The swimmers had closed the distance rapidly. The next time the lights blinked Rick could make out two figures standing next to the car. He could hear the creaking of gear on the junk and the grunts of the polemen, and the sounds were close! He lifted his voice in a cry for help. "They"re on top of us!"
The car lights blinked on, and held the junk in their glare. A gun fired once from the sh.o.r.e. Rick saw the orange spurt. Then he heard a cry from almost overhead and the junk veered sharply.
"Angle right," Scotty called, and Rick saw that they were almost at the tip of the pier. He put on a last spurt, caught a pile, and pulled himself up by its lashings. In a moment all three of them were running down the pier toward the waiting car.
The lights came on and a British voice called, "In the car. Hurry!"
"It"s the bank clerk!" Scotty gasped.
It was. Ronald Keaton-Yeats ran to meet them. "Do hurry!" he exclaimed.
"We think someone from this end has gone for reinforcements for your friends yonder." The three followed him to the car, a touring sedan of British make. Rick sensed that someone was behind him and started to turn, but a soft voice whispered in his ear.
"Keep looking ahead. Get to your hotel and wait there for a phone call."
They piled into the car, wet clothes and all. Keaton-Yeats ran around to the driver"s seat, then stopped. "I say! Where did that other chap go to?"
"What other?" Zircon asked.
"A Eurasian. He"s the one who led me here, and who fired that shot.
Dashed uncivilized, but I guess it saved your bacon, rather. No matter.
He"s vanished and that"s an end to it." The young Englishman had been peering into the shadows. "We"ll hie on our merry way and leave him to his own devices."
Rick started to mention the message that had been whispered in his ear, then decided not to, although he couldn"t have explained why.
The car roared into life. Keaton-Yeats spun the wheel and they raced up the street, the buildings magnifying the sound of their pa.s.sing into thunder. Not until they were on the main street was there quiet enough for conversation, then Zircon demanded, "Would you mind giving us an explanation? Naturally, we"re interested."
"Rather!" Keaton-Yeats said. "I met Brant and Scott this afternoon when they inquired from me the way to a Golden Mouse. I"d never heard of the creature, as I told them, and they rejected my offer of some other sort of animal. Haw! But after they had gone, I made inquiries. I learned that this Golden Mouse was a dive of the most unsavory character."
He steered around a group of rickshaws and Rick clutched the back of the front seat. He was having a fine case of jitters, because the Englishman was driving on what appeared to Rick to be the wrong side of the road.
Even when he realized that left-hand driving was the rule in Hong Kong, dodging cars on the wrong side left him rattled!
"I worried a bit," Keaton-Yeats went on. "Even made a phone call or two.
Discovered Brant and Scott were registered at the Peninsular Hotel. But by the time I phoned there, they had gone out. Having no engagements, I decided to look up this Golden Mouse place and at least add another soul to the party for safety"s sake, so to speak. However, I never got in, for just as I turned into the proper alley, after a bit of searching, this Eurasian chap jumped on my running board. He asked did I care to help out three Americans who were in trouble. I a.s.sured him that it would be a pleasure, but I was already committed to two Americans, in a manner of speaking. He demanded names. I gave him the two I knew. He said you were mixed up in this affair in which he was taking a hand. I told him to get aboard and he did so. We tore around odd streets for some time. My nose is insulted from the things I"ve smelled tonight, I a.s.sure you. We were about to throw in our cards, then, as luck would have it, we spotted three rickshaw coolies, and blessed if they didn"t turn out to be yours. We sped down that Blind Fisherman Street just in time to hear the most infernal commotion out in the bay. The rest you know."
There was no adequate way of thanking Keaton-Yeats. Without his kindly interest in two strangers, they would doubtless have lost their lives.
But when they told him as much, he laughed it off.
"Oh, I"m sure that"s overdoing it a bit. What that crew was probably after was a bit of ransom. Pirates are still something of a problem around here, you know. We"ve had regular ocean-going craft picked off by them and held. I"ve enjoyed it immensely, and if thanks are due, I"ll give them to you. Life was getting to be a bit of a bore."
