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Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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I STOOD at the window and looked down into the grimy, sweltering street, and wished to goodness I had never come to New York, and wondered how the devil I was ever going to get out of it. My hat! It was a sweltering afternoon—not an intelligentsiac or an artist's model was about; the street, for once, was empty.
Of course I could pawn my sleeve links and cable to the family to cable my fare home, but on those lines there was nothing doing. The family had been too dashed despondent about my making a go of it in New York for me to do that. I could never go back without some money to save my face or I should never hear the last of it from Aunt Caroline. I fingered my last quarter in my trouser-pocket and considered what would be best for my healthy appetite, which was speaking to me earnestly at the moment, before I set out for the lights of Broadway and made a final stab at Fortune. It looked to me as if it would be something in the way of grand larceny with violence.
And then the Chinaman came running round the corner of the street.
Frightened? I give you my word he was frightened. I've seen frightened men; and if ever a man was running from death, he was. From the height of that first floor window I could see that his staring eyes were starting out of his head, and I guessed that the sweat on his shining face was none too warm. In the crook of his left arm he carried a bundle.
He came to a stop opposite my window and peered about the street as if he were looking for a bolt-hole. Then he saw me. and stared at me hard. Then he ran across the street, and croaked, huskily: "Catchee! Velly soft!" and swung the bundle upward, just hard enough to reach me.
I caught it softly all right. Without another word he ran on up the street and round the next corner.
I stepped well back into the room. I guessed that the bundle was better out of the sight of passers-by. And when twenty seconds later I saw the passers-by, I knew I had guessed right—four long, lean Chinamen came racing round the corner, and their faces were as full of fury as the face of the first beggar had been full of fear, and they weren't nice kind faces either, not at any time, not even in repose.
I had time to see that they looked to belong to the same family and were very superior—I mean that they were nicely dressed by Wetzler or Bell—and I saw the sun gleam on the small automatic in the hand of the last of them, all ready for business, and as he passed out of sight up the street the bundle stirred on my arm.
DID I quail? I quailed. Other brave lads might have got off with a pet dog or a kitten—or even a rabbit. But not Jocelyn. No: not gentle Jocelyn. I went on quailing as I laid the bundle on the bed and pulled out the four gold pins that fastened the thick silk shawl, embroidered with birds of paradise, that was rolled five times round it, and unwrapped it. It was a baby!
I did a last quail and blenched. Then I looked at it closer. It was quite a nice baby—plump, and its round face was a creamy yellow, and its round head would have been creamy yellow too, but for the dark down on it; its closed eyes slanted a little upwards; it was smiling at some dream—a Chinese baby.
Here was a go! My mind whirled a bit. What on earth was I to do with it? I couldn't keep myself—at least I was making no sort of a job of it. How was I going to keep a baby too? I stood staring at it, trying to think what to do with it with a brain that wouldn't work.
Then it opened its eyes, tremendously old and wise eyes, much older and wiser than most grown-ups' eyes, and blinked at me, and shut them and went to sleep again.
I had a queer feeling that it had entrusted itself to me just as the Chinaman had entrusted it to me; and I said, cheerily: "All right, comrade. We'll find a way."
But I'll be hanged if I knew how I was going to find it.
I bent down again to look at its tiny yellow toes, all curled up, and saw the pouch pinned to the shawl just under them. I unpinned it and opened it and took out of it ten fifty-dollar notes, two thousand-dollar notes, and a sheet of rice paper covered with Chinese writing.
What I said was: "Saved! Saved!"
I put the notes into my note-case and looked at the sheet of paper. If I could read it, it would be instructions, and instructions would come in handy. Then I remembered the Chinaman in the basement. I covered the comrade with the shawl—and I hoped he wouldn't wake and howl—shut the door gently and locked it, and bolted down the stairs and knocked at the Chinaman's door. He opened it himself, a stout and worthy old gentleman and sedate, and smiled at me politely.
I showed him the sheet of rice paper and what had been my last quarter and said: "A friend of mine has sent this to me to get translated for him. I'll give you this quarter if you'll do it for me."
He accepted the offer and took the paper, and read out in his pidgin but understandable way:
"Honourable and benevolent stranger, my husband, Sien Seng, is old and very sick, and my step-sons are wicked men. They will poison my baby Hsiang Kwei and me also. Save him, I pray you, and bring him up kindly. I give you the money, but when he is a man I pray you to give him the axe. If you do these things, Kuan Yin, the friend of children, will give you prosperity.
"What does 'give him the axe' mean?" I asked.
"Me no savvee," said the Chinaman.
