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Perils of Pauline (dramatic reading)

<h1 id="id00878" style="margin-top: 5em">CHAPTER IX</h1> <h5 id="id00879">BASKINELLI'S QUARRY</h5> A flutter of polite alarm attended Signor Baskinalli's invitation. From the sheltered glitter of a Fifth avenue drawing room to Chinatown was a plunge a little too deep. But Baskinelli was insistent and Pauline was his ardent and efficient recruiting officer. Quite a troop train of limousines carried the invaders to the uncelestial haunts of the Celestials. Baskinelli rode in the car with Pauline and Owen. He had cast off the dignity of the master musician and assumed an air of whimsical recklessness. Harry and Lucille were in the following car. "Oh, please stop fidgeting," exclaimed Lucille. "I'm as nervous as you are." "I know," said Harry, "but I hate to have her alone with that little black snake for five minutes." "Owen is with them." "Owen is worse." The machines drew up in Chatham Square, and the little procession that moved across to Doyers street—dainty slippers on blackened cobblestones, light laughter tinkling under the thunder of the "L," human brightness brushing past the human shadows from the midnight dens —made contrasts picturesque as a pageant in a catacomb. Pauline, on the arm of the chattering Baskinelli, led the way. "Isn't this splendid?" she exclaimed. "I am sure you won't disappoint me, Signor Baskinelli. I hope you aren't going to show us a happy Chinese family at supper. Only the most dreadful sights amuse me." "Ali, but we, must not take risks," replied Baskinelli. "There are some beings in the world, Miss Marvin, so exquisitely precious that a man would commit sin if he placed them in peril." "But only the worst and wickedest places," she admonished Baskinelli. He leaned suddenly very near to her. "Do you really mean that, Miss Marvin?" he asked. "Indeed I do," she answered. "Very well. But first we shall go to the new restaurant. It is yet too early for the worst and wickedest to be abroad or rather to seek their lairs." They climbed a brightly lighted staircase into one of the ordinary Chinese restaurants of the better sort which are conducted almost entirely for Americans, and where Boston baked beans are as likely as not to nudge almond cakes on the bill of fare and champagne flow as commonly as tea. They gathered around one of the larger of the cheaply inlaid tables, and Baskinelli took command of the feast. Harry sat in grim silence, watching Pauline like a protecting dragon. Lucille was sick at heart and repentant of coming. The others chatted merrily among themselves. But by common consent Pauline seemed to have been surrendered to the attentions of the evening pest, who had become a midnight host. He leaned toward her with an ardor that he did not even attempt to disguise. "You are the most wonderful woman in—" "Please make it the universe," pleaded Pauline. "There are so many most wonderful women in the world." "No, let us say chaos," he whispered. "The chaos of a man's heart can be ruled only by the charming uncertainty of woman." The intensity of his words brought to Pauline again the twinge of alarm. Unconsciously she looked around for Harry. It was the last thing in the world she had meant to do. She was angry at herself in an instant, for his fixed, guarding gaze was upon her. She met his eyes and turned quickly to Baskinelli. "Chaos? I've always loved that word," she flashed. "There must be so many lovely adventures where there are no laws." "I said the chaos in a man's heart could be ruled by a woman," said Baskinelli. The impudence of this sudden love making moved her unexpectedly to defiance. "Please let it be ruled, Signor Baskinelli," she said, turning away from him. Baskinelli had sense enough to see that he had gone too far. He turned to the others as the soft-footed Orientals began to spread the mixed and mysterious viands on the table. He glanced at Owen. By the slightest movement imaginable, by the least uplift of his black brows, Owen answered. For the first time Baskinelli knew that the lovely quarry he pursued had a protector— and no mean, no weak protector. But the arrival of the repast quickly covered the general embarrassment. Everybody could see that Pauline and Harry had had a quarrel and that Pauline, was flirting outrageously with Baskenelli simply for revenge—that is, every one except Harry could see it. "Pardon me, but is that what you call a graft investigation that you are making, Miss Hamlin?" inquired Baskinelli. "No, but the food is so funny. There are so many queer things present, but unidentified," laughed Lucille. "Like a reception to a foreign artist," interrupted Harry with a vindictive glare. "Or shall we say like the conversation of an unhappy guest," said Baskinelli, smilingly turning to note the entrance of a little party of newcomers at the further end of the restaurant. A dashing, well-dressed, fiery-eyed foreigner, the tips of whose waxed mustachios turned up like black stalagmites