Peter the Brazen Part 47

"Hold on a moment," interrupted Peter. "I don't quite follow you.

Whose toes do you think you're stepping on?"

"Well, Peggy comes up here to the wireless shack so much, that I--I----"

"Oh, not a bit of it, old man. Peggy's a nice girl. I like her.

That's all."

"I--I'm mighty glad," said Anthony earnestly. "You know, she's pretty mad about you, but as long as you're not interested the way I am, well----" He bit his lip nervously, and went on: "I think you'd agree with me that it would be rather foolish of her, and very disappointing and disillusioning later on for her to marry the kind of a man she thinks she wants to marry. She has a notion that the man she marries must be a cross between Adonis, and--and Diamond d.i.c.k! She wants a man who carries six-shooters in all his pockets, and who fears neither G.o.d, man, nor the devil!"

"A regular h.e.l.l buster!"

"That's it! Down in her heart I think she cares for me a little bit.

But I'm nothing but a plain, ordinary business man. I never did anything devilish in my life. There's nothing romantic about me. Look at this necktie! Did you ever see a hero wearing a plain black four-in-hand? Never! Did you ever see a hero wearing nice tan oxfords without a spot of mud on them? If I can somehow manage to make her think for a few minutes that I've got heroic stuff in me, she may listen to a little sense. She tells me--rather she threw it in my face--that you are going to take Helen and her on a sight-seeing trip into some of the darkest holes in Shanghai. You know the ropes, and there's no danger, of course."

"None at all," said Peter.

"Well, I want to know if you'll let me go along. I'll stand every expense; I've got money to burn! Let me in on it, and----"

"But there isn't going to be a chance for anybody to be a hero. I'm going to take those girls to the safest place in Shanghai. A New England church would be a cavern of iniquity alongside of it!"

Anthony laid his fingers along his knees.

"Well, couldn't you stir up something? That's my idea. I'll leave it to you to crack up some danger, not real danger, of course--we can't let those girls get near any real danger. But we can start a fake fight--or something--and give me a chance to play the hero, to rescue Peggy in my arms; that sort of stuff, you know." He looked at Peter foolishly.

Peter stroked his nose. "It might be done," he said. "I'll see what I can do."

Anthony arose, extended his hand, and said: "Of course, I'll need a revolver."

"Load it with blanks," advised Peter. "You know, some people think it's bad luck to kill a c.h.i.n.k."

Anthony was eyeing him curiously. "Do you?" he asked.

Peter nodded his head slowly. "Sometimes," he said.

CHAPTER III

Anthony and the twins called for Peter as soon as they could tear themselves away from the many fascinating incidents attendant upon coming to an anchorage in the Whang-poo-Kiang.

It was late in the afternoon when the first company tug came down-river from Shanghai for pa.s.sengers. And it was nearly dusk, the golden-brown evening of China, when they were decanted upon the public landing stage at the International Concession.

Anthony was for going directly to the Hotel Astor for dinner, but at Peter's suggestion he and the twins boarded a street-car for the ride to Bubbling Wells.

Peter stood for a number of moments in indecision as the Bubbling Wells tram went up the bund with the slow flood of victorias, rickshaws, and wheelbarrows. It was now about seven o'clock, with the sun hidden under a horizon of dull bronze. Street lights were coming on, twinkling in a long silver serpent along the broad thoroughfare, rising in a grotesque hump over the Soochow bridge, and becoming lost in the American quarter.

He would meet Anthony and the twins in the dining-room. Whoever got there first would wait. He expected to be there long before his three friends came back from Bubbling Wells.

A rickshaw coolie was wheedling him at his elbow but he paid no attention. His eyes were searching the street. It took him several seconds to reconcile himself to the fleeting apparition. What was this girl doing in Shanghai?

The rickshaw had pa.s.sed, proceeding at unabated speed in the direction of Native City.

The rickshaw boy was still making guttural sounds, softly plucking at his sleeve. The shafts of the rickshaw were close to his feet. But Peter was still undecided.

"Allee right," said Peter, briskly. "French concession."

That was the direction in which the other rickshaw was headed.

He climbed aboard, and they veered out into the north-bound traffic.

The girl in the rickshaw was about one block in the lead, and had no intention evidently of accelerating her coolie's pace or of turning back. She had left all decision to him, and his decision was to ask her a few questions.

His coolie trotted heavily, looking neither to the right nor left, with his pigtail snapping from side to side, as his head bent low.

"Follow _lan-si_ veil--savvy?"

"My savvy," returned the coolie, heading toward the narrow alley of filth and sputtering oil _dongs_, breathing the odor of refuse, of cooking food.

Peter's heart was beginning to respond to the excitement. Did she have some message to convey to him that she could not trust to the openness of the bund at the jetty?

Suddenly the rickshaw ahead swerved sharply to the right into an alley that was perfectly dark. Its single illumination was a pale-blue light which burned before a low building set apart from the others at the far end.

Here the first rickshaw stopped. A ghostly figure seemed to float to the ground. There was a clink of coins. A door opened, letting out a wide shaft of orange light which spattered across the paving, flattening itself against the grim wall of the building across the way.

Peter caught the bronze glint of wires on the roof under a pale moon.

He knocked sharply on the door, and stood to one side. It was a habit he had learned from long experience--that trick of stepping to one side when he knocked at a suspicious door. The door moved outward a few inches. A long, yellow face, with a thick, projecting under lip, peered out. Peter pushed the man aside and entered.

He found himself in a low corridor of smoked wood, with fat candles disposed along the walls at intervals of several yards, on a narrow, lacquered rail. One of three doors was open.

A match was struck, the head glowing in a semi-circle of sputtering iridescence before the wood itself kindled. The hand holding the match was trembling; the weak flame fluttered to such an extent that he was denied momentarily a glimpse of the owner of the hand.

A whisper was conveying an order to him. "Please shut the door, Mr.

Moore."

He reached for the door and closed it firmly in the face of the man who had let him into this place.

When he turned, the trembling hand was applying the match flame to the wick of an open lamp, a rather ornate _dong_. As the flame rose higher, casting its steady, mild luminance, he caught a glitter of metal, of polished rubber; one end of the room was almost filled with machinery.

"Romola Borria!"

She seemed to have undergone a great change. The beautiful face that had lured him once into the jaws of death was dominated now by a wistful and tender sadness, as though this girl had gone through an epoch of self-torture since they had last been together.

Yet she was still beautiful; it was as if her beauty had been refined in an intense fire. Her mouth was sad, her great brown eyes glowed with an inexpressible sadness, and her face, once oval and proud, seemed narrower, whiter, and, by many degrees, of a finer mold.

She was examining him broodingly; there was a reluctant timidity in her eyes; it was such a look as you may see years afterward in the woman you once have cast aside for some other, perhaps not quite so worthy.

"Well, you have found me, Peter," she said in a faint and tired voice, coming slowly toward him.