Thank You, Mr. Moto

by John P. Marquand

  “Has it occurred to you that two might handle this better than one?” I began.

  But she stopped me. “You can’t talk me out of it,” she said. “It is no use trying. I have as strong a will as you have, probably stronger. I’ve got to go through this entirely alone. You understand that, don’t you?”

  And in a way I did understand it. I arose and held out my hand. “All right,” I said. “But you can’t arrange things as easily as that. Whether you like it or not, we’re both in this together. If you don’t want me here now, I’ll go but it won’t be permanent.”

  “Why do you say that?” she asked me quickly.

  “Because it is fatality,” I told her. “We’ve been caught in a current, I hope a very small one, but when you’re caught in a current you can’t help it. I’ve been writing a book about it.”

  “I don’t agree with you,” she said. Her hand gripped mine frankly, almost like a man’s.

  “But it’s so,” I told her. “Will has very little to do with anything. There’s something else inside us that makes the will play tricks. If you and I like each other we’ll see each other, whether we want or not.”

  “I don’t believe it,” she said again.

  “I’m afraid that doesn’t matter,” I answered. “And you can’t help my looking out for you, whether you want it or not. I’ll be seeing you. Good bye!”

  I was two steps away from the door when she called me back.

  “Wait,” she said. “You’re not angry with me, are you?”

  “No,” I said. “On the contrary, I wish I’d known a girl like you five years ago.”

  “I’m glad, you said that,” she said quite soberly. “It’s so hard to tell what you really think. You have a poker face and half the time you’re acting. You’re a complicated sort of person.”

  “Not basically,” I said. “All human beings are rather simple basically. You’re simple. I’m simple.”

  “But not when we’re together,” she said. “Good bye.”

  Chapter 11

  It was true what she said. When we were together things were complicated. I was disturbed because she sent me away, and that in itself was illogical enough. I know now that the current which had drawn us together was moving me without my own volition, but I did not know it then. My only reaction was a desire then not to be alone. I wanted to be with people and to have my own thoughts dulled by the anesthetic of talk. That was why I went to the Club, after seeing Eleanor Joyce, simply as a way of retreating from something which seemed to be following me and which seemed to be all around me.

  The Club turned out to be an adequate answer to what I wanted. There was nothing mysterious or subtle inside it, scarcely a touch of the East about it, which was probably its chief attraction in that distant city. The Club was predominantly British, a tribute to that colonizing ability of its founders which has enabled them to make any British outpost, from the wilds of Canada to the rubber plantations of Singapore, the same as any other. The dark woodwork had a hint of Victorian manners. The faces were controlled. There was a sense of the Anglo-Saxon race standing together, a somewhat out-of-date sense of empire, which had been voiced by Kipling once. The security of manifest Nordic destiny was still there, and it was singularly peaceful to me that noon. I was sorry that I had ever left that security. I did not wish to go back to my Chinese house.

  It was getting toward luncheon at the time I arrived and the tables in the bar room were filling up. Jim Greenway from the Imperial Shensi Bank was there, and the manager of the cable company and Captain Clough from the marines. The Chinese bar boys were hurrying from table to table with trays weighted with soda bottles and whiskey. There was a sound of shaking dice.

  “Boy,” voices were shouting. “Boy,” with the same assurance as though the Anglo-Saxon was still the dominant race in the Orient. Several people called to me when I came in. Greenway waved an arm to me. Clough pointed to a chair, and I joined them.

  “Boy,” I found myself calling. “Scotch and soda, Boy.”

  Clough, who was heavy and methodical, continued exactly where he had left off.

  “And I say, under the circumstances everybody had better carry a gun,” he said. “This thing is disturbing. Tom, have you got a gun?”

  “No,” I answered. “Why?”

  “He’s the sort who never hears anything,” Greenway said. “Haven’t you heard the news?”

  “No,” I answered. “What?” But I guessed what the news would be.

  “Best killed himself last night.”

