STARTLING REVELATIONS
The circular fishing net, which had for so unusual a purpose been lowered
into the lake at the dead of night and brought up later, quite empty,
belonged to a youth, known among his acquaintances as "Snowball."
Snowball was black, very black indeed.
When Snowball arrived at his net next morning he found a white man
sitting by his windlass. This young man's eye had a glint of blue steel
in it that set the black boy's knees quivering.
"That your net?" The stranger nodded toward the lake.
"Yaas, sir!"
"Deep down there?"
"Tol'able deep. Yaas, sir."
"Swim?"
"Who? Me? Yaas, sir."
"Here." The man slipped a bill between two boards and left it fluttering
there. "Skin off and dive down there. Black package down there. See?
Bring it up. See?"
"Yaas, sir. Oh, yas, yas, sir." There surely was something strange about
the glint of those eyes.
Snowball struggled out of his few bits of loose clothing and, clad only
in trunks, disappeared beneath the surface of the lake.
A moment later he came to the surface.
"Got it?" Those eyes again.
"N--no, sir." The black boy's teeth chattered. "Nothin' down there. Not
nothin' at all."
"Go down again. You got poor eyes!" The man made a move. Snowball
disappeared.
He came up again sputtering. "Hain't nothin'. Tellin' y' th' truth, sir.
Just nothin' at all."
The stranger made a threatening move. Snowball was about to disappear
once more, when a shrill laugh came rippling across the rocks.
The man turned, startled, then frowned.
"What's pleasing you, sister?" He addressed this remark to a slim girl in
a faded bathing suit, seated on a rock a hundred feet away.
"Snowball's right." The girl laughed again. "Nothing down there. Nothing
at all."
The man gave her a quick look, then sprang to his feet. The next instant
he was scrambling over the rocks.
When he arrived at the spot where the girl had been, she was nowhere to
be seen. It was as if the lake had swallowed her up; which, perhaps it
had.
Apparently the man believed it had, for he sat down upon the rocks to
wait. Ten minutes passed. Not a ripple disturbed the surface.
He looked toward the windlass and the net. Snowball, too, had vanished.
"Crooks!" he muttered. "All crooks out here!"
At that, after picking his way across the breakwater, he took to the
stretches of sand and soon disappeared.
* * * * * * * *
When, later that same day, Petite Jeanne started away, bent on the joyous
business of returning a lost cameo to a dear old lady, she expected to
come upon no fresh mystery.
"Certainly," she said to Florence, who, because of her work, could not
accompany her, "in the bright light of day one experiences no thrills."
Surprise came to her all the same.
She had reached the very street crossing at which she was to alight
before she realized that the address the little old lady had given was in
Chinatown.
"Surprise number one," she murmured. "A white lady living in Chinatown. I
can't be wrong, for just over there is the temple where I saw the magic
curtain." If other evidence were lacking, she had only to glance at the
pedestrians on the street. Nine out of every ten were Chinese.
For a moment she stood quite still upon the curb. Perhaps her experience
on that other occasion had inspired an unwarranted fear.
"For shame!" She stamped her small foot. "This is broad day! Why be
afraid?"
Surprise number two came to her upon arriving at the gate of the place
she sought. No dingy tenement this. The cutest little house, set at the
back of a tiny square of green grass, flanked a curious rock garden where
water sparkled. The whole affair seemed to have been lifted quite
complete from some Chinese fairy book.
"It's the wrong address." Her spirits drooped a little.
But no. One bang at the gong that hung just outside the door, and the
little old lady herself was peeping through a narrow crack.
"Oh! It is you!" she exclaimed, throwing the door wide. "And you have my
cameo!"
"Yes," Jeanne smiled, "I have your cameo."
Because she was French, Jeanne was not at all disturbed by the smothering
caress she received from the old lady of this most curious house.
The next moment she was inside the house and sinking deep in a great heap
of silky, downy pillows.
