Mr. Moto Omnibus

by John P. Marquand

  “Oh yes, it does,” she answered. “You’d better tell me or I won’t stop talking.”

  “It’s in my pocket,” Calvin said. She was startled. Her eyes were suddenly wide and incredulous.

  “Don’t say any more,” said Calvin Gates.

  Miss Dillaway’s voice was low.

  “You don’t care much what happens to you, do you, Gates?” she said.

  Calvin Gates smiled at her. “No,” he answered, “not very much.”

  Miss Dillaway squared her shoulders.

  “I knew there was something the matter with you the first time I saw you. What did you keep it for?”

  “No good reason,” he said. “He asked me to, that’s all.”

  “Who?”

  “The Russian.”

  “Oh he did, did he?” said Miss Dillaway. “Well, why did you do what he asked you?”

  Calvin Gates frowned and looked at the freckles on the back of his hands.

  “Well,” said Miss Dillaway, “you haven’t answered, Gates.”

  He turned to her again as though he had forgotten her and her question.

  “Frankly, it’s a little hard to answer,” he said, “but I suppose you ought to have some sort of explanation.”

  “Thank you,” said Miss Dillaway, “that’s very thoughtful of you, Gates.”

  He ignored her remark and looked straight ahead of him, speaking slowly.

  “I’m not so worried about the Japanese,” he said, “it’s the others. There must be some others to whom this thing is very important. It’s some form of a message of course. Those others may still think you have it. That’s why I’m keeping it, Miss Dillaway. In case there is any trouble, it might be better to have it than not. Of course I may be wrong.”

  Miss Dillaway glanced at him sideways.

  “So you’re doing this for me. Is that true?” she said.

  “Partly,” he nodded slowly.

  “Well, you needn’t,” said Miss Dillaway. “You’d better throw it out the window, Gates.”

  “Perhaps,” said Calvin Gates, “but I’m not sure. They might not believe that we’d thrown it out the window. If they did believe, they might think that we understood about it. I think it’s better keeping it, a great deal better.”

  “Don’t you think,” inquired Miss Dillaway, and her words were sweetly deliberate, “you are taking a good deal on yourself?”

  “Perhaps,” Calvin Gates agreed. “We’re rather in the dark. Perhaps nothing will happen at all, but I think you need some help, Miss Dillaway.”

  “I haven’t asked you for help, have I?” Miss Dillaway inquired.

  “No,” said Calvin Gates.

  Miss Dillaway’s color grew higher and she sat up straighter and clasped her hands tightly together. She looked sideways at him and started to speak and paused, and finally her voice had a curious note.

  “You aren’t doing this because you’re attracted to me, are you Gates? You can’t be, because you’ve hardly seen me.”

  He was surprised by the abruptness of her question and surprised because her assurance was gone, but he was startled by his own answer. He had intended to speak lightly and instead he was being serious.

  “I saw you last night,” he said.

  She turned away from him and looked out the window.

  “You can’t be doing this just because you saw me with my hair down my back,” Miss Dillaway said.

  “I’m not sure,” said Calvin Gates.

  Miss Dillaway turned back from the window.

  “Don’t try to be gallant, Gates,” she said. “That sort of thing is stuff and nonsense. Of course I wouldn’t have asked that question if I’d even thought that you’d pretend to take it seriously.”

  “Why is it nonsense,” Calvin asked her, “to look the way you did last night?”

  He felt her shoulder beside his stiffen and her lips closed tight.

  “It’s nonsense,” she said, “because it makes trouble. I have my work to do and I don’t want to be bothered. I don’t want to be bothered when I’m traveling by myself.”

  “So you put on a disguise,” said Calvin Gates. “Is that what you mean?”

  Miss Dillaway looked surprised. “It isn’t what I mean exactly. I like to be judged for what I am, not for the way I look, and now you say because you saw me in a green kimono—It’s rather silly, Gates.”

  “Is it?” Calvin asked her. “I don’t see why.”

