Peter the Brazen: A Mystery Story of Modern China
Peter stared hard at the fat little man, with a quick glaze of
gratitude over his eyes. The skipper left him, doubling back in the
direction of the wheel-house. And something in the unsteadiness of the
broad, plump shoulders gave to Peter in his perplexity the not
inaccurate notion that the fat little man had enjoyed his joke and was
giggling to such an extent that it almost interfered with his dignified
strut.
Before buckling down to the day's business he made sure of one thing.
Gone from his stateroom was the revolver with its Maxim silencer.
Because the wireless room at sea is a sort of lounging-room for those
passengers who are bored from reading, or poker, or promenading, or
simply are incompetent to amuse themselves without external assistance,
Peter ignored the dozen pair of curious and interested eyes which were
focussed on his white uniform as he passed, with those telltale
chevrons of golden sparks at the sleeves, strode into the wireless
cabin, hastily closed the door, locked it, and thereupon gave his
attention to the void.
He was not surprised to hear the shrill yap of the Manila station
dinning in the receivers, and having no desire to allow his fair name
to be besmirched by what might be professional inattention to duty, he
gave Manila a crackling response, and told him to shoot and shoot fast,
as he had a stack of business on hand, which was the truth.
Steamship and commercial messages were awaiting his nimble fingers, a
half-dozen of them, in a neat little pile where the purser had left
them to attract his attention as soon as he came on duty.
Manila's first message, with a Hong Kong dateline, and via the
Philippine cable, was a service message, directed to Peter Moore,
"probably aboard the steamer _Persian Gulf_, at sea." The context of
this greeting was that Peter should report directly upon arrival in
Hong Kong to J. B. Whalen, representative of the Marconi Company of
America, residence, Peak Hotel.
Following this transmission the Manila operator was anxious to know
whether or not this was Peter Moore at the key; that he had been given
instructions by the night man, who claimed to be a bosom companion of
Peter Moore's, to make inquiries regarding Peter Moore's whereabouts
during the past few months.
He further expressed a profane desire to know, provided the man at the
key was Peter Moore, how in Hades he was, _where_ in Tophet he had been
keeping himself, and _why_ in Gehenna he had so mysteriously vanished
from the face of this glorious earth.
"But why all the hubbub about Peter Moore?" flashed back Peter to the
inquisitive Manila operator, who was only about two hundred miles
distant by now and rather faint with the coming up of the sun.
"Are--you--Peter--Moore?" came the faint scream.
"No, no, no!" shrieked the voluptuous white spark of the _Persian Gulf_.
"Is--he--on--board?"
"No, no, no!" rapped Peter making no effort to disguise that inimitable
sending of his.
"You--are--a--double-barreled liar!" said the Manila spark with
vehement emphasis. "No operator on the Pacific has that fist. You
might as well try to disguise the color of your eyes!"
Manila tapped his key, making a long series of thoughtful little double
dots, the operator's way of letting his listener know he is still on
the job, and thinking. Then:
"Why did you leave the _Vandalia_ at Shanghai?"
"I never left the _Vandalia_ anywhere," retorted Peter. "I've just
come up from Singapore and Singaraja way. I am taking the _Persian
Gulf_ to Hong Kong, and back to Batavia."
"No--you're--not," stated Manila's high-toned spark. "You're going to
be pinched as soon as you land in Hong Kong for deserting your ship at
Shanghai. That's a secret, for old friendship's sake."
It was now Peter's turn to tap off a singularly long row of little
double dots.
"It may be a secret, but only a thousand stations are listening in," he
said at length. "But, thanks, old-timer, just the same. If they pinch
Peter Moore in Hong Kong, they will have to extradite him from Kowloon.
In other words, they will have to go some. Besides, what Peter does in
Shanghai cannot be laid against him in Hong Kong. The law's the law."
A savage tenor whine here broke in upon Manila's laughing answer, the
Hi! Hi! Hi! of the amused radio man; and Peter listened in some
annoyance to the peremptory summons of a United States gunboat,
probably nosing around somewhere south of Mindanao.
"Stand by, Manila," shrilled this one. "Message for the _Persian
Gulf_." He broke off with a nimble signature.
"Good morning, little stranger," roared Peter's stridulent machine.
"You're pretty far from home. Won't you get your feet wet? The
ocean's pretty dewy this morning. Well, what do _you_ want? Shoot it,
and shoot fast. Peter Moore's at the key, and the faster you shoot
them the better Peter likes them."
The gunboat stuttered angrily.
"A message for Peter Moore, operator in charge, steamer _Persian Gulf_,
at sea. Report immediately upon arrival in Hong Kong to American
consul for orders. (Signed) B. P. Eckles, commanding officer, U. S. S.
_Buffalo_."
To which Peter composed the following pertinent reply:
"To Commander Eckles, U. S. S. _Buffalo_, somewhere south of Mindanao.
What for? (Signed) Peter Moore."
The promptness of the reply to this indicated that the recrudescence of
Peter Moore, dead or alive, was of sufficient interest to command the
presence of the gunboat's commander in the wireless house. In effect,
Peter now realized that his confession had got him into considerable
hot water.
Back came the _Buffalo's_ nervous answer: "To Peter Moore, operator in
charge, steamer _Persian Gulf_, at sea. Orders. Obey them. (Signed)
B. P. Eckles."
Peter cut out the formalities. "Please ask the commander what's the
trouble."
