THE POWERS OF EVIL
Unfortunately for the plans of Captain Hugh North and the peace of mind of Bruce Kilgour, Michael Smith was not to be found in his cabin, nor among the passengers waving to friends on shore, nor was he consuming a final libation at the bar. In fact, Michael Smith could not be found anywhere on the Kiangsu. Hot and angry, North came to that dismal conclusion after having conducted a search of all likely places.
“You must have had your reasons,” the British agent observed, “but damned if I see why you didn’t arrest him at once.”
“Because I was sure Smith wouldn’t bring that document to a police interview, just as surely as I knew he would recover it before quitting the ship.”
“I see,” sighed Kilgour.
The American caught his colleague’s eye and held it. “Bruce,” he demanded, “I haven’t asked before—but now I really must know what Trenchard’s orders were, and just what he was supposed to have had.”
The British agent blinked and then drew a deep breath. “I’m not supposed to tell such things, but, under the conditions—” Lowering his voice, Kilgour went on: “About a week ago and just after Wang’s defeat we first caught wind of an illegal arms shipment intended for Wang. Yuan Li-tsing told us of it and hinted very broadly that if he was forced to evacuate Shanghai we—England and America—would regret it in horrible fashion. This was no news to us, for we knew that Wang Kung hates us—Soviet influence, I suppose. Yuan declared he had hunted everywhere in the Native Cities but could find no trace of the shipment.”
“I see,” said North. “So he put it up to you by implying that the munitions were somewhere in the International Settlement?”
“Exactly. I talked it over with Sir Joseph, and we decided that I would hunt in Shanghai while Trenchard went up to Wang’s district to find out what he could learn at that end.”
The Intelligence Captain nodded gravely. “And he wired that he was successful. In the meantime, did you learn anything in Shanghai?”
“No. I personally searched every pier and go-down—sent out our best native spies, but they didn’t unearth a single damned thing. The affair must be being run over in the French Concession—where I’ve no jurisdiction. That’s one reason I was so jolted to find Broussard in on this case.”
North said nothing. He recognized now that the struggle had new significances. French interests shipping arms to a supposedly Francophile tuchun—British and American interests backing their man. That Wang was a red-handed bandit and that Yuan Li-tsing was a capable, progressive, and liberal ruler made no whit of difference. Trade was trade and money was money, whether it was in pounds, francs, or dollars.
“Well, Macklin, what luck?”
“Can’t find the blighter, but he’s probably aboard somewhere,” panted the inspector. “However, we’ve that Chang rascal, and I think it was he who did in Trenchard.”
“Wish I could agree,” North snapped, for his feelings were not kindly.
Hardly had the gangplank grated on the surface of the pier than North commenced to pick out various members of Inspector Macklin’s force. Chinese, Eurasian, and Caucasian, they stood in the crowd watching—watching.
Shouted greetings rent the air with joyous sound, but there was no joy in North’s being when Kilgour hurried onto the pier in order to warn the S.M.P. men to keep a lookout for anyone even faintly resembling Michael Smith, the tea merchant. Increasingly bitter was Captain North’s realization that he had violated the most cardinal of all Intelligence precepts—that of underestimating an enemy’s ability. A first-rate man was Smith—not the faintest hint had he given of suspecting North’s insight to the significance of that blur along the pistol barrel.
“It’s no use,” was Kilgour’s bitter comment when, an hour later, the ship had been vainly searched from stem to stern and truck to keelson. “He must have gone overboard off the Bund. I suppose one of those sampans has picked him up and set him ashore long since. Looks as though we were off to a very bad start, Hugh.”
Frankly grimy was the handkerchief with which North wiped his heated features and blacker by far were his thoughts when, coming up the gangplank, he beheld no less a person than Colonel Sir Joseph Gaynor, Chief of the Municipal Police.
Without delay Sir Joseph crossed the deck to where the discomfited Intelligence officers stood.
“I say, Mr. Kilgour, were you successful?” Agitation was written in every line of Sir Joseph’s shrewd and ruggedly handsome face.
Kilgour’s voice was strained as he said, “Sorry, sir, our man went overboard before we could arrest him. We’ll have to see what we can do on shore.”
“My God!” said Sir Joseph softly.
Ominous, ominous! North felt fresh qualms when an officer in American naval uniform boarded the Kiangsu and hurried up to him. “Captain North?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Edward Brant, aide to Rear-Admiral Clegg aboard the Cheehalis. I—” He glanced meaningfully at the Englishmen, who were conversing in hurried, low-pitched voices.
Nodding, North moved out of earshot and stood at the rail, his somber eyes studying the teeming action of the Bund.
Commander Brant stepped closer and, sharply eyeing the impassive Intelligence Captain, said, “Rear-Admiral Clegg’s compliments, sir. He would like to arrange a brief conference at once. He is—we all are—most uneasy over the situation.”
