“How tiresome I” ejaculated Mrs. Harris clearly. She was not averse to Sing’s hearing her. “Very well, Millet. Show him in here. And don’t go on any errands yet. I’ll have something to say to you after Sing has left.”
“Very good, madam.” The man departed and a moment later the Chinese entered the room.
He was well dressed for his rote of college student and doubtless among his fellow countrymen would have been rated as a handsome young man.
Louise looked at him without interest, the gulf between their races widened by the difference in their positions.
“Good morning, Sing,” she said. “What is your message?”
“You will excuse—“ he closed the door behind him. “It is for your ear alone.”
“Well,” Louise spoke impatiently, “I am listening.”
“I am come”—Sing’s words burst forth as if they could no longer be controlled—“to offer you my devotion and my aid.”
Louise was not surprised to hear of the devotion. For some time she had suspected that Sing purposely neglected to notify Sam of her approaching visits in order to secure the opportunity for a few words with her. She had not taken this seriously, being used to admiration; had, in fact, been rather amused by it. Now she realized that it might become annoying if not checked.
“Thank you, Sing,” she said coldly. “I have no need for either.”
“That is ignorance that speaks so loudly,” Sing countered, with portentous gravity. “The drum, empty of all save wind, makes the most noise. I come to warn you that my help is indispensable to you and that I shall expect a reward.”
“Indeed?” Louise was now awake to danger—danger of she knew not what; yet she was sure this man would never have ventured on his veiled threat had it not been based on something stable, and weighed her words warily. “One is always ready to reward faithful service suitably.”
“Precisely.” Sing nodded his head up and down, and at once she was irresistibly reminded of a gorgeous Chinese mandarin in porcelain that had stood on her grandmother’s drawing-room console table, and possessed a head which her childish fingers had always yearned to set moving. Up and down, up and down, once started it would continue in motion for quite a long time. She could push it, run out of the room and return later to find it still nodding at her, an expression of amused tolerance on its fat face. Sing’s head, however, had stopped and he was looking at her from beneath his heavy eyelids, looking at her slyly, a—a personal look, she told herself, angrily. “A small reward is enough for a little man.
In my country I am not that. By birth I am important. Also I am now American educated. I shall have even a Ph.D. When I go home, whatever faction I attach myself to will be greatly strengthened. I can exact a large price for my services.”
“For your sake, I am pleased to hear this, Sing; yet I cannot see why you are telling me. If you have a message, let me have it; then go. I am busy.”
“I tell you because I want you to understand certain things before I say more,” he persisted, undaunted by the snub she had administered. “It is difficult for you to appreciate because you are born a barbarian; but what I say are true words. My father is of the old regime. He has wealth beyond your dreams. Houses with many courtyards, of a beauty such as you have never seen, hundreds of servants. Not a small place like this will be mine.” He looked around disparagingly. “When I return to him, there is nothing I may not ask. I am the only son of his number one wife.”
“Then I don’t understand why you stay here.” Louise interjected, impatiently, not believing a word of this bombast, which, however, was entirely true.
“I stayed for two reasons. First, to estimate the worth of American learning. Not so good. Second, because I had seen you, beautiful as a flower of the lotus.”
“I’m sorry, Sing. You force me to tell you that you are impertinent as well as foolish. I am a married woman. I cannot listen to you any longer.” Refraining, out of delicacy, from mentioning the racial obstacle as well, Louise folded up her sewing preparatory to rising and ringing for Millet. “We will forget this, you and I; you need not fear that I will mention it to my uncle.”
“Wait,” Sing extended his hand peremptorily, yet without touching her. “There is more to be said. You are married, yes; but not happily married. Do not trouble to deny this. I heard you tell your uncle.”
“You heard me tell my uncle? You were listening! How dared you?” Louise gasped.
Sing smiled, a very superior smile.
“I listened because it was my need to know. A woman’s heart is like a needle at the bottom of the sea, hard to find. I hoped to learn where yours reposed.”
