Your Turn, Mr. Moto

by John P. Marquand

  “Please,” he said, “if you are finished, there is a gentleman who wishes to see you.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  “Please,” the steward said, “if you have finished.”

  I rose and followed him out of the dining room, while Sam Bloom watched us curiously. The steward guided me to one of the de luxe staterooms on the upper deck.

  “Who wants to see me?” I asked again.

  The steward did not answer, but tapped softly on the door until a voice answered in Japanese. Then I was in a private sitting room with the door closed behind me, facing my old friend Mr. Moto, who sat behind a little table, sipping a cup of tea.

  Mr. Moto, in his cutaway coat, looked immaculate and composed, and I was glad to see him, for I felt that Mr. Moto owed me an explanation. He waved me to a chair, smiling as he offered me a cigarette.

  “Good morning, Mr. Lee,” he said. “We may recognize each other in private. Are you quite comfortable? I am so sorry that you did not sleep well last night.”

  “Thanks,” I said, “I didn’t. Do you mind if I make a further remark?”

  “No,” he answered. “Please what remark?”

  “I’d like to say,” I replied, “that I’m confused.”

  “Life,” Mr. Moto answered, “is often confusing; do you not think?”

  I dropped my cigarette into an ash tray, the bottom of which was filled with water.

  “Will you have a drink?” Mr. Moto asked. “What? Not drinking? Something must have disturbed you last night.”

  “One of your officers disturbed me,” I said. “I found the bolt was off my door and one of your officers put his head in. Would you care to tell me why?”

  It was plain he did not care to tell me why. Instead, he wriggled his shoulders apologetically.

  “I have heard,” he answered. “Excuse. It was so very careless of the man. His duty was to see that you were not disturbed. He was not true to his duty. Was that the only thing that disturbed you, Mr. Lee? I shall like it if you will tell me.”

  “Yes,” I answered, and I still don’t know what induced me to prevaricate except that new national sense of mine. “Only the officer bothered me. Suppose we be frank, Mr. Moto,” I added.

  “Why not,” he answered. “That is what I am here for, yes? You are sure there was no one else in your cabin? It is very important—and so I ask.”

  “I was drunk last night,” I said. The answer must have satisfied him, for I could feel a certain tension relaxing in the room and Mr. Moto sank back in his chair and lighted a cigarette. In the silence that followed, the turgidness of everything began to strain my patience.

  “Perhaps,” I suggested, “you were expecting someone else to come into my cabin?”

  His expression changed at that. To my surprise, I found him looking at me almost with respect. “So. That is so. Yes,” he answered. “That is why I wish to speak with you. You can be of very great use to us, Mr. Lee, if you do exactly what I say. I do expect someone to come to your cabin, and if he does, I hope you will ask no questions, no matter what may happen. It is very important—do you understand?”

  “Why is it important?” I asked.

  Mr. Moto stared thoughtfully at me for a while before replying, his opaque brown eyes devoid of meaning.

  “I cannot tell you why it is important,” he answered. “I only ask you to do exactly what I say, please. There is someone on this ship whom we desire very much to interrogate. Unfortunately, we have no exact description and do not know who he is. We—ah—guess he is on this vessel, and I hope so much we guess right. We hope that he comes to your cabin. Then, you see, we will know him.”

  “Why should he come to my cabin?” I asked.

  Mr. Moto paused a minute. He gazed at me as if I were a figure in a column of addition, not a person of flesh and blood. “I will be frank,” he answered finally; “because you were once an American naval officer he will come. It is nothing that concerns you, if you please. You need not be disturbed. You are not disturbed, are you?”

  Though I tried to keep my expression blank, I was very much disturbed. “Any other orders?” I said.

  “No,” he replied, “not now. Simply amuse yourself, Mr. Lee, and—yes, this: Do not think too much of anything that has happened. There is very good brandy in the smoking room and it is a very nice morning. You must not worry. You do so well and everything goes so nicely.” He rose and bowed. “Good morning, Mr. Lee.”

