If we could have discovered any Ko Lao Hui meeting-place or council we would have made a frontal attack on the secret by attempting to enter it. A few months before, far back in the mountains of Lololand, we had escaped from a trap set for us by Koshinga with a certain Ko Lao Hui symbol the power of which we hadn’t yet tested. It was a small dagger which was evidently some centuries old, but which had Koshinga’s indescribably terrible face engraved on it line for line exactly as it had been prophesied by the founder of the society—a complete mystery in itself which we hoped some day to solve.
We knew it was no complete pass to the Ko Lao Hui secrets; but we also knew it was supposed to be in the possession only of men high in the order. It would have been worth while trying how far it would have carried us, and we had it with us always; but no way opened for the trial.
So we paltered about, fretting ourselves, smelling the coming storm and soaking up what knowledge we could, however irrelevant it seemed. Where a mystery is complete there is no telling what may prove an angle to it.
Once we got a glimpse of the present governor—his eyes blue—spectacled, his face still bandaged from Ho Shih Chang’s attack—as he made his way out of his yamen in his ceremonial palanquin and robes of office. And once we heard a completely mystifying snatch of conversation between two men who we felt sure were past the initiatory stage in the Ko Lao Hui, as they sipped samshu in a nefarious drinking-joint.
“First the foreign soldiers must be destroyed,” said one.
“It is written,” said the other. “Their burial place will be the gullets of the mountain birds. I have seen it in the plan of Him-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed.”
That was all, heard in an unexpected lull of the human clamor that filled the place; and by the time we got closer to them they had developed caution and were talking about commonplace things. But what was the meaning of it, save that Koshinga as usual was keeping his person out of the danger zone? We knew for a certainty that there were no foreign soldiers in Kiangsi.
But there is no riddle without a key, it being essentially the key that makes the riddle. Finally, from quite an unexpected quarter we got the clue that we knew would come in time, if the time to the dénouement of Koshinga’s plot were long enough.
It was the early morning of a day that promised to be sweltering; and we were walking down a smelly alley between mud-and-stone-walled compounds on our way to the thronging streets of shops, the noise of which was already in our ears like a hive of bees at swarming time.
Ahead of us was a cross-street leading to this business section, filled with yellow men who laughed while they wrangled briskly, and other slant-eyed, silent groups whose faces said nothing at all. Suddenly Hazard, watching this passing stream, whispered to me without turning his head:
“Hello, who have we here? D’you see that man, Partridge?”
“Who?”
“That white man, straight ahead.”
“Yes, I see him. By ——,” I cried with quickened interest, “it’s Lomond!”
“Are you sure, Partridge?”
“Lomond it is. Now why—”
It was unnecessary to complete the question. It was quite plain that our immediate business now became to discover the reason for the presence in Nanchang of that man whom we had seen but once before, in Shanghai a year ago, but of whom we had heard much that was not flattering.
Paradoxically his presence cried out for explanation the more in that it seemed so natural that he should be here.
Tall and felinely graceful, clad in white duck, sallow-skinned, thin featured, fox-eyed, he was the one man of our own race whom we might expect to find preceding the vultures upon any scene of trouble. This from his reputation, for he was a diplomatic agent in the lowest sense of the word, whose machinations had in every case of which we had heard resulted disastrously to the Chinese government.
Something had always gone wrong, and that not always from the fault of the particular foreign power he happened to represent. Hazard and I had once commented on the fact that his ill-luck apparently matched his crookedness.
“But he’s a shark’s pilot-fish for all that,” said Hazard, after we had recalled all this in a few swift sentences. “I wonder what particular government’s backing him now.”
To that there was no answer, for Lomond had in the past changed his allegiance very often. For instance there was the Hupeh deal, the affair of the Kingan railroad concessions, and the matter of extra-territorial rights in Sianfu—all of them ill-fated and in each of which he had represented a different principal.
