CHAPTER VII.
CHICK FINDS HIS MAN.
If Chick had a fault, it was an excess of enthusiasm in his work that sometimes led him into indiscretion. That is what Nick Carter told him sometimes, although the admonition never had any particular effect. Chick would go ahead on his own responsibility whenever he believed he could get results.
It was because of this disposition to do things on his own judgment that he did not go to bed when told to do so by his chief. He went to his bedroom obediently enough. But he did not stay there.
“The chief believes I’m tired,” he muttered, as he sat on the edge of his bed, waiting till the house should quiet down. “That’s why he fires me off to bed. Well, I feel just right for work, and I’m going to do it.”
He chuckled to himself, as he thought of how quickly Patsy would be in his room, to go with him, if he knew what Chick contemplated.
“But I don’t want Patsy,” he decided. “I can handle this myself. That chink with the scar probably killed Mr. Anderton, and if I could get him, I’d probably have the whole case cleared up. If I don’t get him, I’m going to interview that professor. What was he going into that laundry for? A man like him, who is supposed to be a Japanese, and who is supposed to be a professor, wouldn’t be mixing up with chinks of that kind if he was square. Well, he’s got to talk to me.”
Chick felt sure that the attack on him had been made by order of Professor Tolo, and he believed that he would be found to be mixed up in some way with the Yellow Tong.
“I don’t believe he is what he pretends to be,” went on Chick, as he got up from the bed and put a revolver in his pocket. “Anyhow, I’ll be ready for him if he tries any more monkey work with me.”
He went to the door, opened it a little, and listened. Everything was quiet. No doubt Nick Carter had gone to bed, and Patsy, of course, was in his own room. It would be safe to go out.
Chick knew the house so well that he could have gone down the stairs in darkness and let himself out without a sound. But there was a light in the hall, which was always kept burning all night, and it enabled Chick to get out that much easier.
“Well, I did that without disturbing anybody,” he murmured. “Now for a taxi and the laundry uptown. If I can only find Mike Donovan at his usual stand in Thirty-fourth Street, I shall have somebody to help me if I should need him. Mike is a good man.”
He referred to a certain taxicab chauffeur whom he and Nick Carter both employed frequently. This chauffeur, Mike Donovan, was an ex-lightweight champion, and he enjoyed nothing so much as a good scrap, notwithstanding that he was no longer a professional pugilist. He was the same man who had taken Nick Carter to Mr. Anderton’s house earlier in the evening.
“Is that you, Mike?” asked Chick, stopping at a taxicab that was one of a row drawn up in front of a big hotel and looking in at the window. “Donovan, are you in there?”
“Faith an’ Oi am,” was the good-humored response, as Mike Donovan’s face came to the window. “Howly saints! If it ain’t Chick! Phwat do yez want, me bye? Is it annythin’ Oi can be afther doin’ fer yez?”
“Drive me in your cab to Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street and Third Avenue,” replied Chick. “Then I’ll tell you where to go.”
“Jump in,” was Mike Donovan’s response, as he got out of the cab and showed himself a rather small, but compact, middle-aged man, with red hair and a laughing, Irish face. “Oi wuz jest takin’ a rest, so I wuz, an’ hopin’ thot Oi moight git home in the marnin’ wi’out anny more thravelin’. But it’s yese’f thot’s welcome, Chick. An’ I wish there wuz to be a foight as well as a ride in the cab for both of us.”
“There may be that, Mike,” replied Chick dryly, as he took his seat inside, and Mike set the cab moving.
Mike did not reply, because he was busy with his wheels and levers. But it rejoiced his heart to know that there was likely to be a spice of adventure for him. Indeed, he had surmised there would be as soon as Chick hailed him. What would he be going uptown for in a hurry at two o’clock in the morning unless there were a ruction on the horizon? His earlier trip with Nick Carter told him there was some adventure promised, but he said nothing about that.
It seemed to Chick hardly any time before he was out of the taxicab, within a block of the laundry of Sun Jin, which was so enshrouded in darkness that only the gleam of a distant street arc light enabled him to make it out at all.
“Stay here, Mike,” he directed, in a low tone. “When I want you, I’ll give you a signal of some kind.”
“All roight, Chick! Faith, yez’ll foind me wid me cab,” returned Mike Donovan, as Chick slipped away.
Chick did not answer, for, at that moment, two men came out of the laundry and hurried in the other direction, finally disappearing around a corner.
“Come along, Mike! Follow those fellows. They’ve probably got a car, or something, around there,” said Chick, as he ran back and jumped into the taxi. “Don’t lose sight of that tall man, in the big slouch hat and long coat. You saw him, didn’t you?”
“Oi did thot,” replied Mike, as he threw on the power. “He looked loike a praste or a preacher of some koind. He wuz a quare koind o’ mon to be comin’ out av a laundry, so he wuz.”
At the corner of the street Chick saw that he had guessed aright as to there being a vehicle in waiting. A taxi was two blocks ahead, going fast.
“Sure, it’s wan o’ thim nighthawks,” proclaimed Mike Donovan. “Oi know ’em whin Oi see thim. Thot cab don’t belong to no company. It’s just a private wan, d’yez moind? But av he t’inks he can git away from me—well, he’s got anither guess comin’.”
