CHAPTER XI. THE WHITE PEACOCK
Nayland Smith wasted no time in pursuing the plan of campaign which hehad mentioned to Inspector Weymouth. Less than forty-eight hours afterquitting the house of the murdered Slattin, I found myself bound alongWhitechapel Road upon strange enough business.
A very fine rain was falling, which rendered it difficult to see clearlyfrom the windows; but the weather apparently had little effect upon thecommercial activities of the district. The cab was threading a hazardousway through the cosmopolitan throng crowding the street. On either sideof me extended a row of stalls, seemingly established in opposition tothe more legitimate shops upon the inner side of the pavement.
Jewish hawkers, many of them in their shirt-sleeves, acclaimed therarity of the bargains which they had to offer; and, allowing for thedifference of costume, these tireless Israelites, heedless of climaticconditions, sweating at their mongery, might well have stood, not in asqualid London thoroughfare, but in an equally squalid market-street ofthe Orient.
They offered linen and fine raiment; from footgear to hair-oil theirwares ranged. They enlivened their auctioneering with conjuring tricksand witty stories, selling watches by the aid of legerdemain, and fancyvests by grace of a seasonable anecdote.
Poles, Russians, Serbs, Roumanians, Jews of Hungary, and Italiansof Whitechapel mingled in the throng. Near East and Far East rubbedshoulders. Pidgin English contested with Yiddish for the ownership ofsome tawdry article offered by an auctioneer whose nationality defiedconjecture, save that always some branch of his ancestry had drawnnourishment from the soil of Eternal Judea.
Some wearing mens' caps, some with shawls thrown over their oily locks,and some, more true to primitive instincts, defying, bare-headed, theunkindly elements, bedraggled women--more often than not burdened withmuffled infants--crowded the pavements and the roadway, thronged aboutthe stalls like white ants about some choicer carrion.
And the fine drizzling rain fell upon all alike, pattering upon the hoodof the taxi-cab, trickling down the front windows; glistening upon theunctuous hair of those in the street who were hatless; dewing the barearms of the auctioneers, and dripping, melancholy, from the tarpaulincoverings of the stalls. Heedless of the rain above and of the mudbeneath, North, South, East, and West mingled their cries, their bids,their blandishments, their raillery, mingled their persons in thatjoyless throng.
Sometimes a yellow face showed close to one of the streaming windows;sometimes a black-eyed, pallid face, but never a face wholly sane andhealthy. This was an underworld where squalor and vice went hand in handthrough the beautiless streets, a melting-pot of the world's outcasts;this was the shadowland, which last night had swallowed up NaylandSmith.
Ceaselessly I peered to right and left, searching amid that rain-soakedcompany for any face known to me. Whom I expected to find there, I knownot, but I should have counted it no matter for surprise had I detectedamid that ungracious ugliness the beautiful face of Karamaneh theEastern slave-girl, the leering yellow face of a Burmese dacoit, thegaunt, bronzed features of Nayland Smith; a hundred times I almostbelieved that I had seen the ruddy countenance of Inspector Weymouth,and once (at which instant my heart seemed to stand still) I sufferedfrom the singular delusion that the oblique green eyes of Dr. Fu-Manchupeered out from the shadows between two stalls.
It was mere phantasy, of course, the sick imaginings of a mindoverwrought. I had not slept and had scarcely tasted food for morethan thirty hours; for, following up a faint clue supplied by Burke,Slattin's man, and, like his master, an ex-officer of New York Police,my friend, Nayland Smith, on the previous evening had set out in questof some obscene den where the man called Shen-Yan--former keeper of anopium-shop--was now said to be in hiding.
Shen-Yan we knew to be a creature of the Chinese doctor, and only a mosturgent call had prevented me from joining Smith upon this promising,though hazardous expedition.
At any rate, Fate willing it so, he had gone without me; andnow--although Inspector Weymouth, assisted by a number of C. I. D. men,was sweeping the district about me--to the time of my departure nothingwhatever had been heard of Smith. The ordeal of waiting finally hadproved too great to be borne. With no definite idea of what I proposedto do, I had thrown myself into the search, filled with such dreadfulapprehensions as I hope never again to experience.
I did not know the exact situation of the place to which Smith was gone,for owing to the urgent case which I have mentioned, I had been absentat the time of his departure; nor could Scotland Yard enlighten meupon this point. Weymouth was in charge of the case--under Smith'sdirection--and since the inspector had left the Yard, early thatmorning, he had disappeared as completely as Smith, no report havingbeen received from him.