  I bowed also, and then I found myself outside the door, unpleasantly aware that I was a pawn on Mr. Moto’s chessboard, which did not please my egotism, because I have never liked to be a pawn. I had not told Mr. Moto of the visitor to my cabin, and now I knew that nothing would induce me to tell him.

  I shall never forget the rest of that day, if only because of its utter lack of incident, for nothing happened, absolutely nothing. The life on that Maru steamer simply lowered itself to the routine boredom of shipboard, leaving a passenger like me to his own limited devices. At such a time, to anyone of my temperament, the lack of definite outlet by action was peculiarly appalling. On another occasion I would have relieved the suspense by drink, as I was tempted to do more than once that day. But that desire to keep my mind clear was still uppermost in my thoughts. I paced the deck for a while, looking out to starboard at the blue mountainous coast line of Japan and watching the occasional slatted sails of fishing fleets. I could not blame the Japanese very much for desiring more land; for the islands of the Empire seemed, as one viewed them from the sea, almost entirely composed of jagged mountain slopes which offered little opportunity in the way of life or husbandry. Behind the pastel purples and blues and greens of distant mountain ranges, which seemed to conceal the secrets of Nippon, I could think of a teeming population longing to leave that unstable volcanic coast. The fishing fleet was like a part of that desire pushing out from the mountains to the horizon. Our own ship, with its squat capable sailors, was a part of it. The red-and-white flag of Nippon was pushing out to sea, to end no one knew just where.

  As I walked forward and glanced toward the line where the horizon met the sky in soft gray clouds, I saw another sight which made me halt at the rail and stare—an apparition that was half beautiful, half sinister. Out of the cloud bank by the horizon appeared the masts of ships that seemed to have, at that distance, almost the impalpable qualities of clouds. A division of a battle fleet was out on one of its perpetual maneuvers—gray Japanese cruisers moving behind a formation of submarines and destroyers. There was a foreboding quality to that half-visible sight, because I understood, as everyone who has walked a deck of an American warship understands, that Japan’s naval strength might some day be directed at my country; that it was reaching out like an arm across the Pacific toward our coasts where our own fleet was watching. There was destiny in the sight, which was a part of the obscure irrational destiny of peoples never to be wholly clarified by reason. It was solitary being on a Japanese ship, the only representative of my country except that casual aviator, Sam Bloom. That situation made me feel very keenly the differences of race, and more aware than I think I ever have been, even in the distant days of the World War, that I was an integral part of my country. Then I heard Sam Bloom speaking to me and I was glad that he had come to stand beside me. I had never been so much drawn to that little sandy-haired friend of mine as I was at that moment, simply because we were strangers among a strange people. I had an impulse to tell him everything which had happened to me. I think I should have, if I had not felt suddenly ashamed of my position and of myself.

  “Nice-looking lot of boats, aren’t they?” he remarked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “I wonder if we’ll ever fight ’em?” remarked Sam Bloom.

  “A lot of people wonder that,” I found myself answering, glad to speak to someone who had an intonation like my own. “I hope to heaven we don’t. In spite of the arguments about the Japanese never having encountered a first-rate power, I’m afraid they’d make a l
ot of trouble, Sam.”

  Sam Bloom squinted his eyes out toward the horizon and drummed his stubby fingers on the rail. “Last time I was in Shanghai, there were a lot of rumors,” he said. “The word is, those boys are up to something; that they’ve hit on some new naval secret. They’re clever and persistent. That’s the word—persistent. They’re getting so that they can beat us at all our manufacturing trade. But we can’t stop them, can we? How about a drink?”

  “No thanks,” I said. “I’m on the wagon.”

  I did not blame Sam Bloom for being incredulous.

  “Say, Casey, is anything on your mind?” he asked.

  “Only myself” I answered “and that doesn’t amount to much.”

  “Say” said Sam “there’s a pretty girl around here. Did you see her? Reddish-yellow hair. Russian, I suppose. Shanghai is full of white Russians—not that any Europeans meet them socially. Let’s go and talk to her. She doesn’t look as if she’d mind.”