"But, my friend," she exclaimed, as soon as she had caught her breath
after a glance about the room where only Oriental objects, dragons,
curious lanterns, silk banners, and thick mats were to be found, "this is
Chinatown, and you are not Oriental!"
"No, my child. I am not." The little lady's eyes sparkled. "But for many
years my father was Consul to China. I lived with him and came to know
the Chinese people. I learned to love them for their gentleness, their
simplicity, their kindness. They loved me too a little, I guess, for
after my father died and I came to America, some rich Chinese merchants
prepared this little house for me. And here I live.
"Oh, yes," she sighed contentedly, "I do some translating for them and
other little things, but I do not have a worry. They provide for me.
"But this!" She pressed the cameo to her lips. "This comes from another
time, the long lost, beautiful past when I was a child with my father in
Venice. That is why I prize it so. Can you blame me?"
"No! No!" The little French girl's tone was deeply earnest. "I cannot. I,
too, have lived long in Europe. France, my own beautiful France, was my
childhood home.
"But tell me!" Her tone took on an excited note. "If you know so much of
these mysterious Chinese, you can help me. Will you help me? Will you
explain something?"
"If I can, my child. Gladly!"
"A few days ago," the little French girl leaned forward eagerly, "I saw
the most astonishing curtain. It burned, but was not consumed, like the
burning bush."
"You saw that?" It seemed that the little lady's eyes would pop from her
head. "You saw that? Where?"
"Over yonder." Jeanne waved a hand. "In that Chinese temple."
"I--did not--know it--was--here." The little lady spoke very slowly.
"Then you have seen it!" In her eagerness Jeanne gripped the arms of her
chair hard. "Tell me! What is it? How is it done? Could one borrow it?"
"Borrow it? My child, you do not know what you are asking!
"But you--" She lowered her voice to a shrill whisper. "How can you have
seen it?"
Quite excitedly and with many a gesture, the little French girl told of
her visit to the Chinese temple on that rainy afternoon.
"Oh, my child!" The little lady was all but in tears as she finished,
tears of excitement and joy. "My dear child! You cannot know what you
have done, nor how fortunate you are that you escaped unharmed."
"But this is America, not China!" Jeanne's tone showed her amazement.
"True, my child. But every great American city is many cities in one. On
the streets you are safe. When you pry into the secrets of other people,
that is quite another matter."
"Secrets!"
"The Chinese people seem to be simple, kindly, harmless folks. So they
are, on the street. But in their private dealings they are the most
secretive people in the world.
"That temple you visited!" It was her turn to lean far forward. "That is
more than a temple. It is a place of business, a chamber of commerce and
the meeting place of the most powerful secret society the Chinese people
have ever known, the Hop Sing Tong."
"And that meeting, the magic curtain--" Jeanne's eyes went wide.
"That was beyond doubt a secret meeting of the Tong. You came uninvited.
Because of the darkness you escaped. You may thank Providence for that!
But never, never do that again!"
"Then," Jeanne's tone was full of regret, "then I may never see the magic
curtain again."
"O, I wouldn't say that." The little lady smiled blandly. "Seeing the
magic curtain and attending the meeting of a secret society are two
different matters. The Chinese people are very kind to me. Some of the
richest Chinese merchants--"
"Oh! Do you think you could arrange it? Do you think I might see it, two
or three friends and I?"
"It might be arranged."
"Will you try?"
"I will do my best."
"And if it can be, will you let me know?" Jeanne rose to go.
"I will let you know."
As Jeanne left the room, she found herself walking in a daze.
"And to think!" she whispered to herself, "that this little old lady and
her lost cameo should so soon begin to fit into the marvelous pattern of
my life."
She had wonderful dreams, had this little French girl. She would see the
magic curtain once more. With her on this occasion should be Marjory
Dean, the great opera star, and her friend Angelo who wrote operas. When
the magic curtain had been seen, an opera should be written around it, an
Oriental opera full of mystery; a very short opera to be sure but an
opera all the same.
"And perhaps!" Her feet sped away in a wild fling. "Perhaps I shall have
a tiny part in that opera; a very tiny part indeed."