He turned, and next moment the panel had swung silently shut behind him.
Monte Jerome was the first of the three to recover.
"Come on—we've got to get him!" he cried.
"That was the Chink we saw spieling with the Count," the "Kid" cried hoarsely. "But, for the love of cripe, how did he get here?"
Monte snarled wolfishly:
"Ask him that! We've got to bust through here—"
His compact body landed against the panel. It shook, but refused to yield.
"Come back here! Now, all together!" bellowed Monte.
The three leaped forward and struck the partition.
This time it swung inward, slowly and without a sound. The crooks leaped through the opening, and the "Kid" flashed his torch. They were standing just inside a vast, windowless room, at whose farther side they had a glimpse of sagging timbers and ruined walls. Nowhere was there a sign of the man who had eluded them.
"Get a move on!" Monte growled throatily. His lip drew up and he snarled at his companions: "A hell of a bunch of crooks, we are! Why didn't you take a shot at him, when you saw he was going to make a getaway?"
The "Kid" glared back.
"Cut out that kind of talk, Chief! You got a gat, and two hands! He buffaloed you just like he did us! Be a sport and take your medicine!"
A determined search of the ruined chamber yielded no results. The "Kid" dropped to his stomach and wormed his way under the mass of timbers at the farther side. He found the beginning of a stone-lined tunnel, which dipped abruptly into the earth.
Damp, mouldy air fanned his cheeks; and as he crouched, motionless, listening, a distant reverberation came to him from the bowels of the earth. It sounded like the clanking of a great iron door.
"Let me out of this!" he growled, as he backed toward his companions. "We got a fat chance of following that yellow devil into his hole. You go, if you want to!"
Monte shook his head. He had regained his poise, and he had been thinking.
"No use trying to follow," he admitted. "We got to comb Chinatown for the two of them. They can't live down in that burrow forever. But why did this duck show himself? He must have known we were here—he could hear us talking!"
The "Kid" smiled craftily.
"Maybe him and the Count left something," he suggested. "We better have a look!"
"No, they didn't leave nothing, I would have seen it if they had. I got an idea the Chink wanted us to see him! He stood there with his face turned into the light. Well, we got to find him! That's flat!"
CHAPTER FOUR
THE MAN IN THE LIGHTED ROOM
THE WOLVES shifted their quarters that night to a rooming-house on the edge of Chinatown, and the search for Colonel Knight and his mysterious companion, the tall Chinaman, began.
For three days they worked feverishly. Monte Jerome seemed never to sleep, and his temper was not at all improved by the ordeal. He drove his companions fiercely, and only the fact that they were playing for big stakes prevented open rebellion.
On the fourth day Monte and the "Kid," who were loitering, alert but almost hopeless, in the entrance to a building in one of the narrow streets of the Oriental quarter, caught sight of a figure disappearing through a doorway. It was a tall figure, partly concealed by a light overcoat; but both of them leaped forward at the same instant:
"That was the Chink, sure as God made little red apples!" the "Kid" snapped.
They crossed the street. Several automobiles were drawn up close to the curb, among them a big blue limousine from which the Chinaman had stepped a moment before they identified him. Monte approached a well-dressed gentleman, who had just come out of the building, and asked him what was going on inside.
"This is the fall exhibition of the iconoclasts," the stranger explained good-naturedly.
He seemed to be sizing up the two crooks.
"I think you boys would enjoy it," he added mischievously. "The admission is only fifty cents."
Monte and the "Kid" bought tickets, and presently they entered a big room with a high ceiling, upon whose walls were hung a number of gaudy paintings. The newcomers stared round at the fifty or more spectators who were making the rounds of the gallery.
"Hell!" growled the "Kid," "this ain't no place for an honest strongarm man—Let's beat it and send for Doc!"
Monte gripped his arm.
"Look!" he said under his breath. "Over there near the corner!"
The "Kid" looked stealthily as directed, and perceived the tall man in the gray topcoat. He was standing with his back to them, examining a red and yellow daub that looked like an omelette liberally seasoned with paprika.
"That's him!" Monte whispered. "All right, Kid! You have Mike bring the cab down to the corner where we was waiting. Then, when this duck beats it out of here, I'll hop in and we'll follow him!"
Half an hour later the tall man in the gray coat—who in American garb looked more like an Oriental than he had when dressed as a Chinaman—paused to look deliberately at his watch, and then turned to the outer door.
By the time he stepped into the blue limousine, Monte had reached the corner and was climbing in beside the driver of the taxi. The "Kid" had the window down, and was kneeling with his head close to the driver's.
"How 'bout it, Mike!" Monte demanded. "Can you keep 'em in sight?"
"Watch me!" snorted the driver. "There ain't no Chink going can leave me behind. Did you see that chauffer? Got a face like a monkey!"
There was no difficulty, for the present, in keeping the blue limousine in sight, however. It went sedately down a side street and took the turn toward the ferry. Five minutes later Monte and the Kid saw the cab in which they were seated draw in behind the larger car, and roll over the landing platform. The limousine was stationed on the right, and the cab on the left, of the big boat.
Monte scrambled down, and with a curt command to the other two made his way around to where he could see the enclosed car. The man in the gray overcoat was seated inside, with a coffee-brown Chinaman in livery at the wheel. Monte kept them in sight till the ferry was approaching the slip. Then he hurried back and climbed in again beside the driver.
"Here's where they'll try to leave us behind, if they have any idea we're following!" he predicted.
"Let 'em," growled Mike. "If we don't get took in by a speed cop, I won't never let no Chink drive away from me! You boys just hang onto your bonnets, and watch us!"
The big blue car seemed to have accepted this challenge. The little man at the wheel swung out and passed half a dozen slower machines, then took the center of the road and held it.
With the coming of evening, a powdery fog swooped down over the ridges to the west, and suddenly the tail lights of the limousine shot up in the gloom