  “I’ll tell you why,” said Miss Dillaway. “Because you’re a romanticist, Gates. You’re a type which ought to be extinct—the knight errant type. Anyone in a green negligee would do. You don’t care who’s inside it. You only care for the idea.”

  “No,” said Calvin Gates, “that isn’t true.”

  Miss Dillaway’s eyes sparkled. “Oh yes, it’s true,” she said. “Any lady in any wrapper. I wish you’d give me back that cigarette case, Gates. I can manage it just as well as you can. I don’t even know who you are. Why should I be obliged to you?”

  “I’m not asking you to be obliged,” said Calvin Gates.

  “Oh yes, you are,” Miss Dillaway answered, “but you never even thought of it that way.”

  Calvin Gates stood up.

  “Just the same I’m going to keep it,” he said, “whether you like it or not. You’re a funny person, Miss Dillaway. First I like you and then I don’t. I may be a romanticist, but I’m not afraid of life.”

  She looked startled and then she smiled.

  “No one ever said that to me before,” she said. “I’m not afraid of life.”

  “You’re running away from it,” he told her. You’re running away from it now.”

  “Then so are you,” said Miss Dillaway tartly. “You’re running away from something, at any rate. I don’t understand you, Gates.”

  “It doesn’t really matter,” Calvin said.

  The observation car was almost a copy of the one they had left the day before, and he sat in another of the wicker chairs staring out the window. The remarks he had made to Miss Dillaway afforded him no satisfaction. Instead he was obsessed by a lonely sense of his own futility. He was alone again in a world of Orientals, of Japanese army officers and Japanese businessmen. Outside the country had grown level and there were faint yellowish dust clouds on the horizon, and the same mud villages and blue-clad laborers.

  It must have been an hour later when Miss Dillaway entered the car and seated herself in a vacant chair beside him.

  “Hello,” she said, “are you angry with me, Gates?”

  “No,” he told her.

  “I’m glad you’re not,” Miss Dillaway said, “because I don’t like it there alone. People keep watching me.”

  “Who?” he asked. “Anyone in particular?”

  Miss Dillaway shook her head.

  “No one in particular, just the train guard and the train boy. I’d rather be with you. You’re better, Gates.”

  “It’s kind of you to say so,” he answered.

  She wrinkled her nose and sniffed.

  “I’m sorry if I’ve been disagreeable. It’s just the way I am, I guess, we can’t help being what we are.”

  “No,” he answered, “I don’t suppose we can.”

  “If I could, I’d change right away,” she said.

  “So would I,” he answered.

  “The trouble is we just have to keep being what we are unless something changes us. Do you suppose anything will ever change us, Gates?”

  Calvin Gates smiled and forgot that they were in Manchuria.

  “Probably for the worse,” he said.

  She laughed and held out her hand. “You’re not so bad,” she answered. “Let’s go into the dining car and have a drink. I’ll match you for who pays.”

  “No,” he said, “I’ll buy it.”

  “I’m not being ladylike, am I?” she said, “I told you we couldn’t change. I’ll match you, I can’t help it, Gates.”

  Nevertheless Miss Dillaway had changed. She was n
o longer concealing her personality from him or trying to act a part and it must have been an effort for her to go as far as that. It pleased him, more than he thought was possible, that she had surrendered to some intuition and, without knowing who he was or what, had given him her friendship. It made him happy even though he knew that there would be only one ending. It would be better to tell her something about himself beforehand; it would be the only honorable way, since they were friends, but he hesitated.

  “I know I’m disagreeable when I’m traveling, Gates,” she said confidingly. “My temper always goes to pieces when I’m worried, and I say any amount of things that I’m sorry for afterwards. I’m frightened most of the time when I’m on these trips and I don’t want anyone to know it. It’s not as bad with you. I’m really having a nice time.”

  “So am I,” said Calvin Gates, “the first time in a long while, and you’re the only reason for it, Miss Dillaway.”

