Mrs. Winter gave the man the bank-note, counseling him to keep his eyes open for the two men and the boy, and to report to her at the Palace Hotel, giving his number, should he see either man or boy. It would be very well worth his while.
The chauffeur did not interrupt, but he shook his head over the departing hack. “He’d ought to have known it wan’t on the square, but these hack drivers ain’t got good sense even when they’re, so to speak, sober, which ain’t often,” he soliloquized. “Well, lady, if they’ve took to the Chinese quarter, we’d better be looking up a Chink to help us, I guess. I know a fairly decent one—”
“I think I know a better,” interrupted Mrs. Winter, with a faint smile. She had detected a suppressed pity in the man’s regard. “Motor slowly along the street. There is a shop, if I can find it, where there ought to be a man—”
“Man you know? Say, lady, I guess I better go in with you, if you don’t mind—”
“No; stay in your car. You don’t know how safe I am. Not only my gray hair protects me, but I have only to say a few words and any of these men will fight for me if necessary. But this is in confidence—just between us, you understand. You are not to repeat it, ever.”
She looked at him with a frank smile, and involuntarily his hand went up to his cap. “What you say goes, lady. But jest remember I’m right here, spark going all the time, ready to throw her wide open when you step in; and”—his voice sank—“I ain’t absolutely unprepared for a scrap, either.”
“I understand,” said she, looking at him keenly, and a few moments later she stepped briskly into the shop before which he halted with a little lightening of the heart because of this uncouth knight of the lever. The shop itself was like any one of a score on the street, crowded with oriental objects, bizarre carvings of ivory and jade, daggers and strings of cash, swords, gorgeous embroidered robes of silk and gold in a huddle over a counter or swinging and gleaming in the dusky background, squat little green and brown gods with puffy eyelids, smiling inscrutably amid shoes and fans and Chinese lanterns of glass and bronze, glittering with beads—in all these, like the score about it; yet the clean windows and a certain order within gave it a touch out of the common. A man and a boy served the shop, both in the American dress, with their pigtails tucked under visorless caps. Both greeted her in the serene oriental fashion, bowing and smiling, their obsequious courtesy showing no smallest sign of the surprise which the sight of an unattended woman must have given them.
Nevertheless, Mrs. Winter was aware that both, under their lowered eyelids, took cognizance of that soft-carven disk of jade among the laces on her breast. She asked the man if he had seen a lad and an older man, or it might be two older men, one a policeman, come into that or any other neighboring shop. She explained that the lad was her grand-nephew and was lost (she eschewed the harsher word, for she had no desire to set afloat a rumor which might bring the police upon her). She named a sum large enough to kindle a sudden gleam in the boy’s eyes, as the reward awaiting the lucky man who might put her on the right track. But her words struck no responsive spark from the Chinaman’s veiled gaze. In perfect English and a very soft voice he avowed ignorance and sympathy with the same breath.
And all the while she could feel his glance slant down at the jade ornament.
“Send the boy to look in the shop next door,” said she. As she spoke she raised the charm between her thumb and first two fingers, looking at him directly. Her tone was that of command, not request. He frowned very slightly, making an almost imperceptible gesture, to which she returned a single Chinese phrase, spoken so low that had he not expected the words they had been indistinguishable to his ear. Instantly he addressed the boy rapidly in their own language. The boy went out. The master of the shop returned to Mrs. Winter. His manner had utterly changed; the tradesman’s perfunctory deference was displaced by an almost eager humility of bearing. He would have her sit—there were a few cane-seated American arm-chairs, in grotesque contrast to all their accompaniments—he prostrated himself before her; he put himself at her service; still to her trained eye there was a corner of his mind where incredulity wrestled with a stronger emotion.