Mr. Moto Is So Sorry (10 page)

“Yes.” The colonel sipped his tea. “It is so unfortunate. Mr. Moto is afraid that they may try to get it. He asked that you be very careful. You must not let it be stolen. You are not to give it away until you reach Kalgan. A man there will ask for it. His name is Mr. Holtz. Mr. Moto is most anxious that Mr. Holtz should have it.”

“He didn't say anything more?” asked Calvin Gates.

“Just one thing more,” the colonel said. “He wanted me to say that the others understand you are Mr. Moto's friend, and that is dangerous.”

The colonel sipped his tea and the light glittered on his glasses.

“He is sorry that it is so dangerous for you. Have you a weapon, Mr. Gates?”

Calvin Gates shook his head and the colonel opened the drawer of the table.

“You see,” he said, “Mr. Moto thinks of everything.” He reached in the drawer and drew out an automatic pistol. “There,” the colonel said; “I hope so much that you will not have to use it, and here is an extra clip of cartridges. Mr. Moto thinks of everything, does he not?”

Calvin took the pistol in the palm of his hand, examined it for a moment and slipped it into his coat pocket.

“Yes,” he said a little vaguely, “Mr. Moto thinks of everything. Look here, Colonel, you'd better take this cigarette case. I don't want it.”

The colonel raised his cup delicately and sipped his tea before he answered.

“Mr. Moto was afraid of that,” he said. “It will do no good to give the case away. The others know you have it. They will try to get it at any rate. Mr. Moto wants you to keep it now. It is the best way he knows of having it delivered.”

“Suppose I refuse?” Calvin asked him. “I don't want to be mixed up in this.”

“Please.” The colonel raised his hand. “You are so involved already. I do not like to threaten. You do not want to go to military prison. You might stay there very long.”

“Oh,” said Calvin, “that's it.”

“Yes,” the colonel answered. “I think that you had much rather get back upon the train. You see the train is waiting.”

Calvin Gates glanced out of the window. The train was waiting and the colonel was waiting also. Although his thoughts were undefined and clouded by uncertainty, he was beginning to understand what had happened, and the brain of Mr. Moto was behind it. For some reason of his own, ever since they had first met on the boat, Mr. Moto had been waiting while one thing led to another.

Calvin Gates folded his hands across his knee and he felt as he had before, like a slow-witted barbarian who was uncouthly trying to understand unknown complexities.

“Why does Mr. Moto want me to carry this thing?” he asked.

The colonel paused a moment before he answered, as though he had not expected the abruptness of the question. He replaced his glasses carefully on the wide bridge of his nose and studied Calvin carefully through the lenses.

“There is no reason to explain,” the colonel said. “Mr. Moto wishes this delivered to the right person, and he wishes no one to be suspicious. He is sure that you can do it.”

The colonel smiled as though he had explained everything.

“He says he wants you to be comfortable and to have a happy journey.”

Calvin Gates got to his feet and shook his head.

“He's wrong,” he said. “I won't do it.”

The colonel rose also.

“You are making a great mistake,” he said. “Excuse me, please.” He raised his voice and called something in his own language.

The soldier opened the door so quickly that Calvin was sure that he had been waiting for the order. He opened the door and stood aside, and Calvin heard a voice he recognized. It was the lieutenant speaking.

“You come in please,” the lieutenant said; and Miss Dillaway was standing in the doorway. Her chin was high and her eyes were snapping angrily.

“Hello, Gates,” she said. “What have they been doing to you? That soldier wouldn't let me come in.”

The colonel spoke before Calvin Gates could answer.

“So sorry, madam,” he said. “You must stay, I think.”

Calvin Gates spoke quickly.

“Wait a minute,” he said, “She has nothing to do with it.”

“So sorry,” the colonel said, “she must stay here too, unless, of course, you change your mind.”

“What's he talking about?” asked Miss Dillaway.

Calvin Gates shrugged his shoulders.

“It's all right,” he said. “I'll take it along—if that's the way it is.”

The colonel smiled and bowed. “Thank you,” he said, “that is so much better.”

