The Project Gutenberg eBook of The tomb of Ts'in
Title: The tomb of Ts'in
Author: Edgar Wallace
Release date: June 30, 2025 [eBook #76418]
Language: English
Original publication: London: Ward, Lock & Co., Limited, 1918
Credits: an anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteer
THE TOMB
OF TS’IN
BY
EDGAR WALLACE
Author of “Sanders of the River,” “Bones,” “The People
of the River,” etc., etc.
WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED
LONDON, MELBOURNE AND TORONTO
1918
CONTENTS.
XVIII.—IN THE CAVERN OF THE DEAD
THE TOMB OF TS’IN
The Just Crimes of Tillizinni.
INTRODUCTION.
Had Tillizinni written this story of the tomb of Ts’in Hwang Ti (the King of Ts’in who became Emperor literally) from the notes he had upon the case, it might have made a greater and a better book.
You would have pardoned such extravagance of style as he displayed in his extraordinary narrative, remembering that he is of Italian birth and that English is too full of pitfalls to the foreigner for his liking. For of truth, though Tillizinni speaks and writes the three Arabics, Moorish (which I think is the purest), Turkish, and Russian, with considerable fluency, and though he knows at least seven dialects in the Chinese tongue, and can converse in most of the modern languages, yet English, with its bland and inviting simplicity, is a tongue which more than any other baffles and overawes him.
They say of Nicholo Tillizinni, his predecessor in the chair of Anthropology at Florence, and the benefactor and more than father, whose name Tillizinni bears, that he spoke all languages save Welsh; but I have reason for believing that he never completely mastered the niceties of our tongue.
Particularly did Tillizinni wish to write clearly in this story which I now tell (by his favour and at his request), for it is a story like none other I have ever heard or read.
It concerns the tomb of the Great Emperor—the first Emperor of the Chinese, who died two centuries before the birth of Christ; it concerns that extraordinary genius and adventurer, Captain Ted Talham—surely the most talkative man in the world; it concerns, too, that remarkable woman, Yvonne Yale, and last but not least, The Society of Joyful Intention—the most bloodthirsty organisation the world has known. It concerns Tillizinni also, for Scotland Yard placed him on his mettle, set him a challenging task, which threatened at one time to bring ruin to the greatest detective in Europe.
That it likewise brought him within an ace of losing his life, I should not think it worth while mentioning at this stage, but for the fact that scoffers might suppose that he held life dearer than fame.
Tillizinni has never greatly interested himself in Chinese affairs, and though he had been instrumental in bringing many men to their doom, yet, curiously enough, none of these have been inmates of the Celestial Kingdom; so that he welcomed with the welcome which a blasé mind offers to anything in the shape of novelty, the invitation of Scotland Yard to make himself acquainted with the Society of Joyful Intention. The story proper which is set forth here, begins with the surrounding of the China Packet.
On the 24th of November, in the year of the great storm, there went aground off the Goodwin Sands the China-Orient liner Wu-song. She was a modern steamer of six thousand tons, built by the Fanfield Company in 1900, and she traded between London and the China Sea. On the night in question she was homeward bound and was coming up the Channel at half speed, a precaution taken by her skipper as a result of a slight and patchy fog which lay on the Channel.
Off St. Margarets, for some unaccountable reason, she shifted her course, and before anybody seemed to realise what was happening, she was aground. No sea was running at the time, the storm, it will be remembered, occurred a fortnight later, and with the aid of two Dover tugs she was refloated.
That would seem rather a matter for the Trinity Masters than for Scotland Yard, but for the fact that in the natural excitement attendant upon the grounding, a very determined attempt was made to force the Stubb safe in the captain’s cabin. Here again Scotland Yard might have dismissed the matter as a mere commonplace attempt to secure the safe’s contents by some person or persons unknown, but for the fact that this was the third attempt which had been made during the voyage.
Coming through the Suez Canal the captain had been on the bridge—as is usual when a ship is making progress through the great waterway. He had left his steward in charge of his cabin, with instructions not to leave the apartment until he (the captain) returned. Half way through the Canal, with the ship’s searchlights showing, and a clear stretch of water before him, he had snatched a moment to go to his cabin to get a muffler, for the night was cold.
The cabin was on the boat deck and inaccessible to passengers except by invitation. To his surprise he had found the big room in darkness and had put one foot over the weather board to enter the cabin, when two men rushed past him, knocking him over in their hurry. He called for a quarter-master, entered the cabin, and discovered his steward lying gagged and bound on the floor.
The man had been sitting reading when he had found himself violently seized and gagged by two men, one of whom had switched out the light the moment the assault was made.
The steward struggled, but he was powerless in the hands of his assailants, and for a quarter of an hour he lay upon the floor, his back to the intruders, whilst they attacked the safe.
One cannot say, without reflecting upon an eminent firm of safe-makers, whether the burglary would have succeeded but for the captain’s return, but certain it is that the strangers had gone to work in a most scientific manner, and had made amazing progress in the short space of time.
The second attempt was made when the ship was two days out of Gibraltar, and was a half-hearted effort to blow open the door of the safe whilst the captain was conducting Church Service in the saloon. No guard had been left in the cabin, the captain thinking that the thieves would be scared at making any further attack, and, too, that they would hardly venture in broad daylight. Again they were disturbed and decamped unseen, leaving two pencils of nitro-glycerine to indicate their intentions.
Nor was the third, and final, and—one may suppose—desperate attempt any more successful; but this time the thieves were nearly caught. Captain Talham had seized his revolver the moment the ship went aground, for his crew was in the main Chinese, and he took no risks of a panic. When going back to his cabin to secure a lifebelt, he met the two indefatigable thieves, and there was a sharp exchange of shots.
This time the thieves were armed also. Again they evaded him and escaped in the fog.
Scotland Yard sent Tillizinni to interview the captain at the London docks, and he found him an average type of British seaman, kindly and communicative.
“The rum thing is,” he explained, “that there was no money in the safe—not so much as a brass farthing.”
“What did the safe contain?” asked Tillizinni.
