Mr. Moto Omnibus

by John P. Marquand

  Mr. Maddock’s pale eyes turned upon Wilson unblinkingly; his Adam’s apple moved languidly.

  “Oh, it’s you, is it?” he said. “How are you, pal?”

  Wilson Hitchings stared back at him. There had been a sneering lightness in his speech which was entirely new to him, and Mr. Maddock represented a world he had never known, but Wilson knew enough to know it was not a congenial world.

  “Quite well,” he said, “under the circumstances.”

  “Oh, yeah!” said Mr. Maddock. “Well, this is a funny place, pal.”

  “Yes,” said Wilson, “and there are lots of funny people in it.”

  Mr. Maddock’s thin lips formed themselves into a smile.

  “You got that wrong,” he said softly. “I’m not so funny, pal. Has this boy been getting fresh, Miss Eva? I thought there was some trouble here.”

  “I wish you’d mind your own business,” said Eva Hitchings shortly. “Mr. Hitchings and I have been talking—why should you think there has been any trouble?” A lump in Mr. Maddock’s throat moved slowly and he glanced casually toward the open window.

  “I’m funny that way,” he said in that soft voice of his. “I always did have a sense for trouble, see? That’s what makes me useful, see? I seen that Japanese come out of here and I did not like his looks. He looked like someone had tried to run him out and then when no one else came after him—” Mr. Maddock paused and shrugged his shoulders. “You know how things happen among customers; we’ve got to watch everything, Miss Eva.”

  “Well, nothing happened,” Miss Eva said.

  Mr. Maddock walked toward her softly; his pale face looked cynical and kindly.

  “Listen, girlie,” he said, “it couldn’t be that Hitchings came here to make you a proposition? You wouldn’t be holding out on me, would you?”

  “No,” said Eva Hitchings promptly, “of course I wouldn’t, Paul. Mr. Hitchings has come here to buy me out and I’ve turned him down.”

  Mr. Maddock took a long thin cigar from his inside pocket and lighted it very carefully.

  “That’s the little lady,” he said softly, then he turned to Wilson and exhaled a cloud of smoke. “Tough luck,” he said, “but she knows who her friends are, pal.”

  “Yes,” said Wilson, “I’m sure she does.” Mr. Maddock removed his cigar from the corner of his mouth.

  “It’s getting kind of late, pal,” he suggested. “Maybe you had better be going home.”

  “Why,” asked Wilson, “do you own this place? I’m not in any hurry to go.” Then he heard Eva Hitchings laugh, and she spoke before Mr. Maddock could answer.

  “Paul,” she said, “will you send someone to bring around my car? Mr. Hitchings was just leaving. I am going to drive him home.”

  “Drive me home?” echoed Wilson, and he tried not to show his surprise. “You don’t have to—but it’s very kind.”

  “It will be better for you if I did, I think,” Eva Hitchings answered, and Mr. Maddock raised his eyebrows.

  “What’s the big idea?” Mr. Maddock asked. “Some of the boys can take him.”

  Eva Hitchings shook her head. “No,” she said, “I’d like the ride.” Mr. Maddock frowned thoughtfully.

  “You’re lucky, pal,” he said, “it isn’t everybody who gets a ride with her.”

  “Yes,” said Wilson politely, “I’m sure I’m very lucky.”

  “Well,” said Mr. Maddock, “I’ll be seeing you.”

  5

  WILSON FOLLOWED Eva into the dark-paneled room where the roulette game was going decorously forward beneath that indefinable shadow of concentration which always hovers above a well-conducted gaming table. There was no sound but the whirring of the wheel and the rattle of the ball moving distractedly in its first burst of speed. No one looked up as they entered. They might have been walking into a laboratory where scientists were gathered to watch a final, critical experiment, and yet Wilson Hitchings had never felt so strangely, so mysteriously alive. All his senses seemed to have awakened into a peculiar stimulated watchfulness. He had never felt so much like an actor in a play. He was aware almost unconsciously of mysterious, possibly of dangerous matters, all around him. He was aware that anything might happen. But he was surprised to find that the knowledge stimulated rather than disturbed him.

