The Yellow Snake (8 page)

    "And you promised?" she asked.

    He nodded.

    "And I wasn't drunk when I promised! I've a horrible feeling that I'm sentimental too. He died in Canton—that's where the cable came from. How like Joe to die in Canton!" he said bitterly. "He couldn't even die normally on the Siang-kiang!"

    She was shocked by his callousness.

    "Then what do you expect me to do, now that I know you are only marrying me to keep a promise?" she asked.

    "You can't take advantage of my frankness and sneak out," he said a little gruffly. "I saw old Joe's will after I'd arrived in England, when it was too late to alter it. Your marriage before the end of the year makes a million pounds' difference to Narth."

    "As much as that?" she asked, in amazement.

    For some reason he was astonished.

    "I thought you were going to say 'Is that all?' It is really worth more than a million—or will be in time. The company is enormously rich."

    There followed a period when both were too immersed in their own thoughts to speak, and then:

    "You managed—things for him, didn't you, Mr Lynne?"

    "My best friends call me Cliff," he said, "but if you find that embarrassing you may call me Clifford. Yes, I managed things."

    He offered no further information, and the silence thereafter grew so oppressive that she was glad when the car stopped before the door of Sunni Lodge. Letty, who was on the lawn playing croquet, came across, mallet in hand, with uplifted eyebrows.

    "I thought you were lunching in town, Joan?" she asked disapprovingly. "Really, it's awfully awkward. We've got the Vaseys coming this afternoon, and I know you don't like them."

    And then she saw for the first time the good-looking stranger and lowered her eyes and faltered, for Letty's modesty and confusion in the presence of Man were notoriously part of her charm.

    Joan made no attempt to introduce her companion. She said goodbye to her escort and watched the car glide down the drive.

    "Really, Joan," said Letty petulantly, "you've got the manners of a pig! Why on earth didn't you introduce him?"

    "I didn't think you wanted an introduction; you've been so awfully unpleasant about him since he was here last," said Joan, not without a little malice.

    "But he's never been here before!" protested the girl. "And it's perfectly horrible of you to say that I've said anything unpleasant about anybody. Who is he?"

    "Clifford Lynne," said Joan, and added: "My fiancé!"

    She left Letty open-mouthed and dumbfounded, and went up to her room. The rest of the afternoon she spent in some apprehension as to what Mr Narth would say on his return. When eventually he did come—it was just before dinner—he was surprisingly affable, even paternal, but she detected in his manner a nervousness that she had never noticed before, and wondered whether the cause was Clifford Lynne or the sinister Chinaman of whom she had such bad dreams that night.

    Mr Clifford Lynne had rented a small furnished house in one of those streets in Mayfair which had the advantage, from his point of view, of a back entrance. There was a small garage behind the house, which opened on to a long and very tidy mews made up of other garages, each capped by a tiny flat, wherein the chauffeurs attached to his respectable neighbours had their dwelling.

    Something was puzzling Clifford Lynne—and it was not Fing-Su, or Joan or Mr Narth. A doubt in his mind had blossomed into a suspicion, and was in a fair way to being a conviction.

    All that afternoon he spent reading the China newspapers which had arrived by the mail that day. Just before seven o'clock he saw a paragraph in the
North China Herald
which brought him to his feet with an oath. It was too late to make inquiries, for, simultaneous with his discovery, the visitor was announced.

    Mr Ferdinand Leggat, that amiable and affable man, had arrived via the garage in a closed cab, and had been admitted by Lynne's chauffeur through the back door; there was excellent reason for this secrecy.

    As he entered the little dining-room he half turned as though to shut the door behind him, but the butler who followed made this unnecessary. On Mr Leggat's face there was something that was not exactly fear, and yet might not be diagnosed as comfort. He was unhappy.

    "I wish you could have made it a little later, Mr Lynne," he said, as his host motioned him to a seat.

