MR. MICHAEL SMITH REPORTS
A Belgian with a roll of fat hanging over the back of his collar was in possession of the one glass-enclosed telephone booth which would afford Captain North the privacy he must have, and he was pacing irritably up and down when Mrs. Chatfield came bouncing up to him.
“Oh, Captain North! What a pleasure it is to find you staying at the Royale, too. A dreadful little hole, isn’t it?” Without waiting for a reply, she went on. “Oh, dear, I thought you were so marvelous on the boat last night,” she twittered. “Poor, dear Mr. Trenchard. What a terrible way to die! I was just saying to Cynthia, it’s a parable, a living parable. You know, ‘the wages of sin is death.’ Didn’t it strike you the same way, Captain?”
North managed a sickly grin and, keeping one eye on the telephone booth, nodded to Cynthia Chatfield, who sat staring up into the pallid and pointed features of the amiable Monsieur Broussard. Broussard! North almost grinned. Old Home Week on the Shanghai Bund—what the devil was this mangy rascal doing here? “Really, Captain, I think it’s abominable how that creature Mrs. Braunfeld is allowed to—”
“Excuse me.” North jerked a little bow. “I see the telephone is free, and I really must put in a call.” Harpy-like, Mrs. Chatfield hovered outside, and all three of his ex-fellow passengers stared at him through the glass as he rang up the Central Police Station. “Bruce? Hoped I’d find you there.”
“What is it, Hugh? Something new?”
“Yes. Remember the pound note I changed for you?”
“Right-o. It wasn’t bad, was it?”
“Have you still got the change I gave you?” Every nerve in North’s body quivered as he waited for the other’s reply to come over the wire. How much might not depend on the answer? Certainly the lives of several thousand ignorant coolies who, wearing gray uniforms with arm bands of varying colors, fought aimlessly, unquestioningly, that more loot might fall into the coffers of their brutal tuchuns.
“Why, yes,” Kilgour replied quickly. “But what are you in such a stew about?”
“Never mind,” replied North, conscious of the gaze of that trio outside the telephone booth. “Please bring the change to my room—it’s Number 32a—right away. And watch out on your way over. I’ve had a bit of an accident not long ago.”
“The deuce you say!” Deeply concerned was the English agent’s voice. “I’ll be over directly.”
North turned in the booth and was pleased to see that Mrs. Chatfield and the others had drifted off to the far side of the lobby. Two American marine lieutenants now stood just outside. He could hear every word they said.
“Hell, no! I tell you we can’t hold Soochow Creek bridge five minutes. The barbed wire and the few machine guns we’ve got won’t be worth a hoot in hell. Haven’t near enough ammunition, anyhow.”
“It’d take twenty thousand men to hold the Settlement,” the other lieutenant growled as they began to move away. “And we haven’t but three thousand, even counting that half-baked Volunteer Force. Like Leonard says, the consuls should have wired for beaucoup battle wagons and transports ten days back. No, Hank, I don’t like the look of things—if Wang wins, the French Concession is bound to fall, at any rate…”
The voices of doom faded away, and North, with every nerve quivering like a touched banjo string, returned to his room.
When Bruce Kilgour appeared he looked so much more anxious than before that Captain North inquired the reason.
“Just as I was leaving the station,” he explained, “Sir Joseph told me that Ledyard, our King’s Messenger, was due in from Nanking this morning. One of our men was sure he saw Ledyard get off at the North Station, but it’s three hours now since he was supposed to have reported.”
“Sure he’s not at home?”
“Yes. Besides he was under orders to report at once to the Consulate.”
The Intelligence Captain nodded impatiently. “Too bad, Bruce, but he may turn up yet. Where’s that change?”
Silently, Kilgour produced the coins, and North’s lingers quivered with eagerness as he almost pounced on a battered Spanish coin which bore the likeness of Charles IV. He promptly took it to the window and there turned it over and over.
“I say, Hugh, what’s back of all this?” demanded the Englishman. “Is it counterfeit, or has it been plugged?”
