Mr. Moto Is So Sorry (2 page)

“A countrywoman?” Calvin Gates repeated.

“An American young lady,” said Mr. Moto. “Yes. She is traveling with a Russian, who may be a courier I think. See, the policeman is talking to them now.”

Calvin Gates glanced across the room. A slight dark girl in a brown tweed traveling suit was sitting with the policeman. He could tell she was an American without knowing why. He knew it even before she spoke in a drawling voice, and it occurred to him disinterestedly that she would have been good-looking if she had paid attention to her clothes. As it was, she did not appear interested in looks. It was as though she considered them as something best concealed.

“Yes,” she was saying, “Winnetka, Illinois; born in 1910. It's on the passport, isn't it? And my color's white as a rule. And my father's a manufacturer.”

“Oh,” said the policeman, “yes, he makes things?”

“What did you think he did,” the girl asked, “walk a tightrope?”

Her voice dropped to a monotone again and Mr. Moto sighed.

“It does no good to get angry,” he said. “The poor policeman works so hard. You do not know the young lady?”

“No,” Calvin Gates shook his head. “There's a large population in America. I've never met them all.”

“A tourist, I suppose,” said Mr. Moto. “You are going to Mongolia alone?”

It might have been imagination, but it seemed that Mr. Moto was watching him with unnecessary attention.

“As far as I know,” said Calvin Gates.

“Oh,” said Mr. Moto. “We will have a nice talk in the morning.”

Calvin Gates rose and bowed. It seemed to him that he was always bowing and smiling until his facial muscles were strained from polite grimaces. The girl's voice, with its midwestern articulation, had been the only thing in two days that had reminded him of home.

When he passed along a narrow passage toward his stateroom, a steward, a flat-faced, snub-nosed boy, bowed and hissed and opened his door and switched on the light. Calvin threw his hat and trench coat on the berth, seated himself on a small stool and took a notebook and pencil from his pocket.

“Second class to Shimonoseki,” he wrote. “Mothers nursing babies. Old men taking off their clothes and scratching. Rice fields. Chatter, chatter. Rice wine. Soldiers. Clap clap of wooden shoes. Police. What does your grandfather do? Little boat. Mr. Moto, who knows anthropology. Fusan tomorrow, but must not take pictures.”

He realized that his words would be unintelligible to most, but they would never be so to him. They would always bring back a hundred noises and faces and that sense of being an outlander in a train that ran through a country unbelievably like that country's pictures, with its tall blue hills, and bamboo, and tiny farms, with its concrete dams and its high tension wires and its factories, with its population half in kimonos and half in European clothes. It was a land of smiles and grimness, half toylike, half efficient.

He rose, took off his coat and glanced at his baggage. As soon as he did so he discovered that his brief case, which he had left beside his steamer trunk, had disappeared. He opened the door and shouted into the passageway.

“Boysan!” he shouted. The flat-faced room steward came running.

“Look here,” Calvin Gates said, “where's the little bag, the one that was there?”

The flat brown face stared at him.

“Bag,” Calvin Gates said to the boy. “Little bag, so big.” The boy drew in his breath.

He spoke loudly, as one does when dealing with a foreigner, in the absurd hope that shouting might make the meaning clearer. Even while he spoke he knew that he was achieving nothing.

“Get someone who can speak English,” Calvin Gates shouted. “All my notes—papers are in that bag.”

At that same moment a door across the passageway opened, and Mr. Moto appeared, holding a small brown brief case in his hand, displaying his gold teeth and bowing.

“Oh,” said Mr. Moto, “I am so very, very sorry. Can this be your bag? This ship boy was very stupid.”

“Thanks,” said Calvin Gates. “Thank you very much.”

“Oh no,” said Mr. Moto. “I am so glad to help. Good night until tomorrow.”

“Good night,” said Calvin Gates. He closed his door and sat down with his brief case across his knees. He was positive that he had seen the bag deposited in his own stateroom. He was positive that the bag had not been placed in Mr. Moto's room by mistake. Mr. Moto had been looking through his papers, but the papers were all there in the order he had left them—only a few personal letters, and nothing of any importance. He took out the last letter about Dr. Gilbreth, which had been written him by the Doctor's business representative in New York.

