Chronicles of the Secret Service (4 page)

During her gyrations, she came close to him on several occasions, the blinding limelight, following her round, included him in its glare. Each time they were in juxtaposition he smiled
at her, but without any sign from her that she had noticed his interest until, towards the end of the dance, he thought to catch the faintest of responses from her lips. That encouraged him a little. He also felt that her eyes had studied him questioningly, rather as though she wondered what he was doing there.

The finale came with a clamour from the orchestra that grated unpleasantly on his unaccustomed ears. The tiny figure twirled to a standstill; sank in a graceful curtsy, and was up and had sped through the exit almost before he realised the dance was over. A deafening crescendo of applause broke out, the spotlight faded, and the house lights returned to full force. She did not give an encore, neither did she take a call. Before long, the five musicians had reverted to European instruments, and were playing a foxtrot. The floor was soon crowded with dancers. Carter noticed Fernandez eyeing him hopefully; beckoned the man across. The proprietor of the place hurried up to him.

‘You want a girl now?’ he asked. ‘I find you very good one, very pretty, very loving.’

‘Who’s the dame that just danced?’ demanded Carter.

‘You not know of her?’ exclaimed Fernandez. ‘Everyone, I think, know of the China Doll.’

‘How could I know anything about her? Only arrived this evening on the
Seattle
. So she’s called the China Doll, is she? Well, get this, Fernandez; I want to become acquainted with her. She’s sure an eyeful. Ask her to come along and have a drink with me.’

Fernandez looked vaguely troubled.

‘It is impossible, sare,’ he remarked regretfully. ‘She not speaking or drinking with anyone. Every night she dance two times in eight dance halls. To this one she come at between six o’clock and half
past and between half past ten and eleven. Now she go to the Macao; after that to Lotus, Cherry Blossom, Nanking, China Doll, Pearl, and Canton. Then she go home. She will not meet with men. Better you forget her, and have one of my lovely ladies – yes?’

‘No. Go and tell the China Doll I admire her a whole lot, and I am anxious to get acquainted, and mean her no harm. Beat it! What are you hanging round for?’

Fernandez sighed.

‘Sare, I tell you, it cannot be. With much regret I assure you—’

‘Don’t assure me of anything. I guess I’ve just got to meet this China Doll, and I’m not taking no for an answer. Get me? Now scram. And say, look here; I’ll hand you a twenty-dollar bill when you bring her right along.’

The promise of a bribe of twenty dollars proved too much for the Macanese to resist. He hurried away without another word. Five minutes went by; then he appeared at the door through which the dancer had come and gone. Long before he reached Carter’s table, the supposed American officer knew that he had failed to persuade the China Doll to emerge. His face expressed the most doleful disappointment, due entirely no doubt to the loss of the twenty dollars.

‘She won’t, not come,’ he announced sadly. ‘I try every way I know, but it no good. She look at you through the curtain, and I think she is coming, but the head she shake very no. Forget her, sare. I get you better girl – more fun, more everything – and you give me only five dollars.’

Carter rose to his feet.

‘I’ll try at the next place,’ he declared. ‘What did you say it is called? The Macao, isn’t it?’

Fernandez was dismayed at the thought of losing such a promising customer. He pleaded, he argued, he even wept, but his supposed American guest was adamant. Carter strode to the door, followed by Fernandez begging him not to go. The last he saw, or heard, of the Macanese was a greasy-looking figure, under the glaring entrance lights, wringing his hands and bewailing his misfortune at the departure of a patron who had looked like being so profitable.

The Englishman found his way to the Macao. It was almost a replica of the Fan Tan, though perhaps slightly smaller, thronged with the same cosmopolitan types. The proprietor here was a Chinaman, whose narrow eyes, more like slits in his face than anything else, caused him to look more sinister than he actually was. Carter obtained a table by the same method as at the Fan Tan. He again watched the China Doll’s dance through in close proximity to her; was gratified to note, from the slight uplifting of her daintily-pencilled eyebrows, that she recognised him. But his request to meet her met with the same negative result.