“No,” was the Intelligence Captain’s preoccupied reply, “it looks all right, and feels heavy enough, too.”
He felt somewhat taken aback. What the devil was the significance of this old Spanish dollar? Was there any message scratched on its surface? Apparently there was none, though he intently studied the Roman-nosed profile of that long-dead Spanish monarch and, with equal care, examined the coat-of-arms on the reverse side.
Kilgour, with rare tact, remained silent until North raised his eyes again.
“Why so much excitement, Hugh? Coins look all right to me.”
Tiny puzzled wrinkles formed at the corners of North’s eyes as he dropped the coin on the stone window ledge to test its ring. “Remember Trenchard’s dying words?”
“Yes, but what has ‘Carol’s doll’ to do—Oh!”
An understanding light broke over Kilgour’s face, and sudden color tinged the edges of his cheek bones. “What made you think about it again?”
“A damned painful clip on the neck.” Briefly, North recounted his adventure with the house boy and the subsequent appearance of Steel. “So you see,” he concluded, “when only the change was taken from my pocket, it pointed out the obvious and made even me begin to think.”
To it all Kilgour listened with the deepest of attention while North produced a pocket lens and studied the coin with even greater care. There was not a sign of a significant mark or scratch of any kind. A chill fear suddenly shook him. What if this was the wrong Carolus dollar? Damn, he must be right! Too much depended on his being right.
He suddenly began to fumble in his pocket for a penknife while Kilgour hurried to his side. Neither of them said anything when the Intelligence Captain’s knife blade commenced to dig gently at a beaded border on the inner edge of the coin. Was that a tiny line of cleavage he had glimpsed? His heart began to throb like the engine of a ship laboring in a storm.
When Hugh North’s knife point had finally dug deep enough into the edge of the coin to slip beneath the hair-thin line, a perfectly tooled edge became visible. How cold the smooth old coin felt between his fingers when he gripped it tighter and on exerting a new pressure succeeded in dislodging a circular inset on the reverse side. The blood surged through his head when there was exposed to sight a small roll of paper jammed into a slot in the center of the coin.
“Great God!” Kilgour breathed, and his blue eyes were very intent. “Look—it—it’s—”
North did not hear him. His ears were filled with the roar of an invisible rushing torrent, and the skin on his face seemed to have become painfully dry and tight. He felt that thousands of eyes were looking through his. What was written on that tiny square of paper? The secret of the munitions shipment? The plans of Michael Smith? Would it indicate where or how Trenchard’s murderer might be found?
Clamping down on his emotions, North slid the knife blade beneath the bit of paper and loosened it much as a man removes an oyster from a shell. Lead, melted and poured along the inner sides of the coin, explained its satisfactory heaviness; but neither of the two at that moment was inclined to dwell upon the amazing workmanship with which some Chinese had contrived to steal a few grains of silver.
“Neat, eh?” was all North murmured while unfolding the tiny square of India paper. It was, they both saw, covered with closely written words.
“Trenchard’s writing?”
“Looks like it.”
Multiple noises such as only Shanghai can boast drifted in through the open window and the faint music of the flute pigeons (the Chinese are fond of attaching tiny silver tubes to the wing feathers of their pigeons—as they fly, pleasing chords are sounded) circling in the vivid blue sky sounded uncannily loud when the two put their heads close together like children poring over a forbidden book and read:
Am uneasy—a Chink has been shadowing me for days. New enemy now aboard. Writing this in case something happens. Just learned our man at Wang’s H.Q. detected—executed. Told me earlier alliance between Wang and Wu negotiated. K is getting French and Italian gold. Munitions shipment arranged by someone called Junot. Greenway in Shanghai managing shipment. Vitally important document taken from R. B.
Kilgour glanced up and said hoarsely, “It’s as you thought, Hugh, he did get something from Ruby.”
Feverishly, the Intelligence Captain’s eyes raced on over the microscopic writing, hoping against hope to find specific information concerning the crucial munitions shipment. He read on to the lowest edge of the square:
…hidden in dentifrice tube. Munitions are in—(See 1880 Mex dol.).