  Miss Eva Hitchings walked in front of him carelessly, gracefully; and he remembered thinking that everything tended to make her desirably beautiful, just as though he and she were characters in a romantic story. Mr. Maddock was walking just behind him. He could feel Mr. Maddock’s presence and he knew that it was dangerous. Even so, the sight of the table interested him. The imponderables of the laws of chance were calling to something in his blood. It may have been that those imponderables were a good deal like the unknown factors around him, and a good deal like life. He knew that you could not beat life any more than you could beat the house, and it struck him that the thought was interesting, although he knew that it was rather cheap and trite. He could not beat life any more than Eva Hitchings or Mr. Moto, or the slender Mr. Maddock. They were all together in some pattern, according to some logic of chance, like the numbers in the squares. The lights and the green of the table were making him speak almost before he thought. They almost made him forget his immediate problems.

  “Do you mind if I play for a few moments?” he asked. “I should like to leave some money with the house.”

  Eva Hitchings looked at him over her bare, brown shoulder.

  “That’s what the tables are intended for,” she said. “That is, if you are sure it won’t hurt your morals.”

  “Mr. Maddock will watch my morals,” said Wilson. “Won’t you, Mr. Maddock?”

  “Yes,” said Mr. Maddock, softly. “I’ll watch your morals, pal. The cashier’s desk is over there. The numbers have been running odd tonight around the second dozen, in case you want to know.”

  “Thank you,” said Wilson. “Thank you very much.” And he spoke to Eva Hitchings again. “Don’t go away. You might bring me luck.”

  “I am very much in doubt if I’ll do that,” she said.

  “After all,” said Wilson, “you never can tell, can you?”

  He bought fifty dollars’ worth of chips and stood by the table for a minute or two watching. He saw that the play was heavy. A Chinese in evening clothes with a large heap of chips in front of him was playing the numbers covering an area with his bets. Wilson watched him lose once and watched him lose again; all the while his mind was working along channels which were new to him. It was probably the Hitchings’ instinct to be careful of money which made him wait patiently until he could form some definite plan of action. He watched the imperturbable croupier and the masklike man at the wheel. Judging from the personnel, he believed that the game was probably a crooked one. He could understand that the house at that hour of the evening might be coveting the winnings of its Chinese guest.

  Thus logically he knew that it was better to confine his activities to some other section of the board. He had seen the game before and he understood enough of the combinations not to play entirely like a beginner. He bet on manque and doubled his stake. He placed it on red and lost. He made a play à cheval and lost again. And then he won on a transversale pleine. He was playing idly, carelessly, without any thought except to keep away from the region of heavy betting. Then suddenly he had a streak of luck. He played en carre and won, increasing his take eight times. Taking out half of his money, he placed the remainder on the cross between twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty-one and thirty-two; and thirty-one came up. His luck was causing a ripple of interest, but the Chinese player across the table from him played placidly, still losing. Then a few seconds after the wheel was placed in motion, Wilson placed a stake where the zero and three joined manque, and won again. He pulled his chips into a pile without bothering to count them, and put the total on black. He was neither surprised nor elated when he won, because he had the sense that winning was the result of some vague sort of justice.
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  “Well,” said Eva Hitchings, “what next?”

  “No next,” said Wilson and he scooped the chips into his pocket. “Not tonight.”

  “The Hitchingses are always careful, aren’t they?” Eva Hitchings said.

  “No,” said Wilson, “but sometimes they know when to stop.” He did not realize until he had cashed the counters that he had won five hundred dollars. The looks of the croupiers made it very plain that not many guests left the table with such heavy winnings in their pockets, and that he had done a good deal to cut the profits of the evening. He handed a hundred dollars to the two croupiers by the wheel and another hundred to Mr. Maddock.

  “Something to remember me by, in case I come back again,” he said.

  “Thanks,” said Mr. Maddock, sourly. “We’ll remember you all right.”

  “I’m sure you will,” said Wilson, and then Eva Hitchings was saying, “My car is outside, if you don’t want to stay.”

