The Apple of Discord. Earle Ashley Walcott

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СКАЧАТЬ with a band of highbinders. But I could not see murder or kidnapping done before my eyes without lifting a hand, and I raised a cry and started across the way.

      The street suddenly became alive with shouts and screams, and a hundred Chinamen came running, all with hands under their blouses, chattering ferociously as they pressed toward the struggling group. Before I could reach the other side of the way the girl and her captors had mysteriously disappeared, whisked through some of the doors that looked blankly upon the street, and in their place was a mob of Chinamen, shouting, gesticulating, and blowing police whistles, while threats of slaughter flashed from their ugly faces. Two policemen appeared on the run and there was a sudden melting away of the crowd. Hands came out from under the blouses and from inside the long roomy sleeves. Threats and hatred faded out of the faces of the quarreling men, and in their place came the stolid mask of the "no sabby."

      "What's the matter here?" panted one of the policemen, while the other hustled the Chinese from one side of the walk to the other with gruff orders to "move on."

      I told of what I had seen.

      "Highbinders," said the policeman. "I thought it was time they was breakin' out again. Oh, murther, but there'll be killin' over this before the day's at an end. Hullo! what's this?"

      An old Chinaman came forward at this moment, wringing his hands and chattering like a monkey. His face was stricken with signs of heart-breaking woe.

      "He says it was his daughter," said the other policeman.

      "Yes–all same daughtah–my gell–you sabby?" wailed the old man. "She go down store one minute all 'long boy–all same my boy–you sabby? One man come, say 'you come 'long me.' She heap cly. Boy heap cly. Two men come 'long–catch gell–so. One man hit boy 'long side head. Tlee, fo' men thlow cloth over gell's head–she no cly no mo'. Tlee, fo', fi' men take gell. Boy lun home. All same I sabby no mo'. Gell all steal." And the old man wrung his hands with mournful cries.

      "H-m! the old girl-stealing trick of the highbinders," said the first policeman, whom I took to be a sergeant of the force.

      "Does he suspect anybody?" I asked.

      The old man caught the idea.

      "Maybe–I no know," he cried. "One day two men come. All same they say heap like my gell. I say no got gell. One man say all same give me t'ousand dolla'. I say I no want t'ousand dolla'. Othe' man he say twel' hund' dolla'. I say all same I no want twel' hund' dolla'. Two men say bad word, all same Clistian, you sabby?"

      "What men were they?" asked the sergeant.

      "You sabby Suey Sing men?" said the old man. "Two men all same Suey Sing."

      "The Suey Sing Tong–I'll bet he's lying," said the sergeant. "It's more like the Sare Bo Tong. Well, go along with him and get the boy's story. Maybe the kid can't lie so fast. I'll go down to the hall and send up a squad. There's like to be trouble over this."

      "Do you think there will be a fight?" I asked.

      "There was a lot of the Hop Sings about as we came up," said the officer, "and I reckon the old man belongs to 'em. The others was mostly Sare Bos. There's bad blood between 'em, anyhow, and I look for some killing out of it. Are you walking down?"

      "No, I've a bit of business here." And I turned back to the door that had barred the way to the rooms of Big Sam.

      As I reached the threshold I drew back before the advance of a party of Chinese, who filed out of the shop one by one to the number of a dozen or more. Their stolid faces showed no interest in me or anything else, and half of them turned to the south, half to the north, and they followed the uncompanionable Chinese habit of straggling in single file. A tall stout Chinaman, dressed in baggy trousers and a padded Chinese coat of fine blue cloth, stood just inside the door and watched them narrowly as they went out. As the last coolie passed I stepped forward and into the doorway.

      The tall Chinaman looked at me blandly.

      "Were you not a little indiscreet to think of interfering in one of our family quarrels?" he said, with a ghost of a smile on his full smooth face. He spoke English fluently, with just a trace of the Chinese intonation. The "r" that is the despair of the Chinese tongue rolled full and clear from his lips. I had been on the point of addressing him in the "pidgin English" considered necessary in communicating with the heathen intelligence, and was stricken with surprise.

      "I–I didn't think of interfering," I replied.

      "One would not have suspected you of so much discretion to see you running across the street," he said, with the same bland look. "The next time you think of taking part in such an entertainment, I beg of you to reflect that half the men in the crowd carried something like this." And with a smile he drew back the Chinese jacket and touched the handle of a big navy six-shooter. The weapon was eighteen inches long and would carry a forty-four caliber bullet for a hundred yards. "If he didn't have that he probably had something of this sort about him." He gave his voluminous sleeve a shake, and a big knife with a ten-inch blade was in his hand. "These pleasant little parties are not always what they seem," he continued, "and it is just as well to watch them from a distance."

      "Thank you," I said. "I'd prefer not to be on close acquaintance with anything of the kind you are hinting at. That wasn't what I came for."

      "I understand that you were looking for me, Mr.–"

      "Hampden," I supplied the name. "I believe I am speaking to–" Then I hesitated. I really did not know his name, and it struck me as something of an absurdity to call the dignified and forceful man before me by the nickname that was on the tip of my tongue.

      He smiled.

      "Sometimes I am known as Kwan Sam Suey," he said, "but your people call me 'Big Sam.' Won't you step this way?"

      He turned back into the dingy shop, passed into a dingy hallway, and led to a dingy stairway beyond. It was something worse than shabby. I reflected with wonder that one of the richest of the Chinese, and by report the most powerful man in Chinatown, should be content to dwell in such a barn. On the third floor Big Sam opened a door and stood aside bowing me to enter.

      "My office," said he.

      As I passed the threshold I was overwhelmed with amazement. Instead of the bare walls and dingy cobwebbed den the entrance had led me to expect, I was ushered into a room fitted up with a wealth of decoration and discomfort that was thoroughly oriental. The walls were covered with woven tapestry, grotesque in figures and bright with colors. Dark cabinets, rich with carving, stood about the room; the desk and chairs showed the patient handicraft of the Ancient Empire; the floor was inlaid with varied woods, and beaten brass and copper were freely used for decorative effect. To the western mind the colors and the ornamentation were garish, yet I could see that the fittings were costly and a striking example of Chinese artistic taste.

      Big Sam waved me to a seat and took his place at the desk.

      "I assume, Mr. Hampden, that you did not come here out of idle curiosity?"

      "That depends," said I, repressing with difficulty the instinct to address him in the "pidgin" dialect. "You might call it curiosity, and idle at that; but it is of some concern to me."

      "I can believe it," he said politely.

      "But before I enter on the errand that brings me here, I should present you with my credentials." And I handed him the card from Kendrick.

      He scarcely glanced at it.

      "Any СКАЧАТЬ