“Once a crook — always a crook!” he mused at the close of the dinner. “There’s no such thing as a defaulter ever going straight.”
It seemed as though Ah Fu read his mind, but so far as his features indicated such knowledge he might have been a graven image. If Hanley was conscious of the other’s mental attitude, he did not outwardly evidence the fact, but he found himself more restless than ever after dinner when the two sat out on the porch overlooking the harbor and the lights of the city.
“When do you wish to start in?” Hanley asked with a queer sort of catch in his voice.
“In the morning,” the auditor said, “and finish as soon as I can. Mr. Burson wants my report to go back by the Pacifica and the ship will sail on Tuesday. So there’s no time to be lost.”
So it seemed, Hanley observed.
“Quite so,” thought Ah Fu, but he was not thinking of the task the auditor had to perform, but of the little job he personally had in mind.
In the kitchen, he went about his tasks without so much as a word, and at last, when all was in order, he slipped out into the night. He said nothing to his employer about his going, and naturally did not confide to him what he proposed to do. But half an hour later he was in the shop of Moy Su down in the Nanking Road.
With Moy Su he exchanged a few complimentary salutations, felicitated him upon his ancestors, and requested Moy Su to do him a favor. Moy Su, without the impertinence of asking questions, consented to do as he was requested, and Ah Fu went on his way.
Ten minutes later Hanley was summoned to the telephone in his little bungalow. It was Moy Su who greeted him respectfully and begged a thousand pardons for disturbing him at that hour. He made no mention of Ah Fu, a visitor was in the company of Hanley, nor did he refer to the fact that he knew Moy Su was not supposed to be aware of such things, and Hanley naturally never associated the call with the departure of his servant.
Moy Su wished to know whether Hanley would care to come to his shop that evening to see a shipment of reprehensibly inferior jades he had just received. The stuff was the merest trash, Moy Su explained, yet it had the appearance of being very good. It was just such merchandise as Hanley sometimes purchased and sent to America in the course of his business. Moy Su wished Hanley to have first choice of the jades, should Hanley wish to buy them, and on the following morning he had promised to exhibit them publicly.
Hanley thanked the merchant for his courtesy and decided to go at once. Normally he would have told the Chinaman to go to the devil. Twenty years in Shanghai had not tended to speed up his methods of business or make him unduly active in matters of this sort. Now, however, under the watchful eye of Clayburne, he thought it might be good policy to show interest and act upon the opportunity at once. He felt that it was incumbent upon him to make a show of enterprise and devotion to duty. So he told the auditor the purport of the phone call and asked whether he would care to accompany him.
“No,” declined Clayburne, “I’m rather tired tonight, and I haven’t quite got my land legs as yet. I know nothing about the value of such things anyway. I can tell from a set of books whether a business pays, but I couldn’t determine the worth of actual merchandise on a bet.”
Hanley was just as well satisfied. He would welcome being relieved of the auditor’s society for an hour or so at least. The thing he would have to face would be unpleasant enough when he came to it the following morning. Then would take place the interview Hanley had dreaded for years — the inevitable nemesis he knew he must encounter. And Clayburne gave no sign of being likely to be a sympathetic listener to the news which awaited him.
“Then,” said Hanley, “I’ll run down and see this man, if you don’t mind. Just make yourself at home and I’ll return as soon as I can.”
“Don’t hurry,” yawned the auditor, evidently equally willing to be rid of his host. “Sandman’s after me and I think I’ll turn in soon.”
“By all means,” invited Hanley. “My boy has gone out, I think, but I’ll see myself that everything’s in order in your room.”
He did; arranged various articles to insure the comfort of his unwelcome guest, and then went out, first slipping an automatic into his trousers pocket. He had hesitated at first to take the gun, and finally did so with the thought of protection rather than with the intention of employing the weapon for any other purpose.
III
The night was balmly and clear, so he went on foot to the shop where Moy Su was waiting, bowing and scraping and ready to pay him fulsome compliments while he bargained with him. Yet it developed that there was to be no business transacted that night. Indignantly, Hanley spurned the offered jades and roundly admonished Moy Su for even summoning him to look at such trash. He would have none of it. Genuinely annoyed at the merchant and out of sorts with himself, he went out into the night, and retraced his steps.
As he pondered over the situation, his fingers closed on the gun in his pocket. Perhaps, after all, that was the way out. He knew what Clayburne would find when he looked at the books, and he appreciated that nothing he might say would explain away those facts. His previous story was already known by the new owner, and Hanley did not deceive himself that Clayburne would believe him or that Burson would forgive him. After all, it might be as well to blow out his brains and have done with it. Perhaps he should have done so twenty years ago. Life had held nothing worth while for him since he had left New York, and he supposed it never would. There seemed but little purpose in his carrying on.
But whether Hanley was a coward, or whether it was because he scorned a cowardly act, he took his hand from the gun and resolved not to use it. Whatever the result might be, he meant to go over the books with Clayburne in the morning and confess to him the truth. They might accept his statement or reject it as they pleased. They might do with him as they liked. Hanley did not care — and that was the simple truth. If he could not vindicate himself — and he did not believe he could — nothing- really mattered. He had tried his best but fate seemed to be against him.
Then, as he walked up the lonely road, lined on each side with tall trees, he heard a noise just ahead and a great, threatening shape hurled itself at him with a savage snarl. Thrusting his hand into his pocket, he squeezed the automatic, discharging it without troubling to take it out of his pocket.
The bullet ripped his trousers, and flew wild. But a moment later, as he stood with the weapon in his hand, Hanley laughed at himself. Down the road a big, terrified dog was scampering He could plainly see its shadowy outlines as it rushed through the open.
He was nervous, that was all. There had been no real danger and the animal was only frightened at suddenly coming upon him in the darkness. So he trudged on toward his home at a leisurely pace, until his attention was attracted by a glare in the sky. An uneasy fear came over him and he quickened his footsteps, to pause on the edge of the clearing with an exclamation of horror.
His little bungalow and the shack he used as an office were enveloped in flames. Flimsy of construction, the rickety building was burning like tinder. Situated in a lonely spot upon the hillside, it had not as yet been observed by anyone else.
With a shout he dashed on — but his cries brought neither aid nor any response from the bungalow.
Arriving before the door, he called out Clayburne’s name repeatedly, but the crackle of the flames and the roar of their triumph were his only answer. To attempt to enter the building would have been madness, and the roof crumbled in while he stood there helpless.