“No, sir,” Wilson said.
“Well, I’ll tell you what I guess I think he is,” Uncle William said, “and I’ll know to-morrow if I’m right. Mr. Moto is a Government agent, and he’s after my old acquaintance Chang Lo-Shih; and just you remember this, Wilson: Be careful of Mr. Moto. I’ll bet you run into him again and when you do, don’t tell him any of the firm’s secrets—not that you know any—and don’t drink any more whisky than he does, Wilson. Now if you’ll wait for five minutes we’ll go over to the Club.”
“Yes, sir,” said Wilson. He sat quietly watching his uncle, aware of his own complete uselessness to cope with such situations. He sat there wondering, not for the first time, whether he would ever understand the complications of the new life he had started. He even wished vaguely that he was back at home and he felt a growing respect for the abilities of his family. The Hitchingses had coped with China for a hundred years and they could still cope with China. Then a sound from his uncle startled him.
His Uncle William had slammed a paper on the desk.
“By God!” said Uncle William, “that woman still has our name on that gambling house in Honolulu!”
“What woman?” asked Wilson.
“Cancel any engagement you may have,” said Uncle William. “You are to dine with me alone to-night.” Uncle William mopped his forehead. It occurred to his nephew that he had never seen his uncle look so disturbed, and he knew why—the name of Hitchings was something to be taken very seriously out there in the East.
“Read that letter,” said Uncle William, “and then put it in your pocket. I want you to think about it. I’ll talk to you about it seriously after dinner.”
Wilson examined the letter carefully, because he had learned that the external appearances of a letter often told more about the writer than the contents. It was written on several large sheets of paper, of a good quality, evidently intended for a typewriter, although his uncle’s correspondent had written it by hand with a stub pen and blue-black ink. The writing at first glance seemed scrawling and careless but the whole was perfectly legible and each letter was incisive and distinct. He would have known it was a woman’s writing even if his uncle had not indicated it. Then it had the lack of discipline of penmanship peculiar to his own generation. The sender’s address was embossed on the top of each page by a well-cut die.
“HITCHINGS PLANTATION,” the letterhead read, “HONOLULU, T.H.”
He remembered afterwards that the letterhead surprised him, since he had never heard there was a plantation anywhere in the world bearing the family name. He mentally contrasted it with the heavily engraved letterhead of the Hitchings firm: “HITCHINGS BROTHERS, BANKERS AND COMMISSION MERCHANTS, HONOLULU, SHANGHAI, CANTON.” To anyone familiar with the American vicissitudes of mercantile ventures, during the past century, those words were illuminating enough. They indicated that the Hitchings family had built up and maintained a commercial position which was still strong after nearly all the houses that had started with them had disappeared. The firm letterhead told of the northwest trade and the China trade. It indicated more than clever management. It indicated complete mercantile and banking integrity. Even then Wilson had an intuition that the letter headed “Hitchings Plantation,” which he was holding, indicated something entirely different. He felt an instinctive cautious resentment that the family name should be embossed upon it—a resentment which extended to the writer. The letter read:—
Dear Mr. Hitchings,—
I suppose you are a distant relative of mine, since my father sometimes spoke of you when he was alive, but I don’t know how we are related. Frankly, I don’t much care. Mr. Wilkie, your Branch Manager in Honolulu, advised me to write you personally. That is my only reason for doing it.
Mr. Wilkie has forwarded me several times your offers to buy the house which my father left me and which has always been called “Hitchings Plantation,” with exactly as much right as you call your own firm “Hitchings Brothers.” He has explained your anxiety to purchase the property from me on the grounds that it is a gambling establishment and that its name is hurting the fine old traditions of your own business. From what I know of your business pursuits, I don’t believe that a roulette table can hurt them very much. You have been so anxious to buy me out that I wonder if you have not some other reason. Bankers so seldom tell the real truth.
At any rate, whatever your reason is, this letter is to tell you that you are wasting your time in making me offers. “Hitchings Plantation” is going to remain open as long as I have anything to do with it. There is no reason why I should have any sympathy for your delicacy about the family name. As a matter of fact, I feel that my particular way of earning my living is about as honorable as yours, even if it doesn’t pay so well.
I wonder if you remember what happened when my father had financial reverses a few years ago. When he went to his rich relatives and asked for help, he did not even get sympathy. That is why we began having card tables in the house: because we had to do something to get along. People like to come out to the Plantation. There has never been enough disturbance to make the authorities object. When my father died, I put in a roulette table and frankly made it a gambling casino because I had to earn my living. A good many people here sympathize with me, which perhaps you know. You could have helped us once and you didn’t. There is no reason why I should help you now—and I won’t. I haven’t any more use for you than you have for me. You can try to bring legal pressure to bear, if you want to, but I don’t think you will. You don’t want publicity any more than I do, so I should let the matter drop and let the black sheep of the family alone.
Very truly yours,—
EVA HITCHINGS.
