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Title: No Hero
Author: Marquand, John P. [John Phillips] (1893-1960)
Date of first publication: August 1935
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   Boston: Little, Brown, August 1935
Date first posted: 25 November 2011
Date last updated: 25 November 2011
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #888

This ebook was produced by Al Haines






JOHN P. MARQUAND


NO HERO



_Boston_

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY

1935




_Copyright, 1935,_

BY JOHN P. MARQUAND


_All rights reserved_

Published August, 1935




PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA




NO HERO




CHAPTER I

Commander James Driscoll, attached to the Intelligence branch of the
United States Navy, has asked me to write this, in order that my
version may be placed in the files with his own account of certain
peculiar transactions which took place in Japan and China some months
ago.  My immediate reaction, when Driscoll made the request, is the
same as it is now.  I had a vision of certain executives in the service
reading this sort of thing.  I told Driscoll that no one would believe
it, and his answer, if not a compliment to me, was partially reassuring.

"Maybe," he said, "but I have a hunch they will.  You'll probably write
it so badly that they'll know it is the truth."

"But it's preposterous," I said.  "It's melodrama.  Honest to
goodness--no one in his right mind, Driscoll, if he isn't in the
scenario department of some movie outfit, writes this sort of stuff."

Driscoll thought a moment.  The idea appeared to interest him so much
that I believe he has really thought of writing fiction in his softer
moods.

"Don't let that worry you," he said finally.  "It wouldn't go.  Any
sort of narrative has to have a hero in it to get over with the public,
and, believe me, you weren't any hero.  Oh, no, you don't need to be
self-conscious for once in your life.  Just snap into it.  It won't
take you long.  Besides, there's another angle to this sort of thing.
Probably no one will ever read it, anyway."

"Then why do I write it?" I inquired.  Curiously enough, this question
seemed ridiculous to Driscoll.  He reminded me that I had been in the
service myself at the time of the World War and that I should
understand about army and navy paper work.

"You can just go right ahead," he said comfortably, "with the almost
complete assurance that the whole thing will be stored away somewhere
in a room in Washington.  Why, if I can possibly avoid it, I won't read
it myself."

"Thanks," I said, "but how do I begin?"

His answer, though practical, has proved of no great help.

"You sit down with a pen and ink and paper, and you write it.  You can
still form your letters, can't you?  You tell what happened, Lee."

So that's what I am doing.  I'm using Driscoll's time-worn phrase of
snapping into it.  I am trying to cast back into this series of
incidents which occurred on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, but
although the pieces have all been fitted quite completely together,
when I try to start, the elements of this artificial beginning are as
mysterious as the beginning was in fact.  My mind lingers on certain
incidents.  I think of a suave scion of the Japanese nobility named Mr.
Moto, if that is his real name.  I think of a dead man in the cabin of
a ship; the roaring of a plane's motor comes drumming across my memory,
and I hear voices speaking in Oriental tongues.  The past of an ancient
race mixes peculiarly with the present.  And in back of it all I see a
girl,--one of those amazing wanderers in our modern world, disinherited
and alone.  International espionage moves in a world of its own, and
its characters must always be lonely.

"Under-cover work is always like that," Driscoll said to me once.  "The
people one encounters are much the same.  They may be shady and
raffish, but don't forget they're all of them brave.  They do their
work like pieces on a chess-board and nothing stops them from moving
along their diagonals.  You mustn't feel animosity toward them, Lee,
for they feel none toward you.  They're working for their respective
countries and that's more than a lot of people do."

Perhaps what is still the most interesting part of this adventure is
its complete impersonality, its lack of rancor.  I believe honestly
that if Mr. Moto, a most accomplished gentleman, and I were to meet
today that we might enjoy each other's company; and I should be glad to
drink with him in one of his minute wine cups to the future of Japan.
I have an idea that he would agree with me heartily in wishing for
perpetual amity between Japan and the United States, as long as that
amity did not interfere with what he and his own political faction
conceive to be his nation's divine mission to establish a hegemony in
the East.  Distance sometimes makes it difficult to remember that Japan
is a very great country and that the Japanese are capable people,
sensitive and intelligent.  Still, although it sometimes seems
incredible that our two nations should ever go to war, there is always
the thought of war behind the scenes in every nation.  Given a shift in
the balance of power, men like Moto must start working, I suppose.

But I am getting away from my beginning.

Probably I had better start in the Imperial Hotel at Tokio one
afternoon in spring about a year ago.  Out of some confused notes which
I made at the time I have been able to rescue the essential dates and
scenes.  With their help and my memory, I'll do the best I can.


In the first place, I suppose I must tell who I am and what I was doing
in Tokio one spring afternoon.  Though time moves fast and characters
appear and disappear in a hasty procession before the public eye, the
readers of the newspapers for the past decade may be vaguely familiar
with my name.  I am the "Casey" Lee whom various publicity directors
have touted as a war ace.  My first name incidentally is not "Casey"
but Kenneth C. Lee--K.C.--not that it makes much difference.  I am the
Casey Lee who flew the Atlantic at a time when previous flyers had
rather taken the first bloom off that feat.  My reputation and my
personality used to be as carefully built up in those days as a
pugilist's or a motion-picture star's, for my personality meant money.
In short, I was one of that rather unfortunate group of almost
professional heroes who sprang up in the boom days after the war and
whose exploits diverted a jaded and somewhat disillusioned nation.  I
was a stunt flyer, having been a Chasse pilot in the war, a
transcontinental flyer and a transatlantic flyer with a row of American
and Italian war medals besides.  My picture looked well in the
rotogravure sections.  My testimonial looked well in the advertisements
of clothing and lubricants and nourishing foods, but when the cloud of
depression grew blacker, people quite reasonably seemed to grow tired
of heroes.  I was pushed more and more into the background with others
of my kind.  Thus, it was not strange that when money was running very
short and a large tobacco company offered me the chance of making a
flight from Japan to the United States, I should have welcomed the
opportunity.  I welcomed it even though I had no great conviction that
I was any longer in a suitable condition to go through with such a
business.  I was only glad to attempt it because I was rather tired of
life.  That was why I was in Tokio, in a country which was entirely
strange to me, waiting for a plane to be shipped from the States and
for the usual publicity to start.

I can still see the yellow stonework and the curious floor levels and
galleries in the Imperial Hotel and their strange sculptured
decorations, half modernistic and half Oriental.  I can see the
intelligent, concentrated faces of the waiter boys and the outlandish
mixture of guests,--Europeans from the embassies, tourists from a
cruise ship, Japanese in European clothes, Japanese girls in flowered
kimonas, Japanese men in their native _hakimas_.  That background of
costume is startling when one stops to think of it.  It is like the
East and West meeting in two waves of unrelated cultures which swirl
about Tokio's streets.

It was a fine sunny day outside, I can remember.  It occurred to me
that I had been drinking heavily since early in the morning, but this
state was not unusual with me.  At the time of the war we pilots had
drunk in the evening to forget the imminence of death, and after that
most of us had continued, to forget the imminence of boredom.  I think
we had a reasonable semblance of an excuse.  When one starts air
fighting at the age of eighteen the values of life are apt to become
distorted.  One craves for the thrill of excitement as the nerves of an
addict clamor for his favorite drug.  I cannot feel so badly about the
drinking of those days.

It was the drinking that I had done to drown the depression that
inevitably follows a man unlucky enough to become a publicized hero of
which I cannot boast.  Liquor had become a problem to me, when, after
weeks and months of every sort of adulation for having made a
transatlantic flight, I was dropped as suddenly as if a wing had come
off my plane.  The depression which follows the excitement is the worst
of it.  In those moments of let-down I could sometimes see myself as I
must have appeared to others,--not Casey Lee, one-time war ace, who had
fought in Poland and Spain against the Riffs, nor Lee the ocean pilot,
but only a shell of that Casey Lee.

I remember that I was talking.  There was a crowd around me as usual,
of people who had nothing better to do than listen to me talk, and who
enjoyed the association with a celebrity even if he might have been a
trifle seedy.

"The plane's being shipped next week, a new type Willis Jones AB-3," I
was telling them.  "Give me another week to tune her up and I'm ready
for it.  I'll take her across alone, straight on the shipping lane,
with one stop at Honolulu.  The Pacific isn't any worse than the
Atlantic, if you fly high, I guess."

"Will you have another drink, Mr. Lee?" someone said.

"Yes," I answered, "I will have another drink.  I'm perfectly glad to
have several more.  Does anybody here think I can't fly the Pacific?"

"Oh, no, Mr. Lee," came a voice from the crowd; "of course not."

"There's only one thing that can stop me," I said, "and that's money,
and I've got the financial backing this time.  Give me a crate to fly
and refueling planes and I'll fly a non-stop around the world."

"Why not make it twice around the world, Mr. Lee?" another voice said.

With a little difficulty I focused my attention on the speaker.  He was
a pale pimply youth whom I had never seen before, obviously an
American.  "Listen, baby," I said to him.  "You're the only product
that America's turned out since 1918.  When I see you, I know the
United States is going to hell.  I don't have to listen to your lip.
Everybody knows who I am."

"Of course they do, Mr. Lee," said someone.  "Won't you have another
drink?"

"Yes," I said, "I don't mind if I do.  Always glad to have another
drink, always glad to try anything once or twice--that's me."

"Tell us," said someone respectfully, "who is backing you this time?"

"It's a cigarette company," I said.  "They're using a part of their
advertising appropriation for a trans-pacific flight.  Believe me, it's
the first break I've had in a long time.  The mayor of Tokio gives me a
couple of packages of their cigarettes, or somebody in Tokio, I don't
remember who.  And I deliver one pack to the Governor of Hawaii and
another to the Mayor of New York City.  I'm going to be a goodwill
ambassador between Japan and the United States.  But I don't care so
long as I have a crate to fly.  The good old American game of nonsense
doesn't bother me."

"You needn't yell about it so," a voice objected.  "You're an American,
aren't you?"

"That is where I was born," I answered, "but I'm broadminded enough to
have my own ideas.  I've fought for the Spaniards and the Poles.  There
are other nations besides the United States--in case you don't
know--several others."

"All right, Lee," said someone, "but here you are in a public place.
Keep your voice down.  A lot of these Japanese are looking at you."

"Let 'em look," I said.  "Why should I care if they look?  And I'll say
anything I damn well please any time at all."

As I spoke, I became aware that my voice must have been louder than I
had intended.  I saw individuals staring at me curiously and I set down
my glass.  I was reaching a stage, which I had known before, when I
became sorry for myself.  And I had a sufficiently good reason to be
sorry for myself half a minute later.  One of the hotel boys, bowing
and drawing in his breath noisily between his teeth, presented me with
a cable.  The words were slightly blurred and I had to concentrate to
make them clear, before I could understand their meaning.  The cable
was signed by the codeword of the cigarette company.  "Plans for flight
off," it said.  "Bank will pay your passage home."

My first thought was one of sickening hopelessness, for I had not
realized until I saw that cablegram how much I had counted on this
opportunity.  It had raised me in my own estimation above other flying
men I knew, and it offered me a prospect of redeeming myself in the
eyes of others.  I knew well enough why I had been selected,--on
account of my name and my past reputation, not because of any present
ability or future promise.  I even had a sufficiently uncomplimentary
idea of myself to suspect why the plan had been vetoed.  I could hear
them in New York saying that Casey was through.  It seemed to me that
everything was over then; I could see myself returning to the rle I
had played for several years, living on an outworn reputation.  I
suppose whoever we are, we try to rationalize all our failures.  We
push away our own faults and try to blame them on someone else.  That
is exactly what I did then.  In some irrational way, I attributed my
own failure directly to my country and to my country's eccentricities.
The group around my table was looking at me curiously as I stared up
from that cable.  I tried to return casually to the subject where we
had left off, a difficult matter when the words of that cable were
ringing, with the drinks I had taken, through my thoughts.

"Since when was it a sin to criticize one's country?" I inquired.  "I'm
tired of having everyone wince and look scared, if a word is said in
public against the present Administration.  If it represents the will
of America, it is not the country that I used to know.  The United
States are in the hands of a lot of communized visionaries, if you want
my idea.  I'm not afraid to say I'm ashamed of certain aspects of my
country.  I could tell you a thing or two about what's happened to
commercial aviation.  Can you sit here and admit that my country has
not repudiated its just obligations to its citizens by juggling with
its currency?  The word of the United States isn't what it used to be,
and the sooner we all know it the better.  The national character isn't
what it used to be, and I can prove it by this cable in my hand.  Now
that our government can repudiate its obligations, any citizen seems to
feel free to break an agreement any time--as long as the man he breaks
it with can't get back at him."

"What's the trouble, Lee?" someone asked.  Even in my stimulated state,
I felt that I had become involved beyond my depth, and that I had made
a statement which I could not back by intelligent argument.  I was no
expert on the problems of currency and I realized that the economic
woes of the world were as insoluble as my own.

"Those double-crossers back home," I said.  "They've turned me down."

"Maybe they heard something," a voice suggested.  "You've been raising
a good deal of hell, Lee."

There was no doubt that the remark was true, but its implication was
enough to make me lose my temper in a way I never had done before.  I
could see myself going straight down the ladder without friends and
without respect.  I whirled upon the man who spoke and I shouted at
him.  In my total lack of self-control I did not care for consequences.
I did not care where I was or who heard me.

"Some damn sneak like you has been telling stories on me!" I shouted.
"By God, do Americans have to have Boy Scout masters and Sunday-school
teachers to fly for them?  To hell with you!  To hell with the whole
bunch of you!  And particularly my fellow citizens."

I could see that my last remark shocked them, and now I can understand
why.  National solidarity becomes important in direct ratio to the
distance we are away from home.

"Be quiet, Lee!" one of the group said.

"Who for?  You?" I answered.

"No, for yourself.  You shouldn't slam your country in a foreign place."

"And who's going to stop me?" I shouted back.

That was when I saw an American naval officer had joined us, a former
friend of mine.  He must have heard me talking.  I had not seen Jim
Driscoll for years, but we had served together in the war as naval
aviators on the Italian front.  I knew him right away when he walked up
to my table,--a trim stocky man in a white uniform, with commander's
stripes and a heavy determined face.  "So you're drunk again, are you,
Casey Lee?" Jim Driscoll said.

As I say, I remembered Driscoll well enough.  To see him appear just
then out of nowhere was like a final blow by destiny to my own
self-esteem.  We had started even once.  I had been a better man than
Driscoll back in the war, and now we stood there, both changed by the
pitiless marks of time,--Driscoll a commander in the navy, and myself
an arrant failure.

"Not too drunk to know you, Jim," I answered.

Jim Driscoll had put on weight since I had seen him last, and was too
heavy for flying now.  He had assumed an expression that I had seen
others of my own friends wear of late.  In it there was a hint of pity,
and it annoyed me that Driscoll should pity me or should be in a
position to administer reproof.

"Casey," Jim Driscoll said, "I used to think you were the bravest man
in the world.  You'd better sleep it off.  You wore the uniform once."

"The luckiest thing I ever did was to get out of it," I told him.  "It
gives me a chance to say what I think.  It's more than you can do,
Driscoll, and you can remember that I'm not one of your enlisted men.
You heard me; what are you going to do about it?  I don't like my
country."

"I can tell you what I think of you," Driscoll answered.  "You're
making yourself into a public disgrace as well as nuisance.  If I
weren't leaving for Shanghai tonight, I'd see if your passport couldn't
be revoked."

I took my passport out of my pocket, tore it straight across and tossed
it on the floor.

"And that's what I care for my passport," I said.  "There are plenty of
other countries.  Take Japan--Japan's a nice country."

But Jim Driscoll paid no more attention to me.  He had turned a stiff
back and was walking steadily away.  Then I saw that I was alone at the
table where I had been sitting, deserted by everyone I knew.

It dawned on me that I had gone much further than I had intended,
beyond the bounds of reason or decorum, in my criticism.  I had spoken
in a maudlin way, when I would much better have kept my ill-regulated
thoughts to myself.  Now that the damage had been done, I was too proud
to retract a single word, if my life had depended on it.  If they
wanted to judge me by what I said in my cups, I would let them judge me.

Two Japanese army officers were staring at me fixedly.  Also a short
dark man with his hair cut after the Prussian fashion--a habit which so
many Japanese have adopted--was seated at a table near me, regarding me
with curiosity.  He was dressed in a cutaway coat and wore tiny
patent-leather shoes.  There was a signet ring on his left hand.  I saw
him look down at this ring and back at me again.  I remember thinking
that he seemed like a Japanese trying to masquerade as a continental
European and not succeeding very well.  He raised his hand as I watched
and beckoned to one of the clerks behind the desk.  The clerk hurried
to him and bowed.  Then the clerk turned to me.

"Perhaps you are tired, Mr. Lee?" the clerk said.  "Will you have
someone conduct you to your room?"

Then I found myself being helped to my room, whether I liked it or not,
by the clerk and the small man in the frock coat, one on each side of
me.

"It is too bad," the small man said.  "I am very, very sorry."

I did not know until later that it was Mr. Moto who was speaking to me.
I still do not know his exact rank, but he was a gentleman, no matter
what his race might be.

"I am sorry," said Mr. Moto again, "very, very sorry.  You will be
better after a little sleep, perhaps."

He spoke sharply to the hotel clerk and the man bowed in a way that
made me realize even in my condition that Mr. Moto was a man of
importance.

"You may go now," he said to the clerk, "and understand, this gentleman
is to have anything he may want."

The door closed softly behind him and I found myself sitting on the
edge of the bed, with little Mr. Moto standing attentively before me.
I have never felt so much an alien, for the conviction was growing upon
me that I was cut off from everything I had ever known before.  I, a
man without a country, was closed into one of the curiously furnished
rooms of the Imperial Hotel with that Japanese who exactly fitted into
the surroundings.

I looked up to find him still gazing at me thoughtfully.  I wondered
what he wanted.  I wished, with a sudden intensity, that he would go
away.

The furniture was of some light-colored unvarnished hard wood.  There
was a built-in dresser, showing an odd unsymmetrical arrangement of
cubbyholes for clothing.  There were several chairs with legs short
enough to accommodate a low-statured race.  A writing table was covered
with hotel notices in both English and Japanese.  Beside the bed was a
pair of hotel slippers, reminding me that the Japanese spent a large
portion of their life in changing from one set of footwear to another.
I looked at the man again.  I still wished he would go away.

"May I help you to bed, perhaps?" he asked.

"No," I answered.  "What's your name?"

He smiled deprecatingly.  "Moto," he replied.  "That is my name,
please, and I should be glad to assist you.  I was once a valet to
several American gentlemen in New York."  He knelt down and began to
unlace my shoes.  "Please," he said, "thank you.  America is a
magnificent country."

"Maybe," I said.  "But it's thrown me over flat, Mr. What's-your-name."

"Moto," he repeated patiently.

"Well," I said, "you're not a valet here in Japan."

"No," said Mr. Moto, "but Americans always interest me.  I saw that you
were not well and that your friends had left you."

"Listen, Mr. Moto," I said, "when they can't get anything more out of
you, Americans always go away."

"It was not kind of them," Mr. Moto said.  "I am sorry."

"Mr. Moto," I told him, "suppose you stop saying you're sorry.  What do
you want with me?"

"Only to assist you," he explained.  "You are a foreigner, a guest, in
my country, who has met with misfortune.  Everyone knows who you are,
of course.  We have a great respect for American aviators."  He drew in
his breath with a peculiar little hiss.  Even though he was dressed as
a European and acted like one, he could not avoid some of the
involuntary courtesies of his race.  "I have seen you before.  I think
last night, in fact.  I saw you dancing with a girl--a very beautiful
girl with yellow hair.  Was she not a Russian?"

I cast back into my mind with difficulty, trying to remember the hazy
events of the night before.  For a longer while than I cared to
remember days and nights were hazy.  They were made up of afternoons of
drinking at some bar, cocktails before dinner somewhere, and more
drinks, and then oblivion.  Then I remembered that there had been a
girl, a nice girl.  My embarrassment, as I recalled what had happened,
made me speak of her casually, as though she belonged to a lower class,
but I knew better, nevertheless.

"Yellow hair?" I said.  "Oh, yes, I met her somewhere.  Yes, her name
was Sonya.  I don't know her last name--one of those Russian names.  We
got on very well until--well, I wasn't myself last night.  She tossed
me over when I made a pass at her.  All right--what do I care?  She
might have known I didn't mean anything by it.  Everybody's tossed me
over!"

"Please," Mr. Moto said, inhaling through his teeth, "here are your
pajamas....  You made a pass at her--I do not understand the phrase.
Will you explain it, please?"

"Haven't you ever made a pass at anyone?" I inquired.  "You might have,
Mr. Moto.  Since you're so curious, I don't mind telling you that I
tried to kiss her in a taxicab.  That's making a pass.  She made the
driver stop and got out and left me flat.  I'm sorry about it, if you
care to know."

"How do you mean?" said Mr. Moto.  "She left you flat?"

"The way you see me now, Moto," I said.  "I'm much obliged to you, but
I wish you'd go.  I want to go to sleep.  I want to forget I was ever
born."

I must have been half asleep then, but it seemed to me I could remember
Mr. Moto moving carefully about my room.  I was in a stupor, I suppose,
somewhere between sleep and waking, with the fumes of Japanese-made
whisky curling like mist through my consciousness.  I seemed to be in
an airdrome, in the cockpit of a fighting plane, ready to take off over
the Austrian lines.  Then, for no good reason, I seemed to be sitting
on the lowered top of an automobile, riding along Broadway with the air
full of ticker tape and torn-up telephone directories.  I could hear
the crowd shouting and a man in a cutaway coat like Mr. Moto's was
making a speech.  "America is very proud of you, Casey Lee," he was
saying.  Plenty of people were proud of me in those days.  They were
proud to have me at Newport and Southampton.  They were proud to have
me examine new tri-motor planes.  They were proud to have me autograph
books.  It only came to me later that they were proud to take my money.
I wondered what had happened to those days.  They had moved away from
me into a series of speakeasies and club barrooms, leaving me
finally--there was no use mincing matters--a broken-down adventurer.
For no reason, I suppose, except because Mr. Moto's question had made
me remember her, I thought of that girl of the other night.  She had
been the best-looking girl in the room, and the best-looking girl had
never been any too good for me.  And who was this girl?  A Russian
_migre_, a spy perhaps; Japan was full of spies.  At some time while
these thoughts raced, I must have gone to sleep.  Sleep was the closest
thing to being dead, and I wished that I were dead.




CHAPTER II

I was awakened at 12.30 the next afternoon.  I remember the time
because I looked at my wrist watch.  Someone was knocking on my door
and the sound waked me.  My door must have been unlocked, because one
of the hotel boys was standing beside my bed when I opened my eyes.  I
had all the usual physical feelings of having been drunk the night
before.  My head was aching and my hands were shaking.

"If you please, sir," the boy was crying.

I pointed a quivering finger toward my bureau, and observed, to my
surprise, that my room was in perfect order, my clothes neatly folded
instead of being strewn, as they customarily were, in every direction.
Then I remembered Mr. Moto, who said he had been a valet in America.

"Wait a minute, boy," I said.  "Do you see that flask on the bureau?"
It was an old leather-covered flask which I had carried ever since the
war.  "Pour me out a half tumbler of that quick!"

"Please, sir--" said the boy again.

"Do what I tell you!" I interrupted him.  My nerves were jangling like
discordant bells.  "Pour it out and hand it here!  Never mind a
tumbler.  Take the cup off the bottom and fill it up!"

I had to take the little cup in both hands when he handed it to me, but
once the liquor was inside me it steadied me.  My head cleared, my
hands quieted, my muscles were again in some sort of co-ordination.
Then I recalled the last afternoon, and that my backers had left me
flat.  For a moment I had the impossible hope that they had
reconsidered, that the boy was bringing me a cable, but his next words
removed such illusions.

"A lady is waiting for you, please," the boy said.  "She sent you this,
please."  And he handed me a note.

I tore open the envelope and read it.  I remember the writing
still,--large, bold, and foreign.

"Where are you?  Don't you remember you asked me for lunch?  I am
waiting.  I am not used to be kept waiting.  If you ever want to see me
again, you had better hurry."

It was signed "Sonya."  I had not the slightest recollection of having
asked her or anyone else to lunch, but I had enough pride not to wish
her to think I had forgotten.

"Run me a cold bath," I said, "and tell the lady I'll be out directly."

The cold bath did me good.  When I stepped out of it, I felt better and
younger, for the cold water seemed to have washed out some of the lines
around my eyes.  In fact, I was surprised how well I looked,
considering the life I had been leading.  There were signs of that life
in my face, but my body had resisted most of it, and my muscles were
still hard.  I looked at the scar on my left shoulder where an Austrian
machine-gun bullet had shattered my collarbone, and at the long gash in
my right calf which had been torn by a splinter when I had crashed
behind the lines,--but that was long ago.

A girl was waiting for me outside--a pretty girl--which made me
remember that I must still possess some attraction.  I dressed
carefully in a blue serge suit.  I said to myself, "After all, Casey
Lee, you're still a man," and I walked out into the lobby, cheerfully,
because I knew that soon I could have another drink.  I even recall
humming that song we used to sing in the evenings when flying men
gathered.

"I'm Going to a Happy Land Where Everything is Bright, Where the
Hangouts Grow on Bushes and We Stay Out Every Night."

The yellow stone had been transformed overnight, evidently for the
arrival of some important guest.  The pillars were decorated with
artificial peach blossoms and crossed banners,--one the rising sun of
Nippon and the other a flag which I did not know.  There was a bustle
of preparation in the lobby, engineered by khaki-clad army officers
with boots and sabers, and men in cutaway coats holding silk hats,
evidently from the government offices.  All of them wore the same
intent, worried expression which I had observed often among the
Japanese, as though they were conscientiously determined that
everything should be done with absolute correctness in the face of a
critical world audience.

I did not notice the excitement much, however, but looked instead for
the girl whom I had forgotten that I had asked to lunch.  As I sought
her out among the Japanese and foreigners sitting at the little tables,
I discovered I did not remember what she looked like very well.  I
could only remember that she was really beautiful and that she had
yellow hair.  I moved at once toward the only girl I could see who
answered that description and I knew she was the one because she was
looking at me.  She was a tall girl, almost lanky.  Her hair was
reddish gold.  Her eyes, dark blue, gave the combined impression of
being both shrewd and seductive.  Her lips were painted a deep red, and
her hands were very long and slender.  She was dressed in a white
tailored suit.  Although there was nothing specific in her appearance
to betray it, I knew she was not American.  She had the social poise
and the adamantine quality of a more sophisticated world.  I knew that
girl had been about and had seen strange sights--many of them not
pleasant--and that she could take care of herself, probably, in any
situation.  I knew that she was a Russian, because I had seen her type
often enough during my short stay in the Orient.  I had seen her sort
at fine dinners and in cheap dance halls but there was a similarity to
all nationals of her sort.  They were all aloof, but all charming
companions, able to be agreeable in any mood, able to give one an
adventurous sense of competence, and displaying at the same time their
own sadness, for they were sad people who wandered without a country.
I took her hand and bent over it, clicking my heels together, a trick
I'd learned in Rome, and she smiled at me.

"You are late," she said.  Except for a throaty catch in her voice, her
English was perfect, and I imagine she would have done as well in half
a dozen other languages.  "Did you not remember you asked me for
lunch?"  She was looking half reproachful, half amused, but she patted
the chair beside her and I sat down.

"Will you forgive me if I tell you something?" I asked her.  "I was
under the impression, the only time we met, that you did not like me."

"But you would not care if I liked you or not?" she inquired.  "Would
you, Mr. Lee?"

I looked at her thoughtfully and told the truth.  "I'm not sure," I
said.  "Mademoiselle--?" I stopped, because I could not remember her
name.

"Have you forgotten my name already?" she asked.  "Karaloff.  But you
called me Sonya the other night."

"Perhaps," I suggested, "it will be just as well if we forget the other
night.  Where would you care to go to lunch?  And will you have a
cocktail, Mademoiselle?"

She smiled, white teeth, crimson lips, slightly slanting eyes.
"Sonya," she said.

"You are very kind to me," I answered, "--Sonya."

"Perhaps," she said, "I wonder ... I like you, Mr. Lee.  I like brave
men."

It seemed to me that there was a tinge of sarcasm in that last remark.
The boy came, and she gave her order for a glass of sherry and I
ordered a double Scotch.  "Sonya," I suggested, "suppose we leave out
the brave stuff.  I'd rather be a coward today, and I'm afraid of you,
if you want the truth."

She laughed softly and leaned toward me, so near that I could catch the
scent of gardenia in her hair.  "Why," she asked, "are you afraid?"

"Just a peculiar intuition," I said, and I meant it.  "I shouldn't like
to be in love with you."

She laughed again.  She had that way of making one seem scintillating
even when one said nothing amusing.  "You're a funny man," she said.
"Why?"

I finished my drink and watched her before I answered.  It seemed to me
that I had never seen such a mobile face as hers, and I suspected its
mobility.  First, she had been watchful and her eyes had been hard and
shrewd.  Now she seemed to have tossed away that watchfulness.
"Because you'd make a fool out of me," I said bluntly.  "It's been done
before."

"Perhaps," she said.  She smiled at me and I could see gold lights
dance behind the blue of her eyes.  "Brave men are so apt to be
children."

I cannot describe the way I felt.  I seemed to be lost in the
personality of that Russian girl, in spite of common sense and
instinctive caution.  "That doesn't flatter me," I said.  "You probably
come from a sophisticated world where people live on logic.  You can't
help being beautiful, can you?"

"Do you think I do?" she asked me--"Casey?"

"Yes," I said.  "I wonder who you are, and I know that you won't tell
me."

Her eyes grew hard for a moment and again she had that look of someone
who could go through anything untouched.  She seemed about to make an
indiscreet remark and then checked herself.

"Perhaps I'm not what you think I am, altogether," she said.  "Are you
what I think you are, I wonder?"

"Does it make any difference?" I asked her.  It amused me to observe
how deliberately she brought the curve of the conversation back to me.

"Your country's done a great deal for you," she said.  "You must love
it very much."

I rose to her suggestion almost without thinking.  "My country took me
when I was a kid of eighteen," I said.  "I wasn't a bad kid, either,
Sonya.  It jammed me into naval aviation and put me in a plane that
wasn't fit to fly.  They killed a lot of my friends, those planes that
shouldn't have left the ground at flying school.  Then my country sent
me to the Italian Front, and when it unsettled me for any sort of
useful living, it closed the door of the navy to me because I was just
a kid without real officer's training.  And now it's left me flat in
Tokio; that's all my country's done for me.  I'd give up my nationality
any time."

She opened her handbag and drew out one of those long Russian
cigarettes.  "You're joking, aren't you?" she asked.

"No," I said, "I was never more serious in my life."

When I leaned forward to light her cigarette, she bent over the match
and rested her fingers on mine, it seemed to me longer than was
necessary, but I did not mind the touch of her fingers.  "A man without
a country," she said.  Her voice was genuine and sad.  "I'm sorry."

"Well," I said, "I can take what's coming to me."

"Casey," she asked, "do you like Japan?"

"Yes," I said.  "Japan's a country that deals with facts sensibly.  By
the way--"  My attention was caught again by the artificial peach
blooms and the flags in the lobby.  "What's all the excitement here
today?"

"Don't you read the papers?" She laughed.  "It's the delegation from
Manchukuo come to call on the Emperor.  Do you feel as the American
State Department does about Japan's adventure in Manchukuo?"  That
husky voice of hers was softly, playfully caressing, but her eyes were
not.

"No," I answered promptly, and I meant it.  "If you knew my country
better, you would understand that it's characteristic of it to take a
holier-than-thou-attitude.  Before 1906 your people held Manchuria
virtually as a colony, didn't they?  You're Russian, aren't you?"

