Now, then, the further adventures of Ling Foo of Woosung Road. He was an
honest Chinaman. He would beat you down if he were buying, or he would
overcharge you if he were selling. There was nothing dishonest in this; it
was legitimate business. He was only shrewd, not crooked. But on this day
he came into contact with a situation that tried his soul, and tricked him
into overplaying his hand.
That morning he had returned to his shop in a contented frame of mind. He
stood clear of the tragedy of the night before. That had never happened;
he had dreamed it. Of course he would be wondering whether or not the man
had died.
When Ling Foo went forth with his business in his pack he always closed
the shop. Here in upper Woosung Road it would not have paid him to hire a
clerk. His wife, obedient creature though she was, spoke almost no
pidgin--business--English; and besides that, she was a poor bargainer.
It was hard by noon when he let himself into the shop. The first object he
sought was his metal pipe. Two puffs, and the craving was satisfied. He
took up his counting rack and slithered the buttons back and forth. He had
made three sales at the Astor and two at the Palace, which was fair
business, considering the times.
A shadow fell across the till top. Ling Foo raised his slanted eyes. His
face was like a graven Buddha's, but there was a crackling in his ears as
of many fire-crackers. There he stood--the man with the sluing walk! Ling
Foo still wore a queue, so his hair could not very well stand on end.
"You speak English."
It was not a question; it was a statement.
Ling Foo shrugged.
"Can do."
"Cut out the pidgin. Your neighbour says you speak English fluently. At
Moy's tea-house restaurant they say that you lived in California for
several years."
"Twelve," said Ling Foo with a certain dry humour.
"Why didn't you admit me last night?"
"Shop closed."
"Where is it?"
"Where is what?" asked the merchant.
"The string of glass beads you found on the floor last night."
A sense of disaster rolled over the Oriental. Had he been overhasty in
ridding himself of the beads? Patience! Wait a bit! Let the stranger open
the door to the mystery.
"Glass beads?" he repeated, ruminatively.
"I will give you ten gold for them."
Ha! Now they were getting somewhere. Ten gold! Then those devil beads had
some worth outside a jeweller's computations? Ling Foo smiled and spread
his yellow hands.
"I haven't them."
"Where are they?"
The Oriental loaded his pipe and fired it.
"Where is the man who stumbled in here last night?" he countered.
"His body is probably in the Yang-tse by now," returned Cunningham,
grimly.
He knew his Oriental. He would have to frighten this Chinaman badly, or
engage his cupidity to a point where resistance would be futile.
There was a devil brooding over his head. Ling Foo felt it strangely. His
charms were in the far room. He would have to fend off the devil without
material aid, and that was generally a hopeless job. With that twist of
Oriental thought which will never be understood by the Occidental, Ling
Foo laid down his campaign.
"I found it, true. But I sold it this morning."
"For how much?"
"Four Mex."
Cunningham laughed. It was actually honest laughter, provoked by a lively
sense of humour.
"To whom did you sell it, and where can I find the buyer?"
Ling Foo picked up the laughter, as it were, and gave his individual quirk
to it.
"I see," said Cunningham, gravely.
"So?"
"Get that necklace back for me and I will give you a hundred gold."
"Five hundred."
"You saw what happened last night."
"Oh, you will not beat in my head," Ling Foo declared, easily. "What is
there about this string of beads that makes it worth a hundred gold--and
life worth nothing?"
"Very well," said Cunningham, resignedly. "I am a secret agent of the
British Government. That string of glass beads is the key to a code
relating to the uprisings in India. The loss of it will cost a great deal
of money and time. Bring it back here this afternoon, and I will pay down
five hundred gold."
"I agree," replied Ling Foo, tossing his pipe into the alcove. "But no one
must follow me. I do not trust you. There is nothing to prevent you from
robbing me in the street and refusing to pay me. And where will you get
five hundred gold? Gold has vanished. Even the leaf has all but
disappeared."
