Peter the Brazen: A Mystery Story of Modern China
"And you'll get that silly old notion of a bungalow for two out of your
head?"
"I'll try. It will be a hard job. And, Eileen----"
"Yes, Peter?"
"You don't care about this Professor Hodgson, do you?"
"Oh, no, Peter! Once or twice he's tried to make love, and you could
see, couldn't you, how furious he was when we left him?"
"I thought my goose was cooked," sighed Peter.
"Silly old goose!" said Eileen, squeezing his thumb.
With shaken but immeasurably higher notions of this girl, whose
appealing gray eyes suffocated him with longing, Peter helped his
charge to alight when the end of the car line was reached, and at her
suggestion they tramped through the blossoming California fields, back
to the village, talking seriously most of the way upon that ardent
subject which lay warmly upon both of their young hearts.
CHAPTER XVII
There was a noticeable ripple when Eileen Lorimer walked into the
ballroom that evening in the winsome attire of a Quaker maid, with
Professor Hodgson, as Pierrot, on one side, and the tall, commanding
figure of Peter the Brazen, in a spick-and-span white-and-gold uniform
of the Pacific Mail Line, on the other.
For Peter the Brazen, in any garb, was that type of man at whom any
normal woman would have looked twice--or, if only once, just twice as
long.
Knotted about his lean waist was a flaunting blue sarong. The sarong
gave to his straight, white figure the deft touch of romance. It
verified the adventurous blue of his deep-set eyes, and the stubborn
outward thrust of his tanned, smooth-shaven jaw.
When the young women of Eileen's acquaintance, to whom had been
whispered some of the details of this man's thrilling past, crowded
about for introductions, Peter had little difficulty in filling the
remaining half of his program.
And when the music started for the second event Peter recovered his
flushed and glowing Quaker maiden from the reluctant arms of Professor
Hodgson, upon whom had fallen, like a dark shroud, a gloom heavy and
profound, and the man who had that morning said good-by forever to
China and the wireless game and to ships and the sea, found himself
floating in and out upon a sea of gold, with a sprite from elf-land
dazzling him with her rosebud smile.
He would have liked to shock their beholders then and there by kissing
her squarely upon that smile! And all the while, from the side line,
Professor Hodgson, the professor of Chinese, watched their every
movement with a face as long and as gray as an alley in the fog.
A little later in the evening, when Peter looked for his partner, a
Miss Somebody or Other, whose penciled name had been smudged on his
program so that it had become an unintelligible blue, he looked in vain.
He looked then among the dancers for the face of his Quaker maiden,
and, unable to see her in the syncopating throng, elected to hunt for
her, despite the known fact that she was in the company of his defeated
rival, the professor.
Peter searched the refreshment room futilely, and decided that the pair
had probably retired to the palm garden, where Eileen was possibly
engaged to the best of her ability in soothing the ruffled feelings of
her revolver and Chinese instructor.
As Peter parted the golden velvet hangings which shrouded the entrance
to the dimly lighted conservatory, he espied a half-dozen couples
disposed on as many small benches under the drooping fronds in varied
attitudes of tete-a-tete.
The curtains fell in alignment behind him; he caught the angry glare of
two brown eyes from a bench, and realized that Eileen's versatile
professor was not yet pacified. At Professor Hodgson's side, with her
back toward Peter, was a young woman attired in Quaker costume. Her
head was not intimately close to that of the young professor; but it
was close.
As Peter started to cross the waxed floor to her side, he saw Hodgson's
head dip low; saw the girl apparently yield herself into his arms; and
as Peter stopped, stock-still, he saw the long arms of the professor
wrap themselves about the slim shoulders, drawing the hidden face
toward him until the lips met his.
In that dreadful instant the heart of Peter the Brazen deliberately
skipped a beat. Black swam into his eyes, and he trembled, then became
stiff, as his gaze was glued to that ghastly pantomime. He hesitated,
then leaped across the intervening distance.
Both Eileen and her professor leaped up.
Her face was white, and her fingers clutched in convulsion at her
throat; but Peter's face was equally as white and strained as hers.
He stared in pain and utter disbelief, while a smile slowly crept over
the features of Eileen's professor. She seemed about to faint, and
sank back, with eyes tightly closed, against Hodgson's breast.
Peter tried to speak, but a moment passed before he could find words.
"Eileen--Eileen," he muttered, "you said--you told me--oh, God!"
He wheeled and dashed out of the hall, as he proposed to dash out of
her life, with terrible, sinking thoughts in his brain, and his heart
pounding dismally against his ribs. He recovered his coat and hat in
the cloak-room.
Hardly had he vanished than Eileen, recovering slowly from her daze,
sprang after. But Hodgson detained her, gripping her arm.
She seemed to realize for the first time what had been done, and to the
profound astonishment of the several round-eyed couples, she wiped her
hand fiercely across her mouth, the recent repository of the
professor's sudden and unexpected kiss.
"You--beast!" she stammered. "You--you saw him come in! How dared
you! How dared you! I thought you were a--gentleman--you--you beast!"
Her professor merely grinned, as though the tragedy were a comedy of
the most amusing order.
"One stolen kiss----" he chuckled.
