“I’m going to the public library for another try,” he announced. “No doubt some of the New York papers carried the story. They seem our best bet now. I’m terribly busy, but I’ll speed all I can.”
“Thanks for your feverish activity,” Chan replied. “You are valuable man.”
“Just a real good wagon,” laughed Rankin. “Here’s hoping I don’t break down. I’ll let you know the minute I find something.”
Saturday came; the life at the bungalow was moving forward with unbroken calm. Through it Paradise walked with his accustomed dignity and poise, little dreaming of the dark cloud of suspicion that hovered over his head. Chan was busy with the books of Colonel John Beetham; he had finished the Life and was now going methodically through the others as though in search of a clue.
On Saturday night Kirk was dining out, and after his own dinner Chan again went down into Chinatown. There was little he could do there, he knew, but the place drew him none the less. This time he did not visit his cousin, but loitered on the crowded sidewalk of Grant Avenue.
Catching sight of the lights outside the Mandarin Theater, he idly turned his footsteps toward the doorway. The Chinese have been a civilized race for many centuries; they do not care greatly for moving-pictures, preferring the spoken drama. A huge throng was milling about the door of the theater, and Chan paused. There was usually enough drama in real life to satisfy him, but tonight he felt the need of the painted players.
Suddenly in the mob he caught sight of Willie Li, the boy scout whose good deed had thwarted his best laid plans on the previous Wednesday evening. Willie was gazing wistfully at the little frame of actors’ pictures in the lobby. Chan went up to him with a friendly smile.
“Ah, we meet again,” he said in Cantonese. “How fortunate, since the other night I walked my way churlishly, without offering my thanks for the great kindness you did me in bringing a physician.”
The boy’s face brightened in recognition. “May I be permitted to hope that the injury is improved?” he said.
“You have a kind heart,” Chan replied. “I now walk on the foot with the best of health. Be good enough to tell me, have you performed your kind act for today?”
The boy frowned. “Not yet. Opportunities are so seldom.”
“Ah, yes—how true. But if you will deign to come into the theater as my guest, opportunities may increase. Each of the actors, as you know, receives in addition to his salary a bonus of twenty-five cents for every round of applause that is showered upon him. Come, and by frequent applauding you may pile up enough kind acts to spread over several days.”
The boy was only too willing, and buying a couple of tickets, Chan led him inside. The horrible din that greeted them they did not find disconcerting. It was, in fact, music to their ears. Even at this early hour the house was crowded. On the stage, with the casual, offhand manner they affected, the Chinese company was enacting a famous historical play. Chan and the boy were fortunate enough to find seats.
Looking about, the detective from Hawaii saw that he was in a gathering of his own race exclusively. The women members of the audience were arrayed in their finest silks; in a stage box sat a slave girl famous in the colony. Little, slant-eyed children played in the aisles; occasionally a mother sent out to the refreshment booth in the lobby a bottle of milk, to be heated for the baby in her arms.
The clatter of the six-piece orchestra never ceased; it played more softly at dramatic moments, but comedy lines were spoken to the accompaniment of a terrific fusillade. Chan became engrossed in the play, for the actors were finished artists, the women players particularly graceful and accomplished. At eleven o’clock he suggested that they had better go, lest the boy’s family be troubled about him.
“My father will not worry,” said Willie Li. “He knows a boy scout is trustworthy.”
Nevertheless Chan led him to the lobby, and there stood treat to a hot dog and a cup of coffee—for the refreshment booth alone was Americanized. As they climbed the empty street to the Oriental Apartments. Charlie looked inquiringly at the boy.
“Tell me,” he said, still speaking in Cantonese, “of your plans for the future. You are ambitious. What profession calls you?”
“I would be an explorer, like my cousin Li Gung,” the boy answered in the same rather stilted tongue.
“Ah, yes—he who is attached to Colonel John Beetham,” nodded Chan. “You have heard from your cousin stories of Colonel Beetham?”
“Many exciting ones,” the boy replied.
“You admire the Colonel? You think him very great character?”
“Why not? He is man of iron, stern but just. Discipline is with him important thing, and all boy scouts know that is right thinking. Many examples of this our cousin told us. Sometimes, Li Gung said, the caravan would revolt. Then the Colonel would snatch out gun, facing them with his bravery, alone. The caravan would tremble and proceed.”
“They knew, perhaps, that the Colonel would not hesitate to fire?”
“They had seen him do it. One event Li Gung spoke about I can never forget.” The boy’s voice rose in excitement. “It was on the desert, and the Colonel had told them what they must do, and what they must not do. A dirty keeper of camels, a man of low character, he did a thing which the Colonel had forbidden. In an instant he lay on the sand, with a bullet in his heart.”
“Ah, yes,” said Chan, “I would expect that. However, it is an incident I have not encountered in any of the Colonel’s books.”
They were at the door of the apartment-house. “Accept