At the Lotus, the Cherry Blossom, and the Nanking, his failure was equally marked, though, when she danced by him at the last, his falling spirits were encouraged at receiving a definite, albeit somewhat perplexed, smile from her. He must have caused more pain and disappointment to the predatory instincts of five dancing saloon proprietors that night than they had experienced in the whole course of their previous careers. Carter felt he was up against it. Nothing he could do seemed capable of persuading the elusive little Chinese damsel to agree to make his acquaintance. At the Cherry Blossom and Nanking he sent her notes, but they were returned. Instead of as had been expected, accompanying
her from place to place, sitting with her a while in each before or after her dance, spending every moment he could pumping her for information, he had not even been able to meet her. Between the Lotus and the Cherry Blossom, and the latter and the Nanking, he had thought to waylay her as she journeyed between them, but, perhaps suspecting some such attempt, she had eluded him. Before entering the Nanking, he had found a telephone booth; had rung up Government House, and given Batty a message for Sir Leonard Wallace describing his unexpected difficulties. He had long since abandoned the idea of pretending to appear intoxicated. It would not, he felt, aid him in any way to give her such an impression; on the contrary, his chances, if any, would be utterly ruined. She would certainly have nothing to do with a drunken man.

He entered the China Doll with the notion that, were any success to reward his efforts at all, it would be there. He could not tell why he should experience the feeling, unless it was because the Japanese sailor had there ended his pilgrimage. The very fact that the place was called after the name bestowed on her seemed to promise success at last. Also, she had certainly smiled at him in the Nanking.

The China Doll was more ornate though less garish than the others had been; gave the impression of greater affluence, and was certainly more luxurious. Larger, also, it contained a gallery, from which people, who had no intention of dancing, could look down on those who did. The place boasted two bands – one composed of half a dozen Macanese, who played jazz excellently; the other of a similar number of Chinese, who seemed reserved specially for the dance of the China Doll. At all events, they only performed for her while Carter was present.
The latter found Guttierez, the proprietor, less oily and more dignified than the others. He obtained a table for his supposed American guest close to the dancing floor by similar means to those adopted by Fernandez, but charged Carter twenty dollars for the privilege and pocketed the lot with an air of patronage as though it were his due.

The dance duly took place, and this time the China Doll showed no surprise at the presence of her very persistent follower. On the contrary, she gave him the impression that she had expected it, by the manner in which she looked at him. She caused him much elation also by smiling frankly at him just before the finale. The thunderous applause at the conclusion this time met with acknowledgment. She took a call, bowing jerkily from side to side of the room, to the huge delight of her enthusiastic audience. At length, she disappeared, and Carter looked round for Guttierez, prepared again to send the request which had almost become monotonous by repetition. For some minutes he was unable to locate the man, and was about to call to a waiter, when there arose a murmur of excited voices round him. Wondering what had caused the sudden interest, he was in the act of turning, when the swish of silken skirts caught his ear.

‘I have saved you the bother this time,’ came a delightfully soft voice that spoke English perfectly. ‘I hope you are satisfied.’

Carter sprang to his feet in rank astonishment. Standing by his side was the China Doll, smiling at him, and obviously enjoying the surprise. He almost forgot the part he was playing in his amazement and elation that, at last, success had attended his efforts.

‘Say,’ he exclaimed, ‘this sure is swell of you. I didn’t think you’d come, but I meant to stick it out in the hope you would.’
He held the chair, while she seated herself. ‘What will you have?’ he inquired.

‘Please a lemonade.’

He gave the order to a waiter who had hurried up, adding another of whisky and soda for himself. As he sat down, she regarded him with frank, curious eyes.

‘You are very persistent,’ she commented. ‘Do you know I have only done this for one person before.’

‘Then I guess I’m flattered,’ was his reply. ‘Who is – or was – the other guy?’

‘He is the man I hope one day to wed.’

There was a little pause. Carter guessed she was referring to Yumasaki, but it was news to him that she and the Japanese ex-consul intended to marry.

‘Gee,’ he murmured, playing up to the role he had adopted. ‘That’s just too bad.’

‘Why?’ she asked.

The drinks were placed before them, and she began to sip hers. Carter noted with approval that she was dainty in everything she did.

‘Can’t you guess?’ he asked. ‘I suppose you thought I regarded you like any of those other girls. But you got me all wrong. I saw, first time you appeared, that you were different. It’s kinda sudden, honey, but I guess I’ve fallen for you.’