Wilson laid the letter back on his uncle’s desk and his uncle did not speak. There was a quality in his silence which told Wilson that it would be just as well not to appear amused, although the letter did amuse him. It referred to circumstances of which he had known absolutely nothing, so that he could think quite freely of the person who wrote it. Evidently, a girl who was angry—yet the anger seemed to him harmless. A gambling house bearing the family name was a circumstance which the older generation might consider more important than did his own. He could even wonder what the place was like and what the girl was like who ran it. He had never realized that there was any branch of the Hitchings family on an island in the middle of the Pacific, and the idea interested him.
His uncle looked at him over the papers on his desk.
“Well, what do you think of it?” his uncle asked.
“I wonder what we did to her father?” Wilson answered. “Who is she? I don’t see that it is very important.”
His uncle placed the point of his paper knife on the palm of his heavy hand. His face seemed more vacant than usual.
“You must learn not to make snap judgments,” his uncle said. “Out here nothing that is important ever seems important, Wilson. I don’t like that letter and I don’t know exactly why. There has been too much talk about that gambling house. It’s getting too well known. People are beginning to associate it with the Bank, but that isn’t why I don’t like the letter. There is some sort of situation behind it.… There is something wrong in Honolulu.… You asked me who the girl is. Well, you are having dinner with me. We’ll talk about that to-night.”
His uncle moved his hands through his letters, quickly, almost carelessly, and his momentary annoyance was gone; but Wilson knew that something was disturbing him—some unexplained suspicion was disturbing his uncle. The Hitchingses were always a cautious and suspicious family.
CHAPTER II
It had been his uncle’s habit to dine with him quietly, at least three evenings a week, and to talk after dinner of certain aspects of the business. Wilson would sit at such times and listen, fascinated, wondering if he would ever learn it all. Uncle William lived in the family house that had been built in the seventies in a garden behind high compound walls. The house, entirely European, always reminded him of a Chine
se copy of a European picture, for in some way China had crept into the architectural plan. Yet there was nothing definite about the house which indicated it. It may have been only the sights and sounds around it. The house was of gray stone, with a gray mansard roof. Inside the furniture was mid-Victorian, and except for the servants there was nothing Oriental in the house.
First there was whisky-and-soda on the back porch overlooking the garden; then, after dinner, they sat on the back porch again, smoking cigars.
“Wilson,” Uncle William said, “I think I ought to tell you something.”
“What is it, sir?” asked Wilson.
“Frankly,” said Uncle William, “when you first came out here I was disappointed in you. You seemed to me shy. You did not seem to be able to mix or to have the human touch; but you’re improving, Wilson.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Wilson. And then he added something which had been on his mind for some time. “It’s not easy to be natural when you are a part of an institution.”
“No,” said Uncle William, “but you are doing better, Wilson. A number of the women at the Country Club have spoken of you in very high terms. There is something about you that women like. I am very glad of that. Do you think you are going to like it here?”
“Yes, sir,” said Wilson. “I think I will, when I understand it.”
“Boy!” called Uncle William. “Whisky soda.” He flicked the ash from his cigar and looked across the garden. It was almost dark by then and the noise from the city all around them was mysterious in the dark.
“I am glad to hear that you are going to like it,” Uncle William said, “and I am particularly glad that you have reached no conclusions yet. When you stay out here as long as I have, you will find that it is better to make up your mind about only a very few things. You drink very well, Wilson, and you do not talk too much. I believe that you have got brains. I believe eventually that you can take control of this Branch of Hitchings Brothers.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Wilson. He knew that it was a great deal for his uncle to say.
“Of course,” said his Uncle William, “you have done nothing as yet. You have simply met a few people. I have not bothered you with office routine. I have only tried to help you a little with social values and position. Now, I am going to give you something to do. It will be your first job, Wilson. Did you read that letter?”
“Yes, sir,” Wilson said.
“Well,” said Uncle William, “you are going to call on that cousin of ours in Honolulu. I want you to close that matter up. I haven’t time to do it.” He looked through the door leading to the main part of the house as though something troubled him. “Boy,” he said, “bring me a cigar.”
Wilson Hitchings sat up straight. It was not the first time that his uncle had startled him.
“But how do you want me to settle it?” he asked.
Uncle William’s voice was bland.
“By using your own judgment,” he said. “It’s time you had a chance to use it. You can draw on the firm for any amount. I’ll leave that up to you.”
“But I don’t know anything about this,” Wilson said.
His uncle flicked the ash from his cigar and stared thoughtfully at the evenly glowing end. “Your remark reminds me that I know very little myself,” he answered. “When you have been out here as long as I have, you will find that intuition counts as much as knowledge. The family has always had intuition. Frankly, it’s a rather difficult gift to define. I think perhaps you have that gift. A connoisseur can look at a picture which seems correct to a layman, but a connoisseur may have an indefinable sense that something is wrong with its values. Without really knowing anything, it has been dawning on me for the last short while that something is wrong with the values of our Honolulu Branch, although I can give no explicit reason. Business is quiet enough there. The Branch is more of an ornament inherited from the past than a paying proposition. Now, if you will listen to me carefully, I will try to give you a few details. They may explain my unrest when you put them together. Have you ever been to Honolulu, Wilson?”
