The Yellow Snake (15 page)

    "Consult him by all means," said the girl coldly.

    "Wait, wait!" he called after her as she was leaving the room. "Don't let us lose our tempers, Joan. I have an especial eason for asking you to postpone this marriage till a later date——What is it?" he snapped irritably at the newly-returned butler who appeared in the doorway, still in his street attire.

    "Will you see Mr Lynne?" asked the man.

    "Does he want to see me?" Stephen demanded. "You're sure he doesn't mean Miss Joan?"

    "He particularly asked for you, sir."

    Narth's trembling hand went up to his mouth.

    "Put him in the library," he said ungraciously, and steeled himself to an interview which instinct told him would be unpleasant; and in this case instinct did not lie, for Clifford had come to ask a few very uncomfortable questions.

    He was pacing the library floor when Mr Narth went in ("as though it were his own," complained Stephen bitterly to his daughter) and turned abruptly to face the senior partner of Narth brothers.

    "Shut that door, will you?"

    It was a command rather than a request, and it was strange how instantly Stephen obeyed.

    "You came back here at four o'clock this morning," he began. "You had supper at Giro's, which closed at one. What did you and your daughters do between one and four?"

    Narth could not believe his ears.

    "May I ask——" he began.

    "Ask nothing. If you were going to ask me what authority I have for putting these questions to you, you can save yourself the trouble," said Clifford briefly. "I want to know what you were doing between one and four."

    "And I absolutely refuse to satisfy your curiosity," said the other angrily. "Things have come to a pretty pass when——"

    "At three o'clock this morning," the man from China broke in brusquely, "an attempt was made to carry off Joan Bray from this house. That is news to you?"

    The man nodded dumbly.

    "You think the attempt has not been made, but you expected it. I was in the bushes listening to you when you were talking to the chauffeur. You asked him to come into the house after he had put the car away; you told him you were nervous, that there had been burglaries in the neighbourhood recently. You were astonished to find that Joan Bray was in her room and unharmed."

    White to the lips, Stephen Narth was incapable of replying.

    "You had to fill in the hours between one and four; how did you do it?" The keen eyes were searching his very soul. "You wouldn't have gone to Fing-Su's place, and rightly, because you would not wish your daughters to be brought into contact with this man. Shall I tell you what you did?"

    Narth made no answer.

    "You sneaked out whilst the dance was on and locked the gears of your car. You made that an excuse to take your girls to one of those queer all-night clubs in Fitzroy Square. And then, providentially, at the right moment you discovered the key in your pocket."

    Now Mr Narth found his voice.

    "You're a bit of a detective, Lynne," he answered. "And, strangely enough, you're right, except that I did not lock the gears. My chauffeur did that and lost the key. I happened to discover a duplicate in my pocket."

    "You didn't want to get back until the dirty wor^ was finished, eh?" Clifford's eyes were glowing like live fires. "You swine!" He spoke the word in a voice that was little above a whisper. "I'm going to tell you something, Narth. If any harm comes to that girl whilst she is in your house and under your care, you'll never live to enjoy the competence which Joe Bray is supposed to have left you. I'm going to kill your friend—he knows that, doesn't he? If he doesn't, just tell him so from me! There's an old saying that one may as well be hanged for a sheep as for a goat. I don't know which of the two you are. Listen carefully, Narth—it isn't an angry man talking to you—threats of killing come pretty glibly to people who couldn't see a rooster's neck wrung without fainting. But I've killed men, yellow and white, and I'm not going to shiver when I send you down to hell. Get that into your mind and let it walk around! Joan won't be with you very long, but during that time she's got to be safe."

    And now Stephen Narth found his voice.

    "It's a lie, a lie!" he screamed. "Why didn't Joan tell me? I knew nothing about it! Do you think I would allow Fing-Su to take her away——"

    "I didn't say it was Singili," said the other quickly. "How did you know?"

    "Well, Chinamen——"

    "I didn't even say Chinamen. You've convicted yourself, Mr Stephen Narth! I've warned you before, and I'm warning you again. Fing-Su has bought you for fifty thousand pounds, but you could twist out of that, because you're naturally a twister. But he's going to hold you in a tighter bond than monetary obligation. He nearly did it last night. He'll do it before the week's out—how or where or when, I do not know." He paused. "That's all I have to say to you," he said, and strode past the paralysed man into the hall.