“But you didn’t !” Louise exclaimed angrily.
“No, I only learned where it was not. That, for the time, is sufficient. It emboldens me to offer you my protection. Do not misunderstand. You can go to your Reno. You may placate any gods you fear; and, when you speak, I will marry you by your rites and by my own. Then we will journey to China, where I promise you you will find yourself a queen, a white camellia in our gardens. I will even promise to take no other wives, although it will be foolish of you to ask it, since it will annoy my honorable parents and the women would all be your humble servants.” The man was painfully in earnest. He endeavored to preserve the impassivity of his countenance, hut it was beyond his power to hide his emotion; and, annoying as it all was, Louise was sorry for him. A woman needs must make excuses for an honest admirer. She wished to show him the futility of further pleas, and the sewing on her lap appeared to offer a way. She shook it out of its folds.
“Look, Sing,” she said, gently. “Here is a reason why you must talk no more of your offer.”
Sing made an impatient gesture with one hand as if brushing aside a cobweb.
“It is not important. If a boy, gladly I shall adopt him. If a girl, there will be room for her in the courtyards of the women. See, I bring the child its first present. A propitious gift of jade to ensure good luck.” He offered it on the palm of his hand, a jade leaf, Chinese in workmanship, set in soft yellow gold.
Louise made no move to take it and he returned it reluctantly to his pocket.
“I’m sorry, Sing. Nothing you can say will make this thing you have in mind possible. I shall not leave my husband now.” She did not trouble to tell him that she loved Ed. This man was her uncle’s servant to her, nothing more. She had not pointed out his menial position out of innate kindliness, and also, perhaps, a certain subconscious dread of angering him was influencing her to curb her tongue.
“If you will not do it of your own free will, there are other ways,” Sing said, menacingly. “But do not let us talk of those. I have a ring for you here. Almost as beautiful as jade.”
He held out toward her Consuela Thorne’s emerald ring. There was no mistaking it.
Louise found herself staring at it, unable to withdraw her eyes. Connie Thorne’s ring, and he had heard her tell Sam she was done with Ed. Then he had been there in the apartment on the night of the murder. He had not gone out to a lecture, as Sam had supposed. She did not stop to find out where he had hidden.
“Did you kill her?” she asked, in a hushed voice.
Sing looked at her in admiration of her restraint.
“Do not fear for me. She was quite dead before I took the ring. I thought it would please you and would be supremely beautiful on your lily hand.”
“If you didn’t kill her yourself, at least you know who did.”
“Sure I know.” Sing returned, with a surprisingly American intonation, then added, entirely Chinese again: “The wise man is accounted wise because of the things he does not tell.”
“You must go to my uncle at once. Since he is the Police Commissioner——”
“I know,” Sing interposed, significantly. “And why do you assume that he does not also know? That is what I meant when I said that if you would not do it of your own free will, there were other ways.”
Louise, never a meek person,
was indignant at this implication.
“Do you want me to think that my uncle knows about this murder and is concealing his knowledge? I don’t believe it.”
“Had he not been the Police Commissioner, your honorable uncle would himself have been in a cell before now. Understand, without my testimony it is doubtful if they could convict him; but what is to prevent my giving it?”
“That ring in your hand,” Louise said bravely, even while her fear of the Chinese was mounting.
Sing shook his head, a decided negative.
“I grant you that rogues hang together in fear of hanging separately, hut I am not implicated and the ring is evidence. Found in the Commissioner’s pocket, it is on its way to Inspector Dolan—unless you will it otherwise.”
“I?” Louise gasped, seeing only too clearly where this remark pointed.
