Part 10

I stared at him in astonishment.

"Surely," I cried, "you do not believe that your doctors are better than ours! You don't mean to say that an intelligent and educated man like you thinks that there is merit in powdered toads, and snake liver-pills! You don't believe for an instant that incantations to drive away devils can be of the slightest benefit to a girl with a bullet through her lungs!"

Big Sam looked away from me with something of shame and discomposure in his face. The yellow mask dropped away for a moment, and I could read in his countenance the struggle that was going on in his mind between the veneer of western education and the inborn basic faith in the system evolved by his fathers.

"If you had asked me a week ago, and purely as a matter of theory," he said slowly, "I should have replied that your doctors were far superior to ours--that the medical practice of our people was merely superstition reduced to an absurdity."

"Your good sense would have spoken," I said.

"But now," he continued, "it is not a matter of theory that I have to consider. It is a life and death problem. Immense interests--my future--perhaps the future of the Chinese in this country--are all at stake. And who am I, to throw aside the wisdom of my ancestors and call it folly? There are powers in the earth and in the air that you and I do not understand. There are forces that you and I do not know how to use. I have seen things that science--even your science--can not explain. May not the race know what the common man does not know? Does not the experience of three thousand years count for more than our ideas of what is reasonable? Our ideas! What are they but bubbles blown in air, now seen, now gone into nothingness? Here is a scrap of paper. I crumple it thus, and throw it out of the window. It is blown here and there--up the street, down the street, around the corner--and it comes at last to the rubbish pile and is burned. And because it has found nothing but pavements and buildings in its course it scoffs at the stories of green fields, mountains, forests, the powers of nature and the works of man that it has not seen. Is that not the attitude of civilized man, Mr. Hampden?"

"We must believe our experience, our observation and our intelligence; they are the only guides we have," I replied.

"The savage is much more reasonable," said Big Sam, with the air of one who argues with himself. "He makes allowance for the universe outside his little round of experience." He rose from his seat with a troubled face, as though to relieve his stress of thought by walking. Then, as if ashamed at the loss of his customary calm, he sat down once more.

I brought the conversation back to the concrete case of Moon Ying.

"I can assure you," I said, "that the girl is getting the best medical attention in the city, and is being nursed with the most tender care. You surely have no thought of depriving her of these advantages."

"These advantages? Yes, they may be advantages to your people. But are they so for mine?"

"Certainly; flesh and blood are flesh and blood the world over."

"Each race to its own," said Big Sam. "I can not take the risk of leaving her to die under the white doctor's treatment."

"She is much the more likely to die if you bring her to Chinatown," I argued.

Big Sam's face recovered its firm determination, and I saw that the superstition and ancestor-worshiping elements imbibed with his mother's milk had overwhelmed education and reason in the crisis at which he felt he had arrived.

"I must look to my own welfare," he said with decision. "A war among the tongs would be fatal to the interests of the Chinese. And if the girl dies--especially if she dies under the white doctor's care--it would be quite beyond my power to prevent an outbreak."

"I have no doubt your interests are important," I began, when he interrupted me.

"Important! they are everything. I must ask you to see that the girl is returned here this morning. I will send for two of our best Chinese doctors to care for her."

"I protest against your decision," I said.

"It is not your place to protest or assent," said. Big Sam, with an air of command.

"Nor to act against my judgment," I added.

"Oh, if you refuse to act, I must find another messenger," said Big Sam calmly. "Permit me to thank you for what you have done, and to say that when I can be of service I am yours to command." The dignity and courtesy with which he spoke were almost regal.

"Oh, I refuse nothing," I replied. "But you will have to reckon with another person than me. I shall take your request to Miss Kendrick; but, whatever I may think about it, the final decision will be in her hands."

Big Sam looked thoughtfully at me for more than a minute before he spoke.

"That was a phase of the problem I had not considered," he said slowly. "I had forgotten that yours is not the ruling sex in the white race." Big Sam's voice was innocent of sarcasm, and he appeared to be considering an impersonal problem.

