Edgar Wallace - The Yellow Snake

Hearing the sound of feet on the deck outside, Clifford beckoned his two companions into the small room. Through a crack in the door he saw a Chinese sailor enter and look round. Presently he went back to the door and shouted something, and another sailor joined him and they talked together in a dialect with which neither Joe Bray nor Clifford was acquainted. They were obviously Southern Chinese, and whatever was the subject of their discourse amused them for they punctuated their speech with raucous squeaks of laughter.

And then, to Clifford’s horror, before he could realize what was happening, one of the men put out his hand, gripped the door of the cubby house and slammed it tight. Clifford heard the grind of the bolt slipping into its place, and the slam of the outer door. They were trapped!

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

It had been for Mr Stephen Narth a day of unrelieved misery. What remained of a conscience largely atrophied by self-interest was surprisingly sensitive to the knowledge of the evil he had done to an innocent girl. Again and again he had repeated Fing-Su’s assurance that no harm would come to her, and again and again his reason rejected this futile act of self-deception. And then, on top of the other causes for misery, the news had come like a thunderbolt that Joe Bray was alive and that the treasure his fingers were reaching to touch was phantom gold!

Joe Bray was alive!

He had perpetrated an elaborate jest upon his heir. The easy way out was no longer a way at all, easy or difficult. His one surviving hope was vested in the integrity of Fing-Su.

Stephen Narth was too intelligent a man to believe that the native would keep any promise he had ever made. And yet Ł50,000 was at stake. Would even the most fantastic of Chinamen lose his hold upon that enormous sum, as undoubtedly he would if Stephen Narth decided to break loose from his association. Bankruptcy? What was bankruptcy but an unpleasant incident which might come to any man, and had come to many better and more highly placed than Stephen Narth? And with bankruptcy the ambitious Chinaman might whistle for his money.

This was the only comforting thought that the afternoon brought to him. The prospect of his initiation only filled him with a mild nausea that he should lower himself to the level of this ‘mountebank Chink.’

He was a member of two societies which might be described as ‘secret’, and his general knowledge of such matters was broad enough to acquaint him with most of the formula: of initiation. He looked forward to the evening as a tiresome and uncomfortable waste of time. A journey to South London would have been a wretched experience at any hour or season, but the prospect of making his visit in the middle of the night, and of spending two hours, as he supposed, in the company of Chinese coolies, revolted him.

Spedwell dined with him at his hotel, and did his best to gloss over the coming ordeal. This thin-faced man with his shifty dark eyes was glib enough, but he could not wholly assuage the sensation of disgust which the thought of the ceremony aroused in Stephen Narth’s mind. His was not a delicate gorge by any means, but he had behind him an ancestry with high traditions; and the more he thought of his position, when he allowed himself to think at all, the more he hated the thought of the work of that day and the night which was to follow.

“There’s nothing to be squeamish about,” said Spedwell at last, as he lit a long black cheroot. “If anybody has a kick, it’s me. You seem to forget, Narth, that I have commanded native infantry, and Indian infantry at that. Men of caste and refinement, men with European standards. You don’t imagine that I like associating with the refuse of Asia, do you?”

“You’re different,” snapped Stephen. “You’re a soldier of fortune and you can adapt yourself to circumstances. What have they done with Joan?” he asked fretfully.

“She’s all right; she’s being well taken care of. You needn’t worry about her,” said Spedwell easily. “I wouldn’t allow anything to happen to the girl, you can be sure.”

They were dining in Stephen’s private suite, and the hour that followed passed all too quickly for the troubled man. It was near midnight when they went out into Piccadilly together. Spedwell’s car was waiting and reluctantly Stephen entered. All the way to South London he was plying the other with questions. What was Fing-Su’s plan? Why were they anxious to enlist him? What would he be expected to do?…

Spedwell answered him with great patience, but was obviously relieved when the car turned into a side thoroughfare near the canal bridge in the Old Kent Road.

“Here we are,” he said, and they got down.

They had to walk for five minutes before they came to the narrow opening of a lane which ran by the side of a high brick wall. The only light they had came from a street lamp planted squarely in the entrance of the lane. The lamp served the double purpose of preventing the ingress of wheeled traffic and forming an inadequate illumination for the long and muddy thoroughfare. The rain was pelting down, and Stephen Narth pulled up the collar of his coat with a grunt.

“What is this place?” he asked querulously.

“Our factory—at least, our warehouse,” replied Spedwell.

He stopped before a door and, stooping, inserted a key and opened it.

Narth was full of trivial complaints.

“Was it necessary I should come in evening dress?” he asked.

“Very necessary,” said the other. “Let me take your arm.”

So far as the initiate could see by the light which came from his conductor’s lamp, he was being taken to a small shed built against the wall. It proved to be a bare apartment equipped with two old Windsor chairs.

“It’s dry, at any rate,” said Spedwell as he switched on the light. “I shall have to leave you here; I must go along and tell Fing-Su you’ve come.”

Left alone, Narth occupied himself by pacing up and down the tiny chamber. He wondered if Leggat would be there, and whether the initiation would prove too grotesque for him to go through with. Presently he heard the key in the lock and Spedwell came in.

“You can leave your coat here,” he said. “There’s only a little distance to walk.”

Mr Narth had arrayed himself, according to instructions, in a long-tailed evening coat and white tie, and now, at Spedwell’s request, he took from his pocket a pair of white kid gloves and pulled them on.

“Now!” said Spedwell, put out the light and led the way from the hut.

They were on a gravelled path which ended with a flight of stairs which seemed to lead down into the ground. At the top of these stood two statuesque figures, and as they came near one challenged in a tongue which was unfamiliar to the novitiate.

Spedwell lowered his voice and hissed something. With the other’s hand on his arm, Narth descended the stairs and came to a second door, and again was challenged in the same language. Again Spedwell answered, and somebody rapped on a door. It was opened cautiously, there was a whispered interrogation, and then Spedwell’s hand gripped the other’s arm and he was led into a long, fantastically decorated hall. Was it imagination on his part, or did Spedwell’s hand tremble?

He stood looking down a long vista, and for a second he was inclined to laugh hysterically. Squatting on either side of this oblong apartment were line after line of Chinamen, and each man was in a shabby, ill-fitting evening dress. The white shirts were the veriest shams; he saw the end of one shirt-front sticking out, and round its edge he saw the curve of a brown body. On each shirt-front were two blazing stones. He had no need to be associated with the theatrical profession to realize that they were ‘property’ diamonds. Solemnly, awfully, they stared at him, these quaint apparitions in their shoddy social livery.