He took up a sheet of paper from his desk and read:
“Ship’s papers in envelope—confidential report on the working of the new condenser—and a green mailbag,” he said.
Tillizinni was interested.
“Green mailbag?”
The captain nodded.
“That’s the Ambassador’s bag and is brought from the Court of Pekin to the ship by special messenger, and taken from me in London by a man from the Embassy.”
“You see,” he explained, “the Chinese Government always sends its mails like that—its Embassy mails, I mean. I bring ’em every trip. They don’t trust the Embassy despatches over the Trans-Siberian Railway. They think that the Russians go through ’em.”
“I see,” said Tillizinni.
It was very clear what the objective had been. The green mailbag offered an irresistible temptation to somebody who knew its contents.
“There was nothing else?”
He shook his head.
“Nothing,” he said.
There was little to do save to continue inquiries at the Chinese Embassy. Here, however, Tillizinni met with a check. A letter from the Embassy informed him that nothing of the slightest importance was contained in the bag. The letter continued:
“In this particular mail there were no official documents whatever, the bag being made up of a number of his Excellency’s personal effects. These were in the nature of rare Chinese documents which his Excellency had sent for from his home in Che-foo, to assist him in the writing of an article which he is preparing for the North American Review. As Signor Tillizinni may know, his Excellency is an enthusiastic student of Chinese history, and has the finest private collection of historical documents relating to China in the world.”
This letter came to Tillizinni at a moment when he had ample time to devote to the elucidation of the problem.
Our Italian friend was and is a peculiar man. He credited thieves of persistent characters, such as these men undoubtedly possessed, with intelligence out of the ordinary.
Whosoever made the attempt upon the safe of the China boat were well aware of the “worthlessness” of the safe’s contents, and it was apparent that, worthless or not, the burglars had decided that to have them was worth the risk.
The passenger list was a small one, but it took a week to sort them out and establish their innocence. For the most part they were Customs officials and British officers returning home on leave; and the week-end found me with only two “doubtfuls.”
The first of these was almost beyond suspicion. A Mr. de Costa, a shipowner of sorts, was one, and Captain Talham was another.
Mr. de Costa, whom Tillizinni visited was, I should imagine, descended from a Portuguese family. A short, stout man, rather yellow of face, and bearing traces of his descent. He seemed the last person in the world to be suspected of commonplace felony.
Of Captain Talham, only fragmentary information was obtainable. He had apparently held a commission in a regiment of Irregular Horse during the South African war, and at the conclusion of hostilities he had gone to China in search of the adventure which at that time the great empire offered.
Beyond the fact that he had gone to China as far inland as Lau-tcheu; that he had been arrested later at Saigon in Cochin China, over some dispute with a French naval officer, and that he had a few months in Kuala Kangsan in Perak, little could be learnt about him. Later Tillizinni was destined to meet him, and discover much at first hand, for just as there was none so perfectly acquainted with his life, so there was none as willing to talk so freely about Captain Talham—as Captain Talham.
Here, then, with the conclusion of Tillizinni’s unsatisfactory inquiries, the incident of the China Packet might have closed and have been relegated to the obscurity which is reserved for petty felonies, but for the events which followed the publication of the Ambassador’s article.
From hereon I tell the story, suppressing nothing save that which may appear too flattering to Tillizinni. Such of the events which Tillizinni did not actually witness, I have written from information afforded me by the principal actors in this strangest of modern dramas.
* * * * *
Here let me say one word about the title which heads this chapter. I have lumped together many acts of Signor Tillizinni and have described them as “Just Crimes,” and I think that I have excellent reason for so describing them.
Tillizinni has always been a law unto himself. He worked on the solid basis that society was a lamb which must at all costs be protected from the wolves of the world, and to afford that protection he invoked the law of that land in which he was residing.
Sometimes the written law did not exactly cover a case, or presented a loop-hole through which an evil-doer might crawl unscratched. Tillizinni filled the hole—unlawfully. It was always better for a criminal to take his chance with the law than to take a chance with Tillizinni—that I know; that also many villains discovered too late for the knowledge to be of practical service.
CHAPTER I.
CAPTAIN TED TALHAM.
A man walked carelessly through Hyde Park with the air of one who had no destination. He was tall and straight, his shoulders were thrown back, his chin had that upward lift which seems part of the physiognomy of all who have followed a soldier’s career. His face, lean and well-featured, was tanned with the tan of strong suns and keen cold winds, and though the day was chilly and a boisterous breeze swept across the bare spaces of the Park, he wore neither overcoat nor muffler. The upturned moustache and the shaggy eyebrows suggested truculence; the threadbare suit, for all its evidence of pressing and ironing, suggested that he had found patches of life none too productive.
A close examination might have revealed little darns at the extremities of his trousers, for he had a trick of brushing his heels together as he walked—a trick disastrous to garments already enduring more than their normal share of wear.
He walked carelessly, swinging his gold-headed malacca cane—incongruously magnificent—and whistling softly and musically as he moved.
The Park was almost deserted, for it was dusk, and the weather conditions were neither ideal nor inviting. Occasionally the gusty wind bore down a flake or two of snow and the skies overhead were sullen and grey.
He had reached the Ranger’s House before he examined a cheap metal watch, which was affixed to his person by no more pretentious guard than a broad ribbon, bearing a suspicious resemblance to a lady’s shoe-lace.
The watch had stopped—he arrested his progress to wind it, deliberately and with great earnestness. This done, he continued his stroll, bearing down towards the Serpentine.
He stood for a few moments cheerfully contemplating the dreary stretch of water, and three sad water-fowl, which came paddling toward him in the hope of sustenance, paddled away again, sadder than ever, for he offered no greater assistance to life than a cheerful chirrup.
He turned as a sharp footstep came to him from the gravelled path. A girl was walking quickly toward him from the Kensington end of the Park. Something in her face attracted his attention—if ever fear was written in a human countenance it was written in hers. Then, into view round a clump of bushes, came three men. They were small of stature, and it needed no second glance to tell him their nationality, for despite their European dress and their hard Derby hats, they wore their clothes in the négligé style which the Oriental alone can assume.