‘You mean – you have fallen in love with me?’

‘You’ve said it.’

She half rose; then sank back into her chair, and laughed – a silvery cadence of sound that was wholly fascinating.

‘How ridiculous!’ she exclaimed. ‘You must not talk like
that. But I am glad you did not think of me as you seem to think of those others. Please tell me about yourself. Soon I must go, for I have two more dancing halls to visit yet.’

‘I know,’ he nodded, ‘and I’ll be there.’

‘Even though you now know I am one day to be married?’ she questioned mockingly.

‘Sure. What’s the odds? There’s nothing much to tell you about myself,’ he went on, ‘I’m a sailor – second mate of the
Seattle
– in tonight. Guess that’s all there is to tell.’

‘Quite a lot in very few words,’ she commented with a smile.

She was deliciously alluring with the softest, most attractive voice he thought he had ever heard. Carter found himself wishing now that he was not forced by his profession to play the role of deceiver. She was so charming; such a dainty, enticing morsel of femininity. He had to force himself to remember that she was in some manner connected with the Japanese espionage system, since it was she, without doubt, who had conveyed to the sailor the letter which had proved secret agents were still active in Hong Kong. Very carefully, he commenced on his task of attempting to obtain information from her.

‘You speak English remarkably well,’ he observed. ‘Where did you learn the lingo?’

‘Lingo!’ she repeated in puzzled tones. ‘What is that, please?’

He smiled.

‘Sorry – I mean language.’

‘I studied it in England. I was there, in college, for three years.’

‘Were you really? Well, I guess that explains a whole lot. Say, can you dance European dances as well as that Chinese one you do?’

She nodded.

‘Yes; but I think my value would decline if I danced anything but a native dance out here. So often good English and American dancers come to Shanghai and Hong Kong. I think, as a Chinese dancer, I am perhaps very good – yes? But, if I did the others, and wore European costume, I would lose my attraction – it would become grotesque.’

From which remark, he reflected, she certainly seemed to have her dainty head set wisely on her little shoulders.

‘But why do you dance in places like this? I guess you deserve something better. You’re too classy for a joint of this kind.’

She smiled; shrugged her shoulders slightly.

‘I like it, and it pays me well. Besides—’ She hesitated, as though rather afraid that she was being a little bit too confidential to this stranger. ‘As you in America would say,’ she went on a trifle lamely, ‘it suits me.’

‘Does your boyfriend like it?’ he asked.

‘Of course. It was he who—’ Again she interrupted herself. ‘I do not think he would like me to speak of him.’

‘Why not?’ he persisted. ‘There’s nothing secret about him, is there?’

‘No – no; of course not, only—’

‘I suppose he runs one of these joints, and doesn’t want it to be known. Is that it? Of course!’ he exclaimed, as though enlightenment had suddenly come to him. ‘I get it. He owns this place. You’re called the China Doll, and so is this dancing saloon. Guess I was a sap not to have connected the two before. It was called after you, wasn’t it? Gee whiz!’ he exclaimed again. ‘Say, little girl, you’re not telling me that Portuguese guy is your boyfriend! Why, he’s old enough to be—’

‘No, no,’ she interrupted quickly. ‘It is not Guttierez. My lover is not here. He does not come. He has other things to do. Please, you ask too many questions.’ She forced a little laugh, but it was obvious that she was perturbed. ‘I must go now. Already I am late.’

He rose with her.

‘I’ll see you to the Pearl,’ he declared.

At that she looked positively startled.

‘No; you must not. I have a rickshaw that takes me, and a servant to look after me. Please,’ she pleaded, ‘you will not come.’

‘I won’t come with you, if you’d rather I didn’t,’ he returned, ‘but you’ll sit with me there, won’t you? Say yes!’

‘It would be better I did not, but if you wish so much—’

‘I do.’

‘Very well. Afterwards you will go back to your ship, please. I do not wish you to come to the Canton.’

He managed to look thoroughly disappointed.

‘Say, that’s just too bad. I was looking forward to you and me having a good time together when you’d finished for the night. Won’t you let me meet you and see you home?’