Part 15

"Marriage! Marriage to the man I loathe above all others--the man who is responsible for the opium that is drugging my people--the man who is known as Wah Lee, but who is really an American." Here she hesitated for a moment and then hissed:

"Sprague!"

"Sprague?" Marks echoed, sitting bolt upright. But the girl had gone, swallowed up somewhere in the impenetrable darkness which filled the room.

His brain cleared by the realization that he had blundered into the heart of the opium-runners' den, it took Ezra only a few seconds to formulate a plan of action. The first thing, of course, was to get away. But how could that be accomplished when he did not even know where he was or anything about the house? The girl had said something about the fact that "they were considering his fate." Who were "they" and where were they?

Obviously, the only way to find this out was to do a little scouting on his own account, so, slowly and carefully, he raised himself clear of the boxlike arrangement in which he had been placed and tried to figure out his surroundings. His hand, groping over the side, came into almost instant contact with the floor and he found it a simple matter to step out into what appeared to be a cleared space in the center of a comparatively large room. Then, curious as to the place where he had been concealed, he felt the box from one end to the other. The sides were about two feet high and slightly sloping, with an angle near the head. In fact, both ends of the affair were narrower than the portion which had been occupied by his shoulders. Piled up at either end of this box were others, of the same shape and size. What could their purpose be? Why the odd shape?

Suddenly the solution of the mystery flashed across the operative's mind--coffins! Coffins which appeared to be piled up on all sides of the storeroom. Was this the warehouse for a Chinese undertaker or was it--

One coffin over which he nearly tripped gave him the answer. It was partly filled with cans, unlabeled and quite heavy--containers which Marks felt certain were packed full of opium and smuggled in some manner inside the coffins.

Just as he arrived at this conclusion Marks' eye was caught by a tiny streak of light filtering through the wall on the opposite side of the room. Making his way carefully toward this, he found that the crack presented a fairly complete view of an adjoining apartment in which three Chinese, evidently of high degree, were sorting money and entering accounts in large books.

As he looked, a fourth figure entered the room--a man who caused him to catch his breath and flatten himself against the wall, for he recognized the larger of the two Chinamen who had attacked him the night before--or whenever it was. This was the man to whom the girl had alluded as "Wah Lee, High Priest of the Flower of Heaven"--which was merely another way of saying that he had charge of the opium shipments.

As he entered the others rose and remained standing until he had seated himself. Then one of them commenced to speak in rapid, undistinguishable Chinese. Before he had had time to pronounce more than a few words, however, Wah Lee interrupted him with a command couched in English to: "Cut that out! You know I don't understand that gibberish well enough to follow you."

"Beg pardon," replied the other. "I always forget. You are so like one of us that, even in private, I find it hard to remember."

Wah Lee said nothing, but, slipping off his silken jacket, settled back at his ease. A moment later Marks was amazed to see him remove his mandarin's cap, and with it came a wig of coal-black hair!

For the first time the government agent realized what the girl had meant when she intimated that Wah Lee and Sprague were one and the same--an American who was masquerading as Chinese in order to further his smuggling plans!

"Word has just arrived," continued the man who had first spoken, "that the boat will be off Point Banda to-night. That will allow us to pick up the coffins before daybreak and bury them until such time as the American hounds are off their guard."

"Yes," grunted Sprague, "and let's hope that that's soon. We must have fifty thousand dollars' worth of the stuff cached on the other side of the border and orders are coming in faster than we can fill them. I think it would be best to run this cargo right in. We can stage a funeral, if necessary, and avoid suspicion in that way. Wait a minute! I've got a hunch! What about the bum we carried in here last night--the one that tried to help Anita in her getaway?"

"Anita?"

"Yes, my girl. I can't remember that rigmarole you people call her. Anita's her name from now on."

"He is in the next room, unconscious. Two of the men dumped him in one of the empty coffins and let him stay there."

"Good," chuckled Sprague. "We'll just let him remain--run him across the border, and bring his body back in a big hearse. The coffin and the body will be real, but there'll be enough cans of dope packed in and around him and in the carriages of the 'mourners' to make us all rich. It's the chance of a lifetime for a big play, because no one will ever suspect us or even inquire into his identity."

Behind the thin wall which separated him from the next room Marks stiffened and his fingers wound themselves even more tightly around the butt of his automatic. It is not given to many men to hear their death sentence pronounced in a manner as dramatic and cold-blooded as were the words which came from the outer apartment. By listening intently, Ezra learned that the coup would be sprung sometime within the next few hours, the conspirators feeling that it would not be safe to delay, as the opium shipment was due before dawn.

