“Lucky for you, he’s my father,” said Mr. Song. “I’ll make the introductions.”
“And you?” Miss Cai pointed her finger very rudely at Mr. Scant. “You keep your mouth shut.”
Behind the tearoom lay a little alleyway that had been blocked off at either end—almost an extension of the tearoom itself, only with nothing but some sheet metal as a roof. Some men stood guard at the other end and nodded at our group once they saw Mr. Song. He, Mr. Deng, Miss Cai, and Miss Gaunt led us through large, unadorned iron doors into a large warehouse. Inside were a number of crates, mostly empty or containing nothing but shelving, though here and there I spotted weapons racks with a few rifles on them or scattered tin helmets and other accoutrements of war.
Among the crates, we found a figure holding a clipboard and looking about with satisfaction: an older man with gray hair in a side-parting and a neat mustache, as well as austere Chinese clothes in pale green that seemed to be made up of far too much material. The shirt was almost like an apron, and the trousers were almost like skirts. However peculiar the old man might have looked to me, though, he exuded authority and pride, and there was no question he commanded respect. This must have been Mr. Song’s father.
He looked around with mild interest as his son went to speak with him. Then he turned to us with a twinkle of amusement in his eye before speaking again to his son. The younger Mr. Song nodded and returned to us.
“This is my father, Song Li-Hwei. Leader of the Viridian Clan and future chief of the International Police Commission. I would advise you to show your respects with a deep bow.”
Something in the younger Mr. Song’s voice hinted that any disrespect would be unwise, a feeling confirmed by the number of large men in the shadows all around us. I bowed as low as I could.
The leader seemed to be satisfied with our display and walked over to shake hands with us, laughing and pointing at Mr. Scant.
“I’ve heard about you,” he said. “I like you.”
Mr. Scant smiled amicably. “I’m glad to hear it.”
The leader cleared his throat. “It’s good to have visitors. May you follow the path of tranquility and purity always. That is a motto of our group. If I may offer you a truth of the world: he who is held up by the people as a leader has far to fall, but he who pushes the people on from the shadows has nowhere to go but upward.”
“Thank you for your wisdom,” said Mr. Scant. The leader laughed, tousled Victor’s hair, and turned away.
“Let’s leave while he’s in a good mood,” said Miss Gaunt.
Elspeth and Cai’s companions led us back into the teahouse, but the table we had crowded around before was now occupied. “I’ve had enough Chinese tea anyway,” said Miss Gaunt. “Let’s go for some gâteaux.”
“Lemon cake?” said Miss Cai.
“Lemon cake,” Miss Gaunt confirmed.
A walk of five or six minutes took us to a little cake shop, standing alone at the end of a street. Little replica statues and French flags stuck into plant pots surrounded it. The interior was equally eccentric, with a mishmash of European cultural items, mostly plaster copies of famous statues such as the Venus de Milo and the Boy with Thorn, but also old maps, cuckoo clocks, wooden clogs, and model cats in every corner. Fortunately there were no other customers, because our large group filled the cake shop entirely. A middle-aged French lady greeted us, speaking in French, and Victor brightened considerably as he spoke with her.
I sat with Mr. Scant on one side of me and kept a space for Victor on the other. Opposite me was Mr. Song, with Mr. Deng at his side, and then Miss Cai sat with Miss Gaunt, completing our circle at the shop’s lone table. Miss Cai ordered some cakes and a pot of chamomile tea, then let out a satisfied breath.
“There’s really no better place to discuss matters than over tea,” she said.
“It’s certainly something we’ve been doing a lot,” I said.
“Where to start?” said Miss Cai. “Ah, yes! I’m angry with you. You really have no idea, do you, what you’ve been stumbling into? You should have come straight to us.”
“We didn’t know where you were,” I said.
“Because you didn’t read my letter.”
“Because we didn’t get your letter,” I countered. “Why didn’t you send a telegram?”