Her eyes clouded and she nodded with a hopeless, sad look which I had
seen on the faces of other _migrs_ when their lost country was
mentioned.  "I thought so," I continued.  "Well, no one objected when
your Tsar controlled Manchuria; why should we object when Japan does?
It's against the laws of fact to keep eighty million Japanese on a few
small islands.  If Japan is strong enough to run it, why shouldn't she
run Manchuria?"

She nodded and it seemed to me that my answer relieved some doubt in
her.  "You know a great deal of history," she remarked, "don't you,
Casey Lee?"

I finished my third drink before I answered, and my answer made me
pleased with my own astuteness.  "I know enough about history," I said,
"to understand that God and justice are on the side of the heaviest
artillery."  And then I stopped.  "Hello," I said, "what's that?"

But I knew what the sound was.  I was only asking the significance of
the sound at that particular time and place.  I had heard it on the
Piava and in the Balkans and in Africa--the sudden thumping of a drum
and the cadence of feet on a pavement--hundreds and hundreds of feet
moving in unison of infantry--well-disciplined, sedulously drilled
infantry.  Outside of the hotel I knew that there must be at least two
companies of Japanese soldiers,--short, muscular boys with
conscientious, half-worried faces, in neatly fitting khaki uniforms
with rifles and shining bayonets.  The beat of a drum and marching feet
was a common sound in Tokio.

She understood my question.  "The Manchukuo envoys are coming back from
their audience," she said, and then she rose.  "Have you had enough to
drink before lunch?" she inquired politely.  "It seems to me you have.
Perhaps we'd better go."

Once I was on my feet, I felt the effect of my three double whiskies.
I felt comfortable and nonchalant and friendly with the world, aware
that people were looking at me, aware that I was walking beside the
best-looking girl in the hotel.

"Wait!" I heard Sonya say beside me.  "The party is coming in."

The steps to the hotel door were lined with officers and government
officials, each one of whom seemed to know his place.  I was tall
enough to look over their heads.  An old Chinese gentleman was walking
up the steps, straight and active, though he must have been well in his
seventies.  He wore the long black gown of China with a blue vest over
it.  His face was a scholar's, benign and calm.

"It is Premier Cheng of Manchukuo," I heard Sonya say.  "He has
followed the Emperor Pu Yi through his exile."

The old man, rising tall and a little bent above his escort of
Japanese, seemed to me to have more dignity than anyone in that
gathering.  His native dress stood out, simple and suitable among the
Europeanized uniforms and the cutaway coats and silk hats.  He was the
only one who seemed genuine--a man with an ideal who looked a trifle
sad.  I moved toward the door again.

"Wait," said Sonya, "you cannot go out now."

"Why not?" I asked and began to push my way through the crowd.

"Wait!" said Sonya again more sharply.

But before I heard her, I had shoved against a man in khaki uniform who
turned around quickly.  I saw by his insignia that he was a captain of
cavalry.  A short man, with a square copper-colored face.

"No, no!" he said and pushed me on the chest.

Before I thought of the consequences, I took him by the shoulders and
spun him out of the way.  I must have been rougher than I intended, for
he gave an indignant cry, and his voice caused half a dozen other
officers to gather angrily around me.  "Get out of the way!" I said.
"I'm going out this door."  Then I saw that Sonya was beside me,
speaking quickly to one of the officers in Japanese.

She had opened her handbag and was holding a signet ring in her hand
which I thought I had seen somewhere before.  It came over me abruptly
where I had seen it: it had been on Mr. Moto's finger that other
afternoon.  Either the ring or her explanation had an immediate effect.
The officer whom I had treated rudely bowed to me jerkily and Sonya and
I walked calmly out the door of the hotel.  As we stood in the cool
spring air, a motor moved through the porte-cochere, obviously not one
of the usual public cabs, but a more expensive car driven by a man in
dark livery.

"Get in," said Sonya.  "I know a perfect place to go to lunch."  And I
climbed in beside her.  She was speaking in Japanese to the chauffeur,
in sharp staccato phrases.  Then she leaned back contentedly and I
could smell again the perfume of gardenias.  She seemed perfectly at
home in that car.  "We will go to a teahouse," she said, "and have
lunch, just you and me."

"Sonya," I said, "you're a very remarkable girl."

"Oh, no," she said, "but I like you, Casey.  I think you're very nice."

I did not answer.  Whether it was true or not, I was pleased that she
liked me, but I still had sense enough to know what she was by then.
The ring had told me.  It revealed, among other things, that I had
never asked her to lunch and that she was a Japanese spy.  Not that the
idea shocked me.  Instead, it pleased me.  She was a Japanese spy and I
was no one--footloose and entirely on my own, being speeded through
Tokio in a limousine.

"Sonya," I said, "I don't care where we're going as long as you come
along."

She laughed and touched my hand for a moment.  "It's beautiful," she
said.  "Isn't Tokio beautiful in spring?"

I did not answer.  As a matter of fact, I did not think that Tokio was
wholly beautiful.  The new Tokio of the earthquake was entirely
European.  We were passing the marble faades of buildings which seemed
to have been reared yesterday and which might have been part of
Europe--as alien to that land as I was.  It was a confusing, dreamlike
place and the people on the streets seemed to share that confusion in
their mixture of Japanese and European clothes.  The motors and the
tramcars and the bicycles shared it.  The people of Tokio seemed trying
hard to be something which they were not; and everything was change and
chaos--everything except the green parks on the right and the ancient
black wall and moat of another age which surrounded the mystery of the
Imperial Palace Grounds, where roofs and rock pines jutted out
unobtainably against the sky.

"It's beautiful," I said, "as long as you're here, Sonya."




CHAPTER III

The drive was a long one, through streets of factories and through
densely populated sections of crowded wooden bungalows, lightly,
impermanently constructed, as though solider homes were not worth
building in the face of the earthquakes that so frequently visit those
islands.  More recent experiments with steel and concrete, such as had
risen in that part of Tokio which had been destroyed in the earthquake
disaster of 1923, might mean a general rebuilding of Japanese cities;
but until this slow process was completed, I could understand Japan's
sensitiveness to any enemy threat from the air.  A sight of those
unpainted matchboxes of dwellings, with hardly air space between
them--and our motor moved through street after street--explained why
Japan watched with unconcealed misgivings the construction of our
airplane carriers and the development of Chinese and Russian aviation.
A few incendiary bombs were all that would be needed to bring about
almost unimaginable disaster, and I had been told that the
inflammability of Osaka and other great industrial nerve centers of the
Empire was even more pronounced.

Sonya had told the driver where to go and finally, after perhaps twenty
minutes, the car stopped at the entrance to one of those narrow alleys
where the Japan of the Shoguns meets the life of a modern aspiring
nation.

"We must walk here," she said, as we got out.  The alley was a
twisting, flagged street which wound between the low faades of shops
and houses.

I think those small streets will always be fascinating to a foreigner.
They seem perfect and yet so fragile that a gust of wind might blow
them out to sea: tiny, sliding, latticed paper windows, balconies with
potted dwarf trees standing on them; minute provision and hardware
shops, the flash of flowered kimonos and the clatter of wooden shoes.
The alley which we traversed seemed as harmless as an illustration in a
tale for children.  I remember thinking that it had the same nave
quality of Germany before the war--of something not to be taken wholly
seriously.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

Sonya smiled.  "Are you impatient walking?" she asked.  "It's so
pleasant here.  You and I seem like something in the book of the
English writer named Swift.  'Gulliver's Travels', isn't it?  We are
going to a teahouse where we can have sukiaki.  The management is
expecting us."

As she finished speaking, she pointed to an unpainted wooden wall of a
building larger than the others.  "It's here," she said, and she pushed
open a gate.  Once inside the wall we were in one of those miniature
gardens which represent an art so completely mastered by Japan.

Sonya and I were standing, two giants in a countryside where ponds and
streams and plains and mountains rose in contours around us hardly ever
above the knee.  We looked upon dwarfed fir trees, the tallest not
above two feet, with green lawns beneath them.  Among the mosses by the
pools all sorts of small flowering plants were bending over the water,
and goldfish were swimming beneath the surface, peculiar breeds of
goldfish whose propagation had been carried on through centuries.  That
small yard gave us all the perspective and vista of a huge garden, all
condensed into the space of a European room.  A door at the end of the
walk had opened already, and three women in kimonos came out, smiling
and bowing.  Being familiar with the habits of such places, I sat down
on the step leading to the house and took off my shoes and thrust my
toes into a pair of slippers which one of the girls handed me, while
Sonya did the same.

"It's like playing dolls," she said.  "Did you ever play dolls, Casey?
I used to at Odessa, long ago."

"No," I answered, "only soldiers, Sonya."

"Dolls are better," she said.  "We might put on kimonos, do you think?"
She spoke to the eldest of the three women, and the two girls brought
out kimonos.

I took off my coat and put one on.  Then one of the women pattered
before us, leading the way along a matting-covered corridor and pushed
aside a sliding door, smiling.  We both of us kicked off our slippers
and entered a private room which was already arranged for us.  The
furnishings were as simple as a room in ancient Sparta and as fragile
as a painting on a fan.  A table not more than two feet high was in the
center of the room, with a cushion on the floor on either side of it.
A charcoal brazier was burning at one end of the table and saucers of
meat and chopped green vegetables and soybean oil were standing near
it,--the component parts of that informal Japanese dish, as delicious
as anything I have ever eaten, called _sukiaki_.  At one end of the
table, sliding paper windows opened on a balcony that looked out on a
similar small garden.  Opposite the balcony at the other end of the
room there was a recess in the wall that held the only decorations,--a
single porcelain figure of a god standing in a teakwood holder with a
scroll painting of cherry blossoms behind him.  At a lower level in the
niche was a vase of flowers meticulously and perfectly arranged
according to the careful dictates of the flower art in Japan.  That was
all; otherwise the room was bare.

I sat on the floor at one side of the table and Sonya sat on the other
side.  One of the serving girls in her flowered kimono, with her hair
done like a Japanese doll's, knelt at the doorway, then bowed and
entered and took her place at the charcoal brazier, filling the cooking
utensil with the ingredients of the meal.  It all made a pleasant
sizzling sound of cooking and there was a smell of things to eat above
the acrid smell of charcoal.  A second girl, kneeling at the foot of
the table, placed two tiny cups before us and filled them with hot
_sake_ wine.

"Here's looking at you, Sonya," I said and tossed off my cup, which the
girl refilled immediately.  There was a heady quality about that heated
wine of Japan.  Though it is taken in minute quantities, the cup is
always full and one is apt to forget the amount one consumes.

"I hope you like it here," said Sonya.

I told her that I liked it, and I did.  Her watchfulness and
preoccupation seemed to have left her as she sat there on the floor by
the little table.  She seemed to have thrown off care with that
volatile habit of Russians.  She was a hostess who had brought me to a
quiet place to be shared by herself and me.  Her long lashes half
drooped over her violet eyes and her red lips twisted in playful
interrogation.

"Why don't you sit here beside me?" I asked.

"Oh, no," she said.  "It isn't proper now.  Later, perhaps, when the
servants leave."  We were each handed a green bowl with the yolk of a
raw egg in the bottom and then the meal was ready.  We reached toward
the brazier with chopsticks for bits of the meat and vegetables.

I was aware that a certain pretense between us had been dropped.  We
had both of us accepted the fact that I had not asked Sonya to lunch
but that Sonya had asked me, and she must have understood that I knew
well enough that she had asked me for some definite reason.  I was
perfectly content to watch her and to drink cup after cup of the _sake_
wine while I waited for her to lead the conversation.  Her first remark
was almost banal.

"Here we are," she said, "you and I."

I nodded and answered, "That's my good luck, I think, and I haven't had
much luck for quite a while."  I saw that she was watching me, but not
suspiciously; rather as any woman might watch a man in whom she took an
interest.

"It seems strange, doesn't it," she remarked, "that you and I, Casey
Lee, should be in this foreign room so far from any place that either
of us knows?  It's such a small inoffensive room--don't you think?  And
yet it represents the culture of two thousand years.  It is a part of
the beliefs and life of one of the most powerful nations in the world."

"Yes," I said, "go on--if you don't mind my staring at you, Sonya."

"No, I don't mind," she said.  "Your eyes are kind.  The eyes of most
Americans are kind.  Your life has been so secure--is that the reason?
But there is no security here.  Have you felt it?  It's a nervous
place--Japan."

Her words did not interest me as much as the huskiness in her voice and
the lights that kept dancing in her eyes.  Her eyes seemed to be asking
me wordless questions.  Probably we were each wondering about the other
as we talked.

"Yes," I said, "Japan is very nervous.  Well?"

"Perhaps she has a right to be nervous," she said.  "Perhaps it is a
state of mind.  I wonder.  Japan is very proud."

"I don't see what there is to be nervous about," I said.

She laughed.

"Haven't you ever felt that fate, that everything, was conspiring
against you?  I've felt that way sometimes."

"I wonder if you feel that way now?" I asked her.

Her eyes grew hard for a moment.  "Never mind about me," she said.
"Japan feels that the world is conspiring against her.  It makes no
difference whether she is right or wrong if she has that conviction,
and she may be right.  On one side of her is the United States--"

"I know," I interrupted.  That talk had always made me impatient.
"What has the United States ever done to Japan except to pass the
Exclusion Act?"

"There are your interests in the Orient," she said.

I had heard enough diplomatic talk in my occasional visits to
Washington to be familiar with phases of our Pacific relations.

"I know," I answered.  "That is a vague term and I've never heard it
specified."

"Think of it this way," she said; "think of a great country which is
always moving forward--taking.  The United States is moving toward
Asia--her hand has reached out over Hawaii, over Guam, over the
Philippines.  Where is she going to stop?"

"I don't know and I don't care," I said.  Grotesque as it seemed to be
talking to a pretty girl about the affairs of nations, I was curious to
see where the conversation would lead us.

"Then on the other side," her voice went on, "on the other side of
these little islands is Russia."  She was speaking with a feeling that
showed me that these matters were real to her.  I could not understand
why she was concerned when they meant so little to me.  "Russia also is
always reaching out; Russia was driven from Manchuria at the time of
the Czar, but perhaps she is moving back again.  They are
double-tracking the Trans-Siberian Railway.  Vladivostok is a fortress.
There are great military bases along the frontier.  Russia has
stretched out her hand until she holds Outer Mongolia as a buffer
State.  Where will she go next?--That's what they're wondering in
Japan.  If you were a Japanese--"  She looked at me and stopped.

"I'd be upset," I said.  "Is that what you want me to say?"

"I don't want you to say anything," she answered.  "I want you to see
how certain people feel.  The world, through the League of Nations, has
repudiated certain political bets of Japan.  She has suffered, like all
the other nations, from the economic depression.  It is not hard to see
why a Japanese must feel surrounded.  China dislikes and fears Japan.
China is building an air force and Japan is vulnerable from the air.
Do you blame the average Japanese if he feels hemmed in?"

"No," I answered, "I don't blame him."

"Neither do I."  Sonya's voice grew softer.  "He looks to the east and
seems to see the gray wall of the American battle fleet.  He looks to
the west and seems to see the Russian army and the Russian air force.
And China.  Mongolia is full of agents, Harbin is full of spies.  He is
unhappy--he is restless.  The thing which makes him unhappiest is that
he has not the understanding and the approval of other nations.  I'm
sorry for Japan."

"Perhaps they've got themselves too much on their own minds," I said.

"Perhaps," she answered.  "But so have you.  I seem to have known you
for a long while, Casey Lee."

"That's nice," I said.

I had a sudden desire to end this general conversation, though I knew
it would have been wiser to have waited.  "Have you seen my _dossier_?"
I asked.

"Your _dossier_?" She smiled again.  "How should I see that?"

And I smiled back.  "Because Japan is a suspicious country," I
explained.  "Every foreigner is thoroughly investigated by the secret
police.  I can imagine what my _dossier_ says, Sonya.  'Casey Lee, a
former American naval aviator, and a free-lance air fighter in little
wars, who publicly expressed his discontent with his own country.  A
drunkard, discredited.'...  Why don't we get down to business, Sonya?"
She did not smile when I had finished.

"Business," she said.  "All right.  May I ask you a question, Casey
Lee?  You have fought under other flags, your nationality does not tie
you particularly.  Am I right?"

"Dead right," I said, and drank another cup of _sake_.  "So you were
sent to sound me out?"

She nodded simply.

"Because I would talk more freely to a pretty girl?" I suggested.

She nodded again.

"It's true," she agreed.  "The word has come that the people in America
will not pay for your trans-pacific flight.  There are certain persons
here--never mind who--who wish to ask you a question.  Would you fly
the Pacific in a Japanese plane--and let Japan have the credit?"

She must have known before I spoke what my answer would be.  It seemed
to me like the chance of a lifetime.  I would have my own revenge if I
succeeded.

"Sonya," I said, "for the last hour I've wanted to kiss you, but even
if I hadn't, I'd want to now.  If you can get me a plane, if you can
give me this chance, I'll do anything in the world for you--anything at
all."  I could see her looking at me with the same expression of
pleasure that I have seen a player wear when he has finished a game
successfully.

She knew she had me then.  We were no longer people but abstractions.
Her voice was cool, almost businesslike, as though she said, "Very
well, I do not have to bother with you any more."  But instead she said:

"Will you please wait here," and she rose from her cushion on the
floor, tall, lithe and straight, and moved toward the little sliding
door.

I rose also from my cushion beside the little table, becoming aware as
I did so that a foreigner was not fitted for dining in the Japanese
manner.  The joints of my knees and ankles were stiff from my
unaccustomed posture, so that I was glad to stretch myself.  It could
not have been more than three minutes later when the door slid open.  I
was not greatly surprised to see my friend Mr. Moto exactly as I had
remembered him, with his Prussian-cut hair, cutaway coat and somber
studious eyes.

Sonya had evidently given him back the ring, for it was again on his
finger just as it had been the previous afternoon.  He smiled, bowed
and drew in his breath between his teeth.  I wished that I could
imitate the perfection of the Japanese bow where the head drops forward
suddenly as though a knife had severed the spinal cord and then snaps
back upright.

"Mr. Moto," I said.

"You remember me, then?" said Mr. Moto.  "That is kind of you, when I
thought you might have forgotten.  I am so glad to see you here."

My gaze seemed to glance off the smoothness of the little man's
determined courtesy.  "The pleasure is all mine," I said.

"I can well understand," he answered.  "Miss Sonya is so charming.  I
am pleased that you have both come to understand each other.  A very
remarkable girl."

"Where is she now?" I asked.

Mr. Moto smiled again.  "She will be back," he replied; "have no fear.
But first I wish to speak to you alone.  I represent a group, if you
understand me, that has been seeking for someone to fly the Pacific in
a Japanese-made plane.  You would not object, I hope, to taking our
side in a friendly rivalry between Japan and the United States."

"You show me the plane," I said, "and I'll thank you to the end of my
days.  I'm a good pilot, Mr. Moto."

"There is no need to discuss your qualifications," he said.  "I know
very well you are."

"I thought you did," I answered.

"If you had been born in Nippon," Mr. Moto's voice was slow and
careful, "I think you might have had more consideration.  America is so
large and powerful that she forgets more easily than we do, I think."

I knew that he was referring to my wild talk at the hotel.  I shrugged
my shoulders.

"Without discussing my feelings," I told him, "I can tell you frankly
that my nationalistic sentiments will not interfere with my flying a
Japanese plane, or even working in some other way.  I cannot see how
there is anything more than friendly rivalry between Japan and America."

Mr. Moto looked at me enigmatically.  There is a nameless something in
a man, whether he is Asiatic or European, which raises him above the
average and I knew that Mr. Moto had that attribute.  Neither of us had
committed ourselves in a single detail and yet Mr. Moto seemed
satisfied with my answers.  He even seemed entirely familiar with my
thoughts and sympathetic with my situation.  "You interest me," he said
softly.  "Would you mind explaining yourself?"

"What I mean," I replied, "is the event of war.  Both our countries
have discussed it, but I do not see the possibility of war between us.
I think that possibility was over when the United States gave up using
the Philippines as a large naval base.  The United States has no means
of attacking you.  While the Hawaiian Islands are under the American
flag, it is nearly impossible for you to reach the coast of North
America.  With the Japan sea, a Japanese lake, and with your present
naval building program, I see no chance for an American fleet to
approach Japan.  Sensible men discount war talk, I think, Mr. Moto."

My speech appeared to please him.  "I am so glad," he said.  "I can
only say that I agree with you heartily.  You are a sensible man, Mr.
Lee.  Shall we have a drink together?  Whiskysoda, eh?  American
whiskysoda for good Japanese and good Americans."

He walked to the door in his stocking feet and called out an order to a
servant and a minute later we were sitting down at the small table with
our drinks.

I drank mine quickly and filled my glass again, but Mr. Moto consumed
his in small careful sips, like a man who had no faith in his alcoholic
capacity.  I felt the time had come for us to be frank with each other.

"Mr. Moto," I said, "you have found me at a time of great misfortune.
I am under no illusions why you are interested in me.  You probably
heard something I said yesterday at the hotel.  I am not prepared to
retract any of my remarks.  If the opportunity you offer me is genuine,
I shall do a good deal to earn it.  I imagine I'm close to being an
internationalist, Mr. Moto.  I know that you don't offer that
opportunity for nothing.  What is it that you want?"

He did not reply for a while.  Instead he looked at the vase of flowers
in the niche along the other wall.

"I am very glad to be direct," he said.  "I do want something--nothing
that will hurt your conscience, I think.  You know a good many naval
men in your country's fleet.  They're friends of yours.  You can
meet--" he looked at my half-empty glass thoughtfully--"and drink with
them, Mr. Lee.  They might talk more freely with you than with one of
my own countrymen.  You follow me?"

"Yes," I said, and I had a curious sensation in my spine as the end of
our conversation became more obvious.  The little room with its flowers
and porcelain figure had assumed in my imagination an ominous aspect.
I had a very definite though indefinable sense of personal danger.  It
was not attributable to Mr. Moto, who sat there in a conscientious
parody of a European negotiator.  It seemed rather to lie in the bare
paper-like walls of that room.  There was no disturbing sound, nothing;
and yet I was willing to wager that had I started up to leave that room
just then I should not have been allowed beyond the door.

"I follow you so far," I said, "but you'll have to go farther, Mr.
Moto."

"Gladly," he replied, "as long as you're thoroughly willing."

I knew that he was conveying half a warning, half a threat, but I was
willing.

"I understand you, I think," I said.

"Yes," Mr. Moto nodded, "yes, I think you do, so I may be
correspondingly frank.  A paper, a plan, to be exact, has been
abstracted from our naval archives.  It is probably now in the hands of
some power.  My government is simply anxious to learn what power.  If
you can find out for me that the United States navy is familiar with
the plans of a certain new type of Japanese battleship, that is all I
wish of you.  Do you understand?"

"Yes," I said, and I felt relieved.  "I see no real harm in that.
You'd find out sooner or later."

"Exactly so."  Mr. Moto also looked relieved.  "It is a harmless
commission.  I should not strain your loyalty by giving you a greater
one.  As a matter of fact, we shall be pleased if your government has
this.  We fear other powers more.  I am being quite open with you.  I
hope that you agree."

"Very well," I said, "I'll do anything I can."  The request seemed
harmless enough, but I had an idea that it would have been dangerous if
I had refused, and Mr. Moto's next words, distinct and devoid of tone
or emphasis, convinced me I was right.

"I am very glad," he said.  "You will obey orders then?"

"Yes," I said, "I can mind orders."

"I am very glad," Mr. Moto said again.  "I am afraid, Mr. Lee, you must
obey them, now that we've gone as far as this.  No one would be greatly
surprised if you were to disappear--would they, Mr. Lee?"

"Is that a threat or a promise?" I asked.

He paused a moment before he replied.

"I will leave the answer to your own intelligence.  When you get back
to the hotel you will find a ticket in your room for the _Imoto Maru_,
which sails from Yokohama to Shanghai tomorrow night.  You will be
given ample money for expenses.  You will simply mix with the colony of
your countrymen in Shanghai--particularly naval officers.  There will
be further instructions for you later.  You understand, I hope."

"Yes," I said, "I understand.  And it's understood I have a plane to
fly the Pacific when this job is over."

Mr. Moto nodded and held out his hand.  "That is entirely understood,
and now, I am so glad to have met you.  Miss Sonya will see you back to
your hotel.  There must be no mistakes."  There was something in Mr.
Moto's manner that showed me there must be no mistakes.

My opinion was confirmed when he slid open the door and I saw several
men lounging in the narrow hall outside.  A minute later Sonya and I
were walking up the narrow street and at its end the same car was
waiting for us.  Though she was beside me, I had never felt so
completely friendless or so cut off from everything I had known.  The
business I had accepted, though not wholly creditable, seemed harmless
enough, particularly when the reward was considered; yet I
wondered--was it harmless?  Sonya walked beside me, humming a little
tune, strange and wild--some Russian peasant song.

"There is one thing," she said, when we were seated together in the
automobile.  "You must recognize no one on the boat."

"Very well," I answered.  Her eyes were on me curiously.  She was
looking at me soberly and somehow she seemed dangerously competent.  I
could imagine that she had an automatic pistol in the white handbag on
her lap.

"Any other orders?" I asked.

"No," she said, "not now.  So you are one of us, Casey Lee.  We are
both without a country now."  Her words were like the slamming of a
door.  All my past seemed to be definitely closed and definitely behind
me.

I was aware in some way that I had sold part of my soul.  I did not
mind just then, so long as I was getting value for it.  "It is
flattering that they have set you to watch me, Sonya," I said, "You're
a pretty nurse.  Shall I call you nurse?"

"You're right," she answered.  "I'm watching you."

"Sonya," I asked her suddenly, almost involuntarily, "what are you
getting out of this?"

"Never mind."  Her eyes were hard.  "I'm being paid a price.  You'll do
well not to ask questions after this.  Simply obey orders, Casey Lee."

I looked at her.  Her figure beneath her tailored dress was lithe and
strong.  Her long fingers were strong and capable.  "You're a pretty
nurse," I said, "but I'm sorry you're a nurse."

"Let that be as it may."  Her throaty voice tinkled like ice in a
glass.  "We're only even.  I'm sorry you're what you are."

"We've got that much in common," I answered cheerfully.  "I guess we
neither of us have much to boast about, but we're professionals, Sonya.
We can earn our pay."


I have tried to set down an accurate and unbiased record of these
scenes, without a single effort to put myself or my motives in a
favorable light.  I wish emphatically to affirm that I meant every word
which I said to Moto, that I entered in good faith into a contract
which doubtless would seem shocking to many of my fellow citizens.  The
only reason I can conscientiously offer for my conduct is a humble one,
not valid in any court of law--that I did not understand.  I did not
understand, until subsequent events forced the comprehension upon me,
how strong the ties of nationality and race become, when they are
presented clearly.  There is no quibbling with those ties; there is no
way of rationalizing them, when events force one to make an actual
decision.  I was faced with that decision sooner than I expected--on
the very night, in fact, when I boarded the _Imoto Maru_, which reminds
me that I am writing a record that has no room in it for moralization.
I had better get on with my report, only pausing for one addition.  Men
die for their faith who have never been inside a church, and men die
for their country, although they may have spent their lives criticizing
all its works.  The amazing thing about it is that they are probably
surprised by their irrational willingness to die.




CHAPTER IV

Half an hour after I was aboard, the _Imoto Maru_ had moved from the
dock in Yokohama and was slipping past the harbor lights of that great
port into the Pacific, on her way along the Japan coast to China.  She
was taking me on a trail which was entirely new to me, for aside from
those useless weeks of waiting in Tokio I had never seen the Orient.  I
had a comfortable sensation of excitement such as one has nearly always
when a ship carries one into the dark.  There is always a sense of the
unknown in the darkness which may be inherited from the dread of
ancient mariners who thought their ship might slip off the end of the
world into space.  From my point of view the simile was almost true.
The _Imoto Maru_ had carried me off the edge of my world, it seemed to
me beyond hope of returning.  I did not mind it very much.

First I took a turn around the first-class quarters of the ship.  The
_Imoto_ was small, as liners go nowadays.  Except for her swarthy,
stocky-looking crew, she reminded me of the transport which had carried
me to France in another incarnation.  Companion steps led from the
promenade deck down to the bow and the cargo hatches and I climbed
down, as there seemed to be no restriction, and walked past the
battened hatches and hoisting gear out toward the bow itself.
Everything ahead was black except the water beside our hull, which was
so brilliantly phosphorescent that evening that it glowed and flashed
into flame.

Suddenly it came over me, without my being able to analyze the reason,
that I had been followed ever since I had been on that boat.  I turned
and stared into the dark shadows of derricks and ventilators but I
could see no one.  Then I felt in the side pocket of my coat for my
leather-covered flask and took a drink.  It occurred to me that the
time had come to do some serious thinking, but the drink from the flask
made me delay it, and instead, I thought of Sonya.  I wondered if I
would ever see her again.  Probably not, I decided, for one who has led
my sort of life becomes used to inconsequent shifts of personalities.
Still, I was sorry that she had left me, and the poignancy of my sorrow
surprised me and filled me with a desire to see lights and people, a
desire which led me aft to the smoking room.

The _Imoto_, as I have said, was a small ship and the smoking room was
a small cabin done in the dull, dark wood decorations of smoking rooms
the world over.  Japanese and Chinese business men were seated about
the little tables, reminding me that the Orient was fast becoming like
the rest of the world and that manners and customs were superficially,
at any rate, becoming nearly the same in every part of it.  At first I
thought I was the only European there until I heard someone calling me.
A small, hard-bitten, sandy-haired man was waving a glass at me from
the other end of the room.

"Has the liquor got me at last," he whooped, "or is that you, Casey
Lee?"

Then I knew how small the world was and how strangely paths become
crossed.  A picture of the sandy hair, and the sandpaper-like features
flashed across my mind, though I had not seen them for a long while.
The man was one of those wanderers like myself; Sam Bloom, an old pilot
from one of the army squadrons who had come into my life during the war
and who had disappeared almost as casually.  At another time I should
have been glad to have seen him, for there is a companionship among
flying men which time does not efface, but just then I was almost
embarrassed.  How was I to explain to Sam Bloom exactly what I was
doing?  Far from feeling my embarrassment, Sam gave another whoop of
delight.

"Come on, Casey!" he shouted.  "Come over here and we'll drink out the
bar!"

"Sam," I said, "let's get out of here," and I took him by the scruff of
the neck and yanked him out the door onto the deck.

"Hey," said Sam Bloom.

I got a firmer grip on his coat collar.  "Come down to my cabin," I
said.  "We can talk better down there."

Bloom's topaz-colored eyes grew alert.  "Anything the matter, Casey?
What are you doing here?"

I did not answer him until we were in my cabin, an outside room on B
deck, on an aisle amidship.  The cabin was big enough to show that Mr.
Moto had done me well.  A large bed, two upholstered armchairs, a
wardrobe closet.

"Say," Bloom said, "you're living in style, aren't you, Casey?  Well,
you're in the big money now."

"I'm not," I said.  "The Pacific flight's all off.  I'm going to
Shanghai."

"Is that so?" said Sam Bloom, and for the first time in our
conversation, his voice had turned cautious.  "If you're looking for a
job--"  He eyed me and tapped a cigarette against the back of his hand.
"You're able to take a job, aren't you, Casey?"

"What makes you think I'm not?" I asked.

"You're looking seedy," he said.  "Your fingers shake.  Listen, Lee, it
wouldn't make me popular if I said it out loud here on a Japanese boat,
but I'm a flying instructor for the Chinese army.  Say the word and
I'll get you in."

I was embarrassed as to how to answer.

"Maybe--I don't know," I said.

