Kitabı oku: «The Pagan Madonna», sayfa 3
Jane put the jade into her hand-bag, clasped the glass beads round her neck again, and together she and Dennison walked toward the parlour door. As they reached it a tall, vigorous, elderly man with a gray pompadour started to enter. He paused, with an upward tilt of the chin, but the tilt was the result of pure astonishment. Instinctively Jane turned to her escort. His chin was tilted, too, and his expression was a match for the stranger’s. Later, recalling the tableau, which lasted but a moment, it occurred to Jane that two men, suddenly confronted by a bottomless pit, might have expressed their dumfounderment in exactly this fashion.
In the lobby she said rather breathlessly: “You knew each other and didn’t speak! Who is he?”
The answer threw her into a hypnotic state.
“My father,” said Dennison, quietly.
CHAPTER V
Father and son! For a while Jane had the sensation of walking upon unsubstantial floors, of seeing unsubstantial objects. The encounter did not seem real, human. Father and son, and they had not rushed into each other’s arms! No matter what had happened in the past, there should have been some human sign other than astonishment. At the very least two or three years had separated them. Just stared for a moment, and passed on!
Hypnotism is a fact; a word or a situation will create this peculiar state of mind. Father and son! The phrase actually hypnotized Jane, and she remained in the clutch of it until hours later, which may account for the amazing events into which she permitted herself to be drawn. Father and son! Her actions were normal; her mental state was not observable; but inwardly she retained no clear recollection of the hours that intervened between this and the astonishing climax. As from a distance, she heard the voice of the son:
“Looks rum to you, no doubt. But I can’t tell you the story – at least not now. It’s the story of a tomfool. I had no idea he was on this side. I haven’t laid eyes on him in seven years. Dinner at seven. I’ll have that germicide sent up to your room.”
The captain nodded abruptly and made off toward the entrance.
Jane understood. He wanted to be alone – to catch his breath, as it were. At any rate, that was a human sign that something besides astonishment was stirring within. So she walked mechanically over to the bookstall and hazily glanced at the backs of the new novels, riffled the pages of a magazine; and to this day she cannot recall whether the clerk was a man or a woman, white or brown or yellow, for a hand touched her sleeve lightly, compelling her attention. Dennison’s father stood beside her.
“Pardon me, but may I ask you a question?”
Jane dropped the fur collaret in her confusion. They both stooped for it, and collided gently; but in rising the man glimpsed the string of glass beads.
“Thank you,” said Jane, as she received the collaret. “What is it you wish to ask of me?”
“The name of the man you were with.”
“Dennison; his own and yours – probably,” she said with spirit, for she took sides in that moment, and was positive that the blame for the estrangement lay with the father. The level, unagitated voice irritated her; she resented it. He wasn’t human!
“My name is Cleigh – Anthony Cleigh. Thank you.”
Cleigh bowed politely and moved away. Behind that calm, impenetrable mask, however, was turmoil, kaleidoscopic, whirling too quickly for the brain to grasp or hold definite shapes. The boy here! And the girl with those beads round her throat! For the subsidence of this turmoil it was needful to have space; so Cleigh strode out of the lobby into the fading day, made his way across the bridge, and sought the Bund. He forgot all about his appointment with Cunningham.
He lit a cigar and walked on and on, oblivious of the cries of the ’ricksha boys, importunate beggars, the human currents that broke and flowed each side of him. The boy here in Shanghai! And that girl with those beads round her throat! It was as though his head had become a tom-tom in the hands of fate. The drumming made it impossible to think clearly. It was the springing up of the electric lights that brought him back to actualities. He looked at his watch.
He had been tramping up and down the Bund for two solid hours.
And now came, clearly defined, the idea for which he had been searching. He indulged in a series of rumbling chuckles. You will have heard such a sound in the forest when a stream suddenly takes on a merry mood – broken water.
To return to Jane, whom Cleigh had left in a state of growing hypnosis. She was able to act and think intelligently, but the spell lay like a fog upon her will, enervating it. She grasped the situation clearly enough; it was tremendous. She had heard of Anthony Cleigh. Who in America had not? Father and son, and they had passed each other without a nod! Had she not been a witness to the episode, she would not have believed such a performance possible.