"If you want to get your girl, I advise you to see Miss Kendrick yourself," I said.

Big Sam looked at me gravely.

"I should not venture to be so rude to Mr. Kendrick as to look upon the women of his household," he said with a trace of rebuke in his tone; yet I felt that this oriental excuse was but a pretense. "I am sure," he added, with a significant glance, "that I could not have a better advocate than the one I send."

Something in the tone rather than in the words sent the blood to my face, and in some confusion I rose.

"An advocate who speaks against his judgment is not likely to be of much value," I said.

"And you a lawyer!" he exclaimed. He rose and accompanied me to the door, then halted and stamped three times on the floor. "I had almost forgotten," he said with an enigmatic smile.

As he spoke there was again the rumbling as of a heavy table moved across the floor.

"Forgotten what?" was my natural inquiry.

He made no reply, and as the noise stopped he opened the door and ushered me into the hall. I had ceased to think of the peculiar mode in which I had entered the room, but now the remembrance flashed upon me, and I looked about in astonishment. I had passed directly from the office into the outer hall, and the door leading from the hall to the passage in which I had been imprisoned had disappeared.

For a moment I was at a loss to explain the transformation. Disappearing doors were something new in my experience. Then I struck my hand against the wall where the door had been, and my knuckles told me that behind the counterfeit appearance of plaster was a heavy sheet of painted iron. In a flash the explanation came to me. The whole wall could be moved like a sliding door, and with a minute's warning a raid on Big Sam's office would find no entrance.

I carried Big Sam's message to the Kendrick house without delay, and put Big Sam's case with an impartiality that surprised myself. But I was not disappointed in the result.

"Send her back!" cried Miss Kendrick in a great state of indignation. "What can the man be thinking about?"

"Indeed, it is impossible," said Miss Fillmore. "The girl is in no state to be moved, even if it were a question of moving her to a better place."

"And to move her to that dreadful, dirty Chinatown!" cried Miss Kendrick. "I'm astonished that you should think of such a thing."

"I didn't think of it," I urged. "I didn't even want to hear of it. But Big Sam has reverted to primeval barbarism, and when he said he would find somebody else if I wouldn't come, I consented to bring his message."

"Well," said Miss Kendrick, "I never heard of such a preposterous thing in all my life."

"Unfortunately, Big Sam doesn't see it in that light," I said.

Miss Kendrick sat down looking very determined and very indignant. Then she gave a decided nod and said:

"You can tell Big Sam, with my compliments, that if he thinks I am going to be an accomplice before the fact to a murder, he's very much mistaken in the person."

There was more talk to the same effect, when my judicial mind caught the idea of a compromise.

"I have it," I said. "Why not let Big Sam's Chinese doctor come up here and take an occasional look at Moon Ying, and allay the excitement in Chinatown by assuring them that she's all right?"

"Well, I admire your intelligence," said Miss Kendrick. "I suppose you'd have Doctor Roberts consulting with him, and alternate our medicines with shark's-liver pills and snake-skin powders. Would you set aside certain hours for him to sing Chinese incantations over her? Or how would you fix it?"

The judicial scheme of compromise lost some of its attractiveness, and I said so with the proper degree of humility.

"Well, you are forgiven," said Miss Kendrick. "Now I'll tell you that there's just one compromise we will make. Big Sam may come here once a week to see Moon Ying. He's the only Chinaman who can get past that door."

"I suggested something of the sort, and he took it as though I had proposed an impropriety. I believe that a Chinese gentleman isn't supposed to observe that another gentleman has a feminine side to his establishment."

"Then he can stay out," said Miss Kendrick with decision. "You can go right back and set his mind at rest. He can have Moon Ying when she gets well and he finds a man who is fit to be her husband. It's my private opinion that there isn't such a one in Chinatown. And he can't have her a minute sooner."

I delivered this ultimatum to Big Sam. He had recovered his composure, and showed neither surprise nor disappointment when I reported the result of his mission.

"Am I to understand that this message is from Mr. Kendrick or Miss Kendrick?" he inquired blandly.

"From Miss Kendrick."

