the icy drizzle to make his report. Secret orders had been received from headquarters calling upon all officers to look out for a very old Chinaman known in London as Sam Pak, and now believed to be posing as a residing alien. His description was vividly etched upon the detective’s mind. The man in the black hat could not possibly fill the part, for this Sam Pak was very old. What this very old man could be wanted for was not clear to the deputy inspector. Nevertheless, that momentary instinct would have served him well had he obeyed it. . . .
The man whose features he had failed to see turned the first corner behind the police officer. When Gregory looked back the man was watching. Seeing Gregory walk on, he pursued his way. This led him past the corner occupied by Wu King’s Bar and right to the end of the block. Here the man in the black hat paused in shelter of a dark doorway, lighting a cigarette and shielding the light with an upraised hand. He then consulted a type-written sheet which he drew from his raincoat pocket. Evidently satisfied that he had not misunderstood his instructions, he replaced the lighter and glanced swiftly right and left along the street. This inspection assured him that none of the few pedestrians in sight was Gregory (whom he had recognized for a police officer). He groped along the wall on his right, found and pressed a bell.
Then again he looked cautiously. Only one traveller, a small, furtive Asiatic figure, was approaching in his direction. A slight sound told the man in the black hat that a door had opened. He turned, stepped forward and paused, seeking now with his left hand. He found a switch and depressed it. He heard the door close behind him. A moment more he waited, then fumbling again in the darkness, he discovered a second switch, and the light sprang up in the narrow passage in which he stood. The door which had opened to admit him was now shut. Another closed door was at the end of the passage. There was a bell-push beside it. He pressed the bell seven times— slowly . . .
Deputy Inspector Gregory had not quite reached the end of the block, when heading towards him through the mist and rain he saw a tall, gaunt figure, that of a Salvation Army captain, grey moustached and bespectacled. He would have passed on, for the presence of Salvation Army officials in unlikely quarters and the most inclement weather was a sight familiar enough. But the tall man pulled up directly in his path and:
“Excuse me if I am wrong,” he said, speaking slowly and harshly, “but I think you are a police officer?”
Gregory glanced the speaker over and nodded.
“That’s right,” he replied. “What can I do for you?”
“I am looking,” the harsh voice continued, “for a defaulter, a wayward brother who has fallen into sin. I saw him not five minutes ago, but lost him on the corner of Pell Street. As you were coming from that direction it is possible that you passed him.”
“What’s he like to look at?”
“He is a small man wearing a grey topcoat and a black soft hat. It is not our intention to charge him with his offence, but it is my duty to endeavour to overtake him.”
“He passed me less than two minutes ago,” Gregory replied sharply “What’s he listed for?”
“Converting money to his own uses; but no soul is beyond redemption.”
The harsh, gloomy voice held that queer note of exaltation which Inspector Gregory had heard so often without being able to determine whether it indicated genuine piety or affection.
“I’ll step back with you,” he said tersely. “I know the corner he went round, and I know who lives in every house on that street. We’d better hurry!”
He turned and hurried back against the biting wind, the tall Salvation Army officer striding along beside him silently. They came to the comer on which Wu King’s Bar was situated— the resort which Gregory had so recently visited; turning around it, they were temporarily sheltered from the icy blast.
“He may have gone into Wu’s,” said Gregory, as they looked along a deserted street, at one or two points of which lights shone out on the rain-drenched sidewalk. “Just stay here, and I’ll check up.”
He pushed open the door of the restaurant. To the nostrils of the Salvation Army official who stood outside was wafted a breath of that characteristic odour which belongs to every Chinatown in the world. In less than a minute the detective was out again.
“Not been in Wu’s,” he reported. “He must have gone in somewhere farther along, otherwise there wouldn’t be any object in going that way; unless he’s out for a walk. There’s no other joint open back there. Do you know of any connections he has in this quarter?”
“Probably many,” the harsh voice replied, and there was sadness in the tone. “He’s attached to our Chinatown branch. I’m obliged to you but will trouble you no further, except to ask that if ever you see this man, you will detain him.”
Gregory nodded, turned, and started off.
“No trouble,” he said. “Hope you find the guy.”
The Salvation Army official walked to the end of the street, gloomily scrutinizing closed doors to right and left, seeming to note the names over the shops, the numbers, the Chinese signs. Then turning to the right again at the end of the block, he walked on through the rain for a considerable distance and finally entered an elevated railroad station. . . .
Salvation Army delegates from all over the United States were assembled in New York that week, and a group of the senior officials had been accommodated at the Regal-Athenian Hotel. Therefore, no one in the vast marble- pillared lobby of that palatial establishment was surprised to see the tall and gloomy captain walk in. No confrere was visible in the public rooms through which he passed: the last had retired fully an hour earlier. Entering a tower elevator:
“Thirty-three,” he announced gloomily.
He stepped out on the thirty-third floor, where two deputies from neighbouring States were sharing an apartment. He did not go to their apartment, however. He opened a door at the end of the long carpeted corridor and began to mount a stair. He met no one on his way, but at the fortieth floor he opened a door and peered out into another deserted carpeted corridor. . . .
Captain Mark Hepburn, pacing restlessly from room to room of the suite at the top of the tower, sometimes looking out of the window at rain-drenched New York below him, sometimes listening to the whine of the elevator, and sometimes exchanging glances with the equally restless Fey, Nayland Smith’s man, who also wandered disconsolately about, suddenly paused in the little vestibule. He had heard quick footsteps.
