II
Singapore is called the gateway of the Far East, but the real portal is the free-trade island harbor of Sabang, at the northern end of Sumatra.
At Sabang even the mail-steamers stop, coming and going. From England and India, coal is dumped at Sabang; the wharves and floating docks are many and busy; the cables extend from Sabang to all parts of the globe.
From the harbor heads runs brilliant blue water up to the brilliant green shores, and under the hill is snugly nestled a city whose Chinese streets convey a dull-red impression. Here, as elsewhere, the Chinese are the ganglia of trade and activity. The Dutch government likes them and profits by them, and they profit likewise.
One of the narrow Chinese streets turns sharply, almost at right angles, and is called the Street of the Heavenly Elbow for this reason. At the outside corner of the elbow is a door and shop sign, opening upon a narrow room little wider than the door; but behind this is another room, widening as one goes farther from the elbow, and behind this yet another room which broadens into a suite of apartments.
Such was the shop of Li Mow Gee. As is well known, Li is one of the Four Hundred surnames, and betokens that its owner is at least of good family, also widely connected. Li Mow Gee was both; to boot, he was very rich, considerably dissipated, and his private affairs were exactly like his shop—they began at a small and obscure point, which was himself, and they widened and widened beyond the ken of passersby until they comprised an extent which would have been incredible to any chance beholder. But Li Mow Gee saw to it that there were no chance beholders of his private affairs or shop either.
Li Mow Gee was not the type of inscrutable, omnipotent gambler who somehow manages to control fate and carry out the purposes of destiny, such as appear to be many of his race. He prided himself upon being a “son of T’ang”—that is, a man of the old southern empire whose ancestry was quite clear and unblemished through about nine centuries.
He was a slant-eyed, yellow-skinned, wrinkled little man of fifty. He had a bad digestion and an irritable temper, he was much given to rice-wine and wives, and he possessed an uncanny knowledge of the code of Confucius, by which he ruled his life—sometimes.
Upon the day after Reginald Carefrew arrived in Sabang the estimable Li Mow Gee sat in his private back room, which was hung with Chien Lung paintings, whose subjects would have scandalized Sodom and Gomorrah. Li Mow Gee sucked a three-foot pipe of bamboo and steel, and watched a kettle of water bubbling over a charcoal brazier. At the proper moment he took a pewter insert from its stand, slipped it into its niche inside the kettle, and watched the water boil until the pewter vessel was well heated. Then he poured hot rice-wine into the thimble-cup of porcelain at his elbow, sipped it with satisfaction, and clapped his hands four times.
One of the numerous doors of the room opened to admit a spectacled old man who was a junior partner of Li Mow Gee in business, but who was also Venerable Master of the local lodge of the Heaven-and-Earth Society. As etiquette demanded, the junior partner removed his spectacles and stood blinking, being blind as a bat without them.
“As you are aware, worshipful Chang,” said Li Mow Gee after some preliminary discourse, “my father’s younger brother has become an ancient.”
Mr. Chang bowed respectfully. A son of T’ang never says of his family that they are dead. But Mr. Chang had heard that Li Mow Gee’s father’s younger brother had committed suicide, with the intent of sending his avenging ghost after one Reginald Carefrew.
“You are also aware,” pursued Li Mow Gee, refilling the steel bowl of his pipe, “that the brother-in-law of my friend Huber Davis has arrived in Sabang for a short visit. As a man of learning, you will comprehend that I have certain duties to perform.”
Mr. Chang blinked, and promptly took his cue.
“You doubtless recall certain canons of the law which bear upon the situation,” he squeaked blandly. “It would give me infinite pleasure to hear them from your lips.”
Li Mow Gee had been waiting for this. He exhaled a thin cloud of smoke, and quoted from his exact memory of the writings of the Confucian canon:
“With the slayer of his father, a man may not live under the same sky; against the slayer of his brother, a man must never have to go home to seek a weapon; with the slayer of his friend, a man may not live in the same state.”
Li Mow Gee smoked for a moment in silence, then continued:
“Thus reads the Book of Rites, most venerable Chang. And yet our friend Huber Davis is our friend.”
“If the tiger and the ox are in company,” quoth Mr. Chang squeakily, “let the ox die with the tiger.”
“Not at all to the point,” said Li Mow Gee in irritated accents. “Do not be a venerable fool, my father! I desire that a messenger be sent to my bazaar.”
“Speak the message, beloved of heaven,” responded the elder.
“In our safe,” said Li Mow Gee slowly, “is a three-armed candlestick of white jade, bound in brass and having upon its three arms the characters signifying chalk, charcoal, and water. It is my wish that this precious object be taken to my bazaar and placed there near the door, with a sign upon it putting the price at nine florins; also, that our clerks be severely instructed to sell this object to no one except Mr. Carefrew.”
Mr. Chang wet his lips.
“But, dear brother,” he expostulated, “this is one of the precious objects of the Heaven-and-Earth Society.”
“That is why I desire your permission to make use of it,” said Li Mow Gee. “Am I to be trusted or not? Is my sacred honor of no worth in your eyes?”
“But, to be sold to a foreign devil!” the junior partner exclaimed.
“That is my wish.”
Mr. Chang threw up his hands, not without a smothered oath.
“Very well!” he squeaked angrily. “But when this swindler, this murderer of honest folk, sees it for sale in your bazaar at so ridiculous a price, he will buy it and take it away, and laugh at Li Mow Gee for a fool!”
“If he did not,” said Li Mow Gee, pouring himself another thimble-cup of wine, “I should be a most wretched and unhappy man!”