Peter the Brazen: A Mystery Story of Modern China
The odor of costly incense was heavy and sweet, the smoke from a
brazier arising in a thin, motionless blue spar which, when it had
climbed up through the air for a distance of about four feet, broke
into a sort of turquoise fan and this drifted on up to the ceiling in
heavy wisps. The incense pot was very old, of black lacquer and brass,
greened with blotches of erosion.
And above the green image of Buddha, before which the Princess Meng Da
Tlang was now kneeling and moaning in a faint voice, reposed a very
realistic skull and cross-bones. Across the forehead of this hideous
reminder of the hereafter was a deep green notch, attesting in all
probability to the cause of the luckless owner's death.
"Please be seated--there," Romola requested.
Her graceful, ivory-white arm indicated with a queenly gesture a
heavily carved ebony bench, and her guests filed expectantly to this
seat.
Peggy, with a long sigh, dragged Peter into the corner. "I'm almost
scared. Oh, oh, isn't this simply romantic!" she whispered.
Helen and Anthony gravely occupied the space on the other side of them.
The Princess Meng Da Tlang was moving gracefully toward the doorway
through which they had entered.
"I--I'm really a little afraid!" whispered Peggy, with her lips so
close to Peter's ear that he could feel her warm breath against his
neck. "Put your arms around me--please!" Peter slipped his arm behind
her and around her. He squeezed her. "Oh," sighed Peggy, "this is
grand!"
Helen gave her a sidelong look of surprise. "Peggy, I think you're
hardly discreet."
"Let me die while I'm happy!" grinned Peggy. She turned a wistful face
to Peter. "Did you ever put your arm around another woman before?" she
whispered.
"Heaven forbid!" groaned Peter. "Don't I act like an amateur?"
"No; you don't!"
Romola was holding back the curtains while a troop of four men, muddy
and wet, as if from long travel, moved silently into the large room.
"Mongolian smugglers," Peter whispered.
The four large men crossed the room with dignified tread, depositing
four small bundles wrapped in blue silk at the altar of Buddha. Then
they removed straw-matting rainproofs which dangled from their broad
shoulders to their muddy sandals. They were garbed in black silk and
fastened at the belt of each was a kris, curved and flashing where the
golden candle light skimmed along the whetted steel.
After depositing their slight burdens they bowed low before the altar,
muttered deep in their throats, arose and salaamed gravely, until the
four pigtails flapped on the heavy blue rug at Romola's bare feet. She
wore no sandals, which was probably the custom among pirate princesses.
When the men were gone, Romola drew back a rug which hung close to the
altar, revealing a small cupboard flush with the wall. Even Anthony
looked at the black door and the brass hasp with his gray eyes round in
wonder and interest.
After disposing of the four silken parcels, Romola addressed them in a
mysterious voice: "Those packages contain gems; diamonds, rubies,
pearls from the Punjab, from Bengali, from Burma."
"Can we see them?" pleaded Helen in rapt tones.
"Aw, please!" inserted Peggy in an angelic whisper.
Romola raised both of her hands as if in horror. "They would tempt
even a saint," she muttered.
"Be careful," warned Peter, laying his lips to Peggy's pink ear, "the
princess has a terrible temper. She has been known to strangle a man
for less than that!"
"I don't believe it!" retorted Peggy. "I think the princess is just
too sweet for anything."
Romola gave Peter a look of indolent inquiry. She arose abruptly.
"You must have some of my spiced wine. It is really delicious.
_P'eng-yu_ Moore, we won't bother the servants; won't you help me?"
Peggy folded her hands demurely in her lap. "I hope it isn't
intoxicating," she murmured.
Romola had moved graciously across the room, where in a bronze
jardiniere protruded the dusty, slender necks of tall bottles. She
knelt before this. "Nearer," she whispered, as he followed suit.
"Peter, tell me----"
"Yes, Romola?"
"What does this little girl mean to you?"
Peggy's clear voice sounded: "Peter, my throat is dusty!"
"In a minute, Peggy," he called back. Lowering his voice again: "She's
merely a child. But why----"
"Peter, I've gone to more trouble to-night than you realize,
perhaps----"
"What do you want me to do?"
"I want you to stop making love to that innocent child."
The innocent child's sweet voice was clamoring again. "Peter, the
Sahara Desert is a flowing river compared with my throat!"
"All right, Peggy; in a minute."
"You said once that you--loved me."
"I still stand by my guns. But I don't love any one now. You're a
temptress, Romola. Why, you are a princess! I never saw you more
beautiful than to-night!"
"Peter, can't you realize what a dreary life I've led since that night
you ran away from me in Hong Kong? Won't you--for me--because I want
it--because I want _you_--reconsider, won't you stop, and think,
and----"
"We're getting back to forbidden grounds, Romola."
"Oh, God! I know, I know! But what is there left in my life? Why,
what is there left in yours? Perhaps you are the best operator on the
whole Pacific Ocean; you've had that reputation now--how long--five
years? But it is aimless! Where are you drifting? What will become
of you as the years pass? You must be nearly thirty now, Peter. I? I
am younger, but I have suffered more. The only happiness I have known
has been with you."
Peggy's voice became petulant. "Peter, is that cork _awfully_
obstinate?"
"In a minute," he said absently.
