From that he passed to telling us, guided by a few questions on our part, all the facts concerning the Taoist invasion. The pertinent points were that it had begun nearly two months before, that its chief spirit was one Ma An Liang, who had brought with him a dozen or more Kanzu devotees, and that, already, pandering particularly to the Shensian belief in amulets, it had won over a good percentage of the townspeople, including many members of MacDonald’s own flock.
Of course, it couldn’t be expected that the Scotch zealot would speak of this temperately. Particularly bitter did he seem concerning his own lack of money to meet the bid of Ma An Liang for the rental of the temple, and he even raged a little against Chang Pei Ying for accepting the higher bid of the Taoist against his own protestations. This last was rather unreasonable. Taoism, with all its faults, was a Chinese religion, and Chang Pei Ying, with all his virtues, had the lazy-mindedness of his class and could hardly be expected to recognize its faults until they were well thrust upon him.
When MacDonald had finished I proposed that he chance a look inside the temple, but he had seen the spectacle once and refused with some heat to contaminate his eyes again. He promised, however, to wait for us at the gateway, so Hazard and I proceeded up the broken and ruinous tiled walk that led through the compound, walking on our toes and keeping well in the shadow of the shrubbery that edged it.
Climbing up a long succession of low steps, we came to a broad portico, the arched roof of which was supported by pillars. Though there were watchers in the antechamber, we each managed to reach a pillar from behind which we got a fairly good view of the conclusion of a typical Taoist ceremony.
First, there were the blue-garmented converts and near-converts, a solid mass of them, squatting cross-legged on the broken brick floor. Then was a ten-foot interval, the three major images of the Taoist Pantheon, with Laotzu the Unapproachable in the middle. Just to the right front of this inane-featured god—whose images, by the way, I half believed the Taoists did protect in some strange manner from profane hands, so various had been the tales I’d heard of men who’d come to grief from touching them—stood the man whom MacDonald had named Ma An Liang.
The place was dimly lighted by flickering candles and reddish flames from two sacrificial bowls placed on either side of the altar. Even in that light Ma An Liang was an impressive and unusual figure—tall and spare, with a uniquely thin face, high cheekbones and narrow eyes that were just now contracted to mesmeric pin-points. His one outer garment was the usual long mandarin robe with the sleeves shortened somewhat, leaving his hands free.
While his singsong, queerly fascinating voice, at once soothing and exciting, recited an unintelligible rite, his slender, clever fingers were busy with a very peculiar work.
On a small stand about four feet in front of the image of Laotzu rested a grass basket. From this basket Ma An Liang took successively many couples of articles. First there were two small knives, then two copper tungtses, then two bronze rings, and there were several pairs of small silver coins—all evidently collected from the credulous and tricked audience for their further befuddlement.
Each twin offering Ma An Liang held for a moment just in front of, and above, the debased modern presentment of the gentle-souled Laotzu. When he released them, they would flutter slowly downward, as if partially upheld by some strange force. But when they came before the open mouth of the god they’d pause and float suspended for a moment. Then one would slowly glide sidewise between the grinning jaws while the other, suddenly released, fell into the left hand of Ma An Liang, who reached down to receive it. He then handed it, doubtless charmed into a prosperity-insuring amulet, back to the devotee to whom it belonged, who crept up, ke’towing to the floor, to receive it.
It was a trick I’d heard of before—not the strangest in the Taoist repertoire—a very practical device for at once impressing and winning converts and adding to the wealth of the miracle-worker, but for the life of me I couldn’t see how it was done.
We watched this for some minutes, impressed by the cleverness of it. Then, at Hazard’s whispered suggestion to withdraw, we crept back to the gate and rejoined MacDonald, who only fumed angrily when we commented on the spectacle.
At our request he accompanied us to the gate of the yamen, saving us some little distance by his knowledge of a shortcut through the labyrinthic streets of the town. There he left us, again suggesting by his manner some remaining animosity against the man whose message to us had suggested such urgent need of help.
