Part 10 (1/2)
Miss Vost--Miss Amy Vost--gave him to understand that she was really grateful for his hospitality, rushed on to a.s.sure him that it was not customary for her to meet strange young men as she had met him, and then frankly asked him what he was doing in China. Every time she thought of him her curiosity seemed to trip over the j.a.panese kimono.
Influenced by his third gla.s.s of j.a.panese champagne, he almost told her the truth. He modified it by saying that he was a wireless operator; that he had missed his s.h.i.+p, and that his plans were to linger in China for a while. He liked China. Liked China very much.
Miss Vost caressed the tip of her nose with a small, pink thumb. She was not the kind who hesitated.
”You can do me a favor,” she said, and halted.
The Philippine orchestra burst into a lilting one-step. Miss Vost arched her eyebrows. Peter arose, and they glided off. It developed that Miss Vost was well qualified. There was divineness in her youthful grace; she put her heart into the dance. It seemed probable to Peter Moore that she put her heart into everything she did.
”You spoke about my doing a favor,” he suggested, glancing sternly at a dark-eyed Eurasian girl who seemed to be trying to divert his attention.
”There is a man in Shanghai I want you to try to find for me--to-night.
Last time I saw him--this morning--he was drunk. He was the first officer on the steamer that brought me up from Amoy. Perhaps you know him. He's only been on the coast a short while. Before that he ran on the Pacific Mail Line between San Francisco and Panama. His name is MacLaurin, a nice boy. Scotch. But he drinks.”
”MacLaurin? I know a man named MacLaurin--Bobbie MacLaurin.”
”No!” gasped Miss Vost. ”I suppose I ought to make that old remark about what a small world it is! Do you know where Bobbie MacLaurin is?”
”No,” he murmured. ”Why is he drunk?”
”That is a matter,” replied Miss Vost, somewhat distantly, ”that I prefer not to discuss. Will you try to find him for me? He threatened to be--be captain of the river-boat, the _Hankow_, that I leave on to-morrow for Ching-Fu. I'd rather like to know if he intends to carry out his threat. Will you find out, if you can, if he is going to be sober enough to make the trip--and let me know?” requested Miss Vost, as the music stopped. ”I'd rather he wouldn't, Mr. Moore,” she added quickly. ”But I do wish _you_ were going to make the trip. I'd love to have you!”
The ex-operator of the _Vandalia_ experienced a warm suffusion in the vicinity of his throat. In the next breath he felt genuinely guilty.
As he looked deep into the anxious, appealing gray eyes of Miss Vost, he cursed himself for being, or having the tendencies to be, a trifler; and in his estimation a trifler was not far removed from the reptile cla.s.s. Yet somehow, d.a.m.n it, that trip to Ching-Fu on the _Hankow_ appealed to him now as a most profitable excursion, for Ching-Fu was only a few hundred li from Len Yang.
Something of the doughtiness of a mongoose marching into a den of monster cobras characterized Peter Moore's intention to penetrate the stronghold of the cinnabar king. He knew that his chances for entering Len Yang were absurdly small. Yet the whole of the Chinese Empire was not particularly safe for him now. The Gray Dragon had paid him the compliment of recognizing in him an enemy. He no longer doubted Minion's warning; the dragon of Len Yang controlled a powerful organization. No part of China was safe. If he desired to run away from this very actual danger in which direction could he run?
”_When menaced by danger_,” runs an old Chinese proverb, ”_go to the very heart of it; there you will find safety_.”
It lacked a few minutes of midnight when Peter entered the Palace bar by the bund side. Only a few lights were burning, and the exceedingly long teak bar--”the longest bar east of Suez”--was adorned by a few knots of men only. Tobacco smoke was thick in the place, nearly obscuring the doorway into the hotel lobby.
He scanned the idlers, looking for the cloth of sailormen. His quest was ended. Bobbie MacLaurin was here, disposing of all of the imported Scotch whiskey that came convenient to his long and muscular reach.
In a deep and sonorous voice he was pointing out to a group of uniformed sailors, burdening his point with a club-like forefinger with which he pounded on the edge of the teak bar, that while he rarely drank off duty, he never drank when on. This claim Peter had reason to know was not untrue.
The wireless operator edged his way to MacLaurin's side, and touched his arm, making a whispered remark which the Scotchman evidently did not comprehend. For MacLaurin wheeled on him, and bestowed upon him a red, gla.s.sy, and hotly indignant stare.
Bobbie MacLaurin was, in the language of the sea, a whale of a man.
His head seemed unnecessarily large until you began to compare it with his body; and his body was the despair of uniform manufacturers, who desire above all things to make a fair percentage of profit. He was like a living monument, two and a half hundred weight of fighting flesh and bones, which, when all of it went into action, could better be compared to a volcano than to a monument. Otherwise he was an exceedingly amiable young giant.
The redness and hotness of the stare he imposed upon the friend of more than one adventurous expedition slowly receded, leaving only the gla.s.siness in evidence. Bobbie fidgeted uneasily.
”d.a.m.n my hide!” he roared. ”Your face is familiar! It is! It is!
Where have I seen that face before? Ah! I know now! I had a fight with you once.”
”More than once,” corrected Peter Moore, grinning. ”The last time was in Panama. Remember? I tripped you up, after you knocked the wind out of me, and you fell, clothes and all, into the Was.h.i.+ngton Hotel's swimming tank.”