Kitabı oku: «The Apple of Discord», sayfa 8

CHAPTER XII
THE LOTTERY TICKET

In the midst of the lull that followed the failure of Peter Bolton's assault on the fortifications of commerce, I was surprised to find on my office desk one morning the following letter:

RESPECTFUL SIR:

to yours we this day instructed to remind you that your presence is more than agreeable. Having placed to your credit a money sum drawn according to ticket, should be your worshipful servant to have presented for payment.

As ever your faithful,

KWAN LUEY & Co.

This missive, written in a beautiful Spencerian hand, was for some minutes a puzzle. I read over its tangle-worded lines two or three times before it dawned upon me that it must concern the lottery ticket that I had purchased in Peter Bolton's office. The ticket had been handed to me with the promise that I should have "heap big money," and I drew from the letter's flowery but uncertain language the inference that the promise had been fulfilled. If confirmation had been necessary, the letter confirmed the testimony of my eyes when they had assured me that the seller of the ticket was Big Sam. It was impossible that any other Chinese would have known that I was the holder of the paper, or would have procured the sending of the derangement of words that had come over the name of Kwan Luey. As nothing more important called for my attention I indulged my curiosity by setting put at once for Kwan Luey's store.

Kwan Luey showed himself superior to any narrow prejudices in regard to the objects in which it was fitting for a merchant to trade. In one window he exhibited a fine collection of silks, ebony carvings, sandal-wood ornaments, and figured Chinese coats. In the other he had piled all manner of fine porcelain, ivory and lacquered ware. The counters in the front part of the store showed a similar division of salable goods. Farther back could be seen mats of rice, boxes of tea, bags of Chinese roots, and piles of mysterious and uncanny Chinese edibles. In his office clerks were counting Mexican dollars and packing them in stout boxes for shipping to China, the earnings of his countrymen. The closed rear rooms, I surmised, were devoted to the operation of the two or three lotteries he was reputed to control.

Kwan Luey himself stood just outside his office, a short, well-fed, well-dressed Chinaman, whose rounded, dark-brown face denoted a cheerful mind. I called him by name.

"What you wan'?" he asked suspiciously, prepared to deny his identity if my errand were not to his liking.

I introduced myself, and as my name brought no sign of enlightenment to his face, I presented his letter as a card of identification.

He gravely read it with all the pride of authorship kindling in his eye, and as gravely handed it back to me.

"How you like him, eh? Plitty good letteh, eh?"

I assured him that I could not have bettered it myself.

Kwan Luey gave a gratified smile.

"I lite him," he explained. "I go Mission school fo' yeah. I leahn lite, all same copy-book. I all same beat teacheh, eh?"

"You are a Christian Chinaman, then, Kwan Luey?"

"You Clistian?" he asked.

"I hope so."

He gave me a sly glance, and said:

"I Clistian Chinaman when Clistian man wan' buy goods."

"But not when Clistian man wants money?" I asked.

Kwan Luey smiled the bland smile of China, and made no direct reply.

"You wan' money, eh?" he said. "You heap lucky, eh?"

"Well, I don't know."

"You catch-em ticket?"

I produced the square of paper I had received from Big Sam.

"What does that say?" I asked.

Kwan Luey took the paper, and drew his eyelids together till there showed but two narrow slanting slits between them as he pretended to examine it.

"Him say–him say–I look-em book and see what him say." And with his bland smile still rendering his face innocent of meaning, he retired to his office. He reappeared a moment later.

"Him say you dlaw two hund' fitty dollah," was his announcement.

The comedy of the lottery ticket was being played out to the end. I was convinced that the paper was a direct order from Big Sam to pay me the money, but as I looked into the brown mask of Kwan Luey's face I recognized the folly of attempting to draw from him any word that he was unwilling to speak. But as he counted twelve twenty-dollar gold pieces and a ten into my hand I could not forbear saying:

"And what does Big Sam expect me to do with the money?"

I thought I detected a slight movement of Kwan Luey's eyes–a momentary contraction of the lids, as though a beam of light had flashed across them and was gone. It was the only sign of surprise I could detect.

"You sabby Big Sam?" he asked blandly.

"Yes, I sabby Big Sam."

