The Yellow Snake Read online

  “Could I see you tonight?”

  “Why—yes,” she said. And then, remembering: “I shall be alone. The girls are going to town.”

  He scratched his chin at this.

  “Are they?” He frowned. “But that doesn’t make a great deal of difference. I want to see you at the cottage. Would you come if I called for you?”

  The proprieties were never a strong point with Joan; she was so sure of herself, so satisfied with the correctness of her own code, that other people’s opinion of her did not matter. But his suggestion did not accord with her own theory of behaviour.

  “Is that necessary?” she asked. “I will come if you wish me to, for I know you would not invite me unless you had a special reason.”

  “I have a very special reason,” he insisted. “I want you to meet somebody. At least I think I do.”

  He ran his fingers through his hair irritably.

  “A friend of mine—and not so much of a friend either.”

  She was astonished at his agitation and could only wonder I what was the extraordinary cause.

  “I’ll call for you about ten,” he said. “And, Joan, I’ve been thinking matters over and I’m rather worried.”

  Instinctively she knew that the cause of his trouble was herself.

  “Have you changed your mind?” she bantered.

  He shook his head.

  “About marrying you? No. I’ve never dared let myself see how this fool adventure would end. If I hadn’t been doped with a drugging sense of duty—however, that has nothing to do with the case. We shall have to consider the position from a new angle tonight. I’d gone so far and suffered so much–-“

  “Suffered?”

  He nodded vigorously.

  “By a provision of nature,” he said soberly, “you are spared the misery of growing a long and golden beard. It wasn’t so bad when I was miles from everywhere in my little house in Siangtan, and on the voyage home; it was when I came into contact with civilization—can you imagine what it is to dress for dinner and to discover that when you fastened your collar you had imprisoned a large and painful hank of hair?…However, that’s done with, and now”—he paused awkwardly—“I’m not sorry.”

  “About growing a beard?” she asked innocently.

  He looked her straight in the eyes.

  “You know jolly well I don’t mean anything about the beard, and that I’m talking of you. I wish I had time to study you. You’ve probably got a fearful temper–-“

  “Vile,” she admitted mendaciously.

  “And possibly you’re vain and empty-headed,” he went on with great calmness. “All pretty girls are vain and empty-headed; that is one of the lessons I learnt at the knee of the maiden aunt who brought me up. But in spite of these drawbacks I kind of like you. That’s queer, isn’t it?”

  “It would be queer if you didn’t,” she said, adopting his attitude, and he laughed. “Have you committed your murder?”

  He started.

  “Murder? Oh, you mean Fing-Su? No, I fear that tonight I shall be too busy. I’m certainly going to kill Fing-Su,” he said, and though his tone was matter-of-fact, she shivered, for he conveyed to her the impression of a man in very great earnest. “I’ve got to kill him. But tonight?” He shook his head. “A lot of things have got to happen before then. When can you marry me?”

  He was serious enough, and at the direct question she felt herself going red.

  “Is that necessary?” she asked, a little desperately, for now, brought face to face with the logical consequence of her undertaking, she had a moment of panic. There was something very definite about his question, and that gave her a certain fearful twinge of happiness. But it was also too businesslike, too free from the atmosphere of tenderness which conventionally surrounds such a proposal, and she was just a little bit annoyed with him. It brought the proposition back to its original commercial setting, extinguished the faint glitter of romance, a sickly flame at best, which the past few days had brought to life.

  “I suppose you will suit your own convenience,” she said coldly. “You realize, of course, Mr Lynne, that I do not love you, any more than you love me?”

  “That goes without saying,” he said brusquely. “But I will tell you something: I’ve never been in love; I’ve had my dreams and my ideals, as every man and every woman has, and you are the nearest approach to the mystery woman of my dreams that I shall ever hope to meet. When I tell you I like you, I mean it. I’m not in that ecstatic state of mind when I am prepared to kiss the ground on which you walk, but that is a form of delirium which may come later.”