Through the fog burst a clear point of light. This was not the first time she had encountered Anthony Cleigh. Where had she seen him before, and under what circumstance? Later, when she was alone, she would dig into her storehouse of recollection. Certainly she must bring back that episode. One thing, she had not known him as Anthony Cleigh.
Father and son, and they had not spoken! It was this that beat persistently upon her mind. What dramatic event had created such a condition? After seven years! These two, strong mentally and physically, in a private war! She understood now how it was that Dennison had been able to tell her about Monte Carlo, the South Sea Islands, Africa, Asia; he had been his father’s companion on the yacht.
Mechanically she approached the lift. In her room all her actions were more or less mechanical. From the back of her mind somewhere came the order to her hands. She took down the evening gown. This time the subtle odour of lavender left her untouched. To be beautiful, to wish that she were beautiful! Why? Her hair was lovely; her neck and arms were lovely; but her nose wasn’t right, her mouth was too large, and her eyes missed being either blue or hazel. Why did she wish to be beautiful?
Always to be poor, to be hanging on the edge of things, never enough of this or that – genteel poverty. She had inherited the condition, as had her mother before her – gentlefolk who had to count the pennies. Her two sisters – really handsome girls – had married fairly well; but one lived in St. Louis and the other in Seattle, so she never saw them any more.
Tired. That was it. Tired of the war for existence; tired of the following odours of antiseptics; tired of the white walls of hospitals, the sight of pain. On top of all, the level dullness of the past, the leaden horror of these months in Siberia. She laughed brokenly. Gardens scattered all over the world, and she couldn’t find one – the gardens of imagination! Romance everywhere, and she never could touch any of it!
Marriage. Outside of books, what was it save a legal contract to cook and bear children in exchange for food and clothes? The humdrum! She flung out her arms with a gesture of rage. She had been cheated, as always. She had come to this side of the world expecting colour, movement, adventure. The Orient of the novels she had read – where was it? Drab skies, drab people, drab work! And now to return to America, to exchange one drab job for another! Nadir, always nadir, never any zenith!
Her bitter cogitations were interrupted by a knock on the door. She threw on her kimono and answered. A yellow hand thrust a bottle toward her. It would be the wash for the jade. She emptied the soap dish, cleaned it, poured in the germicide, and dropped the jade necklace into the liquid. She left it there while she dressed.
Dennison Cleigh, returning to the States to look for a job! Nothing she had ever read seemed quite so fantastic. She paused in her dressing to stare at some inner thought which she projected upon the starred curtain of the night beyond her window. Supposing they had wanted to fling themselves into each other’s arms and hadn’t known how? She had had a glimpse or two of Dennison’s fierce pride. Naturally he had inherited it from his father. Supposing they were just stupid rather than vengeful? Poor, foolish human beings!
She proceeded with her toilet. Finishing that, she cleansed the jade necklace with soap and water, then realized that she would not be able to wear it, because the string would be damp. So she put on the glass beads instead – another move by the Madonna of the Pagan. Jane Norman was to have her fling.
Dennison was in the lobby waiting for her. He gave a little gasp of delight as he beheld her. Of whom and of what did she remind him? Somebody he had seen, somebody he had read about? For the present it escaped him. Was she handsome? He could not say; but there was that in her face that was always pulling his glance and troubling him for the want of knowing why.
The way she carried herself among men had always impressed him. Fearless and friendly, and with deep understanding, she created respect wherever she went. Men, toughened and coarsened by danger and hardship, somehow understood that Jane Norman was not the sort to make love to because one happened to be bored. On the other hand, there was something in her that called to every man, as a candle calls to the moth; only there were no burnt wings; there seemed to be some invisible barrier that kept the circling moths beyond the zone of incineration.
Was there fire in her? He wondered. That copper tint in her hair suggested it. Magnificent! And what the deuce was the colour of her eyes? Sometimes there was a glint of topaz, or cornflower sapphire, gray agate; they were the most tantalizing eyes he had ever gazed into.
“Hungry?” he greeted her.
“For fourteen months!”
“Do you know what?”
“What?”
“I’d give a year of my life for a club steak and all the regular fixings.”
“That isn’t fair! You’ve gone and spoiled my dinner.”
“Wishy-washy chicken! How I hate tin cans! Pancakes and maple syrup! What?”
“Sliced tomatoes with sugar and vinegar!”
“You don’t mean that!”