  “What? Killed himself?” My surprise was genuine enough.

  “Found dead with a forty-five automatic in his hand,” said Captain Clough. “It’s all regular enough. We all know Best. He probably had reasons enough to kill himself. But then!”

  “But what?” I said.

  Captain Clough drew a deep breath. “What I’ve been saying. I don’t like it. Best wasn’t the suicide kind. You know what I mean when I say it. There’s a sort of man who just won’t kill himself, no matter what sort of a mess he’s in. I know Best.”

  My hand was unsteady as I lifted up my glass. It occurred to me that Mr. Moto had done very well. He was hushing matters up exactly as he had promised.

  “You never can tell,” I said. “Things happen that way sometimes. I’m sorry, but then perhaps it’s just as well.”

  “Perhaps,” said Clough. “But just the same I advise everybody outside the Legation compound to carry a gun. I’ve always advised it. I’ve got a thirty-eight in my bag outside. I’ll lend it to you if you like.”

  His advice was exactly what I should have expected. The Captain was of the alarmist type who believes that the Orient is full of hidden enemies. I told him so, and everybody laughed.

  “Besides,” I said. “What should I do with a revolver? I’ve never handled one in my life.” My confession was a shocking one to the Captain. As shocking as though I had told a missionary that I was an atheist.

  “You’re not serious, are you, Tom?” he said.

  “Yes,” I answered. “But it doesn’t matter, does it?”

  The talk moved into other channels after that. The East is a hard place, too callous for the news of death to disturb its equanimity. By the time luncheon was finished and we were seated about a bridge table the shadowy career of Major Best was in the past. The Captain’s talk about firearms was nearly all that lingered in my mind. My mind was on revolvers, as the cards clicked on the table. It was true I had never handled one, but I had an accurate idea as to how it was done. My cards were very good that afternoon and we four played steadily, aware that time made no great difference. When we finished Captain Clough owed me thirty dollars and I thought of the revolver again. I had an impulse as I thought of it.

  “Give me your gun and I’ll call it square,” I said. That was how it happened that I left the Club carrying a revolver in the side pocket of my coat with cartridges in the chamber, for the first time in my life. There was nothing deliberate about it. I had no real sense of danger. The Club was filling up again for the cocktail hour before dinner.

  “Did you hear about Best?” they were saying. “He killed himself. A bad sort. Always knew he would.”

  I could hear the word “Best” over the tinkling of the glasses. Mr. Moto had done very well. The end of Major Best was taken for granted already and without question by everyone except my bridge opponent, Captain Clough.

  “Best,” they were saying. “Best! A forty-five automatic in his hand and a bullet through his head. Well, one has to stop somewhere.”

  Everyone knew the story by then. It was already becoming enlarged and distorted by the grapevine telegraph of gossip. Everyone knew that Best had killed himself, for some reason which had better not be mentioned, although everyone was busy supplying a reason. I could hear their voices chattering in my memory all the way home, rising above the street noises of Peking.

  “Best,” they were saying. “Well it couldn’t have been different. He had to leave
Shanghai. There was something in the army. There was something up at Kalgan … crooked … yellow … something.”

  For the first time I felt sorry for his memory, because, I suppose, there is an instinctive respect for the dead. The memory of the cool-eyed Major had been wronged mercilessly and efficiently and slandered when he could not answer back. I could see Mr. Moto working in the Major’s study, changing a murder to a suicide, studiously and conscientiously. It was an upsetting and a ghoulish picture which I could not put aside. Now that the dusk was coming on, the uncertainty of all the events which had transpired in the last twenty-four hours were given an odd and new perspective, becoming magnified and distorted like shapes seen through rippling water. Suppose, I was thinking, that I should be killed, would Mr. Moto arrange it too that I had killed myself? In spite of the noises on the street, I had a sense of silence and of tenseness as though everything were waiting. It may have been premonition. I believe in premonition now.

