Chapter 14

“Hello!” I said, “a scroll picture? I heard you were interested in art.” I walked to the table to pick it up, but she was beside me before I reached it, snatching at my arm.

“Leave that alone,” she said, “that’s no affair of yours.”

But I had the scroll in my hands already. “So you bought it,” I said. “Pu came here with it, did he? That makes everything more interesting. I knew he never meant to sell it to me. I congratulate you, you must be rich, Miss Joyce.”

“Put that down,” she said. Her fingers tightened on my arm, her hands were trembling. There was something so insistent in her voice that I grew curious. Her agitation had made her unexpectedly appealing and she probably knew it.

“Please,” she said, “please!” But I still held the picture.

“We’ll take it with us,” I said. “You don’t mind that, do you?”

“No,” she said, “we won’t! It isn’t yours, it’s mine! If you don’t put it down—”

There was a tap on the door before she could finish. “Stay where you are,” she said. “I’ll answer it.” But I was at the door ahead of her.

I opened it a crack and looked into the hallway straight into the wrinkled and sparsely mustachioed face of the picture dealer, Mr. Pu.

His narrow, watery eyes blinked quickly, but he gave no other sign of surprise.

“Missy Joyce is here?” he said in halting English, looking directly past me.

I answered him in Chinese, a language which I knew Eleanor Joyce did not understand.

“The young virgin is going out,” I said. “She has not time to speak to you.”

“Missy Joyce,” he said in a higher tone, “there is something I have to tell you.”

Eleanor Joyce moved past me too quickly for me to stop her, pushed me aside and snatched open the door. Her color was high and her eyes were clouded with anger, but she favored Mr. Pu with a smile, which Mr. Pu returned.

“Come in, Mr. Pu,” she said. “I’ve been waiting for you for a long while.” Mr. Pu moved past me also in the centre of the room.

“Thank you, Missy Joyce,” he was answering, “I am very glad you do not go out.”

“So, that is what he was saying to you?” said Miss Joyce. She was furious. I believed in the next minute that she was not going to repress her anger but was going to make me the physical object of it. “So you were telling Mr. Pu in Chinese that I couldn’t see him,” she repeated. “Are you going to answer me? Were you or weren’t you?”

“I was,” I answered. I glanced at Mr. Pu meaningly. “And you are going to see as little of him as I can help. Mr. Pu came spying to my house to-day. He came with this same picture.” I tapped the scroll beneath my arm. “But you didn’t come to sell me that picture, did you, Mr. Pu? You came to find out what I was doing at Major Best’s house last night and what Major Best told me. And now you’re running around after Miss Joyce with this same picture. Are you trying to find out what Miss Joyce knows, Mr. Pu? And there is another question I want to ask you. What did you say about me to Mr. Wu Lo Feng that made him come to call at my house?”

I knew before I had finished that there was no use asking him these questions. I was only giving him a gratuitous advantage by showing that I suspected him. Mr. Pu’s glance was of a bovine character. It was the glance of all his race, when it wishes to throw up black ignorance like cuttle fish, behind which it can conceal its thoughts. I was expert enough to see a little way behind that dullness and to know that my words were fast embedded in the mind of Mr. Pu. His contrition and his pain were too apparent. He was making too great a display of his venerable years. I had learned from past experience to be wary of Chinese merchants when they became voluble, venerable old gentlemen, and that was exactly what Mr. Pu had become, voluble, venerable, pained and ignorant.

“I no savvy what you say,” he replied plaintively in broken English, obviously for the benefit of Miss Joyce. “I do nothing to you, nothing. No can help if Missy pay more for picture. All too bad.”

I suspected that his volubility was dangerous, and that the less I talked to him the better.

“Come on,” I said to Eleanor Joyce, “we’re going.”

“We’re not going,” said Eleanor Joyce, “until I’ve spoken to Mr. Pu.”

“Remember what I told you,” I warned her. “You can either come along with me or stay here. Just remember if you don’t come with me I am going downstairs to telephone.”

“There isn’t any harm,” said Eleanor Joyce. “I declare there isn’t any harm.”

But Mr. Pu was speaking already. His words were buzzing through the room like flies.

“Missy like picture? It’s all same number one, like we say?”

“Yes,” said Eleanor Joyce, “it’s very nice.”

“The others come all right to-morrow,” said Mr. Pu. “You give me this now. You pay for all together.”

“Yes, I said all,” said Eleanor Joyce.

“And you give me this one now?” repeated Mr. Pu. He must have been greatly excited for he actually reached to take the scroll from under my arm. “You give to me, please,” he said.

I pushed Mr. Pu away from me. “No,” I said, “I’m keeping the picture. Missy is going out with me. We are going to show this picture to someone who knows about it.”

No one who saw Mr. Pu’s expression change as I did could speak any longer of the enigmatic Chinese race. I knew there was something wrong about the picture then. Mr. Pu was actually frightened, so frightened that he was trapped into saying something which I believed he did not intend.

“No, Missy,” he said quickly, breathlessly. “Please, must not go with Mr. Nelson. You stay here. Here. All right. Everyone take good care. You go, all same very bad.”

“It’s going to be very bad for you if you don’t get out of the way,” I said. “Are you coming with me, Miss Joyce, or are you going to stay?”

“Oh, be quiet,” Eleanor Joyce answered. “I told you I was coming.”

She turned to Mr. Pu sweetly. “Mr. Pu,” she explained, “I’m sorry to be so rude. Mr. Nelson wants me to see a Chinese friend of his who knows a great deal about pictures. I think I had better go. He says he will tell some things he knows if I don’t.”

Mr. Pu moved hastily aside. There was a watery light in his eyes as he looked at me that was not reassuring. Before Eleanor Joyce had spoken he had wished to have her stay and now apparently he wished to have her go. Once again Mr. Pu had found out something that he wanted.

“Yes,” he said. “More better you go.”

“But I’ll see you later,” said Eleanor Joyce, “won’t, I, Mr. Pu?”

I walked with her down the corridor to the elevator, pondering over Mr. Pu’s behavior.

“You were very rude to Mr. Pu,” said Eleanor Joyce.

“Well,” I said. “It doesn’t matter, does it? So he wants to sell you some more pictures, does he? Well, the quicker we get out of Mr. Pu’s way the healthier it is going to be, I think.”

“What makes you do this?” she asked me. “What possible reason have you got?”

“Lord knows,” I answered. “I couldn’t tell you.” And I was right, I could not analyze my own motives. I could no longer tell, now that I had seen the picture and Mr. Pu, whether I liked her or disliked her. Whether she was dangerous, or a damsel in distress. I had thought that she was a nice girl, but now that she was dealing with Mr. Pu, I had an idea that she might be anything. I only knew that I was not going to be shot at again, if I could help it, because I knew Eleanor Joyce.