And out of the void cracked the retort: "He says, ask the American
consul at Hong Kong."
There seemed nothing much to do aside from attending to the accumulated
business on hand. In Hong Kong he could only decide which of the two
he would honor first, the Marconi supervisor or the American consul;
for in strange lands one falls into the custom of complying with the
requests of his countrymen.
But Peter was beginning to feel a little of the old-time thrill. It
was fine to have the fellows recognize that lightning fist of his; fine
to have their homage. For the stumbling signals of both Manila and the
_Buffalo_ were homage of the most straightforward sort.
For Peter Moore as wireless operator was swift of the swiftest; he
despatched with a lightning lilt, and the keenness of his ears, for
which he was famous on more than one ocean, made it possible for him to
receive signals with rarely the necessity for a repeat.
Manila, obeying orders, was standing by, and Peter, tightening a screw
to bring the silver contacts of the massive transmission-key in better
alignment, despatched his string at the highest speed of which he was
capable. As long as his listeners knew he was Peter Moore, he might as
well give them, he decided, a sample of the celebrated Peter Moore
sending.
For five minutes the little wireless cabin roared with the
undiminishing _rat-tat-tat_ of his spark explosions, and Manila, a navy
man of the old school, rattled back a series of proud O.K.'s.
Proud? Because Peter Moore, of the old _Vandalia_, of the _Sierra_,
and a dozen other ships, was at the key. And an operator who said
"O.K." at the termination of one of Peter's inspired lightning
transmissions had every right to be proud, as any wireless operator who
has ever copied thirty-three words a minute will bear me witness.
CHAPTER IX
When Peter emerged from the wireless room, having completed his
business for the morning, he found Romola Borria with elbows on the
rail gazing thoughtfully at a small Chinese girl who sat cross-legged
on the hatch cover immersed in her sewing.
And Peter marveled at the freshness of Romola Borria's appearance, at
the clarity of her sparkling brown eyes, the sweet pinkness of her
complexion, and the ease and radiance of her tender smile.
"You look troubled," she said, as her smile was replaced by a look of
tender concern. "What is it?" She lowered her voice to a confidential
undertone. "Last night's affair, _desu-ka_?"
Peter shook his head with a grave smile.
"I am discovered, Miss Borria. That is to say, I have just given
myself away to the Manila navy station, not to speak of the commander
of a gunboat, not far from us, off the coast of Mindanao. It
seems"--he made a wry face--"Peter Moore is not popular with the
authorities for deserting a certain ship in Shanghai."
"The _Vandalia_!" said the girl, and suddenly bit her lip, as though
she would have liked to retract the statement.
Peter sank down on his elbows beside her, until his face was very close
to hers, and his expression was shrewd and cunning.
"Miss Borria," he remarked stiffly, "I told you last night you're
clever; and now you've given me just one more reason to stick to my
guns; one more reason to believe that you know more than you're
supposed to know. Now, let's be perfectly frank--for once. Let's not
erase any more rouge stripes, so to speak. Won't you please tell me
just what you do know about my activities in this neighborhood?"
His outflung gesture indicated the whole of Asia.
The girl pursed her lips and a hard twinkle, like that of a frosty
arc-light upon diamonds, came into her eyes. "Yes, Mr. Moore," she
said vigorously, "I will. But you must promise--promise faithfully--to
ask no questions. Will you do that?"
Peter nodded with a willingness that was far from assumed.
Romola Borria placed the tips of her slender, white fingers together
and looked down at them pensively. "Well," she said, looking up and
raising her voice slightly, "you escaped from the liner _Vandalia_ in
the middle of the Whang-poo River, at night, in a deep fog, in a
sampan, with a young woman named Eileen Lorimer in your arms. This
occurred after you had delivered her from the hands of certain men,
whom I prefer to call, perhaps mysteriously, by the plain word _them_.
"You sent this young lady home on the _Manchuria_, or the _Mongolia_, I
forget just which. That night on the bund near the French legation,
you met, quite by accident, another young lady who found your
companionship quite desirable. Her name was Miss Amy Vost, a bright
little thing."
"You don't happen to know," put in Peter ironically, "what Miss Lorimer
had for breakfast this morning, by any chance?"
"At last accounts she was studying for a doctor's degree in the
university at San Friole, Mr. Moore."
"Indeed!" It was on the tip of Peter's tongue to tell this astounding
Romola Borria that she was nothing short of a mind-reader. Instead, he
nodded his head for her to continue.
"As I was saying, you met Miss Vost, quite by accident, and danced with
her at a fancy dress ball at the Astor House. You wore the costume of
a Japanese merchant, I believe, thinking, a little fatuously, if you
will permit me, that those garments were a disguise. A little later in
the bar at the Palace Hotel, after you left Miss Vost, you met a sea
captain, ex-first mate of the Toyo Kisen Kaisha steamer, the _Sunyado
Maru_. He was an old friend.
"With Captain MacLaurin and Miss Vost you made a trip on the
Yangtze-Kiang in a little river steamer, the _Hankow_, which foundered
in the rapids just below Ching-Fu. This occurred after you had stabbed
and killed one of their most trusted spies.
"When the _Hankow_ sank, you followed what now appears to be your
professional habit of a trustworthy gallant, by taking a lady in
distress into your arms, and swam the whirlpools to the little village