  For the first time that I could remember the red gate of my wall did not open after my ricksha stopped before it. My boy had to bang against it with the great iron ring and to shout shrilly for attention. For a moment or so his clamor seemed like the futility of all human endeavor. The clang of the iron ring rose through the warm close air with his voice, up toward the deepening violet of the sky. The dusky shadows seemed to fall like nets to catch the sound and out of the shadows came the nervous staccato chant of locusts and crickets. It was a sound that was indescribably sad and mocking; then the yard coolie opened the door so slowly and reluctantly that I grew angry.

  “What is the matter here?” I asked him. “Where is Yao?” The man was a dull witted member of the human burden bearing class. It took him a moment to find a suitable answer. He wagged his head nervously, opened his mouth and closed it.

  “He is gone,” he said. “His mother is very ill. So are the parents of the cook and the assistant cook. They regretted that they must leave. There is only myself here now.”

  Unless one has lived in the Orient, it is hard to understand how utterly such disregard of the employer’s status and comfort might shock one. At any rate, it made me indignant, to the point of violence.

  “You mean to say,” I demanded, “that there is no one here to prepare my dinner?” I turned to the ricksha boy. “Go,” I said. “Get some people to prepare my dinner. Find someone at once.”

  “Who shall I find,” he asked, “Master?”

  “Anyone,” I said. “Don’t argue with me, you turtle’s egg. Do you think I am going to do without my dinner? Do you think I am going to get it myself?”

  My last question showed him, perhaps, that things had come to a serious pass, because he hurried away. I was still deeply shocked as I walked through my blue and white garden; I had thought mistakenly that my servants were devoted, although I should have known much better. I walked quickly into the second court, turning over the situation in my mind, nearly oblivious to everything around me. Yet I remember that the shade trees over the wall were growing a very dark green in the dusk, making the whole place dusky green, like the depths of a shadowy pool, and I recall that incessant chirping of the crickets. The sound was nervous and out of key. I walked toward the room that opened off my bedroom, the room where my red lacquer desk and my books were, that I used for dressing and writing. It was almost dark inside. I paused at the door to grope for the antiquated light switch, for electrical appliances are not modern in Peking. I was half inside and half out of the door when I contrived to switch on the light, with my head turned sideways against the frame of the open doorway. It is singular how accurately one can reconstruct such small details and yet what a margin of error there still exists in recollection.

  The light went on, and I was just about to move inside—I was just turning my head, in fact, when two things happened almost instantaneously. Something went buzzing so close by my forehead that I could almost feel its impact. There was a plop of something that had imbedded itself in the door frame, and at the same instant there was a sound across the court, a snapping sound like a string pulled on a bass viol so hard that it strikes the wood. I knew what had happened. Though my mind appeared to accept these events deliberately, my body did not. My body had given a lurch to get inside the door. My hand in a spasm of panic was switching out the light but my body in its haste had forgotten the high Chinese door sill. I tripped over it, and the next instant I had fallen flat into the room. Then I was drawing myself up on my hands and knees cautiously, noiselessly, like a hunted animal. In the midst of all this motion my mind was running smoothly. I knew exactly what had happened. A bolt from a crossbow had whizzed by my head, not a quarter of an inch away from it. I had heard the twang of the string across the court. If I had not moved my head at that instant, I should have been in front of the door as dead as Major Best.

  Chapter 12

  I suppose I must have been afraid, but I was still moving instinctively. I was crouching just inside the door, with my shoulder against my red lacquer desk; goose flesh was rising and falling in waves up and down my back. I knew that I was still in danger, that the thing was not over yet, and whoever had shot had seen me fall. Whoever it was might be coming into the courtyard at any moment to find me crouching inside the door. Then my hand was in the side pocket of my coat, gripping that revolver. My fingers were shaking until they touched the metal; then I was holding it in my hand quite steadily. I remember being surprised that I seemed to be intuitively familiar with it. I was holding the revolver ready and listening, as though I expected some sound that was inevitable. I heard it half a minute later.

