Keith lost no time in heading for
Shan Tung’s. He was like a man playing
chess, and the moves were becoming so swift and so
intricate that his mind had no rest. Each hour
brought forth its fresh necessities and its new alternatives.
It was McDowell who had given him his last cue, perhaps
the surest and safest method of all for winning his
game. The iron man, that disciple of the Law who
was merciless in his demand of an eye for an eye and
a tooth for a tooth, had let him understand that the
world would be better off without Shan Tung. This
man, who never in his life had found an excuse for
the killer, now maneuvered subtly the suggestion for
a killing.
Keith was both shocked and amazed.
“If anything happens, let it be in the open
and not on Shan Tung’s premises,” he had
warned him. That implied in McDowell’s
mind a cool and calculating premeditation, the assumption
that if Shan Tung was killed it would be in self-defense.
And Keith’s blood leaped to the thrill of it.
He had not only found the depths of McDowell’s
personal interest in Miriam Kirkstone, but a last
weapon had been placed in his hands, a weapon which
he could use this day if it became necessary.
Cornered, with no other hope of saving himself, he
could as a last resort kill Shan Tung-and
McDowell would stand behind him!
He went directly to Shan Tung’s
cafe and sauntered in. There were large changes
in it since four years ago. The moment he passed
through its screened vestibule, he felt its oriental
exclusiveness, the sleek and mysterious quietness
of it. One might have found such a place catering
to the elite of a big city. It spoke sumptuously
of a large expenditure of money, yet there was nothing
bizarre or irritating to the senses. Its heavily-carved
tables were almost oppressive in their solidity.
Linen and silver, like Shan Tung himself, were immaculate.
Magnificently embroidered screens were so cleverly
arranged that one saw not all of the place at once,
but caught vistas of it. The few voices that
Keith heard in this pre-lunch hour were subdued, and
the speakers were concealed by screens. Two orientals,
as immaculate as the silver and linen, were moving
about with the silence of velvet-padded lynxes.
A third, far in the rear, stood motionless as one of
the carven tables, smoking a cigarette and watchful
as a ferret. This was Li King, Shan Tung’s
right-hand man.
Keith approached him. When he
was near enough, Li King gave the slightest inclination
to his head and took the cigarette from his mouth.
Without movement or speech he registered the question,
“What do you want?”
Keith knew this to be a bit of oriental
guile. In his mind there was no doubt that Li
King had been fully instructed by his master and that
he had been expecting him, even watching for him.
Convinced of this, he gave him one of Conniston’s
cards and said,
“Take this to Shan Tung. He is expecting
me.”
Li King looked at the card, studied
it for a moment with apparent stupidity, and shook
his head. “Shan Tung no home. Gone
away.”
That was all. Where he had gone
or when he would return Keith could not discover from
Li King. Of all other matters except that he had
gone away the manager of Shan Tung’s affairs
was ignorant. Keith felt like taking the yellow-skinned
hypocrite by the throat and choking something out
of him, but he realized that Li King was studying and
watching him, and that he would report to Shan Tung
every expression that had passed over his face.
So he looked at his watch, bought a cigar at the glass
case near the cash register, and departed with a cheerful
nod, saying that he would call again.
Ten minutes later he determined on
a bold stroke. There was no time for indecision
or compromise. He must find Shan Tung and find
him quickly. And he believed that Miriam Kirkstone
could give him a pretty good tip as to his whereabouts.
He steeled himself to the demand he was about to make
as he strode up to the house on the hill. He was
disappointed again. Miss Kirkstone was not at
home. If she was, she did not answer to his knocking
and bell ringing.
He went to the depot. No one
he questioned had seen Shan Tung at the west-bound
train, the only train that had gone out that morning,
and the agent emphatically disclaimed selling him
a ticket. Therefore he had not gone far.
Suspicion leaped red in Keith’s brain. His
imagination pictured Shan Tung at that moment with
Miriam Kirkstone, and at the thought his disgust went
out against them both. In this humor he returned
to McDowell’s office. He stood before his
chief, leaning toward him over the desk table.
This time he was the inquisitor.
