The Mandarin's Fan
The Major came puffing into the room and looked around. It was a small apartment furnished with Chinese curiosities. Rice-paper painted in the conventional Chinese fashion adorned the walls: a many-tasseled lantern gay with colour, dangled from the roof, and in each corner of the room a fat mandarin squatted on a pedestal. The furniture was of bamboo, and straw matting covered the floor. A bookcase filled with medical volumes looked somewhat out of place in this eastern room, as did the doctor's writing table, a large one covered with papers and books, and strange looking Chinese scrips. The room was as queer as its owner, and the atmosphere had that indescribable eastern smell, which the Major remembered to have sniffed up at Canton under disagreeable circumstances. Perhaps it was the revival of an unpleasant memory that made him sit down so suddenly, or it might have been the cold grey stony eyes of Forge.
"Well Major," said Rupert who looked handsome and gay in flannels, and who seemed to have lost his melancholy looks, "who would have thought of seeing you here?"
"I came to ask Forge to keep the exterior of his house a little more tidy," said the Major with dignity, "the steps have not been cleaned this morning, and there is straw in the garden, while the shrubs and flowers are dying for want of water."
Forge shrugged his thin shoulders, and nodded towards some egg-shell china cups and a quaint looking tea-pot. But he did not speak.
"No," replied the Major to the silent invitation. "I never drink tea in the afternoon – "
"Or at any time," said Forge in a melancholy way. "I know you of old. Ainsleigh, take another cup."
"Not in the Chinese fashion," said Rupert smiling, "you drink it too hot for my taste and I like milk and sugar. But now I've told you about the fan, I'll leave you to chat with Tidman."
"The fan," said Tidman sitting up as straight as his stoutness would let him, "ah yes – I forgot about that. Well?"
"Well," echoed Rupert lighting a cigarette, "I called at the joss house in Perry Street Whitechapel, and a nice sort of den it is. A Chinaman, heard my explanation about my father's connection with Lo-Keong, and then told me that the fan had been stolen from that gentleman, who is now a Mandarin."
"Lo-Keong was well on the way to the highest post when I saw him last" said Forge preparing a roll of tobacco, "he was much in favour at the court."
"But I thought he was a Boxer," said Tidman, "and surely – "
"Oh he gave up the Boxers, and curried favour with the Dowager Empress. That was seven years ago, when I was last in China. I met you there Tidman."
Again the disagreeable recollection of Canton crossed the Major's memory, and he nodded. "What about the fan?" he asked Rupert again.
"It's of great value," said Ainsleigh, "at least this Chinaman told me so. Lo-Keong is now a Mandarin, and is high in favour with the Dowager Empress – "
"And consequently is hated by the Emperor," murmured Forge.
"I don't know, doctor, I'm not up in Chinese politics. However, the fan was lost by Lo-Keong some years ago, and being a sacred fan, he wants it back. This Chinaman Tung-Yu – "
"Oh," said the Major, "then you didn't see Hwei or Kan-su?"
"Those are names of a river and a province," said the doctor.
"I know," snapped Tidman, "but they were in the advertisement."
"Tung-yu explained that they were used only for the purpose of advertisement," said Rupert, "but to make a long story short, I told him that I had seen the fan – "
"You saw the fan," asked Tidman directing a side look at Forge.
"A dream – a dream," said the doctor.
"No," insisted the young man. "I feel sure I have seen that fan, I can't think where. Perhaps it is amongst my father's effects sent from China by Lo-Keong years ago – "
"Twenty years ago," said Dr. Forge, "and Lo-Keong would hardly send his own fan. I remember the things coming. I came home immediately before. A Chinaman brought your father's papers and luggage to Royabay. He left them with your mother and went away."
"Were you not with my father when he died?" asked Rupert, "I always understood you were."
"No. I was at Pekin at the time. Your father and I were working the mine together, and I went about some imperial concessions. While there I heard that your father was dead."
"Was he murdered?" asked Rupert earnestly.
"I really can't say, Lo-Keong said that he died of dysentery, but he was always a liar. He wouldn't be so high in favour with the Court if he wasn't. Lying is a fine art in the Far East, and – "
"Yes – Yes," said Tidman impatiently, "but what has all this to do with the fan?"
"I think it's all of a piece myself," said Rupert, "and I intend to get to the bottom of it. I have seen that fan somewhere – but I can't think – I can't," he reflected and shook his head, "no. But I have seen it doctor, so its no use your shrugging your shoulders. I want to find it and get that five thousand pounds."
