Chapter 13

I hung the receiver softly on the hook, at the same time barely restraining an impulse derived from past experience to call for a servant and to give directions to go out and fetch me a motor. The call was almost on my lips, when I stopped for two reasons. First, there were no servants except my loutish coolie who was sitting by the gate. I remembered that I had sent my ricksha boy to find someone to help with dinner, but this lack of service was not the only reason that kept me quiet. Some prescience of danger made me sit, mutely staring into the darkness of the room, nerves taut, irresolute. I felt safe there behind my desk in that room with its single open door, but the dark courtyard outside, which I would have to cross to reach my outer gate, was as heavy with danger as it was dark. A vivid imagination is not a pleasant companion at such a time as that, and I had never known that my imagination could be so vivid. I was peopling the courtyard with all the sinister, slinking figures of the Orient that adorn the pages of lurid fiction. All my confidence and my knowledge of China left me for a quarter of an hour that night. While I sat behind that desk, my imagination was making me die a dozen forms of sudden death out there in the Court, but I knew I had to cross it to get away. I listened. I thought I heard voices, low, guarded voices from the servants’ quarters by the gate, but there was no sound in the Court. I had sense enough to know that it did no good to wait. I picked up the telephone again, called a Chinese garage and ordered a closed car to be sent to my house at once. Five minutes later by my watch I tiptoed out the door into the yard, as nervously as though I were stepping into a tub of ice water. Nothing but a misplaced sense of pride prevented my bolting across the place to the pavilion which separated my inner Court from the outer garden and the gate.

Once I was around the edge of that grey brick screen designed to keep malign influences from my house, I sighed with pleased relief. The little paved Court by the red gate was alight from the windows of the kitchen and the servants’ quarters. There were sounds of slippered footsteps and the clatter of dishes near the kitchen door and the smell of cooking. My ricksha boy had evidently found servants from among his friends or family. A sense of ease and comfort came back to me from the knowledge that my house was running again, miraculously if unsteadily, as houses run in China. Though I had ordered dinner and knew now that I would not be there to eat it, the knowledge that I was being served made everything secure. At the sound of my step on the brick pavement a man appeared in the doorway of the kitchen. I knew that he was one of the new servants though I could not see his face since his back was to the light—a tall, well-built man dressed in the conventional long, white gown of service.

“The Master desires something?” he asked. He spoke in a dialect which was a little difficult for me to understand at once—one of the myriad local dialects which makes China its own great tower of Babel. His voice was smooth, rather high and birdlike, with a tinge of excited interest in it that did not go with the voice of a good servant.

“Are you the new man?” I asked him. “Where do you come from?”

“From the South City, if you please,” he answered. “It was said you wished servants; I have brought them. I am the cousin of Yao, whom he promised when he left. I am only anxious to do what you wish, my Master.” He walked toward me, bowing and his manners were not bad. “I hope I may give satisfaction,” he was saying, “I understand foreign houses, I understand it is a great honor to serve the Master. I can manage as excellently as Yao.”

“I shall not want dinner to-night,” I said. I had no idea of mistrusting him and no hesitation at leaving this new staff alone in my house, for open theft is a rarity among the Peking servants, no matter from where they may appear. “I am going out now. I shall give you further orders and see if you are satisfactory to-morrow morning.”

“What?” he said. It seemed to me his voice was sharper. “The Master is going out without his dinner? It is a very good dinner. It will be ready in an instant.”

“I do not care to speak twice,” I answered peevishly because I did not like his manner. “I said I am going out. Have the gate opened.” I took a step toward the gate. To my surprise, the man moved in front of me.

“Master,” he said again, “your dinner will be ready in an instant.”

I did not answer. For a second I was too surprised to answer because the light from the kitchen door had struck his face. He stood in a frame of light against the dark, as perfectly as though the thing had been done upon the stage; his face appeared before my eyes as distinctly, suddenly and incontrovertibly. It was a thin, high, North China face, of a greyish brown, claylike texture. The nose was flat; the eyes were keen and slanting; the mouth was incongruous, a small budlike mouth of the Cupid’s bow type. In that split second, before I could catch my breath, the words of Major Best came back tome. I could almost hear the Major’s drawling voice:

“A little amusin’ mouth, the sort you might call a rosebud mouth … a kissable mouth on a face like paste.” I knew who the man was then. I was meeting, without an introduction, that erstwhile friend of Major Best, the bandit chief named Wu Lo Feng. It was Wu Lo Feng who was standing there, the new head servant in my house.

