The Yellow Snake Page 17

  The four men who occupied the launch wore oilskins and sou’westers, and the need for this protection was emphasized before they had reached the middle of the river, for the drizzle became a downpour.

  “Give me China, where the sun is always shining!” murmured Joe Bray, squatting on the floorboards, but nobody answered him.

  After a quarter of an hour Superintendent Willing said in a low voice:

  “There are the boats, right ahead on the Surrey side.”

  The Umgeni and the Umveli were, as he had said, sister ships, and were more twin-like than most sister ships are. Their black hulls and funnels were familiar objects to the riverside loafer; they had the same curiously advanced navigation bridge, the same long superstructure running forward. Both had a single mast, and both sported a gilt and unnecessary figurehead of Neptune.

  There was no need to ask which was the Umgeni. Her decks were brilliantly illuminated, and as they came in sight of her a fussy little tug was drawing away three empty lighters from her side. A little more than a ship’s length from her the Umveli swung at her moorings, a dark and lifeless shape.

  “You didn’t search the Umveli?”

  “No, it hardly seemed necessary. She’s only been in the river a little more than a week, and she’s been unloading all that time.”

  “By night,” was Clifford’s significant comment. “The ship which apears to be unloading by night might very easily be loading by night.”

  The brilliance of the Umgeni illuminated the starboard side of her sister ship, and Lynne set the nose of the launch towards the shore, setting a course that would bring him in the shadow of the vessel.

  “Rather low down in the water for an empty ship, isn’t she?” he asked, and the superintendent agreed.

  “She’s going round to Newcastle in ballast to undergo repairs,” he said. “At least, that is my information.”

  There was little chance of confusing the two vessels. The word Umgeni in letters a yard long sprawled over the hull of that busy craft in great raised characters. As they came upon the dark side of the Umveli, Lynne looked up. They were passing under the stern, and he saw something which interested him.

  “Look at that,” he whispered, pointing.

  The letters ‘vel’ had been removed from the stern of the ship.

  “What’s the idea?”

  “They are changing names, that’s all,” said Clifford laconically. “In two hours the Umveli will go down the Thames with the Umgeni‘s papers, and in the morning the Umgeni, newly christened, will steam out to sea ostensibly on its way to Newcastle.” They were moving silently, and the dark-covered launch would not be visible to ordinary eyes; nevertheless, when they came abreast of the companion ladder a screeching voice hailed them.

  “What boat that?”

  “Passing,” shouted Lynne gruffly.

  He focused a pair of night-glasses on the ship and presently he saw another look-out standing on the forecastle; and, more important, three shadowy shapes were on the bridge and smoke was coming up from the funnel.

  “They keep a pretty good watch for an empty ship,” he said, expecting to be hailed again by the man on the forecastle, but evidently this watcher was not so vigilant as his fellow. Clifford saw him turn and walk slowly towards the ladder that led to the well of the deck, and instantly sent the launch about so that it came under the clipper bow..

  Reaching up, he caught hold of the chains with a rubber-covered boathook and steadied the launch, and in another instant had drawn himself up hand over hand till his arm encircled the bowsprit. As he peeped cautiously along the forecastle he heard somebody in a far-away voice call a name, and the forecastle watcher descended out of sight. In an instant he conveyed the intelligence, and first Willing and then Joe Bray, who displayed remarkable agility, followed him through the deserted ship. After seeing them safely on board, the launch drew off in accordance with instructions.

  “We’ll get down into the well,” whispered Lynne, and, hurrying ahead, he ran down the ladder, expecting every moment to be challenged.

  But the well was deserted. From an open doorway in the forecastle he heard the sound of a mouth-organ being played, whilst from ahead of him came the clop-clop of a hammer against wedges where the hatch was being finally closed. A narrow alleyway led from the well beneath the main deck, and if the party could reach this without attracting the attention of the men on the bridge, there was a possibility of finding a hiding-place.

