HOUSE BOY
His mind, Captain Hugh North realized as he set out for the Hotel Royale, was seething like cane juice in one of those great crystallizing machines he had seen in sugar centrals back in Cuba. Amid the turmoil of his thoughts various faces reappeared: the beautifully evil one of Ruby Braunfeld, the impassive, bronze-green visage of Mr. Chang Ya-chang, the scar-seamed and brutal face of General Sam Steel. And, last but not least, he saw the stolid, deceptively frank visage of Michael Smith.
Smith? Would that be his real name? Apparently he had lived as Michael Smith in Shanghai for several years at least. Before that? He would look into the matter. There was a job for thorough but unimaginative S.M.P. inspectors. It might help to find him again. Nebulous impressions played at the back of his brain. Those flat shoulders, that jerky precise bow…
The shipment, North soon concluded, must be hidden somewhere in the French Concession. In there they couldn’t be touched, but once let them start for Wang’s lair, then Yuan’s men could be warned, and seizure could be legally effected. Probably Smith had taken refuge there, too.
As his rickshaw swung down towards the Bund with the coolie shrieking, “Way for the distinguished foreigner,” in shrill and piercing accents, North fell to plotting a campaign which was so full of risks and chances that he almost despaired of success. Yet risks and chances must be taken—there would be no time for a second try should the first fail.
He shuddered to think of Wang’s shaggy barbarians loose among the gently bred people on Bubbling Well Road! No wonder the Consul General’s eyes had held that haunted gleam. Had not John Brunton, as a boy, seen his mother and sister disemboweled before his eyes during the horror that swept Peking in 1900? Had he not heard incredible and pitiful sounds rising from a girls’ school next door, once the Plum Blossom Fists (*a sect of the Boxers) had battered down its doors?
A minor shock awaited Captain North when he entered the noisy and ornate lobby of the Hotel Royale. General Steel’s picturesque and rawhide-tough figure was standing at the reception desk, with the two six-foot Mongolians at his back.
Nor was this all, for North had barely noted Steel than a second familiar figure greeted his eye. Surveying the world with a bland smile and sitting very quietly to one side was Mr. Chang Ya-chang, apparently engaged in no more exciting an occupation than the perusal of a copy of the North China Daily Herald. He got up and bowed when North drew near.
“They didn’t keep you long at the police station,” was North’s not unfriendly comment.
“No, Captain North,” Mr. Chang murmured. “I am most fortunate in having influential friends in this city.”
“Glad you got away all right,” North remarked, but he wondered just who were these friends powerful enough to make Inspector Macklin release his prisoner. The subject was worth further thought, he decided.
“I observe we are having something of a reunion,” remarked Mr. Chang, while his gaze innocently sought General Steel’s green-uniformed figure.
“I wonder,” was the Intelligence Captain’s curious reply, “who might have arranged it?”
On turning around Wu Feng-pei’s general caught sight of North and promptly came striding over, a friendly grin on his face.
“Hi, Cap! Did you catch Smith?” he called so loudly that everyone in the crowded lobby turned and stared.
“No.” Heartily, North damned the fellow and his loud mouth.
“Stayin’ here?”
“I expect to.”
“That’s good—I want to talk to you later, Cap. Maybe I can do somethin’ for you. Oh, so you’re on deck, too?” For the first time Steel seemed aware of Mr. Chang’s calm inspection. “Say, ain’t I seen you before somewhere?”
Mr. Chang replied in tones very precise and inflectionless. “I do not recall the happy occasion, General.”
“No?” Up crept one of Steel’s hands, and he fingered his scarred chin a moment while eyeing the Celestial’s neatly tailored brown form. “Well, that’s funny, ’cause I’m pretty sure I seen you before we was on the boat. I’ll remember later. I always do. So long, Cap; see you later.”
So saying, Steel spun on his heel and with spurred boots jingling swaggered off through the crowded lobby.
“A very full-blooded man,” murmured Mr. Chang. “In the old days a doctor would have prescribed bleeding—who knows but perhaps the ancients knew best?” He drew himself up abruptly as though he realized he had been indiscreet. “And now, Captain, au revoir. Pressing business affairs await you as well as me, no doubt.”
With his mind still reviewing that interesting and possibly significant rencontre in the lobby, the Intelligence Captain was still unpacking his musette bag when there came a gentle knock at the door. North called out an absent-minded, “Come in.”
“Wanchee bath, Marster? Numbah 1 room boy send my ask.”
“No, bimeby; dinner time.”
“Heah towels, Marster.”
“Put them on the rack,” North directed, and went on laying out his scanty possessions in the top bureau drawer while the soft-stepping boy came in with some towels draped over one arm.
Yes, he must reach Chao Ku at once. He’d talk with Kilgour, and then—Captain North’s train of thought became abruptly derailed amid a great blaze of light. The house boy had, with the horny edge of his hand, struck him a vicious blow on the neck just below the left ear. Emitting a brief gasp, Captain Hugh North sank forward on his face, quite unconscious.