As I say, all this took an instant. There was no reason for him to think that I might recognize him but, of course, my face showed it. Now that Wu Lo Feng was in my house, I had a very good idea what he meant to do. Otherwise he would not have arranged to get there. The thought was like a dash of cold water. My surprise was so complete that I could not have moved in that second to save my life. I seemed to be temporarily detached from my own body, watching the whole scene from a distance. There was no doubt that Wu Lo Feng realized there was something wrong. There was no doubt that he was not going to let me out the door. I saw his eyes harden. His respectful look was gone and then he opened his rosebud mouth. I did not wait to hear the words that might come out of it. It was fear or some instinct of self-preservation that moved me rather than any logic. I was close to him without knowing how I got there and my left fist and then my right were pounding on his jaw, in the one-two familiar to every boxer. I jumped away from him as he went down, crack, upon his hands and knees on the courtyard bricks. I did not wait to see what was going on behind me or if anyone had heard. Then I was snatching at the bar of the red housegate; then I was out on the street. I heard the chatter of voices in the courtyard behind me but I did not wait to listen. The motor I had ordered was waiting by the door. I was inside it in a second.

“The hotel,” I said. A shout from the half-opened gate interrupted me.

“Has the Master forgotten something?” the driver asked. The engine was already going.

“No,” I said. “Nothing. Hurry please because I am very late.” And then the car lurched forward. I could see the driver’s khaki clad back in front of me but I only half saw it. What I still saw, as though I had not moved away from it at all, was the face in the light of the courtyard, the face of Wu Lo Feng. The motor horn was blowing incessantly, a part of the technique of any Chinese chauffeur. I took out my handkerchief and wiped my face and then my hands, and I noticed that my hands were trembling.

That interlude seemed almost too grotesque to believe—that I should have been shot at, that I should have knocked a man down in my own courtyard, and should have made a dash for freedom out of my own gate. I was convinced by then that Mr. Moto was right when he said that he had not tried to kill me. I was caught up by something else and now I could not stop if I tried. I was in the midst of one of those upheavals about which I had tried to write. I was struggling against it but I wondered if my struggles mattered. Nevertheless, something mattered. For the first time in a long while I was not able to say to myself: “It doesn’t matter, does it?” It mattered because I was instinctively sure that Eleanor Joyce was caught in the same current.

I told the car to wait when I got to the hotel. The lobby, with its tobacco stand, its desk, its glass cases full of curios, its tables where guests were drinking coffee, its clerks and its servants, seemed already like a part of another life, which I had left a long while back, a secure and easy life. I knocked on Eleanor Joyce’s door and called to her. She opened it and I locked the door behind me. I was surprisingly glad to see her. She looked competent; much cooler than I looked, I am sure.

There was an unnatural sort of repression in that coolness which I did not like. She had been frightened when I spoke to her over the telephone, not twenty minutes before. Now she was controlled, and at the same time under some sort of nervous tension.

“I have some whiskey on the table for you,” she said. “You had better sit down and take a little. You look as though it might do you good.” Her tone made the picture wrong. I had come to help a damsel in distress and she was obviously trying to show me that help was not necessary. She sat down opposite me and raised her hand to smooth her brown hair. Her fingernails were shined to a high, meticulous polish which was like the veneer that had covered her the first time we had met. She was beautiful but entirely impersonal again.

“What are you looking at?” she asked. “Don’t I look all right?”

“You look very well—too well,” I said. “You had better put a dark coat over that white dress. We must leave here right away.” But she seemed in no hurry to leave. Instead she lighted a cigarette.

“Now that you are here,” she said, “tell me what has happened. Tell me slowly, please.”

I told her, while she was smoking her cigarette. I told her of the shot and of the talk with Mr. Moto—concisely but completely; and I told her of my meeting with Wu Lo Feng. She listened as though we were complete strangers. When I finished, she smiled and nodded.

“You told that very nicely, Mr. Nelson,” she said. “You have a gift for narration.”

Then I lost my temper. It was her coolness that made me do so.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “I know you’re mixed up in this thing. I’m not asking you how or why, but I’ve come to get you out of it. I’m not asking you who you are, or anything, but you’ll have to do what I tell you now. You sent me away this morning; you can’t send me away again. I want to help you. What are you laughing at?”

She was leaning back and laughing. It was one of the most exasperating moments I have ever known, to see her sit there laughing.

“Excuse me,” she said. “I was just thinking of some of the things you said yesterday. You said you could show me the world but that I wouldn’t care to see it. It seems to me I’m showing you something of the world myself, and that you don’t like it very much. What was the word you used after we were dancing yesterday? Oh yes—it isn’t very ‘antiseptic’ is it? You know so much of the world that you never get into difficulties, do you? I did think you’d be too careful to get yourself in such a spot, and too careful to be involved with a woman whom you don’t know anything about. Don’t worry, I’m not a bad sort of girl. I’m going to help you out. It was nice of you to come here. You have the proper instincts to help defenseless girls. You really are essentially nice, you know.”

That speech of hers was so unexpected that I stayed quiet until I could control myself. I was angry and I did not wish her to see it because she might have laughed again. I am able to be sarcastic when I choose. I certainly tried to be when I answered:

“That’s just what I wanted,” I said. “I came, hoping that you might help me out. How do you propose to do it?”