  All the time he was speaking there was that kind and friendly smile in his eyes which made it impossible for her to arouse her resentment to any high pitch. She was exasperated with him, and yet could admire his honesty, and had no piqued inclination to offer the obvious retort that her heart was at least as free as his.

  “Today is Monday,” he said. “We will be married on Friday by special licence. Friday will be an unlucky day—for somebody.”

  “You really mean Friday?” she asked, with a pang of dismay.

  “It’s rather sudden, I know; but then, things are moving more quickly than I anticipated,” he said.

  He took up his hat from the table where he had placed it when he came in.

  “I shall call for you at ten. Do you mind?”

  She shook her head.

  “And you’re not afraid?” he bantered, and hurriedly added: “There’s really no reason for fear—not yet.”

  “Tell me when I must begin fearing you,” she said, as she walked with him to the door.

  “You need never fear me,” he said quietly. “I was thinking of somebody else.”

  “Fing-Su?”

  He looked round at her quickly.

  “A thought-reader too, are you?” He put his hand about her arm and squeezed it gently. It was a very friendly, brotherly gesture, and it left her, for some reason, very near to tears.

  The two girls, who appeared from nowhere as the door closed on Clifford, followed her back to the drawing-room.

  “You didn’t tell him anything, did you?” asked Mabel rapidly. “You wouldn’t do anything so mean and underhand as that, Joan?”

  Joan looked at her in surprise.

  “What were we talking about?” she asked, and she was honest in her bewilderment, for she had forgotten the conversation in her room.

  “Letty had an awful feeling you’d tell him what we’d been discussing, but I said, ‘Letty, Joan would never, never do anything so despicable.’”

  “About your marrying him?” asked Joan, suddenly understanding. “Oh, no, I had forgotten that—we were so busy fixing the date—Mr Lynne and I are to be married on Friday.”

  “Good God!” said Mabel.

  Her profanity was pardonable, for in a moment of great self-sacrifice she had decided to be Mrs Clifford Lynne.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The sisters went to town at six o’clock, and Joan from her window was heartily glad to see the limousine pass out of sight along the Egham road. She ate her dinner in solitude and waited impatiently for the coming of Clifford Lynne. She was a little baffled by his attitude. The marriage was still in the category of business arrangement; with the exception of that half-caress he had shown neither tenderness nor that sentimental regard for her charms which is to be expected even in the most self-possessed of men; and yet there was little that was austere or cold in his composition, she was sure. None the less, between them was a barrier which must be broken down, a gulf which only mutual affection could bridge. For one brief moment the prospect of this cold-blooded marriage terrified her.

  She was standing before the half-open front door of the house when she heard his quick step on the gravel, and, assuring herself that she had the key in her bag, she closed the door gently behind her and went to meet him.

  Suddenly she found herself in a circle of light.

  “Sorry!” said Clifford’s voice. �
��I was pretty certain it was you, but I had to take one peep.”

  “Who else might it be?” she asked as she fell in by his side.

  “I don’t know,” was the unsatisfactory reply.

  Her arm slipped into his in the most natural way.

  “I am by nature cautious and even suspicious, and there’s something about the English countryside that is more sinister than the bad lands of Honan would be to a traveller with a camel-load of ‘Mex’ dollars! You see, there, you know where you are—you are either at peace or at war with your neighbours; but in England you may be at war all the time and never know it. Do you mind walking in the middle of the road—that doesn’t scare you, does it?” he asked quickly, and she laughed.

  “I’ve an infinite faith in the police,” she said demurely.

  She heard him chuckle.

  “The police? Yes, they’re quite all right in most cases, especially when they are dealing with known criminals, and the printed categories of crime. But Fing-Su isn’t a known criminal; he’s a highly respectable person. How he has escaped the OBE I can’t understand. We turn right here.”

  There was no need for him to tell her that, for her eyes, accustomed to the darkness, saw the dark opening that led to the Slaters’ Cottage. What had once been a rough wagon track was now a smoothly gravelled road. A few yards down the drive she saw the tall column of a light standard.