    "There's nothing as innocent as daylight," said Clifford quietly. "Besides, nobody suspects a taxi. You hailed it, I suppose, in the orthodox way? You mumbled a few instructions to the driver and he brought you here. If it had been a long, grey limousine that had picked you up in some dark street, you might have been under suspicion."

    "These cabmen talk," said the other, fiddling with his knife and fork.

    "Not this cabman; he is my own chauffeur, whom I have had for eight years. You'll find all you want to eat and drink on the sideboard—help yourself."

    "Isn't your servant coming in?" asked the other nervously.

    "If he was, I shouldn't ask you to help yourself," said Clifford. "I want a little talk with you before you go—that is why I asked you to come so early. What happened today?"

    He went to the buffet, helped himself to a small piece of chicken and salad, and brought it back to the table.

    "What happened?" he asked again.

    Mr Leggat had evidently no appetite, for he carried back to the table a whisky bottle and a large siphon.

    "St Clay is furious. You want to be careful of that fellow, Lynne; he's a dangerous man."

    Clifford Lynne smiled.

    "Have I brought you all the way from your South Kensington home to learn that?" he said sardonically. "Of course he's dangerous! What happened?"'

    "I don't exactly know. I saw Spedwell for a few minutes, and he told me that St Clay——"

    "Call him Fing-Su—that St Clay stuff gives me a headache."

    "He said that Fing-Su raised hell at first, and then insisted that Narth should treat the matter as a joke. If I were you, I'd watch that girl of yours."

    Clifford raised his eyes to the other.

    "You mean Miss Bray—I'd rather you said 'Miss Bray.' 'That girl of yours' sounds just a little disrespectful," he sai'd coldly. "Do you mind?"

    Leggat forced a smile.

    "I didn't know you were so darned particular," he grunted.

    "I am—a little," said the other. "Yes, Fing-Su is dangerous; I've no doubt about that. I wonder if you realize how deadly he is?"

    "I?" asked Leggat, in surprise. "Why?"

    The other looked at him strangely.

    "I gather that you have joined his precious Joyful Hands and that you've taken some sort of mumbo-jumbo oath?"

    Leggat moved uneasily in his chair.

    "Oh, that! Well, I don't take much notice of that sort of thing," he said awkwardly. "Secret societies are all very well in their way, but they're a game—playing at mystery and all that sort of thing. Besides, Fing-Su has a fine business in London; he wouldn't try any monkey tricks. Why, he told me that in a year's time he will have almost the whole of the South China trade in his hands, and they say he has trading stations up as far as the Tibetan frontier! The man must be making thousands a year profit! That secret society of his is a trading dodge. Spedwell told me that there are lodges in almost every big town in China. Naturally that's good for business. He has made himself a small god amongst the natives. Look at the offices he is building at Tower Hill, and the factory out at Peckham."

    "The factory at Peckham I intend looking at tonight," said Lynne, and the man's face fell.

    "What's the sense of that?" he asked. "The place is swarming with Chinks. He's got over two hundred and fifty working there. The Peckham people made a fuss about it when there were only fifty. That's why he lodges them inside the factory. You couldn't get into the works for love or money."

    Clifford Lynne smiled.

    "I shall try neither," he said. "All I want from you is the pass-key to the lodge gates."

    The big man went deathly white, and the hand that went to his lips trembled.

    "You don't mean that?" he asked in a hoarse whisper. "Good God, man, you wouldn't go—I couldn't take you—isn't there another way? Couldn't you tell the police or the Foreign Office?"

    "The police and the Foreign Office would give me the merry ha-ha," said Lynne. "I want to see for myself just what is happening inside the boundary wall of those three acres. I want to see just what Mr Grahame St Clay is doing with his warehouses and his ships and motor-barges; but mostly, I am anxious to see the Hall of the White Goat."

    Leggat was trembling like a jelly. He opened his mouth to speak but no words came. At last:

    "There's death there!" he blurted, and the steely eyes met his.

    "For you, perhaps—but not for me!" said Clifford Lynne.