Moving silently and aided somewhat by the fact that his eyes had become a little accustomed to the inky blackness, Marks made his way back to the place where he had awakened. He knew that that was where they would expect to find him and he also knew that this was the one place to avoid. So he located the door and, finding it bolted from the outside, placed himself where he would be at least partly sheltered when the party entered.

After what seemed to be an interminable time he finally heard a sound from the hallway--the soft slip-slip of felt shoes approaching. Then the bolt was withdrawn and the door opened, admitting the four men whom he had seen in the other room, and behind them, carrying a lantern, came the girl.

Nerving himself for a supreme leap, Marks waited until all five visitors were inside the room, and then started to slip through the open doorway. But his movement attracted the attention of the man called Sprague and, with a cry of warning, he wheeled and fired before the operative could gain the safety of the hall. Knowing that his body, outlined against the light from outside, would make an ideal target, Ezra dropped to the floor and swung his automatic into action. As he did so the girl extinguished the lantern with a single swift blow, leaving the room in total blackness, save for the path made by the light in the hallway.

For probably twenty seconds there wasn't a sound. Then Marks caught a glimpse of a moving figure and fired, leaping to one side as he did so in order to avoid the fusillade directed at the flash of his revolver. By a cry from the other side of the room he knew that his shot had gone home, and a moment later he had an opportunity to wing another of his assailants, again drawing a volley of shots. The last shot in his clip was fired with a prayer--but it evidently went home, for only silence, punctuated by moans from the opposite side of the room, ensued.

* * * * *

"That night," concluded Quinn, "a big sailing vessel was met off Point Banda and they found a full month's supply of opium aboard of her. A search of Lower California, near the border, also disclosed a burying ground with many of the graves packed with cans of the drug. The raid, of course, was a violation of Mexican neutrality--but they got away with it."

"The girl?" I cut in. "What became of her?"

"When the police reached the house a few moments after Marks had fired the last shot, they found that Sprague was dead with one of Ezra's bullets through his brain. The three Chinamen were wounded, but not fatally. The girl, however, was huddled in a corner, dead. No one ever discovered whether she stopped one of the bullets from Marks's revolver or whether she was killed by Sprague's men as a penalty for putting out the lantern. Undoubtedly, that saved Ezra's life--which was the reason that he saw that she was given a decent funeral and an adequate memorial erected over her grave.

"He also kept her jacket as a memento of the affair, turning the hatchet over to me for my collection. Under it you will find a copy of the wire he sent the chief."

Curious, I went over and read the yellow slip framed beneath the weapon:

Opium smuggled in coffins. American, at head of ring, dead. Gang broken up. Opium seized. What next?

MARKS.

"Didn't wait long for another assignment, did he?" I inquired.

"No," was the response. "When you're working for Uncle Sam you come to find that excitement is about the only thing that keeps your nerves quiet. Sometimes, as in Marks's case, it's the thrill of the actual combat. But more often it's the search for a tangible clue--the groping in the dark for something you know exists but which you can't lay your hands on. That was the trouble with the Cheney case...."

XV

THE MAN WITH THREE WIVES

One of the first things to strike the eye of the visitor who enters the library-den of William J. Quinn--known to his friends and former associates in the United States Secret Service as "Bill"--is a frame which stands upon the mantel and contains the photographs of three exceptionally pretty women.

Anyone who doesn't know that this room is consecrated to relics of the exploits of the various governmental detective services might be pardoned for supposing that the three pictures in the single frame are photographs of relatives. Only closer inspection will reveal the fact that beneath them appears a transcript from several pages of a certain book of records--the original of which is kept at the New York City Hall.

These pages state that....

But suppose we let Quinn tell the story, just as he told it one cold November night while the wind was whistling outside and the cheery warmth of the fire made things extremely snug within.

* * * * *

Secret Service men [said Quinn] divide all of their cases into two classes--those which call for quick action and plenty of it and those which demand a great deal of thought and only an hour or so of actual physical work. Your typical operative--Allison, who was responsible for solving the poison-pen puzzle, for example, or Hal Preston, who penetrated the mystery surrounding the murder of Montgomery Marshall--is essentially a man of action. He likes to tackle a job and get it over with. It doesn't make any difference if he has to round up a half dozen counterfeiters at the point of a single revolver--as Tommy Callahan once did--or break up a gang of train robbers who have sworn never to be taken alive. As long as he has plenty of thrills and excitement, as long as he is able to get some joy out of life, he doesn't give a hang for the risk. That's his business and he loves it.

But it's the long-drawn-out cases which he has to ponder over and consider from a score of angles that, in the vernacular of vaudeville, capture his Angora. Give him an assignment where he can trail his man for a day or two, get the lay of the land, and then drop on the bunch like a ton o' brick and everything's fine. Give him one of the other kind and--well, he's just about as happy as Guy Randall was when they turned him loose with instructions to get something on Carl Cheney.