  They walked together through the innocent-looking front rooms where the only amusements were bridge and supper and dancing. There was a runabout by the front steps, and the doorman, in his white clothes, was standing by the running board, Wilson handed him two bills.

  “Excuse me, sir,” the man said, “there must be some mistake. You’ve given me two hundred dollars.”

  “No,” said Wilson. “No mistake at all.”

  The car jumped forward viciously as Eva Hitchings stamped her foot on the accelerator.

  “Why did you throw the money away?” she asked. “On account of religious scruples?”

  Wilson Hitchings laughed. He felt extraordinarily gay, irrationally elated, although something told him that he should be careful. Something told him that he knew nothing about the girl beside him; but he did not mind. What interested him more was that she was quite different from anyone he had ever known. As he sat beside her, with his shoulder touching hers, he felt kindly toward her, almost sympathetic.

  “I don’t want to take your money,” he said.

  “Thank you,” she answered. “It was a pretty, if a rather vulgar gesture. You can’t buy Moku for two hundred dollars. He was on the place before I was born.”

  “Honestly,” said Wilson, “I didn’t want to buy him.”

  “Didn’t you?” she answered. “I thought perhaps you did.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t be so suspicious,” Wilson said. “I don’t mean you any harm.”

  “Really?” she answered. “Perhaps I am franker than you are. I mean you a good deal of harm. You might as well know it, Mr. Hitchings.”

  Wilson did not answer for a moment. They were moving down a dark valley through warm, heavy, mysterious darkness which seemed to shut them away from any particular reality. The headlights of the automobile made dancing circles along the edge of the road revealing strange trees and flowers that flashed up exotically from the black and disappeared as the car moved on.

  “I have an idea that you saved me a good deal of trouble by taking me home,” he said. “I’m grateful to you for that.”

  “Don’t be grateful,” she answered. “I’ve an idea that you can look out for yourself very well, Mr. Hitchings.”

  “Then you have a higher opinion of me than I have,” he said.

  “I hope not,” she answered, “because I have a rather low opinion.”

  “Then why are you taking me home?” he asked. He could not see her face in the dark, but her voice sounded amused and almost friendly.

  “Because I have never seen anyone like you.”

  “Well,” said Wilson, “I’ve never seen anyone like you. Have you always lived here, Miss Hitchings?”

  “Yes, Mr. Hitchings,” she said. “Always.”

  “Then you must know the place rather well,” said Wilson. “It all seems rather strange to me. How are you able to run the Plantation? It must be against the law.”

  “It’s a private club,” she said. “It’s quiet. Why do you ask me? You know how such things are done.”

  Wilson looked at the road ahead of him. They were moving toward the lights of the city and he could see the sea in front of them, dark against the lighter horizon.

  “You shouldn’t be doing it,” he said. “It’s a rotten sort of business.” She moved impatiently, and her voice was sharp.

  “No rottener than yours,” she answered. “You needn’t preach to me.”

  “Would you mind telling me,” Wilson asked her, “what you mean by that?”

  “That’s what I’m here for,” she said. “That—and curiosity. I think you might as well know exactly where I stand. I think it would make things much simpler. When we get to your hotel, if you’ll walk with me up the beach, I’ll tell you. I’m not afraid of you, Mr. Hitchings.”

  “I’m glad of that,” said Wilson. “There’s no need for you to be.”

  “Isn’t there?” she asked him. “Excuse me, if I don’t agree with you. I’ve watched you tonight. I know a good deal about people and I think that you’re a very able and a very unscrupulous and a very dangerous sort of person, I used to think that Paul Maddock and some of the other boys were dangerous, but they take second place when it comes to you. They haven’t got your coolness. They haven’t got your poise. They haven’t got your personality.”

  Wilson Hitchings wanted to laugh but he did not. The whole affair was as unreal as the place around him.

  “Are you serious?” he asked.

  “Do you really think I am joking?” she inquired. “There is only one thing that puzzles me. I admire you, in a way. I suppose it is because I have always admired people who do things well and who can take a chance without being nervous. I admired you with Mr. Moto, tonight. I liked the way you placed your bets at the table. You did it in such a well-bred way. I think you would shoot anyone very nicely. You must dance very nicely. You must make love very nicely; but you had better not try with me.”