“I can’t be sure who will read a telegram before it reaches its recipient,” Miss Cai said.
“So what have we, ah, stumbled into?” said Mr. Scant. “You mentioned the child emperor.”
That was when Miss Gaunt sat forward. She always wore a detached expression, but a trace of anger flared in those pale eyes of hers. I found myself unable to look away.
“As we mentioned before,” Miss Gaunt began, “the day after tomorrow, the Xuantong Emperor himself is expected in Shanghai for the Dragon Boat Festival. He will of course be kept well-sheltered on the royal barge, but there will be a great crowd. We are not certain, but we suspect the reason a number of young men from France have gone missing is that they will be here, dressed in military uniforms and ordered to march on the emperor. They won’t reach him, but it won’t matter. That will be enough to begin a new war, a war that will unite the people against the foreigners once more—and perhaps against the emperor first. Hundreds will die that day, thousands more in the war to come. And once the war begins, societies like the Star and Stone Association will keep order over the people, shaping the new China. We mean to stop them.”
“Stop what?” said Mr. Scant. “The march? The plot? You say the Star and Stone Association is behind it. I’m sure you’re aware I met with them.”
“Of course we know,” said Miss Cai. “That bungler from Scotland Yard is trying so hard to find out what’s going to happen, but he’s grasping in the dark.”
“They had weapons,” Mr. Scant said. “Enough for a small army.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Deng. “Weapons for a plan like this one.”
“We have to stop them,” I said. “Mr. Scant, we have to help.”
“I’m not sure it’s our business,” said Mr. Scant. “And I’m not sure whom we should trust. One secret society tells us to help it stop another.”
“The Viridian Clan is not a group of simple criminals,” said Miss Cai. “We are working with a union of twelve governments to form a joint international police commission. That includes approval from the emperor himself.”
“May I divine from your phrasing that this is still only a plan and there is, as yet, no international police force?” Mr. Scant asked.
“Oh, you are so infuriating!” Miss Cai said with a directness that took me aback.
The younger Mr. Song, who had been sitting in silence, leaned forward diplomatically. “Until it is demonstrated that countries and empires will benefit from cooperation, nobody wants to risk being associated with a failed experiment. But know that while secret societies hope to remain secret, this is not our intention.”
Mr. Scant straightened. “What has brought this country to the brink of revolution has been the failure of different countries to work together in peace. Yet you want to make a police force that depends on countries cooperating?”
The shop’s kind-faced middle-aged lady broke the tension, coming with our cakes and tea. Victor was with her, and proudly said, “Regardez!” as he pointed to a bicorn hat boasting a small cockade with the French flag on one side—clearly a gift from the shopkeeper. Mr. Scant and his niece regarded each other in frosty silence as the owner laid out her cakes, narrating what was what in lilting French, and then curtseyed before she withdrew.
Mr. Scant began distributing cakes, so I decided to end the silence.
“Are the Tri-Loom involved in this plan to attack the emperor?”
“No matter how much intelligence we gather, it’s hard to know what the Tri-Loom are involved with,” said Mr. Song. “But it’s likely they were the ones active on the streets of Paris. Rounding up young men and bringing them to China against their will. We are not certain why the
y have chosen France. Perhaps some contacts here in the French Concession made it possible. What we know is that there are dozens of the young Frenchmen, probably around two hundred.”
“So Victor’s brother may be one of them?” I said.
“Eh?” Victor almost dropped his mille-feuille. “Brother? Julien?”
“Peut-être,” I said—perhaps—and Victor began to listen intently, crumbs around his mouth.
“We don’t know the details of the Star and Stone Association’s plan,” said Miss Cai. “But we are treating this as a test. There are a lot of eyes on us from around the world, and we’ll be doing our utmost to protect the emperor—and any other victims of their plan.”
“And while we have a certain confidence in our power to stop this happening,” Elspeth said, “help in any form is welcome.”
“I’m not sure it’s our business,” said Mr. Scant. “My priority is still returning you home.”
