Tai-Pan (51 page)

“Morning, Robb,” he said, going into the tent.

“Welcome back.” Robb was unshaven and there were dark smudges under his eyes. “You dealt with Aberdeen?”

“Aye. How are things here?”

“Good and bad. Can’t walk along Queen’s Road without a stinking swarm of beggars falling on you. And worse than that, we’re bringing in ten thousand Macao bricks a day by sampan and junk, and upwards of two thousand vanish by next morning.” He tossed up his hands violently. “And not only bricks—timber, desks, cement, quills, paper —they steal everything. At this rate our building costs will double.” He tossed over a list of figures. “A present for you: the figures on your house—so far. Three times as much as Vargas estimated.”

“Why so much?”

“Well, you wanted it up in three weeks.”

“For a thousand pounds I can damn nearly buy a fifth of a clipper.”

“If the 
Blue Cloud
 does na reach London, we’re in terrible trouble. Again.”

“She’ll get there.”

“I wish I was so confident,” Robb slammed back.

Struan sat down at his desk. “What’s the real matter, lad?”

“Oh, I don’t know. The thieving and the begging—and there’s too much to do. And this constant, confounded noise. I’m tired, I suppose. No, that’s not true. Two things. First, Sarah. She’s two weeks overdue and you’ve no idea how irritable a woman is then, and the poor lass is frightened she’s going to die. Rightly. Nothing you can do to help, except say everything’ll be all right. Then too, there’s the business of me staying on. We’ve had nothing but terrible rows. She’s absolutely set on leaving within a month or so—as soon as she’s fit again.”

“Would you like me to talk to her?”

“No. Nothing’ll help. She’s made up her mind, and that—with Sarah—is that. Of course she’s delighted that we’re rich again but she’s still going home. The ball hasn’t helped—she’s furious that she’s with child and ‘fat and ugly,’ as she calls herself. Nothing you say makes any difference.”

“That’s ‘first.’ What’s second?”

“Culum. You and Culum.”

Struan glanced out the tent door at the harbor and at the many ships neatly at anchor. “He seems well enough.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Let that rest for the time being.”

“It’s a very bad situation. Bad for the two of you and bad for the house.”

“Let it rest, Robb.”

“I’m asking you. Please forgive him. Please.”

“Give it time, Robb.” Struan turned back. “A little time.”

“All right, Dirk.” Robb shoved his hands in his pockets. “What happened last night at Aberdeen?”

Struan told him, and gave him the indenture and guardianship papers. But he said nothing about Wu Kwok and Quemoy and Midsummer Night. Midsummer Night would come while he was still Tai-Pan, and what to do about it was the Tai-Pan’s decision—and his alone.

Robb was concerned. “Where are the boys now?”

“Aboard 
Resting Cloud.
 I put them in Wolfgang’s charge. The men’re aboard 
China Cloud.
”

“We’d better get the boys home as soon as possible. If it becomes common knowledge we’re connected with those pirate scum—well, God knows what trouble we’ll have on our hands.”

“Thunder Cloud’s
 almost full of cargo. She’ll be ready to sail in four or five days. They’ll go by her.”

“I’ll send them to Whampoa today.”

“Nay, lad. I’ll take ’em mysel’ tomorrow. Safer. Too much is at stake in Canton, so I’d better go straight back. Do you want to come?”

“I can’t, Dirk. Not with Sarah so near her time. Why not take Culum?”

“There’s plenty to do here.”

“There’s plenty to teach him about teas and silks and shipping. Four months only to go.”

“All right.”

“What’s your plan for the men?”

“Wolfgang and Gordon to teach them English first. In three months we’ll put them in the clippers. Never more than one to a ship. Put that canny mind of yours onto how we’re to bend them to our side.”

“I’ll try. I wonder what devilment Wu Kwok and Scragger are up to. I dinna trust them a little bitty.”

“Aye.” Struan thought, I wonder what you’d do, Robb, about Midsummer Night—if you knew. You’d send frigates, I’m sure. And perhaps be sending them into a trap. Will I? I dinna ken yet.

Robb looked out the tent door at the building activity. “If God’s on our side this season, we’ll be far ahead of Brock.”

“Aye.” But what to do about him? And Gorth?

“I think we should reclaim part of the land from the sea and extend the wharves into deep water,” Robb said. “Might as well do it now as next year.”

“Good idea, lad.”

“Excuse me, sir,” Cudahy said hurrying up, “but you sayed t’ report immediately.”