"And you no sabby what to do with you' money? You no sabby dlink–all same Clistian? You no sabby hoss-lace? You no sabby pokah?" And at this enumeration of the white man's facilities for disposing of superfluous wealth he laughed with the ironic laugh of China.

I suggested that Big Sam might have intended another destination for the money.

"Oh," said Kwan Luey innocently, "you likee Big Sam tell you what do? I likee send letteh to Big Sam. You takee letteh, him tell you what do."

The letter was already in his hand, and he passed it to me as gravely as though the coincidence was but one of the common events of life.

"I see that you were prepared for me," I said, with a tinge of sarcasm in my voice, and wondered how Kwan Luey would have brought the errand about if I had not served his purpose by introducing Big Sam's name.

The Chinaman smiled placidly.

"I no sabby," he said. "Good-by. Some day you wan' some nice thing, you come Kwan Luey's stoah."

I drew the conclusion that Big Sam wished to see me, and had arranged that Kwan Luey was to find a pretext for sending me to his office. Why he should not himself have sent word of his wish, I could not guess, unless it was a part of his policy to avoid direct paths where indirection could be made to serve.

A few minutes later I walked into the store beneath Big Sam's residence and put foot on the dingy stair that led to his office. A short, stout Chinaman tried to halt me with a "What you wan'?" but I pushed him aside and passed up the steps. I knew my way through the semi-darkness of the passage, and stumbled upward without wish for guidance or thought of danger. I had not mounted half the ascent before I heard something of a commotion above me–the shutting of a door, a scurry of feet, and a rumbling sound as though a heavy table had been moved across the floor. I amused myself with the thought that I had caught Big Sam's household unprepared for visitors and imagined the flight of the feminine portion of his family at the sound of my approaching footfall.

I reached the landing. The hall was deserted, and, turning toward the building's front, I knocked at the one door that led from the passage. There was no answer, and I knocked again. As a third knock brought no response I turned the knob and opened the door for myself. To my surprise Big Sam's room of state had disappeared. In place of the large and handsome office, with its profusion of ornamentation and its oriental furniture, I found myself looking into a narrow passageway between blank walls. I looked about the hall with the thought that I must have mistaken the door. But there was no other entrance to be seen, and I looked again in perplexity at the passage, unwilling to believe the evidence of my eyes. As I turned to make sure of the transformation I heard a click as of a spring lock snapped, a smart push at my back sent me staggering forward, and the door banged behind me.

It took but a moment to recover myself and face about. But I was too late. The door had been securely locked. A few blows on the panels sufficed to assure me that it was of too solid construction to yield to anything less powerful than an ax; and though the frame rattled at my efforts, I saw that I was a prisoner, unless I could find some other way of egress. I spared the door the kicks and blows that were called for by my first impulse. If I had been fool enough to get into this trap, I had at least sense enough to recognize that I should not better myself by knocking the skin off my knuckles in the effort to attract attention. The persons whose ears I could reach did not need to be informed of my presence. They had attended to the little detail of putting me there, and might be assumed to be aware of the honor I was doing them without further demonstration of the fact.

I turned to look once more at my prison. It was hardly five feet wide, and might have been thirty feet long, and appeared to turn a sharp corner and lead toward the rear of the building. Evidently I was at the entrance of one of the labyrinths of Chinatown, famous in police reports.

Up to this moment I had felt no fear at my situation. It seemed indeed to be something of a practical joke at which I could afford to laugh. I had evidently wandered into the wrong building, been mistaken for a detective, or a tax collector, or some equally unpleasant person, and had been turned in here out of the way of doing mischief. I had but to reveal the object of my visit–provided I could find anybody to reveal it to–and I should be sent on my way with apologies. But some remembrance of the gruesome tales of the deeds that had been done in these labyrinths suggested that the sooner I found speech with some one, the better chance of safety I should have. I was about to venture down the passage in search of a guide when I was startled to hear a voice speaking in my ear in perfect English:

"If Mr. Hampden will have the patience to wait a moment, he will be welcome."

It was the voice of Big Sam, and I looked about me with the thought that I should find him at my side. But I was still the only tenant of the passage, and in perplexity I scanned the walls and ceiling. At a second glance my eye lighted upon a small bull's-eye of glass set in the wall. It doubtless served as an observatory from which suspicious characters might be examined, and some arrangement of speaking tubes gave communication by voice.