    The activities of the Chinese Trading Federation would have excited no unusual interest had it not been for the labour trouble originating in the employment of yellow stevedores. It was known to be a company financed by wealthy Chinese, and it was not thought remarkable that the promoters of this trading concern should prefer to employ men of their own race; and when the labour difficulty was adjusted and the workers employed by the Federation were accepted as trade unionists, the mutterings against 'Chinese labour' died down, to be revived by the protests of the local inhabitants when a particularly unpleasant outrage was committed in the vicinity of the factory. It was the only one of its kind, happily, for the Federation had taken the drastic step of providing lodgings for its workmen within the factory itself. There was accommodation enough, since the grounds held many buildings of solid concrete. It had been one of the innumerable war factories that had sprung up during the war and which the Armistice had left tenantless, and the Federation had acquired the premises for a fraction of their cost.

    The factory stood on the banks of the sluggish Surrey Canal, and had its own small dock and quay, where interminable strings of barges were unloaded and re-loaded from week to week. Only the barges were manned by white labour; the ships that carried the merchandise of the Federation to the African shore were both officered and manned by Chinamen.

    The so-called Yellow Fleet consisted of four ships, purchased at the very ebb tide of shipping prosperity. The Federation obviously did a very good trade in rice, silk and the thousand and one products of the East. These were usually discharged at the Pool of London itself, and disposed of in the ordinary markets, the vessels reloading from lighters which came out from the Surrey Canal, bearing those exports for which the Federation found the readiest sale.

    Rain was falling when Clifford Lynne's taxicab turned out of the Old Kent Road and passed swiftly towards Peckham. Short of the deserted Canal Bridge, the taxi stopped and Lynne descended. He gave a few words of instruction in a low voice to the driver, and went down to the canal bank. Save for the hooting of a distant steamer on its way down river, no sound broke the silence as he walked swiftly along the narrow bank by the waterside. Once he passed a barge moored to the bank, and heard the muffled voices of the bargeman and his wife in altercation.

    After ten minutes' walk he slackened his pace. Ahead of him to the left were the dark buildings of the Federation factory. He passed the main gates; the little wicket door was open, and squatting before it was a gigantic coolie, as he saw in the glow of the cigar the man was smoking. The custodian bade him a guttural "Goodnight," and he answered the salute.

    The canal twisted in its course a little beyond the gate, and in a few seconds he was out of sight of the gatekeeper. Presently the wall turned at right angles, and he followed a narrow, unlighted passage-way which ran by its side. The rain had developed into a steady downpour and pattered upon the mackintosh dismally. From his pocket he had taken a small electric torch, and this helped him to avoid the succession of deep muddy holes which occurred at intervals in the unsavoury pathway, which was evidently not used to any extent.

    Presently he found what he was looking for—a small door, deeply recessed into the wall. He stood for a few minutes listening, then, inserting the key, turned it, opened the door gently and passed in.

    So far as he could see, to his left was the square outline of the main factory against the sky; to his right a squat concrete shed, so low that the roof was on a level with his eyes. During the war this place had been used as a bomb-filling factory, and evidently the shed had been the explosives store.

    He felt his way forward gingerly, avoiding the use of light. From somewhere in the dark grounds came deep crooning chorus of song. The men's quarters, he thought, as he located the sound.

    A fairly broad flight of stone steps led down to the door of the shed, which was below the level of the ground. Again he stopped and listened, put in his key and gently turned it in the lock. Flashing his lamp inside for a second, he saw the second flight of steps that led deeper into the earth. Here were two doors, but, unlike any other he had passed, these were gaily ornamented with finely carved figures, each painted in bright and vivid colours. Even if he had not been an expert in such matters, he would have recognized the art of China.

    It took him some time to find the keyhole, but at last one of the doors was opened. As it swung open, there came to his nostrils the heavy nidor of incense, and a faint, acrid smell that he knew all too well. Despite his courage, his heart beat a little faster.