“He is waiting now?” asked Uncle William.
“Yes, marster,” the servant said.
Uncle William rose and lighted a fresh cigar.
“Anything else you want to know?” he asked.
“No, sir,” Wilson said. “Perhaps I had better find out someone who knows about Hitchings Plantation before I go to bed. It is time I began to put things together.”
“Yes, it is time,” said Uncle William. “I wish I might help you, but there is a gentleman here to see me. I wonder if you could guess who he is.”
“How can I guess, sir?” Wilson asked.
“Think,” said Uncle William. “Try to think carefully about what happened this afternoon.”
“Do you mean that Mr. Moto is calling?” Wilson asked. He could not see his uncle’s face, but he guessed that his uncle was smiling.
“No,” his uncle said; “not exactly, but Mr. Moto probably has someone waiting in the street outside. No, Wilson, not Mr. Moto. Mr. Chang is calling—the gentleman who once had business interests in Manchuria. And I can guess what he wants. He wants me to help him with some more business. Well, I won’t. There’s a point where one must stop. I’ll see you in the morning, Wilson.”
As Wilson Hitchings walked down the hallway to the front of his uncle’s house, he did not realize that his uncle was not behind him until he was close to the front door. Near it on the left, the door to his uncle’s study was ajar and only a dim light was burning in the hallway. As Wilson passed the study, the door opened wider and a voice spoke softly.
“Mr. Hitchings.” The voice was so quiet and assured that Wilson was neither startled nor surprised.
“Yes?” he said, and turned to the study door, to find he was facing a man whom he had never seen. The man was a broad-shouldered Chinese, past middle age, dressed in gray, European clothes. He had close-cropped iron-gray hair. Wilson had been in the Orient long enough by then to realize that all Chinese did not look alike. He was even able to identify certain types. The man, he concluded, because of his delicate, rather nervous features, was from the South rather than from the North of China. His dress and his manner showed that he was a man of ability. Just at that moment, the Chinese gentleman looked very much surprised. He was staring at Wilson, unblinking, almost suspiciously, and he had forgotten to be polite.
“Excuse me,” he said. “I thought you were Mr. Hitchings, sir.”
Wilson smiled.
“You mistook me for my uncle, sir,” he said. “But I am Mr. Hitchings, too.” Wilson was astute enough to perceive that the man was very much relieved. He smiled also and held out his hand, a slender, delicate hand.
“I am so glad,” he began. “I thought you were a stranger.” And then Wilson heard his uncle’s heavy step.
“Yes, it’s my nephew, Mr. Chang,” his uncle was saying, “and you need not worry. My nephew knows how to keep his mouth shut. Our family has always been tight-lipped with customers.”
Mr. Chang’s smile grew broader, and he bobbed his head in a quick, nervous bow.
“Yes, indeed, I know,” he said. “That is why I have come to you to-night, and why I hope so much that I may interest you.”
His uncle’s car was waiting outside the wall and Wilson Hitchings told the driver to take him home. He sat looking through the window at the city streets which for the most part in that quarter were like the streets of a Continental European city. But there was an intangible addition, something exotic that made him ill at ease. The shops and the faces on the streets were like that day: superficially correct but inwardly bewildering.
“There was something wrong about to-day,” Wilson Hitchings said to himself, yet he could not have told exactly what was wrong. It was only the inherited intuitive sense which had kept his family afloat for several generations that told him things were not exactly right. And there had been a curious inflection in his uncle’s voice, when he had spoken of Mr. Chang, which had been sharper than amusement. What disturbed Wilson Hitchings most was his utter lack of knowledge and his consequent complete inability to give a reason for his uneasiness. That unrest of his was as enigmatic as the tension which surrounded the city of Shanghai. He had felt that disquiet more than once when he had been by himself doing nothing. In the back of his mind there was always the impression of mysterious things happening inland that came out in garbled accounts in the local press. Shanghai had seemed more than once, as it seemed to him to-night, an impermanent safety square in some enormous game—a city which might disappear overnight. The clubs, the offices, all the people of his race, were only there on sufferance. They were probably doing nothing permanent, but that impermanence made it interesting. His family had ridden successfully on the turbulence of China. He wondered if he could do it. He wondered if his life would be a series of errands such as the one his uncle had assigned to him that night. His uncle had thought nothing of sending him on a six weeks’ journey and, curiously, the implications of that journey did not worry him as much as the unknown implications around him. At least there was something definite in what he was going to do.