We must have talked there about old times for an hour, and when he left
me I felt bitterer than usual.  Bitterer because Sam Bloom also had
pitied me, and out of the kindness of his heart had offered me the only
opportunity he could think of, the chance of teaching young Chinese
soldiers how to fly.  I almost wished that he had offered me that
chance a day before, because I think I would have taken it gladly, but
it was too late now.  Then another thought struck me.

No one had asked me for my tickets or my passport--a strange omission
for a passenger vessel--and how was I to land in China?

It had not occurred to me until that moment that I had torn my passport
in two and had thrown it on the floor of the Imperial Hotel at Tokio.
I reached automatically for my inside pocket that contained the
envelope with my steamship tickets.  I had not examined them carefully
before, but now that I did so, I was confronted by an astonishing
sight.  In the envelope beside the tickets was my passport, so
perfectly mended that I could hardly detect a break in its pages.  The
sight of it reminded me that Mr. Moto had thought of everything.


The engines of that ship were pulsing beneath me, sending a steady
throbbing tremor up and down my spine.  That restless feeling of
vibration reminded me again that I was being carried to an unknown
place on an incomprehensible errand.  The knowledge made me feel
distinctly ill at ease and the uncertainty made me restless.  My wrist
watch told me that it was late, already close to midnight, but I had no
desire to sleep.  Instead, I walked back through the companionways and
up the stairs to the smoking room.  That was when I had my first shock
of surprise, just as I stood on the threshold of that small and rather
ugly room.

The passengers had cleared out by then, except for a Japanese in a
cutaway coat and a woman with reddish-gold hair, who was seated with
him at one of the round tables.  At first I thought that I was
dreaming, but there was no mistake as to who those two were.  Mr. Moto
and Sonya Karaloff, whom I had believed I had left permanently in
Tokio, were there in the smoking room, talking in low voices.  In my
astonishment I found it difficult to analyze my feelings, but I
experienced something like a twinge of jealousy when I saw that girl
with Moto at the table.

"Why, hello," I said.  "I thought I was here alone."

It was a silly enough remark, as I knew I had not really been alone
since Moto had clapped eyes on me at the Imperial Hotel.  I knew that I
had been watched carefully ever since.  But their reaction was amazing.

Mr. Moto turned toward me politely and raised his delicate eyebrows so
that his forehead puckered in wrinkles up to the shoebrush cut of his
black hair.

"Excuse me," he said, "there must be some mistake."

"What?" I asked him.  "What mistake?"

He smiled apologetically.  "It is so easy for a foreigner to mistake
one of my people for someone else," he said.  "I am so very sorry.  I
have never had the pleasure--of meeting you before."

Sonya was looking at me also, blankly, half amused.  "Nor I either,"
she said.  "There must be some mistake."

I gazed at them stupidly before I remembered Sonya's cautioning me that
I was not to recognize anyone on the boat.

"I beg your pardon," I said then.  "This was careless of me."

Mr. Moto smiled tranquilly and answered, "It is quite all right, but it
is better to be careful."

That was all there was to the scene.  We did not say another word and
perhaps there should have been no need for anything further to convince
me that I was in the midst of something that was dark and devious,
almost sinister--not after seeing those two there.

I sat in the corner of the smoking room for a little while as though I
were a stranger, watching Sonya and Moto from the corner of my eye.  I
did not like it.  I did not like to see her sitting with Moto, though
it was none of my business.  I felt that she did not belong in such a
rle.  Finally I rose and went on deck.  There was nothing but a warm
breeze and a dark sea on deck, but, all the same, although the
promenade seemed deserted, I had that same feeling of being watched.  I
could have sworn there were footsteps behind me as I walked by the
rail.  Once I was so sure of it that I spun around sharply on my heel,
only to discover that there was no one visible--only the bare promenade
behind me with a row of electric lights above it.  Finally I went to my
stateroom again, not because I wished to sleep, but because the place,
on account of my baggage, was familiar and reassuring.

The cabin was just as I had left it, with my bags in exactly the places
I remembered, but in some way I knew that someone had been there in my
absence.  Perhaps everyone, some time in his life, has had a similar
experience of awareness--nothing else.  As soon as I turned to bolt my
door, I knew that my intuition was right, for the bolt had been
removed.  I could see the holes where the screws had been driven into
the white woodwork of the door, but there was no bolt, and the sight
gave me a second idea.  I reached for my large leather suitcase and
began fumbling with the straps, hastily and rather clumsily.  If there
was no bolt on the door, at least I wanted to be armed.

I had travelled in Japan with a thirty-eight automatic.  I cannot
remember exactly why I had taken this precaution, except that the
Orient had always seemed a distant and peculiar place.  I had carried
it in my pocket through the customs and then had deposited it in the
bottom of my bag.  When I looked for it that night, however, it was not
there.  For a moment I stood with my hand close to the steward's call
button before common sense came back to me.  They might not have wished
me to lock myself in and they might have abstracted my automatic, but
this was probably a part of the meticulous caution of a suspicious race
which, I decided, probably meant no harm.  Half an hour later I was in
bed and had turned out the light.  The porthole was open and a breeze
blew across the cabin and I lay for a while listening to the swish of
water and the throbbing of the engines before I went to sleep.


I have never been sure of the time when I woke up.  It must have been
in the dark of the small hours of the morning when something caused me
to open my eyes, only to find myself staring into the black; but a
flyer's life makes the senses quick to perceive changes of atmosphere
which may not dawn on others who have passed quieter days.  As soon as
I opened my eyes, I knew there was something wrong in spite of the same
steady pulsing of the engines, and the same sound of water.  Yet there
was some change in the darkness which I could not describe.  I knew I
was not alone in my cabin.  The knowledge did not frighten me as much
as it annoyed me, for I was growing tired of constant espionage.

"Who's there?" I said.

A voice answered, so close to my ear that I gave a start.  Though I
could not see a thing, I knew that whoever was there must be kneeling
beside my bed.

"Hush!"  It was a man's voice, speaking very softly.  "Please do not
speak loud.  I am a friend, Mr. Gentleman!  I do not hurt."

"Who are you?" I asked.  Something in his voice made me careful not to
raise my own.  "What are you doing in here?"

"Please--" the voice was nearer to me--"don't turn on the light!  I do
not wish them to see light.  It is very dangerous, so many watch."

I reached down and grasped an arm of the man beside me.  "Who are you?"
I demanded again.  "What do you want?"

"Only to speak to you."  The answer came again, so softly that I had
difficulty in catching the words.  The arm did not move away.  The
impassiveness of that arm more than the voice made me listen.  "Please
do not speak loud or turn on the light.  I'm in very great danger, Mr.
Gentleman.  I come and no one see, I think.  I go and no one must see.
I have something which they want.  You are an American--you know
American navy men."

"Well," I said, "what of it?"

"You know an American navy gentleman they call Commander Driscoll?  You
see him.  You tell him I come to you.  You tell him Ma come.  I am in
great danger, Mr. Gentleman.  I think they know who I am.  Mr. Moto, he
know, I think.  Will you tell Commander Driscoll, please--"

"Tell him what?" I whispered, and I knew that the man beside me was
afraid of something--deathly afraid.

"I leave you note," he said, "tomorrow, not now.  I see you again
tomorrow night because you are American.  If I die, you tell Mr. Wu
Lai-fu in Shanghai, if you please.  You give note to him, if Commander
Driscoll is not there."

"What are you talking about?" I whispered.

"Please," the voice was trembling in a strange appeal, "I have no time
to say.  Great danger.  If I give you note, you take it, please."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because," the voice seemed closer to me, "because you are American
gentleman.  Americans all very good people.  You see when you get note.
You give Driscoll.  You tell Wu Lai-fu.  Please, I'm going now."

For a moment I lay there, wondering if I were asleep or awake,
wondering if I were going mad; then I moved quickly and switched on the
light.  My cabin door was just closing very softly and there was no one
in the cabin.

I could have believed that I had been asleep if it had not been for the
sight of that softly closing door.  Those whispered words in my ear
were exactly like the words spoken by some agency in the subconscious
mind which ring in one's memory sometimes when one awakes suddenly and
inexplicably in the middle of the night.  That closing door was all
which proved to me that I had not been asleep.  I had been wide awake,
listening to mysterious, dreamlike words spoken by a man whom I had not
seen.  Even though I could not understand those words, I had sense
enough to see that they were ominous.  They and my nerves conveyed to
me the impression that a drama on that Japanese ship was moving
silently around me and that I was being drawn into it whether I wished
it or not.  It was the first time, I think, that I had any definite
idea of the seriousness of my own position.

As I tried to set my mind in motion to recall what I had heard, I grew
uncomfortably aware that I could not be sure of myself, that my
recollections and logic were blurred by alcohol and sleep.  I was
ashamed to admit to myself that my condition made me unfit to play a
definite part in a crisis.  Nevertheless, I did the best I could by
trying to recall just what had passed.  An unseen man, an Oriental, by
his voice, who said his name was Ma, had been kneeling by my bed.  He
had spoken like a man who had been followed and watched; like a man
laboring under fear.  He had alluded to his imminent danger and to some
message which he wished me to convey to Commander Driscoll.  He had
mentioned the name of a Chinese in Shanghai, and for some reason that
name stuck peculiarly in my memory, perhaps because of its phonetic
quality--Wu Lai-fu.  But what was it about?  What business was
developing on that ship?  What was Moto doing there, or Sonya?  Why had
the lock been removed from my door and my baggage searched?  It was all
entirely beyond me, but I felt that my heart was beating fast.  I felt
that I needed a drink and reached toward my old leather-covered flask
which stood on the washstand.  I reached for it and then I stopped.
For the first time in years my own caution stopped me, for something
warned me that my mind needed to be steady--steady without the relaxing
effect of alcohol.  So, though my nerves were jangling, I did not touch
the flask.  As I look back, I can always believe that night was a
turning point in my career.  My life had made me used to excitement and
it had also made me reasonable.  I was fully aware that it would have
been useless and even dangerous to have raised an alarm.  Instead of
calling, I switched out the light then and got back into bed, not that
I could have slept if I'd tried.  Nor did I have the slightest desire
to sleep, for I had an idea that the invisible stranger might be back
again.  If so, I wished to be ready, therefore I half sat up, waiting
in the dark, listening to the waves and wind outside my porthole
singing that ceaseless song of the sea.  There was no way of telling
the time, but I must have been there for quite a while before I knew
that I was right.  Someone was entering my cabin again.

There was no sound of footsteps to warn me, but simply the noiseless
opening of the unbolted door, showing first a crack of light from the
alleyway outside, a crack which grew appreciably wider.  Then, as I saw
the light blotted out by a shadow, I slipped noiselessly off my bed.  I
was able to cross the cabin almost at a single leap and an instant
later I was grappling with that shadow.  Physical contact gave me a
sense of reality.  There was a moment's noiseless struggle but whoever
I had my hands on was not so strong as I.  I could feel heavy woolen
cloth and hear a sharp hissing breath.  It is hard, at such a time as
that, to remember just what happened, but suddenly the cabin light went
on without my being able to recall which of us touched the switch.  I
could only recall that suddenly the light was on and that I was
standing in the middle of the cabin, holding a Japanese ship's officer
by the throat and shaking him so that he choked.

"Please," the man was saying, "excuse--"

And then I let him go.  I let him go but I placed myself between him
and the door and slammed it shut, while he stood in the center of the
cabin feeling of his windpipe.

"Excuse," he said.  "Excuse."

I examined him for a moment before I answered.  He was a small man with
a face which reminded me of toy breeds of bulldogs which I'd seen at
home.  Even in that instant, however, there was one thing I was certain
of intuitively.  He was not the man who had been kneeling beside my
bed, because he was not frightened.  This little bulldog man had the
assurance of a hunter and a bravery incommensurate with his size.

"Excuse," he said again.

"Next time you come in here, knock!" I said.  "What's the big idea?"

He began to bow, bobbing his head like a character in Gilbert and
Sullivan and raising his hand politely in front of his lips.  "It was a
mistake," he said.  "I am so very, very sorry."

"You're all of you so very, very sorry," I said.  "Suppose you answer
my question.  What brought you inside my cabin?"

He was looking carefully about the room with his square jaw thrust
forward, but finally he smiled at me in a bland mirthless way.  "There
is some mistake," he explained.  But obviously something puzzled him.
"I thought there was someone else here.  Excuse--was there not someone
else?"

Some instinct prompted me to lie before I had a definite reason for my
motive.  It had something to do with the other's face which, in spite
of the worry and embarrassment on it, looked relentless.

"What do you mean?" I asked.  "Why should anyone else be here?  I have
this cabin to myself."

Then he straightened himself officially.  "I must explain," he
answered.  "It was my duty.  I found myself called away.  My duty was
to watch your door.  I have done very badly.  If no one was here, I am
very glad."

"No one was here," I said.  His narrow eyes bored sharply into mine.
Then he glanced about the cabin again.

"You are sure no one has been here and left something?  It is
important, please."

"No," I said again, "no one has been here."

His eyes concentrated on me keenly, as if something in my manner did
not entirely satisfy him.

"Why were you watching my cabin?" I asked.

"Please," he answered, "for your own safety.  If no one was here, I am
very glad."  He bowed again and started toward the door, and I opened
the door and let him out.

"Don't come in here again," I said.

"No," he answered, "no, I will not come in again.  Please excuse.  Good
night."

When he was gone, I pushed an armchair against the door.  I knew there
would have been no use in asking further questions.  Nevertheless, one
thing was very clear: he had not been there to watch me but to watch
someone else.  He had not watched sharply enough, and in the space of
time when his vigilance had relaxed, someone had entered my cabin.  It
was as though my room were a trap and as though I were a bait for
someone.  I knew that the bolt had been removed from my door so that
someone could enter my cabin.--Why?  I could not answer.

Curiously, however, none of these speculations or events impressed me
as much as another matter.  A single detail had moved me
strangely--irrationally, I could almost think.  It had to do with the
appeal of that invisible stranger who had whispered in my ear.  He had
appealed to me because, by accident of birth, I was an American, and
something inside me which had lain dormant for a long while was
struggling to answer that appeal, strongly, mutely, against my reason,
my cynicism and self-interest.  My nationality had become so important
to me, a matter of such deep significance, that I was startled.  I had
never realized that a place of birth could mean so much, but it was
true.  My entire point of view was changing, because I had been called
an American.




CHAPTER V

I am trying to set down the events as they occurred.  It is not my
fault if they sound fantastic.  As I look back, the strangest part of
that adventure was the impervious tranquillity of the life aboard that
ship which moved on with no reference to myself.  When I sat with Sam
Bloom in the dining saloon at breakfast the next morning, we seemed so
like tourists on a pleasant outing that I could almost forget
everything which had occurred.  The sun shone through the portholes of
the dining saloon upon neat white tablecloths and white-coated
efficient stewards.

"Did you sleep all right?" Sam Bloom asked.

"Like a top," I said.

"You don't look it," he answered.  "Shall we go up topside and have a
drink?"

"No, thanks," I said, though I wanted a drink very badly.

Then he made a remark which sounded like a tourist's.

"The Japanese are an amazing people."

I nodded.

"But dangerous," he added.  "They're always watching us, they suspect
us all the time."  He stopped, looking over my shoulder in such a
startled way that I followed his glance, to find that the head steward
was standing behind my chair.

"Please," he said, "if you are finished, there is a gentleman who
wishes to see you."

"Who?" I asked.

"Please," the steward said, "if you have finished."

I rose and followed him out of the dining room, while Sam Bloom watched
us curiously.  The steward guided me to one of the _de luxe_ staterooms
on the upper deck.

"Who wants to see me?" I asked again.

The steward did not answer, but tapped softly on the door until a voice
answered in Japanese.  Then I was in a private sitting room with the
door closed behind me, facing my old friend Mr. Moto, who sat behind a
little table, sipping a cup of tea.

Mr. Moto, in his cutaway coat, looked immaculate and composed, and I
was glad to see him, for I felt that Mr. Moto owed me an explanation.
He waved me to a chair, smiling as he offered me a cigarette.

"Good morning, Mr. Lee," he said.  "We may recognize each other in
private.  Are you quite comfortable?  I am so sorry that you did not
sleep well last night."

"Thanks," I said, "I didn't.  Do you mind if I make a further remark?"

"No," he answered.  "Please what remark?"

"I'd like to say," I replied, "that I'm confused."

"Life," Mr. Moto answered, "is often confusing; do you not think?"

I dropped my cigarette into an ash tray, the bottom of which was filled
with water.

"Will you have a drink?" Mr. Mote asked.  "What?  Not drinking?
Something must have disturbed you last night."

"One of your officers disturbed me," I said.  "I found the bolt was off
my door and one of your officers put his head in.  Would you care to
tell me why?"

It was plain he did not care to tell me why.  Instead, he wriggled his
shoulders apologetically.

"I have heard," he answered.  "Excuse.  It was so very careless of the
man.  His duty was to see that you were not disturbed.  He was not true
to his duty.  Was that the only thing that disturbed you, Mr. Lee?  I
shall like it if you will tell me."

"Yes," I answered, and I still don't know what induced me to
prevaricate except that new national sense of mine.  "Only the officer
bothered me.  Suppose we be frank, Mr. Moto," I added.

"Why not," he answered.  "That is what I am here for, yes?  You are
sure there was no one else in your cabin?  It is very important--and so
I ask."

"I was drunk last night," I said.  The answer must have satisfied him,
for I could feel a certain tension relaxing in the room and Mr. Moto
sank back in his chair and lighted a cigarette.  In the silence that
followed, the turgidness of everything began to strain my patience.

"Perhaps," I suggested, "you were expecting someone else to come into
my cabin?"

His expression changed at that.  To my surprise, I found him looking at
me almost with respect.  "So.  That is so.  Yes," he answered.  "That
is why I wish to speak with you.  You can be of very great use to us,
Mr. Lee, if you do exactly what I say.  I do expect someone to come to
your cabin, and if he does, I hope you will ask no questions, no matter
what may happen.  It is very important--do you understand?"

"Why is it important?" I asked.

Mr. Moto stared thoughtfully at me for a while before replying, his
opaque brown eyes devoid of meaning.

"I cannot tell you why it is important," he answered.  "I only ask you
to do exactly what I say, please.  There is someone on this ship whom
we desire very much to interrogate.  Unfortunately, we have no exact
description and do not know who he is.  We--ah--guess he is on this
vessel, and I hope so much we guess right.  We hope that he comes to
your cabin.  Then, you see, we will know him."

"Why should he come to my cabin?" I asked.

Mr. Moto paused a minute.  He gazed at me as if I were a figure in a
column of addition, not a person of flesh and blood.  "I will be
frank," he answered finally; "because you were once an American naval
officer he will come.  It is nothing that concerns you, if you please.
You need not be disturbed.  You are not disturbed, are you?"

Though I tried to keep my expression blank, I was very much disturbed.
"Any other orders?" I said.

"No," he replied, "not now.  Simply amuse yourself, Mr. Lee, and--yes,
this: Do not think too much of anything that has happened.  There is
very good brandy in the smoking room and it is a very nice morning.
You must not worry.  You do so well and everything goes so nicely."  He
rose and bowed.  "Good morning, Mr. Lee."

I bowed also, and then I found myself outside the door, unpleasantly
aware that I was a pawn on Mr. Moto's chessboard, which did not please
my egotism, because I have never liked to be a pawn.  I had not told
Mr. Moto of the visitor to my cabin, and now I knew that nothing would
induce me to tell him.


I shall never forget the rest of that day, if only because of its utter
lack of incident, for nothing happened, absolutely nothing.  The life
on that _Maru_ steamer simply lowered itself to the routine boredom of
shipboard, leaving a passenger like me to his own limited devices.  At
such a time, to anyone of my temperament, the lack of definite outlet
by action was peculiarly appalling.  On another occasion I would have
relieved the suspense by drink, as I was tempted to do more than once
that day.  But that desire to keep my mind clear was still uppermost in
my thoughts.  I paced the deck for a while, looking out to starboard at
the blue mountainous coast line of Japan and watching the occasional
slatted sails of fishing fleets.  I could not blame the Japanese very
much for desiring more land; for the islands of the Empire seemed, as
one viewed them from the sea, almost entirely composed of jagged
mountain slopes which offered little opportunity in the way of life or
husbandry.  Behind the pastel purples and blues and greens of distant
mountain ranges, which seemed to conceal the secrets of Nippon, I could
think of a teeming population longing to leave that unstable volcanic
coast.  The fishing fleet was like a part of that desire pushing out
from the mountains to the horizon.  Our own ship, with its squat
capable sailors, was a part of it.  The red-and-white flag of Nippon
was pushing out to sea, to end no one knew just where.

As I walked forward and glanced toward the line where the horizon met
the sky in soft gray clouds, I saw another sight which made me halt at
the rail and stare--an apparition that was half beautiful, half
sinister.  Out of the cloud bank by the horizon appeared the masts of
ships that seemed to have, at that distance, almost the impalpable
qualities of clouds.  A division of a battle fleet was out on one of
its perpetual maneuvers--gray Japanese cruisers moving behind a
formation of submarines and destroyers.  There was a foreboding quality
to that half-visible sight, because I understood, as everyone who has
walked a deck of an American warship understands, that Japan's naval
strength might some day be directed at my country; that it was reaching
out like an arm across the Pacific toward our coasts where our own
fleet was watching.  There was destiny in the sight, which was a part
of the obscure irrational destiny of peoples never to be wholly
clarified by reason.  It was solitary being on a Japanese ship, the
only representative of my country except that casual aviator, Sam
Bloom.  That situation made me feel very keenly the differences of
race, and more aware than I think I ever have been, even in the distant
days of the World War, that I was an integral part of my country.  Then
I heard Sam Bloom speaking to me and I was glad that he had come to
stand beside me.  I had never been so much drawn to that little
sandy-haired friend of mine as I was at that moment, simply because we
were strangers among a strange people.  I had an impulse to tell him
everything which had happened to me.  I think I should have, if I had
not felt suddenly ashamed of my position and of myself.

"Nice-looking lot of boats, aren't they?" he remarked.

"Yes," I said.

"I wonder if we'll ever fight 'em?" remarked Sam Bloom.

"A lot of people wonder that," I found myself answering, glad to speak
to someone who had an intonation like my own.  "I hope to heaven we
don't.  In spite of the arguments about the Japanese never having
encountered a first-rate power, I'm afraid they'd make a lot of
trouble, Sam."

Sam Bloom squinted his eyes out toward the horizon and drummed his
stubby fingers on the rail.  "Last time I was in Shanghai, there were a
lot of rumors," he said.  "The word is, those boys are up to something;
that they've hit on some new naval secret.  They're clever and
persistent.  That's the word--persistent.  They're getting so that they
can beat us at all our manufacturing trade.  But we can't stop them,
can we?  How about a drink?"

"No, thanks," I said.  "I'm on the wagon."

I did not blame Sam Bloom for being incredulous.

"Say, Casey, is anything on your mind?" he asked.

"Only myself," I answered, "and that doesn't amount to much."

"Say," said Sam, "there's a pretty girl around here.  Did you see her?
Reddish-yellow hair.  Russian, I suppose.  Shanghai is full of white
Russians--not that any Europeans meet them socially.  Let's go and talk
to her.  She doesn't look as if she'd mind."

"Try it," I said.  "I tried last night."  I saw that Sonya was walking
toward us down the deck.

"You watch me," said Sam and took off his hat and smiled.  "Hello.
It's a nice morning!"  But Sonya walked by like an alluring figure of
the imagination, nothing more.

Those violet eyes of hers stared straight through us.  There was a
whiff of gardenia scent and she was gone.

"Well," said Sam Bloom.  "My mistake.  We're not popular on this boat,
Casey.  How about a drink?"

"You have one," I said.

There is no need to describe any further the events of that day.  They
rolled by as easily as the ship rolled through an oily sea.  A stop at
the docks of Kobe.  A game of cards, lunch in the small dining saloon,
where Japanese passengers ate with chopsticks and made strange noises
over their food.  Another game of cards in the smoking room, where I
watched Sonya and Moto talking at a table near the door.

"So that's the answer," Sam Bloom said.  "She's that little swell's
mistress--that's the answer."

"That isn't so," I answered, before I thought.

"Say--" Sam Bloom looked at me--"how do you know?"

"I don't believe she is--that's all," I said.

Yes, the day dragged on, a horrible, eventless day.  Dinner in the
dining saloon and back in the smoking room again, an interminable walk
along the deck and back to the smoking room again.  I was waiting for
something to happen, but nothing happened.  Finally, when Bloom and I
were left alone in the smoking room except for two sleepy stewards, I
believed that nothing would happen.  My lack of sleep the night before
began to make me very drowsy and finally I said good night to him.  I
hope he had a good one.




CHAPTER VI

In some curious way my mood must have been changed by the dullness of
the day until I was lulled by its dullness into bored security.  I had
no real suspicion that anything would be wrong when I opened my cabin
door.  First, when I opened the door, I recall having the distinct
impression that I had made a mistake and that the quarters were not
mine.  Of course, such a sensation as this was only a matter of an
instant, which I mention simply to bring out the complete
unexpectedness of what I encountered.  Subconsciously I knew all the
time that it was my cabin, although my common sense told me that it
could not be because there on the floor a man was lying face upward--a
moon-faced Asiatic man whom I had never seen, dressed in a shoddy suit
of European clothes.

He lay on the floor like a drunkard, sprawled out in an attitude of
complete abandon and carelessness of convention, shaven-headed,
open-eyed, and open-mouthed.  For another split second I had a
sensation of outrage because I could not understand what he was doing
in my cabin overcome by liquor, but the truth manifested itself in an
instant.  That Asiatic man in the shoddy European clothes was offering
his own mute apology for lying face upward on the carpet.  A stream of
blood, that was making a puddle behind his shoulders, was excuse enough
for his seeming rudeness.  The man had been stabbed in the back, and
not long ago either.  But that was not all of the picture.  A sound of
an indrawn breath made my glance dart from that sight on the floor to
the recess near my porthole.  Standing there, her face as white as
paper except for the paint on her lips, was Sonya Karaloff, holding a
knife in her hand.

Anyone who has been through the war is inured to the sight of death.  I
have seen it, in scores of forms, strike out of nowhere.  I have seen
dead men mangled by shellfire and dead men lying pallid like men
asleep.  I have seen the unbelievable liberties which war has taken
with the bodies of men, but this present spectacle was different.  It
was the first time in my life that I had witnessed the scene of cold,
premeditated murder, and for a moment it made me sick; and for a moment
I felt a wave of nausea rise in me and with the nausea faintness.  Then
I pulled myself together because, I suppose, my reflexes are unusually
quick.  Those reflexes were making me move so accurately that they
surprised me; even before my mind began to function, I found myself
closing the cabin door behind me, not carelessly but very carefully, so
that the latch clicked gently.  And then, with my eyes on Sonya, I
began to speak, without giving way to the horror that was in me.  I
believe I spoke quite calmly, fortified after the shock was over by my
intimate acquaintance with dead men.

"I am sorry," I said.  "I'm afraid perhaps I have intruded."

She stared at me, speechless, still holding that knife in her hand, and
I noticed that the blade was wet.

"But after all," I said, "this is my room, you know."

And still she did not answer.

Then I found myself making an inane remark.  "I didn't know you were
that kind of a girl," I said.  "You must be very muscular or surgically
inclined.  They tell me it isn't easy to stab a man in the back so that
he drops right down like this one here."

She opened her lips and closed them--wordlessly.

"It's curious," I said, "the element of time."  I found myself
continuing simply to steady my own nerves.  "If I had been sleepy five
minutes sooner, this moon-faced man might still be alive, perhaps.  If
I had been sleepy five minutes later, I doubt if I should have had the
pleasure of having a delightful golden-headed girl like you in my
cabin.  Which would have been better, I wonder?"

Then, for the first time, she spoke.  "It's Ma," she said.  "It's Ma--"

Initially the name meant nothing, but then the truth dawned on me.  The
man I had not seen the night before, the man who had wished to give me
something because I was an American, the man who had told me that his
name was Ma, was now lying beside my bed, and he would not whisper any
more.

"I believe you're right," I said; "it must be Ma."

"You--" she said.  She started; a trace of color came into her cheeks;
and I saw the pupils in her violet eyes widen.  It was not pleasant to
see her there in an evening wrap, with a knife in her hand.

"How did you know that?" she asked.

I leaned against the closed door of the cabin but I did not take my
eyes off her.

"I think," I suggested, "I should feel more comfortable if you put down
that knife.  I don't think I've ever struck or mishandled a woman, but
believe me I will, if you don't set it down.  I don't want my throat
cut too."

She looked blankly at the knife she was holding and then she dropped it
on the floor.  "I did not know I'd picked it up," she said.

"That was very absent-minded," I answered, "don't you think?"  Then she
moved a step towards me and came near to stumbling over that figure on
the floor.

"Please," she said, "please, won't you help me?"

Her suggestion seemed to me grimly amusing--so amusing that I wanted to
laugh out loud.

"Don't you think you're very well able to help yourself?" I suggested.
"You've done an efficient job--not exactly neat, but efficient.  Do you
always stab them in the back?"

I do not believe that she heard me.  At any rate, she disregarded my
question.

Her hand went up to her bare throat, a slim, white trembling hand.

"I--" she stopped and seemed to choke upon her words.  "I came here to
see you."  Again I had an almost uncontrollable desire to break out
into laughter.

"That was thoughtful of you," I answered, "but selfishly, perhaps, I am
just as glad that I was out."  She did not seem to hear me.

"It's Ma--"  Her voice was choked.  "Don't you see it's Ma?"

"You mistake your tenses," I suggested.  "You mean it was Ma, don't
you?  You Russians are so linguistic that you've conjugated him from
the present to the past."

"Don't!" she whispered.  "Don't!"

"Oh?" I said.  "Perhaps you're sorry, now?"

"Don't!" she whispered again.  "Please, please--I didn't kill him!  I
came to see you.  And I found him lying here.  It's Ma--"

"So you've said several times," I answered.  "Who is Ma?"

By that time she had regained her self-possession.  In spite of her
delicacy and beauty she always, as I have said, gave one the sense of
competence to encounter any situation.

"You don't understand," she said.  "I didn't know he was here.  Why
didn't he speak to me?  I suppose he didn't dare."

"Perhaps you didn't give him a chance," I suggested.

"Don't!"  She did not raise her voice, but its intensity made me stop.
"Don't speak like that!  I swear I didn't kill him.  You don't
understand.  He was my father's old interpreter and servant."

Though my intellect told me she would naturally be lying, something
made me believe her, for no one could have simulated her look of pain.
I thought for a second that she would lose control of herself and weep.
Her face became convulsed.  She raised a handkerchief to her lips.

"Don't!" I said sharply.  "Who killed him then?"

"They--" she whispered.  "He must have had a message.  They suspected
something.  Why didn't he tell me?"  Then she was completely calm
again.  Whatever she might have been and whatever she meant, that girl
was brave.

If I could not understand what part she was playing in that drama, at
least I could admire her bravery.  She must have lived a life where one
made accurate decisions, without time for much mental debate.

"We must leave here at once," she said.  "If he knew I had come here, I
don't know what would happen.  Please--" she touched my arm and nodded
to the door.  "Quickly, quickly, please!"  Her urgency and the
swiftness of her decision made me respond instantly.

I whipped open the door and then we were out in the corridor and her
hand on my arm was trembling.  There was no one in the passageway.

"This way," she whispered and pulled me around a corner.  "Listen!
Here they come."

