The Yellow Snake (19 page)

    At such an hour do the great men of China grant their audiences, and Fing-Su, in his flowered silk robe, his silken trousers and white felt boots, wore upon his head the insignia of a rank to which he had no title.

    Between his lips was a long, thick-stemmed pipe with a microscopic bowl, but it was tobacco that he was smoking.

    A heavy-eyed little Chinese girl-woman sat on her heels in a corner of the room, watching him and ready to replenish the pipe or tea cup which stood at his elbow. Squatting at his feet was an unhealthy-looking Chinaman in European dress, his big derby hat deposited on the floor by his side.

    Fing-Su lifted the handleless tea cup from the low table by his side and drank noisily.

    "Of all men in this evil country I have sought out you, Li Fu," he said, setting down the cup. "I shall pay you well and there will be a great cumskaw in addition. Your name has been spoken to me because of your boldness and because you know this town so much better than I, who have spent all my years at college."

    He used the phrase which literally means 'Forest of Pencils.'

    If Li Fu felt any uneasiness, the inscrutable, pock-marked face did not show it.

    "There is a law in this country which is very hard on foreigners," he said. "By such a law I may be taken and put upon a ship and sent to China. Already I have spent three months in a prison where no man can speak to another. And, Fing-Su, in China I am a dead man, as you know, for Tuchun of Lanchow has sworn to hang my head in a basket over the gate of the city."

    Fing-Su smoked delicately, drawing at the tasteless tobacco and sending forth big blue rings of smoke to the scarlet-raftered ceiling.

    "All China is not Lanchow," he said, "and there will be changes. Who knows that you may not be Tuchun yourself some day? My friends will be well rewarded. There will be 'squeeze' for you, not 'cash' or copper or mex dollar, but gold. I know a place where there is a statue made of gold..."

    He spoke of Urga, that Mongolian Mecca, where shrines are of solid gold and there is a great golden figure of Buddha, and in the cellars of the living Buddha a treasure beyond computation.

    Li Fu listened apparently unmoved, his mind vacillating between the ungilded gates of Pentonville Prison and the reward he was offered. He was not a poor man as Chinamen went, but his compatriot had offered him an immediate fortune.

    "You have the felicity of owning a white wife," Fing-Su went on in his thin voice. "It would be a simple matter and none would know."

    Li Fu looked up.

    "Why do you come to me? For I am not a member of your tong. And you have hundreds of men who are like slaves to you!"

    Fing-Su tapped the ashes from his pipe, declined with a gesture its replenishment, and sat back in the silken cushions behind him.

    "The Sage has said, 'The slave must be ordered and the master will be served,'" he quoted. "I cannot stand behind each man and say 'Do this.' If I said, 'Li Fu has offended me, let him die,' you would be dead, because it is easy to take life. But in this other man I require wisdom and cunning or nothing will save my face."

    Li Fu considered the matter, twiddling his thumbs, his nimble mind busy. This was something more profitable than the smuggling of cocaine, his staple industry, a quicker way to fortune than the rake-off of coppers from a forbidden game of fantan. His wife, who was not exactly white but white enough, was very competent to play the part which his employer had assigned, had indeed already rented the premises which he had intended should mask a more nefarious trade than millinery.

    Fing-Su knew of that projected showroom in Fitzroy Square; he knew of Li Fu's connection, for the secrets of the little Chinese underworld came to him in the shape of gossip.

    "You will pay first," said Li Fu, and there followed a gentle but conventional wrangle, for no two Chinamen have ever struck a bargain on the first price offered.

    At the end Li Fu was dismissed.

    The man who entered from the little ante-room was not unused to being kept waiting by his employer, but the interview had lasted longer than he expected, and Major Spedwell was tired and not in the best of tempers.

    "Well, have you settled things?" he asked shortly.

    Fing-Su surveyed him through half-closed eyes.

    "Yes; it was inevitable," he said.

    "You think you will get the girl without fuss? I don't." Spedwell sank down into a chair and lit a cigar. "You're monkeying with a big thing, and I'm not so sure that even now we're going to get through the next twelve hours without trouble," he said. "Lynne has pulled in Scotland Yard——"

    "Scotland Yard!" murmured the other with a derisive smile.

