Peter the Brazen: A Mystery Story of Modern China
"Buy nothing," Peter Moore said curtly.
"You see my--my see you," observed Ah Sih King, reverting, as he deemed
fitting, to pidgin.
The wireless operator turned his back impolitely; Ah Sih King did
likewise. When he turned again, sharply, the oily smile was gone, a
look of concern having crept into his sly, old face, and the slightly
bent shoulders of the much slier young man were several strides distant.
A faint hiss, as of warning, issued from the carmine lips of the
Chinese woman. Then the window closed noiselessly, and Chinatown,
having paid not the slightest heed to the incident, pattered about its
multifarious businesses, none the wiser.
There was an indefinable something in this incident which caused
creases to appear across Moore's brow. Why had two notes been thrown?
The puzzle sifted down to this possibility: Some one behind the Chinese
woman had thrown a ball of red paper, a note, into the street.
Then she had beckoned him to wait, had written a second note, perhaps
to warn him away. He glanced furtively at the second note, saw that it
was written in Chinese, and thereupon decided in return for many favors
to call upon Lo Ong for a translation.
Chinatown now was slowly vanishing from view, swallowed by the gray
blanket of fog which rolled in from the Pacific through the mouth of
the harbor. Retracing his steps through the mist, Moore descended the
narrow stone stairway and tapped on the oblong of iron with his heavy
seal ring. A shutter clinked, uneasy eyes scrutinized him, and he
heard the bolt slide back. He opened the door and entered, restoring
the bolt to its place.
The room was low, deep and dark under the flickering light of a single
dong, which hung from the ceiling at the end of a roped-up cluster of
fine brass chains. The rich, stupefying odor of opium tainted the
heavy air. The orange flame, motionless as if it were carved from
solid metal, showed the room to be bare except for a few grass mats
scattered about in the irregular round shadow under it.
To one of these mats Lo Ong, gaunt, curious, even hostile, retreated,
squatting with his delicately thin hands folded over his abdomen. A
look of recognition disturbed only for the instant the placidity of the
ochre features.
"No come buy?" he intoned, as if Peter Moore had never passed under
that piercing gaze before.
"My never come buy," said the wireless man curtly. "Wanchee you come
help; savvy?"
"Mebbe can do," asserted Lo Ong, in the voice and manner of one
incessantly pursued by favor-seekers. Lo Ong's draped arm, as if it
were detached from his body and governed by some extraneous mechanism,
indicated a mat. Moore slipped down in the familiar cross-legged
attitude, lighted a cigarette and blew the smoke at the belly on the
dong.
"You Wanchee cumshaw?" demanded the Chinese, uneasily.
Peter Moore disdained to reply, extracted the two lumps of paper, slid
one under his knee and unfolded the other, while Lo Ong looked
unfavorably beyond him at the door. Three rows of Chinese markings
were scrawled down it. Lo Ong's body commenced to sway back and forth
in impatient rhythm.
"Lo Ong," stated Moore, "my wanchee you keep mouth shut--allatime
shut--you savvy?"
"Can do," murmured Lo Ong indifferently. He reached for the rice
paper, lifting it tenderly in long, clawing fingers, and held it to the
flame. He seemed not to believe what he read, for he twisted the paper
over, looked at it upside down, then sat down again, his lean fingers
convulsing.
"No can do," he muttered, replacing the paper on his visitor's knee.
"Mino savvy."
The white forefinger of the wireless operator pointed unwaveringly at
the flattened nose. "Read that," he ordered.
Lo Ong glanced the other way, as if the subject had ceased to interest
him, and tapped the floor with his knuckles.
"Wanchee money--cumshaw?"
"Lo Ong," declared Moore, losing his patience, "you b'long dead. Now
savvy?"
"Mebbe can do," said Lo Ong faintly.
Moore ran his fingers down the first row of fresh markings.
"O-o-ey," commented Lo Ong, shifting uneasily, "'My see you allatime,
long ago on ship.' Savvy?"
"What's next?"
"'You no see my. My see you allatime.'"
The long, sloping shoulders seemed to jerk. "Keep away. Savvy?"
"It says that?"
"Take look see," invited Lo Ong, poking his claw nervously down the
column. "'Keep away. Keep away.' One--two times. Savvy?"
Peter Moore nodded thoughtfully.
The Chinese, officially dead, replaced the sheet gingerly on his knees,
as if it were an instrument of wickedness. His bony fingers twitched a
moment.
"High lady," he added nervously; "velly high lady. You stay away.
Huh?"
"Wait a minute." Peter extracted the other paper ball, unfolding it
near the orange flame. The inner surface was red, the earthly red of
porphyry, and cracked and scarred by the crumpling. Nearly obliterated
by the lacework of wrinkles and scratches was a scrawl, evidently
scarred into the glazed surface by a knife-point. The upper part was
unintelligible. On the lower surface he made out with difficulty the
single word, _Vandalia_. He carried it to the door, slid back the
shutter and let the dim, gray light filter upon it. The other words
were too mutilated to be read.
"Hi!"
He returned to Lo Ong's jacketed side. The bony finger was circling
excitedly about a smear of black in the lower corner of the rice paper.
"What's this?"
"Len Yang. _Len Yang_! Savvy?"
"O-ho! And who is Len Yang?"
Lo Ong shook his head in agitation. "Len Yang--city. Savvy?
Shanghai--Len Yang--fort' day."
"Fourteen days from Shanghai to Len Yang?"