  “You’d better call me Dillaway,” she said. “My first name is Sylvia, and I don’t like it much. My friends all call me Dillaway. I may as well warn you, I’m as likely as not to snap your head off before we get to Peiping, and you’ll probably want to choke me. You should have seen the way I tore into poor Boris. At the customs’ shed.” She stopped and caught her breath. “Aren’t you going to tell me what happened to him, Gates? How did he—”

  Calvin interrupted her and spoke quickly. If she had to know, and it would probably be better if she did, he wished to make that whole ugly affair casual and literal.

  “He came to my room to ask me to take that cigarette case he gave you. He was shot while he was talking to me. A man came in and shot him from the balcony. It isn’t pleasant, but I suppose you ought to know. Then Mr. Moto came and took the whole thing in hand.”

  “That little man?” she said.

  “Yes, it had something to do with the police. What do you know about that Russian?”

  “Nothing,” she answered. “I asked for a courier at the hotel.”

  Calvin Gates nodded.

  “What do you think he was doing?”

  “Carrying a message,” she answered promptly. “He was frightened in the train. What do you suppose that thing’s about? Have you looked at it?”

  “No,” he said, “but I think he had told someone else that he had given it to you. He had all evening to make arrangements.”

  Calvin Gates folded his hands carefully, unfolded them again and laid them palm down upon each knee.

  “I’ve been trying most of last night to figure it out. Granted that it is some sort of message, it’s a very important one, or they wouldn’t have killed the man who was carrying it. If it is a message, it is probably going to someone near where we are going, but after that I’m puzzled. Whoever sent the message certainly wanted it delivered.”

  “Well, that’s obvious,” Miss Dillaway said.

  “The next point is not so obvious,” he answered. “Moto wants it delivered too. In fact, he told me so.”

  “Now wait a minute,” said Miss Dillaway.”This can’t be right. If he wanted the message delivered why should they have killed Boris?”

  Calvin Gates moved his shoulders uneasily and drummed his fingers on his knee.

  “I gathered that it was a mistake,” he explained slowly. “I don’t think Mr. Moto liked it. He seemed to want to have things go smoothly. At any rate he told me so.”

  Miss Dillaway looked at him hard.

  “It seems to me that he told you quite a good deal.”

  “Yes,” Calvin Gates looked back at her. “He told me a good deal.”

  Miss Dillaway wrinkled her forehead.

  “You’re not being frank, Gates,” she said. “Why should he have told you that much?”

  Calvin Gates felt his fingers grip his knees tightly because the time had come. In another minute she would know that he was not a nice young man and certainly not a proper person for a friend. He was surprised how much he valued her friendship and how much he wanted her to think well of him, now that she would not and could not, because she was honest, devastatingly honest.

  “Because Mr. Moto has something on me,” he said. He spoke slowly because every word hurt him. “He thought he could make me let you carry that cigarette case for him. I think I fooled him last night. He doesn’t know who’s got it now.”

  She looked at him startled, exactly the way he thought that she would look.

  “How could a little Japanese have anything on you?” she asked. “I don’t see how it’s possible.”

  Calvin spoke more slowly and his mouth was grim and straight.

  “I may as well tell you I’m a notorious character, Miss Dillaway,” he said. He tried to speak casually, but his voice was strained and discordant. “I am a fugitive from justice, Miss Dillaway.” He saw her start and stare at him exactly as he knew she would and he went on grimly. If there was anything between them, it would be better to have it over.

  “I like you well enough so that I’m blunt,” he went on. “I found out last night that Mr. Moto knew everything about me. He’s a Japanese agent. The whole nation seems to be alive with them. He threatened to turn me over to the authorities, if I said anything about last night and if I didn’t let you carry that cigarette case. He’s smart, but maybe I was smarter. You haven’t got it now.”

  Her brown eyes had the same look that he had seen back at the hotel. He saw her clasp and unclasp her hands and when she spoke her voice was low and frightened.

  “I generally know about people,” she said. “I knew that something was the matter with you. What did you do back home, Gates?”

  “I forged a check,” he said. He had meant to keep his voice low, but instead it was harsh and bitter. He saw her start when he said it, but her eyes were still and deep.