  There were footsteps in the dusk outside. I wished to peer round the door frame but I didn’t. The steps were soft and unhurried, coming directly, unhesitatingly toward the door. Still crouching, holding the revolver in my right hand, I reached with my left for the light switch. Footsteps were just outside, I heard a toe strike against the threshold that had tripped me. Then they were in the room and I turned on the light.

  I heard a breath drawn, just as the light switched on, but that was all. The yellowish light made everything reassuring and real; not eight feet away from me, covered by my revolver Mr. Moto was standing, motionless, but apparently not surprised.

  Times such as those are glittering, jeweled instants which one can never forget. I remember exactly the way the light struck Mr. Moto’s face, bringing out the eager, watchful lines around his narrow eyes, and making his blunt nose cast a sideward shadow on his coffee colored skin. I remember that he was smiling, with the curious reflex action of his race that makes the lips turn up at unconventional moments into a parody of merriment. Mr. Moto was the one who spoke first.

  “Good evening,” Mr. Moto said. “I am so glad to see you. What is the matter?”

  When I answered him I was pleased with the steadiness of my own voice. There must have been a species of contagion in Mr. Moto’s coolness.

  “Moto,” I said. “There is a chair just behind you, sit down.” I paused and everything was growing very clear. “You eliminated Major Best with your crossbow, Moto, but you haven’t killed me yet. Sit down, and I would not move if I were you.”

  Mr. Moto drew in his breath again and sat down quietly and folded his hands in his lap.

  “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you very much. I am afraid I do not understand.”

  I perched on the edge of my red lacquer desk and we sat for a moment looking at each other.

  “That’s exactly why I didn’t shoot you when you came inside this door,” I said. “I do not understand and you do not understand. I hope to find out what the trouble is before you go away. Three minutes ago a crossbow bolt went by my head. It’s in the door frame now.”

  “Ah!” said Mr. Moto. “You were shot at? I am very, very sorry.” He moved his hands slightly and I interrupted him.

  “Quiet! Mr. Moto,” I said. “Quiet, please.”

  “Yes,” said Mr. Moto. “Certainly. I am so very, very sorry. You are right to be upset. I had
no idea it would be so dangerous. I am very, very sorry.”

  We watched each other curiously. His eyes were bright but his face was expressionless. Then I spoke to him more sharply.

  “You’ll be a damned sight sorrier,” I said, “if you don’t explain right now. I’m not a fool, Moto. You killed Best last night because you thought Best had told me of it. Speak up. What is it that you think I know? You tried to kill me in cold blood. I’ll do the same to you if you don’t speak up.” I was growing angry as I spoke, and indignation was taking place of coolness. “You’re a cold proposition, Mr. Moto, but I won’t be a suicide to-night.”

  There was a flicker in Mr. Moto’s glance. The gold work in his teeth glowed genially.

  “Please, Mr. Nelson,” he said. “Please. You must learn to take these things more calmly. I give you my word—”

  “To hell with your word,” I said.

  “Please,” said Mr. Moto, “I give you my word that I do not think you know anything. I came here out of interest in you, though I was very, very busy. Your gateman will tell you that I asked to come in. I did not try to kill you, Mr. Nelson.”

  “You didn’t,” I said, “but one of your men did, Moto. And furthermore—”

  I actually found myself smiling. It is strange to say that such a moment was satisfying, but frankly it was so. I had never been in a position in my life before which had required definite, concrete action. I had something of the elation which comes of driving an automobile, or riding a horse and knowing that one is master. I was the master of Mr. Moto then; he was like a witness on the stand. I lowered my revolver an inch so that it covered the center of his slender well-dressed torso, for someone had told me it was safer for a poor shot to try for the body and not the head.

  There was no doubt that Mr. Moto was a cool customer. As far as I could tell from facial expression, he was enjoying the moment as much as I.

  “My dear sir, you have the advantage of me to have studied the law,” he said.