“Come in, Mr. Cudahy,” Robb said. “How did it go?”

“Like a bloody breeze, sir. The mail packet were there like you sayed. I got a list of passengers like you wanted. We intercepted her off Pokliu Chau. She’ll be in harbor in three hours.” Cudahy smiled and put down a small mail sack. “Er, beggin’ yor pardon, sir, but how’d you know the mail packet was acomin’? She be a day early.”

“Just a hunch, Mr. Cudahy,” Robb said. “Wait outside, will you please?” And he began to glance at their mail. Cudahy touched his forelock and left.

“Brilliant idea of ypurs,” Robb said, “to put a lookout on the mountain.”

“Culum remembered, did he?” Struan was pleased and docketed the information, and was further pleased that Robb and Culum had put the plan into effect secretly. “How’d you signal?”

“We assigned one of the clerks, old Vargas’ nephew, Jesus de Vargas, to look at the mountaintop every quarter of an hour. Telescope of course, secretly of course. Culum worked out a system of flag codes. Now we can tell if a ship’s a mail packet, one of ours, or one of Brock’s or Cooper-Tillman’s.”

They went through the mail. The three months of newspapers and periodicals they set aside to be enjoyed at leisure. Books, music sheets, plays, fashion books for Sarah, shipping improvements for Struan, financial papers for Robb.

First, business.

The London market price of spices—ginger, nutmeg, pepper, cinnamon—had risen appreciably. On molasses it had declined. The buying price on tea, due to short supply, was up fifty percent—which meant, if 
Blue Cloud
 was first, that their profit would be over two hundred and forty thousand pounds. Serious Chartist riots had hurt the capacity of the Lancashire cotton mills and Welsh coal mines, which meant that the cost of coal oil for lamps would go up and the price for cotton cloth would be higher than expected. The Calcutta price on opium had come down because there was a bumper crop. So Struan changed the orders of 
Sea Cloud,
 one of his clippers in the Hong Kong roads, and sent her urgently to Manila to load spices instead of to Whampoa to load teas, and ordered her home to England with all speed via the Cape of Good Hope. Robb instructed Vargas to buy up every available yard of cotton cloth, yarn and sewing cottons, to unload all their stocks of molasses and to step up their order of opium to be bought at Calcutta, and unload their present stocks as soon as possible.

And before the mail packet was at rest in harbor, 
Sea Cloud
 had sailed for Manila and their three hours of dealing had made them potentially forty thousand guineas richer. For in three hours they had cornered the market on available imported supplies of lamp oil, cotton goods, yarn, sewing cottons, and spices, and had booked up in advance all the available cargo space on all available American and English ships—outside of Brock and Sons. They knew that as soon as the packet anchored and the news was spread, buyers would be rushing to their doors to buy cottons and spices, and to charter ships to rush for home. No one would know, outside the brothers, that 
Sea Cloud
 had the bit between her teeth, at least a day’s start, and would take the cream off the London market.

“Pity that it will take us at least two days to fill all our customers’ orders and get the Manila ships away,” Robb said gleefully.

“Sad, Robb, very sad.”

“I’d say that we’ve done a fine morning’s work.”

They were standing at the door of the tent watching the mail ship let go her anchors. Swarms of cutters surrounded her, packed with men anxious for their mail. Struan glanced over the incoming passenger list. “Good God, look at this!” He shoved over the paper.

Robb’s eyes fled down the list of names. They fixed. H.R.H. Archduke Zergeyev. “What’s a Russian grandee doing in Asia, eh?”

“Nay, na him, lad, though he’s curious, right enough. Finish the list.”

Robb read on. Wives of merchants, three returning merchants, names of men who meant nothing to him. Finally he came to it. “Maureen Quance and family?” He laughed uproariously.

“Dammit, it’s no laughing matter,” Struan said. “What about the judging?”

“Oh my God!”

Six years ago Aristotle’s wife had furiously boarded a ship in Macao for home, believing—as they all had—that Aristotle, who lived in mortal terror of her, had escaped to England. But instead of fleeing he had been hiding in Mrs. Fortheringill’s Establishment for Refined Young Ladies—the “F and E,” or, as the locals called the whorehouse, the “Fornicating Eels.” Aristotle had come out of hiding a week after Maureen had sailed, and it had taken him months to become his old self again and overcome the “vapors.” The traders ascribed his “vapors” to an overtaxing of his welcome in the house. He had denied it vehemently: “When one finds oneself in such an extremity, by God, one hardly has an inclination to partake of what—for want of a better word—I can only describe as quent. Delectable, to be sure, but quent. No, my dear misguided friends, terror and quent are not bedfellows.” No one believed him.

