“Singapore is by no means herself again,” declared Jennings, looking
about the lounge of the Hotel de l'Europe. “Don't you agree, Knox?”
Burton fixed his lazy stare upon the speaker.
“Don't blame poor old Singapore,” he said. “There is no spot in this
battered world that I have succeeded in discovering which is not changed
for the worse.”
Dr. Matheson flicked ash from his cigar and smiled in that peculiarly
happy manner which characterizes a certain American type and which lent
a boyish charm to his personality.
“You are a pair of pessimists,” he pronounced. “For some reason best
known to themselves Jennings and Knox have decided upon a Busman's
Holiday. Very well. Why grumble?”
“You are quite right, Doctor,” Jennings admitted. “When I was on service
here in the Straits Settlements I declared heaven knows how often that
the country would never see me again once I was demobbed. Yet here you
see I am; Burton belongs here; but here's Knox, and we are all as fed up
as we can be!”
“Yes,” said Burton slowly. “I may be a bit tired of Singapore. It's a
queer thing, though, that you fellows have drifted back here again. The
call of the East is no fable. It's a call that one hears for ever.”
The conversation drifted into another channel, and all sorts of topics
were discussed, from racing to the latest feminine fashions, from
ballroom dances to the merits and demerits of coalition government. Then
suddenly:
“What became of Adderley?” asked Jennings.
There were several men in the party who had been cronies of ours during
the time that we were stationed in Singapore, and at Jennings's words
a sort of hush seemed to fall on those who had known Adderley. I cannot
say if Jennings noticed this, but it was perfectly evident to me that
Dr. Matheson had perceived it, for he glanced swiftly across in my
direction in an oddly significant way.
“I don't know,” replied Burton, who was an engineer. “He was rather an
unsavoury sort of character in some ways, but I heard that he came to a
sticky end.”
“What do you mean?” I asked with curiosity, for I myself had often
wondered what had become of Adderley.
“Well, he was reported to his C. O., or something, wasn't he, just
before the time for his demobilization? I don't know the particulars; I
thought perhaps you did, as he was in your regiment.”
“I have heard nothing whatever about it,” I replied.
“You mean Sidney Adderley, the man who was so indecently rich?” someone
interjected. “Had a place at Katong, and was always talking about his
father's millions?”
“That's the fellow.”
“Yes,” said Jennings, “there was some scandal, I know, but it was after
my time here.”
“Something about an old mandarin out Johore Bahru way, was it not?”
asked Burton. “The last thing I heard about Adderley was that he had
disappeared.”
“Nobody would have cared much if he had,” declared Jennings. “I know
of several who would have been jolly glad. There was a lot of the brute
about Adderley, apart from the fact that he had more money than was good
for him. His culture was a veneer. It was his check-book that spoke all
the time.”
“Everybody would have forgiven Adderley his vulgarity,” said Dr.
Matheson, quietly, “if the man's heart had been in the right place.”
“Surely an instance of trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear,”
someone murmured.
Burton gazed rather hard at the last speaker.
“So far as I am aware,” he said, “the poor devil is dead, so go easy.”
“Are you sure he is dead?” asked Dr. Matheson, glancing at Burton in
that quizzical, amused way of his.
“No, I am not sure; I am merely speaking from hearsay. And now I come
to think of it, the information was rather vague. But I gathered that he
had vanished, at any rate, and remembering certain earlier episodes in
his career, I was led to suppose that this vanishing meant------”
He shrugged his shoulders significantly.
“You mean the old mandarin?” suggested Dr. Matheson.
“Yes.”
“Was there really anything in that story, or was it suggested by the
unpleasant reputation of Adderley?” Jennings asked.
“I can settle any doubts upon that point,” said I; whereupon I
immediately became a focus of general attention.
“What! were you ever at that place of Adderley's at Katong?” asked
Jennings with intense curiosity.
I nodded, lighting a fresh cigarette in a manner that may have been
unduly leisurely.
“Did you see her?”
Again I nodded.
“Really!”
“I must have been peculiarly favoured, but certainly I had that
pleasure.”
“You speak of seeing her,” said one of the party, now entering the
conversation for the first time. “To whom do you refer?”
“Well,” replied Burton, “it's really a sort of fairy tale--unless
Knox”--glacing across in my direction--“can confirm it. But there was a
story current during the latter part of Adderley's stay in Singapore to
the effect that he had made the acquaintance of the wife, or some member
of the household, of an old gentleman out Johore Bahru way--sort of
mandarin or big pot among the Chinks.”
“It was rumoured that he had bolted with her,” added another speaker.
“I think it was more than a rumour.”
“Why do you say so?”
“Well, representations were made to the authorities, I know for an
absolute certainty, and I have an idea that Adderley was kicked out of
the Service as a consequence of the scandal which resulted.”
“How is it one never heard of this?”
“Money speaks, my dear fellow,” cried Burton, “even when it is possessed
by such a peculiar outsider as Adderley. The thing was hushed up. It was
a very nasty business. But Knox was telling us that he had actually seen
the lady. Please carry on, Knox, for I must admit that I am intensely
curious.”
