ADVENTURE TALES #5

by John Gregory Betancourt

  She felt disturbed, nervous, but de­cided to hedge for time. She would talk to the Manchu maid, beg her to ex­plain. She would cable and write to her father. In the meantime, she would fence with d’Acosta.

  “Why,” she said, “you talk like a typical collector — the frantic sort, you know, who holds his friends’ Wedgwood teacups upside down and then pronounces them to be forgeries!”

  But her humor was forced, and he brushed it aside with an impatient gesture.

  “Don’t play with me,” he said, “Can’t I make you see? Can’t I make you understand?” He was tre­men­d­ously in earnest, and for a moment Marie felt like confessing that she had been playing with him. But, somehow, she again recalled her father’s warn­ing. “But — Miss Campbell — please — won’t you —” He slurred, stopped.

  Again the little mischievous imp rose in her heart and whispered to her to fathom this mystery.

  “Mr. d’Acosta,” she said ­ingenu­ously, “why don’t you tell me the truth?”

  “Eh?” He looked up sharply.

  “I mean, rather, why don’t you put all your cards on the table?”

  “All my cards? But — you know them all.”

  “Do I?” she countered.

  “You know you do! Don’t you — won’t you understand? It is not a question with me of dollars and cents. No, no!”

  She felt nonplused. Then she de­cided to aim another shot into the blue, recalling certain conversations be­tween her father and his partner, Jack Hen­der­son, when they were searching for the usual explanation through which too rich people like to excuse their greed to themselves.

  “Power,” she said serenely. “It’s power you’re after, Mr. d’Acosta!”

  “No. Power — why — that’s an old tale to me. I am bored with power. What I want is something big, basic! And if you have any of your uncle’s blood, you would —”

  “Here’s my mysterious uncle again!” thought Marie, and the next moment Mr. d’Acosta features were blotted into a reddish-purple smudge as a great shadow fell across the table.

  Marie, looking up, beheld the Peking banker, Sun Yu-Wen, whom, a few days earlier, she had watched in such animated conversation with her host. His immense body was dressed in a rather extravagantly Peking style — a long robe of orange-colored, satin-lined grenadine silk embroidered with black bats, and on his round cap a button of transparent red, the emblem of a mandarin of the first class, worn in calm defiance of the fact that the republic had forbidden the wearing of imperial insignia.

  “Ah — good-evening!” His words were soft; his fat, ivory-yellow, passionless face was suffused with a pat­ient kindliness. Yet, for all this kind­liness, he gave Marie the impression of something impersonal, very an­cient, very tired, even, in a passive way, un­human.

  Mr. d’Acosta had risen and bowed. The other had returned the saluta­tion, Chinese fashion, with his hands clasped over his huge chest. Both looked at each other tensely, observantly. To Marie, it was like a scene out of a play — a moment of tremendous suspense, of waiting — for what? “En­emies,” — the melodramatic thought came to her — “bitter enemies!” Yet the smiles on keen Semitic and bland Mongol faces were not sneers. It was a smile from the heart, of genuine mu­tual liking.

  Still, as she heard the gliding Man­chu words which presently the China­man addressed to d’Acosta, although she could not make out the meaning of a single syllable, she sensed in them a certain minatory undercurrent, and saw it confirmed by the look of almost alarmed inquiry that came into the Le­v­antine’s eyes. He replied in Manchu, in tones that were clear, high-pitched, but somehow marred and tainted.

  Then, on another buzzing, purr­ing word from the Pekingese, d’Acosta shrugged his shoulders, spread his lean hands with a gesture as if submitting to the inevitable, and turned to her.

  “Miss Campbell,” he said, “allow me to present Mandarin Sun Yu-Wen.”

  “Charmed,” she replied. Her un­easy fear came and went in waves.

  Sun Yu-Wen lowered his obese bulk a little gingerly into the frail Louis-Quinze chair. He smiled at d’Acosta.

  “I suppose,” he said in English, “it is all settled.”

  “No, I told you — nothing is settled,” the Levantine replied, with the suspicion of a snarl.

  “Oh, is that so?”

