I
“We, all of us,” said Huber Davis reflectively, “like to show off how we do things; we like to tell people about our methods; we like to exposit our particular way of managing affairs. Each of us thinks he is a little tin god in that respect, Carefrew. That’s the way of a white man. A Chinaman, however, is just the opposite. He does not want to show his methods. He does things in a damned mysterious way—and he never tells.”
Carefrew sucked at his cigarette and eyed his brother-in-law with a sneer beneath his eyelids. Only a few hours previously Carefrew had landed from the coasting steamer, very glad indeed to get out of Batavia and parts adjacent with a whole skin. His wife was coming later, after she had straightened up his affairs, and he would then hop aboard the Royal Mail liner with her, and voyage on to Colombo and Europe. Ruth Carefrew, however, knew little about the deal which had sent Carefrew himself up to Sabang in a hurry.
“You seem to know a lot about Chinese ways,” said Carefrew.
“I ought to,” admitted Huber Davis placidly. “I’ve been dealing with ’em here for the past ten years, and I’ve built up a whale of a business with their help. You, on the other hand, got into a whale of a mess through swindling the innocent Oriental—”
“Oh, cut out the abuse!” broke in Carefrew nastily. “What are you driving at with your drivel about Chinese methods? I suppose you’re insinuating that they’ll try to get after me away up here at Sabang?”
“More than likely,” assented Huber Davis. “They have fairly close connections, what with business tongs and the Heaven-and-Earth Society, which has a lodge here. They’ll know that the clever chap who carried out that swindling game in Singapore, and then managed to put it over the second time in Batavia, is named Reginald Carefrew. They’ll have relatives in both places; probably you ruined a good many of their relatives—”
“Look here!” snapped Carefrew nastily. “Let me impress on you that there was no swindle! The Chinese love to gamble, and I gave ’em a run for their money—that’s all.”
Huber Davis eyed his brother-in-law with a trace of cynicism in his wide-eyed, poised features.
“Never mind lying about it, Reggy,” he said coolly. “You’ll be here until the next boat to Colombo, which is five days. In those five days you take my advice and stick close to this house; you’ll be absolutely safe here. I’m not helping and protecting you, mind, because I love you—it’s for Ruth’s sake. Somehow, Ruth would be sorry if you got bumped off. No one else would be sorry that I know of, but Ruth’s my sister, and I’d like to oblige her. I don’t order you to stay here, mind that! It’s merely advice.”
Under this lash of cool, unimpassioned truths Carefrew reddened and then paled again. He did not display any resentment, however. He was a little afraid of Huber Davis.
“You’re away off color,” he said carelessly. “Think I’m going to be a prisoner here? No. Besides, I honestly think there’s no danger, in spite of your apprehension. The yellow boys have nothing to be revengeful over, you see.”
“Oh,” said Huber Davis mildly. “I understood that several had committed suicide back in Batavia. That makes you their murderer, according to the old beliefs.”
Carefrew laughed; his laugh was not very good to hear, either.
“Bosh!” he exclaimed. “Those old superstitions are discarded in these days of New China. You’ll be saying next that the ghosts of the dead will haunt me!”
“They ought to,” retorted Huber Davis. “So you think the old beliefs are gone, do you? Well, we’re not in China, my excellent Reggy. We’re in Sabang, and the Straits Chinese have a way of clinging to the beliefs of their ancestors. You stick close to the house.”
“You go to the devil!” snapped Carefrew.
Huber Davis merely shrugged his shoulders, as though he had received all the consideration which he had expected.
“Li Mow Gee,” he observed, “is the biggest trader in these parts, and I know he has a raft of relatives back your way. I’d avoid his store.”
Carefrew, uttering an impatient oath, got up and left the veranda.
Huber Davis glanced after his brother-in-law, a sleepy, cynical laziness in his gaze. One gathered that he would not care a whit how soon Carefrew died, except possibly that his sister Ruth still loved Carefrew—a little. And except, of course, that the man was his own brother-in-law, and at the ends of the earth a white man upholds certain ideas about caste and the duty of white to white, and so forth.