"No. No! _No_! Fort'."
"Forty?"
"O-o-ey." The flattened nose bobbed up and down. "Keep away--ai?"
"Maskee," Peter replied, meaning, broadly speaking, none of your
business.
Lo Ong unbolted the door, to hint that the interview was concluded.
"You keep away--ai?" he repeated anxiously. Moore grinned in his
peculiarly disingenuous way, swung open the black door, and a long,
gray arm of the fog groped its way past Lo Ong's countenance.
CHAPTER III
The junior operator toyed with the heavy transmitting key while Peter
Moore, who knew the behavior of his apparatus as he would know the
caprices of an old friend, adjusted helix-plugs, started the
motor-generator, and satisfied the steel-eyed radio inspector that his
wave decrement was exactly what it ought to be.
Then the inspector grunted suspiciously and wanted to know if the
auxiliary batteries were properly charged. With a faint smile, Moore
hooked up the auxiliary apparatus, tapped the key, and a crinkly blue
spark snapped between the brass points above the fat rubber coil.
"I reckon she'll do," observed the inspector. "Aerial don't leak, does
it?"
"No," said Peter.
The government man took a final look at the glittering instruments, and
departed. Wherewith the junior operator swung half around in the
swivel-chair and exposed to Peter an expression of mild imploration.
Two gray lids over cavernous sockets lifted and lowered upon shining
black eyes, one of which seemed to lack focus. Peter recalled then
that the Chief had said something about a second operator having only
one human eye, the other being glass.
"This is your first trip?"
The sallow face was inclined, and the pallid lips moved dryly.
"I just came from the school. I'm pretty green. You see----"
"I see. We'd better let me take the first trick. I'll sit in till
midnight. After that there's very little doing. You may have to relay
a position report or so. Be sure and don't work on navy time. The
Chief will watch you closely for long-distance. The farther you work,
the better he'll like it. How's the air? Have you listened in?"
"Do you mean--static? I heard a little. Seemed pretty far away,
though."
Peter adjusted the nickeled straps about his head and pressed the
rubber disks tight to his ears. He tilted his head slightly. A
distant but harsh rasping, as of countless needle-points grating on
glass, occurred in the head phones. This was caused by charges of
electricity in the air, known to wireless men as "static." Percolating
through the scratching was a clear, bell-like note. The San Pedro
station was having something to say to a destroyer off the coast.
With delicate fingers Peter raised the tuning-knob a few points. Dale,
the junior operator, hands clutched behind him, stared with the fearful
adoration of an apprentice. He seemed to be making a mental notation
of every move that Peter made, for future reference.
"Ah--do you mind if I ask a few questions? You see, I'm kind of green."
"Go ahead!" Peter said cordially.
"Where do I eat? With the crew? I hear that lots of these ships make
you eat with the crew."
"No. In the main dining-saloon. Mr. Blanchard, the purser, will take
care of you. See him at six thirty."
A deep monstrous shudder, arising to a clamor, half roar, half shriek,
issued from the boilers of the _Vandalia_.
"It's rather interesting to watch us pull out," said Peter when the
noise had ceased. "But be careful. There's no rail around this deck."
He was on his hands and knees at the motor-generator with a pad of
sandpaper between his fingers when the tremulous voice of the junior
operator sounded in the doorway. "Mr. Moore, there's some excitement
on the dock."
Peter followed the narrow shoulders to the starboard side and looked
down. The _Vandalia_ was warping out from the pierhead with a sobbing
tug at her stern. He noted that the head-lines were still fast. A
straggling line of passengers' friends, wives, husbands, and
sweethearts was moving slowly toward the end of the pier, for a final
parting wave.
Something seemed to be wrong at the shore end of the gangplank, for,
despite the fact that the ship was swinging out, the plank was still
up. In the midst of an excited crowd a taxicab purred and smoked.
There was a general parting in the crowd as the door was flung open.
Two figures emerged, were lost from sight, and reappeared at the foot
of the plank. An incoherent something was roared from the bridge.
One of the figures appeared to be struggling, clutching at the rail.
For an instant she seemed to glance in Peter's direction. But her face
could hardly be seen, for it was shrouded by a heavy gray veil. A gray
hood covered her hair, and a long cloak reached to her shoe-tops.
Patiently urging her was a Chinese woman in silk jacket, trousers, and
jeweled slippers. A customs officer tried to break through the mob,
but somehow was held back. The gray-hooded figure suddenly seemed to
become limp, and the Chinese woman half lifted, half pushed her the
remaining distance to the promenade deck.
Peter was then conscious of a staring, lifeless eye fixed upon his.
"What do you make of it, Mr. Moore?" the junior operator wanted to know.
"Of that?" said Peter. "Nothing--nothing at all. By the way, I forgot
to tell you that the captain has issued strict orders forbidding
subofficers to use the starboard decks. Always, when you're going
forward, or aft, walk on the port side."
CHAPTER IV
Peter turned over the log-book and the wireless-house to Dale, a few
minutes before midnight.
"Everything's cleared up. The static is worse, and KPH may want you to
relay a message or two to Honolulu. If you have trouble, let me know."
"Yes, yes," replied Dale, looking over his shoulder nervously. "I
will. Thanks."
Peter left him to the mercies of the static. As he descended the iron
ladder to the promenade-deck, he imagined he saw some one moving
underneath him. The figure, whoever or whatever it was, slid around
the white wall and vanished as his foot felt the deck. He hastened to
follow.