CHAPTER XXI
THE COCAINE DEN
“To-night’s the night,” said FitzGerald to his confederate. “You and I will creep out in half an hour’s time, and no questions asked. Roscoe has gone up to Tonghoo about oil; the MacNab is dining at the Pegu Club with one of his Big Pots and talking Flotilla and finance.”
“All right, I’ll be ready in two jiffs—you won’t forget the coat?”
“Not likely! We will taxi down to the end of Dalhousie Street, and into the bazaar about half-past nine o’clock, and then proceed on foot. I am taking two constables—both armed.”
It was a gay and busy scene; Dalhousie Street—which, it is said, never sleeps—was a blaze of light, humming with noise and excitement and packed with crowds of pleasure-seekers; a crude mixture of races, struggling and pushing to their different goals of entertainment.
As the two young men halted for a moment at a popular corner, it seemed as if the whole town and bazaar flowed past in a wave of colour and movement. Burmans’ and Shans, male and female, clothed in coloured silk and satin, the women decked with flowers and jewellery, all smoking and jabbering in their strange monosyllabic tongue; solid, well-set-up Germans parading in couples; rollicking sailors; Chinamen; Malays in great numbers; stately Sikhs and the inevitable Babu filled the scene.
“They are all out to-night,” observed FitzGerald, “lots of shows on; well, now for ours.”
As he spoke he turned into a narrow street that led through an endless maze of curves and angles and, followed by two stalwart Sikh police, they made their way into the heart of the China bazaar and plunged into the worst slum quarter of this crowded, cosmopolitan city—a city, at least, in wealth, extent, population and importance. They passed flaring joss-houses, gambling dens and brazenly naked haunts of vice, and after picking their steps through a particularly noisome gully—odorous of napie and rotten vegetables—they arrived at an innocent little door in a high blank wall. After some whispered parley with an old Chinaman, the pair were admitted and ushered into a large, low saloon, where scores of gamblers were engrossed in the hypnotic pleasures of “Fan Tan,” or the “36 animal lottery,” so popular and so simple!
The adjoining room was a well-appointed opium resort. Here the roar of the bazaar and pulsing of tom-toms were blurred and almost inaudible. A reek of bhang and betel hung in the air; there were rows of neat bunks, lacquered pillows, and small trays containing the opium pipe, lamp and other necessaries. Everything was apparently carried out decently and in order; the clients were of a respectable, well-to-do class—some who had merely dropped in for a pipe of chandu, or a jolt of opium; and Shafto noticed quite a number of Europeans and, among them, at present asleep, a man whom he knew and frequently met on the Strand. He had sometimes wondered at his dried-up, withered skin and lank, dead-looking black hair. Now he understood.
The police officer was not disposed to linger on these premises. A cocaine den was his goal, and after a short talk with an affable old Chinaman, who spoke perfect English, he took leave and once more they were threading the odorous gloom of the slums. They soon came to a halt and, leaving the two constables outside, after the usual delay and mystery, were admitted and entered a most evil-smelling den. This was lighted by two or three smoky oil-lamps, the rank smell of which, with the sickly reek of squalid humanity, struck them like a blow in the face. Between forty and fifty victims appeared to be present, all belonging to the poorer classes, and nothing could be more repulsive than their appearance. Excessive emaciation and festering sores were their most marked characteristics. Some were lying on their mats in semi-stupor, several who had just received an injection were patiently awaiting their dreadful sleep—one of the chief attributes of cocaine is its almost immediate effect. Here was a group squatting round a man armed with a syringe—fatal germ-carrier—busily engaged in mixing the cocaine and morphia. When the concoction had been prepared, one of the customers turned up his sleeve to discover—if he could—a spot in which to insert the needle; but there was not a place, even the size of a pin’s head, so he rolled up his lungyi and searched for a site on his thigh; then the needle was produced, its contents were pumped in, and the man made room for the next victim. This performance held Shafto with a sort of hideous fascination; the crowd appeared to be entirely insensible to his presence and only alive to the enjoyment awaiting them.
At the far end of the room was an iron-bound enclosure, behind which sat a wily and inscrutable Chinaman who, having received a formal notice that this visit was “safe and unofficial,” obligingly exhibited his scales and small packets of drugs—wares to bring rich delights to the narcotised—which he disposed of in infinitesimal quantities, at from four to six annas a dose.