“What’ll we do?” Robb asked.

“If Aristotle hears, he’s sure to vanish. He’ll go up to Canton and then we’re sunk. We’ve got to find him first and keep him out of the way until tonight.”

“Where is he?”

“I dinna ken. Send out search parties. Every man. Take him aboard 
Thunder Cloud
—any pretext—and keep him there until we’re ready for the judging. Send Cudahy aboard the packet at once. Tell Maureen that she and the family are our guests—put them aboard the small hulk. Perhaps we can keep her busy until tomorrow.”

“You’ll never do it. She has a nose for Aristotle.”

“We have to try. Are you prepared to be the judge?”

“What about the prizefight? He won’t miss that!”

“For a portrait of Sarah, or one of the children, he will.”

Robb rushed out.

Struan glanced at his watch. He was not due aboard the flagship for an hour. He sent for Gordon Chen and asked him to recruit thirty Chinese to be watchmen.

“I think it would be wise, Tai-Pan, as an added precaution, to have watchmen on your house too,” Gordon said. “I’d feel happier if you did.”

“Good idea, Gordon. Increase the men to thirty-five.”

“I’m afraid most of the Chinese who have come into Tai Ping Shan are very bad people. Most are wanted for crimes in Kwangtung and, well, here in Hong Kong they’re beyond the reach of the mandarins.” He produced a parchment scroll from the deep sleeve of his robe. “Oh, by the way, I made an arrangement with the King of the Beggars for your ball tonight.” He put the scroll on the desk. “Here’s his receipt. Perhaps I can be reimbursed by the compradore?”

“Receipt? For what?”

“Three taels. This modest squeeze insures that none of your guests will be harassed tonight. I also made a most reasonable monthly arrangement with him—three taels—on your behalf, for beggars to stay away from the confines of your home and The Noble House.”

“I’ll na pay it,” Struan exploded. “I dinna care if Macao has its Beggar King, or every town in China likewise. We’re na starting that on Hong Kong, by God.”

“But he’s already here and organized,” Gordon Chen said, his voice calm. “Who else will license beggars? Who else will be responsible? Who else can one pay squeeze to to insure special treatment due to people of wealth and position like ourselves? I beg you to reconsider, Tai-Pan. I would most strongly advise it. I assure you it will be money well spent. At least try it for a month. That’s not too much to ask. Then you’ll see the wisdom of the custom. Certainly, too, it will protect your property, for the beggars will inform on thieves. It’s very necessary, believe me.”

“Very well,” Struan said at length, “but one month, no more.” He initialed the receipt, knowing that there would be a permanent fee to the Beggar King. There was no way to fight the custom—except by excluding all Chinese from Hong Kong.

“You can get this from Chen Sheng tomorrow.”

“Thank you.”

“What gives this particular man the right to be King of the Beggars, eh?”

“I suppose the others trust him, Tai-Pan.” Gordon Chen made a mental note to talk to the man this afternoon to make certain all went as planned for the next month. He was very pleased, not only with the very low rate of squeeze that he had negotiated on Struan’s account—two taels for tonight and two taels a month, the balance of one tael to be his own rightful squeeze—but also with his own foresight in asking Jin-qua to provide a “King” from Canton. This man was the younger brother of the Beggar King of Canton, which meant he was a professional, a man well versed in the methods of extracting the most with the least effort. And this man had, of course, been inducted as a lesser Hung Mun official into the Hong Kong lodge. A perfect arrangement, Gordon told himself. The squeeze from the beggars would be a valuable and permanent part of the tong’s revenues. Then he heard his father ask the question he had been waiting for.

“Have you heard of the Triads, Gordon?”

“I read the proclamation, of course,” Gordon said calmly. “Why?”

“Do you know anything about them?”

“Well, Tai-Pan, I’ve heard that, historically, secret societies have always been a form of defense against foreign intruders. That they have many names.”

“Keep your ears open and keep me informed, privately, about their doings, if any. Another thing, I’ve twenty Chinese recruits for my fleet. I’m going to try to train them as mates. You’re to work with Mr. Mauss to teach them English. And ten others are to go to England to train as shipbuilders.”