The Complete Adventures of Hazard & Partridge (17 page)

We passed from the reception-room into a narrow corridor between Chang Pei Ying’s living-rooms and thence into his bedroom, a small chamber at the very rear of the
yamen.
It had one door, which the mandarin told us was always locked at night, and two high windows crossed with iron bars. At his request we helped him move his bed, one of those heavy wooden affairs which the better class of Chinese affect instead of the brick
k’ang.
Underneath the bed we discovered a trap door, through which we passed down a short flight of steps into the blackness of a cellar.

Hazard came last and lowered the trap door behind him. I struck a match and, following Chang Pei Ying’s directions, found and lit two Chinese candles—much wax and little wick stuck in candlesticks bracketed on the stone wall.

“The money was taken from here in the night, as I have told you,” said Chang Pei Ying. “Before retiring, I examined it, for its possession was on my mind. In the morning I looked for it again and it was gone.”

He raised his hands in an expression of hopeless bewilderment.

“And it was in sacks weighing close to two hundred pounds!” I cried incredulously.

“Even so,” he bowed.

The place wasn’t over twelve feet square and its walls were of solid rock, unbroken except for a very small window in the outer wall near the ceiling—a window through which barred starlight shone faintly. Hazard crossed quickly to this window and I followed him. It was about twelve inches on each edge and one could hardly thrust his fist between the three heavy iron bars that closed it. A moment’s examination showed that they were cemented unyieldingly, top and bottom, into crevices cut in the solid rock. Looking out, we saw that the bottom of the window was level with the surface of the ground.

There was nothing clearer to me than that the thief hadn’t used the window, for even if the bars had been removed—which was impossible—the opening would hardly have accommodated the body of an infant. I said something of the sort to Hazard, who agreed absentmindedly.

As I was turning away, I heard a muttered exclamation from Hazard. I looked back just in time to see him close his hand swiftly. In the dim light I saw a heavy frown on his usually imperturbable, if unsophisticated, face. Something had evidently both angered and puzzled him—something that he had just discovered, but since he saw fit to say nothing I turned to Chang Pei Ying.

“Where were the sacks of sycees—where did they lie?” I asked.

He indicated a spot just at the foot of the stairway, as far from the window as possible.

“They couldn’t have gone through the window,” I said.

“That is unmistakably true,” he agreed.

“But there’s the floor,” I said, “and the sides of the wall. It seems unlikely, but the thief may have tunneled his way in and closed the opening after him as he left.”

The magistrate shook his head.

“My poor eyes are old,” he said, “but blindness has not yet come to them. I examined everything with great care. The rocks lie as they have lain for three hundred years, but if you wish to satisfy yourselves—”

“Well,” said Hazard slowly, “it will do no harm.”

I began to hope against hope that the mystery might be solved after all. Plainly Hazard had found food for thought, and nothing that wasn’t relevant to the discovery of the money could have interested him then. Moreover, I’d had much experience of his ability to build upon the slenderest clue a whole superstructure of facts—a process of imaginative reasoning that worked from the known to the unknown with the utmost certitude. His theory was that nothing was impossible save a variation from the laws of logic. Using those laws, he would build up a case, much as a scientist builds up from the tiniest bone a complete conception of an antediluvian monster.

During the simple process of verifying Chang Pei Ying’s statement Hazard worked automatically and clearly, with his mind elsewhere. It was soon evident that neither floor nor wall could have been penetrated without leaving distinct evidence behind, for, in the course of the centuries Chang Pei Ying had mentioned, a sort of dry mold had formed over the surface of the rocks and in all the intersections and crevices. Nowhere was that mold broken.

“Well,” I said at last to Chang Pei Ying, “there’s only one way the money could have been removed. That is up the stairway and through your room.”

He smiled quietly.

“So they at Peking would have said, which is another reason I wished to find it myself. It could not have been so taken without my knowledge.”

It seemed an
impassé,
but here Hazard broke in with his first question.

“Why do you think the money is still in Cheyung?”

“There is the wall about the city,” said Chang Pei Ying. “I have had it watched day and night.”

“That is good,” approved Hazard. Then, rather carelessly, “My friend and I met our brother, the American missionary, who seemed rather aggrieved at your excellency. Is it because you have let the Temple of the Hundred Steps to the Taoist priