The Mandarin's Fan
and I left China never to set foot in it again I hope. Ainsleigh, if you
want that curse of yours to be realised, meddle with the fan. But if you
want to keep your life and your skin, leave the matter alone."
"I'm going to get that five thousand pounds," said Rupert, obstinately,
"as soon as I can recollect where I saw that fan. The memory will come
back to me. I am sure it will. Doctor you won't help me."
"No," said Forge decisively. "I advise you to leave the matter alone."
"In that case I must search it out myself. Good-day," and Ainsleigh
strolled out of the room, lightheartedly enough, as he whistled a gay
tune. Major Tidman looked grimly at the closed door, and then still more
grimly at the doctor, who was paring his nails.
"Our young friend is ambitious," he said.
Forge laughed gently. "You can hardly blame him. He wants to marry Miss
Rayner and save his ancestral home, so I am quite sure he will search
for the fan."
"He won't find it then," said the Major petulantly.
"Won't he?" questioned Forge sweetly, "well, perhaps not. By the way you
want to see me Major. Mrs. Bressy tells me you called at least twice
yesterday."
"Yes. She didn't know when you would be back."
"I never tell her. I like to take the old lady unawares. She is a
Dickens' character, with a fondness for drink, and for taking things
which don't belong to her. I always go away and come back unexpectedly.
Yesterday I was in Paris. Now I am at Marport. Well?"
The Major had contained himself with difficulty all this time, and had
grown very red in the face. The colour changed to a lively purple, as he
burst out. "See here Forge what's the use of talking to me in this way.
You have that fan."
"Have I," said Forge smiling gently.
"Yes. You know well enough that the very fan--the jade fan with the five
beads, was the cause of my getting into trouble in Canton. You got me
out of the trouble and you asked me to give you the fan, when I thanked
you."
"And you refused," said Forge still smiling.
"Well I did at first," said Tidman sulkily. "I risked my life over the
beastly thing, and--"
Forge raised a thin hand. "Spare yourself the recital. I know."
"Well then," went on Tidman excitedly. "You asked again for it when you
came home, and I gave it to you. Ainsleigh is quite right. He _did_ see
the fan. I showed it to him one day before you arrived. I see he has
forgotten, but any stray thought may revive his memory. I don't want him
to have the fan."
"Why not?" asked Forge shutting his knife with a click.
"Because I want the five thousand pounds for myself. I'm not so well off
as people think, and I want--"
"You forget," said Forge gently, "you gave me the fan."
"And have you got it?"
"I have," he nodded towards a cabinet of Chinese work adorned with
quaint figures, "it's in there."
"Give it to me back."
"No. I think I'll keep it."
"What do you want to do with it?" asked Tidman angrily.
Forge rose and looked stern, "I want to keep it from Lo-Keong," he said
savagely, "there's some secret connected with that fan. I can't
understand what the secret is or what the fan has to do with it: but it
means life and death to this Mandarin. He'd give ten thousand,--twenty
thousand to get that fan back. But he shan't."
"Oh," groaned the Major, "why did I give it to you. To think that such a
lot of money should go begging. If I had only known what the fan was
worth."
"You knew nothing about it save as a curiosity."
"How do you know," demanded the Major.
Forge who had turned towards the cabinet wheeled round and looked more
like a hawk than ever as he pounced on the stout man. "What do _you_
know?" and he clawed Tidman's plump shoulders.
"Let me go confound you," blustered the Major, "what do you mean by
assaulting a gentleman--"
"A gentleman." Forge suddenly released the Major and laughed softly,
"does Benjamin Tidman, old Farmer Tidman's son call himself so. Why I
remember you--"
"Yes I know you do, and so does that infernal Pewsey cat."
Forge suddenly became attentive. "Miss Pewsey if you please. She is my
friend. I may--" Forge halted and swallowed something. "I may even marry
her some day."
"What," shouted Tidman backing to the wall, "that old--old--"
"Gently my good Benjamin, gently."
"But--but you're not a marrying man."
"We never know what we are till we die," said Forge turning again
towards the black cabinet, "but you needn't mention what I have said. If
you do," Forge snarled like an angry cat and shot one glance from his
gray eyes that made Tidman shiver: then he resumed his gentle tone.
"About this fan. I'll make a bargain with you."
"What's that?" asked the Major avariciously.
"I'll show you the fan, and if you can guess it's secret, I'll let
you give it to this Tung-yu or Hwei or Kan-su or whatever he likes to
call himself."
"But you don't want Lo-Keong to have the fan," said the Major
doubtfully.
Forge opened the cabinet slowly. "So long as I learn the secret he can
have the fan. I want to ruin him. He's a devil and--ah--" he started
back. "The fan--the fan--"
"What is it?" asked Tidman, craning over Forge's shoulder at an empty
drawer, "where is the fan?"
"Lost," cried Forge furiously, and looked like a dangerous grey rat.
"Five thousand pounds gone," moaned the Major.
"My life you fool--my life," cried the doctor, "it is at stake."