  “You did it on account of some girl,” she said. “You did, Gates, didn’t you?”

  He stared out of the window before he answered. The train was moving rapidly across a level country which gave an impression of another age, with interminable cultivated fields, surrounding mud villages each behind a high mud wall. It was as though the clock had been turned back a thousand years, and there he was wretched in the present.

  “Not exactly,” he said slowly. “She was my first cousin and I always disliked her very much. It doesn’t really matter. The point is I’m a forger. The point is I’m all washed up. Maybe it’s just as well I told you. Forgers aren’t popular with anyone, I guess. Keep your checkbook away from me, Miss Dillaway.”

  He leaned back in his wicker chair and stared straight ahead of him, uncomfortable at her silence, because her silence was worse than words. He was waiting for her to speak, bracing himself to hear what she might say. He saw her glance at him sideways.

  “Do you still want to match me for a drink?” she said.

  His face grew bright red underneath his tan and freckles. He had never known that he could be moved so deeply by anything that anyone could say to him.

  “Do you mean you still want to talk to me?” he asked. “I haven’t been joking, Dillaway.”

  Miss Dillaway wrinkled her nose.

  “See if you’ve got a coin in your pocket,” she said. “You’ve got clumsy hands for a forger, Gates.” And that was all she said.

  He put his hand in his pocket and drew out a Japanese coin with a hole through the middle of it.

  “The trouble with it is,” he said, “that it hasn’t got any heads or tails.”

  Miss Dillaway laughed.

  “You can’t make heads or tails of anything in Japan,” she answered, “that’s why. I’ve got an American fifty-cent piece. Wait a minute.”

  She was opening her handbag and the train was slowing down beside one of those incongruous, half-European looking stations, built of neat gray brick with a gray tiled roof. Beyond it, perhaps half a mile away, he could see a town, larger than any they had passed, with somber gray brick walls and an arched gate with battlements on either side and with a curved roof structure above
it. A line of two-wheeled carts drawn by chunky little horses moved into the town, and behind them came a row of donkeys laden with fagots. The train guard was drawn up on the station platform and their bayonets glittered in the summer sun, partly concealing a group of Chinese country people who stood behind them, watching incuriously. The train was slowing down and a food vendor with tea and rice and spaghetti was running beside it, calling in a plaintive singsong voice.

  “It looks like a big town,” said Calvin Gates, “I wonder what it is.”

  “It looks dirty,” said Miss Dillaway. “Here’s the fifty-cent piece, Gates. Look at the barbed wire and sandbags. You’d better call it, Gates. What do you want, heads or tails?”

  “Heads,” he said.

  Miss Dillaway slapped the coin on the back of her hand.

  “You lose, Gates,” she said. “It’s tails. Why look, what’s happening now?”

  The rear door of the observation car had opened and a young Japanese subaltern entered, followed by two soldiers with their rifles with bayonets at port. The officer was hardly out of his teens and his expression was eager and ambitious. He was holding a piece of paper in his hand which he consulted scrupulously, and finally looked at Calvin Gates. Calvin put his hand in his pocket and looked back at the officer.

  “I’m afraid,” he said, “Mr. Moto’s guessed I’ve got that cigarette case.”

  Miss Dillaway pulled his sleeve.

  “Then give it to me, Gates,” she said.

  Calvin Gates did not look at her, but continued to examine the officer.

  “It’s too late now,” he answered. “I’m afraid we’d better say good-by, Miss Dillaway. You’ve been nice to me—much too nice.”

  The officer halted before Calvin Gates and spoke very slowly in English, accenting each syllable tonelessly and conscientiously, like a student who has learned the language from a phrase book.

  “Good afternoon,” the officer said. “Please, you come with me.”

  Calvin smiled, but the officer did not smile.

  “Where?” Calvin asked.

  The officer paused, laboring hard with the eccentricities of an unknown tongue.

  “Arise off your sit, please,” he said. “Go off the train with me at once.”

  Calvin Gates rose.