A stifled groan burst from North’s lips and marked the shattering of his hopes.
“That Mexican dollar!” Kilgour cried wildly and, emptying his pockets onto the bedspread, glanced at all the silver dollars. There was but one Mexican and that of 1872.
“Nothing wrong with it—oh, damn!” The Englishman glared at the battered coin. “Of course poor Trenchard would break his message just where he did. I say, Hugh, you didn’t change money anywhere else, did you?”
“No. I imagine Steel, or whoever sent that house boy, is reading it by now.”
“Hold on,” Kilgour objected. “Perhaps whoever has it won’t think to look. The clue was the Carolus dollar.”
“Hope you are right, but we won’t worry about that now. How about that tooth-paste tube?”
All Trenchard’s effects, Kilgour stated, were under lock and key in Sir Joseph’s office, and in all probability the tooth paste was still in the toilet kit.
“That’s good, we’ll go over there in a minute and make sure, but first read that message aloud once more,” requested the bronzed-featured American. “I want it to sink in.”
When Kilgour had complied the American commented thoughtfully: “The ‘new enemy,’ of course, was Sam Steel—which is interesting. Argues that Trenchard saw Steel at Wang’s H., doesn’t it?”
“Rather. He evidently had spotted Chang. Wonder what that blighter’s part is.”
“Possibly a spy of Kung’s—but it’s too early to tell. What about this Junot?”
“Junot?” The Englishman pursed judicious lips. “Can’t say as I’ve ever heard of him.”
“Greenway, then?”
“The name sounds vaguely familiar. We’d better look up both of them. Shall I ring for a phone directory?”
“Yes, it won’t do any harm to see what we find. But,” a twinkle shone in North’s eyes, “I’ll make you a little bet.”
“Not taken.” Kilgour pressed a call bell and then lit a cigarette. “You’re a Yankee of the Yanks, Hugh. I suspect you wouldn’t bet on anything but what your compatriots call a ‘tight cinch.’”
“You know me too well,” he grinned. “Anyway, we won’t find Junot’s name listed.”
The Intelligence Captain’s prediction proved correct, for though “Simeon K. Greenway” was listed as “sh’p’ng ag’t, 1223 Bund,” there was no mention of a Mr. Junot in either the French Concession listings, which North first consulted, or anywhere else, for that matter.
A newsboy in the street below began to scream an extra. It appeared that General Wang Kung had, a few hours earlier, advanced into the hills above Shunan and was driving all before him.
“Hear that?” Kilgour demanded somberly. “Looks as if the Mongol’s big push has already begun.”
“It seems that way,” North said, and his thin features seemed to have become even thinner. “We’ll have to work fast.” He got to his feet and slipped on his shoulder holster. “I think we’d better stop at the police station and find out what’s in the tube of tooth paste. I’m hoping it will explain a good deal of Ruby’s part in the business.”
North glanced at his wrist watch. A quarter to eleven. There was, he decided, just about time to stop at the police station before making his way to the rendezvous with Chao Ku.
Chao Ku. He realized he was looking forward with considerable impatience to seeing that weirdly garbed and singularly shrewd little Chinese again. From him much might be learned concerning such obscure items as the peculiar cash which had marked the trail of death; the whereabouts of the vanished Michael Smith, and the identity of the mysterious Mr. Junot whom Trenchard had described as the evil genius of this terrible affair.
Five minutes later the two were approaching the gloomy portals of the Shanghai Municipal Police Station on Foochow Road and Kilgour was concluding his account of the sudden release of Mr. Chang Ya-chang.
“It was all deuced queer,” said he. “When Macklin brought him in Chang asked if he might put in a single phone call to Chapei. Macklin didn’t want to permit it, but Sir Joseph insisted. In less than twenty minutes a Packard car rolled up with an old-style Chinese in it—silk robes, jade mandarin button, kingfisher plume, and all. He was very polite and offered bail for Mr. Chang Ya-chang up to half a million Mex. He also said something to Sir Joseph which I didn’t hear.”