CHAPTER III
MISS WHARF AT HOME
The best houses in Marport were situated on the Cliffs. They stood a
considerable way back and had small plots of ground before them
cultivated or not, according to the taste of those who owned them. Some
of these gardens were brilliant with flowers, others had nothing but
shrubs in them, presenting rather a sombre appearance, and a few were
bare sun-burnt grass plots, with no adornment whatsoever. A broad road
divided the gardens from the grassy undulations of the cliffs, and along
this thoroughfare, rolled carriages, bicycles, and motor-cars all day
during the season. Then came the grass on the cliff-tops which stretched
for a long distance, and which was dotted with shelters for nervous
invalids. At one end there was a round band-stand where red-coated
musicians played lively airs from the latest musical comedy. Round the
stand were rows of chairs hired out at twopence an afternoon, and
indeed, all over the lawns, seats of various kinds were scattered. At
the end of the grass, the cliffs sloped gradually and were intersected
with winding paths, which led downward to the asphalt Esplanade which
ran along the water's edge, when the tide was high, and beside
evil-smelling mud when the tide was out. And on what was known as the
beach--a somewhat gritty strand,--were many bathing machines. Such was
the general appearance of Marport which the Essex people looked on as a
kind of Brighton, only much better.
Miss Sophia Wharf owned a cosy little house at the far end of the
cliffs, and just at the point where Marport begins to melt into the
country. It was a modern house comfortably furnished and brilliant with
electric lights. The garden in front of it was well taken care of, there
were scarlet and white shades to the windows and flower boxes filled
with blossoms on the sills. Everyone who passed remarked on the beauty
of the house, and Miss Wharf was always pleased when she heard them envy
her possessions. She liked to possess a Naboth's Vineyard of her own,
and appreciated it the more, when others would have liked to take it.
She had an income of one thousand a year and therefore could live very
comfortably. The house (Ivy Lodge was it's highly original name) was
her own, bought in the days when Marport was nothing but a fishing
village. She knew everyone in the neighbourhood, was a staunch friend to
the vicar who was high church and quite after her own heart in the use
of banners, incense, candles and side-altars, and on the whole was one
of the leading ladies of the place. She had the reputation of being
charitable, but this was owing to Miss Pewsey who constantly trumpeted
the bestowal of any stray shilling being by her patroness.
Miss Wharf was a lady of good family, but had quarrelled with her
relatives. She was a tall, cold, blonde woman who had once been handsome
and still retained a certain portion of good looks, in spite of her
forty and more years. She lived with her niece Olivia the child of a
sister long since dead, and with Miss Pewsey, to whom she gave a home as
a companion. But Miss Wharf well knew, that Lavinia Pewsey was worth her
weight in gold owing to the way she praised up her good, kind, devoted,
loving, sweet, friend. The adjectives are Miss Pewsey's own, but some
people said that Sophia Wharf did not deserve to have them attached to
her. The lady had her enemies, and these openly declared, as the Major
had done, that she was a mass of granite. Other people, less prejudiced,
urged that Miss Wharf looked after Olivia, who was a penniless orphan.
To which the grumblers retorted that Miss Wharf liked someone to vent
her temper on, and that the poor girl, being too pretty, did duty as a
whipping boy. This was possibly true, for Olivia and her aunt did not
get on well together. In her own way the girl looked as cold as Miss
Wharf, but this coldness was merely a mask to hide a warm and loving
nature, while Miss Wharf was an ice-berg through and through. However,
on the whole, Sophia Wharf was well liked, and took care to make the
most of her looks and her moderate income and her reputation as a
charitable lady. And Miss Pewsey was the show-woman who displayed her
patroness's points to their best advantage.
The drawing-room of Ivy Lodge was a flimsy, pretty, feminine, room,
furnished in a gim-crack fashion, of the high art style. The floor was
waxed, and covered with Persian praying mats, the chairs were gilt and
had spindle legs, the settee was Empire, the piano was encased in green
wood and adorned with much brass, the sofa was Louis Quinze and covered
with brocade, and there were many tables of rose-wood, dainty and light,
heaped high with useless nick-knacks.
The walls of pale green were adorned with watercolour pictures, and many
mirrors draped with Liberty silk. Everywhere were large bowls of
flowers, miniatures of Miss Wharf at various times of her life,
curiosities from China and Japan and the near East, and all sorts of
odds and ends which Miss Wharf had collected on her travels. Not that
she had been to the East, for the evidences of civilisation in those
lands came from Dr. Forge and Major Tidman, but Miss Wharf had explored
Germany, Switzerland and Italy and consequently had brought home
cuckoo-clocks, quaint carvings, pictures of the Madonna, Etruscan idols
and such like things with which every tourist loads himself or herself.
The result was, that the drawing-room looked like a curiosity shop, but
it was considered to be one of the prettiest drawing-rooms in Essex.
Miss Wharf looked too large and too substantial for the frail furniture
of the room. She had a double chin and was certainly very stout. Very
wisely she had a special arm-chair placed in the window--from which she
could see all that was going on,--and here she sat working most of the
day. She was great on doing fancy articles for bazaars, and silk ties
for such gentlemen as she admired, for Miss Wharf, old maid as she was,
liked male society. The Major was her great admirer, so was young
Walker, Lady Jabe's nephew. Sophia was not very sure of this last
gentleman, as she shrewdly suspected--prompted by Miss Pewsey--that he
admired Olivia. Rupert also admired Olivia and wanted to marry her, a
proceeding which Miss Wharf objected to. Miss Pewsey supported her in
this, for both women were envious of the youth which had passed from