  “Yes, we’re putting in all modern improvements,” he said when she called his attention to this innovation. “Only the evil love the dark. I, who am of a virtuous disposition, use this thousand-candle-power arc to advertise my rectitude!”

  Suddenly he stopped, and she perforce must halt too.

  “I said the other day that Narth had a pull with you, and you didn’t deny it,” he said. “I discovered the pull a few days ago. Your brother was accidentally killed whilst leaving the country with money taken from Narth’s office.”

  “Yes,” she said in a low voice.

  “That was it, eh?”

  She heard his sigh of relief. What else could he have imagined? she wondered.

  “I get it now,” he went on as they resumed their walk. “It was that ‘after all I’ve done for you’ stuff? Otherwise, I should have been completely rejected. I’m glad.”

  He said this so simply and sincerely that she felt the colour coming to her face.

  “Has your friend arrived?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he answered shortly: “he came an hour ago, the–-” He smothered an imprecation.

  “One would think–-” she began, when suddenly he gripped her arm.

  “Don’t speak,” he whispered.

  Joan saw that he was looking back the way they had come, his head bent in a listening attitude, and her heart began to thump painfully. Then, without warning, he led her to the side of the road and to the cover of a great fir tree and pushed her behind it.

  “Stay there,” he said in the same low tone.

  Almost immediately he disappeared, making his way noiselessly over a carpet of pine needles from tree to tree. She stared back after him; all she could see was the pale evening sky behind a belt of tall firs, and the sky’s reflection of a puddle which had gathered at the side of the drive. She was not usually nervous, but now she felt her knees trembling under her, and her breath came shallowly. After a while she saw him emerge from the gloom near at hand.

  “It was nothing,” he said, but she noticed that he still kept his voice down. “I thought I heard somebody following us. I’ll have these trees down tomorrow; they make too good cover–-“

  Something came past them with the sound of a hissing whip. There was a thud, and silence. He said something in a strange language, and then he stepped back and, reaching up, pulled something from the trunk of a fir.

  “A throwing knife,” he whispered. “I tell you, these Yun Nan murderers are wonderful shots, and the devils can see in the dark! Where’s the nearest policeman?”

  In spite of herself she was shivering.

  “The patrol won’t be near here for another hour,” she faltered. “Did somebody throw a knife?”

  “Not for another hour, eh?” he said, almost brightly. “Providence is on my side!”

  He took a thing from his pocket—in the half light it looked to be a fat silver cylinder; she saw he was fitting it to the end of a long, black pistol.

  “Mustn’t alarm the neighbours,” he said, and slipping from her side, again vanished into the darkness.

  She waited, her heart in her mouth, and suddenly:

  ‘Plop!’

  The squawk that followed came from somewhere surprisingly near. She heard on the gravel drive a patter of feet that grew fainter and fainter. When it had ceased, Clifford rejoined her, and he was unfixing the silver box.

  “Got him, but not seriously,” he said. “I’m glad I didn’t kill him. I should either have had to bury him in the wood and risk a scandal, or take him before a magistrate and make a newspaper sensation.”

  “Did you shoot him?” she asked.

  “Oh, yes, I shot him all right,” he said carelessly. “I think he was alone.”

  Again he took her by the arm and led her along the drive, and they walked swiftly towards the Slaters’ Cottage. There was no sign of life: the shuttered windows were dead, and even the sound of the muffled explosion had not roused the interest or curiosity of Clifford Lynne’s guest.

  He waited for almost a minute on the step of the cottage, listening.

  “I think there was only one man,” he said with a little sigh of relief, “and probably a watcher, who reckoned he’d improve the shining hour by a little target practice. You’re not frightened?”

  “Yes, I am,” she said; “I’m horribly frightened!”

  “So am I,” he said. “I hate myself for taking this risk with you, but I had no idea there was any danger—yet.”

