That speech of hers was so unexpected that I stayed quiet until I could control myself. I was angry and I did not wish her to see it because she might have laughed again. I am able to be sarcastic when I choose. I certainly tried to be when I answered:
“That’s just what I wanted,” I said. “I came, hoping that you might help me out. How do you propose to do it?”
“Easily,” Eleanor Joyce answered. “When Americans get into trouble in China, kind friends send them home. Mr. Moto’s suggestion is a very good one—that you go back to America and take up the loose threads of your own life. I shall take you to the American Vice-Consul’s to-night, where nothing dangerous can happen to you, and you can take the Shanghai train to-morrow afternoon. That’s perfectly simple, isn’t it? Wait, don’t interrupt me. As far as I’m concerned, I’m perfectly able to look after myself, and don’t think I’m joking. When I tell certain people the mess you’ve got yourself into they’ll make every effort to make you leave, don’t you think? Perhaps I’d better get my coat, and we’ll go to the Vice-Consul’s now.” She rose, and I rose also.
“That’s a very good idea,” I said. “I had never thought of going there for help. We’ll go and we’ll both go home together.”
Eleanor Joyce shrugged her shoulders. “Oh no, we won’t!” she answered. “It’s kind of you to ask me but I rather like it here. There are several things I have to do before I leave.”
There was an ominous silence, which told me that I could not deal with her gently.
“Oh yes, you will,” I said. “When I tell that Major Best was not a suicide. When I add that you were at his house and saw him die, I think you will go home.”
Part of my speech was a shot in the dark, but it worked. I saw the color leave her cheeks.
“You wouldn’t. You couldn’t do that,” she answered.
“I prefer not to,” I said. “But I can and will, if it’s going to leave you safe.”
Then she changed. Her control left her so suddenly that I was startled. She bit her lip and her voice choked in a sob. “Don’t you see?” she said. “Don’t you see I’m trying to help you? I don’t know why they’re trying to kill you. If I can’t make you, won’t you please go away, for a little while at any rate? I was thinking of you, that’s all.”
“And I’m thinking of you,” I said and I felt better now that I understood her. “You and I are caught in this thing, whether we like it or not. I don’t know where you fit in the picture, and I don’t believe you know yourself, but there’s one thing certain. You can’t go to any authority without getting into trouble. The same is true with me, in a lesser sense. At any rate I have no intention of going. So that’s why you are going to do what I tell you.”
She was cool again, and her voice was distant.
“Suppose I were to tell you,” she suggested, “that I don’t want your help, that I don’t appreciate it, that I should prefer you to mind your own business?”
“It won’t make any difference,” I said.
“Why?” she asked.
“I don’t know why,” I told her, “but it won’t.”
“Suppose I were to tell you,” she said, “that I am here for a reason that I consider very important and that your interference makes what I am doing very difficult. Would that make a difference?”
“No,” I answered her. “None at all.”
She turned away and sat down again. “Very well,” she said. “I’m not going to leave this room.”
There was not much doubt that she meant it. Her lips had closed in an unattractive, obstinate line. There was indication enough, if I had not guessed it before, that Eleanor Joyce was not an easy person to handle. I felt that I could sympathize with her relatives at home.
“You can suit yourself about that,” I said. “If you don’t go with me, I shall do just what I suggested. I shall call up someone in authority and he’ll look after you. You can choose either way you please. It doesn’t matter to me, as long as someone looks after you.”
Her eyes snapped and her fingers clutched at the arms of her chair. I had an idea that she was going to spring out of the chair, and slap me.
“You can threaten,” she said, “but you won’t go telling tales. After all, you’re a gentleman.”
“After all,” I repeated after her, “you trade on chivalry, in the end, like every other unattached woman, but this is one of the times it isn’t going to work, Miss Joyce. I only want to see that you’re out of harm’s way. I don’t think you have any conception what a mess you’re in. You can choose, either me or the American authorities. You’re choosing me? I thought you would.”
