by Don Wilcox
The letter which had evoked all these far-away thoughts also cast a little more light upon the long, long search for the Chiam treasure. Not much, but a little.
“There must have been millions in that Chiam pile,” O’Connor thought. “Maybe billions. No wonder men will scour continents for a trace of it.”
He turned the letter over in his hands. It was as naive as all of George Wilmington’s letters—a straightforward account of George’s own doings as he would tell them to a confidential pal.
CHAPTER VI
A Letter with a Map
The letter read:
Dear O’Connor: You used to warn me I belonged on a dump truck instead of the stage. Maybe so, maybe not. But you cursed me up one side and down the other when I hired out to Tolozell, the Siamese hypnotist. You were right. He’s a snake.
I quit him this past summer. Cut loose in a hurry. Thought you’d like to know I’m free. Hope I don’t meet him in a dark alley.
Here’s the bloody lowdown, between you and me and the gatepost.
Remember telling me about John How, that your dad brought over from China and stuck away in a little town in a nice quiet job where he wouldn’t get in any more political tangles and get himself killed?
Well, he damned near got himself killed in spite of it. Fact is, he may be dead by the time this reaches you. Accidental injury, they call it. Depending on what you mean by accidental. Judge for yourself.
I figure old Tolozell must have been combing the country just to find him.
Anyhow our big hypnotic show comes to this town and there is the Chinese sitting out in the audience, and Tolozell spots him before the curtain goes up.
Toward the last of the show Tolo gets him up on the stage. I figured there was some funny stuff in the air. Jeff, the other attendant, and I were on the outs, so he never told me anything. But I saw him and the boss do a quick search of John How’s pockets the first thing. You see this other attendant, Jeff Cotton, was working hand in glove with Tolozell, and Tolo was doing lots of things besides running a show.
But the strange thing was that this little old Chinese pulled a clever advantage and announced that he was going to hypnotize Tolozell. Yes, and break a rock on his belly.
It almost happened, but Jeff Cotton managed to hook a stout black wire over the hammer, and he gave it a jerk just as John How swung. So John How got the hammer across his own head. It was plenty nasty.
It happened quick, and the crowd was too slow to catch on.
Everyone figured How would die right away. But he’s still hanging on, last I heard.
After that, Tolozell gathered us up and took us to the West Coast in a hurry. He only took time to quote the laws to the officials. He told them that any injuries to John How were incurred at How’s own risk, since we take no responsibility for damages to our subjects. He got away with it.
But I’m a rat’s heel for letting the thing happen.
Fact is, I was just too slow to figure what the other attendant had up his sleeve when he looped the wire on. As soon as the hammer came down, he rushed in and got the evidence out of sight. He and Tolozell warned me they’d kill me if I told, and I believe it. They didn’t have any qualms about almost killing John How. But what they really wanted out of him was a map. And they got it.
The whole mess looked like a hell of a deal to me. I wanted out, the quickest way. I felt like the devil, knowing about that wire. But I didn’t tell anyone. You’re the first.
However—and this will hand you a laugh—I did one little stunt that sort of made up for everything I missed. I stole their damned map.
That night in San Francisco when I packed to go, I copped it just before I closed the door on their snoring. So now I’m loaded down with something that’s sure to get me killed, unless I find out what it’s all about.
What can you tell me about it, O’Connor? Here’s a sketch, showing Bangkok and a stretch of the Old Mandarin Road (which you boys of brawn are now changing into a group of parallel highways—and thank heavens I’m not still riding that dump-truck!). As near as I can guess, that star in the corner might be Annum.
The inset on my map has a lot more detail than I can sketch for you. I’ll show you later. Anyway those little flibbertigibbets must be the Confucian buildings called Van-Mieu—the “Temple of Literary Culture. Remember? There was a big courtyard all around, and I drank too much to Confucius and went to sleep under one of the arches. And woke up the next morning down on the bottom step.
Well, if I can get back to that Temple in the next few months it won’t be to drink to Confucius. I’ll need your help, O’Connor. There’s gold on this map, marked in with a dab of gold paint. In fact it’s got everything but a moving dot to show where Tolozell is—or where yours truly isn’t, whichever way you want to put it.
Yes, Tolozell has flown, presumably for Siam. Right after he lost me and the map he high-tailed it for an airline passage. You think I can beat him, working my way over on a freighter?
Don’t misunderstand, O’Connor. I’m not hinting for another loan. That wouldn’t be right, when I haven’t paid back the last. I’ll get over somehow.
But I do need your advice. I know things have been plenty stormy, even though most of the Japs were supposed to have been kicked out. I don’t fancy starting off on a treasure hunt and walking into a trap. And you can see how it is between me and Tolozell.
I’m still not clear on what you know about Tolo, aside from the fact that he’s half Siamese and half Jap.
Anyway you were damned right about him, and I never could stand the smell of a skunk.
Write me what to do.
As ever,
George Wilmington.
P. S. There’s one star in Tolozell’s crown in spite of everything. Have you read about Katherine Knight, the new sensational dancer? He discovered her. Only last summer. And she’s already been spotted by the International Circuit. Be sure to see her if she comes to Bangkok.—G.W.
