He never saw the two guests depart. They found their way to the door alone, and soon after eight the room was empty. No waiter served them; their meals were placed in readiness on a small buffet and as No. 6 was veiled from the observations of the curious by a curtain which stretched across the passage, only Yeh Ling knew them.
On the first Monday of every month, Yeh Ling went up to the room and kowtowed to its solitary occupant. The old man was always alone on these occasions. On such a Monday, with a large lacquered cashbox in his hand and a fat book under his arm, Yeh Ling entered the presence of the man in No. 6, put down his impedimenta on the buffet and did his reverence.
“Sit down,” said Jesse Trasmere, and he spoke in the sibilant dialect of the lower provinces. Yeh Ling obeyed, hiding his own hands respectfully in the full sleeves of his gown. “Well?”
“The profits this week have fallen, excellency,” said Yeh Ling but without apology. “The weather has been very fine and many of our clients are out of town.”
He exposed his hands to open the cashbox and bring out four packages of paper money. These he divided into two, three of the packages to the right and one to the left. The old man took the three packages, which were nearest to him and grunted.
“The police came last night and asked to be shown over the houses,” Yeh Ling went on impressively. “They desired to see the cellars, because they think always that Chinamen have smoke-places in their cellars.”
“Humph,” said Mr. Trasmere. He was thumbing the money in his hand. “This is good, Yeh Ling.”
He slipped the money into a black bag which was on the floor at his feet. Yeh Ling shook his head, thereby indicating his agreement.
“Do you remember in Fi Sang a man who worked for me?”
“The drinker?”
The old man agreed to the appellation.
“He is coming to this country,” said Mr. Trasmere, chewing a toothpick. He was a hard-faced man between sixty and seventy. A rusty black frock-coat ill fitted his spare form, his old-fashioned collar was frayed at the edge and the black shoestring tie that encircled his lean throat had been so long in use that it had lost whatever rigidity it had ever possessed, and hung limp in two tangled bunches on either side of the knot. His eyes were a hard granite blue, his face ridged and scaled with callosities until it was lizard-like in its coarseness.
“Yes, he is coming to this country. He will come here as soon as he finds his way about town and that will be mighty soon, for Wellington Brown is a traveller! Yeh Ling, this man is troublesome. I should be happy if he were sleeping on the Terraces of the Night.”
Again Yeh Ling shook his head.
“He cannot be killed—here,” he said. “The illustrious knows that my hands are clean—”
“Are you a man-of-wild-mind?” snarled the other. “Do I kill men or ask that they should be killed? Even on the Amur, where life is cheap, I have done no more than put a man to the torture because he stole my gold. No, this Drinker must be made quiet. He smokes the pipe of Pleasant Experience. You have no pipe-room. I would not tolerate such a thing. But you know places.”
“I know a hundred and a hundred,” said Yeh Ling, cheerfully for him.
He accompanied his master to the door, and when it had closed upon him, he returned swiftly to his parlour and summoned a stunted man of his race.
“Go after the old man and see that no harm comes to him,” he said.
It seemed from his tone almost as though this guardianship was novel, but in exactly the same words the shuffling Chinaman had received identical instructions every day for six years, when the thud of the closing street-door came to Yeh Ling’s keen ears. Every day except Sunday.
He himself never went out after Jesse Trasmere. He had other duties which commenced at eleven and usually kept him busy until the early hours of the morning.
II
Mr. Trasmere walked steadily and at one pace, keeping to the more populous streets. Then at exactly 8:25 he turned into Peak Avenue, that wide and pleasant thoroughfare where his house was situated. A man who had been idling away a wasted half-hour saw him and crossed the road.
“Excuse me, Mr. Trasmere.”
Jesse shot a scowling glance at the interrupter of his reveries. The stranger was young and a head taller than the old man, well dressed, remarkably confident.
“Eh?”
“You don’t remember me—Holland? I called upon you about a year ago over the trouble you had with the municipality.”
Jesse’s face cleared.
“The reporter? Yes, I remember you. You had an article in your rag that was all wrong, sir—all wrong! You made me say that I had a respect for municipal laws and that’s a lie! I have no respect for municipal laws or lawyers. They’re thieves and grafters!”
He thumped the ferrule of his umbrella on the ground to emphasize his disapproval.
“I shouldn’t be surprised,” said the young man with a cheerful smile, “and if I made you toss around a few bouquets that was faire bonne mine. I’d forgotten anyway, but it is the job of an interviewer to make his subject look good.”
“Well, what do you want?”
“Our correspondent in Peking has sent us the original proclamation of the insurgent, General Wing Su—or Sing Wu, I’m not sure which. These Chinese names get me rattled.”
Tab Holland produced from his pocket a sheet of yellow paper covered with strange characters.
“We can’t get in touch with our interpreters and knowing that you are a whale—an authority on the language, the news editor wondered if you would be so kind.”
Jesse took the sheet reluctantly, gripped his bag between his knees and put on his glasses.
“ ‘Wing Su Shi, by the favour of heaven, humbly before his