She was out of her chair by then. “In case you don’t know what I think of you,” she said, “I may as well tell you. You’re an incompetent. You’re soft, and everyone knows you’re soft. I’ll be even with you for this. What ridiculous idea have you got that you can manage anything? Where do you think you’re going to take me?”
I disregarded most of her remarks, though I did not like them.
“I’m going to take you where I think we’ll both be safe,” I told her. “I have a Chinese friend who will understand something about this, a rather good friend—Prince Tung. I’m going to take you to his house as soon as you put on your coat.”
“You’re going to take me to a Chinese house?” she asked. “You’re not serious, are you?” Her voice was high and incredulous. “If you do, I’ll find some way to pay you back.”
“And I’ll find out what you’re doing here,” I answered, “and why someone wants to kill me, and I’ll probably save your neck. Here’s your coat,” I said, and I tossed it around her shoulders.
Eleanor Joyce snatched off her coat and tossed it over the back of the chair.
“There’s no use doing that,” I told her. “We’re not going to wait any longer.”
She hesitated. There was something else besides me that was troubling her. “I can’t go yet,” she said. “I’m expecting a caller and he’ll be here any minute.”
“You can leave word that you’re out,” I said. “The fewer people you see for a day or two the better.”
I turned to pick up her coat again. As I did so, I saw something that interested me keenly. A Chinese painting scroll was lying on the table near one of the windows. I recognized the brocade on the back of it, a rich brocade of black and gold. I recognized the delicate work of ivory inlay on the wooden cylinder. It was the same picture, which had been in my house that morning.
Chapter 14
“Hello!” I said, “a scroll picture? I heard you were interested in art.” I walked to the table to pick it up, but she was beside me before I reached it, snatching at my arm.
“Leave that alone,” she said, “that’s no affair of yours.”
But I had the scroll in my hands already. “So you bought it,” I said. “Pu came here with it, did he? That makes everything more interesting. I knew he never meant to sell it to me. I congratulate you, you must be rich, Miss Joyce.”
“Put that down,” she said. Her fingers tightened on my arm, her hands were trembling. There was something so insistent in her voice that I grew curious. Her agitation had made her unexpectedly appealing and she probably knew it.
“Please,” she said, “please!” But I still held the picture.
“We’ll take it with us,” I said. “You don’t mind that, do you?”
“No,” she said, “we won’t! It isn’t yours, it’s mine! If you don’t put it down—”
There was a tap on the door before she could finish. “Stay where you are,” she said. “I’ll answer it.” But I was at the door ahead of her.
I opened it a crack and looked into the hallway straight into the wrinkled and sparsely mustachioed face of the picture dealer, Mr. Pu.
His narrow, watery eyes blinked quickly, but he gave no other sign of surprise.
“Missy Joyce is here?” he said in halting English, looking directly past me.
I answered him in Chinese, a lang
uage which I knew Eleanor Joyce did not understand.
“The young virgin is going out,” I said. “She has not time to speak to you.”
“Missy Joyce,” he said in a higher tone, “there is something I have to tell you.”
Eleanor Joyce moved past me too quickly for me to stop her, pushed me aside and snatched open the door. Her color was high and her eyes were clouded with anger, but she favored Mr. Pu with a smile, which Mr. Pu returned.
“Come in, Mr. Pu,” she said. “I’ve been waiting for you for a long while.” Mr. Pu moved past me also in the centre of the room.
“Thank you, Missy Joyce,” he was answering, “I am very glad you do not go out.”
“So, that is what he was saying to you?” said Miss Joyce. She was furious. I believed in the next minute that she was not going to repress her anger but was going to make me the physical object of it. “So you were telling Mr. Pu in Chinese that I couldn’t see him,” she repeated. “Are you going to answer me? Were you or weren’t you?”