"Ah! I presumed that such a matter would be decided by the head of the household." His tone was even, and I looked to his face for the flavor of sarcasm that seemed the proper dressing for the words. But the bland, inscrutable mask of China gave back only the expression of polite attention.

"Her decision would be final in such a matter," I replied with something of resentment.

"Then," said Big Sam in his suave tone, "I trust that she understands the responsibility she is taking."

"I explained the importance you set upon it."

"Oh, I did not refer to my interests," said Big Sam, waving them aside as though they were of no moment.

"Then I am afraid I don't understand you," I said in perturbation.

"It is very simple. If the girl dies I can no longer answer for the conduct of the tongs. And if she dies in Mr. Kendrick's house--"

Big Sam left the sentence unfinished, and I asked:

"Do you mean that as a threat of an attack on Mr. Kendrick or his niece?"

"Oh, I do not threaten. I merely suggest. There are very bad men in these tongs, and they will be very angry. You can not be surprised if they put something of the blame for the girl's death on those who have her in charge. And angry men will go far for revenge."

"This is a serious threat," I said, with more alarm than I cared to show.

"I do not intend it as such," said Big Sam calmly. "I merely state circumstances."

"I am obliged to you for the warning," I said, "but I can only say that the considerations you mention would not move Miss Kendrick. She is convinced that to send the girl here is to sacrifice her life. Miss Kendrick has a woman's courage--the courage that defends the helpless--and I know it would be useless to appeal to her fears."

"Then," said Big Sam, with the air of one dismissing the subject, "there is nothing more to be said. What will happen will happen."

And with royal courtesy he bowed me out.

*CHAPTER XIV*

*BARGAINING*

"I thought you would come," said the hard, dry voice of Peter Bolton, as he leaned back in his chair and surveyed me with a sardonic smile.

"Why, yes," I replied cheerfully. "Jim Morgan told me that you wanted to see me, and I took chances on his telling the truth." As Jim Morgan was the prize-fighter who was at the head of Bolton's bureau of private information and defense, I had reason to assume that he spoke by authority.

Peter Bolton looked at me suspiciously, and then gave grudging acknowledgment of Morgan's agency.

"I never write," he grumbled. "You never know whose hands a letter will fall into."

"A very prudent rule," I returned.

He shook his head slowly, drew down the corners of his mouth, and rubbed his hands.

"Well, I suppose by this time you are about ready to take up with my offer," he said with a look of shrewd cunning.

"Your offer? I really didn't know that you had made one," I answered.

His cold blue eyes looked searchingly into my face for a minute. Then he said:

"You'll find it best to take up with my terms. I don't know what salary you're getting from Kendrick, but you're going to lose it."

"I didn't expect to keep it for ever. Did Mr. Kendrick tell you he was going to discharge me?"

"Tell me?" began Peter Bolton with a sarcastic leer. "He didn't have to. I've got better information than he can give. Your man Kendrick is going broke within the next thirty days, and he won't have any use for that fine herd of clerks he has been keeping."

As Peter Bolton evidently expected me to comment on this prophecy, I murmured that I was sorry to hear it.

"You needn't be," said he with an attempt to be amiable. "I'll take care of you."

"You are very kind," I said. "But how do you know that Wharton Kendrick is going under?"

"How do I know?" he returned with something of passion under his drawling tone. "Why, I know your man Kendrick like a book. I've known him for forty years. I've watched his business. I've watched him. Oh, he can fool you fellows with his smirking face, and his open-handed way of throwing money about. But I know that it's borrowed money, and the man who makes a show on borrowed money comes to the end of it some day, doesn't he?" Bolton ended querulously, as though he was making complaint against Wharton Kendrick for not having gone into bankruptcy long before.

"Oh, I think you are mistaken," I said. "Mr. Kendrick is known to be very rich."

"Reported to be very rich, you mean," he said in his most sarcastic drawl.

"Oh, there's no doubt about it," I returned warmly. I hoped to provoke him into saying more than he intended.

Peter Bolton took up the challenge.