  “Try it,” I said. “I tried last night.” I saw that Sonya was walking toward us down the deck.

  “You watch me,” said Sam and took off his hat and smiled. “Hello. It’s a nice morning!” But Sonya walked by like an alluring figure of the imagination, nothing more.

  Those violet eyes of hers stared straight through us. There was a whiff of gardenia scent and she was gone.

  “Well,” said Sam Bloom: “My mistake. We’re not popular on this boat, Casey. How about a drink?”

  “You have one,” I said.

  There is no need to describe any further the events of that day. They rolled by as easily as the ship rolled through an oily sea. A stop at the docks of Kobe. A game of cards, lunch in the small dining saloon, where Japanese passengers ate with chopsticks and made strange noises over their food. Another game of cards in the smoking room, where I watched Sonya and Moto talking at a table near the door.

  “So that’s the answer,” Sam Bloom said. “She’s that little swell’s mistress—that’s the answer.”

  “That isn’t so,” I answered, before I thought.

  “Say—” Sam Bloom looked at me—“how do you know?”

  “I don’t believe she is—that’s all,” I said.

  Yes, the day dragged on, a horrible, eventless day. Dinner in the dining saloon and back in the smoking room again, an interminable walk along the deck and back to the smoking room again. I was waiting for something to happen, but nothing happened. Finally, when Bloom and I were left alone in the smoking room except for two sleepy stewards, I believed that nothing would happen. My lack of sleep the night before began to make me very drowsy and finally I said good night to him. I hope he had a good one.

  CHAPTER VI

  In some curious way my mood must have been changed by the dullness of the day until I was lulled by its dullness into bored security. I had no real suspicion that anything would be wrong when I opened my cabin door. First, when I opened the door, I recall having the distinct impression that I had made a mistake and that the quarters were not mine. Of course, such a sensation as this was only a matter of an instant, which I mention simply to bring out the complete unexpectedness of what I encountered. Subconsciously I knew all the time that it was my cabin, although my common sense told me that it could not be because there on the floor a man was lying face upward—a moon-faced Asiatic man whom I had never seen, dressed in a shoddy suit of European clothes.

  He lay on the floor like a drunkard, sprawled out in an attitude of complete abandon and carelessness of convention, shaven-headed, open-eyed, and open-mouthed. For another split second I had a sensation of outrage because I could not understand what he was doing in my cabin overcome by liquor, but the truth manifested itself in an instant. That Asiatic man in the shoddy European clothes was offering his own mute apology for lying face upward on the carpet. A stream of blood, that was making a puddle behind his shoulders, was excuse enough for his seeming rudeness. The man had been stabbed in the back, and not long ago either. But that was not all of the picture. A sound of an indrawn breath made my glance dart from that sight on the floor to the recess near my porthole. Standing there, her face as white as paper except for the paint on her lips, was Sonya Karaloff, holding a knife in her hand.

  Anyone who has been through the war is inured to the sight of death. I have seen it, in scores of forms, strike out of nowhere. I have seen dead men mangled by shellfire and dead men lying pallid like men asleep. I have seen the unbelievable liberties which war has taken with the bodies of men, but this present spectacle was different. It was the first time in my life that I had witnessed the scene of cold, premeditated murder, and for a moment it made me sick; and for a moment I felt a wave of nausea rise in me and with the nausea faintness. Then I pulled myself together because, I suppose, my reflexes are unusually quick. Those reflexes were making me move so accurately that they surprised me; even before my mind began to function, I found myself closing the cabin door behind me, not carelessly but very carefully, so that the latch clicked gently. And then, with my eyes on Sonya, I began to speak, without giving way to the horror that was in me. I believe I spoke quite calmly, fortified after the shock was over by my intimate acquaintance with dead men.

  “I am sorry,” I said. “I’m afraid perhaps I have intruded.”

  She stared at me, speechless, still holding that knife in her hand, and I noticed that the blade was wet.