"Do you remember those wonderful days and evenings we spent together on
the Java Sea, on the old _Persian Gulf_? Do you remember those
evenings, Peter, under the moon and the Southern Cross?"
"I remember a great deal of treachery!"
"But there is to be no more treachery," she said passionately. "Think,
Peter, think! You are penniless--I have only a little money; it will
not last long. What follows? Do you know what happens to white women
when they are stranded, penniless, friendless, in this country?" She
shivered. "And it would be such a simple thing to do---to go with
me--to him. We would be together forever then--you and I! Tibet! The
Punjab! The merchant's trail into Bengal! You and I with our
caravan--in the blue foot-hills!"
"I'm sorry," confessed Peter sadly.
Romola hung her head with a bitter sigh.
Peggy pitched her voice: "Smash the neck, Peter; I don't mind a little
broken glass!"
Romola was pushing two silver cups along the floor to him.
He spilled an amount of the sparkling golden liquid on the carpet,
where it formed a dark, round stain. With slightly unsteady hands he
conveyed the cups across the room, and Peggy, without another word,
following a rather vexed: "Thank you, m'lord," emptied the cup in a
single swallow. She licked her lips daintily, and her eyes were
sparkling.
As Peter moved into the seat beside her, he saw the curtain over the
doorway slowly drawn back by an unseen hand. He looked smilingly
toward Romola, and her eyes were fixed on the moving curtain, her face
rigid in surprise and concern. The thing seemed to puzzle her.
White metal flashed coldly. A lean hand and arm appeared, and a short,
fat knife, the haft sparkling with drops that resembled blood, was
projected into the room, point down, quivering, in the wood, not five
feet from Romola's lacquered bench!
CHAPTER V
"Is this a part----" began Peter.
"No, it is not."
Romola's face seemed thin with her growing anxiety. Obviously the
tossed knife was not a part of the evening's performance.
"A part of what?" Peggy was inquiring.
"Oh, another joke of the Mongolian smugglers," he explained.
There was a sudden and astounding explosion in the midst of them. The
flame of a revolver bathed the whole room in reddish-yellow for an
instant. Smoke was rising, the pungent, pale-blue, nitrous smoke of
so-called smokeless powder. Anthony Andover had arisen, had delivered
his shot at the waving curtain.
Peter gave a grunt of disapproval. "Why did you do that----"
"Look!"
The candle directly above the curtains had flickered out; in fact, on
closer examination Peter discovered that the candle had been split in
crude halves, one of the white fragments lying on the rug not far from
the incense burner. This proved one point conclusively. Anthony
Andover had put real bullets, not blank cartridges, into the six
chambers of his revolver. He had reseated himself calmly beside Helen,
who was staring at him with eyes like pools.
Peggy found her voice first. "Gracious! Why did you do that? It was
only in fun--that dagger, I mean. Why, you might have killed somebody!"
Anthony shrugged his shoulders. "I'm not so sure about that."
"This is really a most dangerous spot," added the Princess Meng Da
Tlang in a mysterious voice. But she was looking at Peter with
deliberate meaning.
He accepted what he supposed was intended to be a cue, crossed to the
far side of the room, and approached the curtains prudently. He drew
the nearest one back inch by inch until the wall of the corridor was
given back to them blankly. So far it was quite empty.
Dropping his hand leisurely into his coat-pocket, he sauntered into the
hall. As he dropped the curtains behind him, glancing swiftly up and
down the apparently deserted hallway, he heard the familiar sound again
of a gently closed door.
The sound seemed to originate from the direction of the street. He
looked about for the old watchman, and he nearly stumbled over him in
the half-darkness as he approached.
Peter struck a match, and a gasp of horror came from his lips. The man
was dead--stabbed!
Was this killing a part of an elaborate plan? He would not have
permitted himself to walk with such apparent innocence into a snare if
he had not relied upon the word of that band. His experience had been
that their code was a peculiar one whose foundation was the word of
honor. For the first time that evening he began to regret a little his
arrogance in defying the request of their messenger to report his
intentions immediately upon landing to the men in the place on Jen Kee
Road.
He dragged the body into the darkest corner, where he covered it with a
mat.
Laboring above his keen anxiety regarding the intention of the band was
an eagerness to keep away from the two girls the sense of death, of
danger, which seemed to pervade this house.
A way would have to be found to break through the line outside; perhaps
they would be compelled to wait for daylight. Again sliding the bolt
which had been pushed back by the last trespasser, Peter slowly paced
the length of the hall in the meditation of active and acute worry. He
was still undecided when he pulled back the rug which cloaked the
entrance into the large room.
The room was in total darkness!
CHAPTER VI
An eye, red like the play of fire about a distant volcano crater,
glowed a number of paces in front of him. But not a candle, of the
dozens that had been burning when he last went out of this room, was
now lighted.
The scarlet glow he took to be the illumination under the altar of
Buddha. He heard a long sigh, a vague murmur of voices.
"Light the candles," he ordered angrily.
"What is the matter?" This was Anthony's voice; it sounded very drowsy.
A tiny flame appeared as if suspended by an unseen cord and moved to
the candle rail. One wick glowed; another; then another.
"Moore--Moore----" This was again the sleepy voice of Anthony.
A garish, gray figure arose and stumbled into the candle-light. It was