“I do! I don’t care how plebeian it is. Bread and butter and sliced tomatoes with sugar and vinegar – better than all the ice cream that ever was! Childhood ambrosia! For mercy’s sake, let’s get in before all the wings are gone!”
They entered the huge dining room with its pattering Chinese boys – entered it laughing – while all the time there was at bottom a single identical thought – the father.
Would they see him again? Would he be here at one of the tables? Would a break come, or would the affair go on eternally?
“I know what it is!” he cried, breaking through the spell.
“What?”
“Ever read ‘Phra the Phœnician’?”
“Why, yes. But what is what?”
“For days I’ve been trying to place you. You’re the British heroine!”
She thought for a moment to recall the physical attributes of this heroine.
“But I’m not red-headed!” she denied, indignantly.
“But it is! It is the most beautiful head of hair I ever laid eyes on.”
“And that is the beginning and the end of me,” she returned with a little catch in her voice.
The knowledge bore down upon her that her soul was thirsty for this kind of talk. She did not care whether he was in earnest or not.
“The beginning, but not the end of you. Your eyes are fine, too. They keep me wondering all the time what colour they really are.”
“That’s very nice of you.”
“And the way you carry yourself!”
“Good gracious!”
“You look as if you had come down from Olympus and had lost the way back.”
“Captain, you’re a dear! I’ve just been wild to have a man say foolish things to me.” She knew that she might play with this man; that he would never venture across the line. “Men have said foolish things to me, but always when I was too busy to bother. To-night I haven’t anything in this wide world to do but listen. Go on.”
He laughed, perhaps a little ruefully.
“Is there any fire in you, I wonder?”
“Well?” – tantalizing.
“Honestly, I should like to see you in a rage. I’ve been watching you for weeks, and have found myself irritated by that perpetual calm of yours. That day of the riot you stood on the curb as unconcerned as though you had been witnessing a movie.”
“It is possible that it is the result of seeing so much pain and misery. I have been a machine too long. I want to be thrust into the middle of some fairy story before I die. I have never been in love, in a violent rage. I haven’t known anything but work and an abiding discontent. Red hair – ”
“But it really isn’t red. It’s like the copper beech in the sunshine, full of glowing embers.”
“Are you a poet?”
“On my word, I don’t know what I am.”
“There is fire enough in you. The way you tossed about our boys and the Japs!”
“In the blood. My father and I used to dress for dinner, but we always carried the stone axe under our coats. We were both to blame, but only a miracle will ever bring us together. I’m sorry I ran into him. It brings the old days crowding back.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Oh, I’ll survive! Somewhere there’s a niche for me, and sooner or later I’ll find it.”
“He stopped me in the lobby after you left. Wanted to know what name you were using. I told him rather bluntly – and he went on. Something in his voice – made me want to strike him!”
Dennison balanced a fork on a finger.
“Funny old world, isn’t it?”
“Very. But I’ve seen him somewhere before. Perhaps in a little while it will come back… What an extraordinarily handsome man!”
“Where?” – with a touch of brusqueness.
“Sitting at the table on your left.”
The captain turned. The man at the other table caught his eye, smiled, and rose. As he approached Jane noticed with a touch of pity that the man limped oddly. His left leg seemed to slue about queerly just before it touched the floor.
“Well, well! Captain Cleigh!”
Dennison accepted the proffered hand, but coldly.
“On the way back to the States?”
“Yes.”
“The Wanderer is down the river. I suppose you’ll be going home on her?”
“My orders prevent that.”
“Run into the old boy?”
“Naturally,” with a wry smile at Jane. “Miss Norman, Mr. Cunningham. Where the shark is, there will be the pilot fish.”
The stranger turned his eyes toward Jane’s. The beauty of those dark eyes startled her. Fire opals! They seemed to dig down into her very soul, as if searching for something. He bowed gravely and limped back to his table.
“I begin to understand,” was Dennison’s comment.
“Understand what?”
“All this racket about those beads. My father and this man Cunningham in the same town generally has significance. It is eight years since I saw Cunningham. Of course I could not forget his face, but it’s rather remarkable that he remembered mine. He is – if you tear away the romance – nothing more or less than a thief.”
“A thief?” – astonishedly.