North’s heart sank. Subconsciously he had hoped that Kilgour, despite his well known equable temperament, had exaggerated, but there was that written in this white-clad officer’s expression which brought home conviction. No doubt now that white Shanghai was trembling in its collective boots.
“Very well, Commander, I will go immediately. Has the Admiral any particular place in mind?”
“He and the Consul General decided on the Marine Corps post headquarters.”
“Very well, sir. Please inform the Admiral I will join him there in half an hour.”
“Thank you, sir. Admiral Clegg is very relieved to have you back.”
“Kind of him. Good-day, Commander.”
Saluting, the admiral’s aide turned and hurried off down the gangplank just as Sir Joseph came striding solemnly across the deck.
“We owe you many thanks,” he said earnestly, “on your detective work in locating the murderer.”
Hugh North, however, made a curt negative movement with his hand. “No cause, Sir Joseph. I bungled, and the man got away.”
“But at least we now know whom to look for,” persisted the Chief of the Municipal Police. “I fancy that before long we’ll have him under lock and key. Where is Inspector Macklin?”
Bruce Kilgour could not suppress a faintly malicious smile.
“He has already gone ashore with a prisoner, sir. He seemed pretty sure that Mr. Chang had committed the murder.”
“You think the Chinese couldn’t possibly have been guilty?”
“Not at all sure,” came North’s prompt reply. “But Smith’s flight rather bears out my theory. I’d keep an eye on Chang, however, if you decide to turn him loose.”
“Chang!” Kilgour seemed startled. “Then you do think there is ground for suspicion?”
“I never said there wasn’t. In fact, I think it’s significant that, of all the people aboard the Kiangsu, it should be Chang’s pistol that the murderer selected.”
Sir Joseph nodded briefly and turned aside to confer with the ship’s officers.
“Are you going ashore now, Hugh?” Kilgour inquired.
“Yes.”
The Englishman fumbled in his pocket.
“Before you go, will you change this pound note for me? I’ve used up all my change.”
North nodded and gave Kilgour a ten-dollar Chinese bill and five broad silver pieces.
“You certainly have been up-country,” Kilgour remarked as he eyed the miscellaneous collection of coins. “I haven’t seen any like them in months.”
“Are they good in Shanghai?”
“Oh, yes.” Kilgour pocketed the coins and asked, “Where will you be around eleven? I’ll want to see you then.”
“At the Service Club.”
“You won’t get in there,” Kilgour predicted, “they’re jammed full, and so are most of the hotels except the Royale. I know it isn’t exactly first rate, but they’re likely to have a few rooms left.”
“Thanks—then I’ll be there at eleven unless you hear to the contrary.”
Signs that trouble was in the air greeted Captain Hugh North’s experienced eye from the moment he quitted the Kiangsu’s gangplank and, beating aside a swarm of importunate coolies, deliberately picked out a new rickshaw and piled his meager luggage into a gorgeous green-and-yellow vehicle operated by the Able-to-Fly Company.
He had just settled himself in that comfortable conveyance when a panting chit coolie ran up and pressed a square of paper into North’s hand; before the Intelligence Captain could stop him the messenger had melted again into the malodorous throng surging along the pier towards a ramshackle Chinese steamer loading not far away. Telling his coolie to wait he unfolded the chit and read a single sentence:
Suggest honor of early interview, events tread close on plans of evil men.
Chao.
Chao Ku! How the devil had he learned of his presence on the Kiangsu? But, then, how did that plump little Chinese learn half those things of which he found it so useful to be aware?
In the shade of his panama the Intelligence Captain’s normally pleasant expression vanished, but he gave no other indication that the message implied fresh matter for concern. What had Chao discovered? Further bad news for G-2, no doubt.
Relaxed on the rickshaw’s comfortable cushions and elevated well above the heads of the crowd, North devoted his attention to the abnormally dense traffic while his coolie trotted off down that magnificent Bund which has no equal in all the world. Yes, from the gaunt street sweepers trying to look important in their cotton jackets and red-banded straw hats, to the tall, vermilion-turbaned Sikh policemen who directed traffic with disdainful gestures and strange striped batons, the crowd wore a tense look.
Significant, too, was the fact that the blue and khaki of British and American sailors and marines dotted the sidewalks more thickly than usual.
Moreover, the Intelligence Captain’s rickshaw was being continuously slowed because the streets were crowded with cumbersome wheelbarrows; these were generally heaped high with a weird miscellany of household goods belonging to some plump Chinese who, like as not, sat perched on the very summit of the top-heavy load and shrieked incessant directions to a scrawny, rag-clad wretch staggering along between the handles.
“By God, it is bad,” muttered North when, further down the Bund, he caught sight of a detail of the Shanghai Volunteer Force busy building barbed-wire chevaux de frise. How evilly the blue-white wire points twinkled while the busy hammers clattered and banged. Ugh! Graphic memories of 1917 came flooding back. The same old game again was beginning, with the flesh of many paying for the ambitious greed of a few.