  Wilson Hitchings drew in his breath. He was glad that she could not see the astonishment that he must have shown.

  “You make me rather surprised about myself,” he said. “Now shall I tell you what I think of you?”

  “I wish you would,” she answered.

  “All right,” said Wilson. “It’s a little difficult, because I’m rather confused. Everything that has happened tonight has rather confused me. I got off the boat this morning, in my opinion, a rather ineffective person. Now I’m a dangerous man. I think you have a very vivid imagination. Now, personally, I’ve been thinking that you’re a dangerous girl, exactly the sort that I’ve been warned against. The sort of girl who might turn my head and make me forget the serious purposes in life. But perhaps we both are wrong. Shall we let it go at that?”

  He heard a laugh in the dark beside him.

  “No one could turn your head,” she answered, “or else, perhaps, I’d try.” She stopped the car. “Here’s the beach,” she said. “We might walk on it for a while. I can always talk better when I am not driving.”

  “I’m surprised,” said Wilson, “that you’re not afraid to be alone with me.”

  “Yes,” she answered. “So am I.”

  What surprised him most was that her voice was neither entirely sarcastic nor unfriendly. Instead she seemed to have a rather reluctant admiration for him, as though she actually believed what she was saying. Although not a word of it was true, although he had no great vanity, that admiration was curiously comforting. Oddly enough it made him see himself in a different light. It made him come close to believing that he might have certain unsuspected capabilities. At any rate that inaccurate picture which Eva Hitchings had of him was not entirely unpleasant to his imagination. Indeed he often thought afterward that it had something to do with his subsequent actions, simply because of a desire to make her see that she was not entirely wrong. In some ways that picture of himself blended perfectly with the setting. He had never felt more like an adventurer. He had never before felt carried so far beyond the limits of reason.

  The windows of the hotel
where he was staying were rectangles of yellow light. The outlines of the building itself were vague against the stars in the sky. They were walking down a path toward the beach through a grove of tall coconut palms. The fronds of the palms clattered in the steady trade wind above their heads like the flapping wings of unseen birds. They made a mild sound when one heard them above the beating of the waves on the coral reef, perhaps a half-mile offshore. And, with that elemental music, there came snatches of a tune from a stringed orchestra which told him that the guests in the hotel were dancing.

  “Those trees are very old,” Eva Hitchings said. She was as shadowy as the trees, as she walked beside him. “Some of them are well over a hundred years. Palms stop growing after a certain time. They say King Kamehameha landed near this grove. I remember it before the hotel was built. I liked it better then.”

  “It’s all strange enough to me,” Wilson Hitchings said. “Everything here is a little bit beyond me, if you want to know the truth. I don’t know what is natural or what is artificial. I don’t know what is spontaneous or what is forced. I really don’t know anything.”

  “Don’t you?” she said, and her voice was mocking. “I wonder if all deep people are as open and as frank as you are. It is becoming in a way and it’s convincing. I could almost believe you, if I didn’t know a great deal better.”

  They were by then on a cloudy, white, deserted stretch of sand, with the palm trees just behind them. She had stopped walking and was looking up at him. The wind was blowing her short, auburn hair and blowing at her dress, making her look restless and unsubstantial, although she was standing still.

  “What do you know?” Wilson asked.

  “Come nearer to me,” Eva Hitchings said, “so I won’t have to shout. That’s better. Now no one else will hear.” She was leaning toward him, almost touching him and her words came to him very clearly, so that there could be no doubt what he was hearing.

  “I know you had a man outside in the shrubbery,” she said, “who tried to shoot that poor Japanese man, Mr. Moto. I know why you want to get rid of Mr. Moto; but I don’t think it’s very nice, do you? At least not for a well-bred member of the Hitchings family. I am still a little surprised, but not very much, to know that Hitchings Brothers go in for murder. But I suppose financial competition is very keen these days. Don’t start, Mr. Hitchings. No one can prove anything, of course, and I won’t tell anybody, yet.”