She was right.  At the end of the passage we had left I heard soft
steps and low voices.  If she had not been decisive, they would have
seen us in another instant.  She snatched at the handle of the cabin
door beside us, but even in her haste she was adroit and quick, and
fortunately the door was not locked.  A second later we were in the
dark of a vacant cabin, listening to footsteps and the voices through a
crack of the door.  Then she closed it noiselessly and we were plunged
into pitch blackness, standing close together--so close that I felt her
breath on my cheek.  She still held my arm and her fingers tightened on
my sleeve.  I felt her lips brush my cheek as she whispered so faintly
that I could hardly hear her.

"I don't think they saw us.  You must never say that you came down to
your cabin--never!  You must wait here for just a moment, not too long.
When I open the door, move to the right and go straight up to the deck.
Someone will speak to you there, of course.  They will say they've
changed your cabin."

I whispered back to her and I felt my forehead touch that soft gold
hair.  "What did you want to see me for?  What was it?"

"Because I was a fool," she whispered.  "Because I grew to like you.  I
wanted to tell you something--about this rotten business.  I wanted you
to be sure you knew what you were doing ... sure you knew what he was
using you for.  I can't tell you now because you must go ... but when
you get to Shanghai, go home to America!  Go anywhere.  Don't trust
them!  No one should like anyone in this business.  I know I've been a
fool.  Now go quickly up on deck."

"What about you?" I whispered.

"Never mind about me.  I know how to look out for myself.  Good-by."

But I did not move.  I did not want to go away.  "I rather like you
too," I said.  "Will I ever see you again?"

"Probably not," she whispered, and suddenly she threw her arms around
me.  She held me close to her for an instant.  "Good-by--now go!" she
said.

I crept through the half-open door and turned to the right as she
directed.  Except for the vibration of the ship, everything was very
quiet.  I did exactly what she told me, because I knew she meant every
word she said.  I hurried up on deck.  I could not have been there more
than a minute, looking over the rail, when that toy bulldog of an
officer came up to me.

"I have been looking for you," he said.  "Something has occurred.  I am
so sorry, if for a few minutes you cannot go to bed."

"Why not?" I asked him.  "What's the matter?"  And when I asked, I
could not help wondering if he was the man who had driven home the
knife.

"So sorry," he said apologetically, "so very sorry.  The water pipe in
your cabin has been leaking.  We are removing you to a better one, a
_de luxe_ cabin on this deck.  It will not take long."

"All right," I said.  "I never liked that cabin."

"No," he agreed, "it was uncomfortable.  A very nice night, is it not?"

They were doing everything very smoothly.  Clearly, as a part of the
plan, the little officer was there to watch me safe to bed.  "It is a
nice night," he said again, "is it not?"

"Fine," I answered.  "I've been up in the bow.  I hope you weren't
looking for me long."

"In the bow," he answered; "that is very nice.  No, I was not looking
for you long."

Five minutes later a steward spoke to the officer softly in Japanese.

"We can go now.  Your room is ready," my bulldog said.

He was right that my quarters were improved.  I was shown to a fine
cabin with a large square port.  My pajamas were laid out, and my
slippers and my bags were all in place, in the same order that they had
been in the stateroom below.  Even my leather-covered pocket flask was
standing by the washbowl.  Further, to my relief, my cabin door had a
bolt on it, which I drew noiselessly as soon as I was alone.  Then I
looked carefully at my bags and saw that the clothes in them had been
moved, although they were folded neatly.  My baggage had been searched
again.  Every one of my pockets had been searched.  Every inch of my
baggage had been gone over by deft-fingered experts.  They had been
looking for something in my old cabin.  They had been searching for
something with a tireless zeal.  It was because that dead Chinese had
left something there,--some note, some message for me before he had
died, a note which he hoped I would give to Commander Driscoll because
I had been in the American navy.  It must have been an important
message, important enough, at any rate, to cost a man his life.  I
wondered if they had found it.  As I wondered, I looked at my pocket
flask longingly, for after the excitement, the desire for a drink was
very strong in me.  I even picked it up and had my fingers on the
silver cup that formed the bottom of the flask before I checked myself.
I knew more than ever that it would be wise to be cold sober, and I set
the flask back in its place.

Then I thought of Sonya Karaloff.  I could still feel the touch of her
hair against my forehead and the pressure of her arms as she held me
close.  Had she been sincere at that moment, I wondered?  Or was it
simply a part of seduction, because she thought I was a broken drunkard
who might be used?  I could not tell, but I hoped that she had meant
it.  I was surprised how much I hoped....

I examined the bolt on my door carefully before I undressed for bed,
but the bolt was firmly set and I was not disturbed that night.  The
lock on the inside was perfect, but when I moved back the bolt and
endeavored to open the door, I found it had been fastened on the
outside also.  I was a prisoner in the cabin.

I have never been under any illusion that I'm intellectually brilliant
beyond the average.  Yet it is true that the shock of such a sequence
of events and the realization of imminent danger are calculated either
to cause panic or to set the mind at work.  They had on me a beneficial
effect which was close to a sort of regeneration.  They gave me a new
perspective on myself.

I knew something which Mr. Moto did not.  He was looking for a message
and he had not found it, or else he would not have locked my door.
Since he had locked me in, he clearly thought that I had found it.

"Let him think," I whispered to myself.  "He won't get any change from
me."

For I was sure of one thing by then.  I was through with Mr. Moto and
through with the whole lying devious affair in which he had involved
me, and through with all the motives which had drawn me into it.  I was
myself again.  I was Casey Lee.  It was a long while since I had been
myself.




CHAPTER VII

I did what I thought was best under the circumstances.  I went quietly
to bed, confident that I would not remain locked in my room
indefinitely; nor was I mistaken.  At eight o'clock in the morning
there was a tapping on my door, which grew increasingly persistent
until I arose and drew back the bolt.  It was a room steward carrying a
tray with fruit and coffee, and he drew in his breath politely.

"So sorry," he said, "so very sorry.  Somehow the door was locked.
Please, there is a gentleman to see you."  He set the tray on a chair
beside my bed.

"Where is he?" I asked.

"Please," the steward said, "if you are ready, he will come right in."
He must have taken it for granted that I was ready, because an instant
later Mr. Moto appeared in his morning coat.

We must have looked strange, me in my pajamas, and Mr. Moto in his
morning coat, but neither of us forgot the formalities.  I bowed and
Mr. Moto bowed and the steward departed.

"Moto," I asked, "why was I locked in here last night?"

Mr. Moto raised his eyebrows.  "I do not understand," he said.  "Some
mistake, I think."  He sat down in a little straight-backed chair near
the washstand and lighted a cigarette, and then he said what all his
people say continuously: "I am so very sorry.  Now I must ask a
question.  I hope you do not mind."

"Does it make any difference if I mind?" I inquired.

He appeared to consider his answer carefully.  "No," he admitted,
"perhaps not.  What I wish to ask is this--did you visit your cabin
last night after dinner?"

"No," I said.  "What of it?"

Mr. Moto blew a cloud of cigarette smoke and smiled apologetically.
"There is no use lying, Mr. Lee.  Please excuse the word."

"Moto," I said, "you shock me."

"I am sorry," Mr. Moto answered, "but were you not in your cabin?"

"You heard me," I said promptly.  "I said no."

I wondered if he would speak of what had happened in the cabin and I
did not have long to wonder.  His opaque brown eyes studied me
cryptically for a moment and then he said:

"The knife was moved."

It reminded me of the old days when we sat about a table playing poker,
with a heavy pile of chips in the center.  I had an idea that Mr. Moto
was bluffing, that he was not entirely sure of my movements for about
five minutes the night before.

"What knife?" I asked.

Again Mr. Moto considered his answer carefully.  "Well," he said, "it
makes no difference.  You remember our conversation yesterday, Mr. Lee?
I have come to get the message."

Then I knew that I had guessed right; they had not found what they had
been looking for.

"What message?" I asked.

"There was a message in your cabin," repeated Mr. Moto politely.  "It
is very important that it should go no further.  You have that message,
I think."

"Do you?" I asked.

"Yes," said Mr. Moto; "will you give it to me, please?"  His tone was
considerate.  Mr. Moto always was a gentleman.

"I told you," I repeated, "that I haven't got a message."

"I'm so sorry," said Mr. Moto.  "If you do not give it to me I shall
have to have men in here to search you, Mr. Lee.  It will be an
indignity that I shall be sorry for.  A very careful search of your
body.  Come--will you give me the message?"

I took a step toward Mr. Moto's straight-backed chair.  "Moto," I said,
"if you call anyone in here to search me, I'm going to break your neck."

Mr. Moto dropped his cigarette into one of those water-filled ash
receivers and reached thoughtfully into his pocket, I believed for his
cigarette case, but instead his hand whisked out with a compact little
automatic pistol.

"I am so very sorry," he said.  "You will stay where you are, Mr. Lee."
And he called out in his native tongue.  At that exact instant that he
called, the door shot open and three stewards filed in silently.

"I am so sorry," Mr. Moto said again, "but you must submit to have them
search you.  Please."

A single glance at the stewards and at Mr. Moto convinced me that any
further argument was useless, for the men all had an air of complete
efficiency written on them which displayed a familiarity with forms of
business not usually practised by steamship employees.

"Very well," I said to Mr. Moto.  "You have entirely convinced me."

He did not answer but he smiled most agreeably and put his automatic
back into his inside pocket.

If I had not been so personally involved in this search to the extent
of losing a good deal of my own dignity, I should have found their
procedure interesting.  I never really knew until then what was meant
by thoroughness.  First they went through my bags again, even going so
far as to pull out the linings.  Then they examined all my clothing and
my shoes, shaking, exploring, touching every seam with their fingers.
While this was going on, two stewards had the cabin carpets up and the
mattress and bedding ripped off to be examined.  I will say that they
were neat about it.  Once they finished, every article was put
carefully back in its place.  The top of my flask was unscrewed and one
of the men probed its contents with a long wire.  For easily half an
hour the cabin was a vortex of silent, lubricated activity.  Each of
the men knew exactly what to do, and in case they did not, Mr. Moto
made occasional gentle suggestions.  Once they had finished with the
room, two of them turned to me.

"So sorry," Mr. Moto said, and they stripped off my pajamas, leaving me
in a state of nature.

"Like a diamond miner in Kimberly, eh--Mr. Moto?" I suggested.

"Believe me," said Mr. Moto seriously, "what we are looking for is
worth more than the Kohinoor, Mr. Lee."

I tried to be indifferent under their prodding fingers and I was
somewhat cheered by Mr. Moto's growing air of surprise and
discouragement.

"So it is not there," Mr. Moto said.  "I am sorry."

"I told you it wasn't there," I answered, "and now do you mind if I put
on some clothes?"

"No, indeed."  Mr. Moto rose and regarded me seriously.  "I am very
much afraid that what I am looking for has been destroyed.  Can you
tell me, Mr. Lee?"

"I can't tell you anything," I answered.

The stewards filed out but Moto paused beside the door.  "I am very
much afraid," he said, "that what I want rests inside you there."  He
tapped his wrinkled forehead.  "If that is so, you must tell me.  You
really must.  We cannot be good fellows about this matter."

"Why not?" I asked.

"Because what I'm looking for," said Mr. Moto softly, "must not go any
further.  Will you think this over carefully, please, and someone will
be in to talk to you later?  I dislike certain parts of my profession
very much.  Now you must stay here while you think, please."  Then Mr.
Moto was gone and I heard the lock on the cabin door click softly.


I do not recollect that I was as much alarmed as I was puzzled, not
having the slightest idea of exactly what Mr. Moto was looking for.  I
could not entirely understand why he was so serious, nor did the
implications of his remarks immediately dawn upon me.  It only seemed
to me incredible that a comparatively harmless person like myself, who,
a few days ago, had nothing but self to think of, should be caught up
in the edges of a completely fantastic snarl.  The only thing I could
think of by the time I had finished dressing was that I must remain
composed.

Now that the door was locked, the air in the cabin seemed still and
oppressive and the walls seemed closer together.  I walked over to the
square porthole and looked out on the shining waters of the ocean,
perhaps twenty feet below, but there was no consolation at the sight of
that blank sea.  Then I tried to open the port, only to discover that
it was one of those sliding windows which one screwed down with a
cranklike implement which fitted into the sill.  That appliance was not
there, however.  It must have been intentionally removed and there was
no way for me to leave that cabin by door or port.  It is curious what
eccentric matters may disturb one's calm.  Nothing upset me as much as
that discovery that I could not open my port, that I could not feel the
air on my face.  It gave me an unreasoning sense of suffocation and
panic, which aroused in me a desire to cry out for help, although I
knew there was no help and that I must take my medicine.  If I had told
Moto frankly everything I knew, I might not have been locked inside,
but I would be hanged before I would tell him.

It must have been an hour later that I heard the lock of my door snap
back with a sound which made my nerves leap strangely.  It was not my
actual situation but the complete uncertainty of what might happen next
that was making me unstrung.  Actually the thing that occurred was the
last that I expected.  The door snapped open and instead of a man that
Russian girl came in.  She wore a blue dress and a sable scarf hung
around her neck.  The wind outside had ruffled her hair, making it look
as warm and chaotic as fire.

She closed the door carefully before she spoke and stood for a moment
watching me with that worldly glance of hers, and I could not tell what
she was--a friend or an enemy--from that glance.

"Good morning," she said.  "Good morning, Casey Lee."

"I begin to think, Sonya," I said, "that I should be happier if I had
never met you.  What are you after now?"

"You," she said, but she did not smile.

"How do you mean, me?" I asked.

Sonya shrugged her shoulders.  "You ought to understand," she said.
"If you can't, please try to think.  Why should I be introduced in
here?  I'm not bad-looking, am I?"  Her throaty voice was like her
looks--mysterious, alluring.  In fact, I had never seen anyone easier
to look at and I told her so.

"Well," she said, "don't you see?  That's why I'm here.  Mr. Moto
thought you might be more likely to tell me about what happened to a
certain message than anyone else.  I think it was rather kind of Mr.
Moto, don't you?  He's not a brutal man."

"You mean you're here to seduce me?" I inquired.

"You'll be reasonable, now, won't you, Casey dear?  It will be so much
better.  We don't want to be unpleasant.  Oh, Casey, please, please,
tell me everything you know--"  It seemed to me that her voice was
unnecessarily loud, before I guessed the reason.  She was speaking so
that someone outside the door might hear, and her actions were
different from her voice, for while she spoke she drew me down beside
her on the edge of the bed.  "Casey," she whispered, "did they hurt
you?"

I shook my head.

"I am thankful," she whispered.  "They didn't see me last night.  And
you didn't tell them.  Thank you, Casey."

I did not answer because her actions were entirely beyond me.  I did
not know whether to suspect her or to trust her.  I put my hands on her
shoulders and looked hard into her eyes.  She returned my glance
without faltering.

"What are you here for, Sonya?" I asked.

"The message," she whispered.  "There must be some message!  I didn't
find it.  They didn't find it.  They think you were down there.  Did
you find anything, Casey?"

I smiled at her, and my thoughts were very bitter, now that it seemed
perfectly clear that she was there to worm something out of me.  "You
tell Mr. Moto to be damned," I said.  "I didn't tell him about you--and
I won't tell anything."

"But do you know," she whispered--"do you know anything?  You must."

"I guess I'm stubborn!" I said.  "I'm not talking, Sonya."

"Casey," she whispered, "please, it isn't that.  He thinks you've
memorized the message and destroyed it.  If that is so, the message
can't go any further.  That's why they murdered Ma."  She paused and
looked at me somberly.  "That's why they're not going to let you off
this boat alive, because this message can't go any further."  Her eyes
held my glance, but her eyes revealed nothing.  I could not tell
whether she was telling the truth nor could I entirely catch her
meaning.

"You mean," I inquired, "that I'm going to be locked in here
indefinitely?"

She shook her head and the gold in her hair danced in curious rays of
light.

"No," she said very softly, "you won't stay on the boat.  Your body
will be thrown overboard.  You will have drowned yourself."

I recoiled from her, edged myself away, and I felt my hands grow cold
and my tongue grow thick.  There was no use in deceiving myself that I
was receiving a hollow threat when I looked at that Russian girl's
eyes.  There was no use in trying to believe that she was incapable of
playing such a part, now that she had spoken.  I remembered her in the
cabin with the knife, and the memory of that, as much as my own danger,
made me sick and dizzy.  I was afraid because I was facing the prospect
of dying in cold blood, but I was more afraid of her.  Pride--for I
suppose synthetic heroes are always proud--made me struggle to conceal
that fear, made me prefer to die then and there rather than have her
know the way I felt and I was determined to tell them nothing.

"So it's murder, is it?" I inquired.

She nodded, as though she found it hard to speak, and I saw her slim
white hands clasp and unclasp in her lap.

"Casey dear," she whispered, "you could call it that.  I should rather
call it a secret agent's life.  If you had lived in my country you
would know.  It's part of the profession.  You must not blame them.
Don't you see, it's the only thing they can do?"

I cleared my throat because her nearness seemed to choke me.

"Casey," she whispered, "there must be some message.  Will you let me
read it, please?"

I grinned back at her, or tried to grin, but my lips were stiff and
cold and my facial muscles seemed cramped by the effort.

"Sonya," I said.  "This business has taught me a good deal.  It's
taught me that there is still something worth dying for.  Go back to
your gang and tell them anything you like.  Then perhaps you'd like to
come back and see that I can die decently.  In the meanwhile, if you
have any decency, you'd better go away."

I had intended to continue further in saying what I thought of her, but
her expression made me stop.  She had grown deathly white.  She was
staring at me as though I had slapped her face.

"Casey," she whispered, "I came here to help you."

"My dear," I answered, "I don't want your help.  It's time I learned to
help myself.  I had nearly forgotten how."

"No," she whispered, "no!"  She had pulled the sables from her neck and
she was ripping at the lining.  "Listen to me!  Please, please listen.
I have nothing to do with this.  I _am_ trying to help you.  Please, I
don't want to see you killed."

"Would it make you any calmer," I inquired, "if I told you I don't
believe a word you say?"

She had pulled something from her furs and was holding it in her hand.
A metal crank for the port window.

"Don't you believe me now?" she whispered.  "This will turn your window
down.  Hide it in your bag.  They won't search again.  They sent me
here, but I'm trying to help you, Casey."

I felt the cold metal in my fingers.

"You don't understand," she whispered.  "I want that message as much as
you.  I did not know about it until I saw that it was Ma.  I don't want
them to have it.  They mustn't have it!"

I passed my hand across my forehead and my face was wet and clammy.
"What's all this nonsense about?" I demanded.  "What is this message?"

She was silent for a moment.  "You won't believe me, I suppose," she
said finally.  "The word is from my father.  Don't ask me any more.  We
can't talk here.  They're only keeping him alive until they get his
papers."

"That's interesting," I said.  "Why don't you tell the truth?"

She raised her hands helplessly.  "It is the truth--it is, if you only
understood the situation."  She rose.  "This is too dangerous.  I must
be going now.  They are listening at the door.  Won't you trust me?
Won't you believe me?  They're going to kill you.  I swear they are.
You're caught in something that's desperate.  They would have killed
you already if it weren't for that American friend of yours--that Mr.
Bloom on this ship.  They don't want him to suspect anything.  You'll
be safe until he leaves at Shanghai tomorrow.  Casey, will you listen
to me, please?  When this ship comes into the river opposite the city,
as it will early tomorrow morning, open that porthole, jump out and
swim ashore.  Throw the crank out when you go, or they'll know I
brought it to you.  If you have trouble, ask for a man named Wu Lai-fu
and tell him what has happened.  Say the name to anyone along the
shore, and then go away and never come back!  Ask Wu Lai-fu to help
you.  He's the only one who will.  I sha'n't see you again, I think.
Good-by--"  She looked younger when she said it.  Her eyes were begging
me to believe her.  She looked unhappy--close to tears.

"Thanks for that window crank," I whispered.  "I'll throw it out."

"And one thing more," her voice was strained.  "Don't eat anything they
give you, Casey Lee.  Hide some of it, as though you had.  Don't touch
anything--do you hear?"

"Thanks," I answered.  Now that she was leaving, I was grateful and I
wanted to show her that I was grateful.  I took her hand, a small cold
hand.  "You weren't meant for this, Sonya," I said.

"No," she answered.  "Neither were you.  God help you, Casey Lee."

I wanted to speak to her again, but she shook her head and opened the
door.  I heard it locked behind her, but she still seemed to be there
in the cabin.  There was a suspicion of that gardenia perfume and the
window crank was in my hand....  Who was she?  I did not know.  What
was she?  I did not know.  But at last I was sure that she had meant
kindly by me, that she had risked more than I cared to consider by
telling me what she had.  What did she mean by her allusion to her
father and his papers?  It was more than I could tell.  Nevertheless,
it added to the sum of knowledge in my possession to an extent that
made me aware that somehow my country was involved, and this suspicion
made me stubborn.  The dead man Ma had asked me to communicate with Jim
Driscoll and I was determined to do it, if I lived.

There is no need to describe the day of waiting, shut in that cabin, or
the night either.  The steward brought my luncheon in and I tucked part
of it away in my suitcase as Sonya had suggested.  At seven in the
evening there was another tap on the door, and in came dinner with a
bottle of champagne.  A visiting card was tied around the bottle,
bearing Mr. Moto's name and four words were scrawled beneath it.  "With
my sincerest compliments."  I left the bottle untouched, but stored
away some more of the food.  No one came to take the tray away.  I was
not disturbed again.  They may have had their reasons for believing
that I could make no trouble after the evening meal.  I lay for a long
while on my bed, listening to the noise of the ship.  I must have dozed
off in spite of myself, for my next recollection was one of smoothness,
and my cabin window was dusky with early dawn.  I stared out for a
while upon a strange world that was different from Japan, teeming with
a patient vitality, serene, in spite of poverty, famine and war--the
world of China.  The ship was running at half speed up a broad river
called the Whangpoo, as I found out later, one of those tributaries on
the watery delta of the great Yellow River, connecting the city of
Shanghai with the sea.  The water flowing past our ship was colored a
thick sedimentary yellow which reminded me of the muddy rivulets one
made in the country as a child, when the frost has left the ground in
spring.  The current, I saw, was swift and the distance from shore was
wide enough to make me doubt my ability to swim it.  The shore itself
was low, with green fields which I learned later were rice fields
squared off by dykes and ditches.  The life on the river was amazing to
a stranger who had never seen the East.  Besides occasional launches
and tugs which might have plied a waterway at home, there were Chinese
junks under sail, moving ponderously under great banks of brown canvas
slatted with bamboo, looking like an illustration from a book--the
relics of another age.  They seemed to be as high in the bow and poop
as the vessels of Columbus, and at the bow of each a pair of painted
eyes made the hulls look like living monsters.  Aboard one of them that
passed near us a crew stripped to the waist was pulling her mainsail
halyard, singing a rhythmic chanty that might have risen from the
capstan of a clipper ship.  I wished I might have been with them there
aboard that junk.  Then, in addition to these sailing vessels, the
river was filled with smaller craft which were propelled by men with
huge sculling oars, and which had deckhouses of matting in their bows.
Now and then one of these boats moved hopefully toward the _Imoto
Maru_, and once I saw the owner picking up refuse with a net.  I only
knew later that I was having a glimpse of a strange side of Chinese
life--the river life of China, and of a river fleet on which men lived
and died without hardly ever stepping onto land.  But that first glance
gave the impression of a land so teeming with humanity that part of
that humanity was pushed into the water.

Even in that gray of early morning I could tell that we were coming to
a country where life was cheap because of its abundance.  A short time
later I saw buildings and wharfs along the shore.  From the size of the
place, this could be nothing but Shanghai and if Sonya was right, it
was time for me to go, provided I wished to live.

I made my preparations quickly, since they were completely simple.
First I shot the bolt on my door, then I kicked off my shoes, took off
my coat, and wrapped my scanty supply of money with my passport inside
my oilskin tobacco pouch.  As I did so, my glance fell on my flask and
I jammed it into my hip pocket also, in the belief that I might need a
drink if I should be cold and tired.  Then, as quietly as I could, I
began opening the port.  Something--I have never known what--must have
made some watcher outside my door suspicious, for just as the window
was halfway down, I heard the doorknob turn and then there was a
knocking.  I did not answer that knock.  No cabin window ever went down
as fast as mine, and a moment later I had wriggled my shoulders through
it and stared into a surge of yellow water.  There was no chance to
dive.  A straight fall of easily twenty feet out of the ship was all
that I could achieve.  Even that fall was not too soon, for when I was
in mid-air I heard a shout which warned me that someone had seen me go.
I struck the water flat with a force that shook me badly, without
shaking my sense entirely away.  Once under water, I stayed until my
lungs were nearly bursting.  Then, when I came to the surface for
breath, I had a glimpse of the ship behind me.  They had seen me.  I
heard shouts and saw men leaning over the rail.  Someone had whipped
out a pistol and I dived for a second time.  When I rose again, the
force of the current had driven me away from the ship--perhaps for a
hundred yards.  I was gasping for breath and struggling with that
current when I saw one of those small boats beside me.  Just as I saw
it, I knew that I would never have the strength to reach the shore, so
I struck out toward it and snatched upward at its side.  Then a wiry
muscular arm reached out and seized my collar, and then another arm.  I
found myself being lifted bodily out of the water, choking.

There was an excited chattering of voices around me.  Shrieks of
children, squawks of chickens, and a grunting of pigs.  I was on one of
those vessels which I had seen following the ship, lying on my back in
a cargo space, looking forward at the entrance of a matting-covered
cabin.  I was surprised at the number of persons on that small craft.
There must have been three generations, all family, there, staring at
me.  An old man with a drooping wisp of gray mustache, bare to the
waist, with ragged trousers, was asking me some question.  Women were
staring at me from under the matting cabin.  Three younger men had
dropped the sculling oar and were shouting excitedly at their elder;
and children, boys and girls in ragged cotton clothes, round-faced,
with dark slits of eyes, seemed to be crawling from every crack.  The
old man was pointing over the side, shouting at me, and I could gather
what he meant by his gestures.  He was preparing to take me back to the
_Imoto Maru_.  I shook my head.

"No, no!" I shouted, but it did no good.  And then I remembered the
name--the name which both Ma and Sonya had mentioned.  I pulled myself
up to a sitting posture, choking a cough.

"No, no!" I shouted at them.  "Wu Lai-fu!"

I have never known three syllables to have such a definite result.  The
old man looked startled.  The younger ones stopped their talking, and
taking advantage of the pause, I reached in my hip pocket and drew out
a handful of money and pointed to the land.

"Wu Lai-fu," I said again.

No masonic symbol could have been more useful.  The old man bowed and
took the money.  The younger ones leaped to the sculling oar and began
working toward the shore.  I staggered to my feet and looked across the

water at the black hull of the _Imoto Maru_.  They had seen what had
happened; an officer on her bridge was shouting at us through a
megaphone, and to my surprise the crew was lowering a boat.  I cupped
my hands and shouted over the water.

"Good-by, Mr. Moto," I shouted.  "Excuse me, please.  I am so very,
very sorry."




CHAPTER VIII

No remark I had made in a long while seemed to me so laden with wit or
gave me greater pleasure.  It was so scintillating from my own
viewpoint that I began to laugh, and to my surprise, that boatload of
strangers began to laugh too, either out of politeness, or because they
had some intuitive idea of what was happening.  At any rate, their
interest in working in toward shore was most intense and gratifying.
The men at the scull were bending at their work, grunting sharply as
their bodies moved back and forth, while the old man stood beside me,
staring at the ship.  Finally he nudged me with his elbow, pointed and
displayed a row of toothless gums.  The lifeboat was being raised
again; with good reason, I think, for we were in the middle of other
small craft by then, all of such conventional pattern that it would
have been hard to have picked us from the rest.  Then the reaction came
over me and my teeth began to chatter, but in spite of my physical
wretchedness, I shall never forget the sights of that early morning,
because they were as unfamiliar to me as though I had arrived upon the
moon.  The boat was being worked into a bay or inlet below a great
modern city whose tall buildings were rising out of the morning mist.
The body of water was jammed so thickly with boats and small craft that
one could walk to shore by stepping from boat to boat, for almost half
a mile, so that the cove had been transformed into a floating city,
where every craft seemed to have a definite place.  The laundry was
hanging out to dry and women were scolding and food was cooking and
babies were squealing wherever one cared to look.  Our boat ran up
along-side some others near the shore and our men made it fast.  Then
one of the young men started to go ashore and I had leisure to look at
the people about me.  We all had an excellent chance to examine each
other, due to an almost complete lack of privacy and inhibition.  The
crews from the other junks and their women and children began to gather
around us until, as I stood there in the hold, I seemed to be in an
amphitheater, surrounded by curious chattering people, yet I always
remember they were friendly enough and even merry.  One of the old
women, who handed me a cup of tea, motioned me inside the matting cabin
to sit down.  Tea never tasted better than the cup I drank there,
enthroned on a pile of rags which were probably filthy with vermin; but
I was in no condition to worry about cleanliness.  The old man was
repeating "Wu Lai-fu" and motioning me to be patient.

I can still see that crowd in my imagination gathered about me in a
gradually contracting semicircle, staring.  Whenever my mind brings
back their faces and rags, an impression of China comes with them which
has never been erased.  Paradoxically, perhaps, in spite of their stark
poverty and evidences of disease and of grinding labor, that impression
has always been one of peace.  It was a peace born of a knowledge of
life and of human relationships.  I could understand why China had
absorbed her conquerors when I watched that ring of faces.  Their bland
patience was impervious to any fortune.  They stood there staring at
me, speaking softly, laughing now and then....

There I was, soaking wet, without other clothes, almost without money,
waiting for something or nothing.  Now that I come to think of it, I
did not have so long to wait, three quarters of an hour perhaps, before
there was a stir in the crowd around me and a young man in a long gray
Chinese gown, wearing a European felt hat, stepped over the side of the
boat.

"You wish to see Wu Lai-fu?" he asked.  His face was lean and
intelligent; he spoke in very good English, with an enunciation better
than my own.  He did not seem in the least surprised to see me sitting
there, dripping wet out of the river.

"Who told you," he asked, "to see Wu Lai-fu?"

"A Chinese named Ma," I said, "on the Japanese boat.  They killed him."

He betrayed no surprise, if he felt any, but my explanation must have
satisfied him.  He waved a hand toward me, a thin hand that emerged
gracefully from the loose gray sleeve of his gown.

"You come with me," he said, and that was all.  We walked from boat to
boat until we reached the shore, without any further explanation.

Once we were ashore there were two other Chinese waiting for us,
dressed, like my companion, in long gray gowns.  One of them moved to
one side of me and the other walked behind us.

"It is all right," the first man said.  "Do not be alarmed.  We will
take you in an automobile.  Here it is."

My next memory was being shown into the interior of a large American
limousine, where I was placed between two Chinese and was looking at
the backs of two others in the driver's seat.  The swiftness of the
whole procedure struck me as disturbing.  Although the car was parked
in a narrow street of shops with Chinese signs, something in the
appearance of my companions gave me an impression of the Chicago
underworld--and a suspicion that I was going for a ride.  No American
chauffeur ever drove faster or more recklessly than that Chinese
driver.  We were off a second later with our horn blowing steadily,
twisting through a labyrinth of streets which might have been in the
moon, for anything I could tell.  The man beside me spoke again,
politely:

"You know Shanghai?"

"No," I said.

"You know China?"

"No," I said.

"Shanghai is a very nice city," he remarked.

As though directly to contradict his statement, something went slap
against the window of the limousine with a sound that made me duck my
head.  The men on either side of me looked interested but not disturbed.

"Do not be afraid," my companion said.  "The glass is bullet-proof.
Someone, I think, does not like you very much."

We must have ridden for fifteen minutes, perhaps longer, through very
crowded streets, when the car drew up before an unprepossessing gate in
a high gray wall.  They must have been expecting us because the gate
opened at the sound of the motor horn and six or seven large-boned,
slant-eyed men stepped out and gazed searchingly up and down.

