Your Turn, Mr. Moto

by John P. Marquand

  “You feel better now?” she asked.

  I felt a great deal better and I told her so. “If you’d be straight with me,” I ended, “I’d like you, Sonya.”

  We had seated ourselves facing each other and the room was very quiet. We seemed like old friends, and perhaps we were old friends, for nearly every semblance of pretense was gone from us.

  “I’ll have to tell someone,” she said finally. “I’m going to tell you, Casey, because I’m all alone. I’m going to tell you and beg that you may help me.”

  “Is that straight?” I said. “Because that’s what I’ve been waiting for.”

  She answered directly. “Yes, that’s straight. I swear it. You see,” she sighed, “I don’t suppose that my mind is as quick as some people’s. I’m rather new to this, Casey. I wasn’t really brought up to it. You see, Mr. Moto guessed this noon that there was something in the bottom of that flask. I was there when he guessed it.”

  I forgot the throbbing pain of my arm and the dull ache of my head. “But how did he guess it?” I asked. “Have the Japanese got second sight?”

  Sonya smiled, and her eyes, as they met mine, were no longer hard. “Oh, no, not that, but Mr. Moto is clever, very clever, Casey, in some ways. He has to be, in work like his. This morning I was with him as he sat thinking, and he told me what he thought. I think he rather likes me, Casey.”

  “Oh,” I said, “does he?”

  She continued, ignoring my remark: “You mustn’t blame Mr. Moto. He has a very difficult time, and sometimes he seems such a little man to do everything and arrange everything. When the ship came in, he went to the Japanese Consulate and began pacing up and down a little office, trying to reconstruct what might have happened. He began with the belief that you had not seen a message or destroyed it; then he reviewed the entire search of your things. He was completely satisfied that every inch of your cabin, bags and clothing had been searched. He was sure of that because, when you left the boat, he went through everything a second time. He was sure the clothing you wore had been searched thoroughly. There was only one thing left—your flask. They had opened the top of the flask. They had seen it was full of whisky. A message inserted in a pellet might have been dropped into the whisky, but they had shaken the flask and nothing had rattled. It was only this morning that it occurred to Mr. Moto that there might be a cup fitted onto the bottom of the flask. But what you might term the process of elimination, that cup was the only place left where a message might be left. You had taken the flask with you when you jumped overboard, but he was quite certain you did not suspect the existence of a message. He had watched you carefully when your cabin was being searched. You had given no sign of interest—not the flicker of an eyelid—when they lifted up the flask. That’s about all, Casey. He was right, wasn’t he? You must admit that he was clever.”

  I could not help but admire the astuteness of Mr. Moto—an alarming astuteness—and the complete logic of what she said convinced me that she was telling the truth; but I needed more facts than that. I had reached the end of my patience, and for once in all that transaction I had something which was close to being the upper hand.

  “That’s good as far as it goes,” I said. “Mr. Moto was a brighter man than I am. Do you know Driscoll, of our Naval Intelligence, Sonya? I had a quarrel with him this morning, but I’ll go to the telephone and call him unless you’ll tell me what this message is about.”

  Sonya leaned back in her chair, watching me almost sleepily while her hands rested limply in her lap. “Very well,” she said, “I’ll tell you,” and then she laughed in that light way of hers, as though she could detach herself from the seriousness of the moment and be genuinely amused.

  “What are you laughing at?” I asked.

  “You,” she said. “Excuse me, Casey. You may not understand why it strikes me as funny that anyone like you should be involved in this, and that I should be here compromised with a strange American. You are so different from what you ought to be, to appear in such a situation. You aren’t devious. You’re honest, Casey. You have no real awareness of the intrigue around us. Don’t be angry with me. I’ll tell you. I don’t suppose you even remember my last name.”

  “Karaloff,” I said.

  “But it doesn’t mean anything to you, does it, Casey?”

  I shook my head. “Only that it’s your name, Sonya.”