“You!” Sing returned, emphatically. “Like in the pictures, you can nobly save him. Who knows, perhaps it was not his jealousy that prompted the deed. Perhaps your complaints did not fall on deaf ears—for you he would risk much.” He paused to give this suggestion time to sink in, then went on mercilessly: “And this is not the only evidence. I have the cocktail glass with traces of Mrs. Thorne’s brilliant lip rouge. I have a small evening hag of hers containing powder, lip-stick, a gold cigarette case and lighter, initialed, and a handkerchief unmarked. I have the shirt that Commissioner Mellon came home in that night, a shirt with a laundry mark that is not his. A shirt of a make he never wore and certainly not the one I put studs in late that afternoon. I ask you, why did he have to change his shirt?” (He had not mentioned a certain white mask, of which he had possessed himself, not seeing where it strengthened his present accusation.)
“Something might have stained it,” Louise said, weakly. This man was a devil, a clever devil. He was building up a case against Sam.
“Doubtless something did,” Sing returned significantly, and did not trouble to answer when she said:
“I meant wine or food.” She dared not now acknowledge that the change had been made in her apartment. She could not meet the challenge to produce the shirt Sam had left behind.
“Such, then, is part of the evidence to connect the honorable Commissioner with the crime. There is also the fact that he has concealed Mrs. Thorne’s visit to his rooms.”
Sing pointed out almost unctuously. “Do you wish I should present it and more? I doubt it.”
She had been right in judging the Chinese to be dangerous. She did not—could not—no matter what Sing said, picture Sam as guilty. But even if he were, her first thought must be to protect him.
“Sing,” she began, “you must know that what you have just told me is a frightful shock to me. I am very fond of my uncle. I must have time to think—to accustom myself to this situation. The mere going away into a world that is known to you but is as strange to me as one of the most distant stars, would need careful consideration. When you saw me in an environment so alien to all I am accustomed to, your liking for me might cool. I ask you, then, for time.”
“How long?” Sing demanded, impetuously.
“I don’t know—not very long.”
“And you will give me your word not to consult Mr. Mellon?”
Consult Sam? Least of all would she confide in him if she were fated to sacrifice herself for his sake.
“I shall tell him nothing,” she said firmly. And believing her, Sing at last consented to take his leave.
Left to herself, Louise tried to review the situation dispassionately when it was difficult even to accept the fact that it was real. That her uncle’s servant had dared to bring such an accusation against his master. That he had not feared to approach her with such a proposition! It was preposterous. Utterly revolting. She loved Ed and was to be the mother of his child. The mere thought of another man in her life nauseated her. She would kill herself be-for she would submit.
And yet what good would that do? The result would be the same as if she refused to listen to him. Sing would be left free to destroy Sam.
She got up and walked swiftly up and down the room, deep in thought, until suddenly she stopped and struck her palms together sharply.
Of course Sing wished her to pledge herself not to tell Sam! Inspector Dolan had said that when they recovered the emerald ring they would have found the murderer as well.
Well, she knew where the ring was to he found, and the murderer was not Sam. Sing had said, “She was quite dead before I took the ring—Before I took—“ But how was she to go about convicting him?
She longed now to find some way of doing this, yet could evolve no plan that would clip Sing’s claws, being certain that if she attempted to involve him in any way he would produce evidence that would serve to place the guilt squarely on Sam’s shoulders, so much greater was his cunning than hers. The mere thought of the Chinese overwhelmed her with fright and disgust, while his hold over her was strengthened by her inability to take her trouble to her uncle, who had been her willing helper and adviser all her life, and the value of whose advice she recognized even when she went her willful way, disregarding it.
To give up Ed whom she loved and who was the father of her child, to go to a strange land with a man of alien race whom she still looked on as an inferior in spite of his claims to pride of place and birth—surely that was more than any woman should be asked to endure?
She felt no obligation of loyalty to Sing. He knew she had no affection for him, had not even attempted an appeal based on such a plea. His demand, backed by threats, was blackmail, and she felt justified in circumventing him in any way short of breaking her word.
Could she consult Dolan?
No. Sing would suspect his information came from Sam and so through her.
Alix? No. The same objection held.
And then she thought of some one she hardly knew who might be glad to hear the last of the case. At least it was worth frying.
Chapter XX
Louise Harris was not the only person interested in bringing the murderer to justice.