from the comers of his cavernous mouth, was accompanied by two nondescript figures, who seemed to be embarrassed more by the fact that they had been recently cleansed and shaved than by their rough red shirts and mismatched coats and trousers. The man of the tilted mustachios gave brief, imperative orders to the waiters, whose languid steps seemed to be quickened by his words as by an electric battery. The other two sat silent, like docile dogs in leash. Only for an instant Baskinelli's eyes rested upon the group. "And having tasted the food of the gods, how would you like to visit the gods themselves?" he asked. Pauline agreed enthusiastically. "You mean a joss house—a Chinese church, don't you." "Yes." The joss house that most visitors see in Chinatown is the little one up under the roof at the meeting of Doyers and Pell streets—at the toe of the twisted horseshoe made by these tiny thoroughfares of black fame, where, in spite of all the modern magic of "reform," men still die silently in the hush of secluded corridors and women vanish into the darkness that is worse than death. The little joss house is interesting in the same way that an Indian village at a State fair is interesting. Behind its gaudy staginess and commercial appeal it still holds something of reality from which the imagination can draw a picture of an ancient worship that has held a race of millions in thrall for thousands of years. But it was not to the little joss house that Signor Baskinelli guided the party. In the little joss house the bells are pounded without respite, the visitors come and go at all hours of the day and night— save the few set hours when the joss sacrifices profit to true prayer. Baskinelli took his guests to the joss house of the Golden Screens. Save for its greater size and more splendid accoutrement, it was little different from the other. But it was walled, in its back alley seclusion, deep behind the outer fronts of Mott street, by a secrecy almost sincerely sacred. The motor cars remained far behind across the square as Baskinelli led the party through the dismal streets and stopped before a dark doorway. A dim light flared behind the door and a Chinaman in American dress admitted them. "I am beginning to be really bored," said Pauline. "Wait; give the wicked a chance," said Baskinelli. They climbed three flights of dingy, narrow stairs, lighted with flaring gas jets. "Wonderful," jeered Pauline. "Not even a secret passage or a subterranean den!" The others followed her laughing lead up the stairs. A Chinaman came out of the door on the second landing, stopped, started in innocent curiosity at the dazzling visitors and went down the stairs. Everything was as still and commonplace as if they had been in the hallway of a Harlem flat building. The silence was not broken or the seeming safety disturbed in the slightest by the soft opening of the first landing door, after they had passed—that is, after all but Owen had passed. No one but Owen saw the piercing black eyes and the tilted mustachios of the face that appeared for an instant at the door. There was a corridor, not so well lighted, at the top of the third flight of stairs. In the dim turns the women drew their skirts about them, a bit wary of the black, short walls. The passage narrowed. They could move now only in single file, and even then their shoulders brushed the walls. Only a far, dull glow from a red lamp over a door at the end of a passage lighted their way. Baskinelli tapped lightly on the door. It was opened by a venerable Chinaman in the flowing robes of a priest. He looked at them doubtfully. Baskinelli spoke three words that his companions did not hear. The priest vanished. Quickly the door was reopened and they stepped into the dim, smoky, stifling presence of the joss. The choking scent of the punk always at the folded feet of the idol was almost suffocating. The place had other odors less noxious and less sweet. Chinamen were lounging in the room as if it had been a place of rest. Three priests were on their knees before the joss swaying forward till their foreheads almost touched the floor, their outstretched arms moving in mystic symmetry with their rocking bodies. A great brass bell hung low beside the idol. But no priest touched the bell. The joss itself was almost the least impressive thing in the room. It stood, or squatted, six feet high, on a block pedestal at the side of the room. The simple hideousness of the painted features served no impressive purpose, but as contrast to the exquisite decorations of the room. Screens of carved wood, so delicately wrought that it seemed a touch would break the graven fibers, were flecked with inlay of pearl and covering of gold. One of the peculiar features of the room was a suit of ancient Chinese armor—a relic that had been rusted and pit-marked by time, but now stood brightly polished beside the statue of the god. A huge two-edged sword was held upright in the steel glove. By the dim light behind the idol the shadow of the