Dear Cal:—

You could have knocked me over with a feather when I got your letter asking how to find Gilbreth. He must have told you about the shooting in Mongolia. The office here will be in touch with him since we handle his accounts, but even a cable will take weeks sometimes to deliver. The best way to find him will be to go to the man in Kalgan who is seeing to his supplies and transportation. He is a part-German, part-Russian, who does trading in Mongolia by the name of Holtz. When you find him in Kalgan, he can probably get you out at a time when he is sending out supplies by motor.

Gilbreth has an artist going out to join him, a good-looking girl with a temper. You may meet her on the way, as she only left last week. Gilbreth was no end pleased by the check your uncle sent. It made all the difference in his being able to go, and it was like the old gentleman not to want any acknowledgment. Bella made that clear enough when she brought in the check. When you see him, be sure to thank him for us.…

There was nothing which was important, but it was obvious that Mr. Moto had been seeking something. Now that he thought of it, all of Mr. Moto's conversation had been more adroit than any of the questions of the police. He could almost believe that Mr. Moto's gentle words had been probing into his past, that there was something odd about him which Mr. Moto had seen but which no one else had noticed. He unfolded his map of China and Japan, and stared at it as he had twenty times before, still only half convinced that he was doing what he set out to do. He could locate himself at the narrow strait which separated Japan from the mainland of Asia, and he could see the curve of the railroad which started at the port of Fusan, and wound up through the promontory of Korea, and thence through Manchuria to Mukden. It would take twenty-four hours to reach Mukden by train provided there was no delay, and that would not be half the journey. He must pass the night at Mukden and take another train westward through Manchuria to Shan-hai-kuan by the Great Wall of China. There he must change and on the following morning he would arrive at Peiping, only to change trains again. Then he must travel north for another day's journey before he reached Kalgan. He had no way of telling how far he must travel after that—somewhere to the north where there was no railroad—until he could find Dr. Gilbreth to tell him what he wanted.

Long after he had folded the map again, when he tried to go to sleep he could see the line of railroads and those unknown cities.

CHAPTER II

Calvin Gates lay in his berth staring at the dark, while the steady beat of the engines, almost like the heart pulsations of a living organism, quivered rhythmically through the little ship. As he listened the whole vessel seemed alive, awake and conscious. There were knowing little creakings of the woodwork and strange premonitory shivers from the deck beneath. He knew that he would not sleep well that night, for it had been that way before, when his mind moved to vanished possibilities of what he might have said and what he might have done.

Finally he turned on the light and dressed. Then he put on his hat and coat and looked at his wrist watch. It was one o'clock in the morning and he knew that the ship would be well out on that body of water which divided Japan from the mainland.

The key to his cabin door lay on the washstand and he picked it up, drew back the bolt, and turned the heavy brass doorknob. Outside the narrow passageway which ran between the passengers' cabins was brightly lighted and empty. He closed his door and locked it, and tried the lock carefully before he put the key in his pocket. The dining-room doors were closed and the flat-faced room steward was sleeping in a folding chair. He walked by, careful not to wake him, up the stairs to the boat deck.

The ship was moving over a cool, placid sea. Her lights made little yellow pools on the gently undulating waves. As far as his sight carried there were no shore lights and no lights of other ships. He had the small deck entirely to himself, and the loneliness gave him a sense of comfort, and a feeling of motion without his own volition. It was pleasant to know that he was moving.

He was moving away from it, moving away. He was thinking that Central Park would be misty in the haze of a sultry summer day, when some half-heard sound brought his attention back to the rail where he was leaning and back to the quiet deck, with the rhythmical sounds of the engine and the whirr of the ventilator fans. He was sure that he never consciously heard a sound, yet he knew that he was not alone—he knew before he turned.

“Good evening,” a voice said. “It is such a very lovely evening.”

“Oh,” Calvin said, “good evening.” A man had moved beside him with soft, almost noiseless steps; it was his acquaintance of the early evening, the fragile Japanese gentleman, Mr. I. A. Moto.