I thanked him and gave him the quarter. On my way up to my room I did some quick thinking. I'd seen those step-sons, and I felt that the neighbourhood of Washington Square was no place for comrade Kwei. It was a good thing that the heat had kept the street so empty that no one was likely to have seen me receive that bundle, but those blackguardly step-sons might catch their man and force him to tell them what he had done with it. Besides, it would soon be all over the street that I had become the owner of a Chinese baby. No; the neighbourhood was not healthy; it was me and comrade Kwei for the really busy haunts of men where an extra baby, Chinese or otherwise, is not noticed.
AND then, as I unlocked the door of my room, the great idea came. I made sure that the comrade was sleeping, then I picked up The New York Times and found the advertisement I had noticed when I had been looking through the jobs vacant and wanted that morning. I soon found it:
Young English lady will act as companion or secretary for a year for passage home to England.—S. Burton. 147B, 144th Street, N.Y.
I had thought it an uncommonly sporting offer, and now I felt in my bones that this was the very young woman to help me get comrade Kwei away to Easingwold. In about three minutes I had packed everything I had left in a suitcase and rolled comrade Kwei in his shawl and was out of the house with them.
I walked down the street and took the first turning to the right, at a right angle to the line of the Chinaman's flight. I was in luck: I hadn't gone more than a couple of hundred yards when I met an empty taxi. I told the driver to drive to 147B, 144th Street. When we reached it I paid him and let him go. I wanted to lose him.
The house looked to be densely populated and it was certainly strongly scented. Carrying my suit-case and comrade Kwei, I went in. A small girl in the hall told me that Miss Burton lived on the second floor, the first door on the left, and I went upstairs and knocked at it. It was opened by an astonishingly pretty girl.
I was taken a bit unawares. I'm never quite comfortable with a pretty girl at first, not in fact till the acquaintance has ripened. Besides, I'd got it into my head that S. Burton would be a capable, matter-of-fact, rather stern, plainish young woman, sternly dressed. This one looked capable enough, but not particularly matter-of-fact or stern—rather otherwise in fact—and she certainly wasn't sternly dressed, but smartly and prettily.
And somehow or other the thinking machine went a bit out of gear, and instead of leading up to the basic fact of comrade Kwei with a few diplomatic remarks, as I had intended, I blurted out: "Good afternoon, Miss Burton. I want a secretary who can look after a baby."
Her eyes—they were good grey eyes that looked at you uncommonly frankly—opened rather wide and she stared at me and then at the bundle, which must have looked more than a bit out of place on my arm, and said: "Who can look after a baby? Are you a widower?"
"No. Oh, no. Not exactly. I'm not married—yet. I—I'm looking after it." I said, still rather on the uncomfortable side.
"You're smothering it, you mean," she said, rather sharply, and stepped forward and made an opening in the shawl, to let comrade Kwei get more air, and looked at him and said: "But what a duck!"
"A snifter—as they go!" said I.
She looked at me suspiciously, quite suspiciously, and said: "But how do you come to be looking after a Chinese baby?"
I thought it best to be open with her, and I said: "It's like this. This baby's in great danger. It's got some step-brothers—regular thugs. I give you my word, and they're out to do it in. Its mother—at least, a friend of its mother—handed it over to me to look after. And the safest place I can think of for it is my father's place in Yorkshire. I saw your advertisement in The New York Times this morning, and it looks to me as if you were in a bit of a hole, and I am in a bit of a hole, and we could help one another out. I want to get this baby away to England by the first steamer, and I want you to help me. Will you?"
She looked at me, and her suspicion seemed to go; she smiled and said: "I'll help you. Give me the lad. I sha'n't be more than three minutes. My things are packed."
SHE took comrade Kwei and went into her room, and, sure enough, she was out of it in less than three minutes, bringing a suit-case and comrade Kwei wrapped in a thin silk wrap better suited to the weather. She gave me the suit-case and his thick shawl, and we went down the stairs.
"What we want is a quiet hotel," said I.
"And milk and baby foods, and a spirit lamp and spirit, and a baby's bath," she said.
"We'll get them on the way," said I.
It was quite a nice baby—I and the adventures surrounding its queer adoption brought romance to a man and woman.
We soon found a taxi, and I asked the driver if he could recommend a quiet hotel, and he said that the Sevastopol was the place, because the only Russian thing about it was its name. I told him to drive to it, and on the way I told Miss Burton how comrade Kwei had come to me and repeated his mother's letter.