“I was,” I answered. I glanced at Mr. Pu meaningly. “And you are going to see as little of him as I can help. Mr. Pu came spying to my house to-day. He came with this same picture.” I tapped the scroll beneath my arm. “But you didn’t come to sell me that picture, did you, Mr. Pu? You came to find out what I was doing at Major Best’s house last night and what Major Best told me. And now you’re running around after Miss Joyce with this same picture. Are you trying to find out what Miss Joyce knows, Mr. Pu? And there is another question I want to ask you. What did you say about me to Mr. Wu Lo Feng that made him come to call at my house?”
I knew before I had finished that there was no use asking him these questions. I was only giving him a gratuitous advantage by showing that I suspected him. Mr. Pu’s glance was of a bovine character. It was the glance of all his race, when it wishes to throw up black ignorance like cuttle fish, behind which it can conceal its thoughts. I was expert enough to see a little way behind that dullness and to know that my words were fast embedded in the mind of Mr. Pu. His contrition and his pain were too apparent. He was making too great a display of his venerable years. I had learned from past experience to be wary of Chinese merchants when they became voluble, venerable old gentlemen, and that was exactly what Mr. Pu had become, voluble, venerable, pained and ignorant.
“I no savvy what you say,” he replied plaintively in broken English, obviously for the benefit of Miss Joyce. “I do nothing to you, nothing. No can help if Missy pay more for picture. All too bad.”
I suspected that his volubility was dangerous, and that the less I talked to him the better.
“Come on,” I said to Eleanor Joyce, “we’re going.”
“We’re not going,” said Eleanor Joyce, “until I’ve spoken to Mr. Pu.”
“Remember what I told you,” I warned her. “You can either come along with me or stay here. Just remember if you don’t come with me I am going downstairs to telephone.”
“There isn’t any harm,” said Eleanor Joyce. “I declare there isn’t any harm.”
But Mr. Pu was speaking already. His words were buzzing through the room like flies.
“Missy like picture? It’s all same number one, like we say?”
“Yes,” said Eleanor Joyce, “it’s very nice.”
“The others come all right to-morrow,” said Mr. Pu. “You give me this now. You pay for all together.”
“Yes, I said all,” said Eleanor Joyce.
“And you give me this one now?” repeated Mr. Pu. He must have been greatly excited for he actually reached to take the scroll from under my arm. “You give to me, please,” he said.
I pushed Mr. Pu away from me. “No,” I said, “I’m keeping the picture. Missy is going out with me. We are going to show this picture to someone who knows about it.”
No one who saw Mr. Pu’s expression change as I did could speak any longer of the enigmatic Chinese race. I knew there was something wrong about the picture then. Mr. Pu was actually frightened, so frightened that he was trapped into saying something which I believed he did not intend.
“No, Missy,” he said quickly, breathlessly. “Please, must not go with Mr. Nelson. You stay here. Here. All right. Everyone take good care. You go, all same very bad.”
“It’s going to be very bad for you if you don’t get out of the way,” I said. “Are you coming with me, Miss Joyce, or are you going to stay?”
“Oh, be quiet,” Eleanor Joyce answered. “I told you I was coming.”
She turned to Mr. Pu sweetly. “Mr. Pu,” she explained, “I’m sorry to be so rude. Mr. Nelson wants me to see a Chinese friend of his who knows a great deal about pictures. I think I had better go. He says he will tell some things he knows if I don’t.”
Mr. Pu moved hastily aside. There was a watery light in his eyes as he looked at me that was not reassuring. Before Eleanor Joyce had spoken he had wished to have her stay and now apparently he wished to have her go. Once again Mr. Pu had found out something that he wanted.
“Yes,” he said. “More better you go.”
“But I’ll see you later,” said Eleanor Joyce, “won’t, I, Mr. Pu?”
I walked with her down the corridor to the elevator, pondering over Mr. Pu’s behavior.
“You were very rude to Mr. Pu,” said Eleanor Joyce.
“Well,” I said. “It doesn’t matter, does it? So he wants to sell you some more pictures, does he? Well, the quicker we get out of Mr. Pu’s way the healthier it is going to be, I think.”
