INTO THE TRAP
MOOSE SHARGIN and Garry Elvers stopped by a pair of steps that led to a basement door. They were in the heart of New York’s Chinatown. They were standing outside a spot well known to those members of the underworld who knew the ways of the Chinese. This was the lair of Wing Toy.
The gang leader and his bodyguard held a muffled conversation. They looked around them suspiciously; then, as though satisfied that no one was watching, they descended the steps.
They did not glance behind them as they tapped upon the door at the foot of the steps. Even when the barrier opened mechanically, they glanced only straight before them as they entered.
Hence, they did not see a shadowy form that almost floated across the narrow street to merge with the darkness of the cracked stone steps.
Shargin and his underling were in a long, dilapidated passage. The wall on the right was blank, save for a single door some twenty feet ahead. On the left were various doors all closed. These indicated that the place had once been a hop joint. Now it showed signs of disuse.
The only person in the passage was a tall, solemn-faced Mongolian. He had pressed the button to admit the gangsters. Now he was standing by what appeared to be his accustomed post — the single door on the right of the passage.
The corridor terminated in a heavy metal door, which evidently led to a large room at the end of the passage.
Moose, with the air of one familiar with his surroundings, approached the Mongolian guard and muttered a few words.
The big Chinaman scanned the speaker’s face in the gloom and grunted an expression of assent. He pressed a button beside the door.
A minute passed; then came a buzzing sound. The door pushed open as Moose pressed against it. The gang leader entered, with Garry at his heels.
Here was a strange passageway. Gloomier than the other corridor and narrower, it led to a short flight of steps.
The men went up to a landing, with a door at the left. Then they descended the same number of steps. The passage turned to the right at a right angle.
Along this they walked; then arrived at another turn to the right. This portion of the passage brought them to an abrupt ending, with a closed door at the right.
Shargin knocked. There was another buzz. The door opened. The gangsters stepped into a strange, dimly lighted den.
THIS room, square in shape, was situated completely within the four passages which the visitors had followed. That, in itself, was an oddity; but the appearance of the room was even more remarkable.
It was a peculiar medley of Oriental lavishness and Occidental practicability.
The main furnishings of the room were Chinese. The paneled walls were decorated with painted dragons. The chairs, the single couch, and all the trappings, were bizarre. Taborets, splendid in color, served as stools.
Yet, in the midst of this Pekinese setting was a roll-topped desk with swivel chair and a dial telephone of French style.
The single occupant of the room was himself a mingling of West and East. He was a Chinaman whose parchmentlike face would have befitted a Tibetan lama.
He was garbed in American clothing, but his garments were a somber black, save for his white shirt and collar, and the stiff, white cuffs that showed at his wrists.
He was Wing Toy, the modernesque Tong leader, under whose regime the devastating wars of Chinatown had come to an abrupt ending.
Moose Shargin and Garry Elvers stood in the presence of the Celestial big shot.
Wing Toy waved them to seats. Moose chose a curved Chinese chair. Garry rested himself upon a taboret.
The Chinaman looked peacefully at Moose, as though waiting for the gangster to state his errand. Moose responded.
“How’s the guy making out?” questioned the gang leader, inclining his head toward the opposite wall.
“As usual,” responded Wing Toy.
“That’s good,” commented Moose. “We’d figured on getting him out of here before this, but—”
“There is no hurry,” declared Wing Toy.
“I know that,” declared Moose. “But we’re up against a tough situation, Wing Toy. You remember what you told me when I brought him here — that if any one else came for him, there would be trouble—”
“I remember.”
“Well, we figure that some one is coming for him; and we want the trouble to land.”
Wing Toy placidly awaited an explanation.
“There’s one guy,” stated Moose, “just one, who is wise to the fact that we took this fellow Galvin away.”
“A policeman?”
“No.”
WING TOY shrugged his shoulders. He was indifferent to any forces other than those of the law. Not because he feared them, but because it was his policy to keep in their good graces.
Wing Toy, as a power, had brought peace to Chinatown. He took his tributes from the leaders of small tongs. He engaged in the opium business only indirectly.
Detectives found him useful and helpful. They never bothered him. He was applying the racket idea to the Americanized Chinese.
This was known to Moose Shargin; hence the gangster understood the Chinaman’s shrug. Nevertheless, he was anxious to convince Wing Toy that a real menace existed.
“Did you ever hear of The Shadow?” asked Moose.
“The Shadow?”
“Yes; the bird that tries to crimp anything he thinks is crooked, but doesn’t need the cops to help him—”
Wing Toy nodded suddenly.