She said I was quite right to get him away to England, but what did his mother mean by asking me to give him the axe when he was grown up. I said I couldn't think, unless it was some Chinese custom; and if it was, they'd tell us all about it at the British Museum. Then I gave her one of the fifty-dollar notes, and we stopped at a dairy and a couple of stores, and she bought comrade Kwei's food and outfit and bath.
I took a small suite at the hotel, two bedrooms and a sitting-room. The less I was seen with comrade Kwei the better, and when I had settled her and him in them and lighted the spirit lamp, I went off to book our passage to England. I found that the Carmania was sailing next day. Since it wasn't the time of year when people are going Europe way, I got, after a bit of a wrestle, two adjacent cabins for a hundred and fifty dollars apiece. I wanted to get home with all the money I could, for there was the matter of Aunt Caroline.
When I came back Miss Burton came out of the bedroom, looking a trifle excited, and said: "I've found the axe! And it is an axe! Come and look at it."
I found comrade Kwei, still sleeping soundly, on the bed. She pointed to a silk cord round his neck, then pulled gently from under his frock a small green axe-head, rather more than an inch long and nearly an inch broad, of a lovely transparent green stone with kind of green fires in its depths, and on it were carved three Chinese characters.
"I know what that is," I said. "It's a celt. The governor collects them by the hundred—the cheap kind—flint and what not—and it's jade."
"That's what I thought at first," she said. "But the finest jade hasn't those fires in its depths. It's an emerald, and it must be worth thousands."
"My hat! An emerald! Then I am glad I got comrade Kwei away at once. No wonder his step-brothers were in a hurry to get him back. If that's what they're after, they'll never rest till they get on the track of it, and they're persistent lads. All the same, they're never going to get it."
She looked at me rather hard and said: "I don't believe they ever will." And she pushed the celt back under comrade Kwei's frock.
WE dined in the sitting-room, and talked about ourselves and New York. She had done exactly what I had done, come out to New York to make a small fortune and found that she was hidden by the crowd. Her family had been as despondent as mine. I told her about mine; in fact. I was quite open with her.
"You'll get very little butcher's meat at Easingwold," I said. "It doesn't run to it. Poultry, game, rabbits, and trout are what we live on because we, so to speak, grow them all. But unless a pig is killed for purposes of bacon, there's next to no butcher's meat. The governor ran the home farm himself for years; but he couldn't make a go of it, so now it's let, and we've only cows."
"I don't mind that. I don't like butcher's meat—much."
"Wait till you have to do without it," said I.
WE were drinking our coffee when there came a quiet howl from the next room, and she made a dash for comrade Kwei. About a quarter of an hour later she brought him to keep me company, and he lay on her lap and thought deeply. I had been quite right about his eyes; he looked as if he was ninety-three and knew everything. But there was nothing stand-offish about him. He'd hold on to your little finger and try to get it into his mouth, and now and then he'd smile at you affably. Then he went to sleep and was put to bed. and we went on talking till it was time for us to go to bed too.
I AWOKE jolly cheerful—no more making stabs at Fortune in a dry country, but hey for the land where you could buy a drink and know what you were drinking! The New York Times came with the breakfast, and I took a quick look at the advertisements—not those about jobs—and there it was:—
"LOST. Chinese baby. Yesterday, near Washington Square. 10,000 dollars reward, with axe. Box 1142."
Miss Burton came in, and I read it out to her.
"Well, it's all right so far," she said. "Nobody has seen us with a Chinese baby, for no one has seen Kwei's face.
"No. But that taxi-driver saw me with a baby in a Chinese shawl, and in the neighbourhood of Washington Square. He can take them as far as your lodging. There the trail stops. But it won't be easy to keep the comrade dark on the steamer, with a lot of women about, and some of the passengers will have read this ad."
"It won't. But it's got to be done."
"It has. And what we want now is a wedding ring, for I booked your passage as Mrs. S. Burton."
"Goodness! Whatever would the family say?" she said. "But it was best. I suppose I had a Chinese husband."
"Comrade Wu—Wu Burton—an American citizen," I said.
AFTER breakfast we made a bee-line for the "Carmania," only pausing on the way to buy a red rolled-gold wedding ring. I wanted to put it on her finger, but she wouldn't let me. We lay low till the steamer started, then went on deck and found an out-of-the way corner for our deck-chairs. I found the passage much pleasanter than the passage out, for we had to stick together to stave people off comrade Kwei, and when he was awake we had to amuse him, and in the evening we danced a lot, going to her cabin every ten minutes to make sure that he was asleep. He was a good sleeper, was comrade Kwei. We always found plenty to talk about, for she had lived in the country—her father was a retired Major-General—since she was ten.