“Plainly speaking, this liaison
is their business,” he declared. “Because
he is yellow and she is white doesn’t make it
ours. I’ve just had a hunch. And I
believe in following hunches, especially when one
hits you good and hard, and this one has given me a
jolt that means something. Where is that big
fat brother of hers?”
McDowell hesitated. “It
isn’t a liaison,” he temporized. “It’s
one-sided-a crime against-”
“Where is that
big fat brother?” With each word
Keith emphasized his demand with a thud of his fist
on the table. “Where is he?”
McDowell was deeply perturbed.
Keith could see it and waited.
After a moment of silence the iron
man rose from the swivel chair, walked to the window,
gazed out for another moment, and walked back again,
twisting one of his big gray mustaches in a way that
betrayed the stress of his emotion. “Confound
it, Conniston, you’ve got a mind for seeking
out the trivialities, and little things are sometimes
the most embarrassing.”
“And sometimes most important,”
added Keith. “For instance, it strikes
me as mighty important that we should know where Peter
Kirkstone is and why he is not here fighting for his
sister’s salvation. Where is he?”
“I don’t know. He
disappeared from town a month ago. Miriam says
he is somewhere in British Columbia looking over some
old mining properties. She doesn’t know
just where.”
“And you believe her?”
The eyes of the two men met.
There was no longer excuse for equivocation.
Both understood.
McDowell smiled in recognition of
the fact. “No. I think, Conniston,
that she is the most wonderful little liar that lives.
And the beautiful part of it is, she is lying for
a purpose. Imagine Peter Kirkstone, who isn’t
worth the powder to blow him to Hades, interested
in old mines or anything else that promises industry
or production! And the most inconceivable thing
about the whole mess is that Miriam worships that
fat and worthless pig of a brother. I’ve
tried to find him in British Columbia. Failed,
of course. Another proof that this affair between
Miriam and Shan Tung isn’t a voluntary liaison
on her part. She’s lying. She’s
walking on a pavement of lies. If she told the
truth-”
“There are some truths which
one cannot tell about oneself,” interrupted
Keith. “They must be discovered or buried.
And I’m going deeper into this prospecting and
undertaking business this afternoon. I’ve
got another hunch. I think I’ll have something
interesting to report before night.”
Ten minutes later, on his way to the
Shack, he was discussing with himself the modus operandi
of that “hunch.” It had come to him
in an instant, a flash of inspiration. That afternoon
he would see Miriam Kirkstone and question her about
Peter. Then he would return to McDowell, lay
stress on the importance of the brother, tell him that
he had a clew which he wanted to follow, and suggest
finally a swift trip to British Columbia. He
would take Mary Josephine, lie low until his term
of service expired, and then report by letter to McDowell
that he had failed and that he had made up his mind
not to reenlist but to try his fortunes with Mary
Josephine in Australia. Before McDowell received
that letter, they could be on their way into the mountains.
The “hunch” offered an opportunity for
a clean getaway, and in his jubilation Miriam Kirkstone
and her affairs were important only as a means to an
end. He was John Keith now, fighting for John
Keith’s life-and Derwent Conniston’s
sister.
Mary Josephine herself put the first
shot into the fabric of his plans. She must have
been watching for him, for when halfway up the slope
he saw her coming to meet him. She scolded him
for being away from her, as he had expected her to
do. Then she pulled his arm about her slim little
waist and held the hand thus engaged in both her own
as they walked up the winding path. He noticed
the little wrinkles in her adorable forehead.
“Derry, is it the right thing
for young ladies to call on their gentlemen friends
over here?” she asked suddenly.
“Why-er-that depends,
Mary Josephine. You mean-”
“Yes, I do, Derwent Conniston!
She’s pretty, and I don’t blame you, but
I can’t help feeling that I don’t like
it!”
His arm tightened about her until
she gasped. The fragile softness of her waist
was a joy to him.
“Derry!” she remonstrated.
“If you do that again, I’ll break!”
“I couldn’t help it,”
he pleaded. “I couldn’t, dear.
The way you said it just made my arm close up tight.