“And you haven't got anything more to tell me?” Calvin asked.

“No,” said the colonel. He held out his hand. “Good-by. Nothing more to tell you, Mr. Gates.”

As they crossed the station platform Miss Dillaway touched his arm.

“What happened?” she asked. “What have they been doing to you, Gates? What have we gotten into?”

Calvin Gates looked grimly at the train and pressed his lips together. There was no need to tell her about that scene in the station, no need that she should be alarmed.

“Just passport trouble,” he said. “Just questions.”

Miss Dillaway laughed shortly.

“Well,” she said. “You didn't think I was going to go on without you, did you? I came out to get you. I'm glad it's only about a passport. I was afraid it was something else. If anything happens, I'm going to stop your being a hero, Gates.” And then her smile died away as she glanced up at him; his face was set and hard.

“I hope to heaven you can,” he said.

CHAPTER X

The sun moved with the hours of the afternoon in its arc across a warm blue sky where a few thin grayish clouds were floating. It moved deliberately with the hours until it was so low over the limitless rolling plain that the light became benign and soft and the horizon assumed a reddish hue that was reflected on the clouds, making them shell pink and purple. The waning light softened the harsh outlines and made the walled towns that they passed mysteriously remote in a sort of timeless loneliness and endowed the whole country with an exotic portentous beauty. The train moved through that level country as surely as though the hours were pulling it. The map showed him that they were nearing the venerable city of Shan-hai-kuan by the first gate in the great wall of China of which he had heard so much but knew so little. The motion of the train through that changing but changeless country was almost reassuring.

Miss Dillaway looked out the window, and her face made a sharp, incisive profile, as clear and even as the profile on a coin.

“I was born in Winnetka, Illinois,” Miss Dillaway said suddenly, and she was evidently speaking her thoughts aloud. “I went to Chicago University and then I went to art school. I started as a commercial artist. I had to earn my living. I'm not bad at accurate work. You've never had to earn your living, have you Gates?”

“What made you guess that?” Calvin asked her.

“Your attitude,” she answered. “You just look that way. It might have saved you trouble if you'd had to earn your living. It gets you in closer touch with facts.”

“I'll have to earn my living from now on,” he said.

She leaned forward under some sudden impulse and rested her hand for a moment on his knee, and that momentary contact startled him.

“What's the trouble at home?” she asked. “You'd better tell me, Gates.”

“I'd rather not,” he said, “if you don't mind.”

It was no use. Whether he explained or not, in another day or two he would never see Miss Sylvia Dillaway again.

“All right,” said Miss Dillaway. “If you don't want to talk, reach me down my sketching box, the big one on the rack there.”

She sat with her sketching box on the opposite seat, counting tubes of oil paint, arranging and rearranging all the tools of her trade as if she had forgotten his existence.

She was like others he had known who could retire suddenly behind the walls of their own interests, leaving him alone. She had asked for his confidence, but he was sure that it would have done no good to have talked about himself. It was better to try to live in the present and to examine the utter strangeness of that present. When he looked out of the window there was nothing in the scene which reminded him of anything, no face or voice in the train which reminded him of anything.

In one sense that unfamiliarity was a relief, but in another it was not. He had to walk dumbly through a world he did not know, coping with a language which he did not understand, while he waited for some event to occur that he could not anticipate. Thoughtlessly, he put his hand into the side pocket of his coat and for a second what he felt there surprised him. He had almost forgotten the automatic pistol, and he still had not the remotest idea why it had been given him. Nevertheless he was glad that he had it.

Every now and then the train boy moved past him, a young uniformed Japanese, and once or twice a member of the train guard paced slowly down the aisle. Since he had boarded the train again after his interview at that station, it seemed to him that he had acquired an added importance and that there was some unspoken sort of understanding.

“Please,” the train boy said slowly when it was growing dark, as though he had learned his words from a phrase book, “you get off train at Shan-hai-kuan and take sleeping train. Baggage goes to customs. Thank you please.”

