Page:Weird Tales Volume 7 Number 6 (1926-06).djvu/14

Hubbard told, begging piteously for aid.

Powell crossed to the next room, June's room. It was apparently undisturbed; there were no signs of a struggle. The bed had been slept in, but was otherwise undisturbed; feminine clothes were neatly arranged on a chair; there were no signs of violence, but the room was empty. Powell tried the next door, leading into room 714. At first he thought it had not been occupied, but closer examination showed cigarette stubs, muddy tracks.

"The devils worked from here," Powell muttered, pausing to note how the doors between the two rooms had been jimmied. He hastened back to Mr. Hubbard. That gentleman was too nauseated, too numbed, to be of assistance. Yet the situation called for instant action; a man had been attacked in one of San Francisco's leading hotels; his daughter had been abducted.

In less than five minutes John Powell, completely dressed and thoroughly determined, was cross-examining the room clerk. That sleepy-eyed individual knew little beyond the fact that room 714 had been occupied by a tall, swarthy man who was visited by some "friends".

"Luggage?" Powell asked. "What did they have?"

That stirred some cell in the clerk's slow-moving brain. "They called the porter to take out a trunk about daylight," he said. "I'll call him."

The porter came, a stupid hulk of a man, sullen and suspicious. Yes, of course, he remembered the trunk. "I knew I'd get in trouble over that blamed thing," he snorted. "It wasn't my fault, either."

"What wasn't your fault?"

"That it was lifted. I put it down in front of the freight elevator and went to call an express man. When we came back the trunk was gone. I didn't have nothing to do with———"

"We aren't blaming you for anything," Powell quieted the porter. "We merely wish to locate that trunk."

"It wasn't yours, was it?" The porter was still sullen.

"No, it wasn't mine. But we're after it and the owners of it. What did it look like?"

"Say, what are you, anyway? A 'dick' looking for dope? Did them Chinese birds have a trayful of hops?"

"Then they were Chinese?" Powell asked.

"Sure! At least part Chinese. Funny-looking ginks, not exactly yellow, but not white, that's a cinch. You asked what the trunk looked like. It was a wooden box, a kind of chest, covered with carvings. Heavy devil to handle, I'll say. Them Chinks made me carry it right side up with care. So it was hops, huh? Well, I'll be———"

"What color was it? How long? Did it have any handles?"

"Whoa-up! Not so fast! It was wood color, except it had a greenish tinge. Five feet long, I'd guess; five by three by two. Carved brass or something for handles."

"Have you any idea where it dispeared to?"

"I told you 'no'. It was just gone. The only thing in sight on the street was a big car, turning the corner."

Satisfied he could glean no more useful information from the porter, Powell hurried back to Mr. Hubbard. June's father, sick with anxiety, was frantically pulling on his clothes. Powell reported the trunk incident. Already he was satisfied that the chest contained the missing girl, dead or alive. Mr. Hubbard agreed that such an abduction was a possibility. At Powell's request he repeated all he could remember of