THEN, on the fourth evening, I got a jolt. We were taking a quiet stroll, with the comrade asleep on Miss Burton's arm, and stopped to look down at the second-class passengers. A steward came out of the companion-way of their saloon and glanced up at us and stopped short and stared.
It was the Chinaman who had tossed comrade Kwei up to me.
We just stared at one another. He didn't nod, and I didn't nod. Then he turned and went along the deck, leaving me uncomfortable. I had not expected to see him again, and I hadn't wanted to see him again, and now that I did see him again I didn't like him. There was not nearly so much of the faithful servant about his face, in repose, as I could have wished, and I didn't like the way in which he looked at us.
"Why ever did that Chinaman stare at us like that?" said Miss Burton in a startled voice.
"It's the beggar who tossed comrade Kwei up to me." said I.
"That's a nuisance," she said, seriously
"It is," said I. "I don't like his face, or the way he looked at us. I've got a notion, though I've precious little to go upon, that he didn't know comrade Kwei had that celt, and now he does—having seen that ad., I mean. But, mind you, I've nothing to go upon but the way he looked at us."
"And how much more do you want?" she said, and her grey eyes sparkled queerly.
"Then the trouble we took to get comrade Kwei away from New York without anyone knowing has been wasted." said I, a bit peeved. "Confound that celt! I feel in my bones we're going to have trouble about it. But we've got to keep it safe for comrade Kwei."
We went down to her cabin; she took the celt from comrade Kwei's neck and put it in a small cardboard box and wrapped it up, and I took it to the purser, and he sealed it up and put it in the ship's strongroom. We felt easier in mind about it.
WE did right in losing no time about that, for when she came to dinner the next night Miss Burton told me that she was absolutely certain that while we were on deck that afternoon her cabin had been searched; and I believe that the next afternoon mine was searched. Two or three things had not been put back exactly as I left them, and I had noticed carefully how I left them in order to know. It really did look as if my guess had been right that the Chinaman had not known about the celt when he handed over Kwei, but knew now.
I made a point of often taking a look down to the second-class deck, but I never saw him about it. But I did see two other Chinese stewards at different times, so there might be a gang of them.
This business seemed to make Miss Burton and me even friendlier—closer allies, so to speak—and I got into the way of calling her comrade Sarah, and she called me comrade Joss, for she quite saw my point that anyone who had hunted a job in New York for months would turn into a Red. But soon we dropped the comrade part.
TWO days from Southampton I saw my Chinaman again, and I saw him come out of the Marconi room. He scuttled away when he saw me, as if he would rather not have a word with me. I thought it uncommonly suspicious, and watched him go down to the second-class. Then I went into the Marconi room.
"I suppose there's a strict rule about not telling me," I said to the operator, a bright and pleasant lad. "But this is a serious business. That Chinaman is out to rob a baby, and it wants stopping, or I wouldn't ask you. Did he cable about the axe to England or the States?"
He looked at me and hesitated, considering; then he said: "The rule is very strict, Mr. Featherstonehaugh. But I don't mind telling you that no Chinaman has telegraphed to the States this voyage."
I thanked him warmly and came away, thinking briskly. The Chinaman had probably cabled to London for reinforcements. I went back and cabled to Bill Throgmorton to meet the Carmania at Southampton with his Austro-Daimler. I didn't want any frisking on the way to London Town.
AT Southampton comrade Kwei's Chinaman and three more left the "Carmania" just in front of us, and they were not far from us in the Custom House, though none of them seemed to see us, and they went out of it just in front of us, and there three Chinese friends met them. The seven of them looked as ugly a gang of thugs as you could wish to see. But there also was Bill Throgmorton and the Austro-Daimler, and in about half a minute I had introduced Sarah, and we were moving off. Then the Chinamen did see us, quite distinctly. They stood still and glared, jabbering furiously. I thought it quite likely that they wouldn't see us again for quite a while.
I explained the business to Bill, as much of it as I wanted, and he drove us to Grantham. My hat! It was ripping to be in the English country again, and it was a ripping drive. We stayed the night at Grantham, and next morning took the train to York. From York I took a taxi to the Hall, and we reached it in plenty of time for lunch.
STRENSALL opened the door and jumped at the sight of me. Then he grinned and said: "Good morning, Mr. Jocelyn. I knew you'd be coming home one day this week. His lordship will be pleased to see you."
Strensall always knows everything; but we humour him, for he is the best butler in Yorkshire, and about a hundred years old.
