"I can assure you," I said, "that the girl is getting the best medical
attention in the city, and is being nursed with the most tender care.
You surely have no thought of depriving her of these advantages."
"These advantages? Yes, they may be advantages to your people. But are
they so for mine?"
"Certainly; flesh and blood are flesh and blood the world over."
"Each race to its own," said Big Sam. "I can not take the risk of
leaving her to die under the white doctor's treatment."
"She is much the more likely to die if you bring her to Chinatown," I
argued.
Big Sam's face recovered its firm determination, and I saw that the
superstition and ancestor-worshiping elements imbibed with his mother's
milk had overwhelmed education and reason in the crisis at which he felt
he had arrived.
"I must look to my own welfare," he said with decision. "A war among
the tongs would be fatal to the interests of the Chinese. And if the
girl dies--especially if she dies under the white doctor's care--it
would be quite beyond my power to prevent an outbreak."
"I have no doubt your interests are important," I began, when he
interrupted me.
"Important! they are everything. I must ask you to see that the girl is
returned here this morning. I will send for two of our best Chinese
doctors to care for her."
"I protest against your decision," I said.
"It is not your place to protest or assent," said. Big Sam, with an air
of command.
"Nor to act against my judgment," I added.
"Oh, if you refuse to act, I must find another messenger," said Big Sam
calmly. "Permit me to thank you for what you have done, and to say that
when I can be of service I am yours to command." The dignity and
courtesy with which he spoke were almost regal.
"Oh, I refuse nothing," I replied. "But you will have to reckon with
another person than me. I shall take your request to Miss Kendrick;
but, whatever I may think about it, the final decision will be in her
hands."
Big Sam looked thoughtfully at me for more than a minute before he
spoke.
"That was a phase of the problem I had not considered," he said slowly.
"I had forgotten that yours is not the ruling sex in the white race."
Big Sam's voice was innocent of sarcasm, and he appeared to be
considering an impersonal problem.
"If you want to get your girl, I advise you to see Miss Kendrick
yourself," I said.
Big Sam looked at me gravely.
"I should not venture to be so rude to Mr. Kendrick as to look upon the
women of his household," he said with a trace of rebuke in his tone; yet
I felt that this oriental excuse was but a pretense. "I am sure," he
added, with a significant glance, "that I could not have a better
advocate than the one I send."
Something in the tone rather than in the words sent the blood to my
face, and in some confusion I rose.
"An advocate who speaks against his judgment is not likely to be of much
value," I said.
"And you a lawyer!" he exclaimed. He rose and accompanied me to the
door, then halted and stamped three times on the floor. "I had almost
forgotten," he said with an enigmatic smile.
As he spoke there was again the rumbling as of a heavy table moved
across the floor.
"Forgotten what?" was my natural inquiry.
He made no reply, and as the noise stopped he opened the door and
ushered me into the hall. I had ceased to think of the peculiar mode in
which I had entered the room, but now the remembrance flashed upon me,
and I looked about in astonishment. I had passed directly from the
office into the outer hall, and the door leading from the hall to the
passage in which I had been imprisoned had disappeared.
For a moment I was at a loss to explain the transformation.
Disappearing doors were something new in my experience. Then I struck
my hand against the wall where the door had been, and my knuckles told
me that behind the counterfeit appearance of plaster was a heavy sheet
of painted iron. In a flash the explanation came to me. The whole wall
could be moved like a sliding door, and with a minute's warning a raid
on Big Sam's office would find no entrance.
I carried Big Sam's message to the Kendrick house without delay, and put
Big Sam's case with an impartiality that surprised myself. But I was
not disappointed in the result.
"Send her back!" cried Miss Kendrick in a great state of indignation.
"What can the man be thinking about?"
"Indeed, it is impossible," said Miss Fillmore. "The girl is in no state
to be moved, even if it were a question of moving her to a better
place."
"And to move her to that dreadful, dirty Chinatown!" cried Miss
Kendrick. "I'm astonished that you should think of such a thing."