“Not the ordinary kind; something of a prince of thieves. He makes it possible – he and his ilk – for men like my father to establish private museums. And now I’m going to ask you to do me a favour. It’s just a hunch. Hide those beads the moment you reach your room. They are yours as much as any one’s, and they may bring you a fancy penny – if my hunch is worth anything. Hang that pigtail, for getting you mixed up in this! I don’t like it.”
Jane’s hand went slowly to her throat; and even as her fingers touched the beads, now warm from contact, she became aware of something electrical which drew her eyes compellingly toward the man with the face of Ganymede and the limp of Vulcan. Four times she fought in vain, during dinner, that drawing, burning glance – and it troubled her. Never before had a man’s eye forced hers in this indescribable fashion. It was almost as if the man had said, “Look at me! Look at me!”
After coffee she decided to retire, and bade Dennison good-night. Once in her room she laid the beads on the dresser and sat down by the window to recast the remarkable ending of this day. From the stars to the room, from the room to the stars, her glance roved uneasily. Had she fallen upon an adventure? Was Dennison’s theory correct regarding the beads? She rose and went to the dresser, inspecting the beads carefully. Positively glass! That Anthony Cleigh should be seeking a string of glass beads seemed arrant nonsense.
She hung the beads on her throat and viewed the result in the mirror. It was then that her eye met a golden glint. She turned to see what had caused it, and was astonished to discover on the floor near the molding that poor Chinaman’s brass hand warmer. She picked it up and turned back the jigsawed lid. The receptacle was filled with the ash of punk and charcoal.
There came a knock on the door.
CHAPTER VI
Now, then, the further adventures of Ling Foo of Woosung Road. He was an honest Chinaman. He would beat you down if he were buying, or he would overcharge you if he were selling. There was nothing dishonest in this; it was legitimate business. He was only shrewd, not crooked. But on this day he came into contact with a situation that tried his soul, and tricked him into overplaying his hand.
That morning he had returned to his shop in a contented frame of mind. He stood clear of the tragedy of the night before. That had never happened; he had dreamed it. Of course he would be wondering whether or not the man had died.
When Ling Foo went forth with his business in his pack he always closed the shop. Here in upper Woosung Road it would not have paid him to hire a clerk. His wife, obedient creature though she was, spoke almost no pidgin – business – English; and besides that, she was a poor bargainer.
It was hard by noon when he let himself into the shop. The first object he sought was his metal pipe. Two puffs, and the craving was satisfied. He took up his counting rack and slithered the buttons back and forth. He had made three sales at the Astor and two at the Palace, which was fair business, considering the times.
A shadow fell across the till top. Ling Foo raised his slanted eyes. His face was like a graven Buddha’s, but there was a crackling in his ears as of many fire-crackers. There he stood – the man with the sluing walk! Ling Foo still wore a queue, so his hair could not very well stand on end.
“You speak English.”
It was not a question; it was a statement.
Ling Foo shrugged.
“Can do.”
“Cut out the pidgin. Your neighbour says you speak English fluently. At Moy’s tea-house restaurant they say that you lived in California for several years.”
“Twelve,” said Ling Foo with a certain dry humour.
“Why didn’t you admit me last night?”
“Shop closed.”
“Where is it?”
“Where is what?” asked the merchant.
“The string of glass beads you found on the floor last night.”
A sense of disaster rolled over the Oriental. Had he been overhasty in ridding himself of the beads? Patience! Wait a bit! Let the stranger open the door to the mystery.
“Glass beads?” he repeated, ruminatively.
“I will give you ten gold for them.”
Ha! Now they were getting somewhere. Ten gold! Then those devil beads had some worth outside a jeweller’s computations? Ling Foo smiled and spread his yellow hands.
“I haven’t them.”
“Where are they?”
The Oriental loaded his pipe and fired it.
“Where is the man who stumbled in here last night?” he countered.
“His body is probably in the Yang-tse by now,” returned Cunningham, grimly.
He knew his Oriental. He would have to frighten this Chinaman badly, or engage his cupidity to a point where resistance would be futile.
There was a devil brooding over his head. Ling Foo felt it strangely. His charms were in the far room. He would have to fend off the devil without material aid, and that was generally a hopeless job. With that twist of Oriental thought which will never be understood by the Occidental, Ling Foo laid down his campaign.
“I found it, true. But I sold it this morning.”
“For how much?”
“Four Mex.”
Cunningham laughed. It was actually honest laughter, provoked by a lively sense of humour.
“To whom did you sell it, and where can I find the buyer?”