Miss Gaunt did not waver. “It was not you I was asking.” And then she looked at me, her eyes looking, for the first time, awake—awake and hopeful and expectant.
“If nothing else, Mr. Scant, we can’t abandon Victor’s brother,” I said. “We have to help if we can. And I think I have a plan.”
XI
Stars and Stones
I saw it, the one clear advantage we could offer Miss Gaunt and her allies was a way back into the Star and Stone Association stronghold. The Viridian Clan needed a means of entering the lair under the bridge, and for that, simply walking up to the door under the bridge and knocking wouldn’t get them far. The Star and Stone had to have a reason for opening its door, and I had a hunch we could make that happen.
At the clubhouse, we found Mr. Jackdaw had checked out of his room and left in a hurry, which struck me as highly suspicious. We left Victor sleeping in our room but locked him inside, hopefully safe and sound. Then, on the Bund, we found the Peking-Shanghai Bank remained evacuated, now the site of a crime scene investigation by the local police. We infiltrated the bank behind the backs of two officers busy rolling their cigarettes. Following that, we approached a walkway up above the large bell-shaped hall where the dragon’s smoke had been released. Even though four men stood watch around the little statuette, large wooden beams supported the building’s domed roof, so we could easily position ourselves directly above the desk where all the panic had started. Then it was a simple matter of Mr. Scant using the thin rope spooled inside his claw, dropping down silently, and snatching the dragon statue from the desk before disappearing upward.
The men who had been rolling cigarettes were back on their guard when we returned, so we couldn’t escape the bank the same way we had entered. But from the upper part of the building, we found a window from which we could climb down the ostentatious ornamentation of the building. I did my best to follow Mr. Scant’s movements, but my reach was too short. In the end, he took me on his back.
There was nothing more to be done that night, and much for our new allies to prepare, so after going through the plan several times with the Viridian Clan, Mr. Scant and I readied ourselves for an early bed. The white sheets and wispy flower paintings of the lodgings seemed surreal in their normalcy, far too plain and simple after everything I had seen.
“This isn’t how I expected things to be,” I said. “I think I’ve had enough secret societies to last a lifetime.”
“We should have just taken the girl home whether she liked it or not,” Mr. Scant grumbled.
“But then we wouldn’t be helping Victor,” I said, looking back at him sleeping with one arm hanging over the edge of the bed. “It’s important to me.”
“I know, Master Oliver. But please don’t blame me if this all goes badly wrong.”
When we gathered on the iron bridge the next day to put my plan into action, I fancied that Miss Gaunt and Miss Cai were regarding me with a new air of respect. Half a year ago, they had been in England and saw me in some very strange situations as I tried to find out the truth about Mr. Scant. I certainly wanted them to see that I had learned a lot as his apprentice. By their side, Mr. Song leaned nonchalantly against the bridge’s handrail, whistling a tune that might have been a nursery rhyme or, for all I could tell, a national anthem.
“Are the rest ready and in position?” asked Mr. Scant.
“They are,” said Miss Cai. “Deng’s with them.”
“Do we have the numbers?”
Miss Cai nodded. “More than enough. Are you sure this will work?”
“No,” Mr. Scant said. “But I can improvise.”
Miss Cai put her hand on Mr. Scant’s shoulder, drawing him closer. “Just so we’re clear, you’re useful to us now, but I would rather you not be here.”
Mr. Scant gave Miss Cai’s hand a withering look until she removed it. “One of the few things we can agree on,” he intoned.
“If you take the life of a single one of my countrymen in there,” Miss Cai continued, “I will hold you accountable not only by the law of this land but of its underworld too.”
Mr. Scant regarded her for a moment, as though to see if she was serious. Then he looked back to the door. “I’m confident I can deal with them without killing them.”
