Part 21 (1/2)
It carried no red paper on it now, but a Chinese character painted on the panel.
”What does that say?” asked Harry, pointing to it.
”Flat to let,” replied Ah Lung, ”but I strongly suspect that our janitor is allowing the Doctor to use it for purposes of his own. Otherwise why should he be going through that door? Still it may have been rented to him for all I know. Anyhow that's where he went. What do you think of it? Shall we attempt to follow him up?”
”By all means,” replied Harry. ”Let me tell you something. I know this Dr. Garshaski. He is an infamous scoundrel.”
Ah Lung shrugged his shoulders.
”We meet all kinds,” he replied. ”They are necessary to make up the world. But you heard what was said; you heard him try to blackmail me.
Do you believe he really knows anything about the princess, or is it all bluff? There was nothing that he said he had not heard from me before.”
”I don't believe it was bluff and I do believe he has the princess,”
replied Harry, ”and I'll tell you why.”
He went on to explain about Alice, and this while he was trying his skeleton keys.
”I believe he has Miss Montgomery a prisoner in the rooms you speak of,”
he declared, ”and it would not surprise me a bit if the princess was there too. h.e.l.lo! I've got the door open now. Shall we go exploring and see what we find?”
”Surely. If that is your belief. I am with you, of course,” replied Ah Lung. ”But lock the door behind you,” he added. ”We don't want anybody prowling after us.”
Harry scarcely saw the necessity of it, but he locked the door.
The long corridor was dimly lighted by a solitary gas jet.
”Why this is strange,” said Ah Lung. ”I never was in this part of the building before.”
”This corridor surely leads in under the next building,” said Harry.
”Of course, it does, I never knew of its existence. I shall inquire into this.”
”Sure you've got the right door?”
”Positive. Come on.”
At the end of the corridor they made the same turns Alice took and at last found themselves up against three doors.
The ones on the right and the left were locked, but the middle one stood slightly open.
Harry pushed it wide open and flashed his light inside, having already drawn his revolver in case of emergency.
The room was entirely unfurnished.
Ah Lung stepped in and looked around.
”Nothing here,” he remarked, when the door shut with a bang.
Harry sprang to it, but all too late.