Читать книгу The Yellow Snake, or The Black Tenth - Edgar Wallace - Страница 9

Table of Contents

"This is Mr Grahame St Clay," Spedwell introduced the visitor again, and mechanically Stephen Narth put out his hand.

Until that moment all Chinamen were alike to Stephen Narth, but somehow, as he looked into the brown eyes, he distinguished in this man a difference that he could not exactly define. The eyes were set wide apart; the nose, thin and long, and the thin lips, differed from those features he was used to associating with men of the Mongolian type. Perhaps it was the full chin which gave Grahame St Clay his distinction. Certainly when he spoke he was like no Chinaman that Stephen Narth had ever seen or heard.

"This is Mr Narth? I am delighted to meet you. In fact, I have sought many opportunities of making your acquaintance."

It was the voice of an educated man, with just that slight drawl and exaggerated pronunciation which is peculiar to one trained in a public school and finished at one of the great universities.

"May I sit down?"

Narth nodded mutely, and the newcomer laid a handsome portfolio on the table before him.

"You are a little dazed to discover that I am a Chinaman?" Mr St Clay laughed softly. "'Yellow Peril' is the term which is usually employed, is it not? I would object to being called a peril, for I am the most unoffending man that ever came from China," he said good-humouredly.

As he spoke, he was opening the portfolio, and took out a flat-covered pad, tied with red ribbon. Very carefully he slipped the bow, took off the top layer of cardboard and revealed to the eyes of Stephen Narth a thick pad of banknotes. From where he stood he saw they were thousand-pound notes.

"Fifty, I think, is the amount you require?" said Mr St Clay presently, and with the dexterity of a bank cashier he counted the requisite number, placed the little bundle on one side, carefully retied the pad, and slipped it back into the leather case. "We are all friends here, I think." Mr St Clay beamed from one of Stephen Narth's partners to the other. "I can speak without restraint?"

Narth nodded.

"Very well." He folded the fifty notes and, to the surprise of the senior partner, put the money into his waistcoat pocket. "There is naturally a condition attaching to this loan," he said. "Even I, poor, untutored Chinaman though I be, am not so utterly lost to the practice of commerce that I could loan this large sum of money unconditionally. Frankly, Mr Narth, it is required of you that you should become one of us.".

"One of you?" said Stephen Narth slowly. "I don't quite get you."

It was Spedwell who supplied the information.

"Mr St Clay is running a big organization in this country. It's a sort of—" He paused awkwardly.

"Secret society," suggested Mr St Clay pleasantly. "That sounds very mysterious and terrifying, does it not? But really there's nothing to it! I have a certain mission in life, and I require the help of intelligent men on whom I can rely. We Chinamen have rather the qualities of children. We love pomp and mystery. We are, in fact, the true exotics of the world. Mostly we like to play at things, and the Joyful Hands is frankly my invention. Our object is to uplift the Chinese people, to bring as it were light into dark places." He paused, and added: "And all that sort of thing."

Stephen Narth smiled.

"It seems quite a praiseworthy object," he said. "I shall be delighted to join you."

The brown eyes had an hypnotic quality. They transfixed him in that second, and he had the terrifying sensation that he had momentarily surrendered his will to a dominating but beneficent power. That was the strange thing about the Chinaman: he created of himself an atmosphere of beneficence.

"That is well," he said simply, took the wad of notes from his pocket and placed them gently on the table. "No, no, I do not require a receipt—between gentlemen that is unnecessary. You are not a graduate of Oxford? It is a pity. I prefer dealing with men who have that bond with me, but it is sufficient that you are a gentleman."

He rose abruptly.

"I think that is all," he said. "In three days you will hear from me, and I must ask you to hold yourself free to keep any appointment which may be made for you at any hour of the day or night in the course of the next week. I hope that is not too irksome a condition?"

His eyes were smiling as he put the question.

"No, indeed," said Stephen, and gathered up his money with a shaking hand (for the life of him he could not trace the cause of his agitation). "I must say, Mr St Clay, I'm very grateful to you. You have got me out of a very embarrassing situation. How embarrassing, you cannot know."

"Indeed, I know everything," said the other quietly.

And then Stephen remembered.

"Why did he call you the Yellow Snake?"

The Chinaman was staring at him with round, unwinking eyes, and, thinking that he had not heard, Stephen repeated the question.

"Mr Clifford Lynne called me that," said St Clay slowly.

Only for a second did the inscrutable face of the man show that the shaft unconsciously directed had got home.

"Yellow Snake... how vulgar! How like Clifford Lynne!"

He recovered himself instantly, and with a deep laugh, both pleasant and musical, he gathered up his portfolio.

"You will hear from me—" he began.

"One moment, Mr St Clay," said Narth. "You spoke about the object of your league. What is that object?"

The native looked at him thoughtfully for a second, and then:

"The dominion of the world," he said simply, and with a nod he turned and was gone.

In this way came Grahame St Clay, Bachelor of Arts, into the life of Stephen Narth, and henceforth his fate was to be bound by hooks of steel to the will of one who was first to dominate and then to crush him.