Dolan wanted to find the guilty party in the line of his duty, uncomplicated by any personal feeling.
McCurdy, urged on by an instinctive antagonism that Sam’s jocularity had done nothing to lessen, longed for the glory certain to descend upon one who could claim that he had brought in the evidence to convict the Police Commissioner. (Any Police Commissioner would have been satisfactory to McCurdy; but since he disliked Sam, his duty would be especially pleasing if he succeeded in nabbing the present incumbent.)
Sam wanted to avenge Connie, for Harvey and because of his own lasting affection for her.
Miss Livingston assured herself that her only interest was to see justice done and Harvey Thorne cleared of any possible suspicion.
In reality the bluest blood in all New York was boiling in her veins with excitement at the thought that she might possibly be the one to discover the criminal. To her mind, the selection of an emerald ring and that small and comparatively inexpensive jade pin when there were diamonds on Mrs. Thorne’s left hand worth enormous sums, according to the lowest of the varying estimates in the daily papers, pointed conclusively to the houseman. Was it not a well-known fact that the Chinese valued jade above all jewels and had a decided scorn for diamonds, rating them as no better than glass in beauty? And unlike Louise, and unaware of any complications that placed it in Sing’s power to involve Sam, Miss Livingston had a plan. A plan inspired by a ring on her telephone and a nervous voice whispering, “Sing Lo, the houseman, has that emerald,” followed by a sudden silence as her informant hung up.
Also, last, but by no means least in her own estimation, there was Eliza.
Eliza was no longer in the first flower of her youth, perhaps, but she was not given to depreciating her own charms and had it in mind to prove to that impudent detective with the misleadingly kind blue eyes that he would have been wiser to keep in her good graces. When she thought of him, Eliza still tossed her head with a grand gesture of dis
dain.
The evening papas had news that night supplied by his press agent on the order of the indefatigable Mr. Gorman, who, for all his efforts, had still been unable to get on the trail of Hugh Oliver. To his anxious mind the sensation was in danger of deflating. He did not expect the mystery to be solved, consequently something must be done to keep the interest from collapsing altogether, and that something was already formulated in his brain. He had been intrigued by its possibilities when talking with Alix.
Naturally, Thady Keogh’s story of a lady in white, who had departed in tears, had not escaped the vigilance of the press; but since no one had come forward to confirm his testimony, it had been set down to the excited imagination of the old Irishman, anxious for his share of the limelight. It was only a wonder that by that time he was not insisting that what he had seen was the ghost of the victim. There had even been some consideration given to thought of an article on ‘The Haunted Apartment House,’ but that had been embalmed as material for the silly season.
Now Gorman had furnished front-page news with photographs, complete. Pictures of Consuela Thorne and Alix Ruland seemed to smile at each other across the intervening head lines.
SOLUTION OF THE ENIGMA
WEEPING WOMAN IN WHITE IS
ALIX RULAND, SUCCESSFUL
EMOTIONAL ACTRESS
The story sent out paralleled the facts very closely except where it said that now that the funeral of her dearest friend was over, Miss Ruland wished to do her part toward clearing up the mystery surrounding the crime.
Since his veracity had been questioned, she desired to state that the doorman, Thady Keogh had been exact in his testimony, thus preventing waste of effort on that line of inquiry. She had left in tears, some one having announced to her, without any preliminary attempt to soften the blow, that the play on which her heart was set and which she had thought her manager had secured for her, through some misunderstanding, had been sold to another.
Mr. Gorman, on being interviewed, said: “No. There was nothing unusual about such a display of emotion. Actors were children, their emotions very close to the surface. Really Miss Ruland had remarkable control over herself, all things considered. You must remember that to an actress her career is what a home and family are to another woman—the most precious things on earth.” He then expatiated on Miss Ruland’s genius and the difficulty of finding a medium worthy of her talents, ending by holding out the hope that he would have news to impart later on on that count.
Death Wears a Mask Page 17