INTERLUDE IN A GARDEN
Signs that Fear’s deadly breath was blowing like a winter gale through the streets of the city were increasingly evident when Captain North set off to make his final bid to snatch the brands of victory from the burning. Harmonizing with the turmoil racking his own mind was the barely controlled commotion in the streets.
Amid clouds of dust gilded by the late afternoon sun, cursing white soldiers in tin hats struggled and sweated at the various gates of the Settlement to control an ever swelling swarm of refugees overflowing the barbed-wire defenses. Like a dingy blue cotton wave they fought their way into what they so tragically and incorrectly assumed to be a haven.
The rich rode high on rickshaws heaped up with their personal effects, and the poor lugged bulging bundles as they hurried into the Settlement and down to the Bund to bargain for passage on the hundreds of sampans which, scenting a rich harvest, bobbed and swayed among the high steel sides of vessels from the Western world.
Sikh police stood at strategic places, formed into detachments and ready to be flung at any point when disorder might break forth. Here and there members of the Volunteer Force rattled by in trucks mounting machine guns behind breastworks of sand bags. Other trucks bore rolls of barbed wire and chevaux de jrise on top of the wire.
Amazing what a change had come over Shanghai in the last hour. North, on quick deliberation, decided that the fat of panic was kindling the flames with a vengeance. Copies of the North China Daily Herald bore more news of importance. Streaming black headlines announced:
GOVERNOR YUAN EXPECTED TO EVACUATE.
Bandit Generals Prepare for Final Drive.
Thousands Seek Refuge in Settlement.
CONSULS CABLE FOR TROOPS AND CRUISERS
A grating laugh burst from North’s lips. Fools! Blind idiots! Well might the consuls send for cruisers now that the combined might of Wang and Wu was about to make a shambles of the International Settlement!
He showed his pass to an eagle-nosed French police officer and, after a short dispute, was permitted to cross the Concession boundary along the Boulevard des Deux Republiques.
As he had expected, here in the French Concession uneasiness was manifest, bur there seemed no panic, and people were going about their business much as usual. Only small detachments of French Colonial troops in remodeled American army blouses had appeared in addition to the usual diminutive Annamite guards to patrol the streets. How very small and child-like the latter looked in their curious conical hats.
At the Cafe des Deux Hemispheres he found Chao Ku seated unobtrusively in a corner, nibbling at a rice cake and noisily sipping almost colorless tea. The Chinese detective got up once he caught sight of North’s tall figure making its way among the crowded tables over which fat, silk-robed Chinese merchants bickered and argued in a manner similar to the liberally bearded French business men bickering just as noisily on all sides.
Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité with a vengeance! It again struck North that the French, alone of European races, possess the knack of becoming one with their conquered peoples without becoming degenerated by that intimate contact.
“Sorry to be late,” North apologized and smiled thinly. “I have been unavoidably delayed.” Hurriedly he outlined his adventure. “Did Junot appear at his home?”
“Yes, Hsien-sheng. Inspector Fu had just arrived. He and astute friend watch at this moment and are very careful because of French police.”
Selecting a cigarette from his case, North bent well over the table and in an undertone issued his instructions.
“You understand, then? I am going into the home of Madame Braunfeld on Rue Bard. Soon I will come out again and walk away. General Steel should then appear, and soon after him should come Monsieur Junot.”
“And following him,” interpolated the Chinese detective, with a plump thumb dislodging a bit of rice cake from between his teeth, “very estimable Inspector Fu and friend?”
“Yes. They have orders to follow.”
“Since Inspector Hsing already is watching house in Rue Bard we have plenty men for sudden rush, if needed.”
“Right, but I’m hoping we won’t need them, Chao. You’ll put a man behind the house, joining the other already there. This plan must not fail—there is not time for another.”
Dog-like eyes lingered on North. “I understand, Tajên. After Steel and Junot enter, you go in once more?”
“That’s it,” agreed the Intelligence Captain. “If I need help I’ll blow my police whistle, and in that case come a-running.”
“Is it permitted to observe, Tajên, that it is like thrusting your distinguished head into dragon’s mouth for you to go into home of Pale Rainbow Cloud known as Ruby Braunfeld?”
“No way out of it,” was North’s brief rejoinder as he quietly made his way past tables ranged far out on the sidewalk and under the capacious awnings of the Deux Hemispheres. How obstinately the French try to make every corner of the world look like some bit of their beloved Paris!