Remember during the early days of the war when the papers were full of stories from New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Milwaukee and points west about gatherings of pro-German sympathizers who were determined to aid the Fatherland? Theoretically, we were neutral at that time and these people had all the scope they wanted. They did not confine themselves to talk, however, but laid several plans which were destined to annoy the government and to keep several hundred operatives busy defeating them--for they were aimed directly at our policy of neutrality.

As a campaign fund to assure the success of these operations, the German sympathizers raised not less than sixteen million dollars--a sum which naturally excited the cupidity not only of certain individuals within their own ranks, but also of persons on the outside--men who were accustomed to live by their wits and who saw in this gigantic collection the opportunity of a lifetime.

When you consider that you can hire a New York gangster to commit murder for a couple of hundred dollars--and the "union scale" has been known to be even lower--it's no wonder that the mere mention of sixteen million dollars caused many a crook of international reputation to figure how he could divert at least a part of this to his own bank account. That's the way, as it afterward turned out, that Carl Cheney looked at it.

Cheney had rubbed elbows with the police on several occasions prior to nineteen fourteen. It was suspected that he had been mixed up in a number of exceptionally clever smuggling schemes and that he had had a finger in one or two operations which came perilously close to blackmail. But no one had ever been able to get anything on him. He was the original Finnigin--"In agin, gone agin." By the time the plan came to a successful conclusion all that remained of "Count Carl's" connection with it was a vague and distinctly nebulous shadow--and you simply can't arrest shadows, no matter how hard you try.

The New York police were the first to tip Washington off to the fact that Cheney, who had dropped his aristocratic alias for the time being, was back in this country and had been seen in the company of a number of prominent members of a certain German-American club which wasn't in any too good repute with the Department of Justice by reason of the efforts of some of its members to destroy the neutral stand of the nation.

Have no indications of what Cheney is doing [the report admitted], but it will be well to trail him. Apparently he has some connection, officially or unofficially, with Berlin. Advise what action you wish us to take.

Whereupon the chief wired back:

Operative assigned to Cheney case leaves to-night. Meanwhile please watch.

It wasn't until after the wire had been sent that Guy Randall was summoned to the inner sanctum of the Secret Service and informed that he had been elected to trail the elusive suspect and find out what he was up to.

"So far as our records show," stated the chief, "no one has ever been able to catch this Cheney person in the act of departing from the straight and narrow path. However, that's a matter of the past. What we've got to find out is what he is planning now--why he is in New York and why he has attached himself to the pro-German element which has all kinds of wild schemes up its sleeve."

"And I'm the one who's got to handle it?" inquired Guy, with a grimace.

"Precisely," grinned the chief. "Oh, I know it doesn't look like much of a job and I grant you that the thrill element will probably be lacking. But you can't draw a snap every time. All that's asked is that you get something on Cheney--something which will withstand the assaults of the lawyers he will undoubtedly hire the minute we lay hands on him. Therefore you've got to be mighty careful to have the right dope. If you're satisfied that he's doing nothing out of the way, don't hesitate to say so. But I don't expect that your report will clear him, for, from what we already know of the gentleman, he's more likely to be implicated in some plan aimed directly at a violation of neutrality, and it's essential that we find out what that is before we take any radical step."

"What do you know about Cheney?" was Randall's next question, followed by an explanation from the chief that the "count" had been suspected in a number of cases and had barely been able to escape in time.

"But," added the head of the Secret Service, "he did escape. And that's what we have to prevent this time. He's a fast worker and a clever one--which means that you've got to keep continually after him. Call in all the help you need, but if you take my advice you'll handle the case alone. You're apt to get a lot further that way."

Agreeing that this was the best method to pursue, Randall caught the midnight train for New York and went at once to police headquarters, where he requested a full description of Cheney's previous activities.

"You're asking for something what ain't," he was informed, ungrammatically, but truthfully. "We've never been able to get a thing on the count, though we're dead certain that he had a finger in several crooked plays. The Latimer letters were never directly traced to him, but it's a cinch that he had something to do with their preparation, just as he had with the blackmailing of old man Branchfield and the smuggling of the van Husen emeralds. You remember that case, don't you? The one where the stones were concealed in a life preserver and they staged a 'man overboard' stunt just as the ship came into the harbor. Nobody ever got the stones or proved that they were actually smuggled--but the count happened to be on the ship at the time, just as he 'happened' to be in Paris when they were sold. We didn't even dare arrest him, which accounts for the fact that his photograph doesn't ornament the Rogues' Gallery."

"Well, what's the idea of trailing him, then?"