I’m glad you didn’t like it. I can
love only one at a time, and I’m loving you,
and I’m going on loving you all my life.”
“I wasn’t jealous,”
she protested, blushing. “But she called
twice on the telephone and then came up. And
she’s pretty.”
“I suppose you mean Miss Kirkstone?”
“Yes. She was frightfully anxious to see
you, Derry.”
“And what did you think of her, dear?”
She cast a swift look up into his face.
“Why, I like her. She’s
sweet and pretty, and I fell in love with her hair.
But something was troubling her this morning.
I’m quite sure of it, though she tried to keep
it back.”
“She was nervous, you mean,
and pale, with sometimes a frightened look in her
eyes. Was that it?”
“You seem to know, Derry. I think it was
all that.”
He nodded. He saw his horizon
aglow with the smile of fortune. Everything was
coming propitiously for him, even this unexpected visit
of Miriam Kirkstone. He did not trouble himself
to speculate as to the object of her visit, for he
was grappling now with his own opportunity, his chance
to get away, to win out for himself in one last master-stroke,
and his mind was concentrated in that direction.
The time was ripe to tell these things to Mary Josephine.
She must be prepared.
On the flat table of the hill where
Brady had built his bungalow were scattered clumps
of golden birch, and in the shelter of one of the
nearer clumps was a bench, to which Keith drew Mary
Josephine. Thereafter for many minutes he spoke
his plans. Mary Josephine’s cheeks grew
flushed. Her eyes shone with excitement and eagerness.
She thrilled to the story he told her of what they
would do in those wonderful mountains of gold and
mystery, just they two alone. He made her understand
even more definitely that his safety and their mutual
happiness depended upon the secrecy of their final
project, that in a way they were conspirators and
must act as such. They might start for the west
tonight or tomorrow, and she must get ready.
There he should have stopped.
But with Mary Josephine’s warm little hand clinging
to his and her beautiful eyes shining at him like liquid
stars, he felt within him an overwhelming faith and
desire, and he went on, making a clean breast of the
situation that was giving them the opportunity to
get away. He felt no prick of conscience at thought
of Miriam Kirkstone’s affairs. Her destiny
must be, as he had told McDowell, largely a matter
of her own choosing. Besides, she had McDowell
to fight for her. And the big fat brother, too.
So without fear of its effect he told Mary Josephine
of the mysterious liaison between Miriam Kirkstone
and Shan Tung, of McDowell’s suspicions, of
his own beliefs, and how it was all working out for
their own good.
Not until then did he begin to see
the changing lights in her eyes. Not until he
had finished did he notice that most of that vivid
flush of joy had gone from her face and that she was
looking at him in a strained, tense way. He felt
then the reaction. She was not looking at the
thing as he was looking at it. He had offered
to her another woman’s tragedy as their
opportunity, and her own woman’s heart had responded
in the way that has been woman’s since the dawn
of life. A sense of shame which he fought and
tried to crush took possession of him. He was
right. He must be right, for it was his life that
was hanging in the balance. Yet Mary Josephine
could not know that.
Her fingers had tightened about his,
and she was looking away from him. He saw now
that the color had almost gone from her face.
There was the flash of a new fire in her yes.
“And that was why she was
nervous and pale, with sometimes a frightened look
in her eyes,” she spoke softly, repeating his
words. “It was because of this Chinese
monster, Shan Tung-because he has some sort
of power over her, you say-because-”
She snatched her hand from his with
a suddenness that startled him. Her eyes, so
beautiful and soft a few minutes before, scintillated
fire. “Derry, if you don’t fix this
heathen devil-I will!”
She stood up before him, breathing
quickly, and he beheld in her not the soft, slim-waisted
little goddess of half an hour ago, but the fiercest
fighter of all the fighting ages, a woman roused.
And no longer fear, but a glory swept over him.
She was Conniston’s sister, and she
was Conniston. Even as he saw his plans
falling about him, he opened his arms and held them
out to her, and with the swiftness of love she ran
into them, putting her hands to his face while he held
her close and kissed her lips.
“You bet we’ll fix that
heathen devil before we go,” he said. “You
bet we will-sweetheart!”