    He was walking down the drive when he heard Stephen's voice calling him, and, turning, he saw the white-faced man gesticulating wildly, in a mad abandonment of rage. He was pouring forth a torrent of wild, incoherent abuse:

    "...you won't marry Joan...do you hear that? I don't care a damn if all Joe Bray's fortune goes to you! I'll see her dead first ..."

    Clifford let him rave on, and when from sheer exhaustion he stopped:

    "Then you
did
see Fing-Su last night? What offer did he make to you?"

    Stephen glowered at him, and then, as though he feared that his secret thoughts could be read by those piercing eyes, he turned and ran back to the house like a man possessed.

* * * * *

    "There's going to be trouble, Joe, and as you've caused most of it I hope you'll get your share."

    Joe Bray, dozing before an unnecessary fire, for the day was warm, his hands clasped before his stomach, woke with a start.

    "Eh?...I wish you wouldn't pop in and out like a—a—what d'you call 'em, Cliff. What did you say?"

    "'Trouble' was the word," said the other laconically. "Your spoon-fed Chink plus your disreputable relation have a Plan."

    Joe grunted, selected a cigar from the box on the table and gnawed off the end savagely.

    "Wish I'd never come to this bloomin' country," he said plaintively. "Wish I'd never left Siangtan. You're a good fellow, Cliff, but too vi'lent—much too vi'lent. I wish Fing-Su had been a sensible boy. Well educated and everything, Cliff...it does seem a pity, don't it? Here's me, with just enough education to read and write, rich as Creasers in a manner of speaking——"

    Cliff's nose wrinkled.

    "Crœsus would have spent your income on cigarettes," he said contemptuously.

    "In a manner of speaking—did I say that or didn't I?" demanded Joe reproachfully. "Here's me as rich as Creasers and white, and there's him, a poor suffering Chink, who can speak Latin and Algebra and French and all them foreign languages as easily as I speak Mandarin!"

    He sighed and shook his head.

    "Life's comic," he said vaguely.

    Clifford was changing his shoes and growled:

    "If you were the only man I'd ever met in the world I should say life was comic. As it is, it's darned serious, and a lot of people whose only job in life is to keep living are going to find it pretty hard to hold down their sinecure. Have you seen the papers?"

    Joe nodded and reached out lazily for a heap of newspapers that lay on a table at his elbow.

    "Yes, I was reading about the murder of those missionaries up in Honan. But there's always trouble in Honan. Too many soldiers loafin' around hungry. If there wasn't soldiers there wouldn't be any brigands."

    "That's the ninth missionary murder in a month," said Clifford tersely; "and the soldiers in Honan are the best disciplined in China—which isn't saying much, I admit. But the soldiers were in this and had banners inscribed 'We welcome the Son of Heaven,' which means that there is a new pretender to the throne."

    Joe shook his head.

    "I never did hold with Chinamen being trusted with rifles," he said. "It demoralizes 'em, Cliff. You don't think we shall have any trouble on the Concession, do you?" he asked anxiously. "Because, if you do, I ought to be getting back."

    "You'll stay here," said Cliff ominously. "I don't think we shall have trouble in that part of China—we are paying the Governor too much for him to risk. But there are seventeen separate points in open rebellion in China." He opened a drawer, took out a map and unfolded it, and Joe saw that the chart was covered with little red crosses. "They call it 'unrest' in the newspapers," said Clifford quietly. "They give as the reason the failure of the rice crops and an earthquake hundreds of miles from any centre of trouble!"

    Old Joe struggled up to an erect position.

    "What's the idea?" he asked, looking at the other through narrowed lids. "First time I knew you took any interest in Chinese wars. You talk as if you knew all the risin's. What's the big idea? They can't effect us?"

    Lynne folded the map.

    "A big change of government would affect everything," he said. "Honan doesn't worry me, because it is a brigands' province; but there has been trouble in Yun Nan, and when Yun Nan starts hooting the trouble is far advanced. Somebody is working hard for a new dynasty—and all the flags are decorated with the symbol of the Joyful Hands."

