a MAN WHO VANISHED FOR TWO MONTHS of Shanghai's Most Mysterious Kidnappings Recalled Tune are all the ingredients of 'a yellow-back novel in the full Bary of the kidnapping and rescue of Dong Ki-ping, son of an. old magistrate of the military court at Lunghua; a blind man who goes) tap-tap-tapping. along with "his ick, an attempt to escape with; fatal results to one of the kidnappers, the kindly treatment of their victim by men who had nothing false than murder in their minds all the time, and a final sensational rescue by detectives of the French thus dispersed before the unwell come visitor was shown in, The delay had caused the visitor to become restive, however, and when the servant went downstairs to tell him that the way was open he was met with a drawn and loaded pistol and the invitation he; was about to pass on was forestalled: With him the visiting "officer" had four friends, who had drawn pistols on the signal, and under the grim and uninviting: muzzle of a Mauser, the servants who saw them were obliged to smother their desire to raise the alarm and call the police.
In the mean time the "officer" and two comrades proceeded upstairs, guided by the terrified servant, and found the Judge alone in the room. They very quickly made the object of he: known: they demanded immediately. to be told where the son and heir was to be found. As a matter of fact the-youth had, when he left his father to receive the visitors, gone to a back room, and the old man took refuge in telling the men that he did not know where he wa But the fates who ruled at that The wounded kidnapper. Ie said that "he had only been driving mosquitoes out of his mosquito net: particular moment decided to give the old man the lie, They inspired the youth to leave the back chamber and pass along the corridor} into which opened the room where! the kidnappers were, "He was seen, seized, bundled downstairs and into a car, to disappear for over two] months from the ken of his friends Police, who had to rush their way over about 60 yards of exposed ground under fre, To those who follow crime in Shanghai the affair it only took place in 1925—is al-y ost. too recent to need. recalling, But the whole tale how the victim fared, how he killed one of his captors, how he was rescued, and the, conversations he had with Dlind kidnapper, has never been told, and that is "the excuse. for today's story, and family. had been in the house under twelve minutes. 7 An alarm was, of course, immediately raised. "But what could police, arriving a few minutes after The affair, which proved at the ime one of,'the greatest mysteries police of both the International settlement and the French Concession had had to handle for some time, occurred on August 5, 1925, in a' house in Rue Porte de Oucst.
The house was the home of Dong Meong-kai, a judge of the military court in native territory during the regime of Ho Feng-lin in Shanghai. Fudge Dong was advanced in years fand reputed to be wealthy. He had a son, About seven o'clock the night of the fifth the family were seated in an upper chamber when the servant Drought up a card announcing the visit of an officer of the army. Judge Dong had. never met the officer before, and his feeling was at the moment to order the ser-
Where the battle royal took place, came to grips with the kidnap; manacled in the corner was traced of the vehicle, or the Tr was learned Inter that the ear tad driven immediately to a house in the Wayside district. One frantic: struggle to escape did the young man make at the. corner of the Boulevard de Montigny and Rue de Consular where, owing to the amount of traffic, there are always a number of police on uty. The men in the car, his custodians, were ready for him, however, and his attempt proved futile, "He was landed in his prison in the Wayside district, before anything had been traced.
But the police have their methods. Within 24 hours there were 400 men—detectives foreign and Chi nese, detectives' seconds, hai for the whereabouts of the missing youth. Every suspected house had its watchers. Men who were believed to be connected with the work of previous gangs but who had not been convicted for lack of] evidence were placed under observation, But with vall these agents, was anything found? Nothing at for who would suspect as the lair of a dangerous gang of abduct tors the home of a blind man who tapped his way about the pavements of Shanghai, advertising his approach with the ding-dong of a small gong held in one hand and hit with w clapper clasped between two fingers?
As it was subsequently revealed that the kidnappers were as much inspired by spite against the Judge as by the desire for a ransom, it is fairly safe to say that they themselves were surprised and alarmed by the hue and ery they had created. Since with the system of spies used by the police it is possible to keep even the home of a blind beggar free from suspicion, they found themselves obliged to move constantly. Since in the course of moving from one house to another their victim had the opportunity to raise an alarm, they duped him the tale' that, whenever he moved, he was being taken to a place of assignation 5 the front of the hut where police pers. The captive was found he hut on the extreme left. to their cost, one detectives' second [receiving a bullet through the heart, and five more being wounded to prove it, 'This move by the kidnappers completely put the' police off the rail. There was nothing about the hut to excite suspicion, even if it had not been so far out of the beaten track.
The inmates cultivated their fields Just like any other farmers, Two women and four children were to be seen about the small, poor-looking building, and the odds are that even if a detective had watched the hut} for some hours, he would have seen nothing out of the ordinary. For the tale of what happened within, then, we must turn to the story told by the victim tater.
