Peter the Brazen: A Mystery Story of Modern China
concealing nothing! I did remove the clip, and in my carelessness I
forgot to give them back to you when you left my room."
"I see. Have you them?"
"Yes."
"Please give them to me. You have not by any chance, in another of
those careless moods of yours, happened to tamper with the bullets,
have you?"
"Mr. Moore----" she gasped, clutching her white hands to her breast in
indignation.
"You _are_ clever," said Peter sarcastically. "You're altogether too
damn clever. What your game is, I'm not going to take the trouble to
ask. You--you----"
"Oh, Mr. Moore!" She caught his arm.
He cast it away.
"Didn't tamper with the bullets, eh?" he went on in a deep, sullen
voice. "Well, Miss Borria, here is what I think of your word. Here is
how much I trust you."
And with a single motion Peter whipped all seven cartridges from the
clip and tossed them into the sea. He snarled again:
"You _are_ clever, damn clever. Poor, poor little thing! Still want
to go to Japan with me, my dear?"
"I do," stated the girl, whose eyes were dry and burning.
"Sure! That's the stuff," railed Peter bitingly; "whatever you do,
stick to your story."
He grabbed her wrist, and her glance should have softened granite.
"For example," he sniffed; "that neat little cock-and-bull story you
made up about your cruel, brutal husband. Expect me to believe that,
too, eh?"
"Not if you don't care to," said the girl faintly.
Peter knocked away her hand, the hand which seemed always to fumble at
her throat in moments of strain. He pulled down the black kimono and
dragged her under the light, forcing her back against the white cabin.
He looked.
The white, soft curve of her chest was devoid of all marks. It was as
white as that portion of a woman's body is said to be, by the singing
poets, as white as alabaster, and devoid of angry stripes.
Peter seized both limp wrists in one of his hands.
"By God, you _are_ clever!" he scoffed. "Now, Miss Enigma, you spurt
out your story, and the true story, or, by Heaven, I'll call the
skipper! I'll have you put in irons--for murder!"
She hung her head, then flung it back and eyed him with the sullen fire
of a cornered animal.
"You forget I saved your life," she said.
As if they were red hot, Peter dropped her hands, and they fell at her
sides like limp rags.
"I--I----" he stammered, and backed away a step. "Good God!" he
exploded. "Then explain this; explain why you took the clip from my
automatic. Explain why you put up that story of a brutal husband, and
showed me scars on your breast to prove it--then washed them off. And
why--why you killed this man who would have murdered me."
"I will explain what I am able to," she said in a small, tired voice.
"I took the clips from the revolver because--because I didn't want you
to shoot me. I know _their_ methods far better than you seem to; and I
knew I could handle this coolie myself far better than you could; and I
wanted to run no risk of being shot myself in attending to him.
"As for the 'brutal-husband story,' every word of that is the truth.
If you must know, I used rouge for the scars. Since you are so
outspoken, I will pay you back in the same cloth. There are scars on
my body, on my back and my legs."
Her face was as red as a poppy.
"And I killed this man because--well," she snapped, "perhaps because I
hate you."
Had she cut him with a whip, Peter could not have felt more hurt, more
humiliated, more ashamed, for gratitude was far from being a stranger
to him.
He half extended his arms in mute apology, and, surprised, he found her
lips caressing his, her warm arms about his neck. He kissed
her--once--and put her away from him; and that guiding star of his in
California could be thankful that Romola Borria's embrace was rather
more forgiving than insinuating.
"We must get rid of this coolie," she said, brushing the clusters of
dark hair from her face. "I will help you, if you like. But over he
goes!"
"But the blood."
"Call a deck-boy. Tell him as little as you need. You are one of the
ship's officers. He will not question you."
He hesitated.
"Can you forgive me for this--way I have acted, my--my ingratitude?"
"Forgiveness seems to be a woman's principal role in life," she said
with a tired smile. "Yes. I am sorry, too, that we misunderstood.
Good-night, my dear."
And Peter was all alone, although his aloneness was modified to a
certain extent by the corpse at his feet. The dead weight he lifted
with some difficulty to the railing, pushed hard, and heard the muffled
splash. Quickly he got into his uniform, slipped his naked feet into
looped sandals, and sought the forecastle.
The occupants of this odorous place were sawing wood in an
unsynchronous chorus. No one seemed to be about, so he seized a pail
half filled with sujee, a block of holystone, and a stiff broom.
With these implements he occupied himself for fully a half-hour, until
the spots on the deck had faded to a satisfactory whiteness. The
revolver with Maxim silencer attached he discovered, after a long
search, some distance away in the deck-gutter.
He meditated at length upon the advisability of consigning this grim
trophy to the China Sea. Yet it is a sad commentary upon his native
shrewdness that Peter had not yet recovered from his boyish enthusiasm
for collecting souvenirs.
At last he decided to retain it, and he dropped it through the
port-hole upon the couch, thereupon forgetting all about it until the
weapon was called to his attention on the ensuing morning.
With all evidences of the crime removed, he replaced the pail, the
stone, and the broom in the forecastle locker, and sneaked back to his
stateroom. He locked the door, barricaded the port-hole with the
pink-flowered curtains--those symbols which had reminded him earlier of
springtime in California--and examined his pillow.