“Yes,” he declared, “I have heard of him. Once a long time ago — this Shadow made trouble with some Chinese. He is the one that seeks your prisoner?”
“Yes. We’ve been watching for him, but so far, he has laid low. So we’re trying the decoy stuff. We’ve played it so he knows where we have gone. He may be on our trail now.”
“That was not wise,” observed Wing Toy. “It would have been better to have led him to some other place.”
“You don’t know The Shadow. He’s uncanny, that bird. Even now, it’s a safe bet that he knows we’re giving him some leads. But he won’t stop at any danger.
“If he knows where Galvin is, he’ll come there. So we figured it was best to bring him here. There’s another reason, too, Wing Toy. We knew that if anybody could trap him, you could.”
The Chinaman showed no notice of the compliment.
“I have no quarrel with The Shadow,” he said.
“That doesn’t make any difference,” declared Moose. “We have! You’re watching Galvin, aren’t you? If The Shadow comes here, it’s your job—”
“It is my job to take care of those who come here. Not those who are brought—” Wing Toy hesitated thoughtfully, and raised his hand for silence as Moose began an objection. “But there is a certain justice in your request. You are bringing The Shadow here — yet he is coming of his own free will. Is that correct?”
Moose nodded.
“Therefore,” said Wing Toy, in his slow, careful English, “while you yourselves would like to trap him, you feel that only I am capable.”
“That’s it,” said Moose, in a complimentary tone.
“Then,” declared the Chinaman, “it shall be what you call fifty-fifty.”
“How’s that?”
“I shall show you how to catch The Shadow. You shall do the catching.”
“Great!” exclaimed Moose, with a sidelong glance toward the silent Garry.
“You say that The Shadow does not fear danger?” questioned Wing Toy.
“He’ll go anywhere,” declared Moose. “But they say he is as clever as a fox.”
“The fox is clever,” said Wing Toy, “but it is man who has declared him clever. So man is clever as the fox. So we say in China, where man traps the fox, but the fox never traps man. Look.”
He arose and walked to the far wall. He pressed a hidden spot. A panel slid to one side, revealing a low, narrow opening.
This explained the landing in the passage. Ostensibly giving access to a side room, the landing also allowed for this short tunnel. Wing Toy pointed to a dim door at the end of the cavity.
“There is the prisoner,” he said. “Behind that door. Could you find this opening? Would you care to enter?”
The panel closed as Moose Shargin answered.
“I couldn’t find it,” he declared. “You remember how I tried? I’ve seen you open it half a dozen times yet it beats me.”
“Answer my other question. Would you care to enter it, if you did find it?”
“No, I don’t think I would.”
“Very good. People are not supposed to find that place. They are not supposed to enter it. Come here.”
Moose advanced to a spot slightly to the left of the mechanical panel.
“Try to find an opening here,” suggested Wing Toy.
The gangster ran his hand up and down the wall. Suddenly he touched a secret spring even though his touch was blundering.
A duplicate panel opened. It revealed another short tunnel, with a door at the other end. A light shone through a tiny round window, like through a porthole.
With an exclamation of surprise, Moose entered the short passage and put his eyes to the window. He came back with a questioning look on his face.
“I can see into Galvin’s room from there,” he said. “He’s asleep—”
“That is not important,” said Wing Toy. “You found the spring, did you not?”
“Sure. It was easy.”
“You went through the opening, did you not?”
“Sure. I wanted to see through that little window in the door.”
“There is no door,” declared Wing Toy. “That is a wall, at the other end. A wall, made to look like a door. The window is of glass that cannot be broken.”
“What’s the idea?”
The Chinaman walked across the room, opened a closet to reveal an electric switch on a panel.
He pulled the switch. A sheet of steel dropped like a curtain, closing the panel. Both Shargin and Elvers uttered an exclamation of surprise.
“That little tunnel,” explained Wing Toy, “goes also under the landing. But it is made easy to find. It is made to coax people to enter.
“When one person enters it, another person, in this closet, can make that person stay.”
“A trap!” exclaimed Moose.
“The Chinese look for secret places,” said Wing Toy solemnly. “Some of them have found this. They have gone in, because that little window has coaxed them. Never has one failed to go in. Never has one come out — by himself.”
“Why?”
The Chinaman pointed to a cord beside the switch. “When this is drawn,” he explained, “a gas will enter that closed tunnel. That gas will kill.”
“I get you!” exclaimed Moose. “You figure we can let The Shadow come in here, find the tunnel and go in — then some one in this closet—”
Wing Toy nodded. He indicated an opening in the carved door of the closet. It made a perfect peephole, so that a man hidden there could see what happened in the room.
