That was all he had a chance to say. When the door did at last yield to his violent pull, four hands seized him by the head and shoulders, and he was dragged inside with a jerk. Then the door slammed shut, and he felt the cab whirling and rocking away, as three men held him firmly on the floor.
He was able to see that there were thick shades drawn down on both sides of the cab, so that no one could see in from the street.
If Chick had any idea of calling for help, that was soon put beyond his power. A large cloth, which he be[Pg 30]lieved was of silk, from its feel, was bound tightly over his mouth and knotted at the back of his head.
A peculiar odor—that of opium—filled his nostrils. It would have told him, if he had needed the information, that he was in the hands of Chinamen. But he could see for himself, by the light that came to the interior from the front window—through which he had a view of the fur-clad chauffeur, calmly driving—that there were two Chinamen in ordinary laundrymen’s garb, holding him, while a third man, with large, tortoise-shell-framed spectacles covering part of his yellow face and a slouch hat pulled so far down that it almost met the immense collar of his overcoat, sat half behind him.
Chick tried to turn. He wanted to look straight at the man with the spectacles. But the Chinamen gave him a quick wrench, to hold him away, and one of them threatened him with a club that looked like a child’s black stocking packed halfway up its length with sand.
There was nothing to be done just then but to submit, and Chick was philosophical enough to make the best of a bad job. So he did not struggle. He simply knelt on the floor of the cab, where he had been originally put by his captors, and wondered how long it would be before he could force his way to freedom.
He had too much faith in himself to believe that these rascals could hold him very long. Besides, Patsy had traced this Professor Tolo to the laundry of Sun Jin, and he and Nick Carter surely would be paying a visit to that place very soon.
“This is the professor, behind those spectacles,” Chick told himself, “and one of these chinks is the fellow with the scarred ear. I don’t know the other one. Surely they can’t think they can get me without having to pay for it.”
Then he thought of the crossed needles that would have killed him if they had been driven a little farther into his sleeve, and he did not feel so sure that the rascals would not go to extremes rather than be caught themselves as the murderers of Andrew Anderton.
“But it isn’t only that,” went on Chick mentally. “They are after some records made by Anderton. They seem to be of vital importance to the tong. Well, we shall see.”