THE MAN IN THE DRAWER.
His Excellency Prince Chu-Hsi-Han, Ambassador to the Court of St.
James, picked up the card from the tray, and examined it calmly
through his rimless glasses.
“Is the distinguished stranger below?” he asked.
“Excellent Highness,” said the Mongolian in the livery of the Embassy,
“I placed the distinguished stranger in the red room.”
The Ambassador nodded.
“Conduct him to my unworthy presence,” he said, and the servant bowed
twice and left the room silently.
He returned in a few minutes and announced the visitor in faultless
English.
“Signor Tillizinni.”
Tillizinni, spare of build, with his keen, eager face and his black
and white colouring, formed a strong note in that room of soft
pearl-blue draperies and shaded lights. He offered his hand with a
little bow to the impassive Oriental who rose from his desk to meet
him.
“Your Excellency expected me?” he asked, and the Ambassador smiled,
for Tillizinni spoke in the Chinese--that peculiar “Mandarin Chinese”
which only the statesmen and diplomatists of China employ.
“You are a veritable signor,” he said quietly. “You have the accent
which suggests a course of training in the forbidden city.”
Tillizinni flushed--he was susceptible on the intellectual side.
“I am flattered,” he said. “Yet I studied no nearer to Pekin than
Florence.”
“I congratulate you,” said the Prince, and with his own hands drew a
chair forward.
“Be seated,” he said, “and tell me exactly what you require.”
He was speaking in English now.
Tillizinni took from his pocket a long envelope and extracted a number
of newspaper cuttings.
“Your Excellency wrote an article in the _North American Review_,” he
said, “which dealt extensively with the early history of your
country.”
The Ambassador nodded.
“You dealt extensively with the life of the First Emperor.”
Again the Ambassador nodded.
“One could not deal effectively with the history of China,” he smiled,
“unless one wrote of the First Emperor. He built the great wall and
stimulated all the best efforts of my countrymen--and though it was
two thousand years ago, his influence is still felt.”
It was Tillizinni who smiled now.
“His influence is felt here in London,” he said grimly, “and in no
place more completely than in Scotland Yard, which, as your Excellency
may know, affords me employment.”
“At Scotland Yard?”
The Chinese Ambassador’s eyebrows rose.
“At Scotland Yard,” repeated the other. “But if your Excellency will
proceed----”
The Prince was a great littérateur, and since he was riding his
hobby, needed little encouragement.
“The First Emperor did many wonderful things,” he said. “He also did
many things, which I say humbly and with due reverence to his
illustrious memory”--he bowed his head--“were not wise, for he
destroyed all the literature which China possessed, burnt books and
documents, and forbade on pain of death any attempt on the part of
students to retain the writings of the just. All this you will find
dealt with in the story in a sketchy way.”
Again Tillizinni nodded.
“Here is a paragraph I would like to direct your special attention,”
he said, and indicated a page on which a paragraph had been outlined
with blue pencil.
“Pardon me!” said his Excellency. He was apologising for the fact that
it was necessary for him to employ his pince-nez; for your well-bred
Chinaman be he all but blind, does not wear his spectacles in the
presence of his guest.
“Ah, that,” he tapped the blue paragraph with his finger, “that is a
literal extract from the writings of our greatest historian, and
describes the burial of the First Emperor.”
He read aloud in his soft English, tracing the printed lines with his
tapered fingers as he proceeded:
“In the 9th moon the First Emperor was buried in Mount Li, which in
the early days of his reign he had caused to be tunnelled and prepared
with that view. Then, when he had consolidated the Empire, he employed
his soldiery, to the number of 700,000, to bore down to the Three
Springs (that is, until the water was reached), and there a firm
foundation was laid and the sarcophagus placed thereon. Rare objects
and costly jewels were collected from the palaces and from the various
officials, and were carried thither and stored in huge quantities.
Artificers were ordered to construct mechanical crossbows, which, if
any one were to enter, would immediately discharge their arrows. With
the aid of quicksilver, rivers were made--the Yangtsze, the Yellow
River, and the great ocean--the metal being made to flow from one into
the other by machinery. On the roof were delineated the constellations
of the sky, on the floor the geographical divisions of the earth.
