Peter the Brazen: A Mystery Story of Modern China
"Well--perhaps," he said. "On the whole, that is something you can
best explain yourself, Mr. Moore. If you should care to give me your
side of the question, ah----"
"I haven't a thing to say," rejoined Peter. "If the United States
Government chooses to believe that my presence is inimical to its
interests in China----"
"Pressure might have been brought to bear from another quarter."
"Quite so," admitted Peter.
"Now, if you should desire to make me acquainted with your pursuits
during the past--ah--few months, let us say, it is within the bounds of
possibility that I might somehow rescind this drastic--ah--order.
Suffice it to say, that I shall be glad to put my every power at your
aid. As you are an American, it is my duty and my pleasure, sir, if
you will permit me, to do all within my power, my somewhat restricted
power, if I may qualify that statement, to reinstate you in the good
graces of those--ah--good gentlemen in Peking."
It was all too evident that, back and beyond the friendly intentions of
this official, was a hungry desire for information regarding this young
man whose dark activities had been recognized by the high powers to an
extent sufficient to set in motion the complicated and bulky wheels of
diplomacy.
Peter shook his head respectfully, and the consul permitted his
reluctantly admiring and inquisitive gaze to travel up and down the
romantic and now international figure.
"I am able to say nothing," he expressed himself quietly. "If the
American ambassador has decreed that I ought to go home--home I go!
I'll confess right now that I did not intend to go home when I stepped
into this office, but I do respect, and I will respect, the authority
of that order."
"If the President, for example, should request you to
continue--ah--what you have been doing, for the good, let us say, of
humanity, you would continue without hesitation, Mr. Moore?"
Peter gave the long, pale face a sharp scrutiny. Did this
innocent-faced man know more than he intimated, or was he merely
applying the soft, velvet screws of diplomacy, endeavoring to squeeze
out a little information?
"I certainly would."
The consul rose, with a bland smile, and extended his hand.
"It has been gratifying to know one who has become such a singular,
and, permit me to add, such a trying figure, in diplomatic circles,
during the past week. Good-day, sir!"
Peter walked down Desvoeux road in a state of mental detachment. A
week! Only a week had passed since he had sailed from Batavia, a week
since he had thrown overboard the emissary of the Gray Dragon. He
concluded that in more than one way could his presence be dismissed
from the land of darkness and distrust.
How had the Gray Dragon brought pressure upon the American ambassador,
a man of the highest repute, of sterling and patriotic qualities? The
answer seemed to be, that the coils of the Gray Dragon extended
everywhere, like an inky fluid which had leaked into every crevice and
crack of all Asia.
He was still under orders to pay a visit to J. B. Whalen, the Marconi
supervisor. That cross-examination he was glad to postpone.
He called at the office of the Pacific Mail, and found that the _King
of Asia_ was due to leave for the United States the following morning
at dawn. He made a deposit on a reservation.
CHAPTER XIII
The hour lacked a few minutes of seven when Peter ascended in the lift
to the second floor of the Hong-Kong Hotel and made his way between the
closely packed tables to the Desvoeux Road balcony.
Romola Borria was not yet in evidence.
He selected a table which commanded a view of the entrance, toyed with
the menu card, absent-mindedly ordered a Scotch highball, and slowly
scrutinized the occupants of the tables in his neighborhood. He felt
vaguely annoyed, slightly uneasy, without being able to sift out the
cause.
For a moment he regretted his audacity in encountering the curious eyes
of Hong Kong society, a society in which there would inevitably be
present a number of his enemies. It cannot be denied that a number of
eyes studied him leisurely and at some pains, over teacups,
wine-glasses, and fans.
But these were for the larger part women, and Peter was more or less
immune to the curious, bright-eyed glances of this sex.
His attire was somewhat rakish for the occasion; and it appeared that
sarongs were not being sported by the more refined class of male
diners, who affected as a mass the sombre black of dinner jackets. At
all Hong Kong hotels the custom is evening dress for dinner, and Peter
felt shabby and shoddy in his silk suit, his low shoes, his soft collar.
An orchestra of noble proportions struggled effectively in the moist,
warm atmosphere somewhere in its concealment behind a distant palm
arbor with "Un Peu d'Amour," and also out of Peter's sight, an
impassioned and metallic tenor was sobbing:
"Jaw-s-s-st a lee-e-e-edle lof-f-ff--
A le-e-e-edle ke-e-e-e-e-e-s--"
And Peter in his perturbation wished that both blatant orchestra and
impassioned tenor were concealed behind a sound-proof stone wall.
He was tossing off the dregs of the highball when there occurred a
low-voiced murmur at his side, and he arose to confront the pale, worn
face of Romola. She gave him her hand limply, and settled down across
from him, her eyes darting from table to table, and occasionally
nodding rather stiffly and impersonally as she recognized some one.
"You see"--he smiled at her, as she settled back and fostered upon him
a look of brooding tenderness--"you see, my dear, I am here, untagged.
Nearly twelve hours have passed since you sounded that note of ominous
warning. I have yet to feel the thrill, just before I die, of that
dagger sliding between my ribs."
She accepted this with a nod almost indifferent.
