XVI
ENTER KOBU, THE DETECTIVE
The compensation of the morning's belated brightness came in the golden glory with which it flooded the world, so warm it melted the hoar frost jewels on tree and shrub, so tender the drooping roses lifted their pink heads and blushed anew. It was the kind of a morning one knew that something was waiting just ahead. It required no feat of intellect for me to know that a great many somethings awaited my little household. Whenever I arose in the morning feeling sentimental, something was sure to happen. The afternoon of this day was the appointed time for the "roof-raising festival" of Jane's hospital. Three o'clock was the hour set to begin the ceremonies, but early morning found Jane and Zura as busy collecting books, bundles and a folding baby-organ, as if moving day had fallen upon the household. Neither one of my companions seemed depressed by the happenings of the night before, or else they were determined that every other thought should be put aside till the roof was safely over the dream of Jane's life. Jinrickishas piled high with baskets of refreshments and decorations moved gaily down the street. Jane and Zura, laughing like two schoolgirls and as irrepressible, headed the little procession.
I waved them good luck and went back to my work and my thoughts. I was interrupted by a note that came from Page in answer to one of mine, saying a slight fever would prevent his accepting the invitation to go with me to the exercises in the afternoon, but he hoped to see us at the house later in the evening. Of course he meant us in general, Zura particularly, and it might be fever or it might be other things that kept him away from Jane's tea party. I was going to know in either case as soon as I could get Page Hanaford by himself. Right or wrong I would help him all I could, but know I must and would. I simply could not live through another day of anxiety.
If Page told me his trouble, there was no reason why it would fade away, and my anxiety cease to be, but having made up my mind to act definitely, my spirits rose like a clay pigeon released by a spring.
That afternoon, at the time appointed for the ceremony, when I turned from Flying Sparrow Street into Tube Rose Lane a strange sight met my eyes. It was clean. For once in the history of the Quarter poverty and crime had taken a bath and were indulging in an open holiday. It had gone still farther. From the lowliest hut of straw and plaster to the little better house of the chief criminal, cheap, but very gay decorations fluttered in honor of the coming hospital. The people stood about in small groups. The many kimonos, well patched in varied colors, lent a touch of brilliancy to the sordid alleyway, haunted with ghosts of men and women, dead to all things spiritual.
Here and there policemen strolled, always in pairs. Whenever they drew near, and until they were past, the talking groups fell silent, and before an open door, or window a blank white screen was softly shifted. This coming from cover by the inhabitants and premeditatedly giving a visible sign of their existence was a supreme tribute to the woman who had lived among them successfully, because hers was the courage of the sanctified, her bravery that of love.
The day sparkled with winter's bright beauty. The sun had wooed an ancient plum tree into blossoming long before its time. It spread its dainty flowers on the soft straw bed of an old gray roof. A playful wind caught up the petals, sending the white blossoms flying across the heads of the unjust into the unclean ditches where they covered stagnation with a frail loveliness.
For the time at least degradation hid its face. Though poverty and sin were abroad, peace and good will might have been their next-door neighbors had it not been for a certain quality in the atmosphere, invisible but powerful, which caused a feeling that behind it all, there was an evil something that sneered alike at life and beauty; that had for its motto lust and greed, and mercilessly demanded as tribute the soul of every inhabitant.