Francis Doughty - The Bradys After a Chinese Princess - or, The Yellow Fiends of 'Frisco

"Always have had. Would you like to question him? I will send for him if you wish."

"No; I think not. I certainly do suspect the man of being mixed up in this business, but it will do no good to make him aware of it; still I should like to be given the opportunity to search these warehouses in every part."

"And so you shall. I will go with you myself. If there is any crooked work going on here I want to know it."

The search was made accordingly, but nothing came of it.

"Listen, Mr. Renshaw," said the old detective as they were about to part. "To-day a laboring man will apply for work at this office. He wants to be hired and given a job, which will enable him to watch Volckman."

"I understand," was the reply, "and so it shall be."

And so it was. Secret Service man Leggett, an excellent detective in his way, was the person selected, but three days passed, and at the end of that time he had nothing to report.

Nor had a word been heard of Alice.

This time her disappearance seemed to be a serious matter.

The Bradys exhausted every effort to find her, but in vain.

It is needless to dwell upon the anxiety of the Bradys over the strange vanishing of their accomplished partner.

They were otherwise very seriously inconvenienced.

The Secret Service people, satisfied with the very valuable haul the detectives had made in the line of smuggled opium, now called them off.

The Bradys are not regular Secret Service men.

They have, however, an arrangement with the Government under which their services can be claimed at any time.

The day after Alice's disappearance Old King Brady was notified by Mr. Narraway that the regular force would finish up the matter, inasmuch as he felt satisfied that the heavy loss they had sustained must have bankrupted the smugglers.

Thus under ordinary circumstances the detectives would have made haste to cross the continent and get back to their own business in New York.

As it was, they had no idea of leaving San Francisco yet awhile, of course.

Each day was devoted to the search for Alice.

Even the police took a hand in the game, much as Old King Brady dislikes to have them mix up in his affairs, but as we have said before, it was all in vain.

On the morning of the fourth day before the Bradys had yet left the hotel, a page announced that a Chinaman wished to speak to the old detective, and at the same time he handed in a business card printed in English on one side, and in Chinese on the other.

The English side read thus:

LUNG & LUNG,

General Importers,

1015 Dupont Street,

San Francisco, Cal.

Ah Lung

Gee Lung

Wun Lung.

"The whole Lung family," remarked the old detective, looking at the card. "Show the man up."

It proved to be Ah Lung who came.

He was a very much Americanized proposition, California born and college educated.

In short, both in dress, intelligence and manner he was as perfect a specimen of a Chinese gentleman as the Bradys had ever seen.

Before proceeding further we must pause to explain that while the Bradys through their influence had been able to keep the matter of Alice's disappearance and the boxed-up princess off the police blotter, and so out of the papers, it was an open secret among the force.

Consequently it was no surprise to the detectives to have this Chinaman at once allude to it.

"Mr. Brady," he began, "I want you if you will to take up an important matter for our firm, which you will find upon investigation, if you are not already aware of it, stands high in San Francisco commercial circles."

Old King Brady had heard of the firm of Lung & Lung, and said so. He doubted, however, if he cared to take up a case for them.

"It is work you are already engaged in," replied Ah Lung quickly. "It concerns the Chinese princess, Skeep Hup, who disappeared along with your Miss Montgomery the other day."

"What do you know about that?" demanded Old King Brady, "and who told you?"

"My information comes through my cousin, who is interpreter at police headquarters," replied Ah Lung. "I am prepared to tell you what I know of the Chinese princess. I suppose the information will interest you in any case."

"It certainly will," said the old detective. "Fire away, Mr. Lung. This puts altogether a different face on the matter."

"It is this way," continued Ah Lung. "I have had frequent occasion in the course of business to visit China, and, being a merchant, am allowed to come and go as I please. When in Pekin, some three years ago, I was introduced to this Chinese princess, as you have called her. She is not actually a member of the Imperial family, but the daughter of a very wealthy Mandarin. I fell in love with her, and it was finally arranged that we should marry. It was my intention to go to China after her, but the illness of my brother Wun prevented it, so she started to come to me. I supposed her to be a passenger on the Manchuria, the last steamer in from China. I was so informed by letters I received, but when I went to meet her at the wharf, I was surprised to learn that her name was not on the passenger list. Both the purser and the steward informed me that she had not been seen on the steamer.

"I immediately cabled to China, but it was only to be told that she had started for Shanghai with the intention of taking passage on the Manchuria, and that it was supposed by the family that she had done so. She traveled from Pekin in company of a man named Wang Foo, a cousin of hers. This person was to return to Pekin after seeing the princess off. He had failed to put in an appearance at the time the answer to my cablegram was sent, nor had anything been heard from him.

"You can imagine my anxiety, gentlemen. I was quite at a loss to know what to do when my cousin told me the story of your adventures with that bunch of opium smugglers. That was late last night, and not wishing to disturb you, I put off my call until this morning. If you can find my intended, you will probably also solve the mystery of the disappearance of your partner. It is up to you."

"Oh we will take up your case, of course, Mr. Lung," said Old King Brady. "Have you any idea what the motive for all this can be? Any starting clew to give us?"

"None whatever. I am just as much in the dark over the matter as you are."

"Suppose this Wang Foo wanted to marry the princess?"

"Would he box her up and treat her as he has if he loved her?" put in Harry, speaking for the first time.

"Listen," said Ah Lung, "Chinamen are not all fiends, as you may think."

"I don't think so," retorted Harry. "There are white fiends as well as yellow fiends."

"You are more liberal-minded than most of your race," replied the Chinaman, "but we will leave the white fiends out of the question. Yellow ones there certainly are in this town, and I greatly fear that it is into their hands the princess has fallen."

"Is there money coming to the man who marries her?" demanded Old King Brady, abruptly.

"That's just it. There was $20,000 of what you call dowry to go with the princess. As you are probably aware, among my people women rarely carry with them dowry. On the other hand, men who want to marry have to pay for their wives – buy them, you call it, though I never could understand where the difference comes in between paying for husbands, as is done right along in America. However, that is not the point. In this case it is different. The Princess Skeep Hup had in her own right $10,000, given to her by her mother. As our women do not take care of their own money matters, that money was to come to me. It was sent to me by mail in the form of a draft on the Bank of California, and I have it now, so that can't be the reason for kidnaping the princess, you see."