SOMETHING TO GO ON
Gregory, nearly exasperated by the other’s coolness, made a threatening
gesture. And then came the sudden blazing out of ferocious rage
that smolders always under the quietest Oriental seeming, and that,
enkindled instantly by the tiniest spark, transforms a peaceful,
obliging native into a spitting, hissing human volcano.
“You fool! You white-eyed dodderer, you green-hatted goat-man!” Wu Li
Chang barked, “do you think I care for your shiny barrel? You English
idiot! The slightest signal from me”--he pointed to the window--“and
those coolies would swarm in here like so many devils.”
“Yes, but you’d have gone to blazes first,” Gregory said grimly, the
revolver still well aimed, “to join those damned ancestors of yours.”
Something as terrible as the death-rattle in a mad dog’s throat tangled
and gurgled in Wu’s and a fiendish look leapt into his eyes--they
narrowed until they were mere slits. But he recontrolled himself
almost instantly--angry still, but coldly so, and imperturbable again.
“I would have gone to blazes first?” There were snarl and sneer in
the low-pitched voice. “Then we should have been able to resume this
interesting conversation elsewhere! Come, come! Put your toy back into
your pocket. If you insist upon playing the play out on these lines
(but I think you will not), believe me, this is not the stage for it.
And you know where I live. You also, I understand, broke and honored my
unworthy bread the other day. And I am an easy man to find.”
Robert Gregory deliberately pointed his revolver at Wu Li Chang’s
heart, and said as pointedly, “Pray be seated, Mr. Wu.”
Wu bent his head politely to the pointed pistol, as if to thank it for
the invitation. “With pleasure,” he said, moving leisurely back to his
chair. Gregory, eyeing Wu stormily, passed too to his own chair. For
just a fraction of a second his back was turned to Wu; but that thin
shred of time sufficed the Chinese to whip a revolver from his pocket,
concealing it in his hand and in the loose sleeve of his tussore coat.
Gregory banged down his chair, and, covered by the ill-humored noise,
Wu clicked his revolver open.
They sat and faced each other in ugly silence, dislike and defiance
very differently expressed, but expressed, on each face. Even wider
apart by caste and by breeding than by race, Wu’s tranquillity was
terrible, his quiet at once a menace and a taunt, while Gregory’s
growing nervousness would have been a little comical if its primary
cause had not been so pitiful.
“I perceive, Mr. Gregory,” Wu Li Chang said pleasantly, “that you still
keep your toy in your hand; kindly cease holding it. I do not fear
it, but the implication of its presence is somewhat aggressive and
offensive. Let us pretend, at least,” he added lazily, “that we are
gentlemen.”
That taunt got through. Gregory winced, and after a moment of sulky
hesitation put the revolver on his knee under the desk.
“Now then, Mr. Wu----” he began.
“One moment,” Wu interrupted him. “Excuse my seeming so exacting, but
I believe that revolver is loaded.”
“It is--in every chamber,” the other snapped.
“Well,” the mandarin spoke so indifferently that he almost drawled,
but his voice was honeyed, “if we are to arrive at an amicable
understanding, I think I should prefer, as a matter of politeness--we
Chinese lay such foolish stress on politeness--not to feel that I was
discussing matters at the cannon’s mouth, so to speak. Retain the
weapon, by all means, but be so good as to remove the cartridges.”
Gregory fidgeted, hesitating nervously.
“Merely as a matter of good faith,” Wu urged conciliatorily. “That
weapon might go off, you know--by pure accident.” He stretched his
hand, palm up, across the desk.
Gregory looked at the open palm oddly, embarrassed, and then looked
round anxiously at the window. Then, shrugging his shoulders and trying
to speak indifferently, “Why not?” he said, and lifting the pistol,
jerked it, and the cartridges fell out onto the desk.
“Thank you,” Wu said genially. “That makes the interesting
conversation much more possible.” He began playing with them lightly,
throwing and catching them as nimble-fingered boys do jackstones;
and Gregory watched the deft, sinewy yellow hand, fascinated.
“One--two--three--four--five--beautifully made little things, are they
not?” Wu’s voice was dove-like. “Now we can start fair. Pray continue,
Mr. Gregory, from the point where you left off.” One yellow hand
dropped nonchalantly on to Wu’s knee below the table, two cartridges in
the subtle fingers. “But please omit to make any further disrespectful
allusion to my ancestors.” He was leaning forward on the desk, both
hands beneath it now, and the revolver had slipped from his sleeve.
“I do not misunderstand your having made the offensive remark--it was
a mere mark of difference of caste and education. But do not repeat
it,” he added smilingly, “or in any way allude to my ancestors”--the
bullets were in his pistol, and Gregory was putting his emptied
weapon irritably into a drawer. “You were asking me, I think, what I
knew about the disappearance of your son and of certain commercial
catastrophes which, I regret to hear, have lately overtaken you. Well,
I will be perfectly frank with you--perfectly frank, Mr. Gregory,
perfectly frank. I will conceal nothing.” The yellow hands slipped up
quietly on to the desk. “And the first thing I have to say is”--the
barrel of the pistol thrust forward--“look at this!”
Robert Gregory sprang up with a smothered oath, and his hand went
convulsively towards the bell on the desk, “Ah, no!” Wu said, “don’t
move, or it might go off by pure accident.” Gregory shifted out of
Wu’s aim and made a foolish furtive attempt to ring. Wu covered him
instantly, smiling still. “Don’t move, I say! Sit down! Sit down,
Gregory!”
And Robert Gregory very slowly sat down--obedient partly in fear,
partly in defeat, and a little in a somewhat hypnotized subjection to a
bigger, more skillful man. Then suddenly he pulled the drawer open to
look at his own revolver.
“No,” Wu told him, “not sleight of hand. This is not your revolver, but
it’s identical----”
“That’s my son’s revolver. I know. I gave it to him myself. Now, damn
you, I have got something to go on!”