It had been an exceedingly neat shot. The bullet had bored clean
through, had struck the metal L-beam of the bunk, and rebounded into a
pile of bedclothes. Dented and scorched, Peter examined this little
pellet of lead, balancing it in the palm of his hand.
"Every bullet has its billet," he quoted, and he was glad indeed that
the billet in this case had not been his vulnerable cerebrum.
Snapping off the light, he drew the sheet up to his neck and lay there
pondering, listening to the whine of the ventilator-fan.
The haggard, distressed face of Romola Borria swam upon the screen of
his imagination. This woman commanded his admiration and respect.
Despite all dissemblings, all evasions, all actual and evident signs of
the double-cross, he confided to his other self that he was glad he had
kissed her. What can be so deliciously harmless as a kiss? he asked
himself.
And wiser men than Peter have answered: What can be so harmful?
CHAPTER VIII
Night brings counsel, say the French. Only in sleep does one mine the
gold of truth, said Confucius.
When Peter was aroused by the golden dawn streaming through the
swinging port-glass upon his eyes the cobwebs were gone from his brain,
his eyes were clear and of a bright sea-blue, and he was bubbling with
enthusiasm for the new-born day.
His ablutions were simple: a brisk scrubbing of his gleaming, white
teeth, a dousing of his hands and face in bracing, cold water, with a
subsequent soaping and rinsing of same; followed by a hoeing process at
the mercy of a not-too-keen Japanese imitation of an American
safety-razor.
Assured that the deck below his port-hole was spotless, he ventured to
the dining-room, half filled and buzzing with excitement.
He was given to understand by a dozen gesticulating passengers that
some time in the course of the night a deck-passenger, a Chinese
coolie, from Buitenzorg to Hong Kong, or Macao, had fallen overboard,
leaving no trace.
It was whispered that the helpless one had been done away with by foul
means. And Peter became conscious during the meal that his fat and
jovial little captain was looking at him and through him with a glance
that could not be denied or for long avoided.
Wondering what his Herr Captain might know of the particulars of last
night's doings, Peter sucked a mangosteen slowly, arranging his
thoughts, card-indexing his alibis, and making cool preparations for an
official cross-questioning. Clever lying out of his difficulty was the
order, or the alternative for Peter was the irons.
When the fat fingers of Mynheer the Captain at length dabbled in the
lacquered finger-bowl, after rounding out his fourth pomelo, Peter got
up slowly and walked thoughtfully to the foot of the staircase. Here
the captain caught up with him, touched his elbow lightly, and together
they proceeded to the promenade-deck, which was shining redly in places
where the wetness of the washing down had not yet been evaporated by
the warm, fresh wind.
Mynheer the Captain fell into place at Peter's side, gripped his fat
Javanese cigar between his teeth, and caught his fat wrists together
stolidly behind his back, and his low, wide brow slowly beetled.
"Mynheer," he began in a somewhat constrained voice, low and richly
guttural, "it iss known to you vat took place on der ship some dam
during der nacht? Ja?"
"I overheard the passengers talking about a coolie falling overboard
last night, sir," replied Peter guardedly. As long as no direct
accusation came, he felt safer. He was reasonably sure, basing his
opinion of skippers on many past encounters, that this one would go
typically to his subject. In his growing cock-sureness, Peter expected
no rapier-play. It would be a case, he felt sure, of all the cards on
the table at once; a slam-bang, as it were.
"You know nodding of dot business, young man?"
"Nothing at all, Myn Captain."
"Dot iss strange. Dot iss strange," muttered the captain as they
rounded the forward cabin and made their way in slow, measured strides
down the port side. "I haf seen you come aboard yesterday, mynheer;
und I haf seen you t'row over der side a coolie, a coolie who wass wit'
der coolie who dis'ppeared last nacht. Why did you t'row him over der
side, eh?"
"He threatened me with his knife," replied Peter without an instant's
hesitation. "_Mynheer_, he was a bad Chink, a killer."
"_Ja_. _Tot ver vlomme_! All of 'em are bad Chinks."
"Why should he stab me?" intoned Peter. "I never saw him before. I am
a peaceful citizen. The only interest I have on this ship, Mynheer
Captain, is the wireless apparatus."
"_Ja_? Dot iss gude to hear, young man. I haf liked you--how does one
say it?--immensely. Der oder man wass no gude. He is gude rittance.
You intend to stay wit' us. Ja?"
"I hope so," said Peter heartily and with vast relief.
"You like dis ship, eh?"
"Very much, indeed."
"And I vant you to stay, young man. I vant you to stay joost as long
as you feel like staying. But I vant to ask you one t'ing, joost one
t'ing."
"I'll do anything you say, sir."
The fat, jovial skipper of the _Persian Gulf_ eyed Peter with beady,
cunning eyes, and Peter was suddenly conscious of a sinking sensation.
"Joost one t'ing. Better, first I should say, ven you t'row overboard
der coolies you dislike, it vould be best not to keep--vat are dey
called--der soufenirs. Sooch t'ings as peestols."
"But, _mynheer_----"
The fat hand waved him to silence.
"Bot' of dem vas bad Chinks. I know. I know bot' of dose coolies a
long, long time. T'ieves and blood men. _Tot ver vlomme_! It iss
gude rittance, as you say. Young man, I haf nodding but one more t'ing
to tell you. I say, I like you--immensely. I vant you very much to
stay. But der next time coolies are to be t'rown over der side, I will
be pleased to haf you ask my permission."