“What makes you do this?” she asked me. “What possible reason have you got?”
“Lord knows,” I answered. “I couldn’t tell you.” And I was right, I could not analyze my own motives. I could no longer tell, now that I had seen the picture and Mr. Pu, whether I liked her or disliked her. Whether she was dangerous, or a damsel in distress. I had thought that she was a nice girl, but now that she was dealing with Mr. Pu, I had an idea that she might be anything. I only knew that I was not going to be shot at again, if I could help it, because I knew Eleanor Joyce.
Chapter 15
I pride myself that I know the city of Peking rather better than most Europeans, although no one can be wholly familiar with its infinite complexities, or can ever know all the secrets which lie between the blank grey walls of its narrow Hutungs.
There is too much enclosed behind the Peking walls for any mind, even that of an Oriental, which should know it best, to grasp. Its plan is too mystical, involved with the spirits of too many tortoises and dragons. There are the remains of too many dynasties, each imposed upon the other, shattered and warped like geological strata. There are too many temples, some living, some falling into ruin. There are too many public wells, and too many blind alleys. There are too many palaces, too many half-deserted gardens. The inaccurate hand of legend and mythology has covered the whole of it with glittering jewel-like tales of princes and princesses, of warriors and water carriers, till phantasy has mingled with geometrical accuracy, making the whole city as gloriously intricate as Chinese embroidery, where nothing is too small to be important.
I had spent a great deal of my time during my years in Peking in journeys through its streets in every quarter. I had seen enough of it to know that it would be a mystery, even after a lifetime. But I repeat, I knew it rather better than most foreigners.
It was nearly nine when I helped Eleanor Joyce into the automobile that was still waiting.
There was probably no reason to mistrust the driver, but I did not want him to know where we were going; also I wished to be sure that we were not followed. I prided myself that I could manage both those things. I leaned forward in my seat, and gave him a succession of orders, which must have made him dizzy. We went down the tramcar tracks to Tung Chang An Chieh, turned right on Hatamen Street and went through the gate in the wall of the Tartar City and past its towers and its outer bailey. Then we were threading our way through the complexities of the Chinese City and back to Chien Men, through the traff
ic by the railroad station. Once through the Chien Men Gate, we turned north up the Fu Yu Chieh keeping the waters of the artificial inland seas to our right, where the barges of forgotten emperors had plied once, through channels bordered by pink lotus.
The lights along the way were vague like the light from candles burning low. There is no place in the world as strange as Peking at night. When the darkness covers the city like a veil, and when incongruous and startling sights and sounds come to one out of that black. The gilded, carved façades of shops; the swinging candle lanterns; the figures by the tables in the smoky yellow light of tea houses; the sound of song; the twanging of stringed instruments; the warm, strange smell of soy bean oil; all come out of nowhere to touch one elusively and are gone. A life in which one can never be a part rolls past intimately but vainly. At such a time the shadows of old Peking stretch out their hands to touch you. You think instinctively of the days before the foreign domination, when Peking carts and man-borne litters moved through the streets, with the lantern carriers walking ahead, bearing lights emblazoned with the master’s name to light and clear the way. You think of the closed gates of the Forbidden City and of the watches by the City Gates. You think of the brass oil cups burning peacefully before the shrines of a thousand gods. You think of snarling temple lions and of the brooding, bearded figure of the God of War watching above the shadows of the Outer City Walls. The greatness and the peace of a better time comes back. You cannot get away from it once the night has fallen.
I looked through the back window of the car now and then, but nothing was following us, except the shadows of the street. We crossed Hsi An Men Ta Chieh where one could catch a glimpse of the white dagoba beyond the Pei Hai bridge; then farther north, beyond Prince Ch’ieng’s old palace, and farther still, where the tramway turns west toward the Hsi Chih Men Gate, I told the driver to stop.
Thank You, Mr. Moto Page 9