The girl saw the tall man and came towards him.
“I’m so sorry to trouble,” she said breathlessly, “but these men have been following me for two days—but never so openly——”
She stopped and appeared to be on the verge of tears.
He bowed, a little slyly, and glanced at the three Chinamen, who now stood a dozen paces away, as though uncertain as to what was the next best move.
With a jerk of his head he beckoned them, and after a moment’s consultation they obeyed the gesture.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“No savee,” lisped one of the men. “No savee them pidjin.”
He exchanged a few rapid sentences with his companions and a smile flickered momentarily at the corner of the tall man’s mouth and vanished.
“What for you walkee this piecee lady all same time?” he asked.
Again the sotto-voce conference and the leader of the three shook his head.
“No makee walkee samee time,” he said. “Makee walkee John allee samee, piecee lady no b’long.”
The tall man nodded. He took from his waistcoat pocket a light blue porcelain disc and laid it on the palm of his hand and the three Chinamen walked nearer and examined it. They were puzzled by the demonstration.
“No savee,” said the spokesman.
Captain Talham replaced the button in his pocket.
“Why do you follow this lady, you dogs?” he asked quickly, and the men shrank back, for he spoke in the hissing Cantonese dialect.
“Excellent lord,” said the speaker humbly, “we are magnificent students walking as is our custom in the evening, and we have not the felicity of having seen this gracious and beautiful lady before.”
“You lie,” said the tall man calmly; “for if that were so, why did you say, ‘Let us go away until this pig is out of sight, and then we will follow the woman?’ ”
The man he addressed was silent.
“Now you shall tell me what you mean,” said Captain Talham and drew from his pocket the sky-blue button, fingering it thoughtfully.
This time the men saw and understood, and, as if at a signal, they bowed low, recognising in the inquisitor a mandarin of the Fourth or Military Class.
“Great mandarin,” said one of the three who had not spoken. “We are servants of others, and it is said that ‘the wise servant is dumb when the bamboo falls and dumb till he dies, when he is dumb for ever.’ ”
The tall man nodded.
“You shall give me your hong that I may know you,” he said.
After a little hesitation, the man who was evidently the leader, took a little ivory cylinder from his pocket, and unscrewed it so that it came into two equal portions. The cylinder was no larger than a thick pencil and less than two inches long. One half was made up of an inking pad and at the end of the other was a tiny circular stamp.
Captain Talham held out the palm of his hand and the other impressed upon it the tiny Chinese character which stood for his name. One by one his fellows followed suit, though they knew that death might be the result of their disclosure.
The tall man examined the name carefully.
“ ‘Noble Child,’ ” he read, “ ‘Hope of the Spring,’ and ‘Star above the Yamen.’ ”
He nodded his head.
“You may go,” said he; and with two little jerky bows the men turned and walked quickly in the direction from whence they had come.
He had time now to observe the girl, a grave and bewildered spectator of the scene. She was a little above medium height, and slight. Her hair was bronze-red and her face singularly beautiful. The skin was clear and white—so white as almost to suggest fragility. Her eyes were big and grey, and the two curved eyebrows, so sharp of line as to recall the pencilled brows which the mid-Victorian poet popularised, were dark, and contrasted with the glowing glory of the hair above. The nose was inclined to be retroussé, and the lips were faultless in shape and a warm red.
She presented the effect which the beautifiers of the world strive to attain, yet fail, for here nature had, in some mysterious fashion, blended all colourings in a harmony. She was well dressed, expensively so. Her simple gown suggested the studied simplicity which has made one Paris house famous the world over; and there was luxury in the furs about her throat and in the huge muff which was suspended with one hand.
“I don’t know how to thank you,” she began; and indeed she was in some embarrassment, for whilst he was obviously a gentleman, he was as obviously a very poor gentleman.
He smiled and there was good comradeship and the ease which begets friendship in the brief glimpse of even white teeth.
“In this world,” he said, with no apparent effort at oratory, “existence is made tolerable by opportunity, and no aspect of opportunity is so coveted as that which afforded a gentleman to secure the safety, the peace of mind, or the happiness of a lady.”
It was oratorical all right: there could be no doubt as to that, but there was no effort, no shaming after effect, no labour of delivery. He was neither self-conscious nor ponderously pleasant, but the periods marched forth in an ordered stream of words, punctuated in the process, so it seemed, by some invisible grammarian.
She flashed a dazzling smile at him which was partly thanks for her relief, partly amusement at his speech. The smile died as suddenly because of her amusement and her fear that he would realise why she smiled. (As to that she need not have worried, for Ted Talham had no fear of appearing ridiculous.)
“Perhaps you would allow me to see you safely from this place,” he said courteously. “Civilisation has its dangers—dangers as multitudinous and as primitive as the wilds may hold for the innocent and the beautiful.”
She flushed a little, but he was so obviously sincere, and so free from pretension, that she could not be offended.
“They have been following me for days,” she replied. “At first I thought it was a coincidence, but now I see that there was no reason for their dogging my movements.”
He nodded, and they walked on in silence for a while, then:
“Are you associated with China in any way?” he asked suddenly.
She smiled and shook her head.
“I have never been to China,” she said, “and know very little about the country.”
Again a silence.
“You have friends associated with China?” he persisted, and saw a little frown of annoyance gather on her forehead.
“My mother—that is to say, my stepmother has,” she said shortly.
He curled his moustache thoughtfully. She noted with an odd feeling in which pleasure and annoyance were mixed, that he was very much “the old friend of the family.” It was not exactly what he said, or the tone he adopted. It was an indefinable something which was neither patronage nor familiarity. It was Talham’s way, as she was to discover, to come with pleasant violence into lives and be no more and no less in place than they who had won their positions in esteem and confidence through arduous years of service.
“Perhaps your mother’s friends have given you something Chinese which these men want?” he suggested, and again saw the frown. Somehow he knew that it did not indicate hostility to, or annoyance with, himself.
