Thank You, Mr. Moto

by John P. Marquand

  Prince Tung nodded slowly. He also had been watching Wu Lo Feng.

  “They are in my storeroom,” he answered. “Yes, I have no doubt that Mr. Pu will find them. You will want ransom money from me, I suppose. I shall be relieved to learn how much.”

  Wu Lo Feng considered the matter. As he did so I remembered what Major Best had said that Wu knew exactly what he wanted.

  “We shall all move to the hills in the early morning,” said Wu Lo Feng, “you and Mr. Nelson both will go with me. We will discuss ransom there.” He smiled slightly. “I offered to give Mr. Nelson a dinner last night. There would have been poison in it. To-night I shall give him a better dinner when we get to the hills. I shall cook a piece of his flesh with my own hands. You have heard the custom, Mr. Nelson?” I knew that I should not have a pleasant time with Wu Lo Feng, but I was not sure that he would go as far as that. I did not answer. I even endeavored to appear indifferent because I knew it would be dangerous to betray any anxiety or fear.

  “You will not wish the young virgin to go to the hills, I think,” said Wu Lo Feng.

  “No,” I answered. “On the whole it would be better not.” Wu Lo Feng grunted again and fiddled with the butt of his Luger pistol.

  “Then tell her that Mr. Pu is coming with the pictures,” he said. “Mr. Pu will lead her out of here to a place which is safe and comfortable. In fact, I think she may go back to her hotel before morning. Mr. Pu will collect the money for the pictures. There is no reason for her to remain here. Tell her that I have no wish to hurt her. That will do. Take her to one side and tell her.”

  I walked toward Eleanor Joyce and took her arm. My respect for her was growing; she was holding herself well in control. She had been examining General Wu as though he were a figure in the circus. He was certainly as far removed as that from any type which she had ever seen. She was watching his hands as he toyed with the butt of his heavy Luger pistol.

  “Come over here with me,” I said and I tried to speak as casually as I could. “It’s just what I thought. Everything is working out nicely for you. No one intends to harm you at all. Mr. Pu is coming with the pictures; then he is taking you away. You will be safe at your hotel by morning. You’re out of this and I am very glad.”

  Her eyes looked as though she had not slept for a long while. She seemed to look straight through me.

  “What will happen to you?” she asked. I tried to smile but I made a rather poor attempt at it.

  “It really doesn’t matter,” I said. “Mr. Wu is taking me out to the hills with him. Country air and a change of scene. Don’t worry, I shall manage.”

  “You mean they won’t let you go, when I go?” she asked.

  “It wouldn’t be very wise under the circumstances,” I answered. “Mr. Wu has taken an interest in me, but you needn’t worry.” My hand was still on her arm. Her fingers closed over mine, unexpectedly, convulsively.

  “Tom,” she said, “look at me, Tom Nelson. You can tell Mr. Wu that I am going out to the hills too, and there won’t be any money for his pictures unless he lets us both safe off. I’m not going to leave you. I won’t.”

  It was the first time that I realized that I had been laboring under a considerable strain. I realized it when she spoke. The self-control on which I prided myself was going into the discard. My face was growing red, my voice was thick.

  “Don’t be a fool,” I said. “You’re out and you’re safe out. At any rate, he won’t let you go.”

  “Tom,” whispered Eleanor Joyce, “stay here with me. Don’t speak to him yet.”

  We had walked a good many steps away from the table. We were far enough away in that shadowy room to have the illusion of being away by ourselves. The light was softer there. The people we had left were framed by the gasoline lamp but we were in the dusk, watching everything for a little while as spectators in a darkened theatre watch the stage. The guards with their rifles were standing by the closed door—Wu Lo Feng and Mr. Takahara sat side by side at the table. Wu Lo Feng was writing messages with a brush. Mr. Moto and Prince Tung were standing disconsolately a little distance off.

  “Would you be so gracious,” Prince Tung asked, “as to send for another pot of tea?”

  Wu Lo Feng looked up abstractedly and shouted to the guard: “Send out for tea and wine,” he bellowed.

  I saw Mr. Moto move toward Mr. Takahara. My knowledge of Japanese was rudimentary but I heard him asking:

  “Might I trouble you for a cigarette?”