"What's the matter?" I asked.  "Is there going to be a war?"

My sallow-faced companion smiled slightly.  "There is always something
of a war.  Come, please.  Walk quickly in!"  A second later we were in
a courtyard with low tile-roofed buildings about it that gave one the
idea of an entrance to a prison.  The Chinese who were standing there
had a semi-official, military manner; all of them were large men,
impressively so, after my experiences in Japan.

"What is this place?" I asked.

"You are coming to the home of Wu Lai-fu," my guide answered.  "Will
you please to step this way?"  We walked across the court into a
smaller one and then along a covered gallery into a building on the
right.

I was surprised, when we were inside the building, to find that the
interior was comfortable according to foreign standards.  We were in a
bedroom with teakwood chairs and scroll pictures on the wall, where two
men in white gowns, evidently servants, were waiting.  My guide spoke
to them rapidly.

"You are to bathe and change your clothes," he said.  "There is a hot
bath running for you and they will bring you eggs and fruit and coffee.
We have only Chinese clothes.  You do not mind?"

I was too confused to be surprised or to thank him.  All these
impressions, which had come so suddenly upon me, have made my
recollections of the entrance into that place vague, and nothing seemed
to me strange by then, not the pillars in the courtyards or curving
tiled roofs or marble dragons by the gates.  I only recollect that no
English valets could have waited on me more conscientiously or
correctly than those men.  They helped me into a tiled bathroom and
into a tub of steaming hot water.  Next I was in a silk suit of
pajamas, with a robe buttoned over it, eating an excellent breakfast
with a knife and fork.  I ate in a sort of daze and went through all
the motions of dressing without asking any questions, while the
servants stood attentively by me.  I had just finished my coffee and
one of them had offered me a cigarette from a silver box when my guide
returned.

"Wu Lai-fu will see you now," he said.


I have no coherent idea of the establishment of Wu Lai-fu, but only the
recollection of walking through buildings and through courtyards until
we came to a large room which was part Oriental and part European.  A
blue carpet with yellow dragons was on the floor.  The furniture was
black lacquer.  There were two paintings on silk of old landscapes on
the wall, and a large commercial map of China.  At the end of the room
there was an office desk with two telephones upon it, and a typewriter
stood upon the table beside it.  A middle-aged man sat behind the desk,
with his hands folded in front of him, a Chinese in a plain black robe.
His closely shaved head was partly gray and his face had an ageless,
reposed expression, as though all emotion had evaporated.  The man
might have been forty or sixty--a slim man who looked at me through a
pair of horn-rimmed spectacles like a school-teacher or a scholar.  He
nodded to my guide, who left the room at his nod, closing the door and
leaving me standing before the desk.  This man was not like Mr. Moto.
He showed no anxiety or nervousness, but only a placid calmness.

"I am Wu Lai-fu," the man behind the desk said.  "What is your name,
please?"

"My name is K. C. Lee," I answered.

He did not answer for a moment, but sat with his hands clasped on the
desk.

"I suppose," he said--his English was flawless--"you do not know who I
am?"

"No," I answered.

He smiled, and his whole face broke into arid wrinkles.  "Then I will
tell you," he said.  "Your countrymen say I am the wickedest man in
China.  They say I control various guilds in this city, including the
thieves and prostitutes.  As a matter of fact, I am a merchant, whose
business has connections.  I hope you will tell me the truth, because
if I have the slightest doubt that you do not--and I understand the
faces of you foreigners--if I find that you are lying, I can make you
tell the truth."

His manner was contemptuous, as though he were speaking to a barbarian;
it was the first time that I had the feeling that I was a savage.  I
can never explain, but in some way I had the sense that his race was
vastly older than mine and older even than Mr. Moto's.  I could believe
that the thin ascetic man in his black robe was living in another world
of intellect.

"Are you threatening me, Mr. Wu?" I asked.

"Exactly," the other said.  "I am asking you to tell the truth.  Tell
it quickly, please."

"You have the advantage of me, Mr. Wu," I said.

His hands on the desk moved, but his face did not.  "Yes," he answered.
"So much so that it is my pleasure to be frank.  Some day I hope to see
you and all of your kind driven into the sea."

I felt my face growing red.  "No one asked me here," I answered.  "I
came here as a stranger.  I have always heard of your courtesy, but now
I know that you have bad manners."

Mr. Wu shook his head but he did not smile.  "It seems to me you've
been treated with courtesy," he said.  "You were picked out of the
river like a half-drowned rat.  You were brought to my house.  You were
bathed and fed.  You are standing before me in my clothes.  The lowest
Chinese coolie would have bowed to me and thanked me.  You have not
thanked me, Mr. Lee.  What do you know of manners?"

"I know enough," I said, "not to threaten a guest beneath my roof.  If
I picked you up like a rat, Mr. Wu, I should have treated you better."

"Ah, but you have not a roof," he answered.  "You have nothing.  What
is the English phrase?  You must sing for your supper, Mr. Lee.  Please
sing, because I am busy.  Why did you jump off a comfortable steamer
into our Wangpoo River?"

"Because they were going to murder me," I said.

"Who were?" he asked.

"A Japanese named Moto," I answered.

The thin hands on the desk closed together tighter, but Mr. Wu's
composure was not altered.  "Why?" he asked.

"They thought I had a message from one of your countrymen," I said.
"His name was Ma, and that's all I know about it, Mr. Wu."

Mr. Wu sat for a moment, watching me coolly.  "Where is Ma?" he asked.

"Dead," I answered.  "They killed him in my cabin."

Mr. Wu's lips moved but everything else about him was motionless.
"There are many Chinese lives," he said.  "Where is the message?  I
wish you to tell me promptly--and truthfully--or I shall call on men
who can make you."

I looked at the dragons on the carpet.  The dragons seemed to be
writhing toward me slowly, as it came over me that Mr. Wu wanted the
message too, as poignantly as Mr. Moto wanted it.  I wondered if he
would believe me.  I hoped he would, because he was not bluffing.

"Mr. Wu," I answered, "I have not got that message."

"Ah," said Mr. Wu; "they found it then?"

"No," I answered, "they did not find it.  They thought I had read it
and destroyed it."

Mr. Wu unclasped his hands and tapped a bell beside the desk, and then
the thing that happened has always been hard to believe.  I had to tell
myself that I was Casey Lee, and yet I might have been in the Middle
Ages that next moment.  A door opened behind me at the sound of that
bell and four men walked through it.  Two of them seized my arms, while
two others stood beside them, holding ropes and wooden and iron
instruments.

"And now," said Mr. Wu, "you will tell me what the message is--sooner
or later."

I tried to keep my voice steady.  "I told you," I answered, "I have
never seen that message."  And then I had another thought.  "Before Ma
died--the night before--he spoke to me.  He told me to deliver that
message if he should give it to me, to a commander in our navy.  If I
had it, he should have it--not you, Mr. Wu.  And if I knew that
message, which I don't, you could cut me to pieces before I said a
word."

"I wonder," said Mr. Wu softly, "I wonder--"

"You needn't wonder," I answered.  "Go ahead and try!"

"You are brave," said Mr. Wu softly.  "Savages are always brave."  Then
he spoke to the men and they dropped my arms.  "I think you had better
tell me everything, Mr. Lee--everything from the beginning."  He spoke
again and one of the men moved up a chair.  I dropped into it, because
my knees were weak.

"I will if you give me a drink," I said.

"Drink--"  Mr. Wu smiled slightly.  "So you have a drunkard's courage?
Very well, you shall have your drink."

I gripped the arms of the lacquer chair.  That taunt of Mr. Wu's stung
more than the remark of any prohibitionist.  "Never mind the drink
then," I said.  "I don't need it to talk to you!  Furthermore, I've
been in worse spots than this.  I'm not afraid."

Mr. Wu smiled again.  "Oh, yes," he said; "oh, yes, you are...."  He
was speaking the truth and he knew I knew it.

"Perhaps," I said, "I am, but it doesn't make any difference, because I
haven't anything to tell you."

Mr. Wu leaned back in his chair and folded his arms in his sleeves.
"Now," he said, "you're speaking the truth, and that's what I want--the
truth, and nothing more.  And then we will have no trouble, Mr. Lee."

"As a matter of fact, I should rather like to know the truth myself," I
said.  "I don't understand what's happened, Mr. Wu."

Mr. Wu smiled again.  "And you probably never will know," he answered.
"Why should you?  I am not depending upon your rather turgid intellect.
Who paid you to come here?"

"A Japanese," I answered, "named Moto."

"Ah," said Mr. Wu, "so you've been hired by them, have you?"

The unbiased accuracy of his words made me more keenly aware of what I
had done than I had ever been before.  "I'm not proud of it," I
explained.  "I rather think that's over, since Mr. Moto tried to murder
me."

Mr. Wu leaned further forward across the desk.  "I think you'd better
tell me the circumstances," he said softly.  "How did you meet this
countryman of mine named Ma?  And what was it that Mr. Moto wanted you
to do?"

I could never in my life have believed that anyone like Mr. Wu existed,
but he was completely believable then.  Although I disliked him, I
found myself telling him frankly, with hardly a reservation, what had
happened.  I told him about the visitor in my stateroom.  I quoted our
conversation word for word, while Mr. Wu sat there listening to me,
never moving a muscle of his face or hands.

"So you were in the American navy," he remarked, "and an aviator.  We
are interested in aviation here.  It is one hope for a weak,
disorganized nation.  You are not, by any chance, interested in naval
design, Mr. Lee?"

"No," I said, "not in the least."

"You have never been a naval architect?" Mr. Wu asked softly.  "Or
studied fuel combustion?"

"No," I said.

Although he did not move, I could see that he was taking all my words,
weighing them, polishing them in his mind and working them into a
pattern.  "That is very curious," he said.  "There was a message.  Now
there is no message.  Ma was a very capable man.  He had a sense of
habit and behavior.  I have dealt with Ma."

I sat in front of the desk, and the room was very still while I looked
curiously at the man who sat there thinking.

"You spoke of a Russian," he said finally.  "A woman or a girl?  Tell
me what she looks like, that is, if you possess sufficient powers of
observation."

I described Sonya to him as carefully as I could and for the first time
his placidity left him.  His eyes sharpened and he rubbed his hands
together.

"So she was there," he said, "and she found nothing, also.  That is
interesting, Mr. Lee."  He tapped the bell on his desk again.  I am
free to confess that the sound sent a shiver down my spine, but only a
servant entered at the signal.  Mr. Wu spoke to him in his elusive
language, evidently a question, and then he smiled at me when he got
his answer.  His entire manner changed with his smile.  There was no
cruelty left in him, but instead, the sympathy and anxiety of a host.

"I am asking the man to bring me whisky," he said.  "And I beg of you
to take it.  The trouble is over now.  Sit down, Mr. Lee, and be as
comfortable as you can in your strange clothes.  Some others have been
ordered for you already--the impractical useless garments of the
foreigners, if you will excuse my saying so.  I am intensely
nationalistic, Mr. Lee; intensely racial might be a better expression.
I am proud of my own people and I have seen many of them.  They are
superior to other people.  Do not disturb yourself.  The trouble is
over now--because I have found you have told the truth."

"What are you going to do with me?" I asked.

Mr. Wu raised his thin hand.  "I do not blame you," he remarked, "for
being worried about yourself.  Your face tells me that you have thought
only of self for many, many years.  There is nothing in this world more
unfortunate.  What am I going to do with you?  You must wait and see."
Just as he finished speaking, the servant came back, stepping
noiselessly across the heavy carpet.  The servant said something and
Mr. Wu rubbed his hands again.  His expression had become almost benign
and kind when the servant had finished speaking.

"Do not speak, please, Mr. Lee," he said.  "You must excuse me.  I have
important matters on my mind.  I congratulate you that you have told
the truth.  This girl you speak of--I wish that she were here."

I thanked heaven that Sonya was not there.  "She doesn't know
anything," I said.

"Perhaps I can find out."  Mr. Wu's voice was calm.  He had picked up
one of his telephones and was evidently calling for some number.  He
listened attentively, then he spoke in a singsong cadence, set down the
instrument and rang the bell and gave another order to the servant.

"I will not keep you much longer, Mr. Lee," he said; "only a moment,
please."  His dark narrow eyes were intent, but, as he continued
speaking, I think his mind was somewhere else and he was only speaking
to pass the time.  "You do not know China?  It is a sad country," he
said; "the most exploited country in the world.  The barbarians are
snatching at her again.  The Japanese are barbarians and the Russians--
But we may perfect our own methods some day."

"If the Chinese are all like you, I am sure they will," I said.

"Thank you," said Mr. Wu.  "Unfortunately, they are not all like me."

I heard the door open behind me and then I heard a voice which made me
start--the throaty voice of the Russian girl named Sonya.  There she
was, walking across the dragon carpet, in white with her sables around
her shoulders, a white suede bag clasped under her arm.  I felt those
violet eyes of hers upon me for a moment in a cool guileless glance.

"So he came here safely," she said.

"Yes," said Mr. Wu, "you did very well to send him here."

I found my voice with difficulty.

"Sonya--" I began.

"This was better for you than being killed, Casey," she said simply.

My voice grew sharper as I answered.  "Where do you fit into this
picture, Sonya?"

"Does it make any difference?" she asked me, and there was a mockery in
the way she spoke.  "Haven't you had nearly enough trouble?"

Mr. Wu was smiling.  He was standing up straight behind his desk, his
hands folded beneath his sleeves.

"Yes," he said, "I think you have had enough, Mr. Lee, and I am obliged
to you.  Your clothing will be waiting for you and a sum of money for
your pocket.  You will be taken to your foreign quarter, where no doubt
you can go and drink yourself into a stupor.  If you do not move out of
it, except to take the first boat to your native land, perhaps you will
be safe.  Good-by, Mr. Lee."

"Sonya--" I said again.  I tried to frame some question but hesitated
and stopped.

"Yes, Casey," she said, "now that this is over, I think you had better
take the next boat home.  You were not meant for this.  It is not your
fault."

Even then it amazed me that in my position I should feel angry and
hurt.  It seemed to me that Sonya's manner had something of the
superciliousness of Mr. Wu's.  The door had opened and a white-robed
servant was standing in the doorway.

"Sonya," I said--I spoke to her instead of to Wu--"you think I'm a
fool, don't you?  I don't understand a single thing that's happening
here but I don't like it.  You're not finished with me yet."

Mr. Wu nodded as though my speech had confirmed some thought in his own
mind.

"Foreigners always boast," he said.  "Foreigners always grow angry.
You have no idea how much you are to be congratulated, Mr. Lee, that
you are leaving here in such a pleasant manner.  Now I advise you to
leave at once before you are made to leave more quickly."

I looked at Sonya again.  "Good-by," I said.

I walked out of the doorway with the man in white at my elbow,
assiduous and polite.  I was so much disturbed by the whole affair that
I paid no attention to where we were going.  I felt a deep humiliation
at everything which had happened.  The thinly veiled sarcasm of Mr. Wu
had not been lost upon me.  He thought that I was an irresponsible
drunkard, who had been tossed up by the sea.  There had been a
moment--I could not tell just when--in which his interest in me had
suddenly vanished.  Something inexplicable had happened which had made
me as useless to him as a sucked orange.  He had extracted something
from me without my being able to tell what.  He had been anxious about
that message to the point of trying to extort it and then his anxiety
had waned.  It had waned before Sonya had appeared seemingly out of
nowhere.

That whole scene and that whole place has always been to me like a page
of an Oriental romance, with no bearing on the actual life I have
known.  Perhaps the Orient is all like that.  There may be in every
Oriental a love of involved dramatics and fantasy that is expressed to
us by the pages of the "Arabian Nights."  I do not know about this and
I do not care, because I am only trying to state the actual facts as
they occurred.

Once I was back in the room where I had been dressed, I had a proof of
Mr. Wu's prosperity.  A new and very good European suit, with shoes and
linen, was waiting for me, and even a suitcase with a change of
clothing.  One of the servants explained the appearance of these
articles in English, the first time I knew that he was familiar with
the language.

"You take," he said, "compliments of Mr. Wu.  Mr. Wu he say the motor
wagon waits for you."

Fifteen minutes later I found myself dressed in a gray flannel suit
which did not fit me badly.  One of the men was handing me a gray felt
hat and a cane, the other had lifted my bag and I had turned to leave
the room, when one of the servants spoke.

"Please," he said, "the master has forgotten.  His money and his
flask."  And he handed me my tobacco pouch, containing my Japanese
notes and my passport and my leather-covered flask with the metal cup
in place at the bottom.  I was glad to have my flask, for it seemed
like an old friend, the only link that connected me with a previous
incarnation--a doubtful one perhaps, but one in which I possessed my
own integrity.

I set my hat on the back of my head and tossed a ten-yen note to the
servants.

"All right, boys," I said, "let's go!"

Then there was a walk through that labyrinth of courtyards and I was
out of the gate where that same motor which had conveyed me there was
waiting.  I was inside it with my bag and the gate had closed behind
me.  The car started with no directions of mine, evidently because the
driver had already received his orders.  While I leaned back in the
seat, without interest in the sights I saw, absorbed in my own
thoughts, for the first time in many years I was thinking consecutively
and fast; not of myself, for the first time in years, but of something
more important than myself.  If Driscoll were in this city, and I
recalled that he had spoken of coming here, I knew that I must find
him.  Something was going on of actual importance.  Men did not act as
Moto and Wu Lai-fu had acted without grave cause.  I did not have the
message, but I had sense enough to know that there might be significant
details in my adventure which a man in Driscoll's position could
understand.  Clearly, in some way beyond my knowledge, the interests of
my country were at stake.  It seemed strange to me that I must see
Driscoll.

I had another impression besides these thoughts which I have not
forgotten; that impression came upon me suddenly with the motion of the
motor car, without the interposition of any specific sight or sound.  I
was aware that I was in a strange place where anything might happen,
and believe me, I was right.  I doubt if any city in the world is more
amazing than Shanghai, where the culture of the East and West has met
to turn curiously into something different than East and West; where
the silver and riches of China are hoarded for safety; where
_opra-bouffe_ Oriental millionaires drive their limousines along the
Bund; where the interests of Europe meet the Orient and clash in a
sparkle of uniforms and jewels; where the practical realities of
Western industrialism meet the fatality of the East.  I say I could
feel this thing, and now I only state it as an explanation of Mr. Wu
and of the events which follow.  Believe me, I repeat, anything can
happen in Shanghai, from a sordid European intrigue to a meeting with a
prince.




CHAPTER IX

The automobile took me out of China into a city which might have been
planted there from Europe or America, except for the rickshaw boys and
the Chinese faces on the street.  There were skyscrapers and stone
buildings with all the tradition of the Renaissance, which looked upon
warships from Europe and liners and junks floating on the muddy yellow
waters of the Whangpoo.  I could feel an excitement in the air, as
though history were in the making, as though I were present at the
changing of a world, and I have never forgotten that excitement.  The
car stopped at the door of an excellent hotel, where a doorman in
livery took my bags.  At the sight of my own people, seated drinking at
little tables in the lounge, at the sight of its calm and order (I
remembered that there was even a notice of the meeting of the Rotary
Club posted in white letters on a bulletin board), I felt the security
of things I knew.  Once again I could almost believe that everything
which had happened to me had been a dream.  As I walked up to the hotel
desk, I could hardly conceive that I was the man who had jumped through
the port of a vessel to avoid death, or the man who had been picked up
like a drowned rat, as Mr. Wu had said, from the waters of the
Whangpoo.  The clerk at the desk was handing me a registry card, after
the custom of the best hotels at home.

"Can you tell me," I asked him, "where I can find a naval officer named
Commander Driscoll?"  In the light of everything which I had gone
through, the casualness of his answer did not seem logical.

"Certainly, sir," he answered.  "Commander Driscoll is staying at this
hotel--Room 507.  Do you wish to see him, sir?"  He reached toward a
telephone.  "May I ask the name?"

"Tell him Lee," I answered.  "K. C. Lee, and have my bag sent to my
room."  I heard him speak into the telephone.  The Chinese boy in the
smart uniform of a bellhop bowed to me and pointed to a lift.  I had
not recovered from the unreality of returning to my own world before we
were standing before a room door where the clerk had told me Driscoll
lived.  I knocked and the door opened.  The door opened and seemed to
admit me back again to my own people, for there was Jim Driscoll, heavy
and stocky, standing on the threshold staring at me, and as I glanced
across his shoulder, I saw May Driscoll, Jim's wife.  It seemed a
thousand years ago, before the fall of Babylon, that I had known such
people.

"How did you get here?" Jim Driscoll asked.  "And what do you want
here?"  His manner was neither friendly nor approving.  He was no
longer looking at me as a friend or as a member of his own caste, but
as an unsavory stranger.

"Jim," I said, "I want to talk to you.  Something important, or I
wouldn't be here now."

Driscoll turned toward his wife.  "May," he said, "you'd better go into
the bedroom and close the door."

I heard May laugh.  "Why, Jim," she said, "it's Casey.  Hello, Casey
darling--  Can't I talk to Casey, Jim?"

"No," Jim Driscoll said.  "You heard me, May.  Please go in there and
close the door."  And Jim Driscoll and I stood facing each other in the
parlor of a hotel suite decorated with all the curious lack of taste
which is common to any hotel suite.

"All right," Jim Driscoll said; "what do you want?  Are you drunk or
sober, Lee?"

"Sober, Jim," I said.  "Cold sober."

He laughed shortly.  "Are you?  With a flask sticking out of your
pocket?"

"That doesn't mean--" I began.

"Doesn't it?" Jim Driscoll inquired.  "Not that it makes any
difference, after Tokio."

I tried to keep my temper.  "I want to tell you something," I said.
"Are you in the Naval Intelligence?"

He nodded shortly.  "All right," I continued, "a Chinese told me to
give you a message.  His name was Ma.  He was murdered on the _Imoto
Maru_."

As I was speaking, Driscoll had been pacing in front of me, a habit
which he probably acquired from shipboard; but at the name of Ma he
stopped dead in his tracks.  He stopped and spun on his heel and
puckered up his eyes.

"Ma," he said, as though I were not there.  "That's old Karaloff's
man!"  He closed his hands and opened them and took a step toward me.
"Where did you pick up this bit?" he inquired.  "Are you serious?"

"Yes," I said.  "I'm telling you the sober truth.  I ought to know,
because that man Ma was murdered in my cabin on the _Imoto Maru_."

Jim Driscoll snorted contemptuously.  "The sober truth," he said.
"It's been quite a while since you told that.  How did you get on the
_Imoto Maru_?  The last time I saw you, you were pickled in Tokio.
What got you aboard that ship?"

It was difficult for me to remember that I had come with information
that was more important than my own feelings, because Driscoll's manner
was not conciliating, and I have never been good at restraining my
temper.

"Jim," I said, "I'm taking this from you because this may be more
important than you or I.  You remember there in the hotel, the way I
was talking?  Well, someone heard me.  A man named Moto."

Jim Driscoll swore.  "So that's the play, is it?" he said.  "And what
did this man Moto look like?"

"What do any Japanese look like?" I inquired.  "He was small, almost
delicate.  He wore a morning coat, little feet, little
hands--intelligent, polite.  He could speak English as well as you can.
Patent-leather shoes, a green ring on his finger.  He kept saying he
was so very, very sorry."

Jim Driscoll exhaled a deep breath and moved a step nearer to me.  I
might have been a prisoner being interrogated by the military police.

"By God," said Driscoll, "that's the baby!  Lee, what is your
relationship with that man?  How did he get hold of you?"

"He offered to supply a plane so that I could fly across the Pacific,"
I answered, "for certain considerations.  My tobacco company welched on
me.  There I was."

Jim Driscoll turned his back on me, paced across the room and back.
"You might be a little steadier if you had a drink," he suggested.
"Eh, what, Lee?  Your mind might move along a more even groove.  It
probably takes a drink to give you guts.  All right--"  He opened a
closet door and pulled out a bottle of Scotch and a glass.

"Thanks," I said.  "Are you joining me?"

Jim Driscoll snorted through his nose.  "It isn't my business to drink
with everyone," he said.  "I'm giving you a drink for medicinal
reasons, Lee.  Help yourself."

I pushed away the bottle.  "When I'm through here," I said, "I promise
you I won't trouble you again."

Jim Driscoll laughed.  "That's mutual," he answered.  "And now, so we
can reach that point, perhaps you'll tell me exactly what happened to
you."

I told him; for the second time that night, I told the truth.  And as I
did so, I could not help comparing Driscoll unfavorably with the
black-robed Wu Lai-fu.  Against that other man Driscoll seemed blunt
and stupid and incapable of any act of brilliance.  Although he
listened to me carefully, I wondered if he caught any real significance
in what I said.  I did not believe that anything much registered with
him, to judge from the opinion which he rendered after he listened to
me.  He paced up and down the room again and halted in front of me.

"There's one thing obvious," he remarked; "you can't be trusted."

I felt my self-control leaving me.  "That is hardly fair," I said.

Driscoll smiled with an elephantine sort of politeness.  "Please excuse
me," he answered.  "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings.  Have you got
any feelings left, Lee?  I gather you're a spy in the pay of Japan.
You can't blame me for wondering exactly what your position is.  So you
haven't got the message?  Is that all you came to tell me?"

"I thought maybe you could do something," I answered.  "But, of course,
I was mistaken in that.  You always were a dumbbell, Jim--just one of
the routine people who gets ahead in the Service."  It pleased me to
perceive that my remark nettled him.

"Thanks," he answered, and walked to the room telephone, and called out
a number in the same way he might have signalled the engine room from
the bridge.  "So Wu Lai-fu's in it, is he?  You've got yourself into
pretty company.  All right, I want to see Wu--"  His voice trailed off
and changed into Chinese, as someone answered from the other end of the
wire, reminding me that Driscoll had been a language officer in Peking.
He talked for nearly a minute, unintelligibly, finally turning to me
again when he had finished.

"We'll get this straightened out here and now," he said.  "Wu's coming
here himself.  There must be something in the air to make that fellow
call.  This is serious and we've got to get on with it....  Now this
Russian girl--what did you say her name was?"

"You heard me," I answered.  "Sonya."

Driscoll gazed at me pityingly.  "Who in hell cares about first names?"
he inquired.  "Are you sure you don't need a drink to pull your wits
together?  Use your mind.  What was her last name?"

I tried to think, but my indignation made thinking difficult.  "I'm
trying to think," I replied.  "She told me once--yes, I've got it
now--she told me her last name was Karaloff."

Driscoll's manner changed.  His mouth dropped open and he stood
stock-still.  Whatever the name might have meant to him, I knew it was
important.

"That tears it," he said softly, seemingly to himself.  "It doesn't
seem possible, but I believe it's right," and he began to grin.  "Lee,
you've earned a drink.  By God, that will be Karaloff's daughter!
That's important!  Help yourself!  There's the bottle, Lee."

I pushed the bottle away.  "Not your whisky," I said.  "Who's the old
man?"

Driscoll laughed again.  "If you don't know, it won't hurt you," he
answered.  "I'd sooner tell a secret to a microphone than talk to you.
But listen, Lee, I want to ask you a favor."

"Can you advance any reason why I should do you a favor under the
circumstances?" I asked him.

Driscoll answered earnestly.  "Not for me," he said.  "I'm asking you
in behalf of the land where you were born.  In the hope that you have a
drop of patriotism left.  That girl must like you, Casey, if she tried
to save your life.  If she likes you, that's something we can use."
And he began to pace the floor again.

"What?" I asked.

"We want this message," Driscoll said.  "It's strange, the agencies
which shape events.  It just happens that you have blundered into
something through the elements of chance.  It may interest you to know
that a phase of this business may concern the entire balance of power
on the Pacific.  Or does it interest you to know?"

"Isn't that your occupation?" I inquired.  "Isn't that why you get a
cut out of our income taxes?  Aren't you a public servant?"

Driscoll ignored my remark.

"Casey," he said, "that girl knows something.  We don't know what.  We
have no real way of reaching her, but you can."  He looked toward the
closed door of his bedroom, where he had sent his wife.  "You have a
way with the ladies.  They all love aviators.  I ought to know.  Now
listen to me, Lee.  A woman is always the weak link in such an affair
as this.  She can pry the secrets from the diplomat, and the gigolos
can get the secrets from the ladies.  You get my idea, Casey?"

"No," I said.

Driscoll became patronizingly patient.  "Excuse me for being subtle,"
he apologized.  "Let us come down to words of one syllable.  Sex
appeal, Casey.  It's clear the girl likes you.  Well, cultivate her
acquaintance.  Gain her confidence.  You know her.  There's an easy and
elemental way to do it with which you are familiar.  And when,"
Driscoll smiled, "when you've gained her confidence, when she can't
bear to exist without you, ask her about her dear old father.  Find out
what she knows about the message and work fast, Casey."  He looked at
the bedroom door again.  "I know you're a fast worker."

"And then what do you want?" I asked.

"I want you to trot around here and tell me what you've found.  Do you
want money for entertainment?  I can help you out."

First it had been Moto, then Sonya, then Wu Lai-fu, and now Driscoll,
all asking for that message.  I still could only half believe what I
had heard.  I could only half believe that this man was the same
Driscoll I had known in the old days.  It was not conceivable that he
could think me capable of such an action.

"Jim," I said, "you don't mean that, do you?"

Driscoll looked puzzled.  "Don't be a damn fool," he said.  "I may have
ridden you, Casey, but you deserve to be ridden.  This is serious, and
I want you to believe it is serious.  Go out and get that information
from that girl!"

I was still incredulous.  "Jim," I asked him, "do you honestly think I
will?"

But he was in deadly earnest.  He reached out a hand and took me by the
shoulder.

"We're not talking about honor, Casey," he said.  "There's no honor in
this business.  This isn't Lady Vere de Vere's drawing room.  We're
dealing with realities and not with any code of chivalry.  That belongs
in another incarnation, but not in the Intelligence Service; that's a
fact which is recognized by everyone in the game.  Now, Casey, this
business has been worrying us for months.  We've heard rumors of it
through our own sources of information.  We must get this straight, if
we can, no matter what it costs, and you look like our one white hope.
I'd go to Wu Lai-fu, but he may swing away from me if he knows too
much.  You've got to get that girl and bring her into camp."

I struggled with my thoughts again and asked him:

"Is that message so important?"

He moved impatiently.  "It's damned important, more important than you
or me or any neurotic little Russian skirt."  He drew a wallet from his
pocket and tossed five hundred dollars in Chinese bills on the table.
"There you are.  That'll pay your expenses.  Get going, Don Juan!"

I looked at the money on the table and back to Driscoll, who waited
expectantly, his face molded into the familiar lines of service and
duty; and that face was like a mirror, because his opinion of me was
reflected in his eyes.  His expression resembled the revelation which
had come over me that night aboard the boat.  I knew that I had come on
a long rough road, but I had never completely visualized the end of it
until then.  That he should think me capable of such a combination was
what hurt me most; and yet he must have had his reasons; and Driscoll
was no fool.  He had made his request after observing my appearance and
my conduct, obviously thinking that the matter would be simple and that
I would willingly agree.  I can remember every detail of that tawdry
sitting room--the label on the whisky bottle, the empty glass, the
cigarette butts in the ash tray, a lace shawl on an untidy sofa,
Driscoll's white-visored cap tossed upon the table.

"All right," I said, "I'll try to get your message."

I saw Driscoll smile with artificial heartiness.  "That's the boy," he
said.  And then his expression changed.  I moved closer to him and he
must have seen something in my face.

"But not that way," I said.  "Listen to me, Driscoll.  I'm talking to
you now.  I came here of my own free will to tell you something, and in
return you've made a proposal which I do not like.  You don't know this
girl."

I did not know why I was so angry until I made that speech.  It was not
on account of myself, but because of her.