“I have a bangle,” she said; “but I do not wear it.”
She stopped, opened a silver bag she carried on her wrist, and took out a small jade bracelet. It was set about at intervals by tiny bands of gold.
“May I see it?”
She passed it to him. They were nearing Marble Arch, and she had insensibly slackened her pace. Now they both stopped whilst he examined the ornament. He scrutinised it carefully. Between each band was an inscription, half obliterated by wear.
“This bangle is two thousand years old,” he said simply, and she gasped.
“Two thousand!” she repeated incredulously.
“Two thousand,” he repeated. “This is quite valuable.”
“I know,” she said shortly.
He detected something of resentment in her tone.
“What do those characters mean?” she asked. “Is it something I shouldn’t know?” she asked quickly.
She looked up at his face. There was a dull flush on his face and a strange light in his eyes.
He fingered the jade bracelet absently.
“There is nothing you should not know,” he said briefly—for him. “There is much that I have wanted to know for years.”
She was puzzled, and showed it.
“Listen,” he said, and read, turning the bracelet slowly as he read:
“I am Shun the son of the great mechanic Chu-Shun upon whom the door fell when the Emperor passed. This my father told me before the day, fearing the treachery of the eunuchs. Behold the pelican on the left wall with the bronze neck… afterwards the spirit steps of jade… afterwards river of silver, afterwards… door of bronze. Here Emperor… behind a great room filled with most precious treasures.”
He read it twice, then handed the bracelet to the girl. She looked at him for the space of a minute. Here, in the heart of prosaic London, with the dull roar of the traffic coming to them gustily across the sparse herbage of a most commonplace park, Shun the son of Chu-Shun spoke across the gulf of twenty centuries.
“It is very wonderful,” she said, and looked at the bracelet.
“I think you had better let me keep this bracelet,” he said; “at any rate for a while. I beg you to believe”—he raised his hand solemnly—“that I consider only your own safety, and I am moved to the suggestion by the knowledge that you attach no sentimental value to the ornament, that it was given to you by somebody whom your mother likes, but who is repugnant to you, and that you only wear it in order to save yourself the discomfort and exasperation of a daily argument with your parent.”
She stared at him in open-eyed amazement.
“How—how did you know that?” she asked.
“You carry it in your bag. You frowned when you took it out to show me,” he said cheerfully. “You carry it in your bag only because you must keep it by you in order to slip it on and off when you are out of somebody’s sight. If it were your fiancé, you would either wear it or leave it at home—engaged people clear up their differences as they go along. Evidently you are a lady of strong character, strong enough to respect the foibles or the demands of your elders. Therefore it must be your father or your mother; and since fathers are naturally indignant and notoriously unsentimental, I cannot imagine that he would insist——”
“Thank you,” she said hurriedly. “Will you keep the bracelet for me, and return it at your leisure to this address?”
She extracted a card from her bag, and he looked at it and read:
Miss Yvonne Yale.
406, Upper Curzon Street, S.W.
“Yvonne,” he read gravely. “I’ve never known anybody named Yvonne.”
He put the bracelet in his inside pocket, and buttoned the worn coat again.
“I have no card,” he said. “I am Captain Ted Talham of the Victorian Mounted Infantry, of the Bechuanaland Mounted Police, of the Imperial Bushmen, and I am, in addition, a general in the army of the Dowager Empress of China, a mandarin of the Fourth Class, and a wearer of the Sun of Heaven and the Imperial Dragon Orders.”
He recited this with all gravity. There was no glint of humour in his eyes. The girl checked her smile when she realised how serious this good-looking man was. There was pride in the recital of his dignities: it was a very important matter that he should be Captain of Irregular Horse, and as tremendous a happening that he should wear the decorations of the Manchu dynasty.
She held out her hand.
“I am sure my mother will be glad to meet you,” she said, “and as for myself I cannot tell you how grateful I am that you should have been so providentially at hand this afternoon.”
He bowed, a ceremonious and correct little bow.
“That is the luck of the game,” he said.
There was an awkward pause. He was so evidently trying to say something more.
“I think it is right, and it is my duty,” he said at last, “to point out to you the very significant fact that so far I have not offered you my address. This,” he went on oracularly, “is all the more significant and alarming when I tell you that the intrinsic value of the bangle”—he tapped his pocket—“is anything from fifteen hundred to twenty-five hundred pounds.”
“Impossible!” said the startled girl.
It was altogether an amazing afternoon.
He nodded.
“Possibly the latter figure,” he said. “Let the fact sink into your mind, and add to it the alarming intelligence that I have no address, and I have no address because I have exactly three yen in unchangeable Chinese silver between myself and the ravening world.”
A wave of pity surged over the girl, and there were tears in her eyes—tears that sprang most unexpectedly from unsuspected wells of sympathy.
She fumbled in her bag, but he stopped her.
“I beg of you,” he said reproachfully. “If you can’t trust me with two thousand pounds’ worth of jade, believe me, I can trust you with my secret, and a secret is only existent just so long as either of the two parties affected do nothing overtly or covertly to destroy the basic foundation upon which it rests. My secret is momentary penury—remove that and the secret ceases to be.”
He would have said more, but checked himself.
“In fact,” he concluded, “if you offer me money, I shall offer you your jade bangle, and there will be the end of the matter.”
She was laughing now—her eyes danced with merriment.
There was something amusing in the situation. This seedy gentleman with his unchangeable yen, his problematical dinner and bed, with two thousand pounds in his inside pocket, appealed to her sense of the grotesque. If young De Costa knew! Young change-counting, bill-checking, tipless De Costa, who had given her two thousand pounds in the innocence of his heart.
“Promise me that you will call?” she asked laughingly, “with or without the bangle.”
“With the bangle,” he said. “To-night I shall make it very clear to the ‘Noble Child,’ ‘Hope of the Spring,’ and ‘Star of the Yamen’ that the bracelet has passed to my possession and that henceforward if they wish to follow its wearer they must follow me.”
He shook hands again, lifted his hat, and turning abruptly, left her.
CHAPTER II.