sword was cast across the blank face of Baskinelli as he moved forward. He stepped back quickly. The shadow fell between him and Pauline. Again the ancient priest answered a summons at the door. Again he parleyed for a moment—then opened it to the three swarthy foreigners who had been in the restaurant. Baskinelli turned for just in instant to glance at the tall man with the tilted mustache, then resumed immediately his conversation with Pauline. "Why do all the Chinamen run away like that?" she asked. "It is the end of the service; you see the priests are going, too." There was a furtive haste about the departure of the Orientals. And there was a quavering in the manner of the oldest priest—the only one who remained—that seemed born of a hidden fear. The old priest lifted one of the lamps from a wall bracket and set it on the floor beside the idol. He knelt near it and began to pray. The three Italians waited only a moment, then followed the Chinese out of the room. "It is late—we ought to be going," pleaded Lucille. Complete silence had fallen on the room and her words, a little tremulous, had instant effect on the other women. "What about it, Baskinelli? Had we better be going?" asked one of the men. "Yes—yes, I beg only a moment. I wish to show Miss Pauline the—" "You mean Miss Marvin, do you not?" blazed Harry, striding to Baskinelli's side and glaring down at him. "I was interrupted. I had not finished my words. They are, at best, awkward, I beg—" "You beg nothing," said Harry through clenched teeth. Then slowly, grimly: "I want to tell you, you little leper, that if anything happens here tonight—it is going to happen to you." He was so near to the musician that the others did not hear. Baskinelli backed away. Pauline, with the swift, inexplicable, yet unerring instinct of woman, moved as if to seek the shelter of Harry's towering frame. He did not see her. He had whirled at the sound of the opening of a door—a peculiar door set diagonally across a corner of the room behind the joss. Through the yellow silk curtains that hid the entrance came two Chinamen as fantastically hideous as the embroidered dragons on the tapestry. "Put those men out; they cannot come in here; they are full of opium," commanded Baskinelli. "Stop; let them come in; we are going," said the mild voice of Owen. The understanding look of Baskinelli met his. Baskinelli frowned and Owen smiled. They were playing perfectly their roles. The two Chinamen shuffled into the room. The priest arose in jabbering protest. They argued with him acridly. A few feet away one could see that their cheap linen robes covered the ordinary street garb of the Chinamen; that the ugly lines on their faces were painted, as on the face of the Joss. Baskinelli was laughing. The others watched the argument in silence. Every one but the host, and Owen, and Pauline, seemed a little nervous. Suddenly the lamp on the floor went out. There was another at the farther side of the room, but its dim light made the scene more weird than darkness could have made it. "Well, I thought we were going," snapped Harry's strident voice. "We are," replied Baskinelli. "Miss—er—I am afraid to speak— Miss Marvin, shall we go?" Pauline took his arm. "Ali, but I have forgotten the most precious sight of the evening," suddenly exclaimed the musician. "Only a moment—look here." Interested, Pauline did not notice that Owen softly shut the door upon the receding footsteps of the others. Baskinelli guided her back to the little door behind the screen—the door from which the Chinamen had entered. Baskinelli drew aside the curtain. "There—that is one form of adventure." Pauline looked through the curtain. A suffocating, narcotic odor came to her. What she saw was stifling not only to the senses—but to the soul. She turned away. "Polly!" Harry's voice rang through the little choked room like a thunder blast. "We are coming—we are quite safe," called Baskinelli, with the sneer tinge in his tone. "Very well, then; hurry." Harry's manner aroused Pauline's temper again. She purposely lingered. The two Chinamen were arguing violently now with the priest. Harry had closed the door and followed the others down the outer passage. "Miss Marvin—Pauline!" called Baskinelli with sudden passion. "Have you a heart of stone? Can you not see me helpless in your presence? Do you know what love is?" He stepped towards her and tried to take her in his arms. But she was stronger and far braver than he. She thrust him aside and fled through the door. Baskinelli followed, protesting, pleading. Strangely, as she fled through the narrow corridor, the low, flaring gas jets were extinguished one by one. She groped in darkness. Baskinelli's pleading voice became almost a consolation, a protection. Her elbow struck something in the passageway. The something shrank at the touch. She heard a quick drawn breath that was not Baskinelli's. She tried to run. The tiny passageway chocked her flight. She plunged helplessly between invisible, but gripping walls. She