“‘Trouble’ was the word,” said the other laconically. “Your spoon-fed Chink plus your disreputable relation have a Plan.”
Joe grunted, selected a cigar from the box on the table and gnawed off the end savagely.
“Wish I’d never come to this bloomin’ country,” he said plaintively. “Wish I’d never left Siangtan. You’re a good fellow, Cliff, but too vi’lent—much too vi’lent. I wish Fing-Su had been a sensible boy. Well educated and everything, Cliff…it does seem a pity, don’t it? Here’s me, with just enough education to read and write, rich as Creasers in a manner of speaking–-“
Cliff’s nose wrinkled.
“Croesus would have spent your income on cigarettes,” he said contemptuously.
“In a manner of speaking—did I say that or didn’t I?” demanded Joe reproachfully. “Here’s me as rich as Creasers and white, and there’s him, a poor suffering Chink, who can speak Latin and Algebra and French and all them foreign languages as easily as I speak Mandarin!”
He sighed and shook his head.
“Life’s comic,” he said vaguely.
Clifford was changing his shoes and growled:
“If you were the only man I’d ever met in the world I should say life was comic. As it is, it’s darned serious, and a lot of people whose only job in life is to keep living are going to find it pretty hard to hold down their sinecure. Have you seen the papers?”
Joe nodded and reached out lazily for a heap of newspapers that lay on a table at his elbow.
“Yes, I was reading about the murder of those missionaries up in Honan. But there’s always trouble in Honan. Too many soldiers loafin’ around hungry. If there wasn’t soldiers there wouldn’t be any brigands.”
“That’s the ninth missionary murder in a month,” said Clifford tersely; “and the soldiers in Honan are the best disciplined in China—which isn’t saying much, I admit. But the soldiers were in this and had banners inscribed ‘We welcome the Son of Heaven,’ which means that there is a new pretender to the throne.”
Joe shook his head.
“I never did hold with Chinamen being trusted with rifles,” he said. “It demoralizes ‘em, Cliff. You don’t think we shall have any trouble on the Concession, do you?” he asked anxiously. “Because, if you do, I ought to be getting back.”
“You’ll stay here,” said Cliff ominously. “I don’t think we shall have trouble in that part of China—we are paying the Governor too much for him to risk. But there are seventeen separate points in open rebellion in China.” He opened a drawer, took out a map and unfolded it, and Joe saw that the chart was covered with little red crosses. “They call it ‘unrest’ in the newspapers,” said Clifford quietly. “They give as the reason the failure of the rice crops and an earthquake hundreds of miles from any centre of trouble!”
Old Joe struggled up to an erect position.
“What’s the idea?” he asked, looking at the other through narrowed lids. “First time I knew you took any interest in Chinese wars. You talk as if you knew all the risin’s. What’s the big idea? They can’t effect us?”
Lynne folded the map.
“A big change of government would affect everything,” he said. “Honan doesn’t worry me, because it is a brigands’ province; but there has been trouble in Yun Nan, and when Yun Nan starts hooting the trouble is far advanced. Somebody is working hard for a new dynasty—and all the flags are decorated with the symbol of the Joyful Hands.”
Old Joe’s jaw dropped.
“But that is a little affair,” he said jerkily; “just a little fool society–-“
“Eight provinces are strong for the Hands,” interrupted Clifford. “And Fing-Su has a headquarters in each. He has double-crossed us from the start—using the money he has taken from the concessions to finance a trading company in opposition to us.”
“He never has!” Joe’s voice was hollow with amazement.
“Go up to the Tower and take a peek at Peking House—the London office of the trading company, and the Emperor Fing-Su’s general headquarters!”
Old Joe Bray could only shake his head.
“Emperor…um! Same as Napoleon…gosh!”
Lynne allowed that idea to soak.
“In three months’ time he will be wanting money—big money. At present he is financing divers generals, but he cannot go on indefinitely. His scheme is to form a national army under Spedwell, who knows China, and when he has done that and established himself on the throne, it will be easy to deal with the three big generals who are in his pay at the moment. How this Emperor bug got into his brain, heaven knows!”
Mr Bray stirred uneasily; something in his attitude arrested his partner’s attention.
“It was you! Oh, you wicked old man!” he breathed, in wonder.
“I certainly gave him ideas,” admitted Joe, who was thoroughly uncomfortable. “I sort of made up yarns to stimmerlate his ambition—that’s the word, ain’t it? I’ve got a wonderful imagination, Cliff. I’d have written novels if I could have only spelt.”
“And I suppose,” said Clifford, “you drew a picture of what China would be like under one head?”
“Something like that.” Joe Bray dared not meet his partner’s eyes. “But it was to stimmerlate his ambition, if you understand, Cliff. Just sort of push him on.”
Clifford was laughing softly, and he very seldom laughed. “Maybe he didn’t want any ‘stimmerlating’,” he said. “Fing-Su is the one in a million that is bound to turn up at odd intervals through the ages. Napoleon was one, Rhodes was one, Lincoln was one—there aren’t such a lot of ‘em.”
“What about George Washington?” asked Mr Bray, only too anxious to switch the conversation into historical channels.
“Whoever is responsible, the mischief is done.” Cliff looked at his watch. “Did you ever go bird’s-nesting, Joe?”
“As a boy,” said Joe complacently, “there was few that could beat me.”
“We’ll go along tonight and inspect a floating nest of the domestic yellowbill,” said Cliff.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Mr Narth went up to town by train, his car for the moment being in the grip of one of those mysterious ailments to which cars are addicted. On the station platform he bought a newspaper, though he was not attracted thereto by a contents bilclass="underline" ‘Joyful Hands’ Behind Chinese Trouble. What the ‘Joyful Hands’ meant Mr Narth did not trouble to think. The name seemed a little incongruous.
He was quite ignorant on the subject of China, except that fabulous sums had been made in that country by one who had conveniently died and passed on his fortune to Mr Narth.
It was his pride and boast that he was a business man, which meant that he was proud of his ignorance on all subjects apart from his business. Outside interests he had none; he played a passable game of golf—it was that accomplishment which had lured him to Sunningdale—he was an indifferent devotee of bridge, and his adventurous period of life was represented by the indiscreet maintenance of a Bloomsbury flat in the late ‘nineties.
Frankly, he was dishonest; he admitted as much to himself. He had a passionate desire for easy money, and when he had inherited his father’s business it had seemed that he was in a fair way to the realization of his ideals. He had then discovered that money only flowed into even the oldest-established businesses if the passages and chutes were kept clear of rubbish. You had either to butter them with advertising, or polish them with that homely commodity which is known as elbow-grease. If you were content to sit in an office chair and wait for money, it had an uncomfortable knack of losing its way and dropping into the coffers of your competitors. He had so far acquainted himself with the incidence of commercial machinery that he had found many short cuts to wealth. The discovery that most of these enticing by-ways led into all sorts of morasses and muddy footholes came later. Greatest of all his misfortunes, as it proved, he was, in spite of his frequent stringencies, on the best of terms with the heads of great financial houses, for his judgment, apart from his own operations, was wellnigh faultless.