"What?" cried the Major leaping up on his stout little legs.
"Lo-Keong is willing to give five thousand pounds for the return of his fan," said Ainsleigh, who had walked to the door, "and I intend to earn it."
"Against my advice," said Forge looking up oddly.
Rupert laughed. "Oh you are afraid," he said smiling.
"Of you, not of myself. I know what the Chinese are, and have studied the race for years. I know how to deal with them; but you will get into trouble if you meddle with this fan business."
"And so I say," cried Tidman emphatically.
"Why, what do you know of the Chinese, Major?" asked Rupert.
"More than I like to think of," said the little man wiping his bald head. "I went out to China for a trip seven years ago and met with an adventure in Canton – ugh!"
"What sort of an adventure?"
"Ugh!" grunted the Major again, "don't talk about it. It makes me cold to think of it. The Chinese are demons. Forge got me out of the trouble and I left China never to set foot in it again I hope. Ainsleigh, if you want that curse of yours to be realised, meddle with the fan. But if you want to keep your life and your skin, leave the matter alone."
"I'm going to get that five thousand pounds," said Rupert, obstinately, "as soon as I can recollect where I saw that fan. The memory will come back to me. I am sure it will. Doctor you won't help me."
"No," said Forge decisively. "I advise you to leave the matter alone."
"In that case I must search it out myself. Good-day," and Ainsleigh strolled out of the room, lightheartedly enough, as he whistled a gay tune. Major Tidman looked grimly at the closed door, and then still more grimly at the doctor, who was paring his nails.
"Our young friend is ambitious," he said.
Forge laughed gently. "You can hardly blame him. He wants to marry Miss Rayner and save his ancestral home, so I am quite sure he will search for the fan."
"He won't find it then," said the Major petulantly.
"Won't he?" questioned Forge sweetly, "well, perhaps not. By the way you want to see me Major. Mrs. Bressy tells me you called at least twice yesterday."
"Yes. She didn't know when you would be back."
"I never tell her. I like to take the old lady unawares. She is a Dickens' character, with a fondness for drink, and for taking things which don't belong to her. I always go away and come back unexpectedly. Yesterday I was in Paris. Now I am at Marport. Well?"
The Major had contained himself with difficulty all this time, and had grown very red in the face. The colour changed to a lively purple, as he burst out. "See here Forge what's the use of talking to me in this way. You have that fan."
"Have I," said Forge smiling gently.
"Yes. You know well enough that the very fan – the jade fan with the five beads, was the cause of my getting into trouble in Canton. You got me out of the trouble and you asked me to give you the fan, when I thanked you."
"And you refused," said Forge still smiling.
"Well I did at first," said Tidman sulkily. "I risked my life over the beastly thing, and – "
Forge raised a thin hand. "Spare yourself the recital. I know."
"Well then," went on Tidman excitedly. "You asked again for it when you came home, and I gave it to you. Ainsleigh is quite right. He did see the fan. I showed it to him one day before you arrived. I see he has forgotten, but any stray thought may revive his memory. I don't want him to have the fan."
"Why not?" asked Forge shutting his knife with a click.
"Because I want the five thousand pounds for myself. I'm not so well off as people think, and I want – "
"You forget," said Forge gently, "you gave me the fan."
"And have you got it?"
"I have," he nodded towards a cabinet of Chinese work adorned with quaint figures, "it's in there."
"Give it to me back."
"No. I think I'll keep it."
"What do you want to do with it?" asked Tidman angrily.
Forge rose and looked stern, "I want to keep it from Lo-Keong," he said savagely, "there's some secret connected with that fan. I can't understand what the secret is or what the fan has to do with it: but it means life and death to this Mandarin. He'd give ten thousand, – twenty thousand to get that fan back. But he shan't."
"Oh," groaned the Major, "why did I give it to you. To think that such a lot of money should go begging. If I had only known what the fan was worth."
"You knew nothing about it save as a curiosity."
"How do you know," demanded the Major.
Forge who had turned towards the cabinet wheeled round and looked more like a hawk than ever as he pounced on the stout man. "What do you know?" and he clawed Tidman's plump shoulders.