As my driver turned into the black mouth of a narrow, ill-lightedstreet, and the glare and clamor of the greater thoroughfare died behindme, I sank into the corner of the cab burdened with such a sense ofdesolation as mercifully comes but rarely.
We were heading now for that strange settlement off the West India DockRoad, which, bounded by Limehouse Causeway and Pennyfields, and narrowlyconfined within four streets, composes an unique Chinatown, a miniatureof that at Liverpool, and of the greater one in San Francisco. Inspiredwith an idea which promised hopefully, I raised the speaking tube.
"Take me first to the River Police Station," I directed; "alongRatcliffe Highway."
The man turned and nodded comprehendingly, as I could see through thewet pane.
Presently we swerved to the right and into an even narrower street. Thisinclined in an easterly direction, and proved to communicate with a widethoroughfare along which passed brilliantly lighted electric trams. Ihad lost all sense of direction, and when, swinging to the left and tothe right again, I looked through the window and perceived that we werebefore the door of the Police Station, I was dully surprised.
In quite mechanical fashion I entered the depot. Inspector Ryman, ourassociate in one of the darkest episodes of the campaign with the YellowDoctor two years before, received me in his office.
By a negative shake of the head, he answered my unspoken question.
"The ten o'clock boat is lying off the Stone Stairs, Doctor," he said,"and co-operating with some of the Scotland Yard men who are draggingthat district--"
I shuddered at the word "dragging"; Ryman had not used it literally, butnevertheless it had conjured up a dread possibility--a possibility inaccordance with the methods of Dr. Fu-Manchu. All within space of aninstant I saw the tide of Limehouse Reach, the Thames lapping aboutthe green-coated timbers of a dock pier; and rising--falling--sometimesdisclosing to the pallid light a rigid hand, sometimes a horriblybloated face--I saw the body of Nayland Smith at the mercy of those oilywaters. Ryman continued:
"There is a launch out, too, patrolling the riverside from here toTilbury. Another lies at the breakwater"--he jerked his thumb over hisshoulder. "Should you care to take a run down and see for yourself?"
"No, thanks," I replied, shaking my head. "You are doing all that can bedone. Can you give me the address of the place to which Mr. Smith wentlast night?"
"Certainly," said Ryman; "I thought you knew it. You remember Shen-Yan'splace--by Limehouse Basin? Well, further east--east of the Causeway,between Gill Street and Three Colt Street--is a block of woodenbuildings. You recall them?"
"Yes," I replied. "Is the man established there again, then?"
"It appears so, but, although you have evidently not been informed ofthe fact, Weymouth raided the establishment in the early hours of thismorning!"
"Well?" I cried.
"Unfortunately with no result," continued the inspector. "The notoriousShen-Yan was missing, and although there is no real doubt that the placeis used as a gaming-house, not a particle of evidence to that effectcould be obtained. Also--there was no sign of Mr. Nayland Smith, and nosign of the American, Burke, who had led him to the place."
"Is it certain that they went there?"
"Two C. I. D. men who were shadow
ing, actually saw the pair of thementer. A signal had been arranged, but it was never given; and at abouthalf past four, the place was raided."
"Surely some arrests were made?"
"But there was no evidence!" cried Ryman. "Every inch of the rat-burrowwas searched. The Chinese gentleman who posed as the proprietor of whathe claimed to be a respectable lodging-house offered every facility tothe police. What could we do?"
"I take it that the place is being watched?"
"Certainly," said Ryman. "Both from the river and from the shore. Oh!they are not there! God knows where they are, but they are not there!"
I stood for a moment in silence, endeavoring to determine my course;then, telling Ryman that I hoped to see him later, I walked out slowlyinto the rain and mist, and nodding to the taxi-driver to proceed to ouroriginal destination, I re-entered the cab.
As we moved off, the lights of the River Police depot were swallowed upin the humid murk, and again I found myself being carried through thedarkness of those narrow streets, which, like a maze, hold secret withintheir labyrinth mysteries as great, and at least as foul, as that ofPasiphae.