In fifteen minutes—the old mandarin’s love of the roundabout in discourse being somewhat negatived under stress—we had learned of a crime as seemingly inexplicable as I’ve ever known and of an inexorable command of self-punishment upon the innocent the like of which I thought had been abandoned in the Middle Kingdom years before.
II
“YOU have honored your unworthy servant,” said Chang Pei Ying, “in answering his summons so swiftly.”
We were seated in the magistrate’s reception-room, sipping the inevitable tea. The usual coterie of servants had disappeared at a wave of Chang Pei Ying’s hand.
“We did our ignoble best,” I replied. “The prospect of being found of use by his excellency filled us with prideful joy.”
“It is I and my ancestors’ graves that are elevated. My stupidity is great and I have need of intelligence. Save that we had sworn the honorable oath of friendship, my insignificant troubles would never have reached you.”
His appearance was more accurate than his words in suggesting the gravity of his difficulties. Of course, his calm courtesy was not a whit shaken—one could never conceive of that—and he was as immaculately gowned and groomed as ever, but he had aged years in the two months since we had seen him last, and the gentle eyes with which he had contemplated life so long were strained with worry. It was, however, with the ineffable composure of his race, rising easily above such light matters as life and death, that he told us what had happened.
Four days ago he had received from his masters in Peking, under government seal, that fatal token the use of which was inaugurated by the Manchus to save expense of trial and permit a faithless official to leave this world with some outward appearance of honor. In short, he had received the suicide cord.
He pulled it out of his gown and showed it to us. Though I’d often heard of the fatal thing, I’d never seen one before and I examined it eagerly. It was about a quarter of an inch thick and four feet long, looped at the end like a noose, silvery gray in base color but with an elongated replica of a yellow dragon woven with remarkable skill into its surface and extending from end to end. Handling the cord made the story I’d heard—that it couldn’t be duplicated save by a certain master workman in the Forbidden City—seem more credible, but, of course, it wasn’t necessary to believe that to understand the cord’s potency. It was at least as difficult of duplication as a document, and it would be received only—as in the present instance—under official seal and by a man who knew the reason he had been condemned to die.
The reason was, briefly, that he’d lost the entire government tax receipts just collected by him from the various towns of his district, which he had been about to forward to Peking. That is, the money had been stolen from him in a manner “surpassing his foolishness to understand.” Hoping to find the money by a rigid search of Cheyung and so to save his face from the appearance of carelessness, he had failed to report the loss—a fact which had evidently convinced Peking that he had himself been the thief.
Just how his superiors had learned of his complicity he couldn’t explain, except by a vague reference to the Central Government’s “ten thousand eyes.” He had been expecting a courier with the tax requisitions for the ensuing year. The courier had come with what seemed the usual roll of papers, but upon opening it Chang Pei Ying had discovered the death-commanding cord.
He had that same day learned that we were again in his district and had immediately sent for us. Not, as we gathered, that he ha
d any idea of evading his punishment. The old magistrate lived by the ancient law of China, which forbids in honor any quibbling in matters of this sort, and to himself he was already as good as dead.
He must die whether the money was found or not, but for his memory’s good and that his sons might worship his grave in honor he prayed that Hazard and I attempt the task. Which, of course, we were eager to do for his sake, even apart from the interest of the case itself. I immediately asked for fuller details, whereupon Chang Pei Ying invited us to visit the place from which the money had been taken.
While he was leading us there he informed us that the amount had been about ten thousand taels, entirely in silver sycees, and that these sycees had been contained in five heavy canvas sacks weighing a hundred and fifty catties each, or about two hundred pounds—a weight and bulk of loot that already made the theft from the guarded yamen sufficiently mysterious.
FIVE minutes later, investigation of the looted treasure vault had turned the mystery into a seeming impossibility.