“No, sir,” Wilson said. “I came out here by way of Europe, you remember.”
“Of course,” said his uncle. “Then you have never seen the Islands. Well, you have something still to see. They are rather close to being South Sea Islands, and for once the travel circulars are right. It is hard to exaggerate their beauty and their climate. The only trouble is that the externals of life are too easy. Men are apt to grow a little soft when life is too easy. I sometimes think that is what is happening to Wilkie.”
“You mean our Branch Manager out there?” Wilson asked.
His uncle’s talk seemed discursive, almost rambling, but he knew it would pay to listen carefully.
“Yes,” his uncle said. “Joe Wilkie. He’s been the Branch Manager out there for thirty years now.… He’s had an easy life; the last time I was there, he had enough leisure for yachting. He has bought one of those Japanese power boats that are used for fishing and has had her made all over as a cruiser. That sort of thing is all right within limits, but outside activities seem to have taken his mind off work. He has been careless in this business about Ned Hitchings’ daughter. I wonder; I sometimes think he may have been deliberately careless—not that I have ever seen the girl, and I hadn’t seen Ned Hitchings for years before he died. I should like you to watch Wilkie, Wilson. I don’t think he has the capacity to be actively dishonest; but watch him, please.”
Wilson nodded in obedient agreement.
“I always try to watch,” he said. “Who was Ned Hitchings?”
At first Wilson thought his uncle had not heard his question. His uncle was watching him obtusely and carelessly.
“I have seen you watching people,” Uncle William said. “It is a habit you mustn’t lose, and I hear you can move quickly when it is necessary. They told me there was a fight at Joe’s Place last night. A drunken sailor bumped into you.”
Wilson could not guess how his uncle had ever heard except that any event, however small, seemed to be public in Shanghai.
“It wasn’t anything—” he said. “I suppose I look quieter to people than I really am. There wasn’t really much trouble. I rather like Joe’s Place.”
His uncle appeared to have forgotten the subject at hand but Wilson knew that it was a habit. He knew that his relative was worried.
“Have you ever tried the wheel upstairs?” Uncle William asked. “Joe knows all the gambling tricks from Monte Carlo to Canton. Well—you were asking me about Ned Hitchings. I guess he knew them, too. Ned was a wild boy back at home.”
“I never heard of him, sir,” Wilson Hitchings said.
His uncle pursed his lips.
“When the Hitchings family drums anyone out of camp,” Uncle William answered, “they don’t speak of them to the rising generation. Ned Hitchings is your father’s and my third cousin. He had a share in your great-grandfather’s trust estate. Your grandfather was executor. When the estate was settled, your grandfather took him into the New York office. Ned and your father and I were younger then. That was before I came out here. Ned used to shock me then. He wouldn’t shock me now.”
“No,” said Wilson. “I don’t suppose he would.”
“You see,” Uncle William explained, “one grows tolerant as one grows older. Even in the Hitchings family. Yes, Ned was quite a boy. He didn’t fit well in the office. That money he inherited didn’t fit well with him. He married a dancing girl out of one of those Broadway extravaganzas. It rather shocked me then. It wouldn’t shock me now. Come to think of it, she was a rather pleasant girl, but it finished Ned. You couldn’t have a man like that active in the business. Be careful whom you marry, Wilson, please. Be careful.”
“Yes, I will,” Wilson answered.
His uncle flicked the ash from his cigar.
“Well,” he said. “Ned drifted out to Honolulu and put all his money into a house that he called ‘Hitchings Plantation.’ Ned always spent his
money freely. They had a daughter; then his wife died; then he lost the money. He mortgaged his place. He wrote to your father and me asking us to help him out. We didn’t. Maybe we were wrong.… That’s all. I never thought about the girl until she turned the place into a gambling establishment. Have you never heard of it?”
“No, sir,” Wilson said.
“Then I would find out about it, if I were you,” said Uncle William. “It seems they want to keep the tourists entertained in Honolulu. The place is called ‘Hitchings Plantation’ and the authorities are rather partial toward it. Every tourist with sporting proclivities goes straight there from the boat. It’s the talk of the world cruises. They are joking about it out here now. They are saying it is part of Hitchings Brothers. It isn’t good for business, Wilson. We have been trying for the last six months to buy Ned’s daughter out and close the place.”
“And she won’t sell,” said Wilson.
Uncle William shrugged his shoulders.
“You saw the letter,” he answered. He glanced over his shoulder toward the open door behind him as though he were listening for some sound.
“Are you expecting a caller, sir?” Wilson asked.
“You are rather quick, aren’t you?” his uncle answered. “As a matter of fact, I am; a rather secret caller, and I am not going to do business with him either.… Well, you know as much as I do about Hitchings Plantation. I want you to see what is the matter, Wilson. I want you to buy it and get it closed, and you had better rely on intuition. The only thing that has kept our heads above water here is intuition. Don’t ask me any more. I have got other things on my mind to-night.”
The door behind them creaked. There was a soft pad of slippers on the veranda and William Hitchings’ servant, a white-robed figure in the dark, was whispering something softly.
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