"Why, young man," he cried, his voice rising into a cracked treble, "he owes money he can't pay. There's five hundred thousand dollars of his notes in that safe there," and he pointed to the solid front of the burglar-defying case. "They fall due pretty soon--some of 'em are due now--and he can't meet 'em."

"Do you mean to say that he has borrowed money of you?" I asked in amazement.

"I didn't say that," he replied cautiously. "But there are the notes. They're signed by Wharton Kendrick, and they call for five hundred thousand. When they're presented he can't pay 'em, and I suppose I'll lose my money. I have bad luck about losing money." He shook his head ruefully, and drew down the corners of his mouth as sourly as though he saw the almshouse at the end of his road.

"Oh," I said hopefully, "you'll get it, I'm sure. Mr. Kendrick has a lot of property, and if he hasn't the money, he can borrow it."

This assurance was less pleasing than the prospect of loss that had soured his face but a minute before.

"I know what property he has, young man, a good, deal better than you do," he said sharply. "And there's more paper of his in the banks--I guess it's all of two hundred and fifty thousand, maybe more. Money's getting pretty tight now, pretty tight, and Kendrick's about at the end of his rope. When he goes down, you'll want a place to fall on." He looked at me ingratiatingly, and as I said nothing, he continued:

"Now, I want to see that you're taken care of. You shan't lose anything when the smash comes, if you just follow my instructions."

"It's very kind of you to take so much interest in me," I began with an echo of his own sarcasm, when he interrupted.

"Oh, I ain't such a hard man as some people say. I want to do you a good turn, and maybe you'll help me out. I'm a liberal employer to men who give me the right sort of service. Now you're trying to be a lawyer--"

I confessed that I hoped to do something in that line.

"And I've got a little legal business to attend to," he continued, "and I want to know what you'd consider a fair fee."

"Why," I said, "it depends, for one thing, on the work to be done, and for another on the amount of money we think the fellow has."

Peter Bolton looked at me in alarm.

"Oh, I have very little money, very little money," he said quickly.

"Except for such little items as five hundred thousand in Kendrick's notes, that you were just mentioning."

"Oh, them. Well, I'm expecting to lose that money, and a man who loses five hundred thousand feels pretty tight pinched."

"Now, as for the work to be done, if it were overlooking the Council of Nine and the anti-coolie agitation--"

"Anti-coolie agitation!" he exclaimed angrily. "I don't know anything about an anti-coolie agitation."

"Oh," said I apologetically, "I supposed you knew what Waldorf and Parks and Kearney were doing with the money you gave them. Didn't they tell you about it when they were here last night?"

"I don't know what you are talking about!" he cried angrily, but I read in his eyes anxiety and surprise at the accuracy of my information.

"Now if it were looking after them, I should want a larger fee than for looking after your plans with Big Sam."

A shade of gray passed over his face, and he held up one hand and gave me a malevolent look.

"Young Men talk a Good Deal of Nonsense," he said. "Now if you're through with your joke, we'll go back to talking Business." His sardonic voice showed that he was again thoroughly in command of himself, but I felt convinced that he was more eager than ever to secure my services. "Now what's your figure?"

"You haven't told me yet what you expect me to do."

He looked about cautiously, and then studied my face for a little before he replied.

"I'll tell you what it is," he said slowly. "You are in charge of Kendrick's campaign. I want you to stay in charge of it, but to run it according to My orders instead of according to His orders."

"How long do you think I could keep the job on those terms?" I asked. "You've known Mr. Kendrick forty or fifty years. You must have got the impression in that time that he isn't altogether a fool. How long do you think he would stand it? About long enough to kick me out of his office, wouldn't he?"

"He'll stand it long enough to suit My purpose," replied Peter Bolton, his sardonic smile tightening the corners of his mouth. "My orders will be His orders until the day comes that I am ready to put my hand on him." He reached out his long, bony fingers cautiously, and then brought his palm down on his desk with a thump as though he were catching a luckless fly. "When the time comes, an hour will be enough," he continued. "All I want you to do is to bring His orders to Me, before you carry them out. Then do as I tell you." His jaws closed with a snap, as though they were a trap, and Wharton Kendrick were between them.

