The Complete Adventures of Hazard & Partridge (40 page)

NOW Lomond took to loafing as if he had discovered that he was early to an appointment. He sauntered from stall to stall, examining much and buying nothing, and we imitated him.

Finally he turned into the Street of Lanterns, the principal thoroughfare across the city from east to west. Here an occasional sedan-chair made way with difficulty through the crush, its bearers pushing, arguing, cajoling, scolding, with an effective mixture of good-nature and effrontery. And it was with one of these chairs that the next significant occurrence which we observed on this lucky morning had to do.

On a certain stretch of street the crowd had thickened as flies gather on food—had thickened and grown ruffian in appearance.

In it were many “strangers from afar,” “men with a mission,” tall fighting Mongols from the north, wiry Cantonese with cunning faces, swarthy, fanatical Taoist from Shensi—for to the Taoist hierarchy Koshinga had promised much.

Apparently there was something on foot; if these men were there without intention their appearance belied them; they lounged and loitered as if deliberately adding to the congestion of the street.

Lomond had stopped before a stall in which trained hawks and Mongolian crows were exhibited for sale. Hazard and I pretended to examine some pottery at a stall not far away.

While we were so engaged there came the sound of a small commotion in the middle of the street just behind Lomond’s back. A couple of coolies had fallen into a squabble; they had thrust their faces close together and were hissing taunts at each other like two furious snakes.

As Hazard and I turned they fell into a clutch. This was not uncommon, and it was curious the way men jammed in toward them from all sides, so that in an instant the street was a wriggling mass of would-be onlookers.

A richly decorated sedan-chair, all yellow and blue, had been approaching with much difficulty from down-town. Now it stopped, swaying with the crowd like a boat in the trough of the waves.

Its six liveried bearers uttered short cries as they tried to go forward. But instead of giving way the mob pressed in on them. That is, the most ruffianly of its members did.

And Hazard and I heard the cries of the bearers of the chair take on a note of fear.

“By the Lord,” muttered Hazard, “I think—”

Just to our left was an itinerant barber with his doubly useful box—a receptacle for his tools, a seat for his customers. Hazard passed him a few copper
tungtses
and we crowded together on top of the box.

So we were able to look over the heads of the crowd, and a moment later to see a strange incident which just then was without explanation, without beginning or end, a flashing glimpse into the human kaleidoscope which surrounded us.

Six men, caparisoned exactly as were the bearers of the chair, had appeared out of the edge of the mob—one at each bearer’s elbow. From its effect it was a magical word which each of these men whispered in a bearer’s ear, for instantly and as if frightened the original bearers abandoned their poles, or rather they transferred them to the shoulders of these false bearers, and immediately the chair was under way again. The coolies’ squabble was forgotten, the crowd parted like water before the chair, and it passed us at a jogging trot. And it was then we learned its owner’s name from the great yellow characters which sprawled across the jackets of both the original and the false bearers:

LIU PO WEN.

Liu Po Wen, the father of the girl who had been sought after by Ho Shih Chang—he who had died by the hand of the governor whom he had tried to kill!

“Um!” grunted Hazard. “Now if Ho Shih Chang were still alive this might be understood. The East is as violent in love as the West—more so, sometimes. But as it stands—”

His voice trailed off. He had glanced toward the bird-stall and found that Lomond had disappeared.

It must have annoyed him, but without change of countenance he began pressing his way through the almost solid pack that had closed in behind the car—or rather percolating through it, for Hazard possessed to an inimitable degree the capacity to win his way through a press without opposition or antagonism.

I followed in his wake, and we located Lomond just as he was disappearing through the door of a tea-house a little farther down the street.

II

“IF YE seek, enter a tea-house,” runs a Chinese proverb—a true saying. The tea-house is Asia’s free meeting-place and market, where one may sell one’s soul or buy another’s.