“Easily,” Eleanor Joyce answered. “When Americans get into trouble in China, kind friends send them home. Mr. Moto’s suggestion is a very good one—that you go back to America and take up the loose threads of your own life. I shall take you to the American Vice-Consul’s to-night, where nothing dangerous can happen to you, and you can take the Shanghai train to-morrow afternoon. That’s perfectly simple, isn’t it? Wait, don’t interrupt me. As far as I’m concerned, I’m perfectly able to look after myself, and don’t think I’m joking. When I tell certain people the mess you’ve got yourself into they’ll make every effort to make you leave, don’t you think? Perhaps I’d better get my coat, and we’ll go to the Vice-Consul’s now.” She rose, and I rose also.

“That’s a very good idea,” I said. “I had never thought of going there for help. We’ll go and we’ll both go home together.”

Eleanor Joyce shrugged her shoulders. “Oh no, we won’t!” she answered. “It’s kind of you to ask me but I rather like it here. There are several things I have to do before I leave.”

There was an ominous silence, which told me that I could not deal with her gently.

“Oh yes, you will,” I said. “When I tell that Major Best was not a suicide. When I add that you were at his house and saw him die, I think you will go home.”

Part of my speech was a shot in the dark, but it worked. I saw the color leave her cheeks.

“You wouldn’t. You couldn’t do that,” she answered.

“I prefer not to,” I said. “But I can and will, if it’s going to leave you safe.”

Then she changed. Her control left her so suddenly that I was startled. She bit her lip and her voice choked in a sob. “Don’t you see?” she said. “Don’t you see I’m trying to help you? I don’t know why they’re trying to kill you. If I can’t make you, won’t you please go away, for a little while at any rate? I was thinking of you, that’s all.”

“And I’m thinking of you,” I said and I felt better now that I understood her. “You and I are caught in this thing, whether we like it or not. I don’t know where you fit in the picture, and I don’t believe you know yourself, but there’s one thing certain. You can’t go to any authority without getting into trouble. The same is true with me, in a lesser sense. At any rate I have no intention of going. So that’s why you are going to do what I tell you.”

She was cool again, and her voice was distant.

“Suppose I were to tell you,” she suggested, “that I don’t want your help, that I don’t appreciate it, that I should prefer you to mind your own business?”

“It won’t make any difference,” I said.

“Why?” she asked.

“I don’t know why,” I told her, “but it won’t.”

“Suppose I were to tell you,” she said, “that I am here for a reason that I consider very important and that your interference makes what I am doing very difficult. Would that make a difference?”

“No,” I answered her. “None at all.”

She turned away and sat down again. “Very well,” she said. “I’m not going to leave this room.”

There was not much doubt that she meant it. Her lips had closed in an unattractive, obstinate line. There was indication enough, if I had not guessed it before, that Eleanor Joyce was not an easy person to handle. I felt that I could sympathize with her relatives at home.

“You can suit yourself about that,” I said. “If you don’t go with me, I shall do just what I suggested. I shall call up someone in authority and he’ll look after you. You can choose either way you please. It doesn’t matter to me, as long as someone looks after you.”

Her eyes snapped and her fingers clutched at the arms of her chair. I had an idea that she was going to spring out of the chair, and slap me.

“You can threaten,” she said, “but you won’t go telling tales. After all, you’re a gentleman.”

“After all,” I repeated after her, “you trade on chivalry, in the end, like every other unattached woman, but this is one of the times it isn’t going to work, Miss Joyce. I only want to see that you’re out of harm’s way. I don’t think you have any conception what a mess you’re in. You can choose, either me or the American authorities. You’re choosing me? I thought you would.”

She was out of her chair by then. “In case you don’t know what I think of you,” she said, “I may as well tell you. You’re an incompetent. You’re soft, and everyone knows you’re soft. I’ll be even with you for this. What ridiculous idea have you got that you can manage anything? Where do you think you’re going to take me?”

I disregarded most of her remarks, though I did not like them.

“I’m going to take you where I think we’ll both be safe,” I told her. “I have a Chinese friend who will understand something about this, a rather good friend—Prince Tung. I’m going to take you to his house as soon as you put on your coat.”

“You’re going to take me to a Chinese house?” she asked. “You’re not serious, are you?” Her voice was high and incredulous. “If you do, I’ll find some way to pay you back.”

“And I’ll find out what you’re doing here,” I answered, “and why someone wants to kill me, and I’ll probably save your neck. Here’s your coat,” I said, and I tossed it around her shoulders.

Eleanor Joyce snatched off her coat and tossed it over the back of the chair.

“There’s no use doing that,” I told her. “We’re not going to wait any longer.”

She hesitated. There was something else besides me that was troubling her. “I can’t go yet,” she said. “I’m expecting a caller and he’ll be here any minute.”

“You can leave word that you’re out,” I said. “The fewer people you see for a day or two the better.”

I turned to pick up her coat again. As I did so, I saw something that interested me keenly. A Chinese painting scroll was lying on the table near one of the windows. I recognized the brocade on the back of it, a rich brocade of black and gold. I recognized the delicate work of ivory inlay on the wooden cylinder. It was the same picture, which had been in my house that morning.