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Page 38
"He says will you bring his overall? Do you know where to find
it?"
"Yes, yes!" cried Dan excitedly, delighted to be thus made a
party to his father's activities.
"Well, get it. Jump on a tram at the Town Hall and bring the
overall along here. Your mother will not object, will she?"
"Of course not," cried Dan. "I'll tell her. Am I to start now?"
"Yes, right away."
Mrs. Kerry was sewing by the fire in the dining room when her
son came in with the news, his blue eyes sparkling excitedly.
She nodded her head slowly.
"Ye'll want ye'r Burberry and ye'r thick boots," she declared, "a
muffler, too, and ye'r oldest cap. I think it's madness for ye
to go out on such a night, but----"
"Father said I could," protested the boy.
"He says so, and ye shall go, but I think it madness a' the
same."
However, some ten minutes later young Kerry set out, keenly
resenting the woollen muffler which he had been compelled to
wear, and secretly determined to remove it before mounting the
tram. Across one arm he carried the glistening overall which was
the Chief Inspector's constant companion on wet nights abroad.
The fog had turned denser, and ten paces from the door of the
house took him out of sight of the light streaming from the
hallway.
Mary Kerry well knew her husband's theories about coddling boys,
but even so could not entirely reconcile herself to the present
expedition. However, closing the door, she returned
philosophically to her sewing, reflecting that little harm could
come to Dan after all, for he was strong, healthy, and
intelligent.
On went the boy through the mist, whistling merrily. Not twenty
yards from the house a coupe was drawn up, and by the light of
one of its lamps a man was consulting a piece of paper on which,
presumably, an address was written; for, as the boy approached,
the man turned, his collar pulled up about his face, his hat
pulled down.
"Hallo!" he called. "Can you please tell me something?"
He spoke with a curious accent, unfamiliar to the boy. "A
foreigner of some kind," young Kerry determined.
"What is it?" he asked, pausing.
"Will you please read and tell me if I am near this place?" the
man continued, holding up the paper which he had been
scrutinizing.
Dan stepped forward and bent over it. He could not make out the
writing, and bent yet more, holding it nearer to the lamp. At
which moment some second person neatly pinioned him from behind,
a scarf was whipped about his head, and, kicking furiously but
otherwise helpless, he felt himself lifted and placed inside the
car.
The muffler had been thrown in such fashion about his face as to
leave one eye partly free, and as he was lifted he had a
momentary glimpse of his captors. With a thrill of real, sickly
terror he realized that he was in the hands of Chinamen!
Perhaps telepathically this spasm of fear was conveyed to his
father, for it was at about this time that the latter was
interviewing Zani Chada, and at about this time that Kerry
recognized, underlying the other's words, at once an ill-
concealed suspense and a threat. Then, a few minutes later, had
come the three strokes of the gong; and again that unreasonable
dread had assailed him, perhaps because it signalized the capture
of his son, news of which had been immediately telephoned to
Limehouse by Zani Chada's orders.
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