A few minutes later he found himself in the Rue Eugene Bard and took a short cut among the pointed tombstones of the Mohammedan cemetery, noting with sardonic amusement the outline of the French police station looming off on his right.
As he strode down the Rue Bard he came to the conclusion that it was neither residential nor yet strictly business. Probably that deep block hid lovely bits of gardens behind rather dirty and undistinguished façades.
Approaching Number 107 his experienced eye at once picked out Inspector Hsing crouching beside a little cart and blowing on the fires which heated the water he was pretending to sell. The other S.M.P. man? Farther down the street what seemed to be a ragged coolie was languidly retrieving rubbish from the street.
So the last stage of the struggle that had begun aboard the Kiangsu was at its inception. For all his turbulent past, North’s breath quickened a little when Number 107’s blue-and-white enamel plate appeared in sight. The building was cleaner than two similar houses set to either side, and its red-tiled roof had been recently scrubbed.
Outwardly confident, Hugh North marched up to the elaborately carved teak door, seized a brass bell knob, and gave it a firm tug. After some little delay a bolt rattled, and there appeared in the doorway a stalwart house boy who eyed him sharply, then, on learning his name, begged the “great man” to enter.
In a small, well swept reception court, now aglow with the sunset’s glare, Captain North noted a pair of black-and-red rickshaws with nickel-plated fittings and bearing Ruby Braunfeld’s monogram; a green one with a coolie drowsing between its shafts indicated the presence of a caller.
His eyes always busy with the surroundings, Captain North followed the house boy’s white-clad back into a second court, where a circular goldfish pool of green-blue tile reflected the deep azure of the late afternoon sky; and then he entered the house proper. There a little Chinese maid, fragile and lovely as a Sevres doll, bowed respectfully and led on, her footsteps muffled on rugs at least an inch thick.
Intently the tall American studied her: no detail must escape him now. But there seemed nothing at all extraordinary about her. A kingfisher’s plume nodded in her sleek black hair, and a tiny bunch of silken flowers tucked over one ear made pleasing touches of color.
“Missee in garden,” the little maid explained as she pointed through a moon door. “She say pleass go there.”
North was astounded when he glimpsed, through the perfectly round stone doorway, a garden which, though not large, was lovely beyond any he had ever seen. Flowering almonds, stunted firs, and peach trees of half a dozen varieties were skillfully grouped about the shores of a little pond on the surface of which floated water lilies ranging from white to a vivid blood red.
Reluctantly yielding to necessity, the American tore his gaze from a bed of pastel-shaded oleanders and intently regarded a pergola almost smothered in flower-heavy jasmine. Beneath its fragrant shade two figures were seated, evidently in deep conversation. Who was the man? North wondered, making his way along a gravel path skirting a wide pool where a pair of stately egrets waded solemnly among emerald-hued rushes, and probed among the lacy ferns and sweet grasses forming its edge.
Somewhere he had seen that neck and those rather pointed ears. Curious, no matter how much a man might disguise his face, the back of his head could not be much altered. Where had he seen that head before?
Ah, yes, at the rail of the Kiangsu. It was the head of Broussard, that compact little Frenchman who had apparently done nothing but doze in a deck chair all the way from Nanking to Shanghai and who, out of the darkness, had tried to stab him!
As he covered the last few yards to the pergola, North was conscious of the perfume of many flowers, of the peaceful drone of fat yellow bees speeding from one clump of blazing red roses to another and of a song bird perched high up on a slender juniper. It was hard to realize that in less than a day this serene garden might be trampled, defiled, and the scene of Boxer atrocities reenacted in all their hideous variety.
North fixed a purely mechanical smile beneath his short black mustache when Broussard got up and Ruby Braunfeld gaily called from her place on a wide, silk-covered couch:
“Soyez bien venu, mon capitaine!”
His wiry gray-flannelled figure almost filling the door of the bower, Hugh North paused, again smitten with the charm of that blonde beauty which had set Shanghai and all the China coast by its collective ears. It wasn’t easy to believe, in that setting, that she had sent young Trenchard down to his doom with her kisses still warm on his lips.
How perfectly Ruby Braunfeld was ruling her nerves, despite the critical nature of the interview. North could only admire her self-control, but at the same time he felt sharply disturbed at the presence of Broussard. What was this jackal doing here? Had Smith, with uncanny intuition, come to suspect the Austrian woman’s loyalty?
“A great pleasure,. Captain North,” exclaimed Broussard, extending a hand that was both limp and moist. “With General Steel, Mr. Chang, and the so-estimable Mrs. Chatfield, our group would be complete.”