"How are you, Strensall? I knew I should find you not looking a day older," said I. "This is Miss Burton, my secretary, and this is a young Chinese friend I'm taking care of. What they will want will be the sunniest bedroom and sitting-room in the West wing, and they will want them now, for comrade Kwei wants to sleep."
"They shall be ready in ten minutes, sir," said Strensall, and we went into the hall.
My young sister Alicia was coming down the stairs, and she came down them quicker at the sight of us, and sprang upon me and kissed me. I introduced her to Sarah. But a minute later she went up the stairs, yelling: "Joss has come home, Aunt Caroline! And he isn't destitute at all, but he's brought such a pretty secretary and the loveliest Chinese baby you ever saw with him!"
I put Sarah into an easy-chair and went into the library, which the governor has turned into a museum, and there I found him wallowing in arrow-heads. He woke up at the sight of me; and we were pleased to see one another. He told me that they had missed me a lot, that the place did not run as smoothly when I wasn't about, looking after things, and it was selfish, but he was glad that I hadn't made a success of it in New York.
"But I haven't done so badly," I said. "I've brought back a secretary and a Chinese baby and a couple of thousand dollars."
That brought him into the hall quite quickly, and I introduced him to Sarah, and I saw at once that he liked her, and, of course, she liked him. Then Aunt Caroline came downstairs with Alicia. What we do with Aunt Caroline is bear. We wish she would live somewhere else, but she won't. She is enormously rich and enormously stingy, and the worst grumbler in Yorkshire, and in her usual cross-grained way she was up-stage with Sarah and sniffed at comrade Kwei.
Then Tollerton sauntered in on his crutches. I never came across anyone else who could get the effect of sauntering on crutches, but Tollerton is always tremendously it, and I'm not sure that, though he was so dreadfully smashed up in the war, he is not even more it than ever. But I'm afraid he won't live to be Earl of Easingwold, poor chap, which is what keeps me tied to the place, except for a few months at a time, like that shot at getting rich quickly in New York. He was as pleased as the governor to see me back, and took to Sarah and comrade Kwei at once.
Then Strensall came to say that Miss Burton's rooms were ready, and Alicia insisted on carrying Kwei up to them.
I stayed and told the others about New York, and how I hadn't found a job to get rich in.
Then I handed the jolt I'd been carrying about with me to Aunt Caroline; I said: "So I've come back to buy the bee farm I've always wanted, with the money Aunt Caroline promised me."
"What money?" snapped Aunt Caroline.
"Well, when I was starting you were so certain that I was going to return destitute and in rags that you said you would cheerfully give me three times whatever I brought back above sixpence. Here's the sixpence, and here's a fiver and four Bradburys and two thousand-dollar notes. So you owe me twenty-seven pounds and six thousand dollars, which is twelve hundred guineas. And I'll put up a bee farm under the edge of the wold and sell the best honey in England by the ton."
It was a jolt all right; Aunt Caroline gasped. But when she had got breath enough to say she'd been joking, the governor and Tollerton were down on her like a cart-load of bricks, and in the end she gave in. It has done her a world of good parting with that twelve hundred, made her more civil.
Then Sarah and Alicia came down, and we went in to lunch, and there was no butcher's meat.
AFTER lunch I showed the governor the emerald celt, and it fairly startled him. He said that it might be a symbol or it might be a talisman, or it might be connected with one of the obscure cults which have lived on under the official religions of China, but, anyhow, it was worth a good many thousand pounds, and the best place for it was the vaults of Coutts' till the baby grew up. He would make inquiries about it cautiously, next time he went to London. I handed it over to him. It would be best that it should be in Coutts' when the Chinamen came to Easingwold. I saw no chance of their not coming.
WHEN I woke up next morning and heard only the sounds of the country, cattle lowing and sheep bleating away in the fields, and the doves cooing in the cedars in the gar-dens, and the peacocks screaming, my expedition to New York seemed no more than a dream—all except the end of it with Sarah and comrade Kwei in it. I settled down to the old life without an effort.
But about five days later Sarah said, when we were from walking in the garden after dinner: "Now that I've got Kwei comfortably settled at Easingwold, I suppose I can be getting home."
"You want a holiday already?" I said, pretty severely.
"A holiday?" she said.
"Well, the agreement was that you should be my secretary for a year if I paid your passage to England. Agreements have to be kept, and now that I'm a capitalist it's my job to exact my pound of flesh and grind the faces of the poor."
"I can see you doing it," she said, grinning at me.
"You will see me grinding this one," said I.
"But you don't want a secretary," she said.