The name itself is a euphemism, covering all things from the serving of
magie-lu
and the fierier
saujo
to theatrical performances that are not nice and the purveying of goods, and conspiracy to murder. The tea-house is the great common denominator of men, a place where mandarin and bandit may meet as equals and in secrecy—a throw-off for the social instinct and a hatchery of mischief.

A guttural roar of human voices smote our ears as Hazard and I entered this tea-house after Lomond. This roar was not loud, but it was deep and powerful—five hundred men grunted, mumbled, talked and laughed and took their drinks in a space so crowded that bare shoulder pressed against bare shoulder everywhere.

Stripped to the waist, the Chinese filled the wooden benches that lined the common room from end to end. Others stood, and plumped themselves down quickly whenever a sitter arose.

In the aggregate it was a scene of Gargantuan drinking; individually the men may have averaged the expenditure of an American cent. The smell that came from the sweating throng was an affront to the nostrils.

Here was Asia, alive, pulsating, before our eyes—but here was also Lomond. He had turned to the left from the entrance and had reached the row of thin-walled bamboo stalls that had been built for the use of the better class along that side of the place.

His thin face, hook-nosed, powerful-jawed, was as impassive and ugly as a gargoyle’s. He moved confidently and unhesitatingly forward, but when he was half-way down the side of the room a full-gowned and imposing-looking Chinaman in a tasseled hat rose and stood in Lomond’s path as if he were on guard.

Perhaps a word passed between them. At any rate the Chinaman drew back instantly and let Lomond pass. Lomond went on a little farther, opened the door of one of the little stalls, entered it and drew the door shut behind him rather hurriedly.

“One of the adjoining stalls—if we can make it,” whispered Hazard.

I nodded, but with no particular hope that Lomond would be stupid enough to leave only a bamboo wall between him and a possible hearer—that is, assuming that he went to a secret interview. And we were yet six paces from the room into which Lomond had gone when the same dark-gowned, tassel-capped Chinaman blocked our own way.

“The foreign mandarins will please to command the services of my miserable place of thirst-quenching,” he murmured, clasping and shaking his own hands in salutation.

And the next moment he had opened the door of a stall that attracted us not at all, and stood immovable, inviting us to enter.

Now the will of the Orient, expressed thus politely, is really like a stone wall padded with many cushions. Whether Lomond’s wish or another’s were controlling him, this man was fully determined that we should get no closer to our quarry.

Bribery might win him, but was equally likely to fail; what was really needed was a more extraordinary persuasion—and it was quite natural that I should think of that dagger inside my coat, the handle of which was shaped in the horrific likeness of our enemy, Koshinga.

The eyes of the tea-house proprietor were already fastened respectfully on the breast of my khaki jacket. I slipped my hand inside it and drew two inches of that dagger out from its hiding-place, holding it so that no one but the man who barred our passage could see it.

The result by no means proved him to be a Ko Lao Hui, for the symbol of that gigantic
tong
was very often feared and obeyed where it was most hated; but the Chinaman blinked uncertainly and bewilderedly. Very probably it puzzled him greatly to find that dagger in the hands of two turbaned Sikhs; but Hazard and I gave him no time to recover from his weakening hesitation.

We brushed quickly past him; and Hazard flung back an order to him that we were on no account to be approached or disturbed—such an order as I suppose he had already received concerning Lomond and his confrère.

And the next moment he was kowtowing profoundly to our backs as we passed through the door next that which Lomond had entered, placing our felt-slippered feet like cats.

The place was just large enough to contain a rude table around which four men might seat themselves. Under the edge of the table were Chinese stools, two of which Hazard and I moved soundlessly against the wall behind which we knew was Lomond. Lomond and who else? Or had the other party to this guarded interview arrived?

We seated ourselves on the stools, facing each other, and placed our ears against the wall, hoping fervently that Hazard’s order against interruption would be respected.

Immediately we heard a sound that was hard to define, but which might have been the crinkling of leaves of parchment. Then a page of it was turned and folded back, unmistakably.