The marketing centers I had left far behind me; to my right stretchedthe broken range of riverside buildings, and beyond them flowed theThames, a stream more heavily burdened with secrets than ever was Tiberor Tigris. On my left, occasional flickering lights broke through themist, for the most part the lights of taverns; and saving these rentsin the veil, the darkness was punctuated with nothing but the faint andyellow luminance of the street lamps.
Ahead was a black mouth, which promised to swallow me up as it hadswallowed up my friend.
In short, what with my lowered condition and consequent frame of mind,and what with the traditions, for me inseparable from that gloomyquarter of London, I was in the grip of a shadowy menace which at anymoment might become tangible--I perceived, in the most commonplaceobjects, the yellow hand of Dr. Fu-Manchu.
When the cab stopped in a place of utter darkness, I aroused myself withan effort, opened the door, and stepped out into the mud of a narrowlane. A high brick wall frowned upon me from one side, and, dimlyperceptible, there towered a smoke stack, beyond. On my right uprosethe side of a wharf building, shadowly, and some distance ahead, almostobscured by the drizzling rain, a solitary lamp flickered. I turned upthe collar of my raincoat, shivering, as much at the prospect as fromphysical chill.
"You will wait here," I said to the man; and, feeling in mybreast-pocket, I added: "If you hear the note of a whistle, drive on andrejoin me."
He listened attentively and with a certain eagerness. I had selectedhim that night for the reason that he had driven Smith and myselfon previous occasions and had proved himself a man of intelligence.Transferring a Browning pistol from my hip-pocket to that of myraincoat, I trudged on into the mist.
The headlights of the taxi were swallowed up behind me, and just abreastof the street lamp I stood listening.
Save for the dismal sound of rain, and the trickling of water along thegutters, all about me was silent. Sometimes this silence would be brokenby the distant, muffled note of a steam siren; and always, forminga sort of background to the near stillness, was the remote din ofriverside activity.
I walked on to the corner just beyond the lamp. This was the street inwhich the wooden buildings were situated. I had expected to detect someevidences of surveillances, but if any were indeed being observed, thefact was effectively masked. Not a living creature was visible, peer asI could.
Plans, I had none, and perceiving that the street was empty, and thatno lights showed in any of the windows, I passed on, only to find that Ihad entered a cul-de-sac.
A rickety gate gave access to a descending flight of stone steps, thebottom invisible in the denser shadows of an archway, beyond which, Idoubted not, lay the river.
Still uninspired by any definite design, I tried the gate and found thatit was unlocked. Like some wandering soul, as it has since seemed tome, I descended. There was a lamp over the archway, but the glass wasbroken, and the rain apparently had extinguished the light; as I passedunder it, I could hear the gas whistling from the burner.
Continuing my way, I found myself upon a narrow wharf with the Thamesflowing gloomily beneath me. A sort of fog hung over the river, shuttingme in. Then came an incident.
Suddenly, quite near, there arose a weird and mournful cry--a cryindescribable, and inexpressibly uncanny!
I started back so violently that how I escaped falling into the riverI do not know to this day. That cry, so eerie and so wholly unexpected,had unnerved me; and realizing the nature of my surroundings, and thefolly of my presence alone in such a place, I began to edge back towardthe foot of the steps, away from the thing that cried; when--a greatwhite shape uprose like a phantom before me!...
There are few men, I suppose, whose lives have been crowded with so manyeerie happenings as mine, but this phantom thing which grew out of thedarkness, which seemed about to envelope me, takes rank in my memoryamongst the most fearsome apparitions which I have witnessed.
I knew that I was frozen with a sort of supernatural terror. I stoodthere with hands clenched, staring--staring at that white shape, whichseemed to float.
As I stared, every nerve in my body thrilling, I distinguished theoutline of the phantom. With a subdued cry, I stepped forward. A newsensation claimed me. In that one stride I passed from the horrible tothe bizarre.
I found myself confronted with something tangible, certainly, butsomething whose presence in that place was utterly extravagant--couldonly be reconcilable in the dreams of an opium slave.
Was I awake, was I sane? Awake and sane beyond doubt, but surelymoving, not in the purlieus of Limehouse, but in the fantastic realms offairyland.
Swooping, with open arms, I rounded up in an angle against the buildingand gathered in this screaming thing which had inspired in me so keen aterror.
The great, ghostly fan was closed as I did so, and I stumbled backtoward the stair with my struggling captive tucked under my arm; Imounted into one of London's darkest slums, carrying a beautiful whitepeacock!