    Old Joe's jaw dropped.

    "But that is a little affair," he said jerkily; "just a little fool society——"

    "Eight provinces are strong for the Hands," interrupted Clifford. "And Fing-Su has a headquarters in each. He has double-crossed us from the start—using the money he has taken from the concessions to finance a trading company in opposition to us."

    "He never has!" Joe's voice was hollow with amazement.

    "Go up to the Tower and take a peek at Peking House—the London office of the trading company, and the Emperor Fing-Su's general headquarters!"

    Old Joe Bray could only shake his head.

    "Emperor...um! Same as Napoleon...gosh!"

    Lynne allowed that idea to soak.

    "In three months' time he will be wanting money—big money. At present he is financing divers generals, but he cannot go on indefinitely. His scheme is to form a national army under Spedwell, who knows China, and when he has done that and established himself on the throne, it will be easy to deal with the three big generals who are in his pay at the moment. How this Emperor bug got into his brain, heaven knows!"

    Mr Bray stirred uneasily; something in his attitude arrested his partner's attention.

    "It was you! Oh, you wicked old man!" he breathed, in wonder.

    "I certainly gave him ideas," admitted Joe, who was thoroughly uncomfortable. "I sort of made up yarns to stimmerlate his ambition—that's the word, ain't it? I've got a wonderful imagination, Cliff. I'd have written novels if I could have only spelt."

    "And I suppose," said Clifford, "you drew a picture of what China would be like under one head?"

    "Something like that." Joe Bray dared not meet his partner's eyes. "But it was to stimmerlate his ambition, if you understand, Cliff. Just sort of push him on."

    Clifford was laughing softly, and he very seldom laughed. "Maybe he didn't want any 'stimmerlating'," he said. "Fing-Su is the one in a million that is bound to turn up at odd intervals through the ages. Napoleon was one, Rhodes was one, Lincoln was one—there aren't such a lot of 'em."

    "What about George Washington?" asked Mr Bray, only too anxious to switch the conversation into historical channels.

    "Whoever is responsible, the mischief is done." Cliff looked at his watch. "Did you ever go bird's-nesting, Joe?"

    "As a boy," said Joe complacently, "there was few that could beat me."

    "We'll go along tonight and inspect a floating nest of the domestic yellowbill," said Cliff.

    Mr Narth went up to town by train, his car for the moment being in the grip of one of those mysterious ailments to which cars are addicted. On the station platform he bought a newspaper, though he was not attracted thereto by a contents bill: 'Joyful Hands' Behind Chinese Trouble. What the 'Joyful Hands' meant Mr Narth did not trouble to think. The name seemed a little incongruous.

    He was quite ignorant on the subject of China, except that fabulous sums had been made in that country by one who had conveniently died and passed on his fortune to Mr Narth.

    It was his pride and boast that he was a business man, which meant that he was proud of his ignorance on all subjects apart from his business. Outside interests he had none; he played a passable game of golf—it was that accomplishment which had lured him to Sunningdale—he was an indifferent devotee of bridge, and his adventurous period of life was represented by the indiscreet maintenance of a Bloomsbury flat in the late 'nineties.

    Frankly, he was dishonest; he admitted as much to himself. He had a passionate desire for easy money, and when he had inherited his father's business it had seemed that he was in a fair way to the realization of his ideals. He had then discovered that money only flowed into even the oldest-established businesses if the passages and chutes were kept clear of rubbish. You had either to butter them with advertising, or polish them with that homely commodity which is known as elbow-grease. If you were content to sit in an office chair and wait for money, it had an uncomfortable knack of losing its way and dropping into the coffers of your competitors. He had so far acquainted himself with the incidence of commercial machinery that he had found many short cuts to wealth. The discovery that most of these enticing by-ways led into all sorts of morasses and muddy footholes came later. Greatest of all his misfortunes, as it proved, he was, in spite of his frequent stringencies, on the best of terms with the heads of great financial houses, for his judgment, apart from his own operations, was wellnigh faultless.