Probably it was my knowledge of Lomond’s business that made me so certain that he was intently studying a tape-tied document. Then some one was with him, some one who had given him that document—and still there was no certainty until after about ten minutes Lomond spoke.

We had heard his voice once, and could never mistake it—flat, toneless, and as vacant of human emotion as the face of the central image in the Taoist Temple of Torture.

“It is well,” he said in the Mandarin dialect. “It should satisfy.”

“Your servant is persuaded that it will,” replied a more flexible Chinese voice. “It is done with all authority.”

I glanced at Hazard. His rather commonplace face was unchanged save for his eyes, which were half-closed and blankly intent. He looked like an expert hunter who senses his game before he perceives it; and I knew he could be trusted to pounce upon whatever we should hear, and tear out of it every vestige of meaning.

As for me, I was rather illogically elated. The few words we had heard might mean anything; nevertheless I was sure we were touching the fringe of Koshinga’s plot at last. That feeling is hard to explain; it is like the faint premonitory lessening of darkness that precedes the glimmer of light when one nears the end of a tunnel.

After a moment Lomond spoke again:

“Yes, it is a good bargain. It is said that there is enough coal under Kiangsi to feed the furnaces of the world for a century.

“And who will notice the sending of two companies into the province in the present disturbed state of the world? As you know, it is practically agreed upon by my government, provided I secure for it this pledge.”

“It is done then,” replied the Chinaman. “Five hundred men—it is a small pawn in a great game. Your servant begs that you will make all haste, for the hour of Koshinga’s blow is near.”

So! I was mistaken then. This was a counterplot to Koshinga’s—or was it?

Five hundred soldiers—what a handful against the forces of Koshinga! Pawns would they be in truth if Koshinga learned of their coming, and that in a sense not understood by Lomond.

But the parchment was crackling again, and that sound was accompanied by another, as if Lomond was at once rising and putting away his precious document. Evidently the interview was to be of the shortest.

“I should be given every assistance,” resumed Lomond’s voice. “From here I go to the Inn of Munificent Promise, where I shall remain until the third hour after midnight.

“Then I shall start for Foochow, where are the exalted battle-ships of my government. A guard should be provided me, with facilities for swift traveling.

“To Foochow is four days by pony caravan. There will be a delay for talk, and the soldiers will travel more slowly; but in nine days more they should arrive by the route that has been agreed upon.”

“All will be seen to. May your efforts prosper.”

Then into the Chinese voice there seemed to creep an almost imperceptible and very puzzling note of derision.

“May the honorable foreign soldiers live long,” he murmured. “May the earth evil called the Ko Lao Hui wither before them.”

POLITELY and without seeming to notice anything strange in the other’s tone Lomond led off on the ceremonial formulas that must precede their parting. By this we knew that they were to leave the room in inverse order to that in which they had entered it, Lomond first. So we waited in silence until their door opened and closed again and Lomond’s leather-shod feet passed outside our own.

Then Hazard beckoned me away from the wall. By this time I had digested what we had heard pretty well, and was not particularly surprized at the intensity of Hazard’s expression.

If both of us had not been accustomed to build much on slight things seen and overheard we should hardly have lasted as long as we had in our fight against Koshinga’s wily intellect; and it was now fairly clear to me that my first thought concerning the meaning of this interview had been correct.

We had not only touched the fringe of Koshinga’s plot, but had penetrated it entirely; only it was so infernally subtle as to be almost imperceivable. For instance, Lomond—seasoned international go-between as he was—had seemingly not perceived it.

“Of course you understand?” Hazard’s whisper barely carried to my ears.

“I think so. The scheme we suspected—to turn the people against Peking.”

“Exactly. Invasion by foreign troops— what government can stand that invites it? And the surrender in return of the Kiangsi coal-deposits—even more damning! But of course Peking knows nothing about it.

“This man in the next room is a Ko Lao Hui agent posing as a government official. Only I can’t see how he’s been able to carry off the imposture with Lomond.”

“Crook’s wit,” I replied. “You remember all his schemes have fallen through somehow.”