The Manchu Skull

     “Welcome, indeed, King san. We are honored by your presence.”

     The fat Chinaman's lips were smiling, but there was no smile in his eyes. He did not move out of the way.

     “Hello, Fung Tze,” King said with deceptive mildness. “Do you mind if I go up to see On Long Sin?”

     Funz Tze did not move. “I am so sorry, Mr. King. “My master, On Long Sin, is not here now. Perhaps I could help you.”

     “I am wondering if there was a girl here tonight—a very beautiful white girl, with great coils of black hair. She was wearing a black silk dress.”

     Abruptly, Fung Tze's eyes became veiled. “I have not seen such a girl in the dining room, Mr. King.”

     “Perhaps she was upstairs. I think I'll go up and look around.”

     “I am still so sorry, Mr. King. The upstairs is closed.”

     “Not to me, my friend!”

     King took a short step forward, very slowly. Fung Tze's slanted eye dropped to the cane. Then his glance lifted to King's face. He shrugged.

     “The wise man knows when to yield to superior force!” he quoted. “But I warn you, King san, that if you go upstairs tonight, you go into a danger that is more deadly than even your sword!”

     King smiled thinly. “Thank you for the warning, Fung Tze,” he said.

     The fat Chinaman moved aside reluctantly. King opened the door and stepped through. There was no one in the hall here. He mounted the first flight of stairs, and stopped beside the open hall window. This was the window which faced on the alley. He looked out, and his hand tightened on his cane. The bodies of the two dead Chinamen were no longer there. The Sung Tong had come quickly to take away its dead. There would be no recourse to the law of the white man. The tongs administered their own law here in Chinatown.

     King shrugged, and went on up the stairs. The old, musty building had an air of staleness and death. Nobody knew how many unfortunates had died in the countless rooms along this corridor—under the knives of yellow killers. King walked stiffly along the corridor, with the cane in his right hand, the knob gripped in his left. He trod lightly on the floor, making no sound, his ears keenly attuned for the first whisper of movement from any quarter. At the rear of the building, he stopped before a door. He rapped lightly with the knob of his cane. There was no answer.

     ONLY a faint trickle of Chinese music drifted up from the restaurant below. Otherwise there was no sound.

     King's gloved hand turned the knob of the door. He thrust it open.

     A single light from a desk lamp illumined the room. Alongside the desk a leather hatbox stood on the floor.

     King's glance rested only for an instant upon that hatbox. Then he gazed bleakly upon the body of On Long Sin in the chair behind the desk.

     On Long Sin was sprawled out with his arms dangling at his sides, his head hanging almost straight down over the back of the chair. His throat had been cut from ear to ear. The knife lay on the desk where it had been dropped by the killer.

     Tautly, King came into the room. His glance swung keenly from object to object, and returned to that hatbox on the floor beside the dead body.

     He knelt beside the desk, carefully lifted the lid of the hatbox.

     He sucked in his breath sharply. A shimmering iridescently green skull rested in the hatbox. It was not a human skull. It was carved out of lustrous jade. But so cunningly had the sculptor wrought, that were it not for the shimmering luster of the precious jade, one might have thought it to be the skull of some long- dead Manchu emperor. The artist had sealed the open orifices of the mouth, nose and eyeballs with patches of white nephritic jade which contrasted sharply with the greenish color of the rest of the skull.

     King carefully lifted the Manchu skull out of the hatbox. There was en excited glitter in his eyes. He had come here to buy the Sung Dynasty Rubies. But here was a Chinese antique which was impossible to purchase at any price. To his knowledge, there were only three of them in the world. One of them was at present in the American Museum of Oriental Art, for which he worked. The other two were known to be in the possession of old and honorable Chinese families, who would never have parted with them for an emperor's ransom.

     King ran his fingers expertly over the surface of the exquisitely wrought jade. In a moment he assured himself that this was an authentic Manchu skull—one of the three known to be in existence.

     He held it up to the light, and the gaunt, scarified bones of the Manchu emperor seemed actually to come to life in his hands. At the top of the skull there was a small opening; plugged with a cork of white jade. He removed the cork, and inserted his finger. The inside of the skull had been carved out so that there was a hollow receptacle. He shook the skull but got no sound. The receptacle was empty.

     Carefully, almost religiously, King replaced the Manchu skull in the hatbox and closed the lid.

     Abruptly, he heard a noise behind him. He whirled, lithe as a panther, in time to see the door thrust open.

     The stout, suavely smiling Fung Tze carne into the room. He said nothing, but stepped to one side. Immediately after him, entered the two broadsword fighters who had been giving the exhibition of deadly skill downstairs. They still wore tights. Each still gripped his huge six-foot broadsword. Those blades were not pointed at the end, but they were honed to a deadly cutting-edge which could bite through flesh and bone without effort.

     The second of the two swordsmen kicked the door shut behind him. Then the two athletes gripped their swords in both hands and stood with their eyes upon King.

     King gripped the silver knob of the sword-cane in his left hand. He grinned crookedly at Fung Tze.

     “Is this what you meant when you warned me that I would be walking into danger?”

     The fat Chinaman nodded gravely. “I am so sorry, King san. I have just learned of the fight in the alley. The girl with the black hair escaped. But it is believed that she gave you the Sung Dynasty Rubies. You must turn them over to me at once. Do so, and you may go from here unharmed. You shall even be forgiven for the deaths of two men of the Sung Tong.”

     “And if I don't turn them over, Fung Tze?”

     “Then I am so sorry, King san. You will be killed by these two swordsmen, and we will take the rubies from you. The Sung Dynasty Rubies are not to be sold. They must be returned to the homeland.”

     “I have no rubies,” said King.

     Fung Tze sighed. “You have been long known among the Chinese as the Left-handed Swordsman. You have been honored by our countrymen, who have found you a man of your word. If you say you have no rubies, then it must be so. But if that is the case, it follows that the black-haired girl has them. We must know where she is to be found. Tell us, King san, and you may still go free.”

     King shook his head. “I don't know who she is. I never saw her before.”

     “You are only trying to protect her. It is honorable for a white man to lie to protect a white woman. But in this case it means your life, King san. The girl killed On Long Sin. She must pay the tong penalty. Speak, King san.

Where is she?”

     King smiled faintly. “You're right on one point, Fung Tze. Even if I knew who she was, or where to find her, I'd certainly not tell you.”

     Once more the fat Chinaman sighed. He spoke a sharp command to the two Manchu swordsmen.

     “I am so sorry for everything, King san,” he murmured, and he opened the door and slipped out.

     King was left alone in the room with the two Manchus.

     THEIR narrow slanted eyes never left his face. They lifted their heavy broadswords high above their heads, and came around the desk, skirting the dead body of On Long Sin.

     King stood still, apparently loose-limbed and relaxed. But one could not fail to see the hot glint of his eyes.

     The two swordsmen came at him from the right and from the left. One of them barked a singsong word to the other, and they charged in. The great broadswords cut down at King's head in deadly power- strokes.