reeled and screamed. There was the sound of a struggle behind her. She heard Baskinelli crying for help—but, oh, so quietly! She reached the stairs. The stairs were blocked by a closed door. The door was barred. But there was a light left burning by the door. Her weak hands beat upon the panels, helplessly, hopelessly. How should she know that there were two doors, locked and sealed beyond? Her wild screams rang through the long passage, through the dark, above the shuffle and beat and cursing of the staged fight. In the dim light she could see the three Italians grappling with the other men. Baskinelli's voice called to her reassuringly. It might well. Baskinelli was in no danger. She placed her softly clothed shoulder to the door and strove to break it. She screamed again. "Harry! Harry!" Dull crashes answered. There was the crack and cleaving of splintered wood. "Hold on! I'm here!" she heard. She fell beside the door. Strong arms seized her. For an instant she felt that she was saved. But she looked up into the lowering face of a man with tilted mustachios. From the wide thick lips came threats and curses. From the outer passageway sounded the crashing of the doors. She let herself be lifted, then, with sudden exertion of her trained strength, she broke the grasp of the man. The door fell open. Harry, bloody and tattered, stood there—alone. "Polly?" "Oh—yes—where are the others? They'll kill you—run!" she cried. He ran forward into the black corridor. A knife thrust, sheathed in silence, ripped his shoulder gave him his cue. He had one man down and trampled. But another was upon him and yet a third. A sharp pain dulled the pulsing of his throat. He felt a tickle down his bared and swinging arm. He fought blindly in the dark. "Polly!" he panted. There was no answer. * * * * * In the Joss House of the Golden Screens the two Chinamen, dazed with opium, set of purpose, were still arguing with the trembling priest. The door fell open and a white woman—with bleeding hands—fell at their feet. "Ha, she has come back!" cried one of the Chinese in his own tongue. There was the sound of steps in the outer passage. "Quick—inside!" breathed the Chinaman, pointing to the den. They lifted Pauline. The old priest stopped them. "Not there—not there!" he cried. "Any one would look in there." They dragged her back. The priest hurried to the outer door and locked it. There was the blunt, battering thrust of a body against the door. "Open, or I'll break it in!" yelled the voice of Harry. The priest opened the door. In deferential silence he saluted the battle grimed newcomer. Battered, panting, bleeding, Harry lunged at the man, gripped him. "Quick—where is she? You'll die like a spiked rat. Where?" he roared. The two other Chinamen were kneeling before the Joss. There was a moment's silence, then a strange sound—like a cry heard afar off. Harry strode to the little pedestal where the suit of armor stood. "Where is she?—or I'll rip this place to cockles!" he thundered. "We do not know what you mean," said the priest. The two Chinamen began to jabber. Other figures reeled from the room behind the curtains. But over all their clamor sounded again the faint cry—distant, but near. In a flash Harry caught from the mailed glove the haft of the sword. As he rushed across the room the Chinese withered away from him. There was a crash as the great sword fell upon one of the windows. Through the broken pane Harry shouted for help. His voice was like a clarion in the silent streets. He turned in time. Three Chinamen, with drawn knives, were upon him. He swung the unwieldy sword above his head. Its sweep saved him. He dashed at the Joss. Again he lifted the sword. A grasp and then a wail of fear sounded through the room. He struck. The head of the statue thudded to the floor. The Chinese rushed upon him. They were desperate now in the face of the violation of their god. But he was behind their god prying open the secret door to the hollow within the statue. "It's all right, Polly," he said as he drew her gently forth. He stood above her with his back to the wall swinging the sacred sword against the onslaught of fanatic men. They fell before him, but more came on. His hands could hardly hold the mighty weapon. For more than half an hour he had been fighting. He was weakening but he braced himself and swung for the last time. There came a hammering at the door. It crashed in. Police clubs whistled right and left. The Chinese fled into their secret lairs. * * * * * "And I guess that will be all," panted Harry in the taxi that took them home. "I don't think you'll ask for any more adventures after this one." "Why didn't you pick up the Joss's head?" replied Pauline. "It would have looked so nice and dreadful in the library?" But the glory of her golden hair nestled upon his torn shoulder and he knew that he would go through all the perils in the world for happiness like this. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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