His rooms had the austere simplicity of his family’s house at home. He had not taken many things with him when he had been sent to the East, although he knew that he would be there for a long while, perhaps indefinitely. He had brought perhaps a hundred volumes which now stood on plain white shelves. There was a family Bible and some old books on travel and navigation. There were some pictures on the wall, all of which had to do with the family—one was a faded photograph of the old square Hitchings house in Salem which had been torn down fifty years ago. There were framed photographs of the Hitchings family portraits, whose faces were like reflections of his own face in an oddly distorted mirror. On the whole, they were soothing faces, both intellectual and strong. And he was proud of them; the family had always been proud of its ancestry. He had been used to a simple life at home, and he had not yet overcome a sense of surprise to find his Chinese servant ready and waiting when he came home at night.
“Zsze,” he said to his servant, “you must get your accounts ready. In a few days I am going on a journey.”
“Yes, marster,” the servant said. “Upcountry, marster?”
“No,” Wilson told him. “I am going to Honolulu just for a while.”
“Oh, yes, marster,” the man said; and then he turned to the table and picked up a card. “A gentleman—he came to call on you this evening.”
“What sort of a gentleman?” Wilson asked.
“A Japanese gentleman,” the man said. “He was very sorry you were out. He left his card.”
Wilson took the card, read it, and placed it in his wallet. It was one of those business cards to which he had already grown accustomed. On one side were characters, on the other was a European name.
“I. A. MOTO” the printing read, and beneath was written in pencil: “So sorry you were out. I hope to see you soon.”
The inscription on the card amused him, but what impressed Wilson most was the accuracy of his Uncle William’s prophecy. He recalled that his uncle had said that Mr. Moto would probably try to meet him. Although he had the gift of an orderly mind which could set aside a train of thought and turn readily to another, and though he understood that Mr. Moto was no affair of his, he did not feel like sleep. Intuitively he had the sense that something was happening in Hitchings Brothers. Both Mr. Chang and his uncle had been obviously ill at ease.
When his servant had gone, he picked up a book to read;—a translation by Gilbert Murray of Euripides’ “Medea.” He began reading the play, purely for conscientious reasons, and because he had brought the volume with him, hoping sometime to read it; but when he reached Medea’s first speech to the women of Corinth, the words began to hold him. The bitterness and the anger of that woman, whom he had always considered a pleasant girl in Hawthorne’s “Tanglewood Tales,” and Euripides’ own knowledge of the depth of a woman’s mind, filled him with reluctant wonder. There was the conviction of universal tragedy in t
he bitterness of Medea. Was it possible, he wondered, that all women possessed this latent bitterness? It had certainly not been manifest in his own relations with the girls he had met at home. They had been nice girls, happy girls, and their mothers had been contented and poised. Then, much as he deplored the conduct of Jason, in that it differed rather strongly from his own personal standards, it occurred to him that there was much in Jason which was universal also, and there was too much of Jason’s psychology which he could understand. The Hitchingses had always been looking for the Golden Fleece. There was something of the spirit of Jason in all the Hitchingses—the same restiveness—the same relentlessness.
Vaguely, and inaccurately, he could identify himself with those pages of Euripides. Somewhere in the night sounds outside his room, the Greek chorus was singing a noiseless, mysterious song that was ringing in the background of his thoughts. He, himself, had been selected to deal with a bitter and a probably unscrupulous woman who was using the family name despitefully, because of resentment. Wilson sighed and turned a page of his book. He was logical enough and frank enough with himself to understand that he was not well equipped to cope with such a problem. He had never been successful with the sort of woman whom he visualized—the adventurous type; and undoubtedly, the proprietress of a gambling house would be exactly that. On the whole, he could not understand why his uncle had said that he was the sort that women liked.
