. I contemplated him in horrified silence, until a touch on my arm recalled me to action.
"I'm afraid he's too far gone to walk," whispered McKelvie. "We'll have to carry him. The main thing is to get him out before the criminal arrives. I don't think the old Chink will give us much trouble."
Silently McKelvie bent over Lee and shook him into consciousness. The boy opened his haggard eyes, stared at the flash, then shuddered away from McKelvie's restraining hand.
"Go away," he said feebly. "I have nothing to tell you. Nothing, I say."