THE MAN IN THE DRAWER.
His Excellency Prince Chu-Hsi-Han, Ambassador to the Court of St. James, picked up the card from the tray, and examined it calmly through his rimless glasses.
“Is the distinguished stranger below?” he asked.
“Excellent Highness,” said the Mongolian in the livery of the Embassy, “I placed the distinguished stranger in the red room.”
The Ambassador nodded.
“Conduct him to my unworthy presence,” he said, and the servant bowed twice and left the room silently.
He returned in a few minutes and announced the visitor in faultless English.
“Signor Tillizinni.”
Tillizinni, spare of build, with his keen, eager face and his black and white colouring, formed a strong note in that room of soft pearl-blue draperies and shaded lights. He offered his hand with a little bow to the impassive Oriental who rose from his desk to meet him.
“Your Excellency expected me?” he asked, and the Ambassador smiled, for Tillizinni spoke in the Chinese—that peculiar “Mandarin Chinese” which only the statesmen and diplomatists of China employ.
“You are a veritable signor,” he said quietly. “You have the accent which suggests a course of training in the forbidden city.”
Tillizinni flushed—he was susceptible on the intellectual side.
“I am flattered,” he said. “Yet I studied no nearer to Pekin than Florence.”
“I congratulate you,” said the Prince, and with his own hands drew a chair forward.
“Be seated,” he said, “and tell me exactly what you require.”
He was speaking in English now.
Tillizinni took from his pocket a long envelope and extracted a number of newspaper cuttings.
“Your Excellency wrote an article in the North American Review,” he said, “which dealt extensively with the early history of your country.”
The Ambassador nodded.
“You dealt extensively with the life of the First Emperor.”
Again the Ambassador nodded.
“One could not deal effectively with the history of China,” he smiled, “unless one wrote of the First Emperor. He built the great wall and stimulated all the best efforts of my countrymen—and though it was two thousand years ago, his influence is still felt.”
It was Tillizinni who smiled now.
“His influence is felt here in London,” he said grimly, “and in no place more completely than in Scotland Yard, which, as your Excellency may know, affords me employment.”
“At Scotland Yard?”
The Chinese Ambassador’s eyebrows rose.
“At Scotland Yard,” repeated the other. “But if your Excellency will proceed——”
The Prince was a great littérateur, and since he was riding his hobby, needed little encouragement.
“The First Emperor did many wonderful things,” he said. “He also did many things, which I say humbly and with due reverence to his illustrious memory”—he bowed his head—“were not wise, for he destroyed all the literature which China possessed, burnt books and documents, and forbade on pain of death any attempt on the part of students to retain the writings of the just. All this you will find dealt with in the story in a sketchy way.”
Again Tillizinni nodded.
“Here is a paragraph I would like to direct your special attention,” he said, and indicated a page on which a paragraph had been outlined with blue pencil.
“Pardon me!” said his Excellency. He was apologising for the fact that it was necessary for him to employ his pince-nez; for your well-bred Chinaman be he all but blind, does not wear his spectacles in the presence of his guest.
“Ah, that,” he tapped the blue paragraph with his finger, “that is a literal extract from the writings of our greatest historian, and describes the burial of the First Emperor.”
He read aloud in his soft English, tracing the printed lines with his tapered fingers as he proceeded:
“In the 9th moon the First Emperor was buried in Mount Li, which in the early days of his reign he had caused to be tunnelled and prepared with that view. Then, when he had consolidated the Empire, he employed his soldiery, to the number of 700,000, to bore down to the Three Springs (that is, until the water was reached), and there a firm foundation was laid and the sarcophagus placed thereon. Rare objects and costly jewels were collected from the palaces and from the various officials, and were carried thither and stored in huge quantities. Artificers were ordered to construct mechanical crossbows, which, if any one were to enter, would immediately discharge their arrows. With the aid of quicksilver, rivers were made—the Yangtsze, the Yellow River, and the great ocean—the metal being made to flow from one into the other by machinery. On the roof were delineated the constellations of the sky, on the floor the geographical divisions of the earth. Candles were made from the fat of the man-fish (walrus), calculated to last for a very long time. The Second Emperor said: ‘It is not fitting that the concubines of my late father who are without children should leave him now’; and accordingly he ordered them to accompany the dead monarch to the next world, those who thus perished being many in number. When the interment was completed, some one suggested that the workmen who had made the machinery and concealed the treasure knew the great value of the latter, and that the secret would leak out. Therefore, so soon as the ceremony was over, and the path giving access to the sarcophagus had been blocked up at its innermost end, the outside gate at the entrance to this path was let fall, and the mausoleum was effectually closed, so that not one of the workmen escaped. Trees and grass were then planted around, that the spot might look like the rest of the mountain.”
Tillizinni nodded.
“That is the trouble,” he said.
“Trouble?”
It is not etiquette for a high-born Chinaman to express his astonishment in the exclamatory style of the West; yet the Prince was obviously astonished.
As briefly as possible Tillizinni gave a résumé of the events which had preceded and followed the stranding of the China mail-boat.
His Excellency listened, his features composed to that immobility which is characteristic of his race. When Tillizinni had concluded, he asked:
“You suggest that the thieves were seeking information which they knew I would publish, and which is to be found in every historical text-book on China.”
“I suggest to your Excellency,” said Tillizinni quietly, “that amongst your documents there was one which threw greater light upon the Treasure House of the Dead than anything you have published.”
The Ambassador was silent. His delicate fingers played restlessly with a silver paper knife on his desk, and his eyes were averted from the other’s face.
Tillizinni offered no encouragement to speech. He understood that he had been right in his surmise. There was reason for the attempted burglary and the reason was to be found in the contents of the mail-bag.
It was fully three minutes—no inconsiderable period of time—before the Ambassador spoke:
“I can only imagine,” he said at last, speaking very slowly, “that the people who tried to rob the safe desired information which I am not prepared to give.”
He looked up sharply.
“Do you realise, Mr. Tillizinni,” he asked, “that buried with Ts’in Hwang Ti are jewels computed to be worth over two million pounds?”
