Frangenac leaned back in his chair and, twirling his waxed moustaches gleefully, gave a deep, hearty laugh.
“My dear Mr. Tsung,” he said happily. “I couldn’t conceive of any number of dollars that might induce me to forego such a scoop as that. Indeed, no! I’m afraid you haven’t a due appreciation of the Press.” He paused. “Why, good Lord, man, we’re not going to pound the Princess! I’ll wager that it’s the most complimentary interview that you ever saw. We’re not scurrilous in what we write about people. I haven’t seen it myself, yet, for Barton hasn’t come back. But I know his general line of news-writing.”
Tsung leaned forward and pounded his fist angrily on the other’s desk. “You are blind then, if you look at it in that way. You have no possible conception of the probable effect upon the destinies of the new empire for the Princess to go about foreign countries spouting her idealistic theories of life and love and a hundred other silly things.” He paused. “Here,” he said curtly, “I am a busy man. There is much in Chicago I must do before we go. Say that I pay over to you one thousand of your dollars — secured in any way you wish. You, in return, will see that that is the end of the interview.”
Frangenac’s face grew dark. His forehead crinkled up in a frown. “Did you make any such offer to Barton?”
Tsung replied curiously: “I intimated some such reward. I am a man of action and deeds. But the young fool is full of idealistic theories of news, as he calls it. So I decided to go to an older man — and from there, if necessary, to the owner of the Dispatch.”
Frangenac gave a short, hard laugh. “Owner’s travelling in California just now — and yours truly is fiscal agent, president, chief clerk, bottle-washer and editor of this rag.” He paused. Then he spoke in the Oriental’s direction. “Honourable Tsung, you are of another race — and you can’t understand some of our ideas. If any other man but yourself had come in here with such an offer, I should have had him kicked downstairs by a dozen reporters, if necessary. But, as I say, you are not to blame — you do not grasp us. You are of another world. There was a time once in my life when money and the power of money seemed everything — but that time has passed with my youth. This sheet to me is like a precious toy to a child — it is my life — and this is a life job for me, in all probability. Your thousand dollars couldn’t tempt me to strike out one word of an interview which might give the Dispatch the advantage over other papers. If you laid a cold hundred thousand on the desk, I should have to turn it back to you. But because you are from another land, I should do it politely. I am getting on in years, you see, and with respect to news have even more ideals than the youthful Barton.” He tapped himself on the chest. “You were not talking to Mr. Frangenac, Mr. Tsung. You were talking to the Dispatch. I — I am the Dispatch.”
CHAPTER XXXIII
“SAVEGEAU”
As Frangenac talked, Tsung’s face grew more and more wrathful. His lean fingers kneaded themselves into his palms until his long nails bit into the skin. Frangenac himself, at the end of his speech, leaned forward toward the Chinese potentate, emphasising his every remark with his forefinger. And as he did so, the loose neck of his shirt, where he had removed the collar, fell away, Barely visible on the chest was the bearded head of some mythological figure, adroitly tattooed; and as he leaned forward still a degree further there was revealed, slightly foreshortened, to the ever-watchful Chinese observer, the figure of nothing less than a satyr with hairy goat’s legs, its hands strumming on a six-stringed lyre, the whole done in red and blue and vari-coloured inks that had faded considerably with the passing of years. At the sight of it the Oriental’s jaw dropped with a strange emotion; apparently oblivious to the words of the other, his slant eyes widened first at the sight of the half-animal, half-human figure, and then travelling from it, fastened themselves on Frangenac’s countenance, searchingly, feelingly, as though groping far back in his memory for something he could not quite place.
“So there you have it, honourable Tsung,” concluded Frangenac, leaning back at length in his swivel chair. “You must appreciate the position of the Press as being higher than money or anything else.”
Tsung made no retort. His face was a study. Suddenly he pointed to the one window of the city editor’s tiny office. “Did you see the enormous crowd on the street below?” he inquired blandly.
“Crowd!” ejaculated Frangenac. “Crowd? No! Something must have happened. Maybe a story right in front of a newspaper office and nobody to cover it.” He rose quickly from his chair and hobbled over to the window, where he looked out. Then he turned back to the Chinaman. “There’s no crowd down there now,” he said mystified.