“I can only say that I saw her on one occasion.”
“With Adderley?”
“Undoubtedly.”
“Where?”
“At his place at Katong.”
“I even thought his place at that resort was something of a myth,”
declared Jennings. “He never asked me to go there, but, then, I took
that as a compliment. Pardon the apparent innuendo, Knox,” he added,
laughing. “But you say you actually visited the establishment?”
“Yes,” I replied slowly, “I met him here in this very hotel one evening
in the winter of '15, after the natives' attempt to mutiny. He had been
drinking rather heavily, a fact which he was quite unable to disguise.
He was never by any means a real friend of mine; in fact, I doubt that
he had a true friend in the world. Anyhow, I could see that he was
lonely, and as I chanced to be at a loose end I accepted an invitation
to go over to what he termed his 'little place at Katong.'
“His little place proved to be a veritable palace. The man privately, or
rather, secretly, to be exact, kept up a sort of pagan state. He had any
number of servants. Of course he became practically a millionaire after
the death of his father, as you will remember; and given more congenial
company, I must confess that I might have spent a most enjoyable evening
there.
“Adderley insisted upon priming me with champagne, and after a while I
may as well admit that I lost something of my former reserve, and began
in a fashion to feel that I was having a fairly good time. By the way,
my host was not quite frankly drunk. He got into that objectionable and
dangerous mood which some of you will recall, and I could see by the
light in his eyes that there was mischief brewing, although at the time
I did not know its nature.
“I should explain that we were amusing ourselves in a room which was
nearly as large as the lounge of this hotel, and furnished in a somewhat
similar manner. There were carved pillars and stained glass domes,
a little fountain, and all those other peculiarities of an Eastern
household.
“Presently, Adderley gave an order to one of his servants, and glanced
at me with that sort of mocking, dare-devil look in his eyes which I
loathed, which everybody loathed who ever met the man. Of course I had
no idea what all this portended, but I was very shortly to learn.
“While he was still looking at me, but stealing side-glances at a
doorway before which was draped a most wonderful curtain of a sort of
flamingo colour, this curtain was suddenly pulled aside, and a girl came
in.
“Of course, you must remember that at the time of which I am speaking
the scandal respecting the mandarin had not yet come to light.
Consequently I had no idea who the girl could be. I saw she was a
Eurasian. But of her striking beauty there could be no doubt whatever.
She was dressed in magnificent robes, and she literally glittered with
jewels. She even wore jewels upon the toes of her little bare feet. But
the first thing that struck me at the moment of her appearance was that
her presence there was contrary to her wishes and inclinations. I have
never seen a similar expression in any woman's eyes. She looked at
Adderley as though she would gladly have slain him!
“Seeing this look, his mocking smile in which there was something
of triumph--of the joy of possession--turned to a scowl of positive
brutality. He clenched his fists in a way that set me bristling. He
advanced toward the girl--and although the width of the room divided
them, she recoiled--and the significance of expression and gesture was
unmistakable. Adderley paused.
“'So you have made up your mind to dance after all?' he shouted.
“The look in the girl's dark eyes was pitiful, and she turned to me with
a glance of dumb entreaty.
“'No, no!' she cried. 'No, no! Why do you bring me here?'
“'Dance!' roared Adderley. 'Dance! That's what I want you to do.'
“Rebellion leapt again to the wonderful eyes, and she started back with
a perfectly splendid gesture of defiance. At that my brutal and drunken
host leapt in her direction. I was on my feet now, but before I could
act the girl said a thing which checked him, sobered him, which pulled
him up short, as though he had encountered a stone wall.
“'Ah, God!' she said. (She was speaking, of course, in her native
tongue.) 'His hand! His hand! Look! His hand!'
“To me her words were meaningless, naturally, but following the
direction of her positively agonized glance I saw that she was watching
what seemed to me to be the shadow of someone moving behind the
flame-like curtain which produced an effect not unlike that of a huge,
outstretched hand, the fingers crooked, claw-fashion.
“'Knox, Knox!' whispered Adderley, grasping me by the shoulder.
“He pointed with a quivering finger toward this indistinct shadow upon
the curtain, and:
“'Do you see it--do you see it?' he said huskily. 'It is his hand--it is
his hand!'
“Of the pair, I think, the man was the more frightened. But the girl,
uttering a frightful shriek, ran out of the room as though pursued by
a demon. As she did so whoever had been moving behind the curtain
evidently went away. The shadow disappeared, and Adderley, still staring
as if hypnotized at the spot where it had been, continued to hold my
shoulder as in a vise. Then, sinking down upon a heap of cushions beside
me, he loudly and shakily ordered more champagne.
“Utterly mystified by the incident, I finally left him in a state of
stupor, and returned to my quarters, wondering whether I had dreamed
half of the episode or the whole of it, whether he did really possess
that wonderful palace, or whether he had borrowed it to impress me.”