“Two millions?”
The Prince nodded.
“Two millions,” he repeated. “All the authorities agree that even in those days, China was enormously wealthy in gold and precious jewels, and that the value of the First Emperor’s possessions were enormous. He was originally the King of Ts’in, and he it was who established the Empire. By conquest alone he must have secured enormous wealth apart from that which he obtained through the recognised revenues of peace.”
The knowledge that this wealth lies buried is sufficient to tempt the foreign adventurer—no Chinaman save some of the worst criminal characters would desecrate a tomb.
“I have in my possession the exact location of Mount Li,” he added simply.
“But——”
“You think that is easy to find, but as a matter of fact the Empire is filled with Mount Lis, and though on one of these—the most obvious one—the tomb has been located, the great Emperor is really buried on a small and barren island in the Gulf of Pe-chili.”
Tillizinni’s eyes narrowed.
What mystery there was in the burglary had now vanished.
“Why is not the location generally known?” he asked.
The Ambassador favoured him with one of his rare smiles.
“The Emperor himself forbade the disclosure,” he said. “In China in those days, the Divine Sun of Heaven controlled not alone the destinies by the memories of men.”
Tillizinni rose to go.
“One last question,” he asked. “Do you intend publishing the information you have at any future date?”
“I do not,” said the Ambassador briefly.
Tillizinni had occasion to go into the red drawing-room, where he had left his hat and walking-stick.
A man was sitting waiting—a tall, good-looking man, jaunty enough in spite of the poverty of his attire.
“Captain Talham, I believe,” said Tillizinni, and the other rose.
“You are the gentleman who searched my luggage at King’s Cross cloak-room,” said Captain Talham, without resentment, and the detective laughed aloud.
“That is a confession which I should not care to make,” he said. “How do you know your luggage had been searched?”
“I have had some experience,” said the other coolly, “and it may interest you to know that, since your search, a more conscientious search-party took away the whole of my baggage and has, so far, failed to replace it.”
Tillizinni was genuinely concerned. This strange man had a tender spot in his heart for the needy and it needed no second glance at the man from China to discover his straitened circumstances.
He drew a chair forward.
“I am interested in this,” he said. “Perhaps I can help you.”
Captain Talham raised a dignified and protesting hand.
“The normal mind,” he said “rejects without hesitation the instinct of rebellion against recognised authority. Undisciplined resentment toward social safeguards imposed by society for its own protection is aluvistic. I appreciate the necessity for the examination you made and regard as admirable the choice of agent which the government has made. Moreover, since I am directly and frankly interested in discovering the location of Mount Li, and came to this country by the same ship as certain documents revealing that location, your suspicion was pardonable.”
He said all this, scarcely pausing to take breath.
Tillizinni’s face, schooled to conceal his emotion, displayed no hint of his sensations. Had this man been listening at the door of the study, that he should take up the threads of the Ambassador’s discourse?
Talham seemed to divine the working of the Italian’s mind, and smiled.
“I gather you have been discussing the matter with Chu-hsi-han. I gather that because you did not make your call till after the publication of his article, and because I have reason for knowing that that article has excited a great deal of interest in circles with which you are probably unacquainted—the Society of Good Intention, for example.”
There was something in his tone which at once interested and nettled Tillizinni. The stranger had put him on his mettle, too, challenged his knowledge of forces. Yet the Italian was too big a man to allow pique to stand in his way of acquiring information. He was not too clever to learn.
“I know nothing whatever about the Society of Good Intention,” he said; “though I gather from its benevolent title that it is a Chinese secret society with a felonious propaganda.”
Talham was tickled. Here was a man after his own heart.
“The Society,” he began, as if to deliver a speech, then changed his mind. “The Society is purely criminal, though it had a political origin. It is an off shoot of the Guild of Honourable Adventurers which flourished in Canton twenty years ago. It has committed more crimes than any other in China, and it has reached a pass where——”
Clear and sharp above the conversation a pistol shot rang out.
It sounded overhead, and simultaneously the two men leapt to their feet. With one accord they darted to the door, across the wide hall, and up the soft-carpeted stairs, Tillizinni leading, an automatic pistol in his hand.
A servant was standing at the door of the Ambassador’s study, vainly twisting the handle.
“It is locked, Excellencies,” he said.
“Out of the way!” cried Talham.
The man obeyed with suspicious alacrity. He flew down the stairs, past the chattering crowd of servants hurrying up.
At the door of the house the Chinaman in the livery of the Embassy was joined by another.
“We will go quickly, brother,” said the first man, “else these people will know that we are not in the Tao-ae’s service.”
They passed through the door and out into the dark street as the sound of a crash told them that Talham had gained admission to the room above.
The room was in darkness, but the observant Tillizinni had noted the mother-of-pearl button switch, and his fingers found it now. Instantly the room was flooded with soft light.
Huddled in his chair was the Ambassador—dead.
There was no wound which the men could see, and Tillizinni, going swiftly to the side of the dead man, uttered an exclamation.
“He has been strangled!” he cried.
Talham leant over the desk, his brows puckered in a frown.
“Strangled! Then who fired that shot?” he asked.
Servants were coming into the room now. The English secretary pushed a way through a crowd of excited Chinamen. He had been writing in his study on the third floor when the shot aroused him.
“Marshall all the servants,” said Tillizinni, and whilst this was being done the detective made an examination of the apartment. The windows were closed and fastened with a catch, for the Ambassador shared with his countrymen a horror of ventilation. There was no possibility of entry from that direction.
Nothing had been disturbed with the exception of a large inlaid bureau which stood against one wall of the room. Here the door had been wrenched open, and a drawer forced and ransacked. Private papers lay scattered on the floor.
Tillizinni picked up a large envelope. It was inscribed in Chinese characters: “The burial-place of the First Emperor.” The seal on the envelope remained intact, but the cover had been slit from end to end, and was empty.
“Look!” said Talham’s voice explosively.
Tillizinni followed the direction of the pointing finger. The bottom of the bureau was formed by one huge drawer, the width and depth of the massive piece of furniture and some eighteen inches high.