He returned to the desk and stood looking down at the Oriental. On both his trip to the window and his trip back to the desk, the creak of his artificial leg was evidently not lost on his visitor, for a casual spectator might have noticed the strangest of looks pass over the Chinaman’s face as the latter listened tensely to each squeak in the city editor’s stride.
“Sit down — honourable Frangenac,” ordered Tsung. “It seemed to me when first I entered this room that far back in my memory was another Frenchman, with a pair of beady black eyes like yours. But that figure with the goat legs on your chest — and the squeak of your leg! Ah, how it brings back strange memories to me! Look at me, Savegeau. Do you remember me?”
At his words, Frangenac’s face flashed chalky white. He stared down in horror at the Celestial and weakly dropped down in his chair.
“You — you are mistaken,” he choked nervously. “I — I do not know you.”
“So you lost the leg?” said Tsung easily. “I never saw you after that last day — but I heard of it.” He shook his head amusedly. “Don’t try to deny it, Savegeau. Look at me. I am an old man — shrivelled and a little yellow — and becoming shrunken like a li-chee nut. Yet look at me carefully, Savegeau.”
Frangenac hunched down in his chair, the picture of fright and dismay.
“You — you are — you are — Li Ling?” he said in a hoarse whisper.
“Yes, Li Ling himself,” nodded Tsung cheerfully, rubbing his lean yellow hands together. “We Chinamen, friend Savegeau, as we rise in the world pass through what we might term an evolution of names. Then I was Li Ling — hoping some day to bear the great suffix Hoang-Ti. But Ling Hoang-Ti it was not to be. To-day I am Li Hwei Tsung. Perhaps it was for the best. And what have you got to say now, friend Savegeau?”
“My God, Ling!” murmured Frangenac weakly. “Not — not so loud. I — didn’t dream — you — prime minister of the new Chinese Empire. I saw you drop that day — when hell broke loose. I — I always thought you were dead. I — I never dreamed.”
“I am far from dead, honourable Savegeau.” The Chinaman laid a sneering stress on the word “honourable.” “Bullets do not always kill — although they sometimes cripple.” He looked about the room. “Savegeau — city editor of an American newspaper. What a handy thing it is, is it not, to speak English? H’m. Afraid, eh, to go back to France after — that?” He laughed aloud. “Suppose we revert once more to the subject of interviews. Will you offer me a thousand dollars, dear Savegeau, not to give a splendid news story to the Chicago newspaper men this afternoon?”
Frangenac’s voice was nothing but the shadow of a voice. “A thousand dollars,” he said faintly. “A thousand dollars — Ling? Oh, man, man, I — I can’t get a thousand dollars. Ling — ” He leaned forward and seized the other by the coat-lapel. “Ling, you don’t — you wouldn’t call in the reporters,” he pleaded. “Of what use could it be to you? And it would mean for me — ”
“That you could not enjoy a peaceful night’s sleep in any white country on the globe,” retorted Tsung savagely. He shook off the other’s grasp of his coat-lapel. “Come, come, man; brace up. Tsung does not need money. We were friends in a common cause once. Now he needs a favour. He simply demands one concession: That interview with the Princess O Lyra Seng must not appear to-day or any other day. Is my litt
le favour granted or not? Remember — I am now offering nothing.”
“Yes — yes — Ling,” mumbled Frangenac feverishly; “it is granted. I promise you that, Ling. It is granted. It shall not appear. I promise you.” He put his head in his hands and thought intently for a moment. Then, wide-eyed, he looked up at the other. His words were more calm. “It is not a simple matter, Ling, to kill it. But it will be killed — please be assured of that. If he even suspects that I were going to suppress such a big thing as that, he’d go straight to the office of the Sun — and they’d give him a bigger job than he’s ever had a chance of having here.” He thought hard again, chewing on his thin lips. Then he faced Tsung. “There’s but one sure way to do it, Ling, and that way I’ll follow. I can send him off posthaste to Washington this afternoon as soon as he writes it up — to help Carstairs with the developments on the impeachment of Speaker Farley. By the date the Chicago papers reach Washington — and he writes in hot-headed for an explanation — it’ll be dead cold stuff; you and your party will be on your way back to your land. And then I’ll — I’ll convince him some way that — that Great Britain — the British consul — stepped in, pulled some international wires and prevented its publication. Ling — will that suffice?”