“Ha ha,” said Mr. Moto with a forced laugh. It seemed to Calvin that the Japanese were always trying to laugh. “I find it hard to sleep on boats and trains. Ha ha, I am always wide awake.”

“Yes,” Calvin said politely, “I find it hard myself. I was thinking and I could not sleep.”

“Oh,” said Mr. Moto, “you were thinking?”

“Yes,” said Calvin.

“Oh,” said Mr. Moto, “you were thinking of New York?”

Mr. Moto's face was only a blur in the dark.

“How did you know I came from New York?” Calvin asked.

There was a sibilant hiss of politely indrawn breath from the blur of Mr. Moto's face.

“Excuse me, please,” said Mr. Moto. “You have the New York voice. The young American lady on board comes from the Middle West. I like to think that I can always tell. New York is such a very lovely city. You like Tokyo? We are trying so hard to be like New York.”

“I wonder why you do?” Calvin asked.

“Perhaps,” said Mr. Moto, “we all admire your country so much, how it has reached out from such a little country and become so great.”

“You're reaching out too, aren't you?” Calvin asked.

“Oh yes,” said Mr. Moto. “We must live. We are such a little people.”

“You've done a lot,” said Calvin.

“It is so kind of you to say so,” Mr. Moto said. “I hope so much you like Japan. We make so very many interesting things—so many small things which are so easy to carry. Our workmen are so very, very careful. Perhaps you have bought some small articles?”

The question was a part of that whole aimless conversation, which was so like his other conversations with other Japanese,—the exploits of Japan, the antiquity of Japanese culture, and Japan's peculiar mission in the Orient,—but something told Calvin that Mr. Moto was waiting, attentively waiting, for the answer to that trivial question.

“Why yes,” said Calvin. “I've bought some small things, nothing much.”

“I am so glad,” said Mr. Moto. “Perhaps you have seen our silver work with the inlay of gunmetal cut right through the silver? It is so very nice. Perhaps you have bought a cigarette case of that work?”

“No,” said Calvin, “I haven't.”

“You do not smoke, perhaps,” said Mr. Moto. “Those cases are so nice. There is an inlaid pattern of small birds flying through grasses. I am so very fond of it. Perhaps you have seen the pattern on silver? So very many little birds.”

There was no doubt any longer that the talk was leading somewhere. Calvin understood that Mr. Moto was waiting patiently, not for an answer as much as for some change of voice. He knew he was not wrong when Mr. Moto spoke again.

“You have not seen the cases with the inlays of the little birds?”

“No,” said Calvin.

“Ha ha,” said Mr. Moto. “Excuse me, please. It is so very interesting that you, are going to Mongolia. Ghuru Nor is very beautiful. Have you heard of the prince who lives there?”

“No,” said Calvin. “Is there a prince?”

“Oh yes,” said Mr. Moto brightly. “The men who are not priests wear pigtails. Such a very backward country. The prince's name is Wu Fang. That is his Chinese name, of course.”

“Does he wear a pigtail too?” Calvin asked.

“Oh yes,” said Mr. Moto. He lives in a small palace and keeps camels. He has an army too. The Mongolians are very very jolly.”

“I'm glad to hear it,” Calvin said.

“Oh yes,” said Mr. Moto. “You will like it all so very, very much, that is if there is no trouble.”

“Trouble?” Calvin repeated.

Mr. Moto laughed.

“Ha ha,” said Mr. Moto. “I hope so very much that you will have no trouble.”

“Well,” said Calvin, “it's a complicated world. I think I'll go back and try to get some sleep.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Moto, “I shall go back too, I think. It has been so very pleasant. Thank you very much. You first, please, Mr. Gates.”

When Calvin walked down the stairs to the passageway with Mr. Moto just behind him, he felt the bewilderment he had experienced before when he had come in contact with an Oriental mind. He was sure that the conversation had not been aimless, although it led to nowhere. Something in Mr. Moto's interest was disturbing. Even Mr. Moto's footsteps behind him were disturbing. He took his key from his pocket to open his stateroom door and the key did not turn in the lock.