"Let me go confound you," blustered the Major, "what do you mean by assaulting a gentleman – "
"A gentleman." Forge suddenly released the Major and laughed softly, "does Benjamin Tidman, old Farmer Tidman's son call himself so. Why I remember you – "
"Yes I know you do, and so does that infernal Pewsey cat."
Forge suddenly became attentive. "Miss Pewsey if you please. She is my friend. I may – " Forge halted and swallowed something. "I may even marry her some day."
"What," shouted Tidman backing to the wall, "that old – old – "
"Gently my good Benjamin, gently."
"But – but you're not a marrying man."
"We never know what we are till we die," said Forge turning again towards the black cabinet, "but you needn't mention what I have said. If you do," Forge snarled like an angry cat and shot one glance from his gray eyes that made Tidman shiver: then he resumed his gentle tone. "About this fan. I'll make a bargain with you."
"What's that?" asked the Major avariciously.
"I'll show you the fan, and if you can guess it's secret, I'll let you give it to this Tung-yu or Hwei or Kan-su or whatever he likes to call himself."
"But you don't want Lo-Keong to have the fan," said the Major doubtfully.
Forge opened the cabinet slowly. "So long as I learn the secret he can have the fan. I want to ruin him. He's a devil and – ah – " he started back. "The fan – the fan – "
"What is it?" asked Tidman, craning over Forge's shoulder at an empty drawer, "where is the fan?"
"Lost," cried Forge furiously, and looked like a dangerous grey rat.
"Five thousand pounds gone," moaned the Major.
"My life you fool – my life," cried the doctor, "it is at stake."
CHAPTER III
Miss Wharf at Home
The best houses in Marport were situated on the Cliffs. They stood a considerable way back and had small plots of ground before them cultivated or not, according to the taste of those who owned them. Some of these gardens were brilliant with flowers, others had nothing but shrubs in them, presenting rather a sombre appearance, and a few were bare sun-burnt grass plots, with no adornment whatsoever. A broad road divided the gardens from the grassy undulations of the cliffs, and along this thoroughfare, rolled carriages, bicycles, and motor-cars all day during the season. Then came the grass on the cliff-tops which stretched for a long distance, and which was dotted with shelters for nervous invalids. At one end there was a round bandstand where red-coated musicians played lively airs from the latest musical comedy. Round the stand were rows of chairs hired out at twopence an afternoon, and indeed, all over the lawns, seats of various kinds were scattered. At the end of the grass, the cliffs sloped gradually and were intersected with winding paths, which led downward to the asphalt Esplanade which ran along the water's edge, when the tide was high, and beside evil-smelling mud when the tide was out. And on what was known as the beach – a somewhat gritty strand, – were many bathing machines. Such was the general appearance of Marport which the Essex people looked on as a kind of Brighton, only much better.
Miss Sophia Wharf owned a cosy little house at the far end of the cliffs, and just at the point where Marport begins to melt into the country. It was a modern house comfortably furnished and brilliant with electric lights. The garden in front of it was well taken care of, there were scarlet and white shades to the windows and flower boxes filled with blossoms on the sills. Everyone who passed remarked on the beauty of the house, and Miss Wharf was always pleased when she heard them envy her possessions. She liked to possess a Naboth's Vineyard of her own, and appreciated it the more, when others would have liked to take it. She had an income of one thousand a year and therefore could live very comfortably. The house (Ivy Lodge was it's highly original name) was her own, bought in the days when Marport was nothing but a fishing village. She knew everyone in the neighbourhood, was a staunch friend to the vicar who was high church and quite after her own heart in the use of banners, incense, candles and side-altars, and on the whole was one of the leading ladies of the place. She had the reputation of being charitable, but this was owing to Miss Pewsey who constantly trumpeted the bestowal of any stray shilling being by her patroness.
Miss Wharf was a lady of good family, but had quarrelled with her relatives. She was a tall, cold, blonde woman who had once been handsome and still retained a certain portion of good looks, in spite of her forty and more years. She lived with her niece Olivia the child of a sister long since dead, and with Miss Pewsey, to whom she gave a home as a companion. But Miss Wharf well knew, that Lavinia Pewsey was worth her weight in gold owing to the way she praised up her good, kind, devoted, loving, sweet, friend. The adjectives are Miss Pewsey's own, but some people said that Sophia Wharf did not deserve to have them attached to her. The lady had her enemies, and these openly declared, as the Major had done, that she was a mass of granite. Other people, less prejudiced, urged that Miss Wharf looked after Olivia, who was a penniless orphan. To which the grumblers retorted that Miss Wharf liked someone to vent her temper on, and that the poor girl, being too pretty, did duty as a whipping boy. This was possibly true, for Olivia and her aunt did not get on well together. In her own way the girl looked as cold as Miss Wharf, but this coldness was merely a mask to hide a warm and loving nature, while Miss Wharf was an ice-berg through and through. However, on the whole, Sophia Wharf was well liked, and took care to make the most of her looks and her moderate income and her reputation as a charitable lady. And Miss Pewsey was the show-woman who displayed her patroness's points to their best advantage.