The sun was down and the world was gray and then it was black, and the train moved for a long while through a dark country where there was hardly ever a gleam of light. It was after nine in the evening before the train reached Shan-hai-kuan. Even if he had not known that the wall was there, it was plain that they had passed from a land of order to a land of noise and confusion. Whistles were blowing. Porters and station employees and food vendors ran beside the train, shouting and waving their arms. The whole train shed was a babble of high voices and laughter and escaping steam. Calvin Gates stared uncertainly through the smoky window.

“It looks as though everyone outside has gone crazy,” he said.

Just as the train was coming to a stop and just as he had turned from the window, he saw a man of his own race thrust his way through the crowd and swing aboard. He had a glimpse of a red face and of a trench coat like his own, and then an instant later he saw the face again. A wiry, stocky European carrying a riding crop strode down the aisle toward them with a curious rolling gait. His face was ruddy from the out-of-doors, of a deep color that made his grayish eyes seem very light. He pushed past two Japanese businessmen who were starting for the door and caught sight of Calvin and Miss Dillaway.

“Hello, hello,” he called. His voice was nasal and metallic and he jerked off his felt hat. “Is this by any chance Miss Dillaway?”

“Yes, it is,” Miss Dillaway answered. “How do you know my name?”

She must have been as surprised as Calvin Gates to hear her name called in that remote place. The stranger's hard red face crinkled into a smile and he pulled a letter from his pocket.

“That's fine,” he said, “fine. So you're the little artist lady, are you? Here's a letter form Dr. Gilbreth explaining who I am. Read it any time. My name is Hamby, miss, Captain Sam Hamby, Dardanelles, Messines Ridge. Long time ago wasn't it? Professional soldier, miss, with the Cavalry of the Prince of Ghuru Nor. I was coming down from up there on business and Dr. Gilbreth asked me to pop over here and meet you. He thought it might be easier for you. There's a spot of mix-up over in Mongolia. Don't worry, things are always mixed up in China.”

Miss Dillaway read the note which he handed her and gave the red-faced stranger a smile of quick relief.

“Well,” she said, “that explains everything. It's awfully kind of you, Captain Hamby, and I won't say two greenhorns like us don't need help. This is Mr. Gates, who is going up there with me, Mr. Calvin Gates from New York.”

The wrinkles around Captain Hamby's lips grew deeper, and though he smiled his face grew watchful, and his eyes looked still and glassy. They reminded Calvin of the eyes of a sailor or a hunter that were accustomed to stare across great distances.

“Well, well,” said Captain Hamby, “funny that Gilbreth never spoke of you. The word was that only Miss Dillaway was traveling up to Ghuru Nor.”

There was something in the other's face that Calvin did not like, although he could not tell just why—something still and something watchful. His curiosity, though it was natural, aroused in Calvin a sudden resentment. Through the thoughtfulness of Dr. Gilbreth, Captain Hamby had come to take Miss Dillaway from him; and he had not wanted it just yet. It gave him a strange, unreasoning pang of jealousy which increased when he saw that Miss Dillaway looked happy and relieved.

“Dr. Gilbreth doesn't know I'm coming,” Calvin said; “but I'm an old acquaintance of his. I can assure you that he won't object. I've come all the way from New York on a piece of business with him.”

For a second Captain Hamby's eyes maintained that curious, glassy look, and then they twinkled and his smile grew broader.

“That's fine,” said Captain Hamby, “fine. Any friend of Gilbreth's a friend of mine. Capital chap, the Doctor. The more the merrier, Gates. Just leave everything to me. By jove, that's awkward,” Captain Hamby paused and thrust his hands in his coat pockets, “I must have left my fags in my old kit bag and I'm perishing for a smoke. Neither of you two have a cigarette, have you?”

The question was casual enough, but there was nothing casual about Captain Hamby's light gray eyes. In the instant's hesitation that followed Calvin saw Miss Dillaway steal a sideways glance at him.

“You have a cigarette, haven't you, Gates?” she said.

Calvin produced a paper package from his pocket. A little line appeared between Captain Hamby's light eyebrows and disappeared again.