"Thank you," I said, as I made these observations. "I am in no hurry."

I had scarce spoken when a part of the wall swung back, and Big Sam stood in the opening.

CHAPTER XIII
THE WISDOM OF HIS ANCESTORS

Big Sam was dressed in a long dark robe figured with fantastic markings in gold thread, and, as he stood in the opening in the wall, had the appearance of an astrologer who took himself seriously. His face wore a grave smile, and he bowed, as though he were receiving me under the most conventional circumstances.

"Step this way, if you please, Mr. Hampden," he said with quiet dignity.

I hastened to quit the bare and narrow prison, and was astonished to find myself amid the oriental splendor of Big Sam's room of state.

"I ask your pardon for the somewhat unceremonious welcome you have had," said Big Sam, motioning me to a chair, and taking his seat behind the great carved desk.

"Don't mention it," I said. "I suppose it's your customary way of paying honor to distinguished guests."

Big Sam gave my pleasantry a dignified smile.

"We have to be prepared for more than one kind of visitor," he said. "Perhaps it is unnecessary to call your attention to the circumstance that you made no saving of time when you declined to give your name and business to the man who met you at the foot of the stairs. It is a mere detail, but on your next visit you will find a shorter way to this room by sending up your name."

"I shall take advantage of the permission, but I didn't suppose it necessary."

"These are troublous times," said Big Sam, "and I have more than one very good reason to take precautions."

"I might suppose so from the change you have made in the entrance to your rooms," I returned.

Big Sam gave me a quick glance.

"The change is more apparent than real," he said. Then, as if the subject were dismissed, he turned the conversation abruptly. "I believe you wished to see me."

The attempt to put me in the position of seeking him, instead of being the one sought, irritated me more than the rude reception I had met on my arrival.

"I came," I said sharply, "because I had reason to suppose that you had something to say to me."

"I?" said Big Sam in polite surprise.

"Yes. I have just received two hundred and fifty dollars on the order you gave me the other day, and, for one thing, I'd like to know what to do with it."

"On an order from me?" inquired Big Sam suavely.

There was only the blank "no-sabby" mask of China on his face.

"Yes," I replied shortly. "It you've forgotten our interview in Peter Bolton's office, maybe this will remind you." And I laid before him the sheet of paper I had received from Kwan Luey.

Big Sam glanced at it, and I thought I saw behind the veil of his eyes the shadow of a frown. But if it was there, it was gone in an instant, and he replied blandly:

"Ah, you have proved fortunate in the lottery, then."

"I was paid two hundred and fifty dollars," was my non-committal answer.

"I congratulate you on your good luck."

"Thank you," I said sarcastically. "And now I am awaiting my instructions."

"Why," said Big Sam slowly, "if you have any scruples about keeping it for yourself, you might apply it to the expenses of the girl you have taken in charge."

"That was what I was waiting for," I said. I did not share Big Sam's pleasure in reaching results by indirect roads, and spoke impatiently. "Is that all you had to say?"

"I believe," said Big Sam with ironic courtesy, "that I have some speech still due me. Unless I am much mistaken I have received no report of a certain girl since I delivered her into your hands. Possibly I am wrong in supposing that the circumstances give me any rights."

"I dare say I owe you an apology," I said, with swift repentance of my show of temper. "But I understood from what you said in Mr. Bolton's office that you were in no pressing haste to hear from her."

"Pardon me, if I have no recollection of a meeting in Mr. Bolton's office," said Big Sam dryly. "We shall get on faster if you will kindly assume that it did not take place."

The "no-sabby" mask covered his face, as impenetrable as the blank walls of the passageway itself.

"As you like," I said. "Then, here is my belated report." And I gave a brief account of the events that had followed the rescue of Moon Ying. At the mention of her wound, Big Sam looked grave, and when I had done he said:

"I had received information that something of the kind had happened, but your silence gave me chance to hope that my informant was mistaken."

"No doubt I ought to have reported to you at once. I can only offer apologies for my neglect."

Big Sam gravely bowed in pardon of my remissness.

"It is a very awkward affair," he said. "And it will prove much more awkward if she dies."