And that settled it, so far as Keaton-Yeats was concerned. He drove them to the Kowloon ferry, but suggested that they take a walla-walla in view of their disreputable appearance. As they shook hands all around, he said, "Oddest thing. To me, the most curious business was that chap who watched us. Not the Eurasian. Another one. It was because of him that we suspected new recruits for our pirate friends were on the way."
"What did he look like?" Rick asked.
"Can"t say. We never did see his face. Or any of him, for that matter.
Somewhere up the alley was an open door, and he was standing in it, against the light. At least I believe that was the case, for all we saw was his shadow. A most unusual shadow, at that. It was so long and thin that it looked like a pole with a head and limbs. Our Eurasian friend was a bit disturbed by it, too, for he mumbled something about blowing the creature"s head off if he stepped out of his doorway."
"But you didn"t see anything except the shadow?" Scotty asked.
"Not a blessed thing. There was just that form, outlined in light, stretching clear across the alley. It was uncanny, because to cast a shadow such as that the bloke must have been ten feet high and no thicker than a pencil!"
They had found the Golden Mouse. Now another bit of Chahda"s cable had come to life. Rick"s lips formed the words.
"Long Shadow!"
CHAPTER VIII
Long Shadow
"Wheels within wheels and all of them turning merrily," Zircon said. "I am absolutely appalled at how little we know of what is going on."
The three of them, refreshed by showers, were in the hotel dining room having a late snack.
"Anyway, we have friends working for us," Scotty pointed out. "I think our British pal did just as he said. He found out that the Golden Mouse was not the sort of place for a couple of American tourists and decided to go there in case we needed help."
Rick agreed. "And thank heaven he did. But I have a couple of questions, besides the biggest one of all."
"The biggest one being: Where is Chahda?" Scotty added.
"Right. Also, I want to know why that motorboat appearing on the scene and flashing a searchlight made the junk gang jump us."
"I"m only speculating," Zircon replied, "but mightn"t that have been a police boat on regular patrol? The junk gang would know it, I presume, and they might decide to get us tied up and under cover, just in case the police came too close."
"That"s reasonable," Rick agreed. "We"ll probably never know for sure, and that"s as good an answer as any. Now, my next question is: Who was the Eurasian who got together with Keaton-Yeats?"
"You don"t suppose it was Chahda?" Scotty suggested.
"Couldn"t have been," Zircon replied. "Chahda wouldn"t have faded away as soon as we got to sh.o.r.e. I can"t imagine who the stranger was, except that he apparently was a friend. Also, I think it"s clear that Canton Charlie certainly is not a friend, since our asking for Chahda resulted in our being kidnaped, or close to it."
Rick nodded. "Clear as air. Anyway, Bert"s prediction was wrong. We didn"t get our throats cut in Charlie"s."
"He could have been only too right," Scotty reminded. "If we had gone there alone and hung around until the mob got wilder, it could have happened. What a wonderful crew of cutthroats! And they were on the way to getting set for a few fights among themselves when we left."
Rick glanced at big Hobart Zircon. "Having the professor along probably helped, too. Even the toughest thug would think twice before tackling him."
Zircon chuckled. "I must admit I"ve found it some advantage to be so sizable. What do you boys think of this strange shadow?"
"Strange is right." Rick stifled a yawn. "Keaton-Yeats thought he was unfriendly, and so did the Eurasian. But he didn"t do anything very unfriendly, I guess. He just stood in a doorway."
"Chahda"s cable said to beware of the long shadow," Scotty remembered.
"Which is a good reason to think that the man who cast the shadow is an enemy who now knows of our presence in Hong Kong," Zircon added. He glanced at his watch. "It"s getting late. If the phone call our unknown friend mentioned to Rick doesn"t come soon, it"ll find me asleep when it does."
"Same here," Rick agreed. "Let"s go up to bed."
Zircon paid the check and they took the elevator. As they walked down the long corridor to their room, Scotty scratched his head. "Mighty funny how everything was arranged for us at Canton Charlie"s, wasn"t it?