“What happened then?”
“As the case against Chang isn’t any too strong, Sir Joseph agreed to let the prisoner go.”
“I see. He must have come right over to the Royale after that.”
“To the Royale? What the devil was he doing there?”
“That’s one thing I’d like very much to know,” was North’s reply as they stepped aside to permit the passage of a burly Sikh policeman who was herding before him a trio of manacled but grinning Chinese prisoners.
Once inside, they inquired for Sir Joseph, but it appeared he had just left for the British Consulate.
“They certainly ’ave the wind up over there, sir,” observed the hungry-looking clerk who received them. “They say as ’ow the Consul ’as been drawing up plans for a hevacuation.”
The clerk’s shabby little figure was leading down a narrow stone wall passage which reeked of the three distinctive smells of all prisons—chloride of lime, stagnant air, and stale human body odors.
Further signs of unrest were evident in that the Headquarters was crowded with detachments of special officers of every conceivable nationality. Most of them were busy drilling with automatic rifles and machine guns. Others were formed into classes and were receiving orders. Snatches of their instructions reached North’s ears as he passed the half-open doors.
“Now then—the first line of defense will be along Chun Kung Road. The military, assisted by fire from warships, will try to hold the North boundary. Looters will be shot on sight. Women and children—Customs Jetty—Regular Police will form military unit—extra demands—”
“Won’t be able to do much, though,” was Kilgour’s bitter comment. “Nothing under twenty thousand men will do any good. Here we are—this is the evidence room.”
“Mr. Trenchard’s things, sir, are in Number 35 box. And may I add, sir, we were orl very sad to ’ear of Mr. Trenchard’s—er—passing, sir. ’E were a fine gentleman, sir.”
“Thank you, Jenkins.”
Kilgour nodded absently as he lifted the hinged top of the box. Neatly arranged in it North glimpsed the murdered man’s valuables and such of his possessions as were not contained in a suitcase labeled with his name.
“That’ll do, Jenkins.” Kilgour spoke with all the frosty politeness of a British government official addressing a subordinate. “Captain North and I—”
“Captain North, did you say, sir?” The cockney’s small eyes widened. “Lor’ lumme! Who’d ever ’ave took this quiet-lookin’ gentleman for the famous—Do you think you’ll find the blighter what did in pore—”
“Jenkins!” Kilgour’s voice took on an edged quality which abruptly halted the clerk’s conjectures. With an apologetic, “Sorry, sir,” the faded little man hurried out into the hall, closing the door behind him.
Ever conscious of the inexorable passage of time, the two quickly opened the dead man’s toilet kit, and both breathed easier when they beheld the dentifrice tube still snug in its proper place.
“Here’s hoping,” Kilgour remarked with a transparent effort at calmness as he crossed to a washstand behind a screen in a far corner. He removed the cap and then squeezed the tube while North tensely watched the gradual lengthening of that worm-like pink thread of tooth paste. Was the tube untampered with? His throat muscles felt strained and stiff, and there was a buzzing sensation in his finger tips.
“By God! Look!” The words burst from Kilgour’s lips when the flow of paste slowed and then became entirely checked. An instant later he was with his handkerchief cleaning a tight little roll of paper.
Inside a protective outer layer of moisture-proof paper was found a tiny scroll secured with fine yellow silk threads.
Only by an effort did North restrain an impulse to snatch the precious little cylinder which had revived all his hopes for a swift solution, but instead he waited for Kilgour to wash his fingers.
Once the threads were severed, the fateful scroll jerkily unrolled itself, and Kilgour with trembling fingers smoothed it on a blotter.
“French!” he exclaimed. “Since mine’s a bit shaky, Hugh, suppose you translate it.”
“It looks like an agreement of some sort,” the Intelligence Captain presently announced, after he had studied the almost microscopic writing with his pocket lens. He added with a touch of excitement, “And there’s a Chinese signature to it.”
“Right-o; let’s have it.” Kilgour flung himself into a chair and with ill-concealed eagerness prepared to take down the translation which North presently read off.