  Keeping in the shadow of the bulwarks, Cliff Lynne crept along, Joe in his wake, and they reached the alleyway without incident. Here a hiding-place was revealed. Immediately under the bridge (and exactly two decks lower) was a large cabin which, to judge from the scratches and discolorations on the bulkhead, had been used for carrying cargo. Two dimly burning bulkhead lights showed that the place had been converted to carry passengers. There was a table, two or three chairs, a package bearing the label of a well-known bookseller, and on the floor, a brand-new carpet, its creases rising in rectangular ridges.

  Though the room ran the width of the ship it was not more than six feet in depth. In the after steel wall were two narrow bulkhead doors; one was padlocked and bolted, but the other stood ajar, and, pushing it open, Clifford stepped in, turning on his pocket-lamp.

  It was a tiny cupboard of a place, without windows, air being admitted through a deck ventilator, he guessed, for the atmosphere was pure and there was a gentle current of air. In a corner was a small brass bedstead, which had been clamped to the deck; in the farther corner was a recessed wash-place with a newly-fixed shower-bath and an earthenware basin. This and an incongruously ornate wardrobe, much too big for so small an apartment, completed the furniture.

  Hearing the sound of feet on the deck outside, Clifford beckoned his two companions into the small room. Through a crack in the door he saw a Chinese sailor enter and look round. Presently he went back to the door and shouted something, and another sailor joined him and they talked together in a dialect with which neither Joe Bray nor Clifford was acquainted. They were obviously Southern Chinese, and whatever was the subject of their discourse amused them for they punctuated their speech with raucous squeaks of laughter.

  And then, to Clifford’s horror, before he could realize what was happening, one of the men put out his hand, gripped the door of the cubby house and slammed it tight. Clifford heard the grind of the bolt slipping into its place, and the slam of the outer door. They were trapped!

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  It had been for Mr Stephen Narth a day of unrelieved misery. What remained of a conscience largely atrophied by self-interest was surprisingly sensitive to the knowledge of the evil he had done to an innocent girl. Again and again he had repeated Fing-Su’s assurance that no harm would come to her, and again and again his reason rejected this futile act of self-deception. And then, on top of the other causes for misery, the news had come like a thunderbolt that Joe Bray was alive and that the treasure his fingers were reaching to touch was phantom gold!

  Joe Bray was alive!

  He had perpetrated an elaborate jest upon his heir. The easy way out was no longer a way at all, easy or difficult. His one surviving hope was vested in the integrity of Fing-Su.

  Stephen Narth was too intelligent a man to believe that the native would keep any promise he had ever made. And yet Ł50,000 was at stake. Would even the most fantastic of Chinamen lose his hold upon that enormous sum, as undoubtedly he would if Stephen Narth decided to break loose from his association. Bankruptcy? What was bankruptcy but an unpleasant incident which might come to any man, and had come to many better and more highly placed than Stephen Narth? And with bankruptcy the ambitious Chinaman might whistle for his money.

  This was the only comforting thought that the afternoon brought to him. The prospect of his initiation only filled him with a mild nausea that he should lower himself to the level of this ‘mountebank Chink.’

  He was a member of two societies which might be described as ‘s
ecret’, and his general knowledge of such matters was broad enough to acquaint him with most of the formula: of initiation. He looked forward to the evening as a tiresome and uncomfortable waste of time. A journey to South London would have been a wretched experience at any hour or season, but the prospect of making his visit in the middle of the night, and of spending two hours, as he supposed, in the company of Chinese coolies, revolted him.

  Spedwell dined with him at his hotel, and did his best to gloss over the coming ordeal. This thin-faced man with his shifty dark eyes was glib enough, but he could not wholly assuage the sensation of disgust which the thought of the ceremony aroused in Stephen Narth’s mind. His was not a delicate gorge by any means, but he had behind him an ancestry with high traditions; and the more he thought of his position, when he allowed himself to think at all, the more he hated the thought of the work of that day and the night which was to follow.