We passed from the reception-room into a narrow corridor between Chang Pei Ying’s living-rooms and thence into his bedroom, a small chamber at the very rear of the yamen. It had one door, which the mandarin told us was always locked at night, and two high windows crossed with iron bars. At his request we helped him move his bed, one of those heavy wooden affairs which the better class of Chinese affect instead of the brick k’ang. Underneath the bed we discovered a trap door, through which we passed down a short flight of steps into the blackness of a cellar.
Hazard came last and lowered the trap door behind him. I struck a match and, following Chang Pei Ying’s directions, found and lit two Chinese candles—much wax and little wick stuck in candlesticks bracketed on the stone wall.
“The money was taken from here in the night, as I have told you,” said Chang Pei Ying. “Before retiring, I examined it, for its possession was on my mind. In the morning I looked for it again and it was gone.”
He raised his hands in an expression of hopeless bewilderment.
“And it was in sacks weighing close to two hundred pounds!” I cried incredulously.
“Even so,” he bowed.
The place wasn’t over twelve feet square and its walls were of solid rock, unbroken except for a very small window in the outer wall near the ceiling—a window through which barred starlight shone faintly. Hazard crossed quickly to this window and I followed him. It was about twelve inches on each edge and one could hardly thrust his fist between the three heavy iron bars that closed it. A moment’s examination showed that they were cemented unyieldingly, top and bottom, into crevices cut in the solid rock. Looking out, we saw that the bottom of the window was level with the surface of the ground.
There was nothing clearer to me than that the thief hadn’t used the window, for even if the bars had been removed—which was impossible—the opening would hardly have accommodated the body of an infant. I said something of the sort to Hazard, who agreed absentmindedly.
As I was turning away, I heard a muttered exclamation from Hazard. I looked back just in time to see him close his hand swiftly. In the dim light I saw a heavy frown on his usually imperturbable, if unsophisticated, face. Something had evidently both angered and puzzled him—something that he had just discovered, but since he saw fit to say nothing I turned to Chang Pei Ying.
“Where were the sacks of sycees—where did they lie?” I asked.
He indicated a spot just at the foot of the stairway, as far from the window as possible.
“They couldn’t have gone through the window,” I said.
“That is unmistakably true,” he agreed.
“But there’s the floor,” I said, “and the sides of the wall. It seems unlikely, but the thief may have tunneled his way in and closed the opening after him as he left.”
The magistrate shook his head.
“My poor eyes are old,” he said, “but blindness has not yet come to them. I examined everything with great care. The rocks lie as they have lain for three hundred years, but if you wish to satisfy yourselves—”
“Well,” said Hazard slowly, “it will do no harm.”
I began to hope against hope that the mystery might be solved after all. Plainly Hazard had found food for thought, and nothing that wasn’t relevant to the discovery of the money could have interested him then. Moreover, I’d had much experience of his ability to build upon the slenderest clue a whole superstructure of facts—a process of imaginative reasoning that worked from the known to the unknown with the utmost certitude. His theory was that nothing was impossible save a variation from the laws of logic. Using those laws, he would build up a case, much as a scientist builds up from the tiniest bone a complete conception of an antediluvian monster.
During the simple process of verifying Chang Pei Ying’s statement Hazard worked automatically and clearly, with his mind elsewhere. It was soon evident that neither floor nor wall could have been penetrated without leaving distinct evidence behind, for, in the course of the centuries Chang Pei Ying had mentioned, a sort of dry mold had formed over the surface of the rocks and in all the intersections and crevices. Nowhere was that mold broken.
“Well,” I said at last to Chang Pei Ying, “there’s only one way the money could have been removed. That is up the stairway and through your room.”
He smiled quietly.
“So they at Peking would have said, which is another reason I wished to find it myself. It could not have been so taken without my knowledge.”
It seemed an impassé, but here Hazard broke in with his first question.
“Why do you think the money is still in Cheyung?”
“There is the wall about the city,” said Chang Pei Ying. “I have had it watched day and night.”
