He was speaking about it one morning at his office, to Kittrick, when the door opened noiselessly, and Terada appeared, drifted in, floated in rather, as if without movement. He had introduced himself a few weeks after Kent's arrival as an official of the police department, whose business it was to keep a watchful eye on foreigners, particularly correspondents. Since then he had come at intervals of a few weeks. The door would open, and he would enter, soundlessly, almost apologetically. In his gray kimono, gray felt hat, he seemed like a sort of genii out of Arabian Nights; it was almost as if he materialized, a smoky, indefinite figure, mysteriously growing out of the empty space of the room. It was his habit to make some commonplace observation and then sit smoking, for ten minutes often, before he would make his next remark, also quite commonplace, about the weather, the cherry blossoms, anything. Thus he would sit for an hour at a time, a courteous, self-effacing gentleman, saying something entirely inconsequential; then smoking silently, thinking up his next triviality. But out of the dozen or score of remarks would always be one which Kent felt was the one that counted, the question which he evidently hoped would pass unnoticed among all the others. Who was going to be the new correspondent for the Post, what did he think of the action of the Cabinet on such and such a matter? There would come some more camouflage remarks, polite leave-taking, and he would vanish, dissolve, fade away, leaving Kent to wonder whether he had really managed to get any information that he had come for.
He made his usual remarks. Everything seemed to stop, while they waited for him to frame the next one. It became a bore. Kittrick's patience gave out.
"Do you really know so much about us foreigners, Terada-san?" he asked banteringly. "What do you really find out about us?"
"Oh, we know. You were at Ringo-san's tea house last Monday night, with Sato-san, but you only stayed till ten," he smiled sourly. "You got a new cook yesterday. Mr. Kent is to dine at Baron Saiki's to-morrow night."
He smoked for a while silently. Then he faded away.
"He's a queer bird," said Kent, as Terada disappeared. "I'm sure I don't see what he gets out of coming to me? His questions are too transparent, with the main one so carefully sandwiched in among all the rot that he so laboriously contrives. What does he do with it all, the back-door gossip that he gathers so painstakingly?"
"Oh, it all goes down in reports, I daresay, good, bad and indifferent," said Kittrick. "It is all stored away somewhere. It is all a part of their marvelously ramified secret service system, which they copied from Germany. It is a good system. On the whole, it is a good idea for the authorities to keep track of every one, foreign and Japanese, and I don't see why any one should object. The bad ones should be watched. The innocent ones shouldn't mind; in fact, they get protection from the others in that way. I know that some foreigners object to the detectives, but the police are usually polite. Old-timers who have detectives following them often make friends with them—you know they don't hide the fact that they are trailing you—and use them to buy railroad tickets, to help with the luggage; they are willing enough to act as kind of free couriers. Of course, there are some damned stupid officials who look on every foreigner as a potential spy, but much of the talk of newcomers about their being followed by detectives is buncombe. They like to think they are being shadowed. It gives them a sense of importance."
"Ishii-san, run out and get me a package of Golden Bats, please." Kent waited until the clerk had left the room. "I wanted to get him out of the way," he explained to Kittrick. "The fact is that I know positively that my desk is being systematically examined. I lock it; still I find things disarranged. I keep nothing of consequence in it, but it annoys me to have some one constantly going through my private letters, and I don't know who it can be."
"I don't think it is Ishii," said Kittrick. "I have reason to believe that he is a young man inclined to have 'dangerous thoughts.' That is one reason why I picked him out for you; so he wouldn't be a spy. It is far more likely to be your good landlord. I'm pretty certain that he is in Foreign Office pay. I have had several indications. Tokyo is full of them, people who get information for the Foreign Office, the Home Office, the police, the militarists. They are clerks, rickshaw men, business men, high and low, all kinds. You see, they not only copied the system, but they tried to elaborate on it. But all they got, as usual, was the form, but not the intelligence. They go through the motions of a secret service, but the whole thing is ramified in numberless useless ways. They dovetail and overlap and get all kinds of stupid information. I often wonder at what they do with all they get, all the stuff about my being at a tea house and getting a new cook and the like; but I think that it all goes down in reports, that many of them don't care much what they get, as long as they get something they can put in their reports, any old thing to fill the pages. And still, you know, from all the trash they must undoubtedly get something worth their while every now and then. At times you find evidences of really skillful and clever work. And after all, why should you or I care? They are discreet enough. Nothing comes out of what little foibles they may learn about. Probably they don't care. Remember that, as far as personal freedom is concerned, this is truly The Land of the Free, where no one gives a hang if you have a drink or kiss a pretty geisha behind the shoji."