Candles were made from the fat of the man-fish (walrus), calculated to
last for a very long time. The Second Emperor said: ‘It is not fitting
that the concubines of my late father who are without children should
leave him now’; and accordingly he ordered them to accompany the dead
monarch to the next world, those who thus perished being many in
number. When the interment was completed, some one suggested that the
workmen who had made the machinery and concealed the treasure knew the
great value of the latter, and that the secret would leak out.
Therefore, so soon as the ceremony was over, and the path giving
access to the sarcophagus had been blocked up at its innermost end,
the outside gate at the entrance to this path was let fall, and the
mausoleum was effectually closed, so that not one of the workmen
escaped. Trees and grass were then planted around, that the spot might
look like the rest of the mountain.”
Tillizinni nodded.
“That is the trouble,” he said.
“Trouble?”
It is not etiquette for a high-born Chinaman to express his
astonishment in the exclamatory style of the West; yet the Prince was
obviously astonished.
As briefly as possible Tillizinni gave a résumé of the events which
had preceded and followed the stranding of the China mail-boat.
His Excellency listened, his features composed to that immobility
which is characteristic of his race. When Tillizinni had concluded, he
asked:
“You suggest that the thieves were seeking information which they knew
I would publish, and which is to be found in every historical
text-book on China.”
“I suggest to your Excellency,” said Tillizinni quietly, “that amongst
your documents there was one which threw greater light upon the
Treasure House of the Dead than anything you have published.”
The Ambassador was silent. His delicate fingers played restlessly with
a silver paper knife on his desk, and his eyes were averted from the
other’s face.
Tillizinni offered no encouragement to speech. He understood that he
had been right in his surmise. There was reason for the attempted
burglary and the reason was to be found in the contents of the
mail-bag.
It was fully three minutes--no inconsiderable period of time--before
the Ambassador spoke:
“I can only imagine,” he said at last, speaking very slowly, “that the
people who tried to rob the safe desired information which I am not
prepared to give.”
He looked up sharply.
“Do you realise, Mr. Tillizinni,” he asked, “that buried with Ts’in
Hwang Ti are jewels computed to be worth over two million pounds?”
“Two millions?”
The Prince nodded.
“Two millions,” he repeated. “All the authorities agree that even in
those days, China was enormously wealthy in gold and precious jewels,
and that the value of the First Emperor’s possessions were enormous.
He was originally the King of Ts’in, and he it was who established the
Empire. By conquest alone he must have secured enormous wealth apart
from that which he obtained through the recognised revenues of peace.”
The knowledge that this wealth lies buried is sufficient to tempt the
foreign adventurer--no Chinaman save some of the worst criminal
characters would desecrate a tomb.
“I have in my possession the exact location of Mount Li,” he added
simply.
“But----”
“You think that is easy to find, but as a matter of fact the Empire is
filled with Mount Lis, and though on one of these--the most obvious
one--the tomb has been located, the great Emperor is really buried on
a small and barren island in the Gulf of Pe-chili.”
Tillizinni’s eyes narrowed.
What mystery there was in the burglary had now vanished.
“Why is not the location generally known?” he asked.
The Ambassador favoured him with one of his rare smiles.
“The Emperor himself forbade the disclosure,” he said. “In China in
those days, the Divine Sun of Heaven controlled not alone the
destinies by the memories of men.”
Tillizinni rose to go.
“One last question,” he asked. “Do you intend publishing the
information you have at any future date?”
“I do not,” said the Ambassador briefly.
Tillizinni had occasion to go into the red drawing-room, where he had
left his hat and walking-stick.
A man was sitting waiting--a tall, good-looking man, jaunty enough in
spite of the poverty of his attire.
“Captain Talham, I believe,” said Tillizinni, and the other rose.
“You are the gentleman who searched my luggage at King’s Cross
cloak-room,” said Captain Talham, without resentment, and the
detective laughed aloud.
“That is a confession which I should not care to make,” he said. “How
do you know your luggage had been searched?”
“I have had some experience,” said the other coolly, “and it may
interest you to know that, since your search, a more conscientious
search-party took away the whole of my baggage and has, so far, failed
to replace it.”
Tillizinni was genuinely concerned. This strange man had a tender spot
in his heart for the needy and it needed no second glance at the man
from China to discover his straitened circumstances.
He drew a chair forward.
“I am interested in this,” he said. “Perhaps I can help you.”
Captain Talham raised a dignified and protesting hand.