The Chinaman arose. “It will. But see that you follow it out in every detail, Savegeau,” he warned. “We leave for ‘Frisco in another forty-eight hours and go from there back to China. I shall say good-bye now for ever; but if that interview comes out in this or any other paper, I shall have an interview myself with the newspaper men — and it will astound your Chicago.”
“I tell you, Ling, it will be killed — for good and all. I assure you of that.” Frangenac rose. He passed one hand dazedly over his white forehead. Then he thrust out the other trembling hand. “Good — good-bye, Ling, and — and good luck to you. Good-bye.”
The Chinaman looked down at the proffered hand, and a faint smile curved his lips as he noted how it shook.
“Li Hwei Tsung does not shake hands with such as you,” he sneered. He turned on his heel and a moment later was gone.
With the closing of the office door, Frangenac slumped down into his chair again, the picture of shame, defeat and humiliation.
CHAPTER XXXIV
A CROSSING OF SWORDS
BARTON remained only long enough in Sam Toy’s shop to make sure that the dead laundryman bore the peculiar physical disfigurement that the Princess had spoken of in regard to the missing Chu Li Yuan, keeper of the Confucian coins. Then, with a long, contemplative glance about the hopelessly bare room, he left the shop and sped to the nearest car line.
It was a quarter to one when he ran lightly up the steps of the Dispatch. Entering the city room, he saw that the door of Frangenac’s office was closed; but he also noted by the silhouette on the ground-glass panels that the city editor was alone and hunched down at his desk. So, for once in his life,’ he walked in without knocking.
“Well, Mr. Frangenac, I got it,” he announced triumphantly. “A most astounding full-page interview with the most astounding little piece of femininity the world will ever know.” He tapped himself on the chest heroically. A man can indulge in a few antics when a man has achieved the impossible. “Jason H. Barton — mixed American and British — has interviewed the Princess O Lyra Seng.”
A queer smile settled over Frangenac’s lips. He rose from his chair and gingerly thrust out his hand. “You’re all right, Barton,” he said abjectly. “I owe you an apology for all I said this morning. I am sorry, my boy; really sorry. As you Americans so aptly say: I take my hat off to you,” He coughed nervously and glanced out through the tail of his eye at the few reporters in the city room. “The boys will tell you a Chinaman called on us a short while ago. It was Li Hwei Tsung. He’s furious. He tried to get the Old Man’s address, but I wouldn’t give it to him. After making a few threats about seeing the British consul and the Chinese consul as well, he sailed off to one or other of the two offices. Says he’ll stop that interview if it tangles up the whole Foreign Office.” He laughed a short, hard laugh. “Of course it’s all bluff. He can’t do anything — I don’t believe.”
“Of course he can’t,” Barton snapped. “He’s just bluffing. The British consul isn’t going to interfere with a thing like that. And the Chinese consul can’t do anything even if he wanted to.”
Frangenac nodded absent-mindedly. Then he looked up. “All right, boy. Never mind telling me how you got it. Jump to your machine and hammer it out. It’ll be on the first page to-night and on the Associated Press wire for syndication. I’m holding space for it. So hop to it. Then I’ve got some interesting news for you.”
Barton, much mollified by the editor’s unusually friendly attitude, walked back to his machine and tossed his hat on the hook near it. He nodded to one or two of the boys across the room, and jerked the rubber cover off his typewriter. Then he rolled in a sheet of white paper. He was just about to strike the keys when a sudden thought struck him instead. He reached into the drawer of his desk and took out a sheet of carbon paper. “Guess I’ll make a copy to read in future years,” he said to himself sadly, “in case they have to cut it anywhere to fit space. Inside of a month it’ll all seem like a glorious dream.”