  “And the name Alexis Karaloff? Think—have you ever heard that name?”

  I shook my head again and she shook hers back at me mockingly. “You never heard of Alexis Karaloff? Or of his work with crude petroleum? Or of his improvements on the Burgeius formula? Yet here you are. Even Wu Fai-fu thought you must have some idea. He told me that he asked you.”

  “I’m glad you think it’s funny. Just who is Alexis Karaloff?” I asked.

  Her expression grew set. “Your tenses are wrong. He was my father, Casey—a kind father. I heard he was dead today.” She paused a moment and caught her breath. She was tragic, sitting there, but not intentionally tragic.

  I said. “I’m sorry, Sonya,” and put my hand over one of hers.

  “Thank you,” she answered, “We’re used to death in Russia, Casey. I have suspected he was dead for quite a little while. But now I know, it’s worse than I thought. It leaves me all alone except perhaps—”

  “Perhaps what?” I asked her.

  “Except perhaps for you. I’m not lying, Casey. You and I are both alone. I hope you’ll understand what I tell you. You would, if you knew Russia; but you don’t. I hope you’ll not think it is too fantastic. You’ve probably heard so many Russians telling tales of greatness. The illusion of old grandeur grows on one, when one has not got it left. But this is true, Casey. The Czar was my father’s patron. My father was a naval inventor. He was interested above everything else in oil as a fuel for naval vessels. He was very loyal to the Czar. I was a little girl then—too little to remember much. At the time of the Revolution he left Russia. My mother was murdered in the streets. He took me to Harbin after the Kolchak fighting. He was too much involved in the White Russian army ever to cross the border again.… Have you ever seen Harbin?”

  “No,” I said. “I had hardly heard it spoken of until I came to the Orient, Sonya.”

  She sighed and closed her eyes and then opened them. “Harbin,” she said softly. “I wish you could have seen it when things were going well. It’s my city, where I spent my childhood, Casey—a strange city of exiles; but it was gay. We Russians were always gay even when we were sad and beyond all hope. If Harbin were what it used to be, it would be the place for you and me. You should have seen the cafés and heard the singing. You should have seen the hospitality. No one thought of tomorrow in Harbin except to think of Old Russia coming back. Everyone was an aristocrat.” She smiled slightly. “Whether he was or not, you understand. Harbin—the boats on the Sungari River—you should have seen the boats. You should have seen the lumber and the grain. We lived in Harbin, you see.” She paused and, as her voice stopped, illusion stopped with it. I had been able to understand vaguely something of the life she was trying to tell me, when it was expressed in the soft modulation of her voice; but when she stopped, we were back in the hotel bedroom, no longer in Harbin.

  “Go on,” I said, “if we’re getting anywhere.”

  “Harbin,” she said; her voice was softer. “Have you ever heard it called the Paris of the Orient? It is the last city of my people, the émigrés from Russia. You see the rest of us scattered here in China—Russian policemen, Russian women in Chinese clothes begging on the street, Russians dressed like coolies working with the coolies on the docks—but it was gayer in Harbin. There was quality and rank. Old generals, admirals, scholars, ladies and gentlemen from the old nobility. Why, our merchants could even compete with the Chinese store-keepers in Harbin. You should have heard us talk, Casey. There was great talk in our parlors because there was always hope, you see. Red Russia could not last. It was incredible that it could last. We were
always plotting for a coup, building castles in the air. We were always thinking of how to seize some part of Siberia. Old officers would talk of smuggled arms and of ways to set up a Russian kingdom in Mongolia or around Bakal. We are fine people for theories, Casey. We can make them logical through self-hypnotism. You should have heard all the names that were mentioned—secret correspondence with this one and that one. I suppose it was the same in France when the old régime fell down. They would whisper about Horvath and Kolchak and Semenov. They would be buoyed up by hope. There would be talk of some mythical help from Chang Tso-lin, the old marshal, you remember, and, later, the young marshal. Chinese are like us in that way. They all of them love to talk. Then later there were dealings with ‘little’ Hsü, who was darting over Mongolia in his motor cars. And then there was that impresario, the Buddhist Baron Ungern Sternberg. Oh, I can give you lists of names. That was the atmosphere I was brought up in, Casey—sitting in my father’s house, listening to him talking as he pored over maps and figures with strangers late at night. I have never known half of the logic of his theories. Perhaps they made no difference. Perhaps—I wonder, Casey—perhaps my father did not believe them. After all, he was a scientist who spent most of his day with his drawings in his laboratory, for he had brought some money out of Russia. I am not sure. Perhaps he did believe them. If we are unhappy, we always try to imagine something different, don’t we?”