* * *
Before Carter O’Connor blew out the candle he wrote a check for eight hundred dollars to George Wilmington. He enclosed a brief message in the envelope with the money.
“When you arrive, George, be sure to come straight to me. We’ll work this matter out together
By the following night the letter was safely on its way.
Two days later the crew’s most troublesome workman, Slack Clampitt, broke through O’Connor’s walls of mystery. He seized his chance to rummage through O’Connor’s battered steel suitcase. He stole a few highly revealing letters, including the recent one from George Wilmington, and skipped off for parts unknown.
CHAPTER VII
A Cut-Out Career
It was lucky for Yolanda, in those tragic last days of John How, that the could take solace in her paper dolls.
Like anyone living under a burden of remorse, Yolanda had to have some escape from her own tortured soul.
For her that escape was new paper dolls. All kinds of them, beautiful, ugly, dainty, crude, subdued, flashy. She experimented rashly. She raced from one project to another, always just out of reach of that wave of bitter, anguished feelings. Feelings of guilt.
John How lay dying.
Why?
Because she had forced him to go to the hypnotist.
For her he had cast his better judgment aside and gone. Now he was slowly dying. His suffering was the price of satisfying her whims.
To lose herself in paper dolls might have seemed a childish escape if she had not been so very talented. Her experiments resulted in some highly attractive paper-doll creations. She sent a few to Katherine Knight, who in turn showed them to a theater costumer. As a result, Yolanda received an order for several large cardboard dolls to be used for a theater lobby display.
There was money in paper dolls!
Yolanda plunged into her new commercial work with a restless energy.
Jolly John How’s valiant fight against death went on. He appeared to gather strength from the
news of Yolanda’s successful art work.
She didn’t speak of him as Jolly John any more. When she went to his bedside she was always too much choked up to talk.
But John How could talk, and she could listen.
“My time short,” he would say. “My strength going. But you—you have years to be strong . . . Don’t grieve . . . Your strength must come back. And your laughter too.”
Only after he had talked to her in this vein for many days did she begin to understand. He was not blaming her. Far from it. He knew that the agents of the Japanese Imperialistics had been scouring the country for him and would have found him sooner or later.
Continually he reassured her. “For all this trouble, you will be stronger than before. Remember my words.”
This talk rang through her sleep. It whispered to her from the motionless little lips of her Jolly John paper-doll, its torn head patched with tape.
She would be stronger!
The weight of remorse gradually bent her toward a purpose. She spent more hours listening to John How’s mystical talk. She caught up his intense loves and hatreds and hopes. As if they were her own.
Never did he say where the treasure was. Only, “The White Paper Wand will lead you.”
Then he gave her practice in cutting out the simple paper doll pattern—the same little design that he had used on the dolls which had exploded. He called it the Chiam Doll.
A child might have done the original design: a round head, square-cut arms, triangular dress, and square cut legs.
“Try again. Try again.”
Her clever hands flew. She cut heaps of newspapers into scraps. Wrapping paper, stationery, maps, magazines—she cut them to pieces by the thousands.
“Doing better,” John How would say. “Keep trying. Must be able to cut true pattern every time.”
To cut an identical pattern automatically! Yolanda thought it was impossible.
But the day came when she had outgrown that frenzied fear and she realized it was possible. John How’s Murry little eyes could tell instantly whether a cut-out was the true pattern or not.
Her hands, too, could tell.
Shortly before the end came, John How lapsed into a quiet, peaceful mood that held over him until his death.
“You have learned well,” he said. “You will carry on. White Paper Wand is yours.”
It was a little frightening to take the Wand from his hands. But Yolanda realized what had happened. More than John How’s art had been transferred to her. His strength of purpose was hers, and his faith.
That immense treasure which was the hope of the honest Chiams, John How’s beloved people, was now her secret and her responsibility.
The Jap Imperialists, treacherous demons who worked through the black of night, were her enemies.
Tolozell, the Siamese Hypnotist, was a clever agent of the Jap Imperialists, and she hated him as she would hate any paid murderer.
Somewhere over in the Orient the industrious Chiams were waiting, saving their choicest gold, hoping for the day that they could repair their temples and contribute to their common treasury again.
“When time comes to help, you will know,” said John How. “Keep White Paper Wand. When in doubt, cut simple Chiam doll. If man is friend, doll will not explode.”
“I understand,” said Yolanda.
“Also Chiam Doll from White Paper Wand will lead to treasure.”
“But I don’t see how. If you could only explain—”
“Can’t explain why compass points to north,” said John How dreamily. “Can’t explain why homing pigeon goes right way . . . Can’t explain why Chiam doll from Wand always catch breeze, always drift along Mandarin Road toward treasure. White Paper must be white pigeons.”
“I remember,” Yolanda smiled indulgently, “and the silver knob and the long metal rod are a skyrocket. I’ll trust to luck.”
“Trust to luck,” John How nodded. “Keep on with art until time comes. Then trust to luck.”