  And Mr. Takahara was saying: “It is a pleasure.”

  Matters were moving on smoothly as Eleanor Joyce and I stood watching that amazing scene. That somnolent Oriental scene of order had crept in upon it decorously, in a way that defied a Western comprehension. The pot of tea came in and a small flagon of hot rice wine. General Wu tossed off two small cups of it.

  “Send messengers,” he bawled. Three men entered and he gave them each a slip of paper. He and Mr. Takahara were discussing something. Mr. Takahara was looking at his watch.

  “I tell you,” Wu Lo Feng was saying, “everything is ready.” Eleanor Joyce pressed my hand again.

  “Tom,” she whispered, “why do you just stand here? Why don’t you say something? Isn’t there anything to do?”

  “No,” I answered, “of course there’s nothing to do. You are looking at a remarkable scene if you stop to think of it. You see a Chinese bandit sitting at the table giving orders to start rioting. You see a Japanese provocateur sitting beside him; you see another Japanese agent who doesn’t want an incident to be precipitated—not now at any rate. You are seeing history, in a way. It’s a strange world here, isn’t it? A nightmare of a world. It will be something for you to think about when you get home. There are Mr. Takahara and Mr. Moto both working for Japan, one trying to force the hand of the government, the other trying to let things go more slowly; and Wu Lo Feng thinking about himself, and Prince Tung drinking his tea. Here come some more messengers. Listen to the noise in the courtyard.” I looked at my watch. For some unknown reason neither my watch nor my money had been taken. It was a quarter before one in the morning. “Yes, it’s an amazing scene,” I said. I was talking more to reassure her than for any other reason.

  “I rather think something is going to happen before long. There is no doubt about it. This is the real thing. See—he is sending out more messages and here come some more men for orders. They look like foreign educated Chinese.”

  While I had been speaking a stream of men had been padding in and out through the temple doors, most of them young and intelligent. Some were Chinese in European clothes, some were in the coolie blue denims. For nearly a quarter of an hour we stood there watching Wu Lo Feng give orders while Mr. Takahara listened and gave an occasional suggestion. There was no doubt it was the real thing. Then the room grew quiet again and the guards stood by the closed doors. Mr. Takahara looked at his watch.

  “In a few minutes,” I heard him say to Wu Lo Feng, “we must be starting. You have charge of the railroad station, I believe.”

  “There’s time enough,” I heard Wu Lo Feng say. “We will not leave here until we hear the gun.” Mr. Takahara rose.

  “There is a detail at my orders outside, I believe,” he remarked. “Perhaps it will be as well for Mr. Moto and me to leave, if you will excuse us. I shall be back in a few moments. Are you ready, Mr. Moto?”

  “Yes,” said Mr. Moto. “Will you permit me to say good bye to Mr. Nelson and Miss Joyce?”

  “Certainly,” said Mr. Takahara, “as long as Miss Joyce does not understand.”

  “What are they saying?” Eleanor Joyce asked me.

  “They are only talking politics,” I said.

  Wu Lo Feng poured himself another cup of wine.

  “Would it not be better,” he asked, “if I took Mr. Moto to the hills? There must be no shooting yet.”

  “Thank you,” said Mr. Takahara, “there will be no shooting.”

  “Tom,” whispered Eleanor Joyce, “aren’
t you going to do anything?”

  Her words made an idea flash through my mind. It was probably valueless but at least it seemed worth trying. I was reasonably sure that if Mr. Moto went out the door that he would not come back, and I rather liked Mr. Moto.

  “Perhaps I can try,” I said, and I walked toward the table where Wu Lo Feng was sitting. They all seemed annoyed as I moved near them.

  “Please,” Mr. Takahara said, “there is nothing here that concerns you.” I did not answer him. As I walked toward that brightly lighted table I seemed to be back in a courtroom at home about to propose a motion before the Court. Wu Lo Feng, with his wine cup and his Luger pistol, was the judge.

  “One moment, please,” I said. “Perhaps the General is forgetting something.”

  Wu Lo Feng pursed his lips and set his wine cup down.

  “What?” he asked me. “What am I forgetting?”

