Hop Wong was the very personification of fear. He was a small Chinese at
best, but now he appeared no larger than a child, so much did he shrink
within his garments when he found himself in the grasp of the two young
men.
“Oh, the poor fellow!” murmured Ruth, with ready sympathy. “Be kind to
him!”
Hop Wong heard her and held out his queer hands with their rather long
nails—hands abnormally clean from much dabbling in soap, water and
whatever chemicals the Chinese laundrymen use for making clothes white.
“Missie Luth, Hop Wong—he no did do!” he wailed. “He no did do!”
“We know you didn’t do anything,” said Ruth kindly. “Oh, don’t hold him
so tightly, Luke.”
“He’s a slippery beggar, Ruth, and——”
“Oh, he won’t run away, I’m sure. Will you, Hop Wong?” she asked.
“No lun! No can do,” he said, with pathetic indifference. “You call
p’liceman—take Hop Wong jail. No can do,” and he sighed wearily.
“Now look here, Hop Wong,” began Luke, in what he doubtless intended for
businesslike tones. “There’s no use trying to fool us. You know
something about money hidden in Miss Ruth’s house and you’ve got to tell
us! Do you understand? You’ve _got_ to tell us!”
Turning to his companions Luke said in a low voice:
“I think Mr. Howbridge made a mistake trying to be kind to him. What Hop
Wong needs is firmness!”
Luke’s manner seemed to have its effect. For, as if by a shake and a
shudder he had cast from him some garment for which he no longer had
need, the Chinese straightened up somewhat. He appeared to fill his
clothes better, and then he said:
“All lite! Hop Wong tell!”
“I thought he would!” chuckled Luke. “Now we’ll get at the bottom of
this puzzling mystery.”
Hop Wong accompanied the boys and girls into the hut where, it appeared,
he had taken up his abode. It was simply furnished, and looked as though
Hop Wong had been about to start a laundry in this country town, but had
not yet done so.
“He came here—ran away—so he couldn’t be questioned,” decided Neale. “It
was lucky you saw him, Luke,” he said.
“It may prove so,” agreed Luke.
But it was one thing for Hop Wong to promise to tell; the performance
was another matter. He was willing, but his choice, use and command of
the English language left much to be desired.
Sitting amid his humble possessions in the lonely cottage, while on
empty boxes for seats Ruth, Agnes, Luke and Neale faced him, the
Celestial began his recital.
He gibbered and slithered about “two men—topside man—number lun man—much
dolls—Clorner House”—and so on until Luke raised his hands in despair.
“I don’t wonder Mr. Howbridge couldn’t make anything of it,” he groaned.
“It’s worse than I expected.”
“What can be done?” asked Ruth. “He seems willing to tell, but I can’t
make any sense of it.”
“Nor I,” sighed Agnes.
“Tell him to sing it!” chuckled Neale, at the conclusion of a long-drawn
and high-pitched stream of words of which only a few were intelligible
to Hop Wong’s auditors.
“Wait a minute! We’ll get something out of this yet,” declared Luke.
“You don’t have to be back any certain time, do you?” he asked Ruth and
Agnes. “I mean at home?”
“No, I suppose not,” admitted Ruth. “Mrs. MacCall and Linda will look
after Dot and Tess. As for Hal and Nalbro, they are going to the movies
in town, after they get their tickets, and they won’t be home till late.
But why do you ask, Luke?”
“Because I want to take Hop Wong and all of us over to Millville. It
isn’t far and there’s a Chinese student there, spending his vacation,
who, I think, can take Hop Wong in hand and get something out of him.”
“Well, but if the Chinese court interpreter couldn’t get at anything for
Mr. Howbridge,” began Neale, “how do you expect——”
“I think Charlie Sing—that’s the chap I know in college—can sling a
little better brand of English than even a court interpreter,” said
Luke. “Anyhow, it’s worth trying.”
“All right, it’s worth trying,” agreed Neale.
“Perhaps Hop Wong won’t accompany us,” remarked Ruth.
“Oh, I guess he will,” asserted Luke, with confidence. “Hop Wong come
for ride in buzz-buzz wagon?” he inquired, pointing to the automobile.
A cheerful grin spread over the features of the Celestial. He seemed to
have lost all his fears now.
“Sule!” he cried. “Hop Wong velly much like buzz-buzz wagon.”
“Hurray!” cried Neale. “So far, so good!”