By the time the rickshaw had rolled over the Garden Bridge across Soochow Creek, an imbecile could have seen that though the great city’s life remained normal on the surface, it had been perceptibly shaken beneath. No curfew, no restrictions yet, but fear was as strong in the air as that distinctive, sour reek from the Native City.
Mechanically North’s mind reverted to Trenchard’s murder. A nervy and a shrewd devil was Michael Smith. It must have taken no ordinary courage to drop overboard and risk death from the Kiangsu’s propeller blades. Where had he gone? On to Shanghai or over to the warehouses and rabbit warrens of the Pootung shore? With Chao Ku on the job something might be learned from the sampan men. But time must elapse before the trail could be picked up, and time was as rubies and fine gold—if half of what Kilgour said was true.
Mindful of Commander Brant’s agitated manner, North paused just long enough to reserve a room at the Royale and to telephone the Consulate that he was on his way.
Lost in thought, he climbed back in his rickshaw and was soon speeding towards the Marine barracks. First of all he must assemble some sort of organization of which Bruce Kilgour and Chao Ku would be the king pins. S.M.P. detectives would do for any job requiring not much finesse, and if need arose for force majeure, Sir Joseph and the Municipal Police could furnish that, too.
The problem was simple enough, he perceived when he summed up the case. Trenchard, with orders to learn what he could about that crucial arms shipment, had gone first to Wang Kung’s district. Later he had made his way to Nanking and there cultivated his intimacy with Ruby.
Apparently from one source or another, the Englishman had come into the possession of an immensely valuable document, and perhaps the knowledge which had necessitated his murder by Kung’s supporters.
Smith, aided by Ruby, had killed Trenchard with a pistol stolen from Chang Ya-chang. Steel had ransacked Trenchard’s room, probably without success, and Fournier had tried to murder North in his sleep. Here were the principal parts of the puzzle lying before him. “Carol’s doll” and that cash found in the dead man’s breast pocket were minor but essential parts.
North sighed and stared unseeingly at the rickshaw coolie’s sweaty neck bobbing up and down just before him.
Surprisingly soon the forbidding gray bulk of the Marine barracks loomed above the gaudy shop roofs and an iron picket fence came in sight.
Outside the post headquarters smartly turned out guards sprang to attention as a stalwart and sunburned Marine captain appeared and saluted the visitor.
“Captain North?”
“Yes.”
“Step this way, please.”
Striding along, he and his guide presently arrived in a large room in which were seated six men—two civilians and four men in uniform.
From his insignia Captain North at once recognized Rear-Admiral Clegg where he sat busily talking to that same commander he had met aboard the Kiangsu. Major Leonard, commandant of the Marine garrison, he knew of old; and the fourth member was an American lawyer now wearing the khaki uniform of the Shanghai Volunteer Force.
Those present arose as the Intelligence Captain came in and nodded to the two civilians. One, as he well knew, was John Brunton, the United States Consul General, and the other he seemed to recognize as manager of the huge Aztec Oil Company whose refineries and storage tanks lined the Wangpoo for miles.
“Admiral Clegg,” Major Leonard led the newcomer forward, “this is Captain North of the Army Intelligence. He has returned to duty here in Shanghai.”
The two shook hands and, after the round of introduction had been completed, Mr. Brunton, his manner extremely serious, swiftly depicted the situation, painting a picture of helplessness which filled North’s soul with horror. Briefly, graphically, Siddons, the oil man, Major Leonard, and the others supplied further details which proved, beyond a doubt, that some forty thousand white men, women, and children lay at the tender mercy of Wang’s bandits if once Yuan’s battalions were eliminated.
Rear-Admiral Clegg, with a seaman’s characteristic brusqueness, added the final touch.
“Before you came I was telling Mr. Brunton that we can’t possibly land more than five hundred marines and seamen. I have already advised him that all American citizens—English, too, for that matter—should be evacuated at once. We don’t stand a chance of protecting them if the city falls.”
North looked at him sharply. “I presume, Admiral, that you have asked for more ships?”
Fire flashed from the Rear-Admiral’s eyes. “I have, sir, but the State Department refuses to comply. Apparently they would rather let our citizens take their chances than risk provoking a war scare. As a special concession they are holding four cruisers ready at Manila which, of course, won’t get here in time if General Yuan is beaten.”
At this point the Consul General, who looked very gray-faced and haggard, broke in.
“So you see, Captain, everything depends on finding and seizing that arms shipment. For,” he concluded gravely, “it is physically impossible to evacuate our people in time—even if it is attempted.”
“And that’s saying nothing about our thousands of Chinese employees,” the oil man added. “Those semi-reds of Wang’s will class them as ‘tools of Capitalism,’ and they’ll slaughter our poor coolies like rats in a pit.”
“I understand,” was North’s quiet statement as he rose to his feet. “If it can be done I will find that shipment.”