    "There's nothing to grin about," snapped Spedwell. "These birds, when they move at all, move quickly. I've been shadowed all day."

    Fing-Su sat up suddenly.

    "You?"

    Spedwell nodded.

    "I thought that would interest you. And I'll tell you something else. Miss Bray is pretty certain to be shadowed. Leggat has spilt more than we know—what are you going to do about him?" he asked abruptly.

    Fing-Su shrugged his silken shoulders.

    "Let him slide," he said indifferently.

    Spedwell chewed at the cigar, his eyes upon the whitening windows.

    "The Yard are up and doing," he said significantly. "That fellow Lynne captured—do you think he talked?"

    "Possibly." Impatience and weariness were in Fing-Su's voice. "At any rate, I have decided to deal with him in the manner you know. This country stifles me!" He rose and began walking up and down the room. "So many things would be simple—in China! Lynne—where would he be? A headless body carried out and left in the Gobi Desert—or, wearing a soldier's uniform, in some old moat. This woman interests me."

    He stopped and pulled at his thin lip.

    "Miss Bray?"

    "Yes...She is pretty, I suppose? Yes, pretty." He nodded. "I should like to see her in the dress of our women. And that would be terrible for Lynne. To know that somewhere in China—in an inaccessible place, with my armies between him and her——"

    Spedwell rose slowly to his, feet, an ugly look on his face.

    "You can cut that little dream out of your repertoire, Fing-Su," he said coldly. "No harm must come to that girl—not that kind of harm."

    Fing-Su was smiling.

    "My dear Spedwell, how amusing! What queer values you English-speaking folk place on your women that you would jeopardize an immense fortune—I was joking. She is nothing to me. I would surrender all the women in the world rather than lose your help and friendship."

    But Spedwell's uneasiness was not so readily dispelled. He knew just when and why his services would be dispensed with, for the hour was near at hand when Fing-Su would make a clean cut of many of those trammelling influences which surrounded and hampered him. And, knowing, he was prepared.

    "How are things shaping in China?" he asked.

    "The hour is near," said the Chinaman in a low voice. "The two armies have come to an agreement. Wei-pa-fu will move down from Harbin, Chi-sa-lo has concentrated within striking distance of Peking. It is purely a question of money. The guns have been landed—but I need not have sent them. Shells and equipment is all that Wei-pa-fu requires. If I could get control of the concession reserve it would be easy. But the generals want their 'squeeze'—four millions would make me Emperor of China."

    Spedwell stroked his little black moustache thoughtfully.

    "And how much would keep you Emperor?" he asked, but Fing-Su was unconcerned.

    "Once there, I shall be difficult to move," he said. "The granting of concessions to the Powers will identify them with my reign..."

    Spedwell listened and wondered at the calm confidence of this merchant's son who planned to buy a place on the throne which the Mings and the Manchus had won by their valour. And all the time he was speaking the world grew lighter and the grim outlines of the Conqueror's Tower, wherein so much ambition had died, rose into shape with the broadening of the day.

    Mr Stephen Narth had been detained in town all night, and for once his daughter did an unselfish thing.

    "There is no sense in worrying father," she told her hysterical sister. "And Mr Joseph says that no harm was intended me—these wretched people mistook me for Joan."

    "'Joseph'—is he Jewish?" asked Letty, curiosity overcoming alarm.

    "He doesn't look it," was the non-committal reply.

    It happened that Clifford did not see the girl either on her rescue or during the following morning. Only too well he knew that Mabel had been mistaken for her distant cousin, and he grew more and more uneasy. His first call on his arrival in town was at Scotland Yard, and here he received the gratifying intelligence that a number of officers had been detailed to watch Sunni Lodge.

    "You'll be wanting somebody to look after you!" said the officer with a smile when Clifford told him of the ammonia attack. "That ammonia spray in the hat is an old trick, by the way."

    Clifford nodded.

    "I'm not proud of myself," he said.