“I’ll stop at the nearest telephone and let Mrs. MacCall know we’ll be a
bit late,” said Ruth, as they started for the car again. Hop Wong was
now a willing captive and seemed delighted at the chance of riding in an
automobile.
“I think this is the best thing to do,” went on Ruth to her sister, when
they were once more under way, having stopped for a moment in the
village to telephone to the Corner House.
“Yes,” agreed Agnes. “We never could get anything from Hop Wong by
ourselves, and Guardy didn’t seem much more successful.”
They made a good run to Millville and drove up to the boarding house
where Charlie Sing was spending the long college vacation, his home
being in far-off China.
“Hello, Charlie! Got a job for you!” called Luke in greeting, as he saw
the Celestial walking in the garden of the boarding house.
“That’s good!” replied Charlie, with a cheerful grin. “It is fine to see
you again, Luke,” he went on. “It’s been pretty lonesome with all the
boys scattered.”
“I imagine so. Well, we’ll all soon be back at college again. It won’t
be long now. Charlie, you can talk this man’s language, can’t you?” and
he indicated Hop Wong.
“Oh, yes, after a fashion, I suppose,” replied Charlie, who spoke a very
good English the girls noticed. He was introduced to them and at once
proved himself a gentleman as well as a scholar. “Of course,” he said,
“he talks a dialect rather than the pure Chinese language,” and he made
this statement after a brief conversation with Hop Wong. “But I think he
can make himself understood to me, and I’ll tell you what he says to the
best of my ability.”
“All right, let go!” said Neale, with cheerful carelessness. “Maybe
we’ll find out something now.”
Then began a rapid exchange of strange-sounding syllables and
intonations between Hop Wong and Charlie Sing. There was little use for
the others to listen, for they could not, of course, understand a word
that was said on either side. But there was a strange fascination in
hearing the age-old language.
Luke had briefly told his college friend what it was they desired to
find out—about the mystery of the cellar—and finally, after a somewhat
lengthy conversation, Charlie Sing held up a hand to signify that Hop
Wong should stop talking, for he was flowing on, as Agnes said, “like
the brook—forever.”
“This is his story,” said Charlie Sing, “making some allowances for
words that he uses for which, in the proper language, there is no
equivalent. Some time ago, before he was in the laundry business in your
town, Hop Wong worked as a servant in a house where there were two men.
One was a gardener and the other did odd jobs about the place. Handy
man, I believe they call such a worker.”
“That’s right, Charlie,” said Luke.
“One of these men was named Rother and the other called himself Meggs,”
went on the Chinese student. “The house was a large, country
establishment of wealth, and among the visitors was an old man who was
not as good as he might have been. I mean he was addicted to the vice of
drink,” said Charlie, with a shudder of disgust.
“However, I must not get on to that,” went on the Chinese student. “It
always fills me with disgust. But this old man who came to the house
where Rother and Meggs worked with Hop Wong was a drinker. Rother and
Meggs forced Hop Wong to get them some liquor so they could sell it to
this old man, whose name the laundryman does not know. This man, cut off
from his liquor supply because of police activities, was glad to rely on
the scoundrels Rother and Meggs.”
“But where does the Corner House come in?” asked Neale.
“I am coming to that,” replied Charlie. “It is a curious story. It
depends on you, yourselves, how much you believe. This man—this old
toper, I think you call it, knew a Mr. Peter Stower——”
“Why, he was our uncle!” cried Ruth. She was greatly surprised.
“Well, there is supplied the connection,” remarked the translator,
calmly. “This old man knew Mr. Peter Stower and had often, so he told
Rother and Meggs, visited at the Corner House, as you call it. Once,
while there, he says he helped Mr. Stower hide an iron box of money in
the cellar.”
“He did?”
“When?”
“Where?”
“How much money was in it?”
“Why did he do that?”
These were some of the questions shot at Charlie Sing when he had
translated thus far in the strange story of Hop Wong. The student held
up his hand for patience.
“I cannot tell you the reasons,” he said. “Hop Wong does not know them
himself. All he knows is that Rother and Meggs were told by this old
toper that Mr. Peter Stower had hidden a big iron box of money in the
cellar.”
“That tlue! Them say so! Them know whele money is—Hop Wong not know!”
broke in the laundryman. “Two men know—Hop Wong not know!”
He seemed pitifully eager that they should believe him.