  “Yes,” I said, “I’ve imagined a lot in the last few years. Do you mind my saying this doesn’t sound practical, Sonya?”

  She smiled inquiringly, as though she did not understand. “Practical?” she said. “Of course, we are not practical. Have you read your literature; have you heard our music, Casey? Not much of it is practical but some of it is beautiful. We are creative artists, Casey, but my father did one thing that was practical back there in Harbin. He invented a process of treating crude petroleum, and an especial burner, which would make one gallon of oil do the work two gallons had done before. You see the implication, Casey? Japan did, when he took that invention to Japan. It meant that a warship would have twice the cruising radius that it ever had before. Can you wonder that Japan was interested? Can you wonder, Casey? My father did that—Alexis Karaloff did that. He may have been a visionary but he was a scientist. I think his name will be remembered for a long while after you and I are dead.”

  I tried to get my thoughts together. At last the light was dawning on me. “Do you mean that the Japanese navy is going to have a cruising radius twice as great as ours?” I said. “Why, that’s going to eliminate coaling stations. It’s going to change every base. If there should be a war—” I stopped.

  At last I understood why Driscoll told me the matter was important. It still seemed hardly credible that such an invention should not have come from our own laboratories instead of from a city called Harbin. If she was telling the truth, and I believed she was, any nation in the world would have struggled for such a discovery.

  “Has Japan got his plans?” I asked. “Tell me what happened, Sonya?”

  “I’m going to tell you, Casey,” she answered. “I’m going to tell you, because it seems the only thing left to do, and because my father would have agreed with me, I think. He did not care very much about himself. Do you think many people do, who live in a world of intellect? He really cared for only two things—the abstract complications of ideas and the Russia of the old régime.”

  “Didn’t he care for you?” I asked.

  She considered a moment before she answered. “As much as he could for any human being, I think, but his opinion of the human race was not very high, Casey. Never mind about that. He appreciated the value of that invention and its significance and implications as keenly as any industrialist, without ever wishing that value for himself. He wished it to further his fixed idea. You guess the idea, perhaps? I am sorry that I have no particular knowledge of its details, but at any rate, they do not matter. It was another one of those whispering plots of my people, but this time I think it had some basis, slight as it might be. For once, they were not pinning all their faith on the dreams of some adventurer. Yes, there was a semblance of reality this time. It had to do with the concentration of Red Russian troops on the Manchurian border, when Japan became interested in the adventure of the State of Manchukuo. It seemed to my father and his friends that Japan might welcome and even might help White intervention along the border by supplying arms and money. There was one of those usual plans, perfectly logical down to the last detail. As I say, I do not know it. I only know that my father brought me with him down to Tokyo and that he was greatly excited. He offered his formula and his drawings to the Japanese Government in return for their support of a White adventure; and they accepted. They had reason to accept. He was very happy until he found out that the political balance had been changed. First the Japanese hesitated to supply arms and then they entirely refused. My father felt that he had been betrayed. He left Tokyo and started for Harbin, as though Japanese troops and spys were not everywhere in Manchuria. He was allowed to leave Tokyo readily enough, because he had already handed over his drawings. It was some days later before they understood the plans were not complete. My father had taken the page of the chemical process back with him to Harbin and nothing was of any use without it. He was planning to sell it elsewhere, of course. He even began starting negotiations with America through the agency of the man you’ve seen—Wu Lai-fu. But you can guess the rest of it. This may not be the sort of life you’re used to in America, but believe me, there is plenty of it here, where all life is unsettled, where there may be an explosion at any time. That is a period which develops men like Mr. Moto and Wu Lai-fu, but you can understand what happened.”