  He put a key in the lock and opened the door. They were in a narrow passageway, from which, she saw as he switched on the light, two doors led left and right.

  “Here we are.” He walked before her, turned the handle of the left-hand door and threw it open.

  The room was newly and well furnished. Two large bulkhead lights fixed to the ceiling threw a diffused light through opalescent globes upon the apartment and its contents.

  Sitting before the wood fire was a big man. She judged him to be sixty, and he was curiously attired. He wore, over a pair of neatly creased trousers, a huge red dressing-gown, behind which a stiff shirt shone whitely. He had on neither collar nor tie, and an immaculate morning coat hung over the back of a chair. As the door opened he looked up, took out the short clay pipe he had been smoking, and stared soberly at the visitor.

  “Meet Miss Joan Bray,” said Lynne curtly.

  The big stranger got heavily to his feet, and the girl noticed that on his many-chinned face was the cowed look of a schoolboy detected in an unlawful act.

  “Now, Joan,” said Lynne grimly, “I want you to know a relative of yours. Let me introduce you to the late Joe Bray, who was dead in China and is alive in England!”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Joan Could only stare, speechless, at her relative. Joe Bray! If she had indeed seen a ghost she could not have been more staggered.

  He turned a sheepish face to Clifford.

  “Have a heart, Cliff!” he pleaded feebly. “Have a heart!”

  “I have a heart and I have a head too, and that’s where I’ve the advantage, you foolish old conspirator!”

  Joe blinked from Clifford to the girl.

  “It’s like this–-” he began loudly.

  “Sit down.” Clifford pointed to the chair. “I’ve had your version six times; I don’t think I can stand it again. Joan,” he said, “this is the veritable Joseph Bray, of the Yun Nan Concession. Any mourning which you may have ordered for him you can cancel.”

  “It’s like this–-” began Joe again.

  “It isn’t a bit like that,” interrupted Lynne.

&nb
sp; There was a twinkle in his eye which she had seen once before.

  “This Joe Bray is romantic.” He pointed an accusing finger at the humbled man. “He has just brains enough to dream. And one of his crazy dreams was that I should marry into his family. And in order to drive me to this desperate step he invented a fake story about his being on the point of death. To support which—he has confessed this now—he procured the assistance of a doping, boozing doctor from Canton, who would certify a man insane for the price of a double whisky.”

  “It’s like this–-” attempted Joe, louder still.

  “The moment he got me out of the way,” continued the other remorselessly, “he sneaked down to Canton with his pal the doctor and followed me home on the next boat, leaving instructions that the death wire was to be sent as soon as he reached England.”

  Here Joe asserted himself violently.

  “You never would have married nobody if I hadn’t done it!” he roared. “You’ve got a hard heart, Cliff! Dying wishes don’t mean no more to you than a beer-stain on a policeman’s boot. I had to die! I thought I’d come along to the wedding and give you all a surprise–-“

  “You’re indecent, Joe,” said Clifford gravely. “You’re the kind of man who can’t stay put.”

  He turned to Joan, his lips twitching.

  “I had my suspicions when I saw no reference to his death in the English newspapers,” he said. “Joe isn’t particularly important in relation to the rest of the world, but he has a pretty big name in China, and the least I expected was a couple of lines of regret from our special correspondent in Canton. And then when I saw in the North China Herald an announcement that Mr Joe Bray had booked a suite on the Kara Maru–-“

  “In the name of Miller,” murmured Joe.

  “I don’t know what name you used, but one of the reporters saw your baggage going aboard and recognized you on the street, so the camouflage wasn’t as blinding as you thought.”

  Joe sighed. From time to time his eyes had been straying towards the girl, in a furtive, shamefaced way, but now he had the resolution to look at her straightly.

  “I must say”—he waggled his huge head ecstatically—“I must say, Cliff, that you’ve got the pick of the bunch! She’s rather like my sister Eliza, who’s dead and gone now twenty-eight years. On the other hand, she’s got my brother George’s nose–-“