"That sort of legal advice is worth a good deal of money," I said. "You can afford to pay well for it, for you'll make a big clean-up. I'll have to be paid well for it, for if it were to be found out, I could never do any more business in this town."

Peter Bolton gave me a shrewd look, as though he thought he was sure of me.

"I offered you Ten Thousand Dollars," he said, trying to make the sum sound very large, "but I won't stick at a thousand or two more. I'm not a close man with those I like--"

"It's worth a good deal more," I interrupted. He looked disappointed. Then he studied the desk, and appeared to be making up his mind to some great sacrifice.

"Well," he said slowly and grudgingly, "name your figure."

"I should think fifty thousand dollars was about right."

Peter Bolton gave a shudder, and pondered for a little. Then the shrewd look came again into his eyes, and he said:

"I'll be liberal, and give you more than it's worth. I'll pay you One Thousand Dollars a week for the next four weeks, and on the day that Wharton Kendrick makes his assignment, I'll give you Twenty-Five Thousand Dollars. I wouldn't do it for any one else, but I want to see that you don't lose anything."

I understood from this outburst of verbal generosity how much he overestimated my share in Wharton Kendrick's affairs.

"Well, I'll think it over and let you know," I said, rising to escape. The pressure of my indignation had reached the danger point, and I felt that if I sat there another minute my honest opinion would burst forth in words that would put an end to further hopes of getting any revelations out of him.

"You'd better take it now," he urged, with a shadow of disappointment on his face. "It's a good offer, and I might find some one else to take it up by to-morrow."

"Oh, I'll take the risk," I returned. "I have a monopoly on this business, and you know it, and I can take what time I please."

"Just as you like, young man, just as you like," he said in his sarcastic drawl. "But look out for your own interests. If you don't, I can tell you that Wharton Kendrick won't."

Before he could deliver another homily on the folly of honesty and the importance of pursuing the interests of Number One, I hastened out of the office, with the thought that I had penetrated far into the evil designs of Peter Bolton at the cost of a good deal of self-respect.

I soothed my indignant spirit with a walk that gave me time to assure myself that no spy was following me, and then bent my steps to Wharton Kendrick's offices to lay the case before my client. The accumulation of five hundred thousand dollars' worth of his notes in Peter Bolton's hands seemed to be a matter that might call for very serious consideration.

I found Wharton Kendrick in his private room in converse with General Wilson, and the discussion appeared to have become heated. General Wilson's face gleamed like a great carbuncle, and Wharton Kendrick's ruddy cheeks were ruddier than ever with signs of temper.

"You can't do it, Kendrick," General Wilson was saying, with a wave of the hand. "I've been over every foot of that land that isn't too soft to stand on, and I'll tell you that you can't put in any such works."

"I've had two first-class engineers go over it," replied Wharton Kendrick with equal positiveness, "and they say it can be done."

"Engineers--engineers! What are they worth?" snorted General Wilson scornfully. "I've got two eyes, and they are good enough engineers for me."

"You'll find 'em mighty expensive ones if you try to do business on their estimates," said Wharton Kendrick grimly. "Experts come high, but they are cheaper than your own guesswork. You can count it liberal of me to give you that information for nothing, for it cost me over two hundred and fifty thousand dollars."

"It's no use talking, Kendrick," said General Wilson positively. "When I'm right I know it, and all creation can't move me. That land of yours is no good to us unless we can get Bolton's piece with it. The two have got to be improved together or not at all. I'll tell you right now that the company won't pay any such price for your piece unless it can get the other, and Bolton won't sell just because he knows we've got to have it to make it a success."

"What's that?" exclaimed Kendrick, looking grave. "Bolton won't sell?"

General Wilson repeated his statement with characteristic vehemence.

"Did Bolton tell you that?"

"He couldn't have made it plainer if he had said it right out in so many words. He raised his price at the rate of a hundred thousand dollars a minute as soon as he heard that we wanted your land."