Miss Gaunt had a long traveling cloak, which she gave to Mr. Scant. It looked strange over his morning coat, but he donned it nonetheless. I was already wearing the entirely black clothes Miss Cai had supplied, which were in a Chinese style because that was what was readily available. In addition to that, I donned a simple black cap to cover my hair, and we tied a dark kerchief around my face.
“I thought you would stop me going in with you,” I said to Mr. Scant.
“It’s your plan, and I respect it,” said Mr. Scant. “You’re my apprentice, and by now, if you get into a scrape, you ought to be able to at least protect yourself until I come to rescue you.”
“Are you so sure it won’t be me rescuing you?”
Mr. Scant smirked at that, as he tied the cloak. “Yes, I am.”
After some final checks, we moved toward the door under the bridge. Mr. Scant assumed his position, I ducked down under his travel cloak, and he knocked in a strange rhythm on the door. I could see nothing from under the cloak, but a second later, I heard the scrape of a metal door panel being pulled open. Mr. Scant stiffly said some Chinese words he had memorized but didn’t understand, and then came a short, terse response from the man at the door. There was a long pause, during which I assumed Mr. Scant had produced the dragon statue, and then the hatch was slid shut. The sound of bolts sliding followed, and the heavy door swung open. A moment later, we were on the move.
The space beyond the door was a void of darkness, and that was to our advantage. As a Star and Stone man led Mr. Scant through the passageway, I slipped out from under the traveling cloak and behind the doorman’s stool. I carefully watched how the doorman closed and locked the door, but there didn’t seem to be anything special about the bolts. Although opening the main door required a large key, the man left it in the keyhole. I tucked myself into the corner and made sure to stay well-hidden until I sensed the man was seated again.
My part in this plan was small. Mr. Scant’s was much larger. I strained to hear him but I could not. Inside the Star and Stone Association’s lair, there was a lot of noise—chatter and laughter and the clinking of what sounded like teacups and crockery. In one hand, I gripped tightly the tin can I had brought in with me. In the other hand, I rolled the single match I had been given between my fingers, then scrambled to pick it up again when I dropped it.
Mr. Scant would be deep inside by now, with the Star and Stone leaders, showing them the dragon. It didn’t particularly matter what he said to them. The point was to give them a taste of their own medicine. As long as Mr. Scant stayed safe, everything would work out well.
I heard the commotion before the man in the chair did. Distant angry voices and shouts. I struck the match on the ground and dropped it into the tin can. It immediately began to hiss, and I put it behi
nd me, but by then the doorman was distracted by the noise coming from inside the lair.
I tripped him with my legs, perhaps a little too enthusiastically—my shins would definitely be bruised in the morning. The man fell forward with a cry of alarm, but I was already an arm’s length away from him, unbolting the door. One bolt needed to be pushed in before it slid open, but that part wasn’t too tricky. I turned the key, and the door swung open just as the man prepared to launch himself at me. Luckily, the young Mr. Song and the others were waiting and poured through the door.
The flare I had lit was filling the passage with thick black smoke, and by then, Mr. Scant had likely done the same in the association’s inner chamber. Mr. Song dragged the doorman onto his chair while dozens of men from the Viridian Clan pushed their way inside and into the headquarters of their rivals. The doorman struggled and yelled, but Mr. Song and I tied his wrists with the rope I had tucked into my belt. Then Mr. Song patted me on the shoulder and we headed inside.
The Stars and Stone Association had been taken by surprise, and its ranks were easily overwhelmed. Some brutal fighting still took place in certain corners of the inner chamber, with tables upturned and bowls of rice smashed on the ground, but the men in green had the upper hand. The room had originally been a storehouse, but the association had converted it into some kind of gambling den, with a number of flags crudely attached to the brick walls, along with some vulgar posters. Miss Cai and Miss Gaunt were stopped in their tracks by a big man with a long stringy mustache, but Miss Gaunt quickly blew something in his eyes, and then Miss Cai was behind him, kicking at the back of the man’s knees so that his legs buckled and he fell.
The Shanghai Incident Page 12