  Sun Yu-Wen turned to Marie, and again the fear of this secret dramatic combat of unknown forces into which she felt herself drawn against her will rose in her soul. She was on the point of blurting out the truth — that she knew nothing, that she had simply followed a hoydenish, adventurous im­pulse, that she was sorry — when, as from a great distance, she heard Sun Yu-Wen’s voice, soft, insistent.

  “Ah — then there is still hope for me?”

  “Listen — I —” She could not go on. Her confession choked her. She looked pitifully at Sun Yu-Wen.

  “Never mind,” he said. “Presently you will decide. Presently you will fol­low your whim or, perhaps, your conviction and play — ah — Fate to a very great issue.” He turned to d’Acosta.

  “My friend,” he continued, “it is strange indeed how back of everything there is the soft hand of woman, how the fate of the many millions hangs always and always from a woman’s jew­eled earrings — in China — in Eur­ope — belike in the moon. A woman, will­ful and stubborn as only a woman can be — or a cat! What does it say in the classics? ‘Po-nien-jou-chi i-tien-jou-ki’ — ‘Stubborn as a rock, hard as ancient lacquer.’ ”

  Again he addressed Marie.

  “An appropriate quotation, don’t you think?” he asked. “Perhaps — although you do not speak the lan­guage of your native land —” and Marie looked up, startled, when she understood that the fact of China be­ing her birthplace was known to the mandarin “— you are familiar with our literature, at least in translation. Perhaps,” — he lowered his voice — “you even take an interest in such rubbish as a brittle bit of Tchou-fou-yao porcelain.”

  Marie could not restrain herself any longer. With a choked mumble of apology, she rose and almost ran from the dining room.

  *****

  HER FIRST impulse was to go to her room. But she reflected that perhaps one or both of the men would follow her. Finally she thought of an upstairs parlor, reserved for the use of women guests. She went to it quickly. It was empty except for a soft-footed Mongol maid. She sat down and lit a cigarette, and it was not long be­fore calmer re­flection came to her and with it, typically, her American sense of hu­mor and her inherited Scots com­mon sense of building up and in­ves­tigating logi­cally, constructively, fear­lessly. She walked over to the writing desk, found pencil and cable-blanks, and scribbled rapidly:

  .

  Anthony Campbell,

  Broad Street, New York, U. S. A.

  Cable immediately, care Grand Hotel, particulars about vase; also let me know about Uncle Mavropoulos.

  .

  She stopped, considered if she should ask for money; then decided she would not. She knew her father would order her to return by the next steamer, and she was not yet ready. She was still a remittance-woman, and here was China, mysterious, fascinat­ing, beckoning. Here was adventure! She called to the maid:

  “Take this down to the desk. Have them charge it up.”

  When the maid had left, Marie re­mem­bered d’Acosta’s allusion to the article in the North China Gazette in regard to the death of her mythical uncle, who seemed to have gone under a variety of names. She took the clipping from her purse and looked at it. It was entitled:

  .

  Translation

  of an Ancient Example

  of Tatar-Chinese Mysticism

  .

  and read:

  .

  Omniscient Gautama! Far-seeing, all seeing Tathagata!

  How multiform the consolation of Thy Word! How marvelous Thy Under­stand­ing! Was this, then, also one of the myriad illusions painted before Thy eyes by Mara in the black, black night when the earth rocked
like a chariot of war in ­the shock of battle?

  .

  “My word!” She put down the clip­ping. “Just about as clear as pea soup!”

  She was still puzzled when, a few minutes later, the maid returned.

  “Send off the cable?” asked Marie.

  “Yes, missy.”

  “Thanks! By the way, you couldn’t find out if those two gentlemen I dined with are still in the hotel?”

  “Yes, missy. They drove off in carriage five, ten minute back.”

  “Thank you again.”

  She crossed over to the telephone, gave the desk clerk strict instructions that she was at home to nobody, and took the elevator up to her room, de­ciding on the way that now was the time to “pump” the Manchu maid.

  *****

  SHE REACHED her room, switched on the electric light, and went toward her bedroom. There, suddenly, she shrieked as she stared straight ahead.

  For there, on the bedroom thres­hold, she saw Liu Po-Yat stretched out in a darkening pool of blood.

  Marie rushed over to the wo­man.