And Eileen slapped him smartly across the mouth. She started to bolt
for the door, but he dragged her back, clinging to her struggling hand.
"You--one of that band!" she cried.
"Oh, let me apologize," he laughed, rubbing the red mark about his
mouth with his free hand. "If your hero resents my robbing him of one
stingy, little kiss---- Band? What band?" But there was no question
in his eyes.
"Stop him!" cried Eileen shrilly. "Oh, please, somebody call him back!"
A sophomore, always willing to aid a lady in distress, sprang to the
chase, and Eileen, breaking loose, stumbled after him out upon the
dance floor. A waltz was under way, and the floor was jammed.
They tried to break through, but were thrust aside by laughing dancers,
who seemed to take this to be a new and diverting game.
They tried again, and now Professor Hodgson, smiling blandly, came upon
the scene and interposed further interference. Dodging past him and
narrowly avoiding collision with a whirling couple close to the wall,
Eileen scurried down the side in the direction of the cloakroom, with
big, hot tears burning down her flushed cheeks.
When she reached the cloak-room she searched it in anxious haste for
the Marconi cap, the light-blue overcoat. Both were missing.
With the sophomore atow, and conscious of the romantic nature of his
errand, she ran into the moonlit street, looking up and down the
black-shadowed sidewalk for signs of the straight, tall figure.
Down the street, perhaps a quarter of a mile distant, she made out the
motionless streamer of lights of a train, the San Francisco train.
With her gray Quaker dress flapping, and the clutter of white
petticoats hindering the rhythm of her knees and ankles, Eileen sped
down the middle of the road with the excited sophomore bringing up a
mad rear.
The fate of her life lay in the train's waiting. She knew what Peter
Moore would do. And if she could not stop him, she would be nothing
less than his murderer. Had the evidences of her apparent infidelity
been less damning she knew that Peter Moore would have waited, would
have listened to her explanation, and believed her.
If she could only reach the train, she could tell him, could compel him
to wait, and thereupon have it out with that cad Hodgson. It would be
folly to pursue by later train, because Peter, as was customary with
that young philanderer, had neglected to leave his forwarding address.
But Eileen never reached the train. The engine screamed scornfully
when she was less than a block distant. The red and green tail-lights
were dwindling away along the throbbing rails when she arrived at the
station.
The night had swallowed up her love and her high hopes. Before long,
miles, and thousands of miles, would soon stretch between her and her
lover.
With a broken sob she wilted upon the station steps, while the
sophomore stood awkwardly above her, bursting with questions,
misty-eyed with youthful sympathy and fidgeting in acute discomfort.
And thus was Peter the Brazen swept out of her life and into his next
adventure.
CHAPTER XVIII
At about five o'clock the next afternoon Peter, in his hotel bedroom,
called for a pitcher of ice-water, the major portion of which he
disposed of before considering the next move.
Afternoon sunlight, entering by the single large window, mapped out a
radiant oblong of red on the heavy carpet. The long, insolent shriek
of a taxicab arose from the square. The bedroom was redolent of the
sour odor of last night's cigarette smoke. He had forgotten, for
perhaps the first time in his memory, to throw open the window upon
retiring. As he arose stiffly from the bed an empty brown bottle
bounded to the floor with a thump, and the latter riotous portion of
last evening came slowly back to him. He had decided to do something.
What had he made up his mind to do? He sat down on the edge of the bed
with his head in his hands and frowned. He remembered now.
He was going back to China!
With a throbbing head and a recurrence of the sticky feeling in his
mouth, he stripped off his pajamas, went into the bath-room, and
shivered and grunted under an icy shower for five minutes, by which
time some of the despondency which last night's affair had brought over
him was shaken, his headache was loosened a bit, his wits were more
clearly in hand, and the warm blood was shooting through him.
After a brisk rub-down he dressed quickly--he had barely had time
enough to recover his suit-cases from the San Friole baggage-room when
he had fled--and put in a call for the Marconi office.
Shortly he had the chief operator on the wire, and he explained briefly
that out-of-town business had interfered with his calling the day
before, but that he would drop around for a conference bright and early
the next morning. He added that he intended to take the _King of Asia_
back to China.
When he entered the chief operator's cubicle, the chief operator looked
into the face of a man who had aged, a white, sad face, the face of a
man who had found the sample of life he had tasted to be a bitter
mouthful.
"Back again, as I live!" he chirruped, pumping Peter's hand
exuberantly. "Where now, Peter?"
"China," said Peter; "my old love, the _King of Asia_, sails to-morrow.
Can I have her?"
"Sure thing! By the way, here's a special delivery letter for you in
the mail that hasn't been assorted--a nice square envelope. Looks to
me like a wedding invitation!"
Peter examined the square, white envelope.
A wedding invitation with a San Friole canceling stamp.
Absently he dropped it into his pocket.
Making his way to the St. Francis he found that San Toy Fong had
departed for parts unknown. So he sat down at a desk in the
writing-room, and penned a brief note, addressing it in care of Ah Sih
King. He knew that the letter would reach San Toy Fong as rapidly as a
grape-vine telegraph could deliver it to him. He knew that it would be