“That is good,” approved Hazard. Then, rather carelessly, “My friend and I met our brother, the American missionary, who seemed rather aggrieved at your excellency. Is it because you have let the Temple of the Hundred Steps to the Taoist priest?”
“Unfortunately it is true,” said Chang Pei Ying. “In that he is doubly wrong, for it was a matter of duty that I accept the higher offer; and next month, if this thing had not come upon me, the temple would have been his, for Ma An Liang does not preach the pure Taoism and it is not good for the people of Cheyung that they should believe in magic.”
“That is what we believed,” said Hazard quietly. “And now my friend and I would put our two poor brains together. Would your excellency leave us alone?”
CHANG PEI YING assented to this cool request without apparent surprize and rather laboriously mounted the stairs. When he was gone Hazard turned to me swiftly.
“What do you make of this, Partridge?” he asked, a peculiar mixture of anger and elation in his voice.
“Frankly, nothing,” I confessed.
“Then nothing you’ve seen tonight gives you an idea?”
“Why,” I said, “we’ve seen nothing except that infernal Taoist mummery.”
“Um!” he grunted. “Well, what about this?”
He shoved out at me a tiny snarl of blue ravelings—half a dozen threads matted together.
“Why, that—” I hesitated.
“Take it. Look at it. What do you make of it?”
As I fingered the stuff, recognition came to me with a quick catch of the breath.
“Why, that—that looks as if—there’s no Chinese cloth made like that.”
“MacDonald’s gown?” questioned Hazard.
There was no use denying it.
“Yes. Where did you find it?”
“I found it,” half whispered Hazard, “perfectly visible, caught just under the window on a sharp edge of rock.”
“My ——, Hazard!” I cried. “You don’t think—”
“Well, I think,” said Hazard, smiling curiously, “that if MacDonald’s compound were thoroughly searched there’d be signs of recent digging found in it somewhere, and at least part of the silver sycees.”
“What the devil!” I remonstrated. “You’re wrong this time. It’s true he needed money, or thought he did, and true he’s at odds with Chang Pei Ying. I admit this is against him, but he isn’t a thief. He couldn’t be. We’ve laughed at him a little—but thieves don’t come to western China to do missionary work. It takes some courage, that, and—”
“Hold up, Partridge,” interrupted Hazard good-naturedly. “Who accused him? Not I—and yet what I’ve said is true. By the way, isn’t it also true that Taoist temples are accounted sanctuary, like the Buddhist monasteries, and are beyond search by the law?”
“Yes,” I said wonderingly.
“And yet I believe,” he went on thoughtfully, “that the priests claim that ugly god of theirs, Laotzu, has power to detect a criminal and mark him in some way, if he’s brought before them for judgment.”
“The Kansu Taoists make some such infernal pretence to help them get rid of people who are in their way. But what’s that to do with MacDonald?”
“A lot,” smiled Hazard, “as I think you’ll agree presently. But even now, don’t you begin to see the light?”
“Well,” I said slowly, “if MacDonald isn’t guilty, the evidence must have been planted against him. The man that planted it must have been the thief, because, until we were told, no one but Chang Pei Ying was supposed to know of the robbery.”
“You forget the party that sent the news to Peking,” said Hazard, with a queerly suggestive note in his voice.
“Why, yes,” I said, taken aback for a moment, “I had forgotten about that—but mayn’t that have been the thief, too?”
“Now we’re coming to it,” said Hazard with satisfaction. “The thing’s narrowed down to some one who wished to dispose of both MacDonald and Chang Pei Ying—Chang Pei Ying first by the suicide route, then MacDonald by accusation of the theft before Chang Pei Ying’s successor. I thought of that immediately I found these bits of cloth—which, by the way, would be no evidence before Chang Pei Ying, for if they’d been there when he examined this place after the theft there’s little doubt he would have found them. Until Chang Pei Ying told us of his changed attitude toward Taoism I wasn’t quite certain as to the villain’s identity.”
The Complete Adventures of Hazard & Partridge Page 13