CHAPTER X
Ah Cum was himself puzzled. Why hadn't he admitted that herecognized the photograph? What instinct had impelled him swiftlyto assume his Oriental mask?
"Why?" asked O'Higgins. "What's the particular dope?"
"If I told you, you would laugh," answered Ah Cum, gravely.
"No; I don't think I'd laugh. You never saw him before yesterday.Why should you want to shield him?"
"I really don't know."
"Because he said he was a Yale man?"
"That might be it."
"Treated you like a white man there, did they?"
"Like a gentleman."
"All right. I had that coming. I didn't think. But, holy smoke!--theYale spirit in...."
"A Chinaman. I wonder. I spent many happy days there. Perhaps itwas the recollection of those happy days. You are a detective?"
"Yes. I have come thirteen thousand miles for this young fellow;I'm ready to go galloping thirteen thousand more."
"You have extradition papers?"
"What sort of a detective do you think I am?" countered O'Higgins.
"Then his case is hopeless."
"Absolutely."
"I'm sorry. He does not look the criminal."
"That's the way it goes. You never can tell." There was a pause."They tell me over here that the average Chinaman is honest."
Ah Cum shrugged. "Yes?"
"And that when they give their word, they never break it."O'Higgins had an idea in regard to Ah Cum.
"Your tone suggests something marvellous in the fact," replied AhCum, ironically. "Why shouldn't a Chinaman be honest? Ah, yes; Iknow. Most of you Americans pattern all Chinese upon those who filla little corner in New York. In fiction you make the Chinesesecretive, criminal, and terrible--or comic. I am an educatedChinese, and I resent the imputations against my race. YouAmericans laugh at our custom of honouring our ancestors, ourmany-times great grandfathers. On the other hand, you seldom revereyour immediate grandfather, unless he has promised to leave you somemoney."
"Bull's eye!" piped O'Higgins.
"Of course, there is a criminal element, but the percentage is nolarger than that in America or Europe. Why don't you try to findout how the every-day Chinese lives, how he treats his family, whathis normal habits are, his hopes, his ambitions? Why don't you cometo China as I went to America--with an open mind?"
"You're on," said O'Higgins, briskly. "I'll engage you for fourdays. To-day is for the sights; the other three days--lessons.How's that strike you?"
"Very well, sir. At least I can give you a glimmer." A smile brokethe set of Ah Cum's lips. "I'll take you into a Chinese home. Weare very poor, but manage to squeeze a little happiness out of eachday."
"And I promise that all you tell me and show me will sink in,"replied O'Higgins, frankly interested. "I'm a detective; my earsand eyes have been trained to absorb all I see and all I hear. WhenI absorb a fact, my brain weighs the fact carefully and stores itaway. You fooled me this morning; but I overheard two old maidstalking about you and the young man."
"What has he done?"
"What did he have to drink over here last night?"
"Not even water. No doubt he has been drinking for days withouteating substantially, and his heart gave out."
"What happened?"
Ah Cum recounted the story of the sing-song girl. "I had to give into him. You know how stubborn they get."
"Surest thing you know. Bought the freedom of a sing-song girl; andall the while you knew you'd have to tote the girl back. But theYale spirit!"
Ah Cum laughed.
"I've got a proposition to make," said O'Higgins.
"So long as it is open and above board."
"It's that, but it interferes with the college spirit stuff. Woulda hundred dollars interest you?"
"Very much, if I can earn it without offending my conscience."
"It won't. Here goes. I've come all these miles for this youngfellow; but I don't cotton to the idea of lallygagging four weeksin this burg. I've an idea it'll be that long before the chap getsup. My proposition is for you to keep an eye on him, and the momenthe puts on his clothes to send me a telegram, care of the Hong-KongHotel. Understand me. Double-crossing wouldn't do any good. For allyou might know, I might have someone watching you. This time hecouldn't get far. He will have to return to Hong-Kong."
"Not necessarily. There is a railroad."
"He won't be taking that. The only safe place for him is at sea;and if he had kept to the sea, I shouldn't have found him soeasily. Well, what about it?"
"I accept."
"As an honest Chinaman?"--taking out the offensiveness of the queryby smiling.
"As an honest Chinaman."
O'Higgins produced his wallet. "Fifty now and fifty when I return."
"Agreed. Here are the jade carvers. Would you like to see them atwork?"
"Lead on, Macduff!"
Ah Cum raised the skirt of his fluttering blue silk robe and storedthe bill away in a trouser wallet. It was the beginning and the endof the transaction. When he finally telegraphed his startlinginformation to Hong-Kong, it was too late for O'Higgins to act. Thequarry had passed out into the open sea.
* * * * *
From the comatose state, Spurlock passed into that of the babblingfever; but that guarding instinct which is called subconsciousnessheld a stout leash on his secret. He uttered one word over andover, monotonously:
"Fool! ... Fool!"
But invariably the touch of Ruth's hand quieted him, and his headwould cease to roll from side to side. He hung precariously on theragged edge, but he hung there. Three times he uttered a phrase:
"A djinn in a blue-serge coat!"
And each time he would follow it with a chuckle--the chuckle of asoul in damnation.
Neither the American Express nor Cook's had received mail forHoward Taber; he was not on either list. This was irregular. A manmight be without relatives, but certainly he would not be withoutfriends, that is to say, without letters. The affair was thick withsinister suggestions. And yet, the doctor recalled an expression ofthe girl's: that it was not a dissipated face, only troubled.