It need not be told in detail how Mike kept on the track of the other cab. Suffice it that when it turned into Fifth Avenue and kept on downtown, Chick was in time to see the two men go into the house next door to Anderton’s, and that he recognized one of them as Professor Tolo, while the other wore the blue blouse and wide trousers of a Chinese laundryman.
“You can go now, Mike,” he whispered to Donovan. “If you stayed around, they might see you and be suspicious. Besides, I can handle this case myself now.”
“An’ don’t I git no chance for a scrap?” demanded Mike, much disappointed. “Sure, I’d loike to let droive just wance at wan av thim there chinks. Yez tould me Oi w’u’d.”
“I know I did, Mike,” returned Chick soothingly. “But we can’t always have things the way we want them. Better luck next time.”
He paid the sum the taximeter showed, and gave Mike a generous tip in addition. Then he waved his hand in farewell and stepped into the deep doorway of the Anderton house, waiting there until Mike Donovan’s taxicab had been swallowed up in the gloom.
It did not take Chick as long to get Ruggins to the front door as he had feared it would. The fact was that the butler had been so disturbed by all that had taken place that night and morning in the usually peaceful home that he could not sleep. So, when the night bell, which rang in Ruggins’ bedroom at the back of the hall, sounded, he heard it immediately.
“’Ello!” he grunted. “’Ere’s more of it. I’m blowed if I ever was in a game like this ’ere before. What is it now?”
He slipped into some of his clothing, and, with his suspenders hanging down, cautiously opened the front door a little way and peeped out. He recognized Chick at once.
“W’y, Mr. Carter! Is there anything else wrong?”
“Not that I know of,” replied Chick, as he pushed his way in and closed the door. “But I want to go up to Mr. Anderton’s study again. Don’t say a word to anybody.”
“Do you mean you’re going to find out who murdered Mr. Anderton?”
“I’m trying to do so. You can go to bed again. I will stay up in that room for the rest of the night. Mr. Anderton has some valuable things there, and if a man could get in to kill him, there is nothing to prevent his coming back if he wants to. Don’t ask any more questions, please, Ruggins. Mr. Carter told you to let me go where I pleased in the house, didn’t he?”
“Yes. But I didn’t know you were coming back at this time in the morning,” protested Ruggins, in a doubtful tone. “Still——”
“Still,” interrupted Chick. “I want to do it, because I believe it may help me to find out something. That’s all.”
Leaving Ruggins to return to bed—or to sit up, if it suited him, Chick went up to the study and shut himself in. Then, without turning on the light anywhere, he stole cautiously to one of the windows and cautiously peered between the thick curtains.
Instantly he dropped the curtains into place again and set his mind busily to work to decide on a hiding place in the room.
There was a large leather chair near the open fireplace, so heavy that it was not easily moved, and which obviously was meant for use as a lounging nest in which one could luxuriate in laziness at the fire. Behind this chair Chick squeezed himself just as the window opened, with a creak, behind the curtains.
He was not surprised when the man who came into the room proved to be Professor Tolo. The intruder carried a large pocket flash lamp, and his first action was to throw the light all about the room.
Chick squeezed into a still smaller space behind the great chair, ready to hide himself entirely when the light should come his way. Then one of the incandescent lights was switched on, and he saw there was a Chinaman in native dress with the professor.
“Stand at the door, Sun Jin,” whispered the professor, in English, to his companion.
Without a word, the Chinaman stepped over to the door, saw that there was a key in the door, and turned it in the lock. Chick was glad he had not followed his first impulse, to lock the door when he came in. If he had, it would have told the rascals there was somebody else in the room.
Without paying any particular attention to Sun Jin, the professor began to pull from the bookcase the same volumes he had moved in the presence of Nick Carter. Placing them on a chair, he took out several more books. Then Chick heard a clicking sound.
“Wonder whether I ought to plug him right now,” thought Chick, fingering the automatic revolver in his coat pocket. “I could wing him, so that he would be helpless, without killing him. Then I could lay out the chink, and——”
“Curse him! It isn’t here!” broke out Professor Tolo, in unmistakable English.
He had opened a recess at the back of the bookcase, behind the place where the removed volumes had stood, and found that nothing was there.
“That’s worth knowing,” thought Chick. “The thing they murdered Mr. Anderton for has got away from them, after all. Now, what will they do? There is one satisfaction I have, and it was worth my coming here to find out—this Tolo is mixed up with the Yellow Tong. I wish——”
Professor Tolo had been hastily replacing the books, and now he turned to the Chinaman standing at the door, to say, in a surly tone:
“Look out and see if everything is clear.”
The Chinaman came from the door, and, as if to make sure there was no one in the room besides himself and the mysterious professor, walked all around it, gazing in every direction.
It was well for Chick that he was in deep shadow, or he must have been discovered, for the Chinaman looked all about him, even to placing his hand on the back of the big leather chair. Chick drew back, and was able only just to hide himself.
The Chinaman moved on toward the window, without seeing Chick. On the other hand, Chick had had a clear view of the fellow’s face, and as he placed his hand on the automatic pistol in his pocket, he murmured excitedly:
“That’s the man. He’s the chink with the scar on his ear, and his finger is still tied up in the white bandage.”
The next moment, unable to restrain himself, Chick had leaped from his hiding place and hurled himself upon the Chinaman!