"I do want a secretary. Did you ever hear of anyone running a bee farm without a secretary? And, anyhow, I've got a secretary, and I'm going to keep it. I've got into the way of having one, and I can't do without it. You know perfectly well I can't."
"I don't," she said
"Well, it's early yet, but you'll learn that it is so," said I, being diplomatic, for I didn't want to rush things.
She said nothing for about half a minute; she seemed to be thinking; then she said: "Oh, well, it's a good thing I didn't take any autumn and winter frocks with me to New York; but by next spring I shall be going about in rags."
"A salary will be arranged," said I, in a lofty way.
"It won't! It wasn't in the bargain! And if you think I'm going to take a salary for doing nothing at all, you're wrong!" she said, flaring up rather.
"There will be plenty to do, I said. "I shall be handling most of the governor's correspondence, and there'll be letters and letters about all kinds of things connected with the bee farm. You'll have heaps to do."
That seemed to satisfy her, for she calmed down and said no more about going.
She was uncommonly useful, for so many more letters got written, letters about the estate; and she fitted into our life at the Hall perfectly. Also she kept possession of comrade Kwei, though I wanted to get him a nurse and looked after him. He saw a lot of country life and got plenty of fresh air, because when I drove about the estate, keeping tenants up to the mark or looking into their complaints, or went fishing or shooting, I took him with me—at least, she brought him. It was surprising the amount of ground she could cover with comrade Kwei on her hip and how quickly she learnt to throw a fly. Alicia, who is nearly as good a fisherman and shot as I am, often came with us, but I thought myself that we got on better alone.
Of course, Aunt Caroline did not make herself pleasant to Sarah, but then she did not know how, and one day she descended on me in the gun-room, and said: "I want to speak to you seriously, Jocelyn. You've got to bear in mind that you'll be Earl of Easingwold one of these days."
"Not for at least seven thousand of them. So we won't start worrying about that." said I.
"But you must remember your responsibilities, and I feel it my duty to warn you. That girl, Miss Burton, is setting her cap at you," she went on, with a sour face and a voice like vinegar.
"It's very good of you, Aunt Caroline. But you're wrong," I said. "I'm setting my cap at her; and we'll let it go at that."
There was rather a fuss; but we let it go at that.
THEN the governor went up to London and took the emerald celt with him. He left it at Coutts' and came back rather uneasy about it. He had shown it to an expert in Chinese things who had only been able to tell him that, from the style of the carving, he believed it to be Middle Ming, about the end of the fifteenth century. Without telling him that it was in England, that expert had made inquiries about it of two of the leading London Chinese, and they had seemed immensely astonished that a European should ever have heard of it. In fact, they gave him the impression that it was something very important indeed, and that they were very much annoyed that he should have heard about it. So it seemed more unlikely than ever that I should be allowed to keep it till comrade Kwei's twenty-first birthday without a struggle, or perhaps two. I might have to deal with the London Chinamen first and the comrade's step-brothers afterwards, or with both combined. But it would be some time before the New York Chinamen could take a hand in the game.
THE weeks ran on, but nothing happened till the last Thursday in September, and then things began to move rather suddenly. On Thursday, from eleven till six, the historic parts of the Hall are open to visitors, and a confounded nuisance they are. But we have to let people see it, and we stick them; and, of course, three or four thousand half-crowns a year come in useful for repairs.
After lunch on that Thursday, in the nursery in the West wing, helping Sarah amuse the comrade, we saw one of the large cars from Central Station Hotel at York coming up the drive, full of visitors. There was, sitting beside the driver, a large yellow Chinaman. The trophy hunt was going to begin.
I said nothing to Sarah. Why worry her? I went to the hall and told Strensall to keep an eye on the Chinaman and see that he did not stray from the party. Then I went back to Sarah and suggested that we should try to catch a dish of trout for dinner, and we went.
The stream comes down from the wold, and the green pool, which we fished, is half-way up the slope at the north-western corner of the home wood, and there is a clear view down into the gardens from it. I kept an eye on them, and in about three-quarters of an hour I saw a figure come out of the door at the end of the east wing. It was the big Chinaman. He moved about uncommonly quickly, taking cover wherever there was any, and I tumbled to it that he was making a careful reconnaissance of the house and gardens.
I stood watching him, not thinking of Sarah, when she suddenly said from behind me: "What's that fat man doing in the gardens?"
"I was just wondering," I said, quietly.
"Why, it's a Chinaman!" she said.
I tried to persuade her that it wasn't, but she wouldn't have it, and she was a good deal upset about it, more upset than I had expected; but she certainly had grown tremendously fond of comrade Kwei. I told her that it was the celt they were after, not the comrade, but she said that their only way of getting the celt was to get the comrade, and then I should have no right to it, and they could make me hand it over. There was a lot in that.
