CHAPTER X
At a small round table in the end of the room over which hung theorchestra balcony, Peter found himself in the presence of two disarminggray eyes, which drank in every detail of his good-looking young face,including the penciled eyebrows.
Miss Vost--Miss Amy Vost--gave him to understand that she was reallygrateful for his hospitality, rushed on to assure him that it was notcustomary for her to meet strange young men as she had met him, andthen frankly asked him what he was doing in China. Every time shethought of him her curiosity seemed to trip over the Japanese kimono.
Influenced by his third glass of Japanese champagne, he almost told herthe truth. He modified it by saying that he was a wireless operator;that he had missed his ship, and that his plans were to linger in Chinafor a while. He liked China. Liked China very much.
Miss Vost caressed the tip of her nose with a small, pink thumb. Shewas not the kind who hesitated.
"You can do me a favor," she said, and halted.
The Philippine orchestra burst into a lilting one-step. Miss Vostarched her eyebrows. Peter arose, and they glided off. It developedthat Miss Vost was well qualified. There was divineness in heryouthful grace; she put her heart into the dance. It seemed probableto Peter Moore that she put her heart into everything she did.
"You spoke about my doing a favor," he suggested, glancing sternly at adark-eyed Eurasian girl who seemed to be trying to divert his attention.
"There is a man in Shanghai I want you to try to find for me--to-night.Last time I saw him--this morning--he was drunk. He was the firstofficer on the steamer that brought me up from Amoy. Perhaps you knowhim. He's only been on the coast a short while. Before that he ran onthe Pacific Mail Line between San Francisco and Panama. His name isMacLaurin, a nice boy. Scotch. But he drinks."
"MacLaurin? I know a man named MacLaurin--Bobbie MacLaurin."
"No!" gasped Miss Vost. "I suppose I ought to make that old remarkabout what a small world it is! Do you know where Bobbie MacLaurin is?"
"No," he murmured. "Why is he drunk?"
"That is a matter," replied Miss Vost, somewhat distantly, "that Iprefer not to discuss. Will you try to find him for me? He threatenedto be--be captain of the river-boat, the _Hankow_, that I leave onto-morrow for Ching-Fu. I'd rather like to know if he intends to carryout his threat. Will you find out, if you can, if he is going to besober enough to make the trip--and let me know?" requested Miss Vost,as the music stopped. "I'd rather he wouldn't, Mr. Moore," she addedquickly. "But I do wish _you_ were going to make the trip. I'd loveto have you!"
The ex-operator of the _Vandalia_ experienced a warm suffusion in thevicinity of his throat. In the next breath he felt genuinely guilty.As he looked deep into the anxious, appealing gray eyes of Miss Vost,he cursed himself for being, or having the tendencies to be, a trifler;and in his estimation a trifler was not far removed from the reptileclass. Yet somehow, damn it, that trip to Ching-Fu on the _Hankow_appealed to him now as a most profitable excursion, for Ching-Fu wasonly a few hundred li from Len Yang.
Something of the doughtiness of a mongoose marching into a den ofmonster cobras characterized Peter Moore's intention to penetrate thestronghold of the cinnabar king. He knew that his chances for enteringLen Yang were absurdly small. Yet the whole of the Chinese Empire wasnot particularly safe for him now. The Gray Dragon had paid him thecompliment of recognizing in him an enemy. He no longer doubtedMinion's warning; the dragon of Len Yang controlled a powerfulorganization. No part of China was safe. If he desired to run awayfrom this very actual danger in which direction could he run?
"_When menaced by danger_," runs an old Chinese proverb, "_go to thevery heart of it; there you will find safety_."
It lacked a few minutes of midnight when Peter entered the Palace barby the bund side. Only a few lights were burning, and the exceedinglylong teak bar--"the longest bar east of Suez"--was adorned by a fewknots of men only. Tobacco smoke was thick in the place, nearlyobscuring the doorway into the hotel lobby.
He scanned the idlers, looking for the cloth of sailormen. His questwas ended. Bobbie MacLaurin was here, disposing of all of the importedScotch whiskey that came convenient to his long and muscular reach.
In a deep and sonorous voice he was pointing out to a group ofuniformed sailors, burdening his point with a club-like forefinger withwhich he pounded on the edge of the teak bar, that while he rarelydrank off duty, he never drank when on. This claim Peter had reason toknow was not untrue.
The wireless operator edged his way to MacLaurin's side, and touchedhis arm, making a whispered remark which the Scotchman evidently didnot comprehend. For MacLaurin wheeled on him, and bestowed upon him ared, glassy, and hotly indignant stare.