  Liu Po-Yat was bleeding to death from a dozen knife-wounds. She had almost reached a state of coma. Marie gathered all her courage. She knelt down and lifted up the maid's bleed­ing head.

  The freezing lips tried to speak. A gurgle came from the contracting throat. Finally a few incoherent words peaked out.

  “Chuen to yan —” And again, “Chuen to yan — ”

  “Please!” implored Marie “Speak English — oh, please —”

  “Chuen to yan,” repeated the other. “Chuen to yan.” — as if trying to give a message.

  “Chuen to yan?” echoed Marie.

  “Yes! Remember! Tell him —”

  “Who?”

  “Your — friend.”

  “Tell me! Who is the friend you mean? D’Acosta?” Liu Po-Yat shook her head negatively, “The mandarin?”

  “No —” the dying woman gurgled out the words “— not friends — those — like other will be —” Suddenly she revived a little. She lifted her right hand in a supreme spasm of energy; then, even as her body was stiffening, she pointed into the bedroom.

  Marie rose, crossed the threshold. She found her jewel-box upset, its con­tents strewn over the table itself, a few scattered on the floor.

  Her hand went to her girdle. The little Tchou-fou-yao vase — that is what the murderers had been look­ing for!

  No piece of jewelry was missing.

  Who was the assassin? Moses d’Acosta? Sun Yu-Wen? But the next moment she dismissed the suspicion. For she had dined with them, and the Chinese maid in the parlor had seen them drive off. And the dying woman had not mentioned either of them, but had spoken repeatedly, insistingly of “Chuen to yan” — whatever the Mon­gol monosyllables meant.

  “Who, then, did it?” she asked her­self. “And what is this vase? What is its sinister significance?”

  She took it out, looked at it, examined the lizard-green surface, the tiny painting on the inside.

  What was its meaning, its secret? And what had she to do with it? Or, perhaps, came the next thought, her mother, who had died in giving her birth, here in China, where her father had married her, whence he had re­turned white-haired and rather bitter and taciturn — her mother, whom her father never mentioned, or her grandfather?

  But murder had been committed, and she realized that she must notify the hotel management.

  *****

  SHE WENT downstairs and entered the private office of Monsieur Paul Pail­loux, the manager, a pudgy Par­isian exile who carried his black beard ahead of him like a battering-ram and who bowed before her with opulent superciliousness.

  “Ah — Miss Campbell!” he said. “That bill — it was a mistake —”

  “It isn’t about the bill.”

  “No? Then — what can I do for you?”

  “You can send for the police,”

  “Police? Ah — your delicious Amer­ican sense of humor —”

  Marie’s father would have been shocked if he could have heard her slangy reply.

  “Cut it out! There’s nothing hu­mor­ous in murder!”

  “Murder? Ah — nom de Dieu! Mur­der?”

  “Exactly.” And she told him.

  Her immediate reaction after she had finished telling Monsieur Pailloux was one of surprise — at the other’s lack of surprise.

  “Are you sure, Miss Campbell?” he asked,

  “What do you mean — am I sure? Didn’t I see her? Didn’t she talk to me before she died?”

  “What did she say?”

  “Just a few words.”

  “What exactly, Miss Campbell?” in­sisted the Frenchman.

  It was partly her revolt at the man’s cold-blooded curiosity, partly obedience to a peculiar impulse telling her that Liu Po-Yat’s dying words had not been meant for everybody’s ears which caused her to reply evasively:

  “I couldn’t make out. I was naturally excited.”

  “Of course,” he said soothingly.

  “Let’s go up to my room.”

  “No,” he said in a kindly man­ner. “Such a harrowing experience — I shan’t permit you —” He walked to the door. “I shall go upstairs myself and investigate. Rest here until I return.” He left the office, closing the door.

  It was a small room, hardly big enough to hold a roll-top desk, three chairs, and, wedged in between desk and wall, a little safe with its door swing­ing open.

  *****

  MARIE WAITED, ten minutes, twenty, twenty-five. Finally, im­pa­tient, she stepped out, but as she was about to turn toward the elevator, the house de­tective, a half-caste with a flat, brutish face, stopped her.

  “Please wait in there,” he said. “Mon­sieur Pailloux just sent for me. And he wants no scandal, no excitement — you understand, don’t you?”