"She is now out of danger."

"I trust so. Her death would send the tongs at each other's throats."

"And at yours?"

"I should find it necessary to be absent from the city for some months," he said quietly.

"You might look on it in the light of a vacation," I suggested.

"Unfortunately it is of the last importance that I should be here through the coming months."

"I presume that I am not expected to understand why."

"If you have kept your eyes open, you may have some idea of the reason." He spoke with a tinge of sarcasm in his tone.

"Oh, a man can not always be sure of his eyes," I replied, with a reflection of his manner. "It is true, I know that violence is threatened against your people, and that Chinatown is likely to be burned down before the troubles are over. I know that, for reasons that seem good to himself, Peter Bolton is furnishing money to aid in the campaign of disorder. But what I do not know is the reason why Big Sam is engaged in secret dealings with Peter Bolton. On its face it looks to me like the case of a man joining in a plot to burn his own home."

Big Sam drew down the veils of inscrutability over his eyes as he looked steadily at me, and asked:

"What result do you expect from the agitation?"

"For the first thing, destruction of property and the killing of some of your countrymen."

"Oh," said Big Sam carelessly, "as for the property, it belongs mostly to your countrymen. We prefer to keep our belongings in movable form. And as for my countrymen, if any of them get killed, there are plenty more where they came from."

A shiver ran down my back at this cold-blooded way of looking at the matter, and with some element of repulsion in my thought, I replied sharply:

"But those countrymen may not be able to reach here. The final result of the troubles, in my judgment, will be the shutting of our gates to the Chinese immigrant."

"Even that might not be altogether a misfortune," said Big Sam calmly.

"Not to us, I believe," I said.

"And not to us," said Big Sam.

"I'm glad you take so kindly to the idea," I said.

"Oh, it's very simple," he explained, "a mere calculation of dollars and cents. Shut off the supply, you increase the value of those now here. If no more of my countrymen come, you will find none working for ten and fifteen dollars a month. In a few years the ten-dollar man will be getting twenty; the fifteen-dollar man will be getting thirty; the men who are working in the fields and on the railroads for seventy-five cents and a dollar a day will be getting a dollar and a half and two dollars."

"That's a new view of the matter–to me, at least," I confessed. "But even that calculation will be much amiss if the agitators get the upper hand. They call for expulsion–not merely exclusion. They say 'The Chinese Must Go,' and some of them mean it."

"I have no fear," said Big Sam calmly. "Their violence will overreach itself. I may say that I rely upon them more than on the justice of our cause to prevent hostile action against my people. The more violent their outbreak, the stronger the reaction, and the less the likelihood of harsh measures to restrict our right to come and go as we please. Come, Mr. Hampden, I will wager you a good cigar that we have a rising in San Francisco that will call out the United States troops, and that there will be no legislation against my people."

I looked into the bland and impassive face before me, and wondered if the considerations at which he had thus hinted could explain his alliance with Bolton. It was in keeping with the principles of oriental diplomacy that he should be planning to prevent exclusion by encouraging the agitators to violence, and be prepared to profit by either success or failure. Yet as I looked into the fathomless brown depths of his eyes, I refused to believe that he had revealed the full measure of his policy or the reasons for it.

"I will certainly risk a cigar on that," I returned gaily.

"Then you consider the exclusion of my people inevitable?"

"I do. It is necessary to the control of this coast by the white race, and I feel certain that it must come."

"I do not recognize the necessity of the white race controlling this coast," said Big Sam dryly.

"Probably not."

"Besides, you forget that there is a class of your own people who will be much injured by an exclusion policy," he said. "The steamship and railroad companies will lose much money. The man who employs a hundred laborers will find his expenses increased by fifty dollars or one hundred dollars a day. Do you think they are going to submit quietly? The exclusion policy will find its enemies among your own people."

"Then you will take no part in the struggle?" I inquired.

Big Sam gave his head a diplomatic shake.

"I am a guest in your country, and I understand the obligations that such a position implies." He spoke the words exactly as he would have said, "I shall protect my own interests," and, by an intangible suggestion, it was this meaning that they conveyed to me. Then he turned the current of conversation abruptly:

"I think," he said, "it is well to bring the girl back here where she can have the care of a doctor of her own race." He spoke with outward calmness, but there was a trace of inward perturbation in his manner.