Bobbie MacLaurin was, in the language of the sea, a whale of a man.His head seemed unnecessarily large until you began to compare it withhis body; and his body was the despair of uniform manufacturers, whodesire above all things to make a fair percentage of profit. He waslike a living monument, two and a half hundred weight of fighting fleshand bones, which, when all of it went into action, could better becompared to a volcano than to a monument. Otherwise he was anexceedingly amiable young giant.
The redness and hotness of the stare he imposed upon the friend of morethan one adventurous expedition slowly receded, leaving only theglassiness in evidence. Bobbie fidgeted uneasily.
"Damn my hide!" he roared. "Your face is familiar! It is! It is!Where have I seen that face before? Ah! I know now! I had a fightwith you once."
"More than once," corrected Peter Moore, grinning. "The last time wasin Panama. Remember? I tripped you up, after you knocked the wind outof me, and you fell, clothes and all, into the Washington Hotel'sswimming tank."
"Peter Moore!" gasped Bobbie MacLaurin, and Peter Moore was smotheredin log-like arms and the fumes of considerable alcohol.
Extricating himself at length from this monstrous embrace, Peterpermitted himself to be held off at arm's length and be warmly andloquaciously admired.
"My old side-kick of the damn old _San Felipe_!" announced BobbieMacLaurin to the small group of somewhat embarrassed sailors. "Thebest radio man that God ever let live! He can hear a radio signalbefore it's been sent. Can't you, Peter? Boys, take a long look atthe only livin' man who can fight his weight in sea serpents; the onlylivin' man who ever knocked me cold, and got away with it! Boys, takea long, lastin' look, for the pack o' you're goin' out o' that doorinside of ten counts! God bless 'um! Just look at that there Japget-up! Sure as God made big fish to eat the little fellows, PeterMoore's up to some newfangled deviltry, or I'm a lobster!"
"Sh!" warned Peter Moore, conscious that in China the walls, doors,floors, ceilings, windows, even the bartenders, have ears.
"Out with the lot of you!" barked MacLaurin. "There's big businessafoot to-night. We must be alone. Eh, Peter?"
And Peter was convinced that business could not be talked overto-night. Of one thing only did he wish to be certain.
"You're taking the _Hankow_ up-river to-morrow?"
"That I am, Peter!"
"Then we'll take the express for Nanking to-morrow morning."
"Aye--aye! Sir!"
"We'll turn in now. Otherwise you'll look like a wreck when Miss Vostsees you."
"Miss Vost!" exploded MacLaurin. "When did you see Miss Vost?"
"A little while ago, Bob. Shall we turn in now?"
"Miss Vost is why I'm drunk, Peter," said Bobbie MacLaurin sadly.
"So she admitted. To-morrow we'll talk her over, and other importantmatters."
"As you say, Peter. I'm the brawn, but you're the brains of thisteam--as always! The bunks are the order."
When Bobbie MacLaurin's not unmusical snore proceeded from the vastbulk disposed beneath the white bedclothes, Peter Moore again descendedto the lobby, let himself into the street, and hailed a rickshaw.
The mist from the Whang-poo had changed to a slanting rain. The bun
dwas a ditch of clay-like mud. Each street light was a halo unto itself.
He lighted a cigarette, suffered the coolie to draw up the clammyoilskin leg-robe to his waist, and dreamily contemplated the quagmirethat was Shanghai.
The rickshaw crossed the Soochow-Creek bridge and drew up, dripping,under the porte-cochere of the Astor House Hotel, where a majesticIndian door-tender emerged from the shadows, bearing a large, openedumbrella.
Contrary to her promise Miss Vost was not waiting for his message.However, she sent back word by the coolie, that she would dress andcome down, if he desired her to. Peter pondered a moment. A glimpseof Miss Vost at this time of night meant nothing to him. Or was hehungry for that glimpse? Nonsense!
He dashed off a hasty note, sealed it in an envelope, and gave it tothe room-boy to deliver.
He pictured her sleepy surprise as she opened it, and read:
Bobbie seems much put out. We take morning express to Nanking. Try tomake it. We'll have tea, the three of us, at Soochow.
At Soochow! There he was--at it again! A trifler.
"Damn my withered-up sense of honor, anyway!" observed Peter Moore tohimself, as he climbed into the rain-soaked rickshaw.
Peter the Brazen: A Mystery Story of Modern China Page 10