"Wait a minute!"  Jim Driscoll's face grew red.  "You don't understand
this game."

"No," I said, "and I don't want to understand it.  You may be an
officer, but you're only a gentleman by act of Congress.  If that
message is in existence, I'm willing to try to get it my own way, and
when I get it, Driscoll, you can have it--and to hell with the whole
lot of you!  I'm not a gigolo--not yet."

Driscoll opened his mouth and closed it.  "Don't be a damn fool," he
said.  "What are you going to do--make a noble speech?"

Then something snapped, and I lost my self-control.

"I'll show you what I'm going to do," I answered.  "That girl's worth
any ten of you, Driscoll.  At any rate, she saved my life, and you can
keep your hands off her."

I drew back my own hand almost without consciousness and brought my
palm across his face.

It is amazing sometimes how an act like that will clear the air.  I had
never intended to take such an action; and the thing which impelled me
was entirely beyond my own control.  Now that it was over, I think that
I was more surprised than Jim Driscoll.  His lips, by some sort of
reflex, drew back in a stupid grin.

"You don't think I'm going to stand here and take that?" he said.

"Have it your own way," I answered.  "You got what was coming to you,
and you know what to do if you want some more."

Driscoll rubbed his hand across his cheek.  It was interesting to see
the effort he made to control his anger.

"We can't go on with this here," he said, "and you probably know it.
We'll have to wait till this is over, Casey.  I told you--you and I
don't matter in this business and maybe this will prove it to you."

It did prove it in a way.  I even found myself admiring Driscoll for
his self-control.

"Just the same," I answered, "what I said goes and you'd better know
it."

"You've been damned obvious," said Driscoll.

"I hope so," I answered.  It is useless to speculate where this might
have led us, since, fortunately perhaps, a tap on the door interrupted
us and Driscoll's anger left him.

"That's Wu," he whispered.  "Straighten yourself out and snap into it!"
And he opened the hall door.

It was Mr. Wu, right enough.  He still wore his black silk gown and he
was holding a brown felt hat in his hands, bowing humbly.

"The honor is so great that it makes me afraid," he said.  "You have
summoned me, Commander Driscoll?"

Driscoll nodded.  "Do you mind if we don't go through all the
courtesies?" he inquired.  "And come straight to the point?"

Mr. Wu set his hat down on the table, thrust his hands inside his
sleeves and nodded.

"If you do not care for the amenities, we need not have them," he said.
"I can be as direct as you.  So you've seen this countryman of yours."
His eyes moved toward me thoughtfully.  "That is very good.  It was my
belief that he would come here."

"Was it?" said Driscoll.  "You are very astute, Mr. Wu."

"Oh, no," said Mr. Wu and shook his head.  "It is only that my people
are an old people living in a land so crowded that it has made us
familiar with personal relationships.  I guess that you are bothered
about a certain message.  This man has naturally told you of it.  Do
you think it perhaps has to do with the matter we have spoken of?"

Driscoll looked at him earnestly.  "I know it has, Wu," he said, "and I
know that you can help me if you want.  You came to me a while ago to
open negotiations, so I hope we are still working together.  What do
you know about this message?"

Mr. Wu's expression was studiously blank, but there was a sardonic
glint in his eye; and then his lips twisted superciliously.  "Yes," he
said, "it is true that I did come to you, a while ago--but only as an
agent.  I am sorry that I cannot help you any longer, Commander
Driscoll.  I have myself to think of, and now I have decided to take
the matter into my own hands.  There are so many others interested who
may pay better.  England perhaps, or Russia perhaps."

"Look here," Driscoll's face grew red, "you came around to me."

Mr. Wu's hands moved out of his sleeves, thin placating hands.

"I did," he answered, "but if you have thought that I was exclusively
your servant in this, that was a misunderstanding.  I find it better to
be by myself just now."

For a second time Driscoll seemed to find it difficult to keep his
temper.  "By God," he said, "you've double-crossed me, Wu!"

Mr. Wu looked amused.  "You put it very crudely," he said.  "I simply
approached you some time ago.  I have given you my word about nothing."

Then I began to laugh.  Without knowing exactly what was passing, it
was clear enough that Mr. Wu had been a match for Jim Driscoll, and in
some way he had extracted something from him and then had left him flat.

"I was afraid you wouldn't be any good, Jim," I told him, "and now I
know it.  Mr. Wu has got you in a hole, hasn't he?  Good-by, Jim.  You
must excuse him, Mr. Wu.  He isn't very bright."  I clapped on my hat
and had started for the door before I had another thought.  "I don't
know China or the Chinese, Mr. Wu," I added, "but I know one thing that
probably works here the same as it does anywhere.  You're too pleased

with yourself.  Even if you are, it never pays to show it."  It seemed
to me that Mr. Wu's expression grew sharper, and he might have replied
if I had given him a chance to answer, but I did not.  Instead, I
walked into the hall, leaving Mr. Wu and Driscoll to talk as they
pleased.

In spite of Mr. Wu's skill at dissembling, I was more sure than ever
that there had been a change in him.  That change had occurred when I
was talking to him at his house.  Mr. Wu knew something which none of
us knew and he was very much pleased by his knowledge.




CHAPTER X

I went and sat awhile in my own hotel room because I wished to be alone
and to think.  The room, completely European in its furnishings, looked
over the tramcars and automobiles and crowds and turbaned policeman of
Nanking Road.  But all those foreign sights and sounds are blurred in
my memory, only forming a hazy disturbing background which simply
served to make my thoughts unpleasant.  In my heart, I knew that the
words I used to Driscoll could not be backed up by any action of mine.
On the contrary, everything which Driscoll had said of me was true.
What was going to happen to me when my money ran out, I wondered.  Now
that I had broken with Mr. Moto, there would be no Pacific flight, if
he ever really meant it.  There was some hope that Sam Bloom might find
me something on some flying field, but this hope was vague enough.  As
far as finding anything about the message, it was entirely beyond me.
I knew I was as close to being finished as I had ever been in my life.
I knew it better when I went up to the dining room for lunch.  It was a
large ambitious dining room with snow-white tables and crystal
chandeliers and an orchestra.

There was a superficial gaiety in that place which had a feverish
quality of unreality.  All the Europeans in Shanghai seemed to be
gathered at lunch, each trying to forget something--thick-set business
men from their offices and banks, a majority with the heavy faces of
confirmed drinkers; naval officers and business men's wives and
officers' wives, who all probably knew too much about the private lives
of everyone else.  There was a furtive undercurrent of gossip and
intrigue, combined with an exiled loneliness, resulting from a thousand
longing thoughts of home.  I could believe that no one there was happy,
that no one was entirely at ease.  At any rate, the atmosphere served
to intensify my own restlessness.  I was glad to go back to my own room
again, in spite of my having no real reason to go there.  I had no
reason to do anything, and it occurred to me that I had never had much
for anything I did.

This mood of mine probably intensified the surprise I felt to find that
a letter for me had been pushed under my door during the interval I had
been away.  It was a square blue envelope, which carried my name in a
bold, woman's handwriting.  There was a scent of gardenia from the page
when I opened it that seemed to me needlessly strong.  The note read:


Casey dear, I cannot leave you the way we left.  I am so worried as to
what may happen to you because I think you know my deep interest.  I
must see you--I must--about something which will help you very much.
Something about you and me.  Will you come please to the Gaiety Club
tonight?  At half-past nine o'clock?  Ask the manager to show you to my
table.  I need you, Casey dear.  You mustn't fail me--please.  And
bring your flask.  The liquor is not good there.  That's a darling.

Sonya.


I put the note down and lighted a cigarette.  My first impression was
that its contents were too tawdry and banal to be in keeping with what
I had understood of Sonya's character.  It was more like a
streetwalker's effusion than a note which she might have written.
There was no subtlety or restraint in its appeal.  It was the sort of
note--I paused and extinguished my cigarette--exactly the sort which
might have been written to bait a trap.  It was no compliment to me
that she should have paid so little respect to my intelligence; or Mr.
Moto, for I suspected that Mr. Moto's hand was in it.  The whole
composition exhibited the clumsiness of someone trying to appeal to the
psychology of another race.

It made me ashamed that I had stood up for Sonya, because the writing
was an indication that Driscoll had been right; that chivalry did not
count.  Mr. Moto must still believe that I knew something, and Driscoll
believed that Sonya knew something.

It may have been a strange occasion on which to have felt grateful, but
nevertheless my sensation was one of deep gratitude, because I had been
given a chance, at last, a definite chance for positive action.
Slender as that chance might be, and I was under no illusions on that
score, now that I had the invitation, I was in a position to make a
decision of my own, instead of following, as I had until then, the
drift of events.  If I answered that invitation, I had the possibility
of finding what lay at the bottom of this business.  It was my only
opportunity.  If I could once reach Sonya, I would not leave her until
I knew.  What?  I could not guess what.  I could not even decide upon a
course of action, but I did not have much to live for.

I had my hands on something tangible at last, something which could be
played to the limit.  I would show them that I was better than they
thought I was.  I had been in tight places before that.  If it cost me
my life, as it probably would, I was determined to go to the Gaiety
Club, wherever it might be, and see the game out to the finish.  I did
not care if I was completely alone; I had been alone before.

For a little while I played with the idea of telling Driscoll, but I
did not tell him.  In some way, I knew that my vindication lay in doing
this alone.

It was half-past two in the afternoon by then.  In seven hours I would
be in a place called the Gaiety Club.  In eight hours I might be dead.
In the meanwhile I needed rest, so I took off my coat and lay down and
tried to sleep.

At about five o'clock my room telephone rang.  There was a Mr. Bloom, I
was told, who wished to see me and I said to send him up.  I was glad
to see Sam Bloom, simply from a desire to see a friendly face, but I
had no wish to have Sam Bloom know or become involved in anything I
proposed.

"Listen, boy," said Sam Bloom, "what happened to you today?  What
happened on that ship?  You needn't tell me--there was something wrong,
I've been looking for you everywhere.  Say, I began to think--what
happened?  You can tell me."

"Never mind," I said.

Sam Bloom sat down heavily and scowled.  "I'm a friend of yours," he
told me, "and I know more about this place than you do.  I know you're
mixed up in something.  You'd better tell me what's the matter."

But I told him that I couldn't.

"None of my business, what?" said Sam.  "Is it as bad as that?  You
don't want any help?"

I thanked him and told him I didn't and Sam Bloom flicked a card over
to me.

"I'm not butting in," he said, "but in case you want anything, here's
where I'm staying.  All right, I'm not inquisitive; but is there
anything you want to know?  I know this town."

"Do you know a place called the Gaiety Club?" I asked.

Sam Bloom whistled.  "A tough joint," he said, "in the Chinese City; a
dancing place.  You don't want to go there, Casey."

"Thanks," I said.  "Do you know a man named Wu Lai-fu?"

Sam Bloom whistled again.  "Are you mixed up with that baby?  Everyone
knows Wu.  He wouldn't seem real anywhere else in the world.  He's in
secret brotherhoods.  He's got a finger in politics.  He's mixed up in
everything.  I don't believe any white man alive can make him out.  He
started out as a boy on a junk and then he was a houseboy in a
missionary family.  And then some Chinese official became interested in
him.  Don't you have anything to do with that baby!  You don't think
I'm butting in, do you?"

"No," I said.  "I'm obliged.  Have you got a gun you could give me?"

He reached inside his coat and unstrapped a shoulder holster.  "It's a
nice gun," he said.  "If you use it, remember it throws a little high."
He looked at me and held out his hand.  "You and I have been around.
You know your business, Casey.  If you don't want to tell anything
more, don't.  If you want me later, there I am.  Good luck!"

"Thanks, Sam," I said again.  I was more moved by his impersonality
than I could have been by any warmer interest.  Sam and I had been too
long in a world where anything might happen.

"Maybe it wouldn't be healthy for you if I were hanging around," he
suggested.

"Same to you," I answered.

"I'm not backing down," said Sam.  "Do you want company at the Gaiety
Club?  I'm pretty good at dancing."

"No, thanks, Sam," I said.

"Well," he said, "so long!"

"So long, Sam," I said.  I think both of us were quite sure that we
would not meet again.


A Chinese city even as Europeanized as Shanghai is a peculiar place at
night.  It is filled with sounds strange to a foreigner--of street
crowds, falsetto voices, and of high stringed music that strikes a
rhythm different from our own.  Even above the blowing of the motor
horns--and every Chinese driver seems to keep his hand on the horn
unceasingly--there is the padding of feet of rickshaw runners.  This
background of sound confuses itself with my recollection of the Gaiety
Club.  I think of running slippered feet and of unfamiliar enunciation;
of lights and banners before shops which display unfamiliar wares--the
goods of old China mingling with Japanese and English and American
novelties.  I think of a China meeting the impact of the West and
somehow absorbing and changing the West to conform to its ancient
culture.  At any rate, until the hired motor set me down in front of
the Gaiety Club, everything was unfamiliar.

It was left for the Gaiety Club to demonstrate how amazingly American
taste and culture have penetrated the East.  The club was on the second
floor of a semi-Europeanized building, and, in spite of its distance
from its prototypes, it might have been a second-rate Sixth Avenue
cabaret, except for the Asiatic faces of the dancers.  There was the
same dance floor in the center of a dimly lighted room.  There were the
same circles of tables about it, clustered too closely together for
comfort.  In the same mingled auras of perfume, liquor and cigarettes
the orchestra was playing the same jazz music.  A crooner, even, was
rendering through a megaphone a ridiculous imitation of a negro voice.
The men, nearly all of them Orientals, were in European clothes.  The
Chinese girls wore beautiful long gowns which fitted their figures
closely and seductively.  A Chinese boy took my hat, and a man,
evidently the manager, a fat heavy Chinese, met me at the head of the
stairs, bowing and smiling as though he were on the lookout for me.

"Miss Sonya's table," I said.

"Yes, please," he answered courteously.  "Miss Sonya, oh, yes, she is
waiting."

I stood a second on the threshold of the room, pulling at my tie, in
order that my hand might be near the shoulder holster, for I suspected
that anything could happen at any time.  The music continued, waiters
moved from table to table with drinks.

"This way, please," said the fat Chinese, and we walked into the
vitiated air of the Gaiety Club, threading our way between the tables.

Then I saw Sonya seated by the edge of the dance floor at a small round
table for two.  I had never seen her looking so beautiful.  Her evening
dress was violet, like her eyes.  Her bag lay on the table before her.
She looked surprisingly young.  Her figure beneath the festoons of
paper flowers was that of a girl in her teens.  When she saw me, she
waved and smiled.

"Casey, dear," she said.  "How prompt you are!"

"Always prompt for you, Sonya," I said.

"Come," she said, "come sit close beside me.  That is, unless you want
to dance."

The orchestra was playing "The Last Roundup", old, to be sure, to
anyone from the States, but perhaps still a novelty in Shanghai.  I
listened to the artificial syncopation and thought how far a roundup
was from there.

"I'm going to my last roundup," the Chinese singer said through his
megaphone, "my last roundup" ... and I held Sonya in my arms.  There
never was a more perfect dancer.  Her hair was brushing my cheek.  Her
lips were close to my ear.

"Whose roundup?" I asked her.  "I got your note.  Do they mean mine?"

She laughed as though I had said something casual and amusing and then
I heard her whispering in my ear.

"You fool--what brought you here?  I tried to make my note show that
you shouldn't come.  Casey, I thought you'd understand!"

"I understood," I whispered back and held her closer.  "And that's
exactly why I'm here.  You're going to see a lot of me tonight."

"Casey," she whispered, "they're going to kill you."

"I thought so," I whispered back.  "And you're putting the finger on
me, aren't you, Sonya?  Well, try--but you won't get away from me."

"Casey," she answered, "I can't--I can't let them kill you."

"Then what did you get me here for?" I asked.  "You sent that note,
didn't you?"

"Be careful," she whispered.  "They're watching us.  Try to laugh--try
to smile.  You might--even try to kiss me, Casey."

The idea amused me.  I tried and she drew her head away.  I've never
heard anything more genuine than her laughter.

"I'm going to my last roundup," the Chinese was shouting again,
"roundup."

"Casey," she whispered, "please, I had to send that note, but I made it
obvious enough.  He thinks--he thinks you have it on you, Casey--that
message."

"Who thinks?" I asked.

"Moto," she whispered.  "Casey, I ought not to tell you this but I
can't help it.  Why were you dull enough to come?  I shall have to help
you now.  Casey, we're going back to the table.  Then I've been told to
leave you.  As soon as I do, a fight is going to start.  The lights are
going out.  What are you going to do?"

"Find out what this is about," I answered.  "It was the only way I
could think of to see you again."

Now that the program was laid before me, I was not particularly
alarmed, because the unknown is what is most alarming.  "You'd better
understand me.  I thought this was set for a killing, but I came to see
you.  I came to find out what all this is about and you're not going to
get away from me this time, Sonya."

She laughed again, that ingenuous careless laugh, and moved closer into
my arms.  "We haven't time to argue," she whispered.  "But I'll promise
you this--I'll swear that I'll be waiting for you in an automobile in
the street.  Don't try to leave by a door.  Go out a window; don't go
down the stairs.  Remember, nothing has happened.  Look as though you
loved me, Casey."

I tried to laugh.  I tried to talk about something else and then the
music stopped.

"I'll see you later, Sonya," I whispered.  "I give you my word for it."
And we walked back to the table.  "Sonya," I said, "you're beautiful."
And we sat down beside the dance floor.

I believed what she had told me--that she would help me.  She kept
talking to me gaily.  I never could remember about just what, but once
she said beneath her breath:

"You'd better look around you, Casey.  I'm going in a minute."  She did
not need to tell me.

There was a waiter standing near us who looked as heavy as a wrestler.
His face was dull and clay-like and his hands were not made to handle
trays of dishes.  On either side of us and just behind us were three
tables where only men were seated.  All of them were Japanese.

"Waiter," I said, and he moved toward me, "get me a bottle of
champagne."  I felt better when the bottle was on the table.  I raised
my glass and smiled at Sonya.

"Happy landings," I said, and added softly, "I believe you'll be
waiting for me.  I want to see you, if I get out of this."

She rose and said, "Will you excuse me for a moment?"

And I rose also and bowed.  Then I sat down again, alone at my table,
the fingers of my left hand playing with the bottle, my right hand
moving up and down over my necktie.  I tried to look deeply interested
in the dancers.  The music had started up again as I sat there waiting.
Seconds and minutes drag at such a time, but, after all, I did not have
so long to wait.

Voices in one corner of the club were growing louder, like sounds
offstage.  It flashed across my mind that the plan for my elimination,
as Sonya had outlined it, was not a bad one; indeed it would cause
scarcely a ripple of excitement if it were handled right.  It would
simply appear the next day that K. C. Lee, once a well-known airman,
who had fallen on hard times, had been killed in a nightclub brawl.  It
would be a natural comprehensible epitaph to nearly everyone who knew
me.  I had been mixed up in enough free-for-all fights before to have
some idea of looking out for myself, and this was my only hope,
combined with my knowledge of what was due to happen.

The noise from the far corner of the Gaiety Club grew louder.  There
was a shout and a table crashed.  Since I fully understood that there
would be no use fighting my way toward the stairs because they would
expect me there, I was trying to get the plan of the Gaiety Club and
the disposition of its patrons clearly in my mind.

I was hemmed in by men on three sides, by tables.  A glance over my
shoulder showed me that the heavy waiter was just behind my chair,
probably waiting to fall on me or to knock me over from behind.  He was
by far the most dangerous element in the picture.  For the rest, it
seemed to me they had made a tactical mistake in seating me next to the
dance floor, because my way across this floor was clear to a row of
tall shuttered windows just to the right of the orchestra.  I gauged
the distance carefully, for by that time there was no doubt that Sonya
was correct.  Pandemonium was breaking loose in the Gaiety Club.  I
gathered my feet under my chair, waiting, and then the lights went out.

I do not believe they knew I was ready, and this, combined with the
quickness of my reflexes, probably saved my life.  At the instant the
lights went, I did three things: I kicked my own table hard in the
direction of one of the tables near me, I threw the champagne bottle
straight at where the faces had been at the table to my left, and
hurtled backwards with all my weight, chair and all, into the Chinese
waiter's stomach.  I must have hurt him, because I heard him scream as
we went down, but I managed to roll free of him just as we touched the
floor, and I had out Sam Bloom's gun by the time I had gathered my
knees beneath me.  Then I fired three shots fast and bounded to one
side.  There is nothing worse than staying in the same place when you
are shooting in the dark.  Then, as I started to run, they must have
guessed where I was going.  I heard a voice rising above the others,
shouting out some order, but I maintained my sense of direction and
kept my wits about me.  I pride myself that I kept my wits about me so
completely that the whole affair, in spite of its tumult and darkness,
remains with me in a sort of geometric exactitude.  I made a dive
across the dance floor, bending low, slithered against a table and
plop! into someone's arms.

An arm went behind my back and a hand clamped on my throat.  There was
no time for amenities just then, because it was my life or the man's
who held me.  I presented my automatic at his middle and pulled the
trigger.  He dropped free of me and I plowed on through a clatter of
glass and dishes, and just then the lights went up, giving me a
momentary picture of the Gaiety Club which looked as though a tornado
had struck it.

I was just beside one of the windows.  Two men across the dance hall
were swinging automatics in my direction and in another split second
they would probably have got me as easily as I might have hit a pipe in
a shooting gallery.  There was only one thing left for me, as there had
been all along--to hope that the window was flimsy and that there was a
street outside not too far below.  I took a shot across the dance hall.
Then I dove into the window, straight through it, frame and all.  I
could see the dusky blackness of the street just as I lost my balance
and went pitching out the window.  I was very lucky in my landing in
that I struck the street on all fours.  Though the impact was bad
enough to make me groggy, my instinct made me run for the shelter of
the side of the building.

"Casey!"  I heard Sonya's voice call me.  "This way, Casey!"  I saw a
closed motor with its door open.  I heard the engine running as I
staggered toward it.  I think Sonya must have pulled me inside, because
I have not much recollection of getting there.  The automobile was
tearing very fast along the street.  Sonya's arm was around me, her
hand moved gently across my face.

"Casey," she was asking, "are you hurt?  You must be hurt."

I tried to answer conscientiously, but I was in no condition to take
stock of myself.

"Sonya," I said, "they didn't do that very well.  They thought I'd be
too easy.  And now I think we're going to have a little talk.  That's
what I came for, Sonya."

"Casey," she was touching my right shoulder--"you're bleeding!  They've
shot you!"

I had felt nothing, because one feels little at such moments.

"All right," I said, "they had a damn good chance"--and Sonya seemed
used to such matters.

"Quickly!" she said.  "Take off your coat!"  The car was still going at
high speed through dim streets, but there was enough light to see that
my left arm was bleeding badly.  Sonya ripped back the sleeve of my
shirt, which was soaked with blood.

"There," she said, and I said:

"Thanks.  Tear off a piece of my shirt and tie it tight.  That's a good
girl, Sonya."  I must have been in pretty bad condition, but she acted
like a nurse in an emergency ward.  The bleeding stopped when she tied
my arm up tight.  She leaned forward and spoke to the driver.

"Well," I said, "what next?"

"I'm stopping to buy you an overcoat and a new hat," she explained.
"People mustn't see you this way, Casey."  The car had stopped before a
half-Chinese, half-European clothing store.

"Stay here," said Sonya.  "I won't leave you, Casey."

I did not notice very much what happened for the next few minutes.
Then she came back with a hat and cheap overcoat and bundled it around
me.

"Where are we going now?" I asked.  I trusted her absolutely then, if
for no other reason than because there was nothing else to do.

"We're going to your hotel," she said.  "It's nearly the only place
where we can be safe, I think."  Her voice caught in half a sigh and
half a laugh.  "I've burnt my bridges, Casey.  They'll know I got you
away.  They'll know I warned you.  You and I are outlaws, now."

"Are we?" I asked her.

"Yes," she said, and I took her hand.

"All right," I said, "as long as you're one too.  Will it be possible
at the hotel?"

My question made her laugh again.  "You have American ideas.  I don't
think they'll bother much.  You can say that I'm your wife.  Let me
wipe your face clean.  And put that pistol in your pocket."

I had forgotten the pistol, but there it was, still grasped in my right
hand.




CHAPTER XI

I suppose they thought at the hotel that I was drunk.  I might have
been, for all that I remember.  Sonya steadied me like a capable nurse
and locked the door.  I put the automatic on the bureau and wriggled
out of my overcoat and found myself staring at my image in the mirror.
There was no doubt that I had been through the mill.  There was a gash
on my scalp that was still bleeding.  My shirt had been stripped off
me.  A sleeve of my coat was torn and bloody.  My trousers were ripped
at the knees.

"Casey," Sonya said, "you look dreadfully."

"You're right," I answered, "but you don't, Sonya."  My hand touched
something in the side pocket of my coat.  I pulled it out with my
flask.  "I'll feel better, maybe," I said vaguely, "if I have a drink."

"You'll feel better," Sonya said, "if you let me wash you, Casey," and
turned me gently around.  She was looking at me respectfully.  "There
are not so many people who could have left the Gaiety Club tonight,"
she said.  "And I know what I'm talking about."

"Yes," I said soberly.  She was standing beside me, as untouched and
unmoved by what had happened as though it were all a part of her life.
"I'm afraid you know too much," I said, and ended with an inconsequent
question:

"Are you glad they didn't get me, Sonya?"

Her answer was simple, entirely devoid of emotion.

"Do you think I'd be here, if I weren't?  I never thought that I should
allow sentiment mix itself with this.  I shouldn't have.  It may be the
end, perhaps, but I don't seem to mind.  I've seen members of my own
family shot like dogs, but I couldn't let them kill you, Casey.  It was
too ugly, I think, with me a part of it.  You'd better lie down, Casey.
I'm going to fix your arm."

There comes a time when events are moving so fast that one's mind
becomes immune to new impressions, which I suppose is the reason that
everything seemed natural.  I could not think it was odd that Sonya and
I should be there alone.  It was what I had wanted.  It seemed
inevitable that we must reach some final understanding.  Who was she?
What was she?  I knew that I would find out that night.

I stood there, holding my old flask.  The leather case was as battered
as myself.

"If you'll excuse me," I said, "I think I'll have a drink.  Perhaps
you'll have one too?"

Then I saw that something about her had changed indefinably.  I
noticed, as I tugged at the cup on the bottom of the flask, that her
glance seemed sharper, suddenly anxious.

"No," she said.  "First you let me fix your arm.  Casey, please put
down the flask."

Her voice was sharper, like her eyes.

"Why?" I asked.  There was something different between us.

"Your arm," she said, "it may be bad for you."

She was not telling the truth and I knew it.

"What's the matter with you, Sonya?" I said.  "This won't hurt my arm."

I yanked off the bottom of my flask as I said it but I did not take a
drink.  Instead, I stared at the bottom of the cup--at a bit of rice
paper in the bottom about the size of a paper for rolling cigarettes,
with writing upon it in Oriental characters.  I saw Sonya's hand move
toward it and I drew the cup away.  I was learning what she wanted
faster than I thought I would.

"No, you don't," I said.  "So that's your little game!  No, Sonya,
you're a nice girl, but you don't get it now."  I picked up the
automatic from the bureau.  "Drop your handbag, Sonya!" I said.  "We
don't want any more trouble.  We're going to get the truth right now."

A part of the truth had already come over me, stunning me completely.
I knew what that paper was in the bottom of my flask.  I had never put
it there.

"Drop your handbag, Sonya!" I said again.  "You've done a good job but
you haven't done it quite well enough.  It looks as though I have the
message now.  Not that I can read it," I added, "but perhaps before
we're through you'll read it for me; and Commander Driscoll can check
you up.  He's here in the hotel.  Do you hear me?  Drop that handbag,
Sonya!  I don't want you reaching in it for a powder puff.  I'm going
to call Commander Driscoll now."

"No," she said, "no!  Don't do that.  You mustn't!" and her handbag
dropped out of her fingers to her feet.

The nervous stimulation which had buoyed me until then had not left me.
I could see Sonya with part of my mind but the rest of me was back in
the cabin on the _Imoto Maru_.  I had to admire the astuteness of that
man named Ma, who had thought of the cup on the bottom of my flask.
Where would have been a better place to have left a message to a man
like me than where he must have chosen before he had been discovered?
Where would there have been a place where others would have been less
likely to have discovered it?  It was Ma's bad luck that I had never
used the bottom of the flask until that moment.  He had not counted on
my unnatural abstemiousness.  That was all.

"No," said Sonya again.  "Casey, please, you mustn't.  That was why
they wanted to kill you.  They wanted that flask, Casey.  I had to ask
you to bring it--  Do you remember?"

I nodded to her agreeably.  "And that's why you wanted to save my life,
I suppose," I said.  "I'm grateful to you, Sonya."

"No," she said.  "It wasn't entirely that.  Casey, we must think.  Let
me see that paper."

I put the paper back in the cup again, snapped the cup back on the
bottom of my flask and put the whole in my hip pocket.  Then, bending
quickly, I recovered Sonya's white handbag from the floor.  I found, as
I expected, a small pearl-handled automatic in the middle compartment
of her bag.

"You won't need that tonight," I said, "and we're going to talk about
this paper; but you won't need to see it."

She did not seem surprised by my answer, not offended.  "Casey," she
said, "don't you think I'd better fix your arm now?  It's beginning to
bleed again."

"Stay where you are," I told her.  "Right in that corner of the room.
I'm not going to give you the chance to knock me over the head, Sonya."

She stood watching me irresolutely.  "Don't you trust me, Casey?
Wouldn't you, if I promised you?"

"No," I said.  "I don't see why I should.  Do you?"

She moved her white hands in a sort of hopeless gesture.  "Casey,
someone's got to help you.  Someone's got to wash your head.  Someone
must bind your arm.  I--I want to, Casey."

"You're a beautiful emotional actress," I said.  "Don't act any more.
Sit down!"

She began to cry, and I knew she was not acting then.  "Casey," she
said, "Casey, please, I swear I only want to help you."

I felt my resolve slipping, moved by that appeal.  There was no doubt
that I needed someone to help me.

"Very well," I said.  "But mind, I'm watching you, Sonya."

As a matter of fact, she did it very well.  She took me into the
bathroom and stripped me to the waist.  She washed out the wound with
hot water--a flesh wound, I found it was, hardly more than a graze,
which would probably make my arm stiff and wretchedly sore by morning,
and might also give me a degree of fever; but I doubted if it would be
much worse.  Then she washed my head and fetched me a clean shirt from
my bag.

"You feel better now?" she asked.

I felt a great deal better and I told her so.  "If you'd be straight
with me," I ended, "I'd like you, Sonya."

We had seated ourselves facing each other and the room was very quiet.
We seemed like old friends, and perhaps we were old friends, for nearly
every semblance of pretense was gone from us.

"I'll have to tell someone," she said finally.  "I'm going to tell you,
Casey, because I'm all alone.  I'm going to tell you and beg that you
may help me."

"Is that straight?" I said.  "Because that's what I've been waiting
for."

She answered directly.  "Yes, that's straight.  I swear it.  You see,"
she sighed, "I don't suppose that my mind is as quick as some people's.
I'm rather new to this, Casey.  I wasn't really brought up to it.  You
see, Mr. Moto guessed this noon that there was something in the bottom
of that flask.  I was there when he guessed it."

I forgot the throbbing pain of my arm and the dull ache of my head.
"But how did he guess it?" I asked.  "Have the Japanese got second
sight?"

Sonya smiled, and her eyes, as they met mine, were no longer hard.
"Oh, no, not that, but Mr. Moto is clever, very clever, Casey, in some
ways.  He has to be, in work like his.  This morning I was with him as
he sat thinking, and he told me what he thought.  I think he rather
likes me, Casey."

"Oh," I said, "does he?"