Cunningham dipped his hand into a pocket, and magically a dozen double
eagles rolled and vibrated upon the counter, sending into Ling Foo's ears
that music so peculiar to gold. Many days had gone by since he had set his
gaze upon the yellow metal. His hand reached down--only to feel--but not
so quickly as the white hand, which scooped up the coin trickily, with the
skill of a prestidigitator.
"Five hundred gold, then. But are you sure you can get the beads back?"
Ling Foo smiled.
"I have a way. I will meet you in the lobby of the Astor House at five";
and he bowed with Oriental courtesy.
"Agreed. All aboveboard, remember, or you will feel the iron hand of the
British Government."
Ling Foo doubted that, but he kept this doubt to himself.
"I warn you, I shall go armed. You will bring the gold to the Astor House.
If I see you after I depart----"
"Lord love you, once that code key is in my hands you can go to heaven or
the devil, as you please! We live in rough times, Ling Foo."
"So we do. There is a stain on the floor, about where you stand. It is the
blood of a white man."
"What would you, when a comrade attempts to deceive you?"
"At five in the lobby of the Astor House. Good day," concluded Ling Foo,
fingering the buttons on his counting rack.
Cunningham limped out into the cold sunshine. Ling Foo shook his head. So
like a boy's, that face! He shuddered slightly. He knew that a savage
devil lay ready behind that handsome mask--he had seen it last night. But
five hundred gold--for a string of glass beads!
Ling Foo was an honest man. He would pay you cash for cash in a bargain.
If he overcharged you that was your fault, but he never sold you
imitations on the basis that you would not know the difference. If he sold
you a Ming jar--for twice what it was worth in the great marts--experts
would tell you that it was Ming. He had some jade of superior quality--the
translucent deep apple-green. He never carried it about; he never even
spoke of it unless he was sure that the prospective customer was wealthy.
His safe was in a corner of his workshop. An American yegg would have
laughed at it, opened it as easily as a ripe peach; but in this district
it was absolute security. Ling Foo was obliged to keep a safe, for often
he had valuable pearls to take care of, sometimes to put new vigour in
dying lustre, sometimes to peel a pearl on the chance that under the dull
skin lay the gem.
He trotted to the front door and locked it; then he trotted into his
workshop, planning. If the glass beads were worth five hundred, wasn't it
likely they would be worth a thousand? If this man who limped had stuck to
the hundred Ling Foo knew that he would have surrendered eventually. But
the ease with which the stranger made the jump from one to five convinced
Ling Foo that there could be no harm in boosting five to ten. If there was
a taint of crookedness anywhere, that would be on the other side. Ling Foo
knew where the beads were, and he would transfer them for one thousand
gold. Smart business, nothing more than that. He had the whip hand.
Out of his safe he took a blackwood box, beautifully carved, Cantonese.
Headbands, earrings, rings, charms, necklaces, tomb ornaments, some of
them royal, all of them nearly as ancient as the hills of Kwanlun, from
which most of them had been quarried--jade. He trickled them from palm to
palm and one by one returned the objects to the box. In the end he
retained two strings of beads so alike that it was difficult to discern
any difference. One was Kwanlun jade, royal loot; the other was a copy in
Nanshan stone. The first was priceless, worth what any fool collector was
ready to pay; the copy was worth perhaps a hundred gold. Held to the
light, there was a subtle difference; but only an expert could have told
you what this difference was. The royal jade did not catch the light so
strongly as the copy; the touch of human warmth had slightly dulled the
stone.
Ling Foo transferred the copy to a purse he wore attached to his belt
under the blue jacket. The young woman would never be able to resist the
jade. She would return the glass instantly. A thousand gold, less the cost
of the jade! Good business!
But for once his Oriental astuteness overreached, as has been seen. And to
add to his discomfiture, he never again saw the copy of the Kwanlun,
representing the virtue of the favourite wife.
* * * * *
"I am an honest man," he said. "The tombs of my ancestors are not
neglected. When I say I could not get it I speak the truth. But I believe
I can get it later."