Sprawling about on filthy rush mats were numerous Chinese, Burmese and Indians; also a few women of the lowest class, each and all sunken in the various stages of an ecstatic slumber.
As FitzGerald was now engaged in whispered conference with a pock-marked Malay (who was awaiting his turn), Shafto stood back against the wall, a completely detached figure, acutely sensible of the chill horror of this unknown sphere—the so-called “underworld.”
He noticed that one or two customers sat round covetously watching the operation of the syringe—not having the money with which to indulge themselves; he also observed several who appeared to be in the last stage of their existence—thin to emaciation, mere wrecks, like half-dead flies, scarcely able to crawl about the floor.
Quite in the shadow, he caught sight of a tall figure in European clothes, who was, like himself, an impassive spectator, and, with a start, he recognised Roscoe’s cousin. To-night he appeared cleaner and more human; he had shaved recently, and there was an undeniable family likeness between him and his relative—such a resemblance as may exist between a dead and broken branch and one still flourishing upon a healthy tree. On this occasion he was evidently not ashamed to be seen and recognised, for he nodded to Shafto, then crossed the room and joined him.
“Ah, so you’ve not taken a pull at yourself yet?” said Shafto.
“No, the cocaine debauchee has no power to resist the drug,” he replied in a thin refined voice. “I am fairly normal to-night; it is not a case of virtuous repentance, but merely because I have no money.”
As he made this statement the despairing eyes that looked into Shafto’s were those of some famishing animal.
“You have the power to raise me from the pit,” he continued in a husky voice; “you can lift me straight into heaven!”
“Only temporarily,” brusquely rejoined Shafto.
“Even that is something when it offers peace and satisfaction to the restless human heart.”
“But surely you can free yourself and your restless heart? Why not walk out of this filthy den with us? Roscoe will help you, so will I. Come, be a man!”
“It would be impossible for me to regain the normal balance of life,” declared the victim of the drug; “also, I am no longer a man—I am a fanatical worshipper of cocaine, and only death can part us. Some day soon I shall fall out of her train, the police will find me in the gutter and take the debased body to the mortuary, whence, unclaimed and unknown, it will be carried to a pauper’s grave.”
“But can nothing be done to stop this hellish business?”
“Nothing,” replied the victim with emphasis, “nothing whatever, until sales are rendered impossible and the big men—the real smugglers who are trading in the life-blood of their brothers—are reached and scotched. As for myself, I am past praying for; but thousands of others could and ought to be saved—by drastic measures and a stern exposure. The fellows in this business are as cunning as the devil; the stuff arrives by roundabout channels and from the most surprising quarters. Now and then they allow a consignment to be seized, but as a mere blind, a sop, and trade flourishes; there is no business to touch it in the money-making line.”
He paused and met Shafto’s searching eyes, then went on:
“It must amaze you to hear a fellow in this sink talking plain grammatical English, but before the cocaine fiend caught and tortured me I had brains. Joe Roscoe is a good chap—he has often held out a helping hand, but it was not a bit of use, I only sank deeper. When I recall the things I have done, the meannesses I have stooped to, I squirm and squirm and squirm! Well, I am nearly at the end of my tether, and a hair of the dog that bit me is all I ask. Your friend FitzGerald here, now looking up evidence from that rascally Malay, is working his very best to find some clue to the headquarters of the gang; but they are much too clever and are making their thousands and tens of thousands; profits are enormous, and the servants of the company are well paid for any risks or prosecutions.”
“But what about informers?” asked Shafto.
“Oh, as for betraying secrets or giving the game away, the employés know exactly what to expect. More than one would-be witness has disappeared; his epitaph is, ‘Found drowned.’ Ah, I see FitzGerald moving, and so you must take your departure out of this inferno into the clean upper-world.”
“You come along with us,” said Shafto, suddenly seizing him by the arm.
But Roscoe threw him off with astonishing force and shook his head emphatically. Nevertheless he followed the pair to the entrance—a tall wraith-like form moving behind them, a shadow in the shadows.
As soon as the door had closed and the visitors were once more in the street, the police officer broke out:
“Upon my word, Shafto, you ought to be ashamed of yourself! Didn’t I see you slip money into the hand of that broken-down Englishman?”
“Yes, you did,” Douglas boldly admitted; “I was obliged to, right or wrong. If you had only seen his eyes, his starving, despairing eyes! I believe they will haunt me as long as I live; somehow I feel to-night as if I had looked through the gates of hell!”