Without a word, Craig walked into the back room.  As he did so, Wu Fang, knife in hand, stealthily opened the sliding panel its full length and noiselessly entered the room behind me.  With knife upraised for instant action he moved closer and closer to me.  He had almost reached me and paused to gloat as he poised the knife ready to strike, when I heard a shout from Kennedy, and a scuffle.

Craig had leaped out from behind a screen near the doorway to the back room where he had hidden to lure Wu on.  With a powerful grasp, he twisted the knife from Wu’s hand and it fell with a clatter on the floor.  I was at Wu myself an instant later.  He was a powerful fighter, but we managed to snap the handcuffs on him finally, also.

“Walter,” panted Kennedy straightening himself out after the fracas, “I’ll stay here with the prisoners.  Go get the police.”

I hurried out and rushed down the street seeking an officer.

Up in the den, Wu Fang, silent, stood with his back to the wall, scowling sullenly.  Close beside him hung a sort of bell-cord, just out of reach.  Kennedy, revolver in hand, was examining the writing-table to discover whatever evidence he could.  Slowly, imperceptibly, inch by inch, Wu moved toward the bell-cord.  He was reaching out with his manacled hands to seize it when Kennedy, alert, turned, saw him, and instantly shot.  Wu literally crumpled up and dropped to the floor as Craig bounded over to him.

By this time I had found a policeman and he had summoned the wagon from the Elizabeth Street station, a few blocks away.  As we drove up before the den, I leaped out and the police followed.

Imagine my surprise at seeing Wu stretched on the floor.  Kennedy had tried to staunch the flow of blood from a wound on Wu’s shoulder with a handkerchief and now was making a temporary bandage which he bound on him.

“How are you, sergeant?” nodded Kennedy.  “Well, I guess you’ll admit I made good this time.”

The sergeant smiled, recalling a previous occasion when the slippery Wu had squirmed through our fingers.

Kennedy’s restless eye fell on the bell-rope which had caused the trouble.  Somehow, he seemed to have an irresistible desire to pull that rope.  He gazed about the room.

“Walter, you and the sergeant take the prisoners into the next room,” he said.  “I want to see what this thing really is.”

We moved Wu and his servant and stood in the doorway.  Craig gave the rope a yank.

Instantly there was an explosion.  A concealed shotgun in the wall fired, scattering shot all over the front of Wu’s table, just where we had been standing, knocking over and breaking vases, scattering papers and in general wrecking everything before it.

“So, that’s it,” whistled Craig.  “You fellows can come back now.  Two of you men I’m going to leave here to watch the place and make other arrests if you can.  Come on.”