“I am not sure, Excellency.”
“It is our own merchants here in this city: the Hong, the merchant guild—the very group of men the emperor has authorized to deal with these foreigners. They are the traitors, the ones who allow the barbarians to sell opium, and we shall deal with them severely.”
The next few days were busy. Without saying what he intended to do, Lin conducted numerous interviews and collected evidence. Shi-Rong found himself working day and night taking notes, writing reports, and running errands. After a week, Lin gave him a small mission of his own. He was to go to the house of one of the Hong merchants and talk to him.
“Don’t give anything away,” Lin told him. “Be friendly. Talk to him about the foreign merchants and their trade. Find out what he really thinks.”
The following afternoon Shi-Rong made his report.
“The first thing I discovered, Excellency, is that he doesn’t believe the opium trade will be stopped. Interrupted, yes. But he thinks that once you have done enough to please the emperor, you will leave. And then things will go back to the way they were before. In the meantime, although he knows your reputation for honesty, he clearly finds it hard to believe you won’t be bought off like everyone else.”
“Anything else?”
“Two things, Excellency. His tone suggested that he and the barbarian merchants have become personal friends. More than that, I discovered from his servants that he personally is deeply in debt to one of them, a man named Odstock.”
“You have done well. The emperor was correct to keep these Fan Kuei away from our people. Yet even when we confine them to a single port, in a compound outside the city walls, they still manage to corrupt our Hong merchants, who are supposed to be worthy men.”
“Indeed.”
“You said there was a second thing.”
“Probably of no significance, Excellency. But he told me that this merchant, Odstock, daily expects the arrival of a young scholar who is to be a junior partner in his business. Though it seems strange,” he added, “that a man of education would become a merchant.”
“Who knows, with these barbarians? When he arrives, I want you to meet him. See if he knows anything useful.”
“As you wish, Excellency.” Shi-Rong bowed his head.
“And now,” Lin said with a grim smile, “I think we are ready. Summon all the members of the Hong to gather this evening.” He gave Shi-Rong a quick nod. “We strike tonight.”
◦
John Trader gazed at Tully Odstock in horror. They were sitting in his small office, overlooking the narrow alley that ran from the front of the English factory to the Chinese lane at the back. Two oil lamps shed a yellowish glow over the leather chairs in which they were sitting. The atmosphere was warm and stuffy; but to John Trader, it felt cold as the Gobi Desert.
“Happened last night,” Tully explained. “This Lin fellow called all the Hong merchants in. Told them they were criminals and traitors. Then he says that the factory merchants are to surrender all their opium, and that the Hong must arrange it—they’re responsible for all the overseas trade, you see—and that if they don’t, he’ll start executing them. He’s given them three days. In the meantime, none of us are allowed to leave Canton.”
“When he says all our opium…”
“Not just the small amounts we have here at the factories. He means all the bulk we keep at the depots downriver and out in the gulf, and the cargoes in ships still coming in. He means everything we have. It’s a huge amount.”
“And the opium I bought and paid for?”
“That, too, of course.” Tully nodded sympathetically. “Rather hard luck that, I must say. But when you invested in the partnership, that immediately became Odstocks’ money, you see.” He brightened. “You’re in for ten percent of future profits, of course.”
“What profits?” Trader asked bitterly. Tully said nothing. “So I’ve lost my investment.”
“Wouldn’t say that,” Tully replied. “Daresay it’ll all blow over.”
“Are we going to surrender the opium?”
“There’s a meeting about that. Day after tomorrow. You’ll be there, of course,” Tully added, as though that made things better.
—
John Trader didn’t sleep much that night. Odstocks’ quarters in the English factory contained two small bedrooms. Tully’s looked into the alley. John’s had no window. At midnight, lying in his stuffy box of a room, listening to Tully’s snores through the plaster wall, John reached over to the brass oil lamp still burning with a tiny glow and turned up the wick. Then taking a piece of paper, he stared at what he had written. Not that he needed to. He knew all the figures by heart.
Total investment. Debt. Interest due. Cash on hand. Staring dully at the numbers, he calculated once again. Assuming modest expenses, he could pay the interest on his debt and live for a year, but not much more. Fifteen months at best.
The Odstock brothers didn’t know about his debt. He’d used the extra investment to negotiate a better deal from the partnership. In normal circumstances, it would have been a good bargain. But now? He was facing ruin.
And why had he done it? To win Agnes, of course. To make a fortune fast. To prove to her father that in time he’d be able to make Agnes the mistress of a Scottish estate. He knew it could be done. The image of her face came