I stared at him in astonishment.

"Surely," I cried, "you do not believe that your doctors are better than ours! You don't mean to say that an intelligent and educated man like you thinks that there is merit in powdered toads, and snake liver-pills! You don't believe for an instant that incantations to drive away devils can be of the slightest benefit to a girl with a bullet through her ungs!"

Big Sam looked away from me with something of shame and discomposure in his face. The yellow mask dropped away for a moment, and I could read in his countenance the struggle that was going on in his mind between the veneer of western education and the inborn basic faith in the system evolved by his fathers.

"If you had asked me a week ago, and purely as a matter of theory," he said slowly, "I should have replied that your doctors were far superior to ours–that the medical practice of our people was merely superstition reduced to an absurdity."

"Your good sense would have spoken," I said.

"But now," he continued, "it is not a matter of theory that I have to consider. It is a life and death problem. Immense interests–my future–perhaps the future of the Chinese in this country–are all at stake. And who am I, to throw aside the wisdom of my ancestors and call it folly? There are powers in the earth and in the air that you and I do not understand. There are forces that you and I do not know how to use. I have seen things that science–even your science–can not explain. May not the race know what the common man does not know? Does not the experience of three thousand years count for more than our ideas of what is reasonable? Our ideas! What are they but bubbles blown in air, now seen, now gone into nothingness? Here is a scrap of paper. I crumple it thus, and throw it out of the window. It is blown here and there–up the street, down the street, around the corner–and it comes at last to the rubbish pile and is burned. And because it has found nothing but pavements and buildings in its course it scoffs at the stories of green fields, mountains, forests, the powers of nature and the works of man that it has not seen. Is that not the attitude of civilized man, Mr. Hampden?"

"We must believe our experience, our observation and our intelligence; they are the only guides we have," I replied.

"The savage is much more reasonable," said Big Sam, with the air of one who argues with himself. "He makes allowance for the universe outside his little round of experience." He rose from his seat with a troubled face, as though to relieve his stress of thought by walking. Then, as if ashamed at the loss of his customary calm, he sat down once more.

I brought the conversation back to the concrete case of Moon Ying.

"I can assure you," I said, "that the girl is getting the best medical attention in the city, and is being nursed with the most tender care. You surely have no thought of depriving her of these advantages."

"These advantages? Yes, they may be advantages to your people. But are they so for mine?"

"Certainly; flesh and blood are flesh and blood the world over."

"Each race to its own," said Big Sam. "I can not take the risk of leaving her to die under the white doctor's treatment."

"She is much the more likely to die if you bring her to Chinatown," I argued.

Big Sam's face recovered its firm determination, and I saw that the superstition and ancestor-worshiping elements imbibed with his mother's milk had overwhelmed education and reason in the crisis at which he felt he had arrived.

"I must look to my own welfare," he said with decision. "A war among the tongs would be fatal to the interests of the Chinese. And if the girl dies–especially if she dies under the white doctor's care–it would be quite beyond my power to prevent an outbreak."

"I have no doubt your interests are important," I began, when he interrupted me.

"Important! they are everything. I must ask you to see that the girl is returned here this morning. I will send for two of our best Chinese doctors to care for her."

"I protest against your decision," I said.

"It is not your place to protest or assent," said. Big Sam, with an air of command.

"Nor to act against my judgment," I added.

"Oh, if you refuse to act, I must find another messenger," said Big Sam calmly. "Permit me to thank you for what you have done, and to say that when I can be of service I am yours to command." The dignity and courtesy with which he spoke were almost regal.

"Oh, I refuse nothing," I replied. "But you will have to reckon with another person than me. I shall take your request to Miss Kendrick; but, whatever I may think about it, the final decision will be in her hands."

Big Sam looked thoughtfully at me for more than a minute before he spoke.

"That was a phase of the problem I had not considered," he said slowly. "I had forgotten that yours is not the ruling sex in the white race." Big Sam's voice was innocent of sarcasm, and he appeared to be considering an impersonal problem.

"If you want to get your girl, I advise you to see Miss Kendrick yourself," I said.

Big Sam looked at me gravely.