"I didn't think of it," I urged. "I didn't even want to hear of it.
But Big Sam has reverted to primeval barbarism, and when he said he
would find somebody else if I wouldn't come, I consented to bring his
message."
"Well," said Miss Kendrick, "I never heard of such a preposterous thing
in all my life."
"Unfortunately, Big Sam doesn't see it in that light," I said.
Miss Kendrick sat down looking very determined and very indignant. Then
she gave a decided nod and said:
"You can tell Big Sam, with my compliments, that if he thinks I am going
to be an accomplice before the fact to a murder, he's very much mistaken
in the person."
There was more talk to the same effect, when my judicial mind caught the
idea of a compromise.
"I have it," I said. "Why not let Big Sam's Chinese doctor come up here
and take an occasional look at Moon Ying, and allay the excitement in
Chinatown by assuring them that she's all right?"
"Well, I admire your intelligence," said Miss Kendrick. "I suppose
you'd have Doctor Roberts consulting with him, and alternate our
medicines with shark's-liver pills and snake-skin powders. Would you set
aside certain hours for him to sing Chinese incantations over her? Or
how would you fix it?"
The judicial scheme of compromise lost some of its attractiveness, and I
said so with the proper degree of humility.
"Well, you are forgiven," said Miss Kendrick. "Now I'll tell you that
there's just one compromise we will make. Big Sam may come here once a
week to see Moon Ying. He's the only Chinaman who can get past that
door."
"I suggested something of the sort, and he took it as though I had
proposed an impropriety. I believe that a Chinese gentleman isn't
supposed to observe that another gentleman has a feminine side to his
establishment."
"Then he can stay out," said Miss Kendrick with decision. "You can go
right back and set his mind at rest. He can have Moon Ying when she
gets well and he finds a man who is fit to be her husband. It's my
private opinion that there isn't such a one in Chinatown. And he can't
have her a minute sooner."
I delivered this ultimatum to Big Sam. He had recovered his composure,
and showed neither surprise nor disappointment when I reported the
result of his mission.
"Am I to understand that this message is from Mr. Kendrick or Miss
Kendrick?" he inquired blandly.
"From Miss Kendrick."
"Ah! I presumed that such a matter would be decided by the head of the
household." His tone was even, and I looked to his face for the flavor
of sarcasm that seemed the proper dressing for the words. But the
bland, inscrutable mask of China gave back only the expression of polite
attention.
"Her decision would be final in such a matter," I replied with something
of resentment.
"Then," said Big Sam in his suave tone, "I trust that she understands
the responsibility she is taking."
"I explained the importance you set upon it."
"Oh, I did not refer to my interests," said Big Sam, waving them aside
as though they were of no moment.
"Then I am afraid I don't understand you," I said in perturbation.
"It is very simple. If the girl dies I can no longer answer for the
conduct of the tongs. And if she dies in Mr. Kendrick's house--"
Big Sam left the sentence unfinished, and I asked:
"Do you mean that as a threat of an attack on Mr. Kendrick or his
niece?"
"Oh, I do not threaten. I merely suggest. There are very bad men in
these tongs, and they will be very angry. You can not be surprised if
they put something of the blame for the girl's death on those who have
her in charge. And angry men will go far for revenge."
"This is a serious threat," I said, with more alarm than I cared to
show.
"I do not intend it as such," said Big Sam calmly. "I merely state
circumstances."
"I am obliged to you for the warning," I said, "but I can only say that
the considerations you mention would not move Miss Kendrick. She is
convinced that to send the girl here is to sacrifice her life. Miss
Kendrick has a woman's courage--the courage that defends the
helpless--and I know it would be useless to appeal to her fears."
"Then," said Big Sam, with the air of one dismissing the subject, "there
is nothing more to be said. What will happen will happen."
And with royal courtesy he bowed me out.
*CHAPTER XIV*
*BARGAINING*
"I thought you would come," said the hard, dry voice of Peter Bolton, as
he leaned back in his chair and surveyed me with a sardonic smile.