"Simply because I have persuaded them to extend your parole to one
o'clock. If you linger in China, you have--and need I say that the
same applies to me--six more hours in which to jest, to laugh, to
love--to live!"
"For which I am, as always in the face of favors, duly grateful," said
Peter in high humor. "None the less I have this day, since we parted
this morning, indulged in one pistol duel between sampans, with one of
your admirable confreres----"
"Yes, I heard of that. But it stopped there. You winged his sampan
coolie."
"And at the Canton station, if I may be pardoned for contradicting, I
encountered the red-faced one. To tell you what you may already know,
I punched him in the jaw, dog-gone him!"
She seemed to be distressed.
"You must be mistaken."
Peter shook his head forcibly. "A choleric gentleman born with the
habit of reaching for his hip-pocket," he amplified.
She studied him with wide, speculative eyes. "He must be from the
north. Some of them I do not know. But all of them have been
informed."
"To permit me to live and love until one to-morrow morning?"
She nodded.
The aspiring and perspiring orchestra and the impassioned tenor had
again reached the chorus of "Un Peu d'Amour."
"I could ge-e-e-eve you al-l-l my life for the-e-e-e-s--"
"Badly sung, but appropriate," commented Romola Borria.
Peter's countenance became a question mark.
"It may mean that I am giving you all my life for--this," she explained.
"For these few minutes, when we were to chatter, and make love, and be
happy?" Peter demanded indignantly. "My dear----" He reached out for
her hand, and she let him fondle it, not reluctantly. "I'd give all my
life, too, for these few minutes with you. Do you know--you're
perfectly adorable to-night! There's something--something irresistible
about you--to me!"
"To you?"
"Yes," he said in a deep voice, and sincerely. "I'd come all the way
'round the world, and lay my life at your feet--thus." And he placed
his knuckles on the white cloth, as if they were knees.
"Ah! But you don't mean that!"
"When I'm in love, I mean everything!"
"I know. You are fickle. Miss Lorimer--Miss--Vost--Romola--they come,
they love, they are gone, quite as fatefully and systematically as life
follows death, and death follows life."
"I do wish you wouldn't talk about death in that flippant manner," he
gibed, wondering how under the sun he might get her out of this gloomy
mood.
"But death is in my mind always--Peter. When you have gone through----"
"Romola, I refuse to be lectured."
"Very well; I refuse to talk of anything but love and death."
"Excellent, my own love! Tell me now how it feels when _you_ are in
the heavenly condition."
"Most hopeless, Peter; because death, you see, is so close upon the
heels of my love."
"Meaning--me?"
"No--my heart. The death of love and the death--of life follow my
love. Now I want to pick up the threads of a moment ago. Peter, don't
hold my hand. That woman is--staring. You said--you said, you would
come away around the world to see me, to help me, possibly, if I were
in trouble. You weren't serious."
"Cross my heart!"
"On the _Persian Gulf_ that day--that day I told you something of your
recent adventures and your apparently miraculous escapes, I intended to
ask you----"
"Seeress, I am all ears----"
"I intended asking you a favor, a most important one, an
alternative----"
"The trip to Nara?"
"Yes; an alternative to that. Tell me truly how much at heart you hate
the man at Len Yang. Wait. Don't answer me yet. At heart, do you
really hate him, as you pretend, or are you simply bowing down to your
vanity, to the pride you seem to take in these quixotic deeds? For one
thing, there is very little money in what you are doing. If you should
approach these adventures a little differently, perhaps, you might put
yourself in a position to be rewarded for the troubles you take, the
dangers you risk. I mean that."
"I admit I'm not a money hater," frowned Peter, striving without much
success to feel her trend.
"It would be so easy for you to make all the money you need in only a
few years by--how shall I say it?--by 'being nice.' Wait! I have not
finished. You said I was a special emissary from him. You hit the
mark more squarely than you thought. Oh, I admit it! I was sent to
Batavia to meet you, to intercept you, and, to be quite frank, to ask
you your terms."
"From _him_?"
"Yes. He has observed you. He can use you, and oh!--how badly he
wants you and your boldness and that unconquerable fire of yours! He
needs you! He wants you, more than any man he has known! And he will
pay you! Name your price! A half million gold a year? Bah! It is a
drop to him!"
"Don't," begged Peter in a whisper. "Please--don't--go on."
His face had become almost as white as the tablecloth, and his lips
were trembling, ashen.
"God! I put my confidence in you, time after time, and each time you
show me treachery, deeper, more hideous, than before. Please don't
continue. I'm trying, as hard as I know how, to appreciate your
position in this wretched mess--and trying to find some excuse for it.
For you! And it's hard. Damned, brutally hard. Let's part! Let's
forget! Let's be just memories to each other--Romola!"
Her face, too, had lost its color, like life fading from a rose when
the stem is snapped. Her hand sought her throat and groped there, as
it always did in her moments of nervousness, and she drummed on the
cloth with a silver knife. She stared curiously at him, with the other
light dying hard.
"Then I can only hope--a slender hope--to bring you back to the favor I
asked you originally, and I place that before you now, my request for
that favor--my final hope. You cannot refuse that. You cannot! You
profess to be chivalrous. Now, let me--test you!"
CHAPTER XIV
"Romola, I said no to Nara long ago."