“The normal mind,” he said “rejects without hesitation the instinct of
rebellion against recognised authority. Undisciplined resentment
toward social safeguards imposed by society for its own protection is
aluvistic. I appreciate the necessity for the examination you made and
regard as admirable the choice of agent which the government has made.
Moreover, since I am directly and frankly interested in discovering
the location of Mount Li, and came to this country by the same ship as
certain documents revealing that location, your suspicion was
pardonable.”
He said all this, scarcely pausing to take breath.
Tillizinni’s face, schooled to conceal his emotion, displayed no hint
of his sensations. Had this man been listening at the door of the
study, that he should take up the threads of the Ambassador’s
discourse?
Talham seemed to divine the working of the Italian’s mind, and smiled.
“I gather you have been discussing the matter with Chu-hsi-han. I
gather that because you did not make your call till after the
publication of his article, and because I have reason for knowing that
that article has excited a great deal of interest in circles with
which you are probably unacquainted--the Society of Good Intention,
for example.”
There was something in his tone which at once interested and nettled
Tillizinni. The stranger had put him on his mettle, too, challenged
his knowledge of forces. Yet the Italian was too big a man to allow
pique to stand in his way of acquiring information. He was not too
clever to learn.
“I know nothing whatever about the Society of Good Intention,” he
said; “though I gather from its benevolent title that it is a Chinese
secret society with a felonious propaganda.”
Talham was tickled. Here was a man after his own heart.
“The Society,” he began, as if to deliver a speech, then changed his
mind. “The Society is purely criminal, though it had a political
origin. It is an off shoot of the Guild of Honourable Adventurers
which flourished in Canton twenty years ago. It has committed more
crimes than any other in China, and it has reached a pass where----”
Clear and sharp above the conversation a pistol shot rang out.
It sounded overhead, and simultaneously the two men leapt to their
feet. With one accord they darted to the door, across the wide hall,
and up the soft-carpeted stairs, Tillizinni leading, an automatic
pistol in his hand.
A servant was standing at the door of the Ambassador’s study, vainly
twisting the handle.
“It is locked, Excellencies,” he said.
“Out of the way!” cried Talham.
The man obeyed with suspicious alacrity. He flew down the stairs, past
the chattering crowd of servants hurrying up.
At the door of the house the Chinaman in the livery of the Embassy was
joined by another.
“We will go quickly, brother,” said the first man, “else these people
will know that we are not in the Tao-ae’s service.”
They passed through the door and out into the dark street as the sound
of a crash told them that Talham had gained admission to the room
above.
The room was in darkness, but the observant Tillizinni had noted the
mother-of-pearl button switch, and his fingers found it now. Instantly
the room was flooded with soft light.
Huddled in his chair was the Ambassador--dead.
There was no wound which the men could see, and Tillizinni, going
swiftly to the side of the dead man, uttered an exclamation.
“He has been strangled!” he cried.
Talham leant over the desk, his brows puckered in a frown.
“Strangled! Then who fired that shot?” he asked.
Servants were coming into the room now. The English secretary pushed a
way through a crowd of excited Chinamen. He had been writing in his
study on the third floor when the shot aroused him.
“Marshall all the servants,” said Tillizinni, and whilst this was
being done the detective made an examination of the apartment. The
windows were closed and fastened with a catch, for the Ambassador
shared with his countrymen a horror of ventilation. There was no
possibility of entry from that direction.
Nothing had been disturbed with the exception of a large inlaid bureau
which stood against one wall of the room. Here the door had been
wrenched open, and a drawer forced and ransacked. Private papers lay
scattered on the floor.
Tillizinni picked up a large envelope. It was inscribed in Chinese
characters: “The burial-place of the First Emperor.” The seal on the
envelope remained intact, but the cover had been slit from end to end,
and was empty.
“Look!” said Talham’s voice explosively.
Tillizinni followed the direction of the pointing finger. The bottom
of the bureau was formed by one huge drawer, the width and depth of
the massive piece of furniture and some eighteen inches high.
From one corner bright red drops were dripping and forming a little
pool on the carpet.
The two men grasped the bronze handles of the drawer and pulled.
The body of a man lay in the bottom. He was doubled up so that his
knees were under his chin. He had been shot evidently from behind, and
was quite dead.
“Do you know him?” asked Tillizinni.
Talham nodded.
“He called himself the ‘Star above the Yamen,’” he said, “and I had an
interesting talk with him this afternoon.”
For this poor, inanimate thing had been the spokesman of Hyde Park.