  She went back into the office and sat down. She was in a conflicting state of mind. She felt deeply moved at the Manchu woman’s tragic death. She also felt conscious of a personal loss, rather more selfish. For Liu Po-Yat had evidently been familiar with the coiling of the mysterious forces which were suck­ing Marie into their whirlpool, had doubtless only been waiting for a propitious moment to take the American girl into her confidence. And now she was dead; Marie felt very lonely and young and homesick.

  Time and again her thoughts re­turned to the little vase. Twice she took it from the fold of her girdle, looked at it. She had taken it out for the third time when, outside the door, she heard footsteps, voices, and she tried to slip the vase back. But her nail caught in the thin fabric; a seam ripped. She re­alized that she could not return the vase to its hiding-place, and, dimly sens­ing that she did not want whoever entered to find the thing in her hand, she looked round for a place in which to conceal it — the safe! It was open. Rapidly she stepped up to it and pushed the vase into the farthest cor­ner among a lot of papers.

  *****

  SHE HAD already straightened up when the door opened and Pail­loux and the house detective entered.

  “Well?” asked Marie. “What did you find out?”

  Pailloux smiled.

  “We found that you were mis­taken. No murder has been com­mitted.”

  “But — Liu Po-Yat — I saw her —”

  “Doubtless a hallucination, Miss Campbell. Mr. De Smett and I —” pointing at the detective “— went to your rooms, and —” he spread eloquent hands “— we found nothing.”

  “N-nothing?” Marie stammered.

  “A hallucination.” Pailloux smiled. “Perhaps — pardon — a little too much champagne?”

  “Too much champagne — my eye!” cried Marie. “You are crazy, both of you!”

  “Are we?” asked the detective. He turned to the manager. “Perhaps Miss Campbell would prefer to see with her own eyes?”

  “I’ll say I do!” affirmed Marie.

  “Very well.”

  And, followed by De Smett, Pail­loux led the way to her suite.

&n
bsp; “Look!” he said, as they entered,

  Marie looked, looked again, doubt­ing, for a moment, her sanity. No body was there, no blood spots, no signs of struggle, of murder. She went into her bedroom and glanced at the dressing-table. The jewel-box was in its old place, unopened.

  No doubt, she said to herself, the manager himself, with the help of the detective and most likely other em­ployees, had utilized the half-hour she spent in the office to remove the body and all traces of the tragedy and straighten the rooms. They had done it for a reason. What was it?

  Very quickly, and as rationally as she could, she gathered her straying thoughts. By tomorrow her father would have replied to her cable. That would give her some sort of clue to the mystery. Until then she would have to make the best of a bad situation. So she smiled at the two men.

  “Gentlemen,” she said, “I apologize. I must have had a drop too much champagne. Shocking, don’t you think?”

  Pailloux coughed.

  “Miss Campbell,” he began, “I would — I regret — but —”

  “What? Come through!”

  “You are —”

  “Under arrest!” The detective com­pleted the other’s sentence and took a step in the girl’s direction. She stood her ground.

  “Why,” she said, “this time it’s you who must have had a drop too much to drink! Arrest me — me — you said?”

  “Yes.”

  “But I thought you said no murder has been committed?”

  “There hasn’t,” said the detective.

  “What’s my crime, then?”

  “Crime?” Pailloux shrugged dis­tressed shoulders. “Hardly a crime — at least —”

  “At least?”

  “If you prefer to make immediate restitution, Miss Campbell —”

  “Restitution of what, may I in­quire?”

  “Of a little Chinese vase. A bit of Tchou-fou-yao porcelain,” smiled the manager, “Come, Miss Campbell! You are accused of — pardon — not steal­ing it — no, no —”

  “Nothing as crude as that, eh?”

  “Of course not! But perhaps you saw the little vase, liked it too much, eh?”

  “You’d better give it back,” growled the detective.

  “Oh!” She drew in her breath. Here was the vase again. She had hidden it in the safe. Doubtless it was this tiny piece of porcelain which the murderer had come to steal, which the Manchu woman had protected with her life, not knowing that her mistress had taken it along. D’Acosta wanted the vase. So did Sun Yu-Wen. And her father — She remembered his words.