But I wouldn’t have replied in any case, for by that time we had reached the crowded street down which Lomond had passed—a narrow and dirty street with dilapidated dwellings of wood, stone, mud and canvas huddling close along its length. Lomond might have been within ear-shot; but after a moment we discovered his white-clad figure picking its way with a suggestion of fastidiousness through the yellow swarm ahead of us.
We followed him without further conversation. Alley gave upon square and square upon broader street; and still Lomond walked quickly and without hesitation, like a man who keeps his destination well in mind.
Not once did he look behind, but if he had he would hardly have noticed us. Certainly he would not have noticed Hazard, who managed to supplement his disguise as a Hong Kong Sikh policeman on leave with a second mask of utter mediocrity. It was a peculiarity of Hazard’s that he could make himself as unnoticeable against any background as a coiled black snake upon a rock; but his senses were keen as a blacksnake’s, too, and when he chose he could move as swiftly.
Presently we came to a place of shops pressing out upon the middle of the thoroughfare. Great rectangular signs covered with huge black hieroglyphics fronted these shops; and the way was still further obstructed by tinkers’ stands and chow-stalls and a motley collection of street merchants, fat and lean, vying vociferously for patronage.
Where these were not, were long lines of wheelbarrows and rickshaws whose possessors assailed us with shrill cries. The narrow way left was filled with a sweating throng of human beings, chattering and singing unmelodiously; and over all rose the short, staccato cries of the street venders:
“Yu-sa kuei” (pastry).
“Tong-yu-nang” (spiced potatoes).
“Ung-hsiang-tou” (five-flavored beans).
Business was proceeding briskly, for the Chinese so combine the commercial instinct with even nerves that they would buy and sell on the hour next the end of the world. Yet here and there Hazard and I still caught those vagrant signs to which our four days in Nanchang had accustomed us. There were subtly meaningful expressions in a language well adapted to hint and parable and innuendo—a whole story caught in a phrase which yet added nothing to our knowledge.
Once we heard some one start humming almost beneath his breath the “Song of the Ko Lao Hui”—that fierce revolutionary chantey which, when sung by a number, is so like a tiger’s yowl against a distant drumming. But instantly there was a sharp word and the sound of a blow; the singer was silenced, probably by a wiser brother of the tong. The time for that song was not yet; silence and secrecy was Koshinga’s word.
NOW Lomond took to loafing as if he had discovered that he was early to an appointment. He sauntered from stall to stall, examining much and buying nothing, and we imitated him.
Finally he turned into the Street of Lanterns, the principal thoroughfare across the city from east to west. Here an occasional sedan-chair made way with difficulty through the crush, its bearers pushing, arguing, cajoling, scolding, with an effective mixture of good-nature and effrontery. And it was with one of these chairs that the next significant occurrence which we observed on this lucky morning had to do.
On a certain stretch of street the crowd had thickened as flies gather on food—had thickened and grown ruffian in appearance.
In it were many “strangers from afar,” “men with a mission,” tall fighting Mongols from the north, wiry Cantonese with cunning faces, s
warthy, fanatical Taoist from Shensi—for to the Taoist hierarchy Koshinga had promised much.
Apparently there was something on foot; if these men were there without intention their appearance belied them; they lounged and loitered as if deliberately adding to the congestion of the street.
Lomond had stopped before a stall in which trained hawks and Mongolian crows were exhibited for sale. Hazard and I pretended to examine some pottery at a stall not far away.
While we were so engaged there came the sound of a small commotion in the middle of the street just behind Lomond’s back. A couple of coolies had fallen into a squabble; they had thrust their faces close together and were hissing taunts at each other like two furious snakes.
As Hazard and I turned they fell into a clutch. This was not uncommon, and it was curious the way men jammed in toward them from all sides, so that in an instant the street was a wriggling mass of would-be onlookers.