From one corner bright red drops were dripping and forming a little pool on the carpet.
The two men grasped the bronze handles of the drawer and pulled.
The body of a man lay in the bottom. He was doubled up so that his knees were under his chin. He had been shot evidently from behind, and was quite dead.
“Do you know him?” asked Tillizinni.
Talham nodded.
“He called himself the ‘Star above the Yamen,’ ” he said, “and I had an interesting talk with him this afternoon.”
For this poor, inanimate thing had been the spokesman of Hyde Park.
CHAPTER III.
INTRODUCES MR. SOO.
It was a busy night for Captain Talham. The clocks were striking three when he hailed a taxi-cab. Tillizinni joined him as he stood on the edge of the pavement, and the two conversed together for some time. Then they entered a cab, and drove off.
The man who watched them from the opposite side of the road followed. His car waited in a side street at no great distance, and it was a car which readily overtook the cab which carried the two men eastward.
They passed through the stone archway of Scotland Yard, and the pursuing car continued its way along the Embankment, and in obedience to the instructions given through the speaking tube, slowed in Horse Guards Avenue to allow the occupant to alight.
He was dressed irreproachably in the evening dress of civilisation, and carried himself with ease and confidence. He walked back the way the car had come, turned into Scotland Yard without hesitation, and found the constable on duty very ready to carry a message to Tillizinni.
The Italian received him alone, and the visitor favoured him with a ceremonious bow.
Tillizinni took him in from foot to crown in one sweeping and comprehensive bow.
The newcomer was unquestionably Chinese, though he did not wear a queue which distinguished the Manchu before the rebellion. His face was good-looking for a Chinaman, his features clean-cut, his eyes alone betrayed his nationality. His lips, straight and thin, were expressionless, and Tillizinni noticed that this strange man, dressed in the height of fashion, yet with the restraint which marked the gentleman, wore in one eye a gold-rimmed monocle.
When he spoke there was no trace of a foreign accent.
“Mr. Tillizinni?” he said, and the other nodded. “My name is Soo—L’ang T’si Soo—and I am, as you may suppose, a compatriot of the unfortunate man who was murdered to-night.”
Tillizinni nodded again.
“I know the Prince slightly,” said Soo, as he seated himself, “and naturally I am distressed at the tragic news.”
“News travels very fast,” responded Tillizinni dryly. “The Ambassador has not been dead very long.”
Soo inclined his head easily.
“I was passing the Embassy, and I saw a number of distracted servants—one of whom you sent to find a policeman,” he explained. “Naturally the servants being commonplace Chinamen and inveterate gossips, were ready to talk to one of their race.”
This was plausible enough. Tillizinni, at any rate, could find no fault with the explanation. He wondered why this Chinese exquisite should have sought him at three o’clock in the morning.
“It is very sad,” continued L’ang T’si Soo, shaking his head, “that one so learned as his Excellency should have been cut off so ruthlessly.”
“It is sadder to me,” said Tillizinni, “that the ‘Star above the Yamen’ should also have been sacrificed.”
What made him say this he could not understand. There was no reason at all why he should mention the second man.
The effect on his visitor was electrical. He rose instantly and noiselessly from his chair, the monocle dropped from his eye, and the eyelids lowered till the detective saw no more than two straight, glittering slits of black.
“ ‘Star above the Yamen’?” he repeated. “What do you mean?”
All the suaveness, all the languid drawl had gone out of his voice: it was harsh and metallic. The white-gloved hands were clenched till the delicate kid was stretched to breaking point. He stood erect and tense; there was something animal in his poise, something tigerish in his attitude.
“What I mean,” said Tillizinni slowly, “is just this. In addition to the Ambassador, a man was killed—shot from behind, evidently by his confederates. As I have reconstructed the crime, the murderers were disguised in the livery of the Embassy, and made their escape in the confusion. ‘Star above the Yamen’ was probably killed because his murderers desired something which he had. He has been identified by this.”
The detective took a sheet of paper from his pocket, and handed it across the desk to the other.
Soo looked at the Chinese characters long and earnestly.
“It is copied from the man’s hong, which was given to Captain Talham this afternoon by the man himself.”
With a supreme effort T’si Soo recovered his self-possession. Without a word he handed back the sheet, fixed his eyeglass mechanically and relaxed into his chair.
“That is interesting,” he said calmly. “Once I knew a ‘Star above the Yamen,’ but this is evidently another man. The characters change a little as between North and South China, and my friend does not use this hong.”
Tillizinni’s observant eye saw the tip of the visitor’s tongue pass over the dry lips.
“Doubtless you wonder why I have come,” said the Chinaman, “and it is only fair to you that I should explain who I am. Your companion——”
“My companion?” asked Tillizinni sharply.
“The gentleman who is waiting in the next room,” said the suave Oriental, “until I have gone. His Excellency Ho-tao, which in our language means the River Mandarin, or as you would call him, Captain Talham, he would know me. I am the son of the Governor of T’si-lu: to all intents and purposes, I am the governor.”
Tillizinni bowed.
He knew something of this man, who was educated at Oxford, rented the most expensive of Piccadilly flats, and was reputedly wealthy.
Soo rose to go.
“I am afraid I have allowed my curiosity and my natural interest in the fate of my countryman to trespass upon your time,” he said. “Here is my address: if I can be of any assistance to you, please command me.”
He put his card upon the table, and with a little bow, withdrew.
Three minutes later he was speeding eastward as fast as his car could go. He swept round from the Embankment to Blackfriars Bridge, and crossed the river. He alighted near the Borough.
“Wait for me!” he said briefly, and the muffled chauffeur answered in Cantonese.
In a tiny thoroughfare leading off Southwark Street were a number of small shops, shuttered and silent at this hour of the morning.
Soo tapped on the shutters of one. It was a gentle tattoo that he beat, yet the door which flanked the windows was instantly opened and he passed in. The shop was evidently a laundry, and a Chinese laundry at that. He passed swiftly across the shop through the living-room at the back, in which one feeble light burned, and without hesitation turned sharply and descended the stairs which led directly from the living-room to the cellars below.