"How?" asked Cunningham. They were in the office, or bureau, of the Astor
House, which the manager had turned over to them for the moment.
"Remember, the arm of the British Government is long."
Ling Foo shrugged.
"Being an honest man, I do not fear. She would have given it to me but for
that officer. He knew something about jade."
Cunningham nodded.
"Conceivably he would." He jingled the gold in his pocket. "How do you
purpose to get the beads?"
"Go to the lady's room late. I left the jade with her. Alone, she will not
resist. I saw it in her eyes. But it will be difficult."
"I see. For you to get into the hotel late. I'll arrange that with the
manager. You will be coming to my room. What floor is her room on?"
"The third."
"The same as mine. That falls nicely. Return then at half after ten. You
will come to my room for the gold."
Ling Foo saw his thousand shrink to the original five hundred, but there
was no help for it. At half after ten he knocked on the panel of Jane's
door and waited. He knocked again; still the summons was not answered. The
third assault was emphatic. Ling Foo heard footsteps, but behind him. He
turned. The meddling young officer was striding toward him.
"What are you doing here?" Dennison demanded.
His own appearance in the corridor at this hour might have been
subjectable to inquiry. He had left Jane at nine. He had seen her to the
lift. Perhaps he had walked the Bund for an hour or two, but worriedly.
The thought of the arrival in Shanghai of his father and the rogue
Cunningham convinced him that some queer game was afoot, and that it
hinged somehow upon those beads.
There was no sighing in regard to his father, for the past that was. An
astonishing but purely accidental meeting; to-morrow each would go his
separate way again. All that was a closed page. He had long ago readjusted
his outlook on the basis that reconciliation was hopeless.
A sudden impulse spun him on his heel, and he hurried back to the Astor.
The hour did not matter, or the possibility that Jane might be abed. He
would ask permission to become the temporary custodian of the beads. What
were they, to have brought his father across the Pacific--if indeed they
had? Anyhow, he would end his own anxiety in regard to Jane by assuming
the risks, if any, himself.
No one questioned him; his uniform was a passport that required no vise.
Ling Foo eyed him blandly.
"I am leaving for the province in the morning, so I had to come for my
jade to-night. But the young lady is not in her room."
"She must be!" cried Dennison, alarmed. "Miss Norman?" he called, beating
on the door.
No sound answered from within. Dennison pondered for a moment. Ling Foo
also pondered--apprehensively. He suspected that some misfortune had
befallen the young woman, for her kind did not go prowling alone round
Shanghai at night. Slue-Foot! Should he utter his suspicion to this
American officer? But if it should become a police affair! Bitterly he
arraigned himself for disclosing his hand to Slue-Foot. That demon had
forestalled him. No doubt by now he had the beads. Ten thousand devils
pursue him!
Dennison struck his hands together, and by and by a sleepy Chinese boy
came scuffling along the corridor.
"Talkee manager come topside," said Dennison. When the manager arrived,
perturbed, Dennison explained the situation.
"Will you open the door?"
The manager agreed to do that. The bedroom was empty. The bed had not been
touched. But there was no evidence that the occupant did not intend to
return.
"We shall leave everything just as it is," said Dennison, authoritatively.
"I am her friend. If she does not return by one o'clock I shall notify the
police and have the young lady's belongings transferred to the American
consulate. She is under the full protection of the United States
Government. You will find out if any saw her leave the hotel, and what the
time was. Stay here in the doorway while I look about."
He saw the jade necklace reposing in the soap dish, and in an ironical
mood he decided not to announce the discovery to the Chinaman. Let him pay
for his cupidity. In some mysterious manner he had got his yellow claws on
those infernal beads, and the rogue Cunningham had gone to him with a
substantial bribe. So let the pigtail wail for his jade.
On the dresser he saw a sheet of paper partly opened. Beside it lay a torn
envelope. Dennison's heart lost a beat. The handwriting was his father's!