“Unless I am perfectly safe,” he said to himself. “That is probably the reason.”
The evening was still young and it did no good to read. He could not compose himself for reading because of his own uneasiness. He called for his servant to get him a motor and a driver and walked out into the warm, noisy street.
“Joe’s Place,” he said to the driver. He wanted to find out more about Hitchings Plantation before he went to sleep and he knew that Joe Stanley was probably the one to tell him. The car moved into the dark city, through streets of twinkling electric signs, more effective than any he had ever seen, perhaps because of the Chinese characters depicted on them in red and green and blue. Joe’s Place was in the French concession, on a noisy street, lined with restaurants and cabarets. There was an American bar on the lower floor, with tables and music. There were gambling rooms upstairs. Joe Stanley, himself, was standing near the bar and Wilson wondered, as he often had before, what had brought Joe Stanley to Shanghai to end his days. It was a story which Mr. Stanley never told.
Although he must have been in his middle sixties, he was remarkably well preserved, a soft-spoken courteous American, like a character in a Bret Harte novel. Wilson had seen him more than once, and each time he had learned something new but vague about Mr. Stanley’s past.
Mr. Stanley took a cigar from the corner of his mouth and gave Wilson a friendly nod.
“Going upstairs to play?” he asked.
“No, thanks,” said Wilson. “Not to-night.”
“Well, I’d go upstairs, if I were you,” said Mr. Stanley.
But Wilson sat down at a small table near the bar.
“I am just going to stay long enough to have a glass of beer,” he said. He had to speak loudly to be heard above the noise of drinkers at other tables and of patrons by the bar. “Won’t you join me, Mr. Stanley?”
Mr. Stanley sat down next to the table and pulled his yellow vest straight.
“You know I never drink,” he said. “I wish you wouldn’t sit down here to-night. There’s too many rough boys here.”
“I won’t be here more than a minute,” Wilson said. “Have you ever heard of Hitchings Plantation in Honolulu, Mr. Stanley?”
“Yes, son,” Mr. Stanley said. “I’ve heard of it. Why do you ask me?”
“The name,” said Wilson. “I was interested. That’s all.”
“That’s funny,” Mr. Stanley said. “There was a party in here talking of it, this afternoon. That isn’t why you are asking, is it?”
“How do you mean?” Wilson asked him.
“Nothing,” said Mr. Stanley. “Nothing. A Russian named Sergi was talking of it this afternoon too. Does that mean anything to you, son? He was in here with a Chinese businessman named Chang Lo-Shih. They tell me they play for high stakes there. There is a croupier named Pierre—but maybe you know it already, don’t you, son?”
Wilson sipped his beer carefully and tried to think, but he could not understand Mr. Stanley’s attitude. It presupposed a knowledge which he did not possess. Mr. Stanley’s eyes had grown narrow, and he was smiling faintly, mockingly.
“Why do you think I should know?” Wilson asked. “I have never been to Honolulu.”
“No?” said Mr. Stanley. “But your name is Hitchings, isn’t it? I don’t know what you are aiming at, Mr. Hitchings, but you don’t get me dragged in. I’m too wise and I’ll keep still—so don’t you worry. There is Sergi sitting over there.” He nodded across the room, and Wilson followed the direction of his glance. A man with a pale, waxen face was sitting alone at the table, staring at an empty glass. A cigarette drooped listlessly from between his lips. “You know Sergi, don’t you, Mr. Hitchings?”
“No,” said Wilson. “I don’t. I came here to ask you a simple question and I don’t know what you are driving at.”
“No?” said Mr. Stanley. “Listen, son, it’s getting late and it’s time you was in bed. If you want to know about Hitchings Plantation, ask Mr. Chang, not me. I’m not taking a hand in this. Do you get me, son?”
“No,” said Wilson. “I don’t.”
Mr. Stanley rose.
“It don’t matter if you don’t,” he said. “I know when to keep my mouth shut. No one will get anything out of me. What I know won’t hurt a soul. Are you glad of that, son?”