Ling Foo picked up the laughter, as it were, and gave his individual quirk to it.
“I see,” said Cunningham, gravely.
“So?”
“Get that necklace back for me and I will give you a hundred gold.”
“Five hundred.”
“You saw what happened last night.”
“Oh, you will not beat in my head,” Ling Foo declared, easily. “What is there about this string of beads that makes it worth a hundred gold – and life worth nothing?”
“Very well,” said Cunningham, resignedly. “I am a secret agent of the British Government. That string of glass beads is the key to a code relating to the uprisings in India. The loss of it will cost a great deal of money and time. Bring it back here this afternoon, and I will pay down five hundred gold.”
“I agree,” replied Ling Foo, tossing his pipe into the alcove. “But no one must follow me. I do not trust you. There is nothing to prevent you from robbing me in the street and refusing to pay me. And where will you get five hundred gold? Gold has vanished. Even the leaf has all but disappeared.”
Cunningham dipped his hand into a pocket, and magically a dozen double eagles rolled and vibrated upon the counter, sending into Ling Foo’s ears that music so peculiar to gold. Many days had gone by since he had set his gaze upon the yellow metal. His hand reached down – only to feel – but not so quickly as the white hand, which scooped up the coin trickily, with the skill of a prestidigitator.
“Five hundred gold, then. But are you sure you can get the beads back?”
Ling Foo smiled.
“I have a way. I will meet you in the lobby of the Astor House at five”; and he bowed with Oriental courtesy.
“Agreed. All aboveboard, remember, or you will feel the iron hand of the British Government.”
Ling Foo doubted that, but he kept this doubt to himself.
“I warn you, I shall go armed. You will bring the gold to the Astor House. If I see you after I depart – ”
“Lord love you, once that code key is in my hands you can go to heaven or the devil, as you please! We live in rough times, Ling Foo.”
“So we do. There is a stain on the floor, about where you stand. It is the blood of a white man.”
“What would you, when a comrade attempts to deceive you?”
“At five in the lobby of the Astor House. Good day,” concluded Ling Foo, fingering the buttons on his counting rack.
Cunningham limped out into the cold sunshine. Ling Foo shook his head. So like a boy’s, that face! He shuddered slightly. He knew that a savage devil lay ready behind that handsome mask – he had seen it last night. But five hundred gold – for a string of glass beads!
Ling Foo was an honest man. He would pay you cash for cash in a bargain. If he overcharged you that was your fault, but he never sold you imitations on the basis that you would not know the difference. If he sold you a Ming jar – for twice what it was worth in the great marts – experts would tell you that it was Ming. He had some jade of superior quality – the translucent deep apple-green. He never carried it about; he never even spoke of it unless he was sure that the prospective customer was wealthy.
His safe was in a corner of his workshop. An American yegg would have laughed at it, opened it as easily as a ripe peach; but in this district it was absolute security. Ling Foo was obliged to keep a safe, for often he had valuable pearls to take care of, sometimes to put new vigour in dying lustre, sometimes to peel a pearl on the chance that under the dull skin lay the gem.
He trotted to the front door and locked it; then he trotted into his workshop, planning. If the glass beads were worth five hundred, wasn’t it likely they would be worth a thousand? If this man who limped had stuck to the hundred Ling Foo knew that he would have surrendered eventually. But the ease with which the stranger made the jump from one to five convinced Ling Foo that there could be no harm in boosting five to ten. If there was a taint of crookedness anywhere, that would be on the other side. Ling Foo knew where the beads were, and he would transfer them for one thousand gold. Smart business, nothing more than that. He had the whip hand.
Out of his safe he took a blackwood box, beautifully carved, Cantonese. Headbands, earrings, rings, charms, necklaces, tomb ornaments, some of them royal, all of them nearly as ancient as the hills of Kwanlun, from which most of them had been quarried – jade. He trickled them from palm to palm and one by one returned the objects to the box. In the end he retained two strings of beads so alike that it was difficult to discern any difference. One was Kwanlun jade, royal loot; the other was a copy in Nanshan stone. The first was priceless, worth what any fool collector was ready to pay; the copy was worth perhaps a hundred gold. Held to the light, there was a subtle difference; but only an expert could have told you what this difference was. The royal jade did not catch the light so strongly as the copy; the touch of human warmth had slightly dulled the stone.