  “But after all,” I said, “this is my room, you know.”

  And still she did not answer.

  Then I found myself making an inane remark. “I didn’t know you were that kind of a girl,” I said. “You must be very muscular or surgically inclined. They tell me it isn’t easy to stab a man in the back so that he drops right down like this one here.”

  She opened her lips and closed them—wordlessly.

  “It’s curious,” I said, “the element of time.” I found myself continuing simply to steady my own nerves. “If I had been sleepy five minutes sooner, this moon-faced man might still be alive, perhaps. If I had been sleepy five minutes later, I doubt if I should have had the pleasure of having a delightful golden-headed girl like you in my cabin. Which would have been better, I wonder?”

  Then, for the first time, she spoke. “It’s Ma,” she said. “It’s Ma—”

  Initially the name meant nothing, but then the truth dawned on me. The man I had not seen the night before, the man who had wished to give me something because I was an American, the man who had told me that his name was Ma, was now lying beside my bed, and he would not whisper any more.

  “I believe you’re right,” I said; “it must be Ma.”

  “You—” she said. She stared; a trace of color came into her cheeks; and I saw the pupils in her violet eyes widen. It was not pleasant to see her there in an evening wrap, with a knife in her hand.

  “How did you know that?” she asked.

  I leaned against the closed door of the cabin but I did not take my eyes off her.

  “I think,” I suggested, “I should feel more comfortable if you put down that knife. I don’t think I’ve ever struck or mishandled a woman, but believe me I will, if you don’t set it down. I don’t want my throat cut too.”

  She looked blankly at the knife she was holding and then she dropped it on the floor. “I did not know I’d picked it up,” she said.

  “That was very absent-minded,” I answered, “don’t you think?” Then she moved a step towards me and came near to stumbling over that figure on the floor.

  “Please,” she said, “please, won’t you help me?”

  Her suggestion seemed to me grimly amusing—so amusing that I wanted to laugh out loud.

  “Don’t you think you’re very well able to help yourself?” I suggested. “You’ve done an efficient job—not exactly neat, but efficient. Do you always stab them in the back?”

  I do not believe that she heard me. At any rate, she disregarded my question.

  Her hand went up to her bare throat, a slim, white trembling hand.


  “I—” she stopped and seemed to choke upon her words. “I came here to see you.” Again I had an almost uncontrollable desire to break out into laughter.

  “That was thoughtful of you,” I answered, “but selfishly, perhaps, I am just as glad that I was out.” She did not seem to hear me.

  “It’s Ma—” Her voice was choked. “Don’t you see it’s Ma?”

  “You mistake your tenses,” I suggested. “You mean it was Ma, don’t you? You Russians are so linguistic that you’ve conjugated him from the present to the past.”

  “Don’t!” she whispered. “Don’t!”

  “Oh?” I said. “Perhaps you’re sorry, now?”

  “Don’t!” she whispered again. “Please, please—I didn’t kill him! I came to see you. And I found him lying here. It’s Ma—”

  “So you’ve said several times,” I answered. “Who is Ma?”

  By that time she had regained her self-possession. In spite of her delicacy and beauty she always, as I have said, gave one the sense of competence to encounter any situation.

  “You don’t understand,” she said. “I didn’t know he was here. Why didn’t he speak to me? I suppose he didn’t dare.”

  “Perhaps you didn’t give him a chance,” I suggested.

  “Don’t!” She did not raise her voice, but its intensity made me stop. “Don’t speak like that! I swear I didn’t kill him. You don’t understand. He was my father’s old interpreter and servant.”

  Though my intellect told me she would naturally be lying, something made me believe her, for no one could have simulated her look of pain. I thought for a second that she would lose control of herself and weep. Her face became convulsed. She raised a handkerchief to her lips.

  “Don’t!” I said sharply. “Who killed him then?”

  “They—” she whispered. “He must have had a message. They suspected something. Why didn’t he tell me?” Then she was completely calm again. Whatever she might have been and whatever she meant, that girl was brave.