He was treated quite kindiy— an ordinary prisoner,' as he expressed it; but he was al closely watched by three men, never allowed to show his face outside the bamboo and mud doors, He The hut at Kiangwan, showing the left, right, an roadway yeas ever on the look-out for a Chance to eveape, and once, through piece of earelesaness by one of his guards, he almost succeeded, One St-his'uards named Ziang Kia bad occasion to leave him fora moment, and incidentally forgot that in the Jacket of another guard which wi yhanging on the bamboo which upheld the mosquito net over his bed, rare tro loaded. pistols. Waiting ntl Ziang Kia had gone some dia fet he had squatted down beside a comrade, Pui Teeag, Who was, shavingythe Young mas made' dash for the pistols. Seizing one he opened fire the two men; wounding Pel Taeng mortally, and hitting Zang Kia, it the foot. He then threw away his weapon and attempted to flee.' Though wounded in the foot, Ziang Kia was, However, til armed, and thwarted the attempt. jit his life had. "been in. danger before, how much more so waa {now when he had killed one of the gang! Pei Tseng died slowly, and Sas to the last one of a conference of members of the gang who discus \sed what should be done with the napped youth, Pei Tseng, though death was not far off, pleaded for mercy for the young man, and in the fod hig pleas succeeded," He died that much to his credit, and as buried by the gang close {0 the ant to tell the man he could not. the car had appeared, do in the' where his father had agreed to pay he "After thie the gang treated their admitted. The servant had,' however; some companions in at the door, and thus the Judge saw no other course but to see him. The family party seated in the" room Home-made handcuffs which the during the last circumstances: the kidnappers, jhe got from The description of so far as it could the distraught old) man, was circulated to all police stations, International Settlement and French Concession, but nothing kidnappers used on rheic captive desperate battle.
$35,000 for his ransom. The youth thus went with them quiet Once or twice of this, however, and he knew their game. But he got on to it too late for himself. In, his last walk he was told that his father was awaiting him. The kidnappers did not even bother to! order a car or a carriage.
They! made the youth walk through the crowded streets, covering him all the while with pistols concealed beneath their long gowns. With this incen-jive to silence and the additional hope of at any moment meeting the man who was to band over the money which was to set hint fr the} youth walked, through districts Strange and unknown, out to the old Kiangwan Road,, and along that. Toad for ils here he was directed along a footpath to a hut built in the middle of the bean fields, a poorly constructed peasants' hut, ith nothing to draw the average person's attention—unless one had been a trained strategist and had noticed that the position of the hut was remarkable for its defensive possibilities, it being screened from. the road on th sides by grave} mounds and offering nothing better than a free field of fire of over 50, yards in all directions to parties who might wish to take it by surprise. These facts the police learned later captive the same way at before, Save that he was more' closely ned than overs He could overhear their conversations and learned that their lender was one Lal Yengtoong. who for some reason connected with-his judgeship, probably fu old conviction, had an inveterate farsed of his father. The one Believed the old man to be worth $000,000 and raised. their ransom dements to $100,000 in consequence loiter demanding thie sum wat Jeet to the. old many written in the Blood of one of the kidnappers, who pened a vein in his left arm for the purpose, 'Since' this brought. no factory reply, another leter as ent, this one written inthe {Blood of the captive, who had then een in their hands for almost two ere we must go back a few weeks in time, "A regular visitor tothe {fut at Kiangwen was the mysterious man whove quaintance the captive had first made in the house Wayside. How this man found jis way to that outot-ther way spot (and back into Shanghat most ola aneapistonds "along wit {number of other things connected with him—his uncanny Knowledge how everything was, proseodings His forbidding: feendliness to the Cotive: his unveiled malevolence against Lai Yeng-tseng, the chief whom he accused of having cheated him of his share of the proceeds in, Previous kidnappings by taking advantage of his blindness.
The blind man would call ree gularly, as we have said, his thin bamboo stick tapping and feeling the ground before him, nosing out the width of the narrow footpath and where ruts could be avoided. He was quite open in his conversation with the prisoner and revealed 2 great deal, Why should he not be. frank, he asked the captives when. it had been decided by the gang that he was to be killed, ransom or no, as an act of vengeance for their slain comrade? One thing of great interest he discussed, and that was the internal differences among the members of the gang—differences which eventually led to their capture, On October 5 the police, by means of one of their many" channels of how the gravemounds, seen in the background, acted as a screen from the information, got wind of the kidnappers' hiding' place. A quarrel among gang members; words loud and indiscreet in a public place, borne to the ears of a detective's second; immediate inquiry, and the discovery of the hut, On October 7 at 3 a.m. a party of French and Chinese detectives left for the Kiangwam Road by motor car. Tt was necesry to obtain the assistance of the of these gendarmerie rifles, the police drew a cordon round. the hut and waited for daylight.
The situation of three grave-mounds round the hut made it pos-to approach unseen to within about 50 yards, but here one of the gendarmerie, evidently not well endowed with grey matter, chose to. stand up and click the bolt of his rifle repeatedly, The sound attracted the attention of a woman who came out of the hut. She saw the gendarme and immediately raised the alarm. A hail of bullets from the hut swept the open spaces and all_hopes of a police surprise vanished.
Inside the hut were three desperate armed men, two women, four young children, and the captive who, on the first alarm, was securely manacled and hurled into a corner to take his chance. Police parties from two directions made a con-carted rush towards the hut under the heavy fire of the three men. In tone party a detectives' second was shot. dead instantly, two more received more or less serious wounds, and. three were slightly hit. Nevertheless the hut was reached (One of the chains' used onthe fan police and kidnappers were) at eres tamed out that the police fro had brought, down one. of the Hidnappers with a serious wound (Continued on Page 326.)
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.