Ling Foo transferred the copy to a purse he wore attached to his belt under the blue jacket. The young woman would never be able to resist the jade. She would return the glass instantly. A thousand gold, less the cost of the jade! Good business!
But for once his Oriental astuteness overreached, as has been seen. And to add to his discomfiture, he never again saw the copy of the Kwanlun, representing the virtue of the favourite wife.
“I am an honest man,” he said. “The tombs of my ancestors are not neglected. When I say I could not get it I speak the truth. But I believe I can get it later.”
“How?” asked Cunningham. They were in the office, or bureau, of the Astor House, which the manager had turned over to them for the moment. “Remember, the arm of the British Government is long.”
Ling Foo shrugged.
“Being an honest man, I do not fear. She would have given it to me but for that officer. He knew something about jade.”
Cunningham nodded.
“Conceivably he would.” He jingled the gold in his pocket. “How do you purpose to get the beads?”
“Go to the lady’s room late. I left the jade with her. Alone, she will not resist. I saw it in her eyes. But it will be difficult.”
“I see. For you to get into the hotel late. I’ll arrange that with the manager. You will be coming to my room. What floor is her room on?”
“The third.”
“The same as mine. That falls nicely. Return then at half after ten. You will come to my room for the gold.”
Ling Foo saw his thousand shrink to the original five hundred, but there was no help for it. At half after ten he knocked on the panel of Jane’s door and waited. He knocked again; still the summons was not answered. The third assault was emphatic. Ling Foo heard footsteps, but behind him. He turned. The meddling young officer was striding toward him.
“What are you doing here?” Dennison demanded.
His own appearance in the corridor at this hour might have been subjectable to inquiry. He had left Jane at nine. He had seen her to the lift. Perhaps he had walked the Bund for an hour or two, but worriedly. The thought of the arrival in Shanghai of his father and the rogue Cunningham convinced him that some queer game was afoot, and that it hinged somehow upon those beads.
There was no sighing in regard to his father, for the past that was. An astonishing but purely accidental meeting; to-morrow each would go his separate way again. All that was a closed page. He had long ago readjusted his outlook on the basis that reconciliation was hopeless.
A sudden impulse spun him on his heel, and he hurried back to the Astor. The hour did not matter, or the possibility that Jane might be abed. He would ask permission to become the temporary custodian of the beads. What were they, to have brought his father across the Pacific – if indeed they had? Anyhow, he would end his own anxiety in regard to Jane by assuming the risks, if any, himself.
No one questioned him; his uniform was a passport that required no visé.
Ling Foo eyed him blandly.
“I am leaving for the province in the morning, so I had to come for my jade to-night. But the young lady is not in her room.”
“She must be!” cried Dennison, alarmed. “Miss Norman?” he called, beating on the door.
No sound answered from within. Dennison pondered for a moment. Ling Foo also pondered – apprehensively. He suspected that some misfortune had befallen the young woman, for her kind did not go prowling alone round Shanghai at night. Slue-Foot! Should he utter his suspicion to this American officer? But if it should become a police affair! Bitterly he arraigned himself for disclosing his hand to Slue-Foot. That demon had forestalled him. No doubt by now he had the beads. Ten thousand devils pursue him!
Dennison struck his hands together, and by and by a sleepy Chinese boy came scuffling along the corridor.
“Talkee manager come topside,” said Dennison. When the manager arrived, perturbed, Dennison explained the situation.
“Will you open the door?”
The manager agreed to do that. The bedroom was empty. The bed had not been touched. But there was no evidence that the occupant did not intend to return.
“We shall leave everything just as it is,” said Dennison, authoritatively. “I am her friend. If she does not return by one o’clock I shall notify the police and have the young lady’s belongings transferred to the American consulate. She is under the full protection of the United States Government. You will find out if any saw her leave the hotel, and what the time was. Stay here in the doorway while I look about.”
He saw the jade necklace reposing in the soap dish, and in an ironical mood he decided not to announce the discovery to the Chinaman. Let him pay for his cupidity. In some mysterious manner he had got his yellow claws on those infernal beads, and the rogue Cunningham had gone to him with a substantial bribe. So let the pigtail wail for his jade.
On the dresser he saw a sheet of paper partly opened. Beside it lay a torn envelope. Dennison’s heart lost a beat. The handwriting was his father’s!