At the bottom of the stairs was a door. Again he knocked, and again the door was opened by a Chinaman in his shirt-sleeves.
The man removed his pipe as Soo entered, and made a profound obeisance.
The cellar was a large one, and its walls were covered with blood-red paper on which were painted crude, black drawings and characters illustrating the “Song of Lament.” There was one table above which an oil-lamp swung, and about were seated half a dozen men in various conditions of dishabille. Despite the coldness of the night, the cellar was uncomfortably hot, for a big charcoal brazier glowed in a wall recess where in some forgotten age had stood a European stove.
The men rose as Soo entered, concealing their hands in their sleeves.
“Where is my brother?” asked Soo quickly.
He addressed a cadaverous old Chinaman who stood nearest the brazier.
“Lord,” said the man, “your illustrious brother has not returned.”
“Where are Yung-ti and Hop-lee?” demanded Soo.
“Lord, they have not returned,” answered the other.
Soo looked at his watch.
“Ming-ya says——” began the old man, but stopped as if he thought better of it.
“Ming-ya says—what?” asked Soo. “Answer me, old fool, quickly!”
The old man bowed.
“The seven blessings of heaven upon your highness,” he said humbly. “But Ming-ya says that neither Yung-ti nor Hop-lee will return.”
Ming-ya, a youthful Cantonese with the dull eye of an opium sot, nodded.
“That is true,” he croaked hoarsely; “for these two men I heard speaking to-night when I was taking my pipe, and they thought I could not hear them—they go to China to-night.”
Soo waited for a time; his head sank on his chest, buried in thought.
Then his eye singled out a thoughtful face which had been turned to him from the moment he entered. It was the face of a young man who stood where the shadow of the lamp fell—for one side of the lamp had been shaded so that no gleam of direct light could be detected from the street above. With a jerk of his head Soo signed for him to follow, and without another word the two men left the cellar, the door closing behind them with a click.
In the shop above T’si Soo turned to his companion.
“Lo-Rang,” he said, “these two men have killed my brother—and yours, for we of the Society of Good Intention are all brothers, having sworn by our ancestors to keep faith. Also they have taken away a certain paper which I sent them to get.”
The younger man inclined his head obediently.
“I sent my brother with them because I feared treachery. He it was—so the foreigners say—who found the paper, and because they needed it for their treachery and could get it no other way, they have killed him.”
“Excellency,” said Lo-Rang meekly, “all this I know. Tell me what I shall do?”
“Find those men,” said Soo, “and shah!”
The young man bowed reverently and turned, disappearing into the back of the shop.
He returned with a tiny bundle of clothes, and a long, narrow-bladed knife.
“This is the knife with which I killed a man in Hoo Sin,” he said proudly, and Soo nodded his acknowledgment.
CHAPTER IV.
THE AMULET OF JADE.
Mr. Raymond de Costa put down his paper, and looked thoughtfully at his son who sat opposite to him at the breakfast-table.
Gregory de Costa favoured his father in that he was below the medium height and somewhat stout for a man of twenty-four. His complexion had a tinge of bronze-red, which is to be found in those families which trace back to “colour,” and, indeed, there was a history of a mésalliance which brought wealth but an undesirable Eurasian strain into the De Costa family. They referred to themselves as a Portuguese house, and Portuguese they may have been originally; but generations of De Costas had lived and died in the Madras presidency, illustrious amongst the chee-chee folk, but unquestionably of them.
Raymond, the elder, was the richest of the De Costa clan. He was fat and wheezy; his face was swollen with good living and self-indulgence—for he denied himself none of the excellencies of life. It was not an attractive face, though the two black eyes that burned all the time as though with fever, were fascinating. They were “seeing” eyes; they watched and absorbed all things within their radius. They were terribly alive and eager. They seemed to denote and indicate a separate existence to that which the gross, unshapely body of the man enjoyed.
The elder man—he must have been sixty—raised his be-ringed hand and gently caressed the stubble of grey moustache on his upper lip.
He was contemplating this dreadful son of his, from his sleek, shiny head, to his sleek, shiny boots.
“Gregory,” he said after a while, “have you seen the papers this morning?”
The younger man shook his head.
“No,” he admitted, though in the admission he knew he might earn a reproof, for he was undergoing a course of education which included a knowledge of the daily happenings of life.
To his surprise the inevitable lecture was not forthcoming. Instead——
“The Chinese Ambassador was murdered last night,” said his father softly.
Gregory stared.
There was something in the very gentleness of Raymond de Costa’s voice which made the younger man feel uncomfortable.
“Murdered—poor devil!” he said. “Was that where you went last night? I suppose they sent for you?”
Raymond sat upright suddenly.
“Where I went! What do you mean?” he demanded harshly. “I went nowhere.”
“I thought I heard you come in at one o’clock,” said the youth, reaching for an apple from the table. “I didn’t sleep too well.”
The other frowned.
“I did not come in for an excellent reason,” he said with asperity; “I was in bed at eleven o’clock and I did not stir out of my bed until Thomas brought my coffee this morning.”
The young man was unconvinced.
“But, governor,” he protested, “I saw Thomas with your boots, and they were all covered with mud.”
The old man thumped the table with a snarl of anger.
“I wasn’t out of the house last night, I tell you!”
Gregory de Costa was alarmed at the storm he had brought down upon his head.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled apologetically. “I must have dreamt it.”
“What is this about you’re not sleeping well?” demanded the other, changing the conversation abruptly. “Are you ill?”
“Ill? No; it’s nothing! I’m just feeling a bit rotten.”
He got up from the table and walked disconsolately to the window, gazing gloomily into the street.
“Is it that girl of yours?” asked his father with a slight smile.
“Which girl?” asked the other resentfully “Do you mean Miss Yale?”
“Who else?”
The youth was silent for a while.
“She’s not my girl by any means, governor,” he said despairingly. “I wish to heaven she was! She treats me like dirt—absolutely like dirt!”