  “It is simply a humble suggestion,” I told him, “but one which can do Your Excellency no harm. Mr. Takahara is, no doubt, paying you to create a disturbance in the City. Have you ever thought to ask Mr. Moto how much he would pay you if you did not create it?”

  There was a moment’s silence. Mr. Takahara half rose from his chair. Mr. Moto drew in his breath with a long, sibilant hiss. Wu Lo Feng frowned and then he smiled:

  “That is an excellent suggestion,” he said, “and one I had not thought of. Sit down, Mr. Takahara. Please sit down. You have a good mind for a foreigner, Mr. Nelson. No, I have not thought of that.” Suddenly his shoulders shook and he gave a shout of laughter. “It is very amusing. I have not thought of that. How much will you offer, Mr. Moto? But no, it will not do. You would offer a great deal, but how should I get the money? No, it will not do.”

  I stole a glance at Mr. Moto. His head bobbed toward me in a hasty bow.

  “Thank you,” he said to me, “thank you very, very much. Your suggestion is such a kind one, but Mr. Takahara knows that it is not in my power to make an adequate offer, just as he knows it is not in my power to promise not to mention his activity if I should be allowed to go free. You do not understand the complexities of our internal situation and I am very, very sorry there is no time in which to tell you of them. Mr. Takahara and I belong to different parties, his more radical than mine which is now in power. Mr. Takahara is very considerate. Mr. Takahara and I, unfortunately, can only do certain things. If I had the opportunity I should have to dispose of Mr. Takahara. Now he has the opportunity. Nevertheless, he is a very nice fellow, and we are both in a way loyal servants of our Emperor. Please do not blame him. I am sure that Mr. Takahara is very, very sorry for you also; but now that you are in possession of certain facts, Mr. Takahara must allow Wu Lo Feng to take you to the hills.” Mr. Takahara rose and bowed.

  “Thank you,” he said, “Mr. Moto. Thank you very much. Of course, the young lady does not understand the Chinese tongue and she must not know of this. I am sure that Mr. Nelson understands. I think now that the young lady had better be removed at once to the safe place of which the General speaks, and that Mr. Moto had better come with me.”

  The voluble flow of Chinese conversation moved about me dizzily. The politeness, the entire lack of animosity, was on the whole the strangest part of it. With cold fact all around us we were exchanging compliments as though we were at an evening party, while Eleanor Joyce stood in the background watching. General Wu moved heavily and grunted.

  “Wait,” he said, “wait a moment. It would be better for nothing to alarm the young virgin, and she is very valuable to me. It is far better that she leave before we do anything.” And then he shouted to one of the guards by the door: “Ascertain if Pu has come. If he has send him here at once.”

  Mr. Takahara looked at his watch. I remember the shadow that his thumb and little finger made on the table as he raised his wrist.

  “There is not very much time,” he said. “Three o’clock is the hour.”

  “Be silent,” said General Wu, “this is my affair. At any rate, here comes Pu.”

  He was right. The door was opening and Mr. Pu was entering, walking slowly with a great cloth bundle in his arms, and one of the guards shut the door behind him. Mr. Pu was bowing and smiling. Although I had grown to dislike him, I was never more relieved to see anyone than I was to see Mr. Pu and his bundle. It meant, if I was not wrong, that Eleanor Joyce would be safe. Whether she liked it or not, she would be sent away with Mr. Pu; and after that I believed that everything would be much better. Mr. Pu came walking in, exactly as. I remembered him in the past, not in the least like a criminal engaged in a difficult intrigue. He came in venerably, bowing and smiling and puffing under the weight of his bundle, much as I had seen him a dozen times before entering my own house with a bundle of his wares. He had all the obsequiousness and the merriment of a good Chinese salesman who is ready to bargain or to laugh or to expostulate or to weep.

  “Excellency,” he said, “everything has been very fortunate. We came upon the pictures without difficulty and upon some other objects besides.” I heard Prince Tung sigh softly but he made no remark.

  Wu Lo Feng rose from behind the table.

  “Let us see the pictures,” he said, “the light will be good if you unroll them upon the floor. We shall speak of the other objects some other time.”

  “Time presses,” said Mr. Takahara. “There is no time.”