CHAPTER VIII
A Confession of Superstition
For a time after John How’s death the whole world came to a stop for Yolanda.
She was eighteen, now; much too young to carry the heavy responsibilities that the little old Chinese cook had left to her.
She would awake in the mornings and gaze out over the sleepy town, blanketed with snow, Soft and peaceful under the lazy wintry sun. The warm comforts of life were close around her, and it was like a disturbing dream to remember that somewhere on the other side of the world there was still a China, a Siam, a Mandarin Road, a few thousand industrious peasants toiling and hoping for something that was hidden—they knew not where.
For several weeks Yolanda immersed herself in her commercial art work, and all but banished the thoughts of all mysteries of far-off worlds.
But just as she was trying to destroy her faith in all the unknown and unusual properties of paper dolls, things began to happen which opened her mind as never before.
One such instance occurred at a large department store in the city.
Yolanda had gone there to decorate a window with paper dolls. The reputation of her very original paper creations was spreading; her dolls were admired by advertising artists, ever on the lookout for novel eye-catchers.
The extremely self-confident advertising manager of this particular department store became friendly. Too friendly. His advances smacked of sentiment with the ring of a cash register. He was too anxious to know all of Yolanda’s doll-making secrets.
But his advances were checked by a sharp surprise. The moment he spied a simple little Chiam Doll gleaming from the pocket of Yolanda’s sports coat, he rudely reached for it.
It exploded in his hands.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Yolanda apologized. “I really can’t explain, but believe me, I didn’t intend—”
The advertising manager walked away without a word. He sent someone from the cashier’s desk to pay Yolanda for her services, but his arrogance had evidently suffered too much of a blow for him to come back and face her.
As luck would have it, someone reported the occurrence to the owner of the store, and a few days later Yolanda received a letter containing an offer of a position. She declined it, however. She was developing her own art too rapidly to drop it for a dead-end job.
Yolanda began to recover from the poignant grief over the loss of her old friend. There were bitter moments, of course; but her life was meant to be beautiful.
She plunged wholeheartedly into the job of studying fashions and free-lancing her designs for commercial use.
She received letters from Katherine Knight every week; and Katherine became the greatest of all encouragements to her to keep up the good work. Katherine’s gospel was: Leave the Rocky Hill mansion. Go forth into the world.
What Katherine Knight had done, Yolanda knew, was more than a streak of luck. That skyrocket ride to success was backed by real talent and sustained by unlimited hard work. And undoubtedly Katherine would keep right on going. Already she was playing at one of New York’s big theaters, doing costume dances in a mammoth show based on America’s great battles.
Meanwhile Yolanda worked wisely and diligently to lay a foundation for a commercial success. Eight hours of every day went into solid work.
But her artistic eagerness did not stop when the working day was done. When she read or dined or rested, she thought of paper dolls. When she slept, she dreamed of them.
Each new person who came her way gave her ideas.
She made a paper doll of Randy, the new Cop on the corner. She plastered the cardboard with a coat of newspaper headlines about crimes and graft and arrests.
Later, many of her more elaborate
Randy-dolls were used by a Chamber of Commerce in connection with Safety Week. But the original Randy—the hastily painted cardboard cut-out—lay safely in her blue leather suitcase of originals.
The first Kelly the Bellboy came out of a scrap of striped wallpaper. Later de
velopments of this creation were in time used by a prominent Southern hotel. But the original Kelly the Bellboy took his place in the blue leather suitcase.
“Do you still put all your friends to bed at night?” Katherine asked in a letter from New York. “Do they still sleep in the blue suitcase? Do you still talk to them as if they were the real people?”
To which Yolanda wrote back a full confession. “I’m a practical eighteen- year-old business woman for eight hours a day. I have to do something after hours to entertain myself, don’t I? Do you think I’m silly, Katherine, because I still play little girl? After all, they are people to me, because they listen to me so patiently. Yes, and they almost talk to me.
“Sometimes I hang several of them up together and make believe we’re all having a conversation. If I blow just the slightest breath of air at them they all bow and say yes. If I wave the fan at them, they twist and say no.
“But that isn’t all, Katherine. I may as well tell something that I can’t help noticing. There’s a strange connection between what happens to my dolls and what happens to the people fhey represent.
“Do you remember that handsome young attorney named Worthington? I placed him in the gold frame—the doll, I mean. And that very week he was appointed to be a judge.
“And then, of course, John How. I’ve never mentioned it before; but you must have thought of it. That week I accidentally tore my paper doll of him was the very week he had his accident.
“Months later when a new houseman was cleaning up, that poor torn doll was one of the things he gathered up and destroyed. I hate to say it, Katherine, but that was the week that Jolly John passed away.
You’ll say I’m Superstitious. Maybe I am. But if you were I, and all these things happened to the people right after they happened to the dolls, how would you feel?
“Sometimes I can’t sleep nights for wondering about it. It’s a terrifying thing, when I get to believing that I’m partly responsible for what happens to all my acquaintances. Believe me, Katherine, I’m taking good care of you. Just last night I hung you on the wall, and put a different shade on the overhead light so there would be a bright spotlight on you.”