A richly decorated sedan-chair, all yellow and blue, had been approaching with much difficulty from down-town. Now it stopped, swaying with the crowd like a boat in the trough of the waves.
Its six liveried bearers uttered short cries as they tried to go forward. But instead of giving way the mob pressed in on them. That is, the most ruffianly of its members did.
And Hazard and I heard the cries of the bearers of the chair take on a note of fear.
“By the Lord,” muttered Hazard, “I think—”
Just to our left was an itinerant barber with his doubly useful box—a receptacle for his tools, a seat for his customers. Hazard passed him a few copper tungtses and we crowded together on top of the box.
So we were able to look over the heads of the crowd, and a moment later to see a strange incident which just then was without explanation, without beginning or end, a flashing glimpse into the human kaleidoscope which surrounded us.
Six men, caparisoned exactly as were the bearers of the chair, had appeared out of the edge of the mob—one at each bearer’s elbow. From its effect it was a magical word which each of these men whispered in a bearer’s ear, for instantly and as if frightened the original bearers abandoned their poles, or rather they transferred them to the shoulders of these false bearers, and immediately the chair was under way again. The coolies’ squabble was forgotten, the crowd parted like water before the chair, and it passed us at a jogging trot. And it was then we learned its owner’s name from the great yellow characters which sprawled across the jackets of both the original and the false bearers:
LIU PO WEN.
Liu Po Wen, the father of the girl who had been sought after by Ho Shih Chang—he who had died by the hand of the governor whom he had tried to kill!
“Um!” grunted Hazard. “Now if Ho Shih Chang were still alive this might be understood. The East is as violent in love as the West—more so, sometimes. But as it stands—”
His voice trailed off. He had glanced toward the bird-stall and found that Lomond had disappeared.
It must have annoyed him, but without change of countenance he began pressing his way through the almost solid pack that had closed in behind the car—or rather percolating through it, for Hazard possessed to an inimitable degree the capacity to win his way through a press without opposition or antagonism.
I followed in his wake, and we located Lomond just as he was disappearing through the door of a tea-house a little farther down the street.
II
“IF YE seek, enter a tea-house,” runs a Chinese proverb—a true saying. The tea-house is Asia’s free meeting-place and market, where one may sell one’s soul or buy another’s.
The name itself is a euphemism, covering all things from the serving of magie-lu and the fierier saujo to theatrical performances that are not nice and the purveying of goods, and conspiracy to murder. The tea-house is the great common denominator of men, a place where mandarin and bandit may meet as equals and in secrecy—a throw-off for the social instinct and a hatchery of mischief.
A guttural roar of human voices smote our ears as Hazard and I entered this tea-house after Lomond. This roar was not loud, but it was deep and powerful—five hundred men grunted, mumbled, talked and laughed and took their drinks in a space so crowded that bare shoulder pressed against bare shoulder everywhere.
Stripped to the waist, the Chinese filled the wooden benches that lined the common room from end to end. Others stood, and plumped themselves down quickly whenever a sitter arose.
In the aggregate it was a scene of Gargantuan drinking; individually the men may have averaged the expenditure of an American cent. The smell that came from the sweating throng was an affront to the nostrils.
Here was Asia, alive, pulsating, before our eyes—but here was also Lomond. He had turned to the left from the entrance and had reached the row of thin-walled bamboo stalls that had been built for the use of the better class along that side of the place.
His thin face, hook-nosed, powerful-jawed, was as impassive and ugly as a gargoyle’s. He moved confidently and unhesitatingly forward, but when he was half-way down the side of the room a full-gowned and imposing-looking Chinaman in a tasseled hat rose and stood in Lomond’s path as if he were on guard.
Perhaps a word passed between them. At any rate the Chinaman drew back instantly and let Lomond pass. Lomond went on a little farther, opened the door of one of the little stalls, entered it and drew the door shut behind him rather hurriedly.
“One of the adjoining stalls—if we can make it,” whispered Hazard.