“Could such a reunion be a success without our friend Smith? But I don’t suppose we could expect him to appear, Broussard?”
“But no.” The French spy’s features took on an unpleasant cast, and Ruby Braunfeld turned a little white. “Then the Settlement police have not arrested him yet?”
“I don’t think they ever will. Apparently the murderer went overboard when they were closing in on him. I imagine he drowned, because no trace has been found of him ashore.”
Ruby raised her hands in delicate distress, though her face showed immense relief at the way North had so effectively dulled any suspicions Broussard might be entertaining.
“Please! please, messieurs, let us talk no more of that tragic affair. I have been haunted all day by memories of my poor Dickie, and I am relying on you, Monsieur le Capitaine, to free me of them.”
The Intelligence Captain was all apologies, even while he sought to fathom Broussard’s attitude. There was no doubt that the man was surprised to see him. Would he be brazen enough to alarm the French police? Damn! That would ruin things. What if he ran to Smith and told him of his interview? But probably, came the reassuring thought, Ruby had already made convincing explanations.
“It is a stupid, frightened city we have returned to, is it not so, Captain Nort’?”
“Yes. But I’m sure it’s just a panic—there’s no real reason for all this to-do.”
“Really?” Broussard nodded doubtfully. “I hope so; but I—I am glad I will not be here to watch the developments.”
“You are going away?”
“Yes. I have heard what this Wang Kung is like—besides, I have business affairs up river.”
The Frenchman sighed, got up and, casting a glance at Ruby that was so swift that North could not read its intent, held out his hand.
“Well, I must leave if I am to catch my steamer.” After an exchange of commonplace farewells, Broussard wandered out, leaving North definitely uneasy. Somehow the perfumed air of this garden seemed also redolent of menace and danger. But when he tried to analyze the presentiment it proved utterly elusive.
“A charming fellow,” murmured the Intelligence Captain when Ruby motioned him to take a place on the settee beside her. “He’d sell his sister to a Turk if you offered him enough.”
“Ugh! His skin is like a toad’s.” Ruby was wiping her hand vigorously. “I am afraid he came to spy—but perhaps not. You disarmed him very effectively—my congratulations. What will you have to drink?”
“A little whisky and soda, I suppose.”
“Can do, Marster, numbah wan weeskee sodah!” she mimicked a Chinese bartender. “What savages you Anglo-Saxons are—a whisky and soda at tea-time!” While she talked her eyes remained fixed on Broussard’s retreating back.
“If you object, you can leave out the soda,” he grinned.
“No, no,” she made a gesture of mock alarm, “I have met gentlemen who drank straight whisky before. No more of them, s’il vous plait.”
The sound of the house door shutting changed Ruby’s manner immediately, and her blue-pajamaed form stiffened when North drew near her.
“What was Broussard doing here?”
“He came to get the agreement. I explained, and he agreed to give me a little more time—the sacré voyou even dared to threaten me!”
“Exactly what is Broussard’s game?”
“He represents a certain group of French merchants, bankers, and others who would not be sorry to see Anglo-American trade driven from the Yangtze valley.”
“Oh, I see.” North felt the skin on his face tightening as he put the crucial question. “Did you find out what I wanted?”
“Yes,” she admitted and nervously clasped her hands. “I know the place where the arms are to be delivered.”
“Where?” Would she answer? His every nerve grew tight as a harp string.
Ruby Braunfeld’s sinuous figure relaxed beneath the powder-blue lounging pajamas so effectively outlined against the beige silk covering of her couch, and she eyed her visitor sardonically.
“I have yet seen no money,” she observed. “That is a very important detail, no?”
“I imagine so.” Suddenly a savage impulse surged into Hugh North’s mind. How exasperating to realize that this secret for which he had risked so much lay inside that carefully waved blonde head. He debated a change of tactics. Suppose he should seize her, threaten her with death? Too risky. She would probably lie, and then all his planning would go for naught. No, he had better stick to his original campaign.
“Listen.” His brown features might have been carved from rawhide as he leaned forward and lowered his voice. “I’ve got the money, but not from the source I had first thought.”
“Comment?” Ruby started up on one elbow, and the blue pajamas slipped off a pale, well-rounded shoulder. “Who then?”
“General Steel.”
He could see her studying him with frantic and suspicious intensity.
“I do not like this,” she said, so sharply he feared this last move had been fatal.
Desperately he hurled logic into the breach. “What difference does it make to you where the money comes from so long as it’s good hard cash?”