“Who will be there?” asked Moose.
The Chinaman pointed to Garry Elvers.
“But if The Shadow knows we came in here,” objected Moose, “he’ll wonder why Garry hasn’t come out—”
“I shall take care of that,” said Wing Toy. He picked up a hat and overcoat from a taboret in the corner. Donning the garments, he pointed to the door.
The three men went through the right-angled passages until they came to the outer door. There, Wing Toy pressed a latch. They stepped out into the corridor.
The Mongolian guard, his hands nestled in his bosom, leaned forward to scan the faces of Moose Shargin and Garry Elvers, as though to make sure that they were the two men who had entered.
Moose had not noticed the man’s face before. Even now, it was obscure in the dimness. But he detected an odd sparkle in the eyes. They seemed to glow like beads of light in the hollows of that yellow face.
The big Chinaman appeared to be staring at the visitor through a mask.
During this scrutiny, the Mongolian’s back was toward Wing Toy. Having finished his inspection of Shargin, the big man studied Elvers. He then turned to the door to make sure that it was tightly closed.
He did not face Wing Toy at all. The Tong leader spoke while the big man’s back was turned. Wing Toy’s words were in Chinese; the Mongolian uttered a low reply in the same language. Wing Toy spoke again, the man grunted a reply.
Wing Toy motioned to Moose and Garry to follow as he went toward the street door.
The three stood within the door, Wing Toy speaking in a low undertone while he glanced back at the guardian of the door.
“When we get out of here,” he said, “make it plain that we are separating to rejoin later. Then if we are overheard—”
Moose and Garry nodded.
“You” — Wing Toy indicated Garry — “go to the Manchu Restaurant, in the next street.” He drew a card from his coat pocket and slipped it into Garry’s hand. “Ask for Looey Look. Give him this. He will take you back to the room.
“You” — Wing Toy turned to Moose — “go in there a little later. Also ask for Looey Look. You will find me there.”
“What about the guy by the door?” Moose indicated the big Mongolian with his thumb.
“He will follow directly after us.”
Wing Toy threw a last look toward the big guard. Wing Toy’s brow furrowed slightly. He watched. The man made no movement whatever.
The Tong leader seemed satisfied. He opened the door to the street.
GARRY ELVERS separated from his companions while Moose was talking rather loudly to Wing Toy. Glancing back over his shoulder, Garry saw the two men walk away in the opposite direction.
Garry strolled around the block, spied the door of the Manchu Restaurant, and entered. He asked for Looey Look.
Garry was taken to a Chinaman who wore a perfect-fitting Tuxedo. Looey Look received the card.
“Come in the office,” said Look.
He led the way up a flight of steps, turned abruptly, and went into a little room. He closed the door and opened a full-length mirror from the wall. This revealed a passage.
Garry followed him to the end; there Looey Look pushed open a barrier and they entered another room. This opening also proved to be a mirror. The Chinaman unlocked a door.
Garry found himself on the little landing in the labyrinth of passages that surrounded Wing Toy’s sanctum.
“Go on,” said Looey Look. “Pull the knob. The door will open.”
Garry obeyed. He reached Wing Toy’s room, closed the door behind him, and bestowed himself in the closet.
Garry was no schemer, yet he understood Wing Toy’s cleverness. The door to the room was tricky; so was the panel on the opposite wall, although now that Garry knew of it, he could almost see its edges from the peephole.
These tricks were not too apparent; nor were they too easy to discover.
Garry saw the door of the room tremble. He held his hand against the switch. The door opened.
Garry had expected to see a black-clad form come into the dim light. Instead, it was a Chinaman who entered.
Garry recognized the man as the Mongolian guard, not by the face, which Garry had not noticed closely, but by the man’s posture.
The big Chinaman stood in the center of the room and looked about him. Garry wondered what he was doing here. The man was disobeying orders. Wing Toy had told him to leave — at least, so Wing Toy had said.
The Chinaman was scrutinizing every part of the room. Garry could see his eyes gleam. The gangster sensed danger from this man.
With his left hand still on the switch, Garry drew an automatic with his right. No use to let this fellow spoil the game. Garry decided to step out of the closet and order the man to depart.
At that instant, something made the gangster delay.
The Chinaman was looking at the secret panel that led to the blind tunnel. He strode across the room and placed his hand upon it. The panel opened suddenly. The man walked in.
Acting instinctively, Garry pulled the switch. The steel curtain dropped.
Garry laughed gleefully, like a child with a new plaything. He had trapped the intruder — the man who had disobeyed!
Still chuckling mercilessly, Garry reached for the cord to release the flow of gas.