"Just to find out what he is doing. What d'ye call those birds that fly around at sea just before a gale breaks--stormy petrels? That's the count! He's a stormy petrel of crookedness. Something goes wrong every time he hits a town--or, rather, just after he leaves, for he's too clever to stick around too long. The question now is, What's this particular storm and when is it goin' to break?"

"Fine job to turn me loose on," grumbled Randall.

"It is that," laughed the captain who was dispensing information. "But you can never tell what you'll run into, me boy. Why I remember once--"

Randall, however, was out of the office before the official had gotten well started on his reminiscences. He figured that he had already had too much of a grouch to listen patiently to some long-winded story dug out of the musty archives of police history and he made his way at once to the hotel where Carl Cheney was registered, flaunting his own name in front of the police whom he must have known were watching him.

Neither the house detective nor the plain-clothes man who had been delegated to trail Cheney could add anything of interest to the little that Randall already knew. The "count," they said, had conducted himself in a most circumspect manner and had not been actually seen in conference with any of the Germans with whom he was supposed to be in league.

"He's too slick for that," added the man from the Central Office. "Whenever he's got a conference on he goes up to the Club and you can't get in there with anything less than a battering ram and raiding squad. There's no chance to plant a dictaphone, and how else are you going to get the information?"

"What does he do at other times?" countered Guy, preferring not to reply to the former question until he had gotten a better line on the case.

"Behaves himself," was the laconic answer. "Takes a drive in the Park in the afternoon, dines here or at one of the other hotels, goes to the theater and usually finishes up with a little supper somewhere among the white lights."

"Any women in sight?"

"Yes--two. A blond from the girl-show that's playin' at the Knickerbocker and a red-head. Don't know who she is--but they're both good lookers. No scandal, though. Everything appears to be on the level--even the women."

"Well," mused the government operative after a moment's silence, "I guess I better get on the job. Probably means a long stretch of dull work, but the sooner I get at it the sooner I'll get over it. Where is Cheney now?"

"Up in his room. Hasn't come down to breakfast yet. Yes. There he is now. Just getting out of the elevator--headed toward the dinin' room," and the plain-clothes man indicated the tall figure of a man about forty, a man dressed in the height of fashion, with spats, a cane, and a morning coat of the most correct cut. "Want me for anything?"

"Not a thing," said Randall, absently. "I'll pick him up now. You might tell the chief to watch out for a hurry call from me--though I'm afraid he won't get it."

As events proved, Randall was dead right. The Central Office heard nothing from him for several months, and even Washington received only stereotyped reports indicative of what Cheney was doing--which wasn't much.

Shortly after the first of the year, Guy sent a wire to the chief, asking to be relieved for a day or two in order that he might be free to come to Washington. Sensing the fact that the operative had some plan which he wished to discuss personally, the chief put another man on Cheney's trail and instructed Randall to report at the Treasury Department on the following morning.

"What's the matter?" inquired the man at the head of the Service as Guy, a little thinner than formerly and showing by the wrinkles about his eyes the strain under which he was working, strolled into the office.

"Nothing's the matter, Chief--and that's where the trouble lies. You know I've never kicked about work, no matter how much of it I've had. But this thing's beginning to get on my nerves. Cheney is planning some coup. I'm dead certain of that. What it's all about, though, I haven't the least idea. The plans are being laid in the German-American Club and there's no chance of getting in there."

"How about bribing one of the employees to leave?"

"Can't be done. I've tried it--half a dozen times. They're all Germans and, as such, in the organization. However, I have a plan. Strictly speaking, it's outside the law, but that's why I wanted to talk things over with you...."

When Randall had finished outlining his plan the chief sat for a moment in thought. Then, "Are you sure you can put it over?" he inquired.

"Of course I can. It's done every other day, anyhow, by the cops themselves. Why shouldn't we take a leaf out of their book?"

"I know. But there's always the possibility of a diplomatic protest."

"Not in this case, Chief. The man's only a waiter and, besides, before the embassy has a chance to hear about it I'll have found out what I want to know. Then, if they want to raise a row, let 'em."

The upshot of the matter was that, about a week later, Franz Heilman, a waiter employed at the German-American Club in New York, was arrested one night and haled into Night Court on a charge of carrying concealed weapons--a serious offense under the Sullivan Act. In vain he protested that he had never carried a pistol in his life. Patrolman Flaherty, who had made the arrest, produced the weapon which he claimed to have found in Heilman's possession and the prisoner was held for trial.

Bright and early the next morning Randall, disguised by a mustache which he had trained for just such an occasion and bearing a carefully falsified letter from a German brewer in Milwaukee, presented himself at the employee's entrance of the German-American Club and asked for the steward. To that individual he told his story--how he had tried to get back to the Fatherland and had failed, how he had been out of work for nearly a month, and how he would like to secure employment of some kind at the Club where he would at least be among friends.