  “There’s nothing to be squeamish about,” said Spedwell at last, as he lit a long black cheroot. “If anybody has a kick, it’s me. You seem to forget, Narth, that I have commanded native infantry, and Indian infantry at that. Men of caste and refinement, men with European standards. You don’t imagine that I like associating with the refuse of Asia, do you?”

  “You’re different,” snapped Stephen. “You’re a soldier of fortune and you can adapt yourself to circumstances. What have they done with Joan?” he asked fretfully.

  “She’s all right; she’s being well taken care of. You needn’t worry about her,” said Spedwell easily. “I wouldn’t allow anything to happen to the girl, you can be sure.”

  They were dining in Stephen’s private suite, and the hour that followed passed all too quickly for the troubled man. It was near midnight when they went out into Piccadilly together. Spedwell’s car was waiting and reluctantly Stephen entered. All the way to South London he was plying the other with questions. What was Fing-Su’s plan? Why were they anxious to enlist him? What would he be expected to do?…

  Spedwell answered him with great patience, but was obviously relieved when the car turned into a side thoroughfare near the canal bridge in the Old Kent Road.

  “Here we are,” he said, and they got down.

  They had to walk for five minutes before they came to the narrow opening of a lane which ran by the side of a high brick wall. The only light they had came from a street lamp planted squarely in the entrance of the lane. The lamp served the double purpose of preventing the ingress of wheeled traffic and forming an inadequate illumination for the long and muddy thoroughfare. The rain was pelting down, and Stephen Narth pulled up the collar of his coat with a grunt.

  “What is this place?” he asked querulously.

  “Our factory—at least, our warehouse,” replied Spedwell.

  He stopped before a door and, stooping, inserted a key and opened it.

  Narth was full of trivial complaints.

  “Was it necessary I should come in evening dress?” he asked.

  “Very necessary,” said the other. “Let me take your arm.”

  So far as the initiate could see by the light which came from his conductor’s lamp, he was being taken to a small shed built against the wall. It proved to be a bare apartment equipped with two old Windsor chairs.

  “It’s dry, at any rate,” said Spedwell as he switched on the light. “I shall have to leave you here; I must go along and tell Fing-Su you’ve come.”

  Left alone, Narth occupied himself by pacing up and down the tiny chamber. He wondered if Leggat would be there, and whether the initiation would prove too grotesque for him to go through with. Presently he heard the key in the lock and Spedwell came in.

  “You can leave your coat here,” he said. “There’s only a little distance to walk.”

  Mr Narth had arrayed himself, according to instructions, in a long-tailed evening coat and white tie, and now, at Spedwell’s request, he took from his pocket a pair of white kid gloves and pulled them on.

  “Now!” said Spedwell, put out the light and led the way from the hut.

  They were on a gravelled path which ended with a flight of stairs which seemed to lead down into the ground. At the top of these stood two statuesque figures, and as they came near one challenged in a tongue which was unfamiliar to the novitiate.

  Spedwell lowered his voice and hissed something. With the other’s hand on his arm, Narth descended the stairs and came to a second door, and again was challenged in the same language. Again Spedwell answered, and somebody rapped on a door. It was opened cautiously, there was a whispered interrogation, and then Spedwell’s hand gripped the other’s arm and he was led into a long, fantastically decorated hall. Was it imagination on his part, or did Spedwell’s hand tremble?

  He stood looking down a long vista, and for a second he was inclined to laugh hysterically. Squatting on either side of this oblong apartment were line after line of Chinamen, and each man was in a shabby, ill-fitting evening dress. The white shirts were the veriest shams; he saw the end of one shirt-front sticking out, and round its edge he saw the curve of a brown body. On each shirt-front were two blazing stones. He had no need to be associated with the theatrical profession to realize that they were ‘property’ diamonds. Solemnly, awfully, they stared at him, these quaint apparitions in their shoddy social livery.