"Why, yes," I replied cheerfully. "Jim Morgan told me that you wanted
to see me, and I took chances on his telling the truth." As Jim Morgan
was the prize-fighter who was at the head of Bolton's bureau of private
information and defense, I had reason to assume that he spoke by
authority.
Peter Bolton looked at me suspiciously, and then gave grudging
acknowledgment of Morgan's agency.
"I never write," he grumbled. "You never know whose hands a letter will
fall into."
"A very prudent rule," I returned.
He shook his head slowly, drew down the corners of his mouth, and rubbed
his hands.
"Well, I suppose by this time you are about ready to take up with my
offer," he said with a look of shrewd cunning.
"Your offer? I really didn't know that you had made one," I answered.
His cold blue eyes looked searchingly into my face for a minute. Then
he said:
"You'll find it best to take up with my terms. I don't know what salary
you're getting from Kendrick, but you're going to lose it."
"I didn't expect to keep it for ever. Did Mr. Kendrick tell you he was
going to discharge me?"
"Tell me?" began Peter Bolton with a sarcastic leer. "He didn't have
to. I've got better information than he can give. Your man Kendrick is
going broke within the next thirty days, and he won't have any use for
that fine herd of clerks he has been keeping."
As Peter Bolton evidently expected me to comment on this prophecy, I
murmured that I was sorry to hear it.
"You needn't be," said he with an attempt to be amiable. "I'll take
care of you."
"You are very kind," I said. "But how do you know that Wharton Kendrick
is going under?"
"How do I know?" he returned with something of passion under his
drawling tone. "Why, I know your man Kendrick like a book. I've known
him for forty years. I've watched his business. I've watched him. Oh,
he can fool you fellows with his smirking face, and his open-handed way
of throwing money about. But I know that it's borrowed money, and the
man who makes a show on borrowed money comes to the end of it some day,
doesn't he?" Bolton ended querulously, as though he was making complaint
against Wharton Kendrick for not having gone into bankruptcy long
before.
"Oh, I think you are mistaken," I said. "Mr. Kendrick is known to be
very rich."
"Reported to be very rich, you mean," he said in his most sarcastic
drawl.
"Oh, there's no doubt about it," I returned warmly. I hoped to provoke
him into saying more than he intended.
Peter Bolton took up the challenge.
"Why, young man," he cried, his voice rising into a cracked treble, "he
owes money he can't pay. There's five hundred thousand dollars of his
notes in that safe there," and he pointed to the solid front of the
burglar-defying case. "They fall due pretty soon--some of 'em are due
now--and he can't meet 'em."
"Do you mean to say that he has borrowed money of you?" I asked in
amazement.
"I didn't say that," he replied cautiously. "But there are the notes.
They're signed by Wharton Kendrick, and they call for five hundred
thousand. When they're presented he can't pay 'em, and I suppose I'll
lose my money. I have bad luck about losing money." He shook his head
ruefully, and drew down the corners of his mouth as sourly as though he
saw the almshouse at the end of his road.
"Oh," I said hopefully, "you'll get it, I'm sure. Mr. Kendrick has a lot
of property, and if he hasn't the money, he can borrow it."
This assurance was less pleasing than the prospect of loss that had
soured his face but a minute before.
"I know what property he has, young man, a good, deal better than you
do," he said sharply. "And there's more paper of his in the banks--I
guess it's all of two hundred and fifty thousand, maybe more. Money's
getting pretty tight now, pretty tight, and Kendrick's about at the end
of his rope. When he goes down, you'll want a place to fall on." He
looked at me ingratiatingly, and as I said nothing, he continued:
"Now, I want to see that you're taken care of. You shan't lose anything
when the smash comes, if you just follow my instructions."
"It's very kind of you to take so much interest in me," I began with an
echo of his own sarcasm, when he interrupted.
"Oh, I ain't such a hard man as some people say. I want to do you a good
turn, and maybe you'll help me out. I'm a liberal employer to men who
give me the right sort of service. Now you're trying to be a lawyer--"