ter, and when sufficiently revived he crawled forth to find what
had once been Quong lying across the threshold, the murderers gone, and
the Italian woman prostrate and shrieking with a hip splintered by a
stray bullet. On the sidewalk outside the window lay the remnants of the
bag of pepper, a knife broken short off at the handle, a heavy bar of
soft iron slightly bent, and a partially emptied forty-four-caliber
revolver. Quong's suit of mail had effectually protected him from the
knife thrust and the revolver shots, but his skull was crushed beyond
repair. Thus was the murder of Wah Sing avenged in due and proper form.

Detective Mooney, distant not more than two hundred feet, rushed back to
the corner at the sound of the first shot--just in time to catch a side
glimpse of Mock Hen as he raced across Pell Street and disappeared into
the cellar of the Great Shanghai Tea Company. The Italian woman was
filling the air with her outcries, but the detective did not pause in
his hurtling pursuit. He was too late, however. The cellar door
withstood all his efforts to break it open.

Bull Neck Burke, the wrestler, who tied Zabisko once on the stage of the
old Grand Opera House in 1913, had been promenading with Mollie Malone,
of the Champagne Girls and Gay Burlesquers Company. Both heard the
fusillade and saw Mock--a streak of flying blue--pass within a few feet
of them.

"God!" ejaculated Mollie. "Sure as shootin', that's Mock Hen--and he's
murdered somebody!"

"It's Mock all right!" agreed Bull Neck. "That puts us in as witnesses
or strike me!" And he looked at his watch--four one.

"Here, Burke, put your shoulder to this!" shouted Mooney from the cellar
steps. "Now then!"

The two of them threw their combined weight against it, the lock flew
open and they fell forward into the darkness. Three doors leading in
different directions met the glare of Mooney's match. But the fugitive
had a start of at least four minutes, which was three and a half more
than he required.

* * * * *

Mock Hen took the left-hand of the three doors and crept along a passage
opening into an empty opium parlor back of the Hip Leong clubroom.

Diving beneath one of the bunks he inserted his body between the lower
planking at the back and the cellar wall, wormed his way some twelve
feet, raised a trap and emerged into a tunnel by means of which and
others he eventually reached the end of the block and the rooms of