“To the Illustrious Representative of French Republic:
“This is to inform your Excellency that the contribution of ten million gold francs will be satisfactory. I, my generals and all my troops of every branch will immediately march against the perfidious tyrant Yuan as agreed last week with your honorable envoy. However, since a much trusted general of my staff reports that General Wang Kung is helpless to carry on his campaign without certain munitions, our agreement will be void if heaven decrees that General Wang Kung shall not receive said munitions by the night of the new moon of this month.
“I am overwhelmed with unmerited honor that my proposed schedule of tariffs for the province of Kiangsu and the city of Shanghai meets with your august approval.
“For greater security I send you this, O Born before-I-was, by the hand of her whose voice is like many golden bells.
“Ever unworthy of your Excellency’s slightest regard, I am that abased and humble creature,
“Wu Feng-pei. Governor of the Province of Shantung.”
As Captain North’s voice faded into silence, the screams of some petty criminal being whipped in the prison courtyard beat loud on the eardrums of the two men in that bare little office.
Kilgour made impatient noises. “Not much new—damn the luck—and no data on that infernal shipment.”
“Don’t agree.” North consulted a calendar which bore the quarters of the moon printed on its date lines. “We now know that tomorrow night is the dead line for the munitions delivery. And that’s a help. It also shows that Ruby probably knows enough to save the show if we can make her talk.”
The English agent’s wide brows became merged in a single troubled line.
“Possibly. But I say, old lad, what if this Ruby Braunfeld won’t talk?”
“She’s got to talk. If she doesn’t want to, by God, I’ll find a way to make her,” North said grimly. “And I know several methods of persuasion—some pleasanter than others.”
“You don’t intend to use force?”
“Yes, but only as a last resort. I know she can be obstinate, so I won’t stick at getting rough. Sixty thousand lives are worth a lot more than the legal rights of a China coaster—even if she is the famous Ruby Braunfeld.”
For a long five minutes North sat lost in thought and plucking absently at the lobe of his left ear. At last he got up and faced his colleague.
“Well, Bruce, we’ll forget her for the present. Tell you what, you look up Greenway and Junot—see if you can find anything in the police records on them. Also check up on Michael Smith. Entiende?”
“Right-o. What are you going to do in the meantime?”
“Talk to Chao Ku. I want to show him these cash—and get the stage set for an interview with the frail and lovely Ruby.”
North caught up his hat. “You can get me at Chao’s; he lives on Swatow Road—he’s in the phone book, too. Call me if—” A telephone on the desk jangled, but as the Englishman was busy replacing the evidence in its box, North caught up the receiver.
“Hello? What? Yes—this is Captain North.” In furious pantomime the Intelligence Captain signaled Kilgour to trace the call. No mistaking those accents so familiar for the last three days.
“Oh, so it’s you, Smith,” he drawled. “Oh, don’t try to fool me, I’d know your voice anywhere.—No? Come, come.—Sorry I didn’t have a chance to say good-bye.”
“You’re too damned smart.” The voice on the phone became harsh like a file rasping iron. “But, just the same, I like and admire you, Captain. Your work on the Kiangsu was astounding, but it nearly wrecked my plans. So—”
“So you’re warning me? Very considerate of you, I must say.” Almost good-humored was North’s drawl—anything to give Kilgour time.
“Exactly. You impressed me as a man with plenty of common sense, so I’ll warn you to quit now. Otherwise,” the other’s accents dripped with chill menace, “my Chinese associates will be allowed to deal with you—very painfully, I’m afraid. Have you heard of the Death of a Thousand Cuts?”
“Yes. And though it’s hardly an amiable thought, it doesn’t frighten me particularly, Mr. Smith. Can’t you offer some other inducements?” Faintly he could hear Kilgour’s voice urgently calling an operator.
“Yes, I’ll give you an object lesson.”
“Object lesson?”
“Yes, you’ll get one soon enough!” Click! went the receiver, and North cursed, for Kilgour was still trying to call an operator.
An object lesson? What had that cold-blooded swine meant?