He seemed to know just where he was going. He paused only once, to cast a fleeting glance over his shoulder. Then he resumed his journey.
He had seen that the man in the ulster was following; and now, after traversing half a block of squalid, deserted street, the youngster turned abruptly into a pestilential-looking alley. This alley lay close to the top of a hill, and for a moment the man and the boy, who appeared to be his guide, could look down over the roofs to where the gay lights of Chinatown twinkled alluringly.
Presently the diminutive Oriental paused just outside a doorway. The man who had been following him came up, with a curious suggestion of eagerness and suspicion. Looking over the shoulder of the figure before him, he was able to make out the entrance to a narrow flight of unlighted stairs, which plunged steeply into the earth beneath a dilapidated building.
"Do we have to go down there, boy?" the man demanded.
"All a-same down here, master," the youngster replied. "You come close—I show you!"
He began to descend as he spoke; and the man, after a moment of hesitation, plunged through the doorway after him. His manner was that of one who is taking a horribly unpleasant remedy, hoping to cure a still more horrible disease.
The diminutive Chinaman reached the bottom of the stairs and waited for his companion. When he felt the man's heavy hand on his shoulder, he turned to his right, advancing cautiously through an almost impenetrable darkness.
There was a smell of dry rot in this basement, and around their feet rats scampered and squeaked. The man's hand shook, and his breath came with a hissing sound through his clenched teeth.
"Now we go down again, master," the boy announced presently. He had paused and turned again to the right. "You keep close—I show you!"
A step at a time, they descended a second flight of stairs. On either side were rough stone walls, powdery with mildew. The man discovered this with his free left hand. Strange odors came to him. Abruptly a bell rang, somewhere in the bowels of the darkness below them.
The boy stopped in his tracks.
"Now you go down, master," he commanded. "Ah Wing waiting for you—you-go slow. Goo'-by!"
He slipped out from under the heavy hand that would have detained him, and the man heard him go scampering like one of the rats up the stairs and away through the upper corridors.
Terror gripped the man left alone there on the stairs. He felt that he was in a trap—and he had been evading traps so long now that they had become an obsession with him.
He cried out, hoarsely, and as he did so a door opened below and a flood of light shone out.
"Pray continue your descent, Colonel Knight," a cultured voice commanded from somewhere within the lighted room whose door had just opened. "The stairs are quite secure, and I am awaiting you!"
With a plunge that hinted at desperation, the man addressed as "Colonel Knight" reached the bottom of the stairs and crossed to the door. He paused there for a moment, till his eyes adjusted themselves to the change in illumination. Then he stepped inside, and heard the heavy door close behind him.
The room he had entered was of considerable extent, but was almost destitute of furniture. There were bare walls, dusty with green mildew; and bare floors, covered with layers of dust and litter. There were two chairs, one of which was already occupied.
And as the newcomer's eyes rested on the occupant of that chair, all his doubts and fears returned to him. He had come to this unearthly spot to get away from almost certain death. Now he was not certain that the remedy would not prove worse than the disease.
The man sitting there, facing him, was dressed like a Chinaman, in silk trousers and coat, satin slippers, and black silk cap; but his eyes were of a metallic gray, and his high, thin-bridged nose spoke of Nordic blood. He would have been tall had he been standing. His hands were lying passive in his lap, but they were the hands of a man of great physical power.
And above all these details and beyond them was something the man in the ulster could not quite define—a radiation of power, as if the intellect and will of this strange being seated before him saturated the atmosphere of the empty room.
"Pray be seated, Colonel Knight!" the man in the chair said courteously. "I am glad to meet you. You have been recommended to me by a former student of mine—you know that I take only a few cases. It will be best for you to tell me your story, fully and accurately."
Colonel Knight lowered himself into the empty chair. His eyes still peered out through the gap in his collar, and seemed to be fastened on the face of the man before him.
Then, slowly and grudgingly he removed his cap and turned down his collar, disclosing the pouchy face of a man well advanced into middle age. It was a face suggesting daring and resourcefulness, this face of Colonel Knight; and for a few moments the two sat staring curiously at each other.
"I think I can condense that statement I have to make," the white man said finally. "I am a man of wealth. Five years ago, while traveling in Europe, I had the misfortune to attract the attention of the greatest gang of international thieves ever organized. Perhaps you have heard of them? They were called 'The Evening Wolves,' and were led by a man who called himself 'Count von Hondon'."
He paused for an instant to regard his companion curiously, but the Oriental merely bowed and sat impassively waiting.
"These men must have followed me about for some time before they struck. Finally they saw their chance. I was packed to leave Paris for Belgium, and they undoubtedly figured that I would have much of wealth with me.
"I did—but I had other things they had overlooked. I had my pistols, and I am a dead shot. I killed two of the robbers, and the rest fled. I supposed that would settle the matter, but I was mistaken. Five members of the gang were left alive, and they swore to be revenged upon me. They have followed me—"
A bell rang shrilly somewhere close at hand, and Colonel Knight leaped from his chair and looked wildly at his companion.
"What was that?" he cried. "That bell rang when I was descending the stairs—"
"Someone followed you here," the other replied, "and is now trying to reach us. Pray continue!"
"But that man upon the stairs—"
"We will come to him presently. Let me ask you to finish!"
"There is nothing more! I have been followed for years, and now a physical trouble is added—my physician tells me I am going blind. I can't see to run—"
The Chinaman eyed his companion deliberately.
"Why lie to me, my friend?" he demanded presently. "You come to me for help, and you wish to steal my ammunition! Now let me reconstruct your story for you. You yourself are 'Count von Hondon.' You were the leader of the master crooks called 'The Evening Wolves.' Five years ago you and your men made a rich haul, and you decided that a time had come to retire, or perhaps to go in by yourself. You departed,