I nodded, but with no particular hope that Lomond would be stupid enough to leave only a bamboo wall between him and a possible hearer—that is, assuming that he went to a secret interview. And we were yet six paces from the room into which Lomond had gone when the same dark-gowned, tassel-capped Chinaman blocked our own way.
“The foreign mandarins will please to command the services of my miserable place of thirst-quenching,” he murmured, clasping and shaking his own hands in salutation.
And the next moment he had opened the door of a stall that attracted us not at all, and stood immovable, inviting us to enter.
Now the will of the Orient, expressed thus politely, is really like a stone wall padded with many cushions. Whether Lomond’s wish or another’s were controlling him, this man was fully determined that we should get no closer to our quarry.
Bribery might win him, but was equally likely to fail; what was really needed was a more extraordinary persuasion—and it was quite natural that I should think of that dagger inside my coat, the handle of which was shaped in the horrific likeness of our enemy, Koshinga.
The eyes of the tea-house proprietor were already fastened respectfully on the breast of my khaki jacket. I slipped my hand inside it and drew two inches of that dagger out from its hiding-place, holding it so that no one but the man who barred our passage could see it.
The result by no means proved him to be a Ko Lao Hui, for the symbol of that gigantic tong was very often feared and obeyed where it was most hated; but the Chinaman blinked uncertainly and bewilderedly. Very probably it puzzled him greatly to find that dagger in the hands of two turbaned Sikhs; but Hazard and I gave him no time to recover from his weakening hesitation.
We brushed quickly past him; and Hazard flung back an order to him that we were on no account to be approached or disturbed—such an order as I suppose he had already received concerning Lomond and his confrère.
And the next moment he was kowtowing profoundly to our backs as we passed through the door next that which Lomond had entered, placing our felt-slippered feet like cats.
The place was just large enough to contain a rude table around which four men might seat themselves. Under the edge of the table were Chinese stools, two of which Hazard and I moved soundlessly against the wall behind which we knew was Lomond. Lomond and who else? Or had the other party to this guarded interview arrived?
We seated ourselves on the stools, facing each other, and placed our ears against the wall, hoping fervently that Hazard�
�s order against interruption would be respected.
Immediately we heard a sound that was hard to define, but which might have been the crinkling of leaves of parchment. Then a page of it was turned and folded back, unmistakably.
Probably it was my knowledge of Lomond’s business that made me so certain that he was intently studying a tape-tied document. Then some one was with him, some one who had given him that document—and still there was no certainty until after about ten minutes Lomond spoke.
We had heard his voice once, and could never mistake it—flat, toneless, and as vacant of human emotion as the face of the central image in the Taoist Temple of Torture.
“It is well,” he said in the Mandarin dialect. “It should satisfy.”
“Your servant is persuaded that it will,” replied a more flexible Chinese voice. “It is done with all authority.”
I glanced at Hazard. His rather commonplace face was unchanged save for his eyes, which were half-closed and blankly intent. He looked like an expert hunter who senses his game before he perceives it; and I knew he could be trusted to pounce upon whatever we should hear, and tear out of it every vestige of meaning.
As for me, I was rather illogically elated. The few words we had heard might mean anything; nevertheless I was sure we were touching the fringe of Koshinga’s plot at last. That feeling is hard to explain; it is like the faint premonitory lessening of darkness that precedes the glimmer of light when one nears the end of a tunnel.
After a moment Lomond spoke again:
“Yes, it is a good bargain. It is said that there is enough coal under Kiangsi to feed the furnaces of the world for a century.
“And who will notice the sending of two companies into the province in the present disturbed state of the world? As you know, it is practically agreed upon by my government, provided I secure for it this pledge.”
“It is done then,” replied the Chinaman. “Five hundred men—it is a small pawn in a great game. Your servant begs that you will make all haste, for the hour of Koshinga’s blow is near.”
The Complete Adventures of Hazard & Partridge Page 31