The whole affair interested him deeply. That was one of thecompensations for having consigned himself to this part of theworld. Over here, there was generally some unusual twist to a case.He would pull this young fellow back; but later he knew that hewould have to fight the boy's lack of will to live. When herecovered his mental faculties, he would lie there, neutral; theycould save him or let him die, as they pleased; and the doctor knewthat he would wear himself out forcing his own will to live intothis neutrality. And probably the girl would wear herself out, too.
To fight inertia on the one hand and to study this queer girl onthe other. Any financial return was inconsiderable against thepromise of this psychological treat. The girl was like somenorth-country woodland pool, penetrated by a single shaft ofsunlight--beautifully clear in one spot and mysteriously obscuredelsewhere. She would be elemental; there would be in her somewherethe sleeping tigress. The elemental woman was always close to thecat: as the elemental man was always but a point removed from thewolf.
It was so arranged that Ruth went on duty after breakfast andremained until noon. The afternoon was her own; but from eightuntil midnight she sat beside the patient. At no time did she feelbodily or mental fatigue. Frequently she would doze in her chair;but the slightest movement on the bed aroused her.
At luncheon, on the third day, a thick-set man with a blue jawsmiled across his table at her. She recognized him as the man whohad blundered into the wrong room.
"How is the patient?" he asked.
"He will live," answered Ruth.
"That's fine," said O'Higgins. "I suppose he'll be on his feet anyday now."
"No. It will take at least three weeks."
"Well, so long as he gets on his feet in the end. You're a friendof the young man?"
"If you mean did I know him before he beca
me ill, no."
"Ah." O'Higgins revolved this information about, but no angleemitted light. Basically a kindly man but made cynical and derisiveby sordid contacts, O'Higgins had almost forgotten that there wassuch a thing as unselfishness. The man or woman who did somethingfor nothing always excited his suspicions; they were playing somekind of a game. "You mean you were just sorry for him?"
"As I would be for any human being in pain."
"Uh-huh." For the life of him, O'Higgins could not think ofanything else to say. Just because she was sorry for that youngfool! "Uh-huh," he repeated, rising and bowing as he passed Ruth'stable. He wished he had the time to solve this riddle, for it was ariddle, and four-square besides. Back in the States young women didnot offer to play the Good Samaritan to strange young fools whomJawn D. Barleycorn had sent to the mat for the count of nine:unless the young fool's daddy had a bundle of coin. Maybe the girlwas telling the truth, and then again, maybe she wasn't.
The situation bothered him considerably. Things happened frequentlyover here that wouldn't happen in the States once in a hundredyears. Who could say that the two weren't in collusion? When a chaplike Spurlock jumped the traces, _cherchez la femme_, every time.He hadn't gambled or played the horses or hit the booze back therein little old New York....
"Aw, piffle!" he said, half aloud and rather disgustedly, as hestepped out into the sunshine. "My old coco is disintegrating. I'vebumped into so much of the underside that I can't see clean anymore. No girl with a face like that.... And yet, dang it! I've seen'em just as innocent looking that were prime vipers. Let's get toHong-Kong, James, and hit the high spots while there is time."
He signalled to Ah Cum; and the two of them crossed on foot intothe city.
It was not until the morning of the fifth day that the constantvigil was broken. The patient fell into a natural and refreshingsleep. So Ruth found that for a while her eyes were free. Shetiptoed to the stand and gathered up the manuscripts which shecarried to a chair by the window. Since the discovery of them, shehad been madly eager to read these typewritten tales. Treasurecaves to explore!
All through these trying days she had recurrently wondered whatthis strange young man would have to say that Dickens and Hugo hadnot already said. That was the true marvel of it. No matter howmany books one read, each was different, as each human being wasdifferent. Some had the dignity and the aloofness of a rock in thesea; and others were as the polished pebbles on the sands--one sawthe difference of pebble from pebble only by close scrutiny. Ruth,without suspecting it, had fallen upon a fundamental truth: thateach and every book fitted into the scheme of human moods andintelligence.
Ruth was at that stage where the absorption of facts is great, butwhere the mental digestion is not quite equal to the task. She wasacquiring truths, but in a series of shocks rather than by theprocess of analysis.
There were seven tales in all--short stories--a method ofexpression quite strange to her, after the immense canvases ofDickens and Hugo. When she had finished the first tale, there was asense of disappointment. She had expected a love story; and lovewas totally absent. It was a tale of battle, murder, and suddendeath on the New York waterfront. Sordid; but that was not Ruth'sterm for it; she had no precise commentary to offer.
From time to time she would come upon a line of singular beauty ora paragraph full of haunting music; and these would send herrushing on for something that never happened. Each manuscript waslike the other: the same lovely treatment of an unlovely subject.Abruptly would come the end. It was as if she had come upon thebeautiful marble facade of a fairy palace, was invited to enter,and behind the door--nothing.
She did not realize that she was offering criticisms. The word"criticism" had no concrete meaning to her then; no more than"compromise." Some innate sense of balance told her that somethingwas wrong with these tales. She could not explain in words why theydisappointed her or that she was disappointed.
Two hours had come and gone during this tantalizing occupation. Atthe least, the tales had the ability to make her forget where shewas; which was something in their favour.
"My coat!"
Ruth did not move but stared astonishedly at the patient.
"My coat!" he repeated, his glance burning into hers.
_Distinctive Pictures Corporation. The Ragged Edge._A SCENE FROM THE PHOTOPLAY.]