She continued, ignoring my remark: "You mustn't blame Mr. Moto.  He has
a very difficult time, and sometimes he seems such a little man to do
everything and arrange everything.  When the ship came in, he went to
the Japanese Consulate and began pacing up and down a little office,
trying to reconstruct what might have happened.  He began with the
belief that you had not seen a message or destroyed it; then he
reviewed the entire search of your things.  He was completely satisfied
that every inch of your cabin, bags and clothing had been searched.  He
was sure of that because, when you left the boat, he went through
everything a second time.  He was sure the clothing you wore had been
searched thoroughly.  There was only one thing left--your flask.  They
had opened the top of the flask.  They had seen it was full of whisky.
A message inserted in a pellet might have been dropped into the whisky,
but they had shaken the flask and nothing had rattled.  It was only
this morning that it occurred to Mr. Moto that there might be a cup
fitted onto the bottom of the flask.  By what you might term the
process of elimination, that cup was the only place left where a
message might be left.  You had taken the flask with you when you
jumped overboard, but he was quite certain you did not suspect the
existence of a message.  He had watched you carefully when your cabin
was being searched.  You had given no sign of interest--not the flicker
of an eyelid--when they lifted up the flask.  That's about all, Casey.
He was right, wasn't he?  You must admit that he was clever."

I could not help but admire the astuteness of Mr. Moto--an alarming
astuteness--and the complete logic of what she said convinced me that
she was telling the truth; but I needed more facts than that.  I had
reached the end of my patience, and for once in all that transaction I
had something which was close to being the upper hand.

"That's good as far as it goes," I said.  "Mr. Moto was a brighter man
than I am.  Do you know Driscoll, of our Naval Intelligence, Sonya?  I
had a quarrel with him this morning, but I'll go to the telephone and
call him unless you'll tell me what this message is about."

Sonya leaned back in her chair, watching me almost sleepily while her
hands rested limply in her lap.  "Very well," she said, "I'll tell
you," and then she laughed in that light way of hers, as though she
could detach herself from the seriousness of the moment and be
genuinely amused.

"What are you laughing at?" I asked.

"You," she said.  "Excuse me, Casey.  You may not understand why it
strikes me as funny that anyone like you should be involved in this,
and that I should be here compromised with a strange American.  You are
so different from what you ought to be, to appear in such a situation.
You aren't devious.  You're honest, Casey.  You have no real awareness
of the intrigue around us.  Don't be angry with me.  I'll tell you.  I
don't suppose you even remember my last name."

"Karaloff," I said.

"But it doesn't mean anything to you, does it, Casey?"

I shook my head.  "Only that it's your name, Sonya."

"And the name Alexis Karaloff?  Think--have you ever heard that name?"

I shook my head again and she shook hers back at me mockingly.  "You
never heard of Alexis Karaloff?  Or of his work with crude petroleum?
Or of his improvements on the Burgeius formula?  Yet here you are.
Even Wu Lai-fu thought you must have some idea.  He told me that he
asked you."

"I'm glad you think it's funny.  Just who is Alexis Karaloff?" I asked.

Her expression grew set.  "Your tenses are wrong.  He was my father,
Casey--a kind father.  I heard he was dead today."  She paused a moment
and caught her breath.  She was tragic, sitting there, but not
intentionally tragic.

I said, "I'm sorry, Sonya," and put my hand over one of hers.

"Thank you," she answered.  "We're used to death in Russia, Casey.  I
have suspected he was dead for quite a little while.  But now I know,
it's worse than I thought.  It leaves me all alone except perhaps--"

"Perhaps what?" I asked her.

"Except perhaps for you.  I'm not lying, Casey.  You and I are both
alone.  I hope you'll understand what I tell you.  You would, if you
knew Russia; but you don't.  I hope you'll not think it is too
fantastic.  You've probably heard so many Russians telling tales of
greatness.  The illusion of old grandeur grows on one, when one has not
got it left.  But this is true, Casey.  The Czar was my father's
patron.  My father was a naval inventor.  He was interested above
everything else in oil as a fuel for naval vessels.  He was very loyal
to the Czar.  I was a little girl then--too little to remember much.
At the time of the Revolution he left Russia.  My mother was murdered
in the streets.  He took me to Harbin after the Kolchak fighting.  He
was too much involved in the White Russian army ever to cross the
border again....  Have you ever seen Harbin?"

"No," I said.  "I had hardly heard it spoken of until I came to the
Orient, Sonya."

She sighed and closed her eyes and then opened them.  "Harbin," she
said softly.  "I wish you could have seen it when things were going
well.  It's my city, where I spent my childhood, Casey--a strange city
of exiles; but it was gay.  We Russians were always gay even when we
were sad and beyond all hope.  If Harbin were what it used to be, it
would be the place for you and me.  You should have seen the cafs and
heard the singing.  You should have seen the hospitality.  No one
thought of tomorrow in Harbin except to think of Old Russia coming
back.  Everyone was an aristocrat."  She smiled slightly.  "Whether he
was or not, you understand.  Harbin--the boats on the Sungari
River--you should have seen the boats.  You should have seen the lumber
and the grain.  We lived in Harbin, you see."  She paused and, as her
voice stopped, illusion stopped with it.  I had been able to understand
vaguely something of the life she was trying to tell me, when it was
expressed in the soft modulation of her voice; but when she stopped, we
were back in the hotel bedroom, no longer in Harbin.

"Go on," I said, "if we're getting anywhere."

"Harbin," she said; her voice was softer.  "Have you ever heard it
called the Paris of the Orient?  It is the last city of my people, the
_migrs_ from Russia.  You see the rest of us scattered here in
China--Russian policemen, Russian women in Chinese clothes begging on
the street, Russians dressed like coolies working with the coolies on
the docks--but it was gayer in Harbin.  There was quality and rank.
Old generals, admirals, scholars, ladies and gentlemen from the old
nobility.  Why, our merchants could even compete with the Chinese
storekeepers in Harbin.  You should have heard us talk, Casey.  There
was great talk in our parlors because there was always hope, you see.
Red Russia could not last.  It was incredible that it could last.  We
were always plotting for a _coup_, building castles in the air.  We
were always thinking of how to seize some part of Siberia.  Old
officers would talk of smuggled arms and of ways to set up a Russian
kingdom in Mongolia or around Bakal.  We are fine people for theories,
Casey.  We can make them logical through self-hypnotism.  You should
have heard all the names that were mentioned--secret correspondence
with this one and that one.  I suppose it was the same in France when
the old rgime fell down.  They would whisper about Horvath and Kolchak
and Semenov.  They would be buoyed up by hope.  There would be talk of
some mythical help from Chang Tso-lin, the old marshal, you remember,
and, later, the young marshal.  Chinese are like us in that way.  They
all of them love to talk.  Then later there were dealings with 'little'
Hs, who was darting over Mongolia in his motor cars.  And then there
was that impresario, the Buddhist Baron Ungern Sternberg.  Oh, I can
give you lists of names.  That was the atmosphere I was brought up in,
Casey--sitting in my father's house, listening to him talking as he
pored over maps and figures with strangers late at night.  I have never
known half of the logic of his theories.  Perhaps they made no
difference.  Perhaps--I wonder, Casey--perhaps my father did not
believe them.  After all, he was a scientist who spent most of his day
with his drawings in his laboratory, for he had brought some money out
of Russia.  I am not sure.  Perhaps he did believe them.  If we are
unhappy, we always try to imagine something different, don't we?"

"Yes," I said, "I've imagined a lot in the last few years.  Do you mind
my saying this doesn't sound practical, Sonya?"

She smiled inquiringly, as though she did not understand.  "Practical?"
she said.  "Of course, we are not practical.  Have you read our
literature; have you heard our music, Casey?  Not much of it is
practical but some of it is beautiful.  We are creative artists, Casey,
but my father did one thing that was practical back there in Harbin.
He invented a process of treating crude petroleum, and an especial
burner, which would make one gallon of oil do the work two gallons had
done before.  You see the implication, Casey?  Japan did, when he took
that invention to Japan.  It meant that a warship would have twice the
cruising radius that it ever had before.  Can you wonder that Japan was
interested?  Can you wonder, Casey?  My father did that--Alexis
Karaloff did that.  He may have been a visionary but he was a
scientist.  I think his name will be remembered for a long while after
you and I are dead."

I tried to get my thoughts together.  At last the light was dawning on
me.  "Do you mean that the Japanese navy is going to have a cruising
radius twice as great as ours?" I said.  "Why, that's going to
eliminate coaling stations.  It's going to change every base.  If there
should be a war--"  I stopped.

At last I understood why Driscoll told me the matter was important.  It
still seemed hardly credible that such an invention should not have
come from our own laboratories instead of from a city called Harbin.
If she was telling the truth, and I believed she was, any nation in the
world would have struggled for such a discovery.

"Has Japan got his plans?" I asked.  "Tell me what happened, Sonya?"

"I'm going to tell you, Casey," she answered.  "I'm going to tell you,
because it seems the only thing left to do, and because my father would
have agreed with me, I think.  He did not care very much about himself.
Do you think many people do, who live in a world of intellect?  He
really cared for only two things--the abstract complications of ideas
and the Russia of the old rgime."

"Didn't he care for you?" I asked.

She considered a moment before she answered.  "As much as he could for
any human being, I think, but his opinion of the human race was not
very high, Casey.  Never mind about that.  He appreciated the value of
that invention and its significance and implications as keenly as any
industrialist, without ever wishing that value for himself.  He wished
it to further his fixed idea.  You guess the idea, perhaps?  I am sorry
that I have no particular knowledge of its details, but at any rate,
they do not matter.  It was another one of those whispering plots of my
people, but this time I think it had some basis, slight as it might be.
For once, they were not pinning all their faith on the dreams of some
adventurer.  Yes, there was a semblance of reality this time.  It had
to do with the concentration of Red Russian troops on the Manchurian
border, when Japan became interested in the adventure of the State of
Manchukuo.  It seemed to my father and his friends that Japan might
welcome and even might help White intervention along the border by
supplying arms and money.  There was one of those usual plans,
perfectly logical down to the last detail.  As I say, I do not know it.
I only know that my father brought me with him down to Tokio and that
he was greatly excited.  He offered his formula and his drawings to the
Japanese Government in return for their support of a White adventure,
and they accepted.  They had reason to accept.  He was very happy until
he found out that the political balance had been changed.  First the
Japanese hesitated to supply arms and then they entirely refused.  My
father felt that he had been betrayed.  He left Tokio and started for
Harbin, as though Japanese troops and spies were not everywhere in
Manchuria.  He was allowed to leave Tokio readily enough, because he
had already handed over his drawings.  It was some days later before
they understood the plans were not complete.  My father had taken the
page of the chemical process back with him to Harbin and nothing was of
any use without it.  He was planning to sell it elsewhere, of course.
He even began starting negotiations with America through the agency of
the man you've seen--Wu Lai-fu.  But you can guess the rest of it.
This may not be the sort of life you're used to in America, but believe
me, there is plenty of it here, where all life is unsettled, where
there may be an explosion at any time.  That is a period which develops
men like Mr. Moto and Wu Lai-fu, but you can understand what happened."

"Perhaps," I said; "but you'd better tell me, Sonya."

She leaned back wearily and closed her eyes.  "The Japanese were not
going to let such a secret as that go, and I don't blame them much, do
you?  They caught my father in Harbin.  They made him a political
prisoner in the new capitol of Manchukuo--high-handedly perhaps, but
they had reason to be high-handed.  They held him while they searched
for papers in his house, but they could not find what they wanted.
Then they approached me.  I had received my education in Tokio, you
understand, and I have many friends among the Japanese.  I was
approached and asked politely if I could not help in this hunt for the
paper, and there was a hint that my father might not live if it were
not found.  I wanted him to live because I loved him, but perhaps you
can imagine now why they did not find the paper.  I had no intimation
of it until we were together on that ship and there was a dead man in
your cabin."

"Perhaps I could guess," I answered, "but you'd better tell me, Sonya."

"It was Ma," she said.  "Ma was my father's old interpreter and
servant, a very faithful, absolutely reliable man devoted to my father,
as Chinese occasionally become devoted to their masters.  I have known
him ever since I was a little girl, and he would have died for us any
time.  As a matter of fact, he did die, didn't he? ... What happened is
clear enough now.  My father, when he knew he was going to be taken,
gave Ma that formula and I rather think told him to try to sell it to
America.  Ma escaped with it but was afraid to have such a thing on his
person.  He left it somewhere in Manchuria.  The message, I think, was
to tell us where that paper is."  She paused as though she expected
some response from me, but I did not answer her.  "Then I heard the
rest of the news today.  It came from Wu Lai-fu.  He has all sorts of
devious connections.  I think he is one of the Chinese who is secretly
financing bandits in Manchuria.  There is no penny-dreadful novel more
lurid than parts of China and Manchuria these days.  He had word, and
he tells the truth, that my father was shot, trying to escape.  I've
been telling you the truth too, Casey.  And that's about all there is.
I have told you because I want you to help me.  I owe nothing further
to Mr. Moto....  Will you show me what is written on that paper in your
flask?"

I paused awhile before I answered, trying to make up my mind.  I
paused, but I believed every word she said, however incredible it may
sound as I have set it down on paper.  Words in black and white about
such matters as I have tried to describe do not convey any great basis
of credibility, because the time and place do not go with those words
or the personality which spoke them.  There is no way which I know for
me to convey the impression of her voice, or for me to describe the
restlessness of Asia, since both of these are wholly indescribable to
anyone who has not known them.  I can only say again that I knew she
told the truth.  I knew it, if only from the way her story fitted with
the small details I had seen.  Her rle was clear at last and Mr. Moto
and Driscoll and even Wu Lai-fu came into place, cleverly and
perfectly.  More than anything else I knew that she was telling the
truth because I liked her, and I have found it pays to trust quite
implicitly to one's instinctive likings.

"Sonya," I said, "I think you're being straight with me."

"I am," she said.  "I am."  And her fingers gripped my hand.  The
pressure of her fingers reminded me that I had been holding her hand
all the while she was speaking.

"If you see this message," I asked her, "what are you going to do?"

"I'm going to find that paper, if you'll help me, Casey."

"If you find it," I asked, "what will you do then?"  She was no longer
candid.  She did not meet my glance.

"We'll talk about that later," she said.  "The point is, we both want
to find it, don't we?  Will you take out your flask?"

"Yes," I said, "I'll trust you, Sonya.  Can you read Chinese?"

She nodded, and I drew the flask from my hip pocket.  I snapped the cup
off the bottom and handed it to her.

"With my compliments," I said.

She took the cup and lifted out the paper very carefully between her
thumb and finger and bent over it, first thoughtfully, then
incredulously.

"Why," she exclaimed suddenly, "why--"

"What's the matter, Sonya?" I asked her.

Her eyes were fixed on mine--bewildered candid eyes.  "Ma never wrote
this," she said.  "I know Ma's grass characters.  He taught me when I
was a little girl.  Someone else wrote this--not Ma!"

There was a silence while I tried to think.  Again I knew that she was
telling the truth, though the whole matter was becoming too complicated
for me to understand.

"Are you sure?" I said.

"Yes," she answered, "I'm sure."

"But who else could have written it?"

"I don't know," she said.  "Let me try to think."  She sighed and
frowned in her perplexity and said again, "Let me try to think."

It seemed to me that it would do no good for me to help her because I
was entirely beyond my depth.

"If you don't mind," I said, "I'll take a drink while you're thinking,"
and I reached and took the cup away.  Then I unscrewed the top of the
flask.  I was just about to pour a drink into the cup when my glance
fell on the gold-washed bottom.

"Sonya," I said.  "Look!  There was another paper here.  Look down at
the bottom of this cup.  You can see where it was lying.  A corner of
it's been stuck to the bottom.  Look!"

She reached for the cup and drew in her breath sharply.  She was
bending over it, staring.  Dimly, yet clearly enough to see, there was
the outline of where a similar bit of paper had been lying.  The
presence of a little moisture had caused its edges to adhere slightly
to the bottom of the cup.  Someone had pulled it out hastily, a little
carelessly.  It was different from the paper in her hand.  Her eyes
were wide, her lips were set in a thin straight line.

"Casey," she asked, "did you do that?"

"No," I said, "I didn't."

"Then," her voice dropped unconsciously to a half-whisper, "take that
cup and wash it very carefully.  Dry it with a towel.  Don't let your
fingerprints stay on it.  Someone has taken that message and left this
one, and no one else must know."

"But who?" I asked.  "I wonder who."

"We'll have to find out, Casey," Sonya said.  "We'll have to try
to--you and I tonight.  After all, who would have done it, Casey?  Not
Mr. Moto.  He only guessed this morning what was in there.  Who else
was there?  You took that flask with you when you jumped into the
river."

I had never tried to play the rle of Sherlock Holmes before.  "Well,"
I said, "let's try to think.  Suppose you read me that message, Sonya."

She looked at it again.  "Why, that's very queer," she said.

"What's queer?" I asked.  "You'd better read the message."

"It doesn't say much," she answered, "but it's enough to understand.
It says 'The house of Ma Fu' Shan at Fuyu.' That's what the message
says, of course, but that isn't what is queer.  Ma Fu' Shan was our man
Ma's elder brother, Casey.  I've seen him often enough.  His house is
not at Fuyu.  Ma has often told me where he lives--at a farm village
near the hills, a few miles outside of Chinchow.  Casey, that message
has been changed."

"Let's forget about that for a minute," I said, for I had a flash of
intuition.  "Whether it's been changed or not, I know where the thing
is, Sonya.  It's at Ma's brother's house.  Ma left it there."

"But who changed the message?" she asked me.  "Why?"

And then I had another thought.  My mind had leapt dazzlingly from
inconsequence to fact.  In my excitement, I put my hand on her shoulder.

"Listen," I said, "have you thought of Wu Lai-fu?  Listen, Sonya, he's
as clever as Mr. Moto, isn't he?  Why shouldn't he want this for
himself?  Listen, Sonya.  I think I can tell you what's happened."

She looked incredulous but I knew that I was right.  I had remembered
something which had happened back in that room of Wu Lai-fu's.

"I remember how his manner changed toward me when he was talking to
me," I said.  "He had someone look inside the cup of this flask, Sonya,
as sure as I'm alive.  When he was talking to me.  I know he did.
Can't you see?  It was his idea to have that message changed.  He knew
that Moto would be after me.  He knew that sooner or later Moto's mind
would come to that flask.  He wants Moto out of the way, Sonya, because
he wants this for himself.  He's probably sent someone off already."

Sonya looked thoughtful and then the lights were dancing in her eyes.
"Casey," she said, "that's clever of you.  I never thought it possible
that you could think like that."

"Thanks," I said.  "I didn't either--if you want to know."

Sonya moved, and I felt her shoulder tremble.  "You're right," she
said; "you're absolutely right.  It's Mr. Wu.  He's sent someone there
already, probably by train this noon.  It's too late for us now."

"Wait a minute," I broke in, for I had another idea.  "I don't know
anything about this country.  How long does it take to reach this
place, wherever it is, by train?"

Sonya frowned again.  "Quite a time, I think.  You would have to go by
way of Tientsin and through Shan-hai-kwan."

"That means nothing to me," I said.  "Would anyone starting this
morning reach there by tomorrow noon?"

Sonya laughed.  "Your ideas of rail travel in China are too American,
Casey.  It would take him another day, at least.  But he's ahead.  We
can't catch up to him now."

"Can't we?" I said.  "Have you forgotten what I am?"

"No," she said seriously.  "I think you're splendid, Casey."

"Not that," I answered.  "I'm an air pilot, Sonya.  I doubt if Mr. Wu
has thought of sending a man by plane."

She leaped quickly to her feet.  "Casey," she whispered, "Casey, do you
know where to get a plane?"

I nodded.  "I know where I can try.  And if you know where this village
is on the map, I can set you down there tomorrow morning.  How far away
is it, do you think?"

"Five hundred miles," she said.

"All right," I said.  "There's no use starting now.  We can't make it
in the dark."

Then her excitement left her.  "Casey," she said, "Casey dear, there's
no use talking this way.  We can't do it at all.  Moto's men are
watching this hotel.  We're cornered in here like two little rats."

"Oh, no, we're not," I said.

Now that I had thought of the plane, my mind was running smoothly.  Now
that there was no longer mystery, I could deal with actual facts.  "If
you do what I tell you, Mr. Moto will lose all further interest in us
tonight.  Sonya, are you listening to me?  Get Mr. Moto on the
telephone.  Tell him to come up here.  Tell him you've got the message.
It was in the flask.  Tell him I'm glad to give it to him.  It's no
affair of mine.  There's the telephone.  You go and tell him, Sonya."

Sonya stood an instant thinking and then she said, "Casey, I think
you're very clever.  I mean it.  You're brave, you're quick.  I should
be glad to go anywhere with you, Casey, anywhere on earth."

"Thanks," I answered.  Her words had made my own words unsteady.  She
had not been acting when she said them.  We were friends.  "The same
goes with me, Sonya."

And she walked to the telephone and lifted off the receiver.

"Remember," she said quickly, "clean out the inside of the cup, Casey
dear.  And you'd better show it to me when you've finished."

Not being able to understand Japanese, I have never known what Sonya
said.  As a matter of fact, I did not mind any longer, because I
trusted her.  We were like very old friends as we waited for Mr. Moto.

"You must put on a tie, Casey dear," she said, "and put the flask back
in your pocket.  I want you to look nice when Mr. Moto comes.  Perhaps
it would be just as well to put those pistols in the bureau drawer."

"You're sure we won't need them?" I said.

"Why, Casey," she looked shocked; "that isn't kind of you.  Why should
there be, when Mr. Moto is getting what he wants?  He's not a villain,
Casey.  He is a very considerate man."

Her remark struck me as amusing, now that I had encountered several
examples of Mr. Moto's consideration, including a bad arm and a
lacerated scalp.

"No," she said, "Mr. Moto will treat you very nicely now."

I was curious to see.  Sonya was picking up the room and making it
presentable.  From melodrama the situation seemed to turn into
something almost resembling a tea party.

"Casey," Sonya said again, "since when have you had a drink?"

I tried to think back.  "I have not had a drink for hours, not since at
Mr. Wu's," I said.  "I don't believe I need to drink, if there's
anything that interests me."

"Do I interest you?" she asked.

I told her that she did and she looked pleased.  The Gaiety Club and
sudden death and White Russian plots of Harbin had dropped away from
her.

Mr. Moto would appear with an armed bodyguard, I thought, since he
would be suspicious of some trap, but I did not give his perspicacity
sufficient credit.  Mr. Moto came alone, without a suspicious glance.
He was dressed for the evening, carefully, in what is known as a dinner
coat in America, and what the French call a smoking, an inoffensive man
bowing, smiling, and holding an opera hat.  He displayed his relief and
pleasure by grinning so disarmingly that I very nearly liked him.
There was a row of pearls on his pleated shirt front; a handkerchief
was sticking neatly from his pocket; his small feet glittered in their
patent-leather pumps.

"Hello, Moto," I said.

"Hello, Lee," he answered.  His smile could not have been anything but
genuine.  "I am so glad," Mr. Moto said, "so very, very glad, but I'm
so sorry for what happened tonight.  I hope you have not been hurt?  If
we could only have reached this conclusion before--but it was my fault,
not your fault."

I stood up and shook hands with him.  The situation was curious and Mr.
Moto's wish to be friendly was nearly moving.

"That's all right, Moto," I said.  "I only wish you'd thought of the
flask sooner.  I didn't, Moto."

Mr. Moto laughed and even his laughter was relieved, not the studious
social laughter which one hears so often in Japan.  "My dear fellow,"
said Mr. Moto, "I am so very glad that nothing happened to you.  It
would have been such a mistake.  And you have been so very useful.
Suppose now we have a drink.  Good whisky for good Japanese and good
Americans."

"Out of the flask?" I asked him.

Mr. Moto laughed gaily.  "That is very good," he said.  "You are a good
companion, Mr. Lee."

Then Sonya interrupted.  "No," she said, "Mr. Lee is not drinking."

It was the first time that I had known I was not drinking.

A shadow flitted across Mr. Moto's smiling countenance and after it a
light of comprehension.

"Ah," said Mr. Moto, "so that is it.  You have not been drinking?  I
remember now.  How much more fortunate it would have been if you had
been drinking," and he laughed again, so infectiously that I joined him
as I handed him my flask.

"There is good whisky inside that for a good Japanese, Mr. Moto," I
told him.  "And there is one thing which perhaps you have not noticed.
There is a cup on the bottom of the flask."

Mr. Moto was being a very good fellow.  He patted my arm gently.

"You are very funny, Mr. Lee," he said.  "I like men who are funny.  We
understand jokes in Japan.  We love American jokes.  Will you permit
me?"  He took the flask and his eyes grew narrowly intent.  He pulled
the cup off quickly.  "Ah--" he said, and he had the bit of paper in
his hand.

"Mr. Moto," I said, "I want you to understand something."

"What?" he asked.

"I want you to understand that I am very glad that you have this
paper," I told him.  "I want you to know that I bear you no ill will
for anything that has happened--not even for your talk of a flight
across the Pacific.  I have had a very interesting time."

Mr. Moto's face looked genuinely troubled.  "Perhaps we will talk about
the Pacific flight later," he said.  "But now I wish not to
inconvenience you.  The belongings you left aboard the ship will be
sent to you at once, and in the meanwhile you have been subjected to
great unpleasantness through my fault, and I am very, very sorry.  I
understand that you are a gentleman, Mr. Lee, and I am giving this to
you, entirely with that understanding.  You are alone here without
money.  You will not mistake my motive, I ask you, please."  He drew in
his breath between his teeth with a sharp little hiss, pulled a wallet
from his inside pocket and extracted two large notes, each for five
thousand yen.

"Please," he said.

I hesitated, because I did not wish to touch his money under such
circumstances.  Sonya's glance stopped my refusal.  "Thank you, Mr.
Moto," I said.  "This is too much."

"No," said Mr. Moto, "no."  And he made one of his curious bobbing
bows.  "It is nothing for the pain you have suffered.  You must not
think badly of Japan.  Will you take it, please?"

"Thanks," I said again.

Mr. Moto was relieved.  He picked up the cup again and poured himself a
drink.  He raised the cup, smiling at me in a most friendly way.  "Good
whisky," he said, "for a good Japanese.  Banzai!  And your very good
health too, Miss Sonya.  You have been very, very kind.  I know you
have had sad news today.  You will not blame me for what happened, will
you, Miss Sonya?  Because I am very, very sorry and I like you very
much."

Sonya's gesture surprised me, but it was genuine.  She put her hands on
Mr. Moto's shoulders.  "And I like you very much, Mr. Moto," she said.

Mr. Moto tossed off his cup of whisky with a slight tremor, since the
drink was probably distasteful to him, but he tossed it off because of
manners.

"Moto," I said, "I take it I may come and go as I please now?  You've
got what you wanted, haven't you?  You won't mind my saying that you
make me a trifle nervous?"

"My dear fellow!" Mr. Moto answered.  "This is all over between us.  If
there is any help you need, call, please, at the Japanese Consulate.
Mention my name, please, because I am a friend.  And if you come back
to Tokio, ask for me, also.  I wish you to like Japan.  We are a small
people to have come to so much, but we are a good people, Mr. Lee."

I thanked him and I meant it.

"And we will talk about flying the Pacific later," Mr. Moto said,
"but--"  His glance traveled from Sonya to me, "but perhaps now I
interrupt?"

"No," said Sonya, "I'm going now.  I've done everything, I think."

"Yes," said Moto.  "You have done very, very well.  May I offer to take
you where you are going?"  Then he turned his attention to me again.
"You have been hurt, Mr. Lee," he said.  "You are wounded in the head.
It is nothing much, I hope.  You haven't been hurt elsewhere?"

"A flesh wound in the shoulder," I answered.  "It is nothing much."

"I am so sorry," said Mr. Moto.  "So very sorry.  May I send a
physician?"

"No, thanks," I said.  "Sonya's fixed me up.  Good night, Sonya."

"I'll call to see you in the morning," Sonya said, "that is, if Mr.
Moto does not mind."

"Mind?" said Mr. Moto.  "I am delighted.  You are free, as free--what
is the English expression?  I am ashamed I do not know.  Oh, yes, as
free as the air!"

I wonder if Mr. Moto ever thought again of that phrase he used--"as
free as the air."

"You will not think too hardly of us?" Mr. Moto said.

"Good night, Casey," said Sonya.  "I'll call to see how you are in the
morning."

"Moto," I said, "if I've killed anyone tonight, I am very, very sorry."

"Please," said Mr. Moto, "you must not bother.  It was duty for our
Emperor, Mr. Lee, and we are all very pleased to die for him.  Good
night and rest comfortably, will you, please?"

"Good night," I said, and then Mr. Moto and Sonya were gone.

I stood for a moment listening, and then I looked at my watch.  A year
had passed, for all I could estimate, since I had thought of time, and
the shortness of the actual lapse was incredible.  The hands of my
watch indicated only five minutes to twelve.  In less than two and a
half hours I had been through events which might have filled ten years
of an ordinary span.  I was living fast.  Sonya was right.  I did not
need a drink.  I found the card which Sam Bloom had given me and asked
for his number over the telephone.  I knew what Sam Bloom had said was
true, that he would stand by me for anything I wanted.

"Come up here, Sam," I said.  "As soon as you can, please."

"Okay," said Sam.  "I'm coming."

He was there in a quarter of an hour, with his hat tilted on the back
of his head, asking, "What's the matter, Casey?"

"I want a two-seater plane," I said, "first thing tomorrow morning.
I'm flying to a village six miles outside of Chinchow."

"Chinchow," said Sam Bloom.  His intonation proved that he had the map
of China on his finger tips, as any good aviator must know the country
where he flies.  "That's between six-fifty and seven hundred miles and
the Japanese will spot you when you get across the line.  They'll
probably shoot at you.  We'd better talk about this, Casey.  Why do you
want to see Chinchow?  It's a walled town on a plain.  I can show you
plenty of 'em."

I knew that I must tell him the truth, but I did not mind, because I
knew that Sam Bloom would stand by me if he could.  "Sam," I said,
"you're an American and I'm an American.  Listen to this, Sam."  As
Bloom listened, I remember thinking how calmly he took it, as though he
understood a part already.

"Well," was his only comment.  "Why don't you tell Jim Driscoll?  He's
in the Intelligence."

"I've told him," I explained.  "I've quarreled with Jim Driscoll; and
now I'm going to do the rest of this myself.  If anyone is going to get
these figures, or whatever they are, I think I'm in the best position
to do it.  All I want is a two-seater plane, Sam.  Are you going to
come across or not?  That's all I want to know."

Bloom moved his felt hat restlessly between his fingers.  "You're
asking more than you think," he said.

"Probably," I answered.  "I want a plane and maps."

"You'll have to refuel," he objected, "before you get back home.  How
are you going to do that, Casey?"

"I don't care," I answered, "as long as I get there."

Bloom rubbed his hand along the back of his hand.  "There's an
observation plane up at the airport," he said, "that has been assigned
to me.  You can have it, Casey."

"What time?" I asked.

"Eight o'clock tomorrow morning."  Bloom pulled a map from his pocket
and handed it to me.  "It may be that I'll lose my job, but you can
have it, Casey.  I'll see you in the morning.  There's the mark where
you're going.  I'll tell you more tomorrow.  And now you'd better get
some sleep.  Good night!"