  He gazed open-mouthed from one side to the other. They all wore white bows, comically tied. Each man had white cotton gloves which rested on his knees. He had seen something like it before…that was the first impression Stephen Narth received. And then he recalled…a coloured minstrel troupe sitting solemnly in exactly that attitude…white gloves on knees. Only these men were yellow.

  In four great blue vases joss-sticks were burning. The room was blue with their fumes.

  And now he let his eyes stray along the centre aisle to the white altar, and, behind it, enthroned, Fing-Su himself. Over his evening dress—and no doubt his diamonds were real—he wore a robe of red silk. On his head was an immense gold crown which sparkled with precious stones. One white-gloved hand held a golden rod, the other a glittering orb that flashed in the light of the shaded candelabra. Suddenly his voice broke the silence:

  “Who is this who comes to speak with the Joyful Hands?”

  Narth became conscious of the golden hands suspended above Fing-Su’s head, but before he could take them in, Spedwell replied:

  “O Son of Heaven, live for ever! This is one, thy meanest slave, who comes to worship at thy throne!”

  Instantly at these words, as though they were watching some invisible choirmaster who led their chorus, the yellow men chanted something in chorus.

  They stopped as abruptly as they had begun.

  “Let him come near,” said Fing-Su.

  Spedwell had disappeared; probably he was behind him. Narth did not dare turn his head to look. Two of these slovenly fellows in evening dress conducted him slowly along the hall. In a dim way he realized that the man on his right was wearing a pair of trousers that were three inches too short for him. But there was nothing comical in this. He was too oppressed with a sense of terror, a premonition of a horror yet unimagined, to find food for laughter in any of the incongruities which met his eyes on either side.

  And then he saw the altar with its glittering edge, and the shrouded figure of a man lying upon it, covered by a white sheet. He looked at it numbly; saw a great red heart pinned to the sheet…He was trying hard to think sanely, his wide-staring eyes fixed upon the shape and the red heart…On the hem of the shroud was a sprawling Chinese character in scarlet.

  “It’s symbolical…only a wax figure,” hissed a voice in his ear.

  So Spedwell was there. He received an accession of courage from this knowledge.

  “Say after me”—Fing-Su’s deep, solemn voice filled the room with sounds—“I will be faithful to the Joyful Hands…”

  Like a man in a dream, Narth repeated the words.

  “I will strike to the heart all its enemies.”

 
He repeated the words. Where was Leggat? He expected to find Leggat here. His eyes roved round the visible arc, but there was no sign of that stout, jovial man.

  “By this sign”—Fing-Su was speaking—“do I give proof of my loyalty, my faith and my brotherhood…”

  Somebody slipped a thing into his hand. It was a long, straight knife, razor-keen.

  “Hold it above the figure,” said a voice in his ear, and mechanically Stephen Narth obeyed as he repeated, without realizing what the words meant, the oath that the man on the dais prescribed.

  “So let all the enemies of the Emperor die!” said Fing-Su.

  “Strike at the heart!” whispered Spedwell’s voice, and with all his strength Stephen Narth struck down.

  Something yielded under the knife; he felt a quiver. And then the white sheet went suddenly red. With a scream he clawed at the cloth where the head was and drew it back…

  “Oh, my God!” he shrieked.

  He was looking into the dead face of Ferdinand Leggat!

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  He had killed Leggat! With his hands he, who would not have slain a rabbit, had struck this man to his death! The red on the cloth was widening; his hands were dabbled with the horrible fluid, and he turned with an insane yell to grapple with the devil who had whispered the words in his ear.

  Spedwell, his face distorted with horror, put out his hand to save himself, but the bloody hands gripped his throat and flung him down. And then something struck Narth and he tumbled over, first to his knees and then upon the tessellated pavement, a demented, screaming madman…

  *

  The serried ranks of yellow men sat watching without movement, their shoddy diamonds glittering in their shirt-fronts, their white hands on their knees.

  An hour later Major Spedwell came into the apartment which was reserved for Fing-Su on his infrequent visits to the factory, and the Chinaman looked up over his book and flicked the ash of his cigarette into a silver tray.