  “Perhaps,” I said; “but you’d better tell me, Sonya.”

  She leaned back wearily and closed her eyes. “The Japanese were not going to let such a secret as that go, and I don’t blame them much, do you? They caught my father in Harbin. They made him a political prisoner in the new capitol of Manchukuo—high-handedly perhaps, but they had reason to be high-handed. They held him while they searched for papers in his house, but they could not find what they wanted. Then they approached me. I had received my education in Tokyo, you understand, and I have many friends among the Japanese. I was approached and asked politely if I could not help in this hunt for the paper, and there was a hint that my father might not live if it were not found. I wanted him to live because I loved him, but perhaps you can imagine now why they did not find the paper. I had no intimation of it until we were together on that ship and there was a dead man in your cabin.”

  “Perhaps I could guess,” I answered, “but you’d better tell me, Sonya.”

  “It was Ma,” she said. “Ma was my father’s old interpreter and servant, a very faithful, absolutely reliable man devoted to my father, as Chinese occasionally become devoted to their masters. I have know him ever since I was a little girl, and he would have died for us any time. As a matter of fact, he did die, didn’t he?… What happened is clear enough now. My father, when he knew he was going to be taken, gave Ma that formula and I rather think told him to try to sell it to America. Ma escaped with it but was afraid to have such a thing on his person. He left it somewhere in Manchuria. The message, I think, was to tell us where that paper is.” She paused as though she expected some response from me, but I did not answer her. “Then I heard the rest of the news today. It came from Wu Lai-fu. He has all sorts of devious connections. I think he is one of the Chinese who is secretly financing bandits in Manchuria. There is no penny-dreadful novel more lurid than parts of China and Manchuria these days. He had word, and he tells the truth, that my father was shot, trying to escape. I’ve been telling you the truth too, Casey. And that’s about all there is. I have told you because I want you to help me. I owe nothing further to Mr. Moto.… Will you show me what is written on that paper in your flask?”

  I paused awhile before I answered, trying to make up my mind. I paused, but I believed ever
y word she said, however incredible it may sound as I have set it down on paper. Words in black and white about such matters as I have tried to describe do not convey any great basis of credibility, because the time and place do not go with those words or the personality which spoke them. There is no way which I know for me to convey the impression of her voice, or for me to describe the restlessness of Asia, since both of these are wholly indescribable to anyone who has not known them. I can only say again that I knew she told the truth. I knew it, if only from the way her story fitted with the small details I had seen. Her rôle was clear at last and Mr. Moto and Driscoll and even Wu Lai-fu came into place, cleverly and perfectly. More than anything else I knew that she was telling the truth because I liked her, and I have found it pays to trust quite implicitly to one’s instinctive likings.

  “Sonya,” I said, “I think you’re being straight with me.”

  “I am,” she said. “I am.” And her fingers gripped my hand. The pressure of her fingers reminded me that I had been holding her hand all the while she was speaking.

  “If you see this message,” I asked her, “what are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to find that paper, if you’ll help me, Casey.”

  “If you find it,” I asked, “what will you do then?” She was no longer candid. She did not meet my glance.

  “We’ll talk about that later,” she said. “The point is, we both want to find it, don’t we? Will you take out your flask?”

  “Yes,” I said, “I’ll trust you, Sonya. Can you read Chinese?”

  She nodded, and I drew the flask from my hip pocket. I snapped the cup off the bottom and handed it to her.

  “With my compliments,” I said.

  She took the cup and lifted out the paper very carefully between her thumb and finger and bent over it, first thoughtfully, then incredulously.