CHAPTER XII

Excellent as his suggestion may have been, like so many of one's
friends' suggestions, it was hard to follow.  It took me a long time to
get to sleep.  I was under no illusions about the next morning.  From
the things Sam Bloom had left unsaid, together with the gossip to which
anyone in the Orient must listen, I was certainly off on a hair-brained
errand.  Nevertheless, I had gained a composure which arises from a
definite knowledge of a mission, combined with a certain faith in one's
ability.  I could get a plane from one point on the map to another,
even an unknown map, as successfully as any other pilot.  I knew that
Sam Bloom would secure me a plane, because he said he would.  What
reasons he might give to his superiors were up to his own invention,
not to mine, but my reputation as a flyer would probably be a help.  In
my time I had been given the courtesy of plenty of airports.

For a while I pored over the small-scale pocket map of China which Sam
Bloom had left me.  It is strange how casual one's knowledge of a
country is until one is actually in it.  I had never been personally
cognizant before of the immense area of China.  A map could speak to me
more eloquently than the pages of a book, as it will to any experienced
air pilot.  The point which I proposed to reach, fortunately for me,
lay close to the seacoast, along the line of the Mukden-Tientsin
Railroad, where level land dwindles to a narrow strip between the sea
and a rough mountainous country.  Not so far from my proposed
destination was the symbol of the Great Wall of China, winding down a
mountain range to Shan-hai-kwan, the frontier town between China and
the new Manchukuo State.  Given the proper air conditions, the flying
problem would be principally a matter of following the seacoast, then
across the promontory of Shantung, then over the Po-Hai Gulf, keeping
land on the left, then bearing easterly along the gulf of Liao-Tung.
The political implications were what bothered me most.  At the time
there were Japanese forces in Shan-hai-kwan, and beyond the Great Wall
there were further concentrations of Japanese troops.  I was fully
aware that a Chinese plane would not be well received, that it might
create an incident which would involve the occupants of such a plane in
very real danger, if they were taken.  It was my hope to keep
sufficiently high and out to sea, so that we could not be observed
until the last possible moment.  In the end, the whole matter would
come down to the question perhaps of minutes.  If we could get what we
wanted quickly enough, there was a chance that we could return to the
plane and take off before troops should intervene; but this was a
matter which lay in the future.  I believed that there would be petrol
enough, if we could get back to the plane, to take us to Tientsin.  If
I could once arrive at the airport there--and I knew there was an
airport in the line of the Peiping-Shanghai air route--my intention was
to leave the plane and to go as fast as I could to the American
Consulate.  Aside from such rough conjectures, there was obviously
nothing more that I could do about the matter.  It was not even worth
while to weigh my chances, but there was one thing in my favor.  I was
definitely convinced that Mr. Moto was off the track and that I could
reach the airport without interference and perhaps without suspicion.
As far as everything else went, there was nothing to do except to
dismiss the matter temporarily, and this was not so difficult for me as
it may sound, because the life of a flyer is made up of a series of
shifting crises.

I did dismiss the matter from my mind, only to have something take its
place which was of greater significance--the story which Sonya had told
me.  I had a smattering of engineering such as anyone may gather from a
study of airplane engines.  I had read about the breaking down of the
atom, and understood that only a fraction of the energy of fuel was
expended in either a steam or internal-combustion engine; that, in
spite of all engineers could do, their contrivances for propelling us
on water or in air were wretchedly inefficient.  If it was true that
this man Karaloff had perfected, let us say, some catalytic agent which
might be added to fuel oil, it was quite easily within the realm of
possibility that its efficiency as an energy-producing force might be
doubled.  Granting this accomplishment, even a tyro like myself could
gather the immensity of its implication.  On the water or in the air
everyone was struggling to increase the cruising radius of vessels or
of planes.  Given an oil fuel of double its present power, a Japanese
cruiser division could raid the Pacific Coast in the event of war and
return without refueling.  Nor was that all.  If such a discovery
should be known to all the world, it was incredible what might happen.
Spheres of influence might be doubled and there would be any number of
possible clashes before new spheres of influence could be established.
The possibilities and complexities were too many to be grasped.  There
was only one thing I was sure of: with Japan the sole possessor of this
secret, the influence of my country in the Pacific would be gone, and
my country itself might be in danger.  The idea was so apparent that I
was tempted to go to the telephone and call up Driscoll, yet on second
thought this seemed to me to be of no great use.  If anyone could get
this paper composed by this scientist who was Sonya's father, I stood
as good a chance as any of my countrymen, particularly as I knew that
we did not have a very closely knit Secret Service in the Orient.  I
may have been mistaken, but at any rate I made the decision to keep the
matter to myself, and lay on my bed fully dressed.

In spite of the throbbing of my arm and the pain of my head, I went
into a deep sleep and that was something I can be grateful for; if
anyone needed sleep, I did that night.  I was better when I was
awakened in the morning at seven o'clock by the hotel porter who
brought me my bags from the Japanese ship, exactly as Mr. Moto had
promised.  I was glad to get into my own clothes again.  Although my
arm and head were aching, I felt better.  I put on a good heavy winter
suit and a sweater.  I looked over my maps also, which I had purchased
for that Pacific flight--it seemed a thousand years ago--and found a
larger-scale one among them of the China Coast.  Then I took Sam
Bloom's automatic and put it back in the shoulder holster.

At a quarter before eight the telephone rang and Sonya's voice answered
to say that she was waiting downstairs.  Five minutes later, just as I
finished my last preparations (I had taken out a leather coat and my
own goggles and helmet from my baggage), Sam Bloom called up to say
that he was waiting too.  Everything was going very smoothly, but I was
not surprised, for life is much like that, like a gambler's run of
luck--first a number of ill chances and then everything's smooth.

Bloom was waiting at the hotel desk and Sonya was seated near him, but
he did not see Sonya's connection with the business until I told her to
come ahead.

"Say," said Sam, "that's the girl on the boat."

"Never mind," I told him.  "Sonya's coming with me.  She'll want some
leather clothes.  Hers don't look very warm."  Sonya looked more ready
for a walk along the Bund than for a seven-hundred-mile trip in a
plane.  There was an automobile waiting for us, and again everything
went easily.  Once the surprise of seeing Sonya was over, Bloom began
talking to me, giving me technical directions.

"She's an observation plane," Sam said.  "A Davis M type; you'll like
her, Casey.  Any fool can handle her.  She has extra fuel tanks
installed.  She's good for seven hundred miles.  And maybe two hundred
more.  I'm not asking a single question because I don't want to know
what you're doing.  They're glad to let you use her to try her out,
because you're a well-known flyer.  I don't know where you're going.
It isn't my fault what may happen."

"Thanks, Sam," I said.

"You'll find maps," Sam went on, "and thermos bottles and sandwiches.
Keep her up around eight thousand feet, and when you get to the gulf
get twelve thousand altitude and keep as far from land as you can.
Don't swing over the railroad until you have to.  There are troops at
every station, but I don't have to tell you about flying, Casey."

"Thanks, Sam," I said.

"That's all right," said Sam.  "She's warmed up now.  You can go as
soon as we get there."

We were getting clear of the traffic by then.  "Sam," I said, "is
anybody following us?"

Bloom looked out the back window of the car.  The corners of his eyes
wrinkled and he shook his head.

"No," he answered, "I don't think so, and if they are, believe me
you're going just the same."

There is a similarity about all airports and this one at Shanghai was
no exception to the general rule.  Our car drove into a dusty open
space.  A single-motor plane was being warmed up in front of a hangar
and the motor sounded well.  I was pleased to see that the ship was a
model which I had flown before.  She should be good for a hundred and
fifty miles an hour, cruising speed, once I got her in the air.  Sam
Bloom was bringing out a coat and helmet for Sonya.  The noise of the
engine was deafening.  I took Sonya by the arm and shouted in her ear.

"Are you all right?"

She smiled at me and nodded, as though we were not going anywhere.

"All right," I said, "let's go!"  She climbed into the cockpit behind
me and I turned around and spoke to her again.  "If you want anything,
write me a note," I shouted.  "You think we can get what we want in
twenty minutes after we land?"  She nodded, smiled and patted my
shoulder; then I sat down at the controls.  Sam Bloom and I shook hands.

"Good luck!" he shouted.  "I'll take care of things this end.  Take her
back into Tien-tsin."

"Tell Driscoll if I don't get back," I called back.

I had turned back to the controls by then, but just as I did so, I saw
a man running toward us across the field--a Chinese in a long gray gown
which was flapping in the wind, and I knew who he was.  He was the man
who had taken me to Mr. Wu's after I had been picked up from the river.
I did not care to speak to him.  I gave my engine gas and pointed my
ship into the wind.  When we were off the ground, I circled for
altitude up and up, until the tall buildings of Shanghai and the canals
and rice fields of the Yangtse delta all came into a curious order, as
events in a life do when one is far enough away from life.  Then China
was like a map such as I had seen the night before.  We were circling
up into a fine clear morning sky.  When my altimeter read eight
thousand feet, I flattened out and took my bearings; then we were going
seemingly slowly, though the speed was a hundred and fifty miles an
hour.

Sonya tapped my shoulder and handed me a note.  "Casey," it read,
"you're very nice."

There is no need to describe that flight.  I have not the literary gift
to convey the sensations of flying.  The visibility was good and the
air was clear, and there is nothing like the air at such altitudes as
that.  All the trappings of the world are out and one is close to the
infinite in such air.  The throb of the motor has always seemed to me
like the drumming in one's ears when one takes ether.  A flight is a
sort of oblivion.  I am happier in a plane than I ever am on land, I
suppose because I was born for it.  I am capable in the air and more
alive than I am on earth.  When we die, I hope our souls go to the air
out of the world, up above the cloudbanks where the sun streaks down on
oceans of pink and gold.  There is a beauty in it which is greater than
the beauty of the sea, but I am not here to write an esthetic essay.  I
am here to stick to facts.  Sam Bloom's maps were excellent.  With my
mapboard and my instruments, I should have been incompetent, if I had
not reached my destination, particularly given good weather.  The clock
on the instrument board pointed somewhere before the hour of two when I
knew we were getting near.

We were swinging in toward the land over curious muddy water--water
that held the silt of eroded Chinese hills and fields.  We were down to
five thousand feet by then and out ahead I could see the ribbon of the
railroad track and the orderly outlines of a great walled town near it.
Beyond, inland, at the base of bare brown hills, there was a smaller
village which appeared to be built entirely out of earth, so that it
looked like something from the insect kingdom.  I saw the glint of
running water near it.  I turned and looked at Sonya and pointed.

She nodded but I did not need any confirmation.  My map told the story,
and my instinct backed it up.  There was the village we wanted.

I wrote another note.  "We're coming down.  Soldiers will see us by the
railroad.  We must hurry, Sonya."  Then we were coming down fast, in a
sideslip.  The wind had tossed up clouds of dust which gave me its
direction.  The earth was coming up to meet us, growing clearer,
clearer.  We were coming down to realities again.  We were coming to a
land that was brown, still untouched by the softness of spring, down
toward bare flat fields where men were moving like pygmies, down to
that town of earth.  It was a fine place for a landing.  I had shut off
the motor as the land was coming up.  The wind was singing through the
struts wildly in the most beautiful tune I know.  The land was coming
up with the speed of an express train.  We landed well, almost without
a bump.  We were taxiing across a ploughed field straight toward the
wall of mud surrounding low mud houses, with willow trees jutting up
above their roofs, and with a rising tier of bare hills beyond them.  A
lonely place, a cold country that reminded me of parts of our own West.
I had done what I set out to do.  We had come to the town where the
brother of Sonya's father's man Wu had his dwelling place.

The strange thing was how easily the matter went, although I have
observed that an anticipation of difficulty sometimes makes difficulty
vanish.  Again, perhaps the actuality seemed simple because of my
interest in everything I saw, for it was the first time I had ever seen
a Chinese village with habits, architecture and customs that might
easily have dated to the Stone Age.  I crawled out of the cockpit and
helped Sonya down to the yellowish-brown earth.  We both of us were
tired and stiff and deafened by the drumming of the motors and by the
change of altitude.  The sight of both of us appearing so suddenly from
the sky had drawn the village out, gaping, large-boned men and women in
coarse blue clothing that was stained from their labors.  They were the
servants of the soil, the peasantry whose prototype exists in every
country in the world where man gains his sustenance from the earth.

"Sonya," I asked her, and I steadied her for a moment until she was
used to the solidness of the ground, "can you talk to them?  We'll have
to hurry, Sonya."

"Yes," she answered.  She smiled at the crowd reassuringly and used her
gift of tongue.  Whatever she said appeared to please them, because
they smiled a little stupidly, still half comprehending perhaps, and
pointed to the wall.  An old man moved toward me deferentially and felt
timidly of my leather jacket.  The children were staring at my goggles;
when I pulled them up from my eyes to my forehead they gave a sigh of
wonder.

"Come," said Sonya.  "It's all right, Casey.  Ma's brother is here in
the village.  We must go and find him.  No, we don't have to!  Here
he's coming now!"

A tall Chinese in a long blue gown was walking toward us in swift easy
strides.  His skin was swarthy and coarsened from the weather, but I
could distinguish the resemblance between him and the dead man on the
boat, and plainly he and Sonya knew each other.  He placed his palms
together and smiled and bowed, and the red button of his skullcap moved
in an arc with the nodding of his head.  After they had spoken for a
moment Sonya said to me:

"Come, Casey, he will take us to his house."

We hurried, stumbling across the plowed field to a little path winding
toward the gate, with half the village trotting behind us, making low
polite remarks.  There was a god above the gate and a little mud shrine
stood just inside, with another god in the niche.

"He is the God of Learning," Sonya said.  "The scholars burned prayers
before him in the old days when they studied for the government
examinations.  Have you never seen a Chinese village?"

"No," I said.

"I'm sorry," Sonya answered, "that we haven't got more time.  They are
pretty places, Chinese villages, and the people need so little to be
happy."

We were walking along the main street, and it was like looking at some
picture I had seen before, but had never believed till then.

The combination of complete simplicity and of a sort of airy beauty
with it fitted with that interval in the sky, and the place was
unrelated to anything which I had ever seen.  The walls, the houses,
even the roofs were made of beaten earth, but the proportion of the
houses was wholly perfect.  The roofs had fanciful curves, the lattices
of the paper-covered windows each was different from the other, and
nearly every house had its own wall enclosing a courtyard.  A man was
drawing water from a well beside the street, and there was a small
temple near the well.

"The God of Health is there," said Sonya.  "And probably the god of
weather."

It was a place of strange gods, and simple suspicions hovered over it.
Ma's brother walked before us and I saw that he was very worried.  He
obviously wanted us to get away, and I could not blame him.  There
would be ugly questions from the authorities about a plane which had
landed.

"He tells us to be quick," said Sonya.

"That goes for me," I said.  "We can't be quick enough."

The man had stopped at the gateway leading to one of those mud
courtyards and was gesturing to us to enter.  It was a homely place,
reminiscent of a peasant's yard in northern France.  Two bullocks were
tethered beneath a mud-roofed shed.  An old dog chained near them rose
stiffly and began to bark.  Some hens ran away from us, cackling.  A
woman was turning a stone handmill.  Ma's brother walked straight
across the court and opened the door of a low building and ushered us
into an empty room, evidently the family living quarters.  There was a
stove made out of mud bricks, with a copper teakettle boiling on the
top of it.  The flue from the stove buried itself in a raised platform,
covered untidily with bedding.  There was a crude wooden dresser with
utensils on it, a wooden cupboard, probably for clothing, and that was
all.  I had never seen such complete stark poverty or such grim
efficiency.  It would have been hard to have found a better place to
have left that paper, for no one would have thought of looking there
for anything of value.

Sonya must have understood my thoughts because she said:

"Ma's brother is a rich man, but he keeps his money hidden somewhere
underground.  There is probably a little hoard somewhere beneath the
floor of nearly every house here.  One must be careful not to look rich
in unsettled times."

Sonya was talking, but her mind was not on what she was saying ...
unsettled times.  Sonya had seen enough of those to be completely
familiar with their developments.  She was at home in that place, at
home, but her mind was on something else.  Her glance was strained,
expectant.  She was watching Ma's brother move over to that raised
platform.  He was lifting a corner of the matting which covered it.  He
was drawing out a sheet of paper about the size of ordinary foolscap.
He handed it to Sonya with a bow.  Her hand trembled as she took it.
She bent over it attentively.  Then she turned to Ma's brother and
smiled.  She had opened her purse.  She was giving him money.

I did not have to ask her if she had found what she wanted.

Ma's brother was expostulating and his voice and Sonya's answered each
other for almost a minute, in a half-comprehensible dialogue, while I
stood watching.  I could half imagine what they were saying, because
Ma's brother pushed away the money.  He was saying he did not wish it
because he was an honorable man.

Sonya's voice became more insistent.  She was saying something which
was important, as I could gather by the attention with which the tall
Chinese countryman listened.  She must have alluded to me at some
point, because he turned and looked at me thoughtfully and
impersonally.  Then he took the money, bowed himself to the door,
leaving Sonya and me standing there alone.

She had changed, now that she had the paper in her hand, displaying a
new sort of gravity, a new sort of decisiveness.  The paper had come
between us, making us both a little different.

"So that's it?" I asked.  "That's the thing you wanted?"

Sonya sighed.  "Yes, Casey," she said slowly; "that's what we wanted."

I reached toward the paper, but she drew it away from me.

"No," she said, "please, Casey dear.  If I could, I'd let you see it."

"What do you mean?" I asked.  "Sonya, what's changed you?"

She sighed again and her voice was gentle.

"Casey dear," she said, "I want you to understand.  If it were only you
or me, you know I'd do anything--anything.  I want you to know that.  I
wanted to be alone with you for a minute, and that is why I sent the
man away."

I did not follow her.  "What do you mean?" I asked.  "We've got what we
wanted, Sonya.  We'd better get out of here.  We'll have to leave right
off."

Sonya shook her head and her lips trembled.  "No," she said; "please,
Casey, you don't understand.  You must go, but I'm not going."

That speech jolted me into stupidity.  "You're not going with me?" I
said.  "Why, what's the matter, Sonya?  Aren't we friends?"

"Casey"--her voice was imploring--"Casey dear, I like you better than
anyone I know; that's what I want you to understand.  I'd do anything
for you if it were only me; but in a matter like this, please, don't
you see that friendship doesn't count?  Casey, I want you to see.  I'll
tell you something else to make you understand.  I think I love you,
Casey.  I've never loved anyone before as much as I love you, but it
would make no difference, Casey.  You see I'm going to take this paper,
because it is not mine.  I know what my father would wish.  He would
wish me to take it to friends of his in Harbin.  He would want them to
use it to help what he was planning.  It was a cause he was thinking
of.  There's something here which will help, Casey.  Don't worry about
me.  Ma's brother will take care of me.  I'm used to being alone."

Everything she said was so unexpected that I could not get my thoughts
straight.  Yet I should have known long ago that Sonya would have such
an idea.  I thought of what use she had made of me, but I could not be
angry.  Instead, I felt kindly toward her.  Instead, I was deeply moved.

"So that's your game," I said.  "I should have known it, Sonya."

"Casey," she answered, "Casey, please--"

"Sonya"--I tried to control my voice--"I don't believe you understand.
I've come to get that thing you're holding, and I'm going to get it.
Do you think I'm going to risk my neck and then let you take it away,
so that you can sell it to someone else?  Sonya, listen, please.  I can
understand you, but your ideas are wrong.  Who are your people?  What
can they do?  I heard you talk of them last night.  You love them but
you know that anything they try hasn't much validity."

"Perhaps," she said; "but that makes no difference, Casey."

"I'm sorry, Sonya," I said, "but it does to me.  Think of yourself.
You're alone in the world.  I'd be glad to look after you.  I can do
it, Sonya.  I don't want to talk about patriotism, but I'm going to
have that paper.  You and I are here alone.  I'm stronger than you are.
Will you give it to me, please?  I don't want to take it from you,
Sonya."

She appeared surprised when I had finished.  "Casey," she asked me, "do
you really think it is as easy as that?  Do you really think--"

"Sonya," I said, "if you think I'm going to let you take this away,
you're mistaken."

Sonya's voice grew calmer.  "Don't think that I have not a respect for
your ability," she said.  "I'm sure you'll do anything you can, but you
can't do much.  You see, Ma's brother understands.  Casey, why do you
think I talked to him so long?  They will stop you if I tell them to.
They will come in if I call."

"Try and call," I said; "and I'll drive everyone out of this village."

"Don't," said Sonya sharply.  "Please wait a minute, Casey.  You
mustn't!  You don't see!  One of the things they'll do is to smash your
plane.  There are men out there ready to break it if they hear a single
shot--and where will you be then?  Where will you go?  What can you do?
They'll call for the soldiers, Casey.  There's no place for you to
hide."

There was truth in what she said, but truth and logic did not matter to
me.  There are times when it does no good to weigh the pros and cons of
a situation.  I was convinced that this was one of those times.  There
was only one reason why I hesitated--because I was sorry.  I knew that
I would not see Sonya again.

"Sonya," I said, "I'm sorry."

"So am I," she answered.  "If you're going now, I'll go to see you off,
but you mustn't wait any longer."

"Sonya," I said, "it seems to me you're fixing it so that we both have
to give up everything for nothing.  I don't want you to think I'm not
fond of you, because I am.  I don't like to think how different things
might be."

"Please," she said, "please don't say that."

"All right," I answered.  "Have it your own way, Sonya."

She must have been taken off her guard.  If she was, it was exactly
what I intended, much as I hated what I was prepared to do.  She may
have forgotten momentarily that she was still holding that sheet of
paper.

I half turned, reluctantly, as though I were going to go.  Her hand and
the paper were out of my line of vision for a moment but I knew exactly
where it was.  I darted sideways.  My fingers reached the corner of the
paper and I snatched.  If I had thought I could be too quick for her,
if I had thought that I could snatch the paper out of her hand, I was
mistaken.  Her hand drew back the instant mine caught the corner of the
page.  There was a tearing sound and Sonya had stepped away from me.
We each were holding a half of that foolscap and staring at each other
stupidly.  I think she was going to cry out but I stopped her.  If I
did not have the whole paper, at least I had a half.

"Be careful, Sonya," I said.  "There's one thing I can do now--I can
destroy this if you call."

She understood me.  At any rate, she did not cry out and I looked at my
half of the torn page.  There were words on it in fine penmanship in a
language I did not understand, and formulas of what I knew to be
organic chemistry from the groups of symbols that were bound together
in valances.

Sonya was speaking gently.  "That wasn't fair of you," she said.

"My dear," I answered, "do you think you've been entirely fair?  Are
you going to give me that other half?"

"No," she said, "not as long as I live.  And you won't get it, Casey."

We stood there facing each other.  That short interval of time is the
oddest which I have ever experienced.  The surroundings made it
stranger--that wretched mud hovel, the kettle steaming on the small
brick stove, the tamped earthen floor, the faint light through the
paper windows.  I shall never live through a moment like that again,
or, if I do, it will be no more credible to me than the scene through
which I lived.  I do not believe I exaggerate as I think of the
importance attached to this paper which we sought.  It may be that I am
mistaken, but in my heart I am close to being sure that I held half the
future of the Pacific basin in my hand as I stood in that Manchurian
farmhouse, and that the girl opposite me was holding the other half.  I
had never realized the complete seriousness of my position until I held
that paper.  It was a responsibility about which I could not be
entirely certain, but it was one which I had to take.  My mind seemed
to go in a circle, futilely seeking for another step, when Sonya
interrupted me.

She was calling out for help.

I realize now that Sonya's call lifted all decision from my hands.  I
shifted my paper from my right hand to my left and got out my automatic
just as the door burst open.

"Wait," I said.  "Sonya, tell those fools to wait a minute!"

I knew already that there was only one thing left for me to do.  I was
even relieved by the thought and I still believe that I did what was
best, and all that was possible.

Ma's brother, with a group of men behind him (all of them big Chinese)
stood irresolutely in the doorway.  Some of them were holding hoes and
mattocks.  One of them held an antiquated rifle.

"Tell them to wait a minute, Sonya," I said.

Sonya called to them sharply.  I had to make my next move quickly and
accurately, before anyone could guess what I intended.  There was a
glow of embers in the draft in the mud-brick stove.  I bent quickly,
still watching Ma's brother and the men.

"Casey!" Sonya cried.  "You can't do that!"

I thrust the paper into the embers of the stove while the echo of her
voice still rang.  A bit of flame licked up at it.  The paper was on
fire and I straightened up, holding the burning half sheet.

"I think that's the only answer, Sonya," I said.  "I think we both did
our best."  The flames burnt my fingers and I dropped the charred
fragments on the floor.  Then I moved toward her, and I was glad, now
that it was over.  "I guess that's the end, Sonya.  You'd better burn
up your half of that.  It won't do you any good, I think, but it might
be dangerous.  Burn it up, Sonya.  I'm going to take you home."

She swayed toward me, and then she was sobbing on my shoulder.  "You're
not angry," she was sobbing, "are you, Casey?"

"Yes," I said, "don't you see, everything's all even, Sonya."  And a
sound made her straighten.  We both knew what the sound meant.  It came
from the sky, reverberating between the roofs and the smoky rafters
above our heads--a droning sound which grew louder, louder and then
stopped.  It was another plane.  Its pilot was cutting off the engine,
landing.  Voices outside were rising in a torrent of sound.

"That will probably be the Japanese police," I said.  "Give me that
paper, Sonya."  And I put it in the fire.  "I'm sorry," I said to Sonya
again and I took her hand.

"Don't be sorry," she answered.  She looked happier, younger, the way
she should always have looked.  Her lips curled up into a smile.
"Don't be sorry," she said, "because I think the police will be"--and
she mimicked the English of Japanese--"very, very sorry."

"And on the whole, I'm pleased," I said; "very, very pleased.  What do
you think they'll do to us?  Shoot us or put us into jail?"

There were no sounds from the street any longer.  The villagers must
have gone away and we found ourselves a minute later, staring at an old
friend of ours.  Mr. Moto, out of breath, was standing in the door of
Ma's brother's house.  Mr. Moto's composure was ruffled from his haste
and he no longer wore his morning coat.  Instead, his clothing was more
incongruous--a tweed golf suit and a brown tweed cap.  I knew enough
not to laugh because Mr. Moto was serious.

"So you have not gone," he said.  "You are clever, Mr. Lee.  As long as
you have not gone, I am very, very pleased."

"I like it here," I answered.  "Why should I go away?"

"Do not joke, please," Mr. Moto said.  "You cannot get away from here.
We have you, Mr. Lee.  And you too, Miss Sonya, and we want what you
have come to find--right away, please.  Do not joke!"

"The fuel-oil formula?" I said.

"Yes, please," said Mr. Moto.  "Thank you so much.  I am so glad you
know what I mean.  This is serious.  I must have it, please."

"No, Mr. Moto," I answered, "I'm afraid you can't."

"Please," said Mr. Moto, "do not be funny, Mr. Lee."

I found myself close to laughter again, but I did not laugh.  It would
have been discourteous to laugh, when Mr. Moto was laboring under such
excitement.

"The trouble was," I said, "you have wanted this and I have wanted it,
and so has Sonya here.  When people like the three of us want
something, what happens, Mr. Moto?"

"I am being very patient, Mr. Lee," Mr. Moto said.

"The trouble was this," I explained to him.  "Miss Sonya had that
paper.  I snatched for it and it tore in two.  There seemed to be only
one thing to do with that difference of opinion."  I pointed to the
fire.  "I burned my half.  Then the thing was useless.  Then Miss Sonya
burned her half.  You can see the charred fragments on the floor.
There is the story, Mr. Moto, and I am very much afraid that Japanese
and American battleships will continue to burn oil in the same old
wasteful way.  And perhaps it's just as well.  What do you think, Mr.
Moto?  I ask you because you're a sensible man."

I thought he would be angry, but he was not.  He grew grave, as he
stared at the charred fragments on the beaten earth floor.  Then he
looked up at me.

"Sometimes," said Mr. Moto, "I do not think, in spite of my study and
my admiration for your people, that I understand them very well.  But
please, Mr. Lee, you are a man of honor, I think.  We have tricked each
other and I am very, very sorry.  I do not wish to cause you further
pain.  Will you give me your word of honor that a single large page of
paper containing chemical symbols was what you have burned?"

"I swear it, Mr. Moto," I said.  "You can throw me into jail, you can
strangle me, but there isn't anything left--anything at all."

Mr. Moto's forehead wrinkled.  "But why should I strangle you, please,"
he said, "when it would do no possible good?  When this is burned, we
cannot help it, can we?  This must conclude the matter.  As long as I
am sure, and I am sure.  A little while ago I should have been relieved
to know that this was not in existence....  Yes, perhaps you are right.
You have not got it and I have not got it; our nations have not got it.
In one way I am very very sorry; at the same time I think I am very,
very pleased.  We can be friends now, I think.  There is nothing more
to fight about, I believe."

He had swallowed his disappointment.  He no longer seemed a comical
figure in his tweed suit.

"Moto," I said, "if I have tricked you in any way, forgive me.  I am
sure Miss Sonya means the same."

Mr. Moto removed his cap and bowed.  "I have always liked Miss Sonya,"
he said.  "Miss Sonya is very nice."

"I think so too," I answered.  "I am going to marry Miss Sonya."

"Please," said Mr. Moto, "would you object if I should shake hands with
her and offer her my congratulations?"

Sonya began to laugh.  "Excuse me," she said, as Mr. Moto looked hurt
and puzzled, "I'm not laughing at you, Mr. Moto.  I'm laughing at all
three of us--that we should be in a place like this."

"Oh, yes," said Mr. Moto.  "Ha-ha, that is funny.  Life is so very
strange."

"Moto," I asked him, "would you mind telling me something?  How did you
get here so soon?"

Mr. Moto was still smiling.  "My dear fellow," he said, "it was
difficult.  I understand that you know Mr. Wu Lai-fu.  He saw you
leaving in the plane.  He had not thought of that, so of course he came
to me in order to save something for himself.  He told me where you
were going, for a price, and I came very quickly.  Mr. Wu is a clever
man."

"Yes," I said.  "Mr. Wu is clever."

"But then," said Mr. Moto, "perhaps we are all--you and Miss Sonya and
me."

Sonya laughed again.  "Too clever to be comfortable," she said.  "What
are you going to do with us now?"

"We will go to the military barracks," said Mr. Moto, "if you please."

"Oh," I said, "we're prisoners, are we, Moto?"

"Please," said Mr. Moto, "you must not say that.  We go to the barracks
to be warm and comfortable.  The officers, they are good fellows, and I
shall get you fuel for your plane.  There is no sense in prisons.  And
Mr. Lee, we shall have some whisky, perhaps."

"No," said Sonya, "Casey isn't drinking."

"Oh," said Mr. Moto, "I am very, very sorry."

"So am I, Moto," I told him, "very sorry and surprised."


I believe I have reached the end of what I set out to write, unless
Commander Driscoll has some further suggestion.  Now that I have
reached the end, it comes over me suddenly; it seems as difficult as
the beginning.  After all, exactly what did I do, I wonder?  Jim
Driscoll was the one who helped me out with this question.  Naturally I
saw Driscoll when I came back to Shanghai, and I brought Sonya with me.

"What you don't know won't hurt you," Driscoll said.  "The Orient is
different from America.  I shall want you to lunch with the Admiral
tomorrow, and then you will probably have to write this out, because it
is important.  There's no need for you ever to know how important.
When you write it, you can say anything about me you like, but I should
like to have you make one addition.  I might have treated you better,
Casey.  We were both of us excited that other day, and let's forget it.
And there's another thing--you might go and call on Wu Lai-fu.  I think
he'd like to see you."

So this is as far as I am going to go and further, perhaps, than I had
anticipated.  I have finished a narrative which is difficult to
believe, now that I am away from the place where it occurred and may
never see that place again.

"Don't worry," Driscoll said, "anyone who has been out here can
understand that anything can happen.  You ought to be grateful to the
Orient."

Perhaps I am--at any rate when I think of Sonya.




[End of No Hero, by John P. Marquand]