“I still don’t know what you mean,” Wilson said.
Mr. Stanley held out his hand.
“Put it there, son,” Mr. Stanley said. “You haven’t been out here long, but if I was running a big enough show, I’d have you in it. You’re right to be looking out, but I’m not going to blab what I know to any Japanese. Understand me, son?”
“No,” said Wilson patiently; “but I don’t suppose you’ll explain.”
“That’s what I’m telling you, son,” Mr. Stanley answered. “You can sleep easy and not worry about me. That Jap has been here asking about Hitchings Plantation, not an hour ago.”
“What Jap?” asked Wilson.
“You know it already, son,” said Mr. Stanley, gently. “A guy named Mr. Moto, and he didn’t get a damn word out of me. It’s all right, son, go home and go to sleep. I’m not talking, understand? Good night.”
“Good night,” said Wilson, and he walked out to the street. Mr. Stanley’s manner, the whole conversation, puzzled him; but one thing had stopped him asking more. There was only one thing he understood—that Mr. Moto had been very busy, and he could not tell why. He decided to keep the matter to himself until he found out why. He decided not to tell his uncle. He had been told to do the job himself. There was one implication that had been clear enough. For some reason that he did not know as yet, Mr. Stanley had thought he was completely conversant with a situation which he had only heard of that evening. His Uncle William had been right again. There was something wrong with Honolulu. He was sure of it that night.…
CHAPTER III
Since Wilson Hitchings had been taught to be methodical in dress and in thought and in action, he approached the problem before him methodically. The first thing he did the morning he landed in Honolulu was to call on Mr. Joseph Wilkie, the Manager of the Hitchings Brothers Branch. He walked up a broad street slowly, dressed in tailored white, like a traveler accustomed to the tropics, but he looked around him curiously because it was the first time that he had seen these islands. They had seemed from the ship like a background of a stage. Even when he was safe on land, walking through the warm bright sunlight, the place did not seem any more real than his errand. He still carried in his mind his first view of the city, from the water, with the serrated ridges of v
olcanic mountains behind it. He could remember the soft fresh springlike tones of green, the blueness of the water, the bronze bodies of boys swimming beside the slowly moving ship, the giant pineapple rising above a canning factory on the waterfront, and the civic tower with the word “Aloha” written on it and the notes of the band playing Hawaiian music. The docking of the ship had been arranged with a theatrical skill which was characteristically American, but there was more than that. There had been something of the old spirit of the islands in that landing. When the first ships had entered that harbor natives must have been swimming beside them, and there must have been music; there must have been flowers. He could never forget that impression of flowers which stout Hawaiian women in gingham dresses were holding out for sale. A trade wind was blowing, moving through coconut palms, and the waterfront was clean and beautiful.
The offices of Hitchings Brothers were in a new yellow stucco building, with palm trees growing in a plot of strange stiff grass beside the door. Inside, the offices were cool and airy and no one seemed in a hurry, not even when Wilson Hitchings handed his card to a man of his own age, also dressed in white.
“Does Mr. Wilkie expect you?” the man asked.
“No,” said Wilson. “I don’t think he knows I’m coming.”
The manager’s room was comfortable, like the managers’ rooms in all the Hitchings branches. There was a homelike familiarity in the decoration as far as Wilson Hitchings was concerned that made him feel pleasantly sure of himself; but the assurance left him when he examined the man who was waiting for him there. On the trip out, with the meager information at his disposal, Wilson had tried to construct an imaginary Mr. Wilkie—a bad practice, he learned in later times, since imagination hardly ever coincided with fact. His uncle had told him to watch Mr. Wilkie, and he watched; but his first glance showed that Mr. Wilkie was different from anything he anticipated. Wilson could perceive no sinister traits in the man before him—in fact nothing to attract his attention. There was only one thing which particularly impressed him. It had been his uncle’s idea that Mr. Wilkie should receive no warning of his visit, and it was clear that Mr. Wilkie was surprised and upset, almost unduly upset for such a circumstance, although his lack of composure seemed due largely to hurt pride.
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