“I do not like surprises like this, but I do not suppose that it matters,” she admitted, biting her soft lower lip. “When will the money be here?”
“General Steel will bring it here within fifteen minutes. Can you get in touch with Smith and bring him here on some excuse?”
“Yes. But I will not. It is much too dangerous.”
So intent was North that a sense of detachment seemed to seize him. All at once he could see his own likeness talking with this beautiful, soft-bodied creature, fencing and bargaining to stave off a ruinous defeat.
“Would you consider another fifty thousand dollars enough to run such a danger?”
Eternal seconds dragged by on leaden feet. On the coaster’s beautiful features he could read the struggle of fear and avarice. What if she suddenly threw up the negotiations? He forced himself to take out a cigarette and light it.
“As I have told you, I hate Michael Schmidt like the thought of hell!” she burst out, “but I am afraid of him. He is the devil come to earth—cruel as a tiger and as cunning. Nothing stands in his way in this business. He is determined to win—to see German trade flourish once more.”
“German trade?”
“Yes. That is his real plan. He uses the French merely as tools to ruin America and England. When they are gone, he plans to turn on France and Japan and drive them out, too. His only real ally will be Italy.”
Long-conceived suspicions were being confirmed in the somber-eyed Captain’s mind. So Schmidt, alias Smith, alias Junot, was the devoted agent of a Germany fighting with guile and stealth to regain her lost commercial empire! Now he understood why from the start there had been a distinctly uncommercial air about Michael Smith. Mobilis in mobile! This also explained the source of Smith’s wealth and his familiarity with international politics.
But of these thoughts the Intelligence Captain’s expression revealed nothing at all as he pressed his point.
“How about it? Fifty thousand to bring Michael Smith here with General Steel.” He made old ghosts creep out of the past. “Remember the affair in Berlin? Otto—what a chance to—”
“Enough!” The woman’s large eyes grew as hard and vitreous as though fashioned from green glass. “I will call him—for Otto.”
A small devil prompted North to add, “And for fifty thousand?”
Ruby’s laughter rang in the pergola top. “Of course; I deserve that. But I will go and telephone the Boche now.”
Presently she returned, her square-shaped mouth nervously controlled. “I reached him, and he will come in fifteen minutes.”
A human feline once more, she sank back on her pillows and fell to toying with an intricately carved necklace of lapis lazuli. North glanced at his wrist watch and saw it was six five. Five minutes more, then, before he should take his leave and cede the stage to Steel. Could he trust that blustering, conscienceless man of Mars?
Shaken again by a nagging premonition, he looked carefully about, but the egrets still drew silvery circles on the pond with their wading, and the bees droned back and forth undisturbed. High overhead, flute pigeons wrought aerial symphonies.
It was hard to fight off the garden’s relaxing influence, but he knew he must.
“You know Mr. Chang Ya-chang fairly well?”
“Oh, yes,” she admitted, eyes still fixed on her necklace, “he is one of the wealthiest men in Shanghai—and one of the most generous,” she added with an intimate smile.
“Do you like Mr. Chang?”
“Chang Ya-chang,” Ruby considered gravely. “I do not understand about him, mon capitaine, in all frankness. He comes here, gives me presents, and tells me he loves me. He even followed me to Nanking; though I cannot imagine how he found out I was going there. Forever he follows me about. He used to make poor Dickie very unhappy.”
“Yes, I noticed that once or twice on the Kiangsu.”
“And he,” she made a petulant gesture with her highball glass, “he sometimes makes me very uneasy when he stares at me from those eyes so black that they seem to have no soul—no bottom.”
Only three minutes more, he realized, and made fresh attempts to revive a conversation which flagged under the invisible tension of the situation.
“Did you ever know or hear of a chap named Greenway?”
Voluptuous curves appeared beneath the blue pajamas as Ruby raised herself on one elbow. “Greenway?”
“Yes—a man here in Shanghai.”
“Let me think.” A curl silvery even in the golden light of sunset fell to screen one slender eyebrow. “I meet so many men I—Mon Dieu!”
North did not move suddenly—he was too old a hand not to realize that sudden movements at such moments are disastrous more often than not. Warned by the expression of terror stiffening Ruby’s features, he only slowly turned his head and saw, peering over the wall, an evil, bronze-hued face. It was that of a Chinese Captain North had never seen before. He still did not move or cry out, for just below the intruder’s pock’ marked face glimmered the barrel of an automatic pistol, and, from the man’s expression, there was no doubt that he was ready to shoot.