"I should not venture to be so rude to Mr. Kendrick as to look upon the women of his household," he said with a trace of rebuke in his tone; yet I felt that this oriental excuse was but a pretense. "I am sure," he added, with a significant glance, "that I could not have a better advocate than the one I send."

Something in the tone rather than in the words sent the blood to my face, and in some confusion I rose.

"An advocate who speaks against his judgment is not likely to be of much value," I said.

"And you a lawyer!" he exclaimed. He rose and accompanied me to the door, then halted and stamped three times on the floor. "I had almost forgotten," he said with an enigmatic smile.

As he spoke there was again the rumbling as of a heavy table moved across the floor.

"Forgotten what?" was my natural inquiry.

He made no reply, and as the noise stopped he opened the door and ushered me into the hall. I had ceased to think of the peculiar mode in which I had entered the room, but now the remembrance flashed upon me, and I looked about in astonishment. I had passed directly from the office into the outer hall, and the door leading from the hall to the passage in which I had been imprisoned had disappeared.

For a moment I was at a loss to explain the transformation. Disappearing doors were something new in my experience. Then I struck my hand against the wall where the door had been, and my knuckles told me that behind the counterfeit appearance of plaster was a heavy sheet of painted iron. In a flash the explanation came to me. The whole wall could be moved like a sliding door, and with a minute's warning a raid on Big Sam's office would find no entrance.

I carried Big Sam's message to the Kendrick house without delay, and put Big Sam's case with an impartiality that surprised myself. But I was not disappointed in the result.

"Send her back!" cried Miss Kendrick in a great state of indignation. "What can the man be thinking about?"

"Indeed, it is impossible," said Miss Fillmore. "The girl is in no state to be moved, even if it were a question of moving her to a better place."

"And to move her to that dreadful, dirty Chinatown!" cried Miss Kendrick. "I'm astonished that you should think of such a thing."

"I didn't think of it," I urged. "I didn't even want to hear of it. But Big Sam has reverted to primeval barbarism, and when he said he would find somebody else if I wouldn't come, I consented to bring his message."

"Well," said Miss Kendrick, "I never heard of such a preposterous thing in all my life."

"Unfortunately, Big Sam doesn't see it in that light," I said.

Miss Kendrick sat down looking very determined and very indignant. Then she gave a decided nod and said:

"You can tell Big Sam, with my compliments, that if he thinks I am going to be an accomplice before the fact to a murder, he's very much mistaken in the person."

There was more talk to the same effect, when my judicial mind caught the idea of a compromise.

"I have it," I said. "Why not let Big Sam's Chinese doctor come up here and take an occasional look at Moon Ying, and allay the excitement in Chinatown by assuring them that she's all right?"

"Well, I admire your intelligence," said Miss Kendrick. "I suppose you'd have Doctor Roberts consulting with him, and alternate our medicines with shark's-liver pills and snake-skin powders. Would you set aside certain hours for him to sing Chinese incantations over her? Or how would you fix it?"

The judicial scheme of compromise lost some of its attractiveness, and I said so with the proper degree of humility.

"Well, you are forgiven," said Miss Kendrick. "Now I'll tell you that there's just one compromise we will make. Big Sam may come here once a week to see Moon Ying. He's the only Chinaman who can get past that door."

"I suggested something of the sort, and he took it as though I had proposed an impropriety. I believe that a Chinese gentleman isn't supposed to observe that another gentleman has a feminine side to his establishment."

"Then he can stay out," said Miss Kendrick with decision. "You can go right back and set his mind at rest. He can have Moon Ying when she gets well and he finds a man who is fit to be her husband. It's my private opinion that there isn't such a one in Chinatown. And he can't have her a minute sooner."

I delivered this ultimatum to Big Sam. He had recovered his composure, and showed neither surprise nor disappointment when I reported the result of his mission.

"Am I to understand that this message is from Mr. Kendrick or Miss Kendrick?" he inquired blandly.

"From Miss Kendrick."

"Ah! I presumed that such a matter would be decided by the head of the household." His tone was even, and I looked to his face for the flavor of sarcasm that seemed the proper dressing for the words. But the bland, inscrutable mask of China gave back only the expression of polite attention.

"Her decision would be final in such a matter," I replied with something of resentment.