  Wu Lo Feng snorted rudely:

  “Let us hear no more from you, please,” he answered. “I am the one who says whether there is time or not, and I say that I wish to see the pictures. I wish to examine them because I desire to have the bargain correct. I wish to have no mistake. Unroll those pictures. One of those men with a rifle—, you there, Cheng, put your rifle down and fetch stones to lay on the corners. And you, Mr. Nelson, tell the young woman to stand here beside me so that she may see them better.”

  Mr. Pu was kneeling upon the floor, unwrapping his bundle exactly as he might have unwrapped it in my house at home. One of the guards was standing over him, helping him. He looked like a shop assistant now that he had leaned his rifle against the wall.

  “Ah!” Mr. Pu was saying, “they are beautiful, beautiful. I say without boasting that I have an eye for art. The work is beautiful, Your Excellency.”

  I walked past the kneeling old man and spoke to Eleanor Joyce. I wanted her out of this as quickly as possible. I was sorry that there was even a delay about the pictures.

  “Wu Lo Feng wants you to stand beside him and look at them,” I said. “And then, thank God, you are getting out of this.”

  She moved forward obediently but she answered: “Oh no, I’m not. Not if you aren’t.”

  I remember thinking resignedly that she and I would part forever, quarrelling.

  “Oh yes, you are,” I answered. “You won’t get your own way this time. They’ll carry you out of here if you won’t go quietly. You mean money bags to Wu Lo Feng.”

  “Tom,” she said, “I don’t care about the pictures.”

  “Don’t argue,” I answered, “it won’t do any good.”

  There was one thing at any rate that satisfied me. She evidently understood at last that there are times when argument is futile, because she walked toward the table and stood beside Wu Lo Feng. There was nothing as far as I could see that anyone could do, except to be resigned. There was one guard at the door with his rifle and another with his rifle at easy reach. Any sound of a struggle would have brought fifty or sixty others. There was nothing to do except to stand and take anything that came. I could only think that Eleanor Joyce was being let out. In a minute or two now, she would be gone. That dull hopelessness which was settling over me actually kept my thoughts slow and tranquil. I still seemed to be dissociated from the realities and the implications of that scene. I recalled thinking how right I was that events turn men and that men cannot turn events. The dusky figures around the temple wall were as solemn as the Fates. All sorts of unseen things in the room seemed to be gazing down as I did into the cir
cle of bright light, where Mr. Pu was unrolling the scroll pictures. Although the last thing which I wished to do was to look at them, it was impossible not to look.

  They drew my attention from everything else, once my glance fell on them, and it was the same with everyone else in the room, I think. Everyone was looking at the pictures on the floor. Wu Lo Feng stood gazing at them, a little puzzled, as though he could not decide why they should be coveted. Eleanor Joyce, standing near him, seemed to have forgotten everything but the pictures. Mr. Takahara, on Wu Lo Feng’s left hand, forgot to look at his watch. Prince Tung and Mr. Moto and I stood by ourselves about three paces off. But we were looking also.

  Any foreign visitor, ignorant of the technique of Chinese painting and prone to be puzzled by, its unfamiliar technique, would have known that these scrolls were the work of a master, because they had that sense of greatness which can speak to any race in any language. There is a saying in China that a picture is a voiceless poem; those pictures had a breath-taking voicelessness. Something rose from them which laid hold of the senses and called for silence. They conveyed the idealism of the man who had painted them, the thought which was behind his work seemed to fill the room with infinite peace. They were beyond war or rumors of war. They were abstractions that rose above cupidity or fear. They were the Sung interpretations of landscape, which have never been surpassed by any succeeding Chinese dynasty or by the artists of any other race. The scrolls were like the first one which I had seen, of mountains and misty waterfalls, of pieces of countryside familiar to any one of us, but the artist had endowed them with his own interpretations. The brush strokes conveyed thought in a way that was as subtle as the strokes that go to make up the Chinese characters. They spoke of that paganlike, naturalistic religion which one can hear in sound between the lines of Chinese poetry. You had a sense of the earth and the water gods, of the rain gods and of the spirits of the air. There was some element in that landscape which must have spoken to anyone. Perhaps to each in a different way, but at any rate it spoke.