He jerked out the sheet, inserted the carbon paper between two clean sheets of paper, and rolled them all back under the platen again. Then followed for three quarters of an hour a furious clicking, in which he jerked sheet after sheet from his typewriter, each written in the white heat of furious creative effort. Part of the interview he furnished from memory — part from the stenographic notes he always took. At times the sheets rolled out so fast that he almost forgot to insert his carbon paper but he always caught himself in time and succeeded in making for his personal possession a pale-blue duplicate of every one.
At last he was finished. He mopped his forehead and gathered first the original sheets together, then the carbon copies. The latter he sealed in a long envelope with the duplicate of the Princess’s signature, which he tore off the page in his notebook. After depositing the precious envelope in the breast pocket of his coat, he took in the loose originals to Frangenac.
“Read — and marvel,” he said grandiloquently to the other. He opened his notebook and tore out the first signature the Princess had made. “And here’s the name for a little zinc etching to put at the bottom of the whole blame thing.”
Frangenac, glancing over the sheets, appeared entranced. “It’s splendid, Barton; it’s splendid. Its a remarkable interview — really — really — it’s remarkable!” For several minutes he continued to shuffle the pages, commenting at every one. Then he looked up. “Splendid! Now let me take your notebook to file away in case of any possible complications in the matter. You know, my boy, a matter of safety first.”
Barton, somewhat surprised at the request, tendered the other his notebook. The city editor, his leg squeaking at every step, hobbled over to the big iron safe in the corner and locked it carefully away.
“And now,” remarked Barton cheerfully. “I don’t want that thing changed very much in the editing. I’m going to leave that to you, Mr. Frangenac. Also, I’ll have to tell you later all about how I got it; right now I’m going out on the biggest little story that’s ever broken yet around this little old London of the West. And God knows when I’ll get it or when I’ll get back.”
“Wait!” said Frangenac sharply. He raised a hand “Wait! You forgot that good news. You’re going to Washington, D.C., on the three o’clock Washington Flyer. You’re appointed special correspondent of the Dispatch during the impeachment trial of Speaker Farley. If you’ve got a little story up your sleeve, you’ll have to pass it over to some other man.”
“To Washington!” ejaculated Barton, in a tone of dismay that surprised the other man. “To Washington?” he repeated. “But, Mr. Frangenac, I tell you I’ve got a story bigger than the Dispatch has printed in six months. To Washington — on the three o’clock train?” His voice trailed aw
ay in utter unbelief.
“Exactly,” said the other calmly. “Carstairs has his hands full in Washington on the latest leak inquiry. Now that the impeachment trial is to start, he’s wired for another man. I’ve wired back that I’m sending the Dispatch’s best man on the Washington Flyer. You’ll get full instructions from Carstairs. Grab a taxi to your rooms and throw just the things you need into a suit-case. Trial begins at ten to-morrow morning. It means a daily column from the Capitol — with hot interviews of all the Congressmen involved in the thing.” Frangenac shot open the drawer of his desk. He took from it a paper and a sheaf of bills. “Here’s your credential paper, filled in and stamped with our seal. Here’s one hundred dollars for your fare and expense money. Sign here on this line. And I’m raising your salary fifteen dollars a week.”
“But — but, Frangenac,” Barton said feebly, “you don’t understand. I — I can’t go to Washington. I tell you, Frangenac, you’ll — you’ll have to send someone else.”
Across Frangenac’s face flashed a sudden trace of anger at the recalcitrancy of one of his humble reporters. He stroked his black pointed beard angrily, and gave a vicious twist to one of the points of his waxed moustache. “Come, come, Barton,” he said sharply. “Forget it, please. We haven’t time to waste this way. Unless you hop on the Washington job by way of the three o’clock train, you can sever your connection with the Dispatch right now. You brought me a splendid interview — a tremendous one — I compliment you — and now I offer you something that means about two weeks’ work in the Capitol; it’s a chance that any reporter in the country would jump at like a frog after a piece of red flannel. Yet there you stand, wailing about a two-by-four Chicago story — probably a fizzle at that. Don’t care what’s up your sleeve; here’s something good staring you in the face. Wake up, Barton. Are you asleep, man?”
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