The drawing-room of Ivy Lodge was a flimsy, pretty, feminine, room, furnished in a gim-crack fashion, of the high art style. The floor was waxed, and covered with Persian praying mats, the chairs were gilt and had spindle legs, the settee was Empire, the piano was encased in green wood and adorned with much brass, the sofa was Louis Quinze and covered with brocade, and there were many tables of rose-wood, dainty and light, heaped high with useless nick-knacks.
The walls of pale green were adorned with watercolour pictures, and many mirrors draped with Liberty silk. Everywhere were large bowls of flowers, miniatures of Miss Wharf at various times of her life, curiosities from China and Japan and the near East, and all sorts of odds and ends which Miss Wharf had collected on her travels. Not that she had been to the East, for the evidences of civilisation in those lands came from Dr. Forge and Major Tidman, but Miss Wharf had explored Germany, Switzerland and Italy and consequently had brought home cuckoo-clocks, quaint carvings, pictures of the Madonna, Etruscan idols and such like things with which every tourist loads himself or herself. The result was, that the drawing-room looked like a curiosity shop, but it was considered to be one of the prettiest drawing-rooms in Essex.
Miss Wharf looked too large and too substantial for the frail furniture of the room. She had a double chin and was certainly very stout. Very wisely she had a special arm-chair placed in the window – from which she could see all that was going on, – and here she sat working most of the day. She was great on doing fancy articles for bazaars, and silk ties for such gentlemen as she admired, for Miss Wharf, old maid as she was, liked male society. The Major was her great admirer, so was young Walker, Lady Jabe's nephew. Sophia was not very sure of this last gentleman, as she shrewdly suspected – prompted by Miss Pewsey – that he admired Olivia. Rupert also admired Olivia and wanted to marry her, a proceeding which Miss Wharf objected to. Miss Pewsey supported her in this, for both women were envious of the youth which had passed from them for ever. But Miss Wharf had also another reason, which Miss Pewsey knew, but of which Olivia was ignorant. Hitherto Sophia had kept it from the girl but this afternoon in a fit of rage she let it out. The explosion did not come at once, for Lady Jabe was in the room drinking tea, and Miss Pewsey was flitting about, filling odd vases with flowers. Olivia sat on the settee very straight and very cold, looking dark and handsome, and altogether too splendid a woman for her aunt to tolerate.
"Can't you do something?" said Miss Wharf turning her jealous eyes on the girl. "I should think you must be tired, twiddling your thumbs all day."
"I'll do whatever you wish me to do," said Olivia coldly.
"Then help Lavinia with the flowers."
Olivia rose to do so, but Miss Pewsey refused her assistance in a shrill speech spoken as usual between her teeth and with an emphasis on every other word. "Oh no dear, dear, Sophia," cried Miss Pewsey, "I have just finished, and I may say that my eye for colour is better than Olivia's – you don't mind my saying so, darling," she added to the girl.
"Not at all," replied Miss Rayner who detested the sycophant. "I never give the matter a thought."
"You should think," said Lady Jabe joining in heavily. She was a tall masculine-looking woman with grey hair and bushy grey eyebrows, and with an expression of face that suggested she should have worn a wig and sat on the bench. She dressed in rather a manly way, and far too young for her fifty years. On the present occasion she wore a yachting-cap, a shirt with a stand-up, all round, collar and a neat bow; a leather belt and a bicycling skirt of blue serge. Her boots and shoes were of tanned brown leather, and she carried a bamboo cane instead of a sunshade. No one could have been more gentlemanly. "You should think," added she once more, "for instance you should think of marriage."
Miss Wharf drew herself up in her cold way. "I fancy that Olivia, few brains as she has, is yet wise enough not to think of marriage at twenty."
