THE WHODUNIT COLLECTION: British Murder Mysteries (15 Novels in One Volume)
driver,' he says. ' I'm a doctor and I'm going with her to a specialist at Shepherd's Bush. Drive easy because I don't want her jolted more than can be helped.' With that he gets into the cab at least the door slams just as if he had and I drive off. That's all I know about it, guv'nor, so 'elp me."
"You didn't know she'd been stabbed?"
He shook his head dumbly. Menzies released his grip. "Royal, you'll have to handle this for the time. Go to the nearest doctor first and have her examined. Come along, Hallett."
He caught hold of Jimmie's elbow and without another look at the cab and its grim burden started eagerly forward. "It looks to me," he said in a low voice, as though he was talking to himself, "that we're only just in time. Ling has struck a snag somehow. He must have intended to lie up just as I said and Gwennie and he have quarrelled somehow. If he'd meant to lay her out he'd have done it when it was less awkward for himself. As it is he was pushed to get the body away, or he wouldn't have sent for a taxi and left a trail right back to this joint. He means to vacate quick, and that cab would have gone, in the ordinary way, to the other end of London before we were on to it."
"You think we'll get him this time?" "It's he or I for it now," said Menzies grimly. "Here we are."
He pressed the little electric button at the side door.
Chapter XXXI
The door was flung candidly open and a young Chinese, clad in jersey, trousers supported by a belt, and his feet in carpet slippers, faced the pair. He gave not the slightest sign of astonishment or even of enquiry. His narrow eyes blinked once or twice as he stood, one hand on the door-knob, waiting for them to announce their business.
Menzies swayed a little and there was a touch of indecision in his voice. "I want a drink," he announced. "A drinka lime juice. Me an' my frien' both want a drink of lime juice an' an' a screw o' shag."
"Come light in," said the Chinese, and stood aside. "You want Sing Loo. I go fetch him."
A second door barred the passage a few feet farther along and he glided noiselessly towards it. Menzies reached out to restrain him and then thought better of it. The young man evidently a sort of hall-keeper scratched lightly with his nail at a panel and someone opened a tiny trap-door and a face peered through. Jimmie realised that they were standing under the full glare of a gas jet and subject to the full scrutiny of the man behind the wicket.
There was a rapid interchange of words in incomprehensible language and then the click of a latch. An elderly Chinese with long grey moustache and wrinkled yellow skin came towards them and the door closed again. He spread out his hands in a sort of low obeisance.
"Solly, gentlemen," he murmured softly. "You want pipe?" He regarded them sideways out of his slits of eyes with an expression of artfulness. "Solly."
"Wot in 'ell you palavering about?" demanded Menzies thickly. "Wot are you sorry for? Me an' my mate 'ere wants a smoke. Just off the ' Themistocles,' y' know. We can pay."
The old Chinaman spread out his hands and lowered his head humbly. "Solly," he repeated. "You've made a mistake. My fliend six dolls up you get it. Not hele."
"W'y you rotten slant-eyed old 'eathen," said Menzies irascibly. "Wot ya giving us? You're Sing Loo, ain't you? We was sent to you."
Sing Loo made a gesture of acquiescence. "I've retiled," he said meekly. "My fliend up the stleet give you plenty opium."
It was evident that his suspicions had been aroused in some manner and that he was fully determined they should not set foot within the interior room. Meanwhile time was flying. Menzies took a sudden step and, whirling the Chinaman round, got his left arm in a strangle hold round his throat.
"Make a sound and I'll throttle you," he whispered tensely. "We want to have a look round this j oint savvy? Get that gun out, Hallett. Show it to him. Put the muzzle right between his eyes so that he can see it. That's right. Now shoot the blighter if he makes an ugly move." He released his arm. "Now, my lad, get going. Where is the man and the woman who were here just now?"
Sing Loo's face was blank. If he was frightened he did not show it save by an almost imperceptible whitening of the yellow skin. "No woman has been hele," he stammered.
"Don't lie," said Menzies fiercely. "What do you call that?" He stooped and picked a hairpin from the floor and shook it between his finger and thumb in the Chinaman's face. "I wonder if you're deeper in this than I thought at first?"
His eyes narrowed and he surveyed the yellow face with fresh suspicion.
Sing Loo gave back a step, as it were, involuntarily and Jimmie followed him up with the revolver. He waved a long slender hand in front of his face as though to keep out the view of the menacing blue muzzle. "There has been a woman," he admitted. "She came to see a fliend and she went away in a cab."
"So. We're beginning to get at things at last. How did she come to be here? And keep your voice down. There's no need to shout."
"She came to see a fliend Mr. Ling. He saw hel hele in this passage. They were angly very angly.
Then she fainted and he asked me to send a boy to get a taxi to fetch hel away."
"Sounds as if you might be speaking the truth for once," said Menzies. "Now listen to me, Sing Loo. Is that man here still?"
"Yes, in the back loom. He's going soon after he's had one mole pipe."
"Ah. He's got the craving in his blood, has he? Very well. We're new customers of yours, see? You'll lead us in to where he is, and if you get gay remember my friend's gun is liable to go off, and I'm a badtempered man myself."
"I undelstand," murmured Sing Loo. "Come this way."
Jimmie slipped the weapon into his overcoat pocket and kept his hand on it ready for instant action. Menzies edged up close to Sing Loo and twisted his hand into the other's sleeve. The inner door opened in response to the Chinaman's summons and they found themselves in a passage lighted very dimly in comparison to that outside.
Jimmie's heart was pounding with excitement. He was glad that the chief inspector had permitted him to carry the revolver. He had acquired a certain amount of respect for Menzies, but he also had views about Ling and he was resolved at the first hint of trouble to shoot fast and to shoot first. The legal question of his justification could be settled afterwards.
Menzies, if his face was any index to his feelings, was as unmoved and impassive as though he was about to take a seat in a theatre. Ling was to him merely a piece in the game that was so nearly played out a piece he intended to remove from the board and then to forget, except as something that had played a prominent part in a well-fought game.
They descended a couple of steps into a gloomy room lit by two or three tiny gas jets and a glowing fire. As his eyes became accustomed to the darkness Jimmie saw vague forms about the room, the majority lying on a series of platforms with tiny glass lamps by their sides. They were mostly smoking, one or two cigarettes and others opium. A few were asleep.
The atmosphere was no new one to Jimmie. He recognised the usual paraphernalia of the inyun fun. Each smoker had a tray with his apparatus from the pipe itself to the yen hock used for smoking the opium over the flame of the lamp.
Most of the customers were quite apathetic to the entrance of the new arrivals. Menzies in one rapid glance' gleaned the fact that there was no window and that the only other egress from the room, except that in which they stood, was at the opposite side of the room. In the dim light it was at first impossible to make out the identity of any of the smokers.
He relinquished his grip of Sing Loo's sleeve and bounded across to the other door. Someone raised himself on an elbow. "That you, Menzies?" drawled a lazy voice. "I'll give you credit for being a hustler when you get on the go. Take that, you swine."
A streak of flame split