We did not go back to the Hall till we saw the car full of visitors leave, the big Chinaman again sitting beside the driver. Strensall was uncommonly peeved about the Chinaman's slipping away, but for the first half hour the beggar had been the life of the party, in the forefront and asking all the questions, and then he wasn't there. When the others came out of the Hall they found him sitting in the car, talking to the driver. A cool beggar.
We held a council of war that evening and decided that the Chinaman's examining the house and gardens meant that they were going to break in one night and try to get away with Kwei, and probably the celt as well. It did not look an easy job. So we transferred Sarah and the comrade to Henry VIII's bedroom above the great hall, because we all slept in bedrooms round it. Also I told the keepers and the gardeners and the shepherds on the wold to keep their eyes open for Chinamen, especially at night, so that all the countryside would be on the lookout for them. I could not see how, unless they made an attack in force, they could find out where Kwei was sleeping. Also I arranged that the York police should let me know if any Chinamen came to York.
Nothing happened; no Chinamen appeared. Then, five days later. Alicia came in to tea one afternoon, looking rather startled. Sarah saw it, and asked her what had happened.
"Oh, I had rather a jar. Hawkins told me that there were a couple of coveys of partridges in the long meadow, and I went down to try to get a brace. I couldn't get near them, and gave it up, and on my way back, in the middle of the home wood, I heard something move on my right, and looked round and saw a yellow face staring at me round the trunk of a large elm about thirty yards in, and when it saw I saw it, it vanished. I was glad I had my gun with me, I can tell you."
"All imagination. Your head's full of Chinamen, and you'll be seeing them everywhere," said Aunt Caroline, instantly.
But I did not agree with her; Alicia is only fourteen, but she is level-headed enough and has no nerves. But how had a Chinaman got into the home wood? Where had he come from and how? Not from York and not by train, or I should have heard about it. But nowadays it is so much easier to get about unobserved; a motor car might have brought him from Leeds and dropped him, and be coming back for him.
I told Hawkins that there was a Chinaman in the home wood, but he would not believe it. But the home wood is a couple of miles long, running up to the edge of the wold, and a mile across, and here and there an acre or so is pathless. After dinner that night I went down to it myself and slipped quietly into it, and moved quietly along the edge of it nearest the Hall.
The light of the harvest moon was almost as bright as day. I saw nothing and heard nothing till I had turned and was coming back. I came to one of the broad drives that run right through the wood and stopped and looked down it. About a hundred yards down I saw two rabbits bolt across it, as if they were scared badly. It might have been a stoat, but I waited. Then two men ran quickly across it. They were short, slim men, much too small to be any of the keepers. There was more than one Chinaman in the home wood.
But even then I did not tumble to what they were really up to, and I slept that night with my bedroom door open and my automatic under my pillow. Nothing happened.
I SPENT most of the next morning and afternoon arranging a grand search of the home wood. I got together nearly a hundred men, chiefly tenants and farm labourers, to meet on the wold at the top of the wood at seven in the morning to sweep down the length of the wold and drive the Chinamen down to the road that runs to Easingwold along the bottom of it. There a dozen men would be posted to catch them. It would be worth ten pounds' worth of beer.
After tea Sarah and I went up to the stream for trout; Alicia came with us as far as the stream, and went on to shoot rabbits. We fished the green pool. Sarah carrying comrade Kwei comfortably on her left hip as she threw the fly. Like a fool, without thinking, I moved on up the stream, leaving her at the green pool. I had gone about seventy yards up it, when there came a scream from Sarah.
Then a loud cry: "Joss! The Chinamen!"
I started; but it was no ground to sprint on—very rough.
I heard her cry out and say: "You brute!" And then I came a cropper.
By the time I had picked myself up and reached her twenty seconds must have elapsed. She was picking herself up and holding her left wrist.
"The brute twisted it and snatched Kwei from me!" she said. "Come on!" and she started to run, sobbing.
I ran with her, getting back my breath from the cropper. The path ran twisting between tall bushes; the Chinamen were out of sight. They would get into the wood well ahead of us, and there'd be no finding them. Their car might be on any of three roads, waiting for them. It looked pretty hopeless.
Then Alicia's gun banged twice about two hundred yards ahead, and a curious squealing broke out.
"What the devil?" I said, and sprinted ahead.
I bucketed round a corner and nearly ran into Alicia and knocked her down. She had the comrade on her right hip, and her gun in her left hand, and she was smiling. I pulled up, and she stopped smiling.