"It would not be much good if I did," said Olivia calmly. "I have no money, and young men want a rich wife."
"Not all," said Lady Jabe, "there's Chris – "
"Chris is out of the question," said Miss Rayner quickly.
"And pray why is he?" asked Sophia in arms at once. She never liked Olivia to have an opinion of her own.
"Because I don't love him."
"But Chris loves you," said Lady Jabe, "and really he's getting a very good salary in that Tea-merchant's office. Chris, as you are aware, Olivia, is foreign corresponding clerk to Kum-gum Li & Co. He knows Chinese," finished Lady Jabe, with tremendous emphasis.
"Oh," Miss Pewsey threw up her claws, "how delicious to be made love to in Chinese. I must really ask Mr. Walker what is the Chinese for 'I love you.'"
"Olivia prefers to hear it in English," said Miss Wharf, spitefully.
"Quite so, aunt," retorted her niece, her colour rising, "but don't you think we might change the subject. It really isn't very interesting."
"But indeed I think it is," said Lady Jabe smartly, "I come here to plead the cause of poor Chris. His heart is breaking. Your aunt is willing to – "
"But I am not," said Miss Rayner quickly, "so please let us say no more about the matter. Mr. Walker can marry Lotty Dean."
"But she's a grocer's daughter," said Lady Jabe, who was herself the widow of an oil-merchant, "and remember my title."
"Lotty isn't going to marry you, Lady Jabe."
"Nor Chris, if I can help it," said the other grimly.
Miss Wharf was just about to crush Olivia with a particularly disagreeable remark, when the door opened and two gentlemen entered. One was Christopher Walker, a slim, boyish-looking young fellow, in that callow stage of manhood which sees beauty in every woman. The other, who followed, was Miss Pewsey's nephew.
There was nothing immature about him, although he was but twenty eight years of age. Clarence Burgh was tall, thin, dark and had the appearance of a swashbuckler as he swaggered into the room. His black eyes snapped with an unholy light and his speech smacked too much of the Lands at the Back of Beyond, where he had passed the most part of his life. He was an expert rider, and daily rode a bucking squealing, kicking stallion up and down the road, or took long gallops into the country to reduce the fire of the unruly beast. Burgh was bad all through, daring, free, bold, and had a good deal of the untamed savage about him; but he was emphatically a man, and it was this virile atmosphere about him, which caused his withered aunt to adore him. And indeed Miss Wharf admired him also, as did many of the women in Marport. Clarence looked like a buccaneer who would carry a woman off, and knock her down if she objected to his love-making. Women like that sort of dominating lord of the world, and accordingly Mr. Burgh had nothing to complain of, so far as feminine admiration went, during his sojourn in Marport. But he had set his affections on Olivia, and hitherto she had shrunk from him. All the same, brute as he was, she admired him more than she did effeminate Chris Walker, who smacked of the city and of a feather-bed-four-meals-a-day existence.
"Oh," squeaked Miss Pewsey, flying to the hero and clasping him round the neck, "how very, very sweet of you to come."
"Hadn't anything else to do," said Clarence gracefully, casting himself into a chair. All his movements were graceful like those of a panther. "How are you Miss Wharf – Miss Rayner – Lady Jabe. I guess you all look like a garden of spring flowers this day."
"But flowers we may not pluck," sighed Chris prettily.
Burgh looked at him with contempt. "I reckon a man can pick what he has a mind to," said he drily, and then shifted his gaze to see how Olivia took this speech. To his secret annoyance, she did not let on she heard him.
"Will you have some tea, Mr. Burgh," asked Miss Wharf.
"Thanks. It seems to be the sort of thing one must drink here."
"You drank it in China didn't you?" asked Lady Jabe.
Burgh turned quickly. "Who told you I had been in China?" he asked.
"My nephew Chris. He heard you talking Chinese to someone."
The dark young man looked distinctly annoyed. "When was that?" he asked Chris.
"Two weeks ago," replied the other, "you were standing at the corner of the Mansion House talking to a Chinaman. I only caught a word or two in passing."
"And I guess you didn't understand," said Clarence derisively.
"There you are wrong. I am in a Chinese firm, and know the language. As a matter of fact I write their foreign letters for them."
"The deuce you do," murmured Burgh looking rather disturbed; but he said no more on the subject, and merely enquired if the ladies were prepared for the ball at the Bristol which was to take place in six days. "I hear it's going to be a bully affair."