    "As far as Miss Bray is concerned," said the superintendent, "I have already sent a man to Sunningdale with orders to follow her wherever she goes. He has just 'phoned me to say that the Narths' car is out of order and he will have no difficulty in keeping her under observation."

    "Thank the Lord for that!" said Cliff fervently, and went back to his house to arrange the details of the search he was making that night.

    At five o'clock that afternoon he telephoned through to the Slaters' Cottage. Joe Bray's voice answered him.

    "I've just been having a talk on the 'phone with Joan," said Joe. "Mark this, that girl's got brains! I asked her how old she thought I was, and what do you think she said——"

    "Don't tell me," begged Clifford. "I'd hate to think she was insincere. Now listen: you're to be here at eleven o'clock. You'll have a visit from two or three men round about nine. They are Scotland Yard detectives and their job is to keep an eye on Sunni Lodge. As soon as they arrive, you skip—you understand?"

    "She said to me," continued Joe, a tremor of sentiment in his voice, "'Mabel seems to like you'—those were her very words—'she seems to like you.'"

    "She'll have no rival," said Clifford unpleasantly. "Did you hear what I said, you crazy old hen?"

    "I heard you," said Joe quite unruffled. "Listen, Cliff: she said—Joan, I mean—'I've never known Mabel to be so interested in anybody——'"

    "At eleven o'clock," persisted Clifford.

    "At all times—that's what Joan said——"

    "And don't call up Joan Bray any more. One of the servants, or Narth, or, worse still, one of the daughters may discover who you are," said Clifford, "and then it will be a case of 'Goodbye, Mabel.'"

    "I'm not likely to call her up: she's gone to town. And listen, Cliff, she said——"

    "Gone to town?"

    The news startled the younger man, but before he could question his partner, Bray went on:

    "She's gone up to buy some dresses. That Narth ain't so bad, Cliff. Told her she could spend up to the limit. He's not a bad scout, old Stephen."

    Clifford hung up the receiver thoughtfully. Generosity and Stephen Narth were such complete strangers that his suspicions were aroused.

    When Joan Bray was ushered into her relative's private office she also was a little doubtful as to what condition might be attached to Stephen's largess. It was natural in her that she should wish to go to this strange husband that had been chosen for her with some material equipment. Even the beggar maid would not come empty-handed to Cophetua, but would spend her days gathering a poor and decent wardrobe to replace her rags. And Joan was singularly deficient in the matter of clothing. Mr Narth was not an extravagant man, and she had subsisted for three years on two evening frocks. A fine character should be superior to the mundane considerations of clothing, but when a fine mind has as its host a shapely body, it may be excused the lapse of a desire for suitable covering.

    Mr Stephen Narth was sitting at his desk with his head in his long hands, and he looked up with a start and stared at her as she entered the room. In a week an extraordinary change had come over him, she thought. He had grown haggard, nervous, ready to start at the slightest sound. He was a man who at the best of times was easily irritated, but now, as the click of the door announced her presence, she thought he had some difficulty in suppressing an exclamation of fear.

    "Oh! You! It is you, is it, Joan?" he said breathlessly. "Sit down, won't you?"

    He unlocked a drawer of his desk after two attempts—his hand shook so that he could not fit the key—and took out a black cash-box.

    "We've got to do this thing in style, Joan." His voice was shrill; the man was on edge, she saw. "Must get you married in the way old Joe would like, eh? You didn't tell the girls what I wanted you for?"

    She shook her head.

    "That's right. They would have wanted to come up and buy things as well, and I can't afford it."

    From the box he took a pad of notes and, without counting, laid them before her.

    "Get everything you want, my dear—nothing but the best. There's only one favour I would like to ask you." He stared out of the window, not meeting her eyes. "You know, Joan, I have interests in—queer sorts of ventures. I finance this and that and the other in a little way, and I have more fingers in more pies than people imagine." He passed his hand nervously across his chin, his eyes still on the window, and she wondered what was coming next. "I've put a whole lot of money into a dressmaking business—Madame Ferroni, 704, Fitzroy Square." His voice had grown suddenly husky. "It's not a very pretentious place; in fact, it's a suite on the third floor; but I'd like you to buy some of your gowns from Madame."