"I gave them fifty yards before I peppered them. I did really, Joss—quite fifty yards," she said quickly and very earnestly; and I knew quite well that she hadn't given anyone forty yards before she peppered them—thirty at the outside.
"Peppered who?" I said.
"The two Chinamen. I heard Sarah scream, and then I saw them coming before they saw me, and I stepped into the bushes and let them run past me, and stepped out and gave them a good fifty yards before I peppered them. Then, while they were busy squealing, I ran and picked up the comrade and came away with him."
"Splendid!" I said, and I examined the comrade carefully.
He certainly wasn't hurt, and he seemed more thoughtful than startled, and tried to get my finger into his mouth.
Sarah came up panting and very white, and gave a little cry at the sight of the comrade, and almost snatched him from Alicia, and fairly nuzzled him and cried with relief. I told her and Alicia to get back to the Hall and send the gardeners and some bandages, and took Alicia's gun and went on to take a look at the Chinamen. They were about a hundred yards down the path and had stopped squealing, but when I came up to them they were looking uncommonly sick and sorry for themselves, much too sorry to put up any fight when I took their automatics from them. One of them was one of comrade Kwei's step-brothers. Then I had a look at their calves. As I thought, Alicia had given them no forty yards before she peppered them.
I talked to them about the seriousness of kidnapping a child in a civilized country, and said I hoped that seven years' penal servitude would teach them not to twist English girls' wrists. Then Alicia and the gardeners came, and we bandaged their calves and carried them back to the Hall and put them to bed. I went up to the nursery and found Sarah recovered and the comrade making a hearty meal. Her wrist was hurting her a good deal, and when Dr. Horton came I made him examine it before he went to the Chinamen. He found that the brute had broken one of the metacarpal bones, and bound it up. He was over an hour picking the pellets from the Chinamen's calves, for both of them were carrying about the best part of a charge of shot. He said that they'd walk stiffly for many a long day.
FIVE days went by, and I began to wonder what Kwei's other step-brothers were doing. Then on the afternoon of the sixth day Strensall came up to the nursery to tell me that a Chinaman had called to see me. I went down to the blue drawing-room, and there was our fat friend who had come with the visitors.
He was soapy enough when he did get started, and he spoke English very well. It seemed that there had been what he called an unfortunate misapprehension. Comrade Kwei's step-brothers were noble fellows, and they had wanted very badly to have their little brother back at home, and they still wanted him. I told him that they didn't live in a healthy house, and they could go on wanting him till the cows came home. Then he said that it was not really their little brother that they wanted, but his little jade axe, and he had come to make an agreement about it and his two wounded countrymen. I told him that, as soon as they were well enough to travel, his two wounded countrymen were going to take a short journey to York Gaol, and he could make an agreement with the police.
He got flustered and argued and begged. But I stuck to it. The brutes had twisted Sarah's wrist, and to gaol they should go. Then he talked about compensating her. I had plenty of time to consider things while he talked away, and I saw pretty clearly that life would be more than a bit tiresome with a gang of greedy and revengeful Chinamen always on the track of comrade Kwei, and nearly sure to get him in the end, and that money in the hand is better than an emerald celt in the bank, especially when there are doubts about the ownership of the emerald celt. So I grew a bit less peeved and asked what they wanted to pay for the emerald, and he said.
"Three thousand pounds."
I laughed a good loud scornful laugh. What is three thousand to Chinamen in Wetzler suitings? And we argued it out till he agreed to pay seven thousand for the emerald and two thousand compensation to Sarah. He went away very respectful indeed.
I told the governor and Tollington, and they both agreed that I had done the best thing for the comrade, since the beggars knew that he had the emerald.
I caught the next London express at York and got the emerald celt from the bank first thing next morning and was back at the Hall at half-past two. At three o'clock my stout friend—I never asked his name—arrived in a large car with the nine thousand pounds in notes, and I handed over the emerald celt and the peppered Chinamen to him, and was jolly glad to see the last of them.
I locked the comrade's seven thousand in the governor's safe and went up to the nursery with the two thousand for Sarah, and told her what I had done. She was immensely surprised and pleased.
Then, when she had counted the notes and stroked them and made them crinkle, she said: "But you're the only one who doesn't get anything out of it."
"Oh, yes, I do." I said. "I get you. I'm going to marry you for your money."
She blushed and laughed and said: "But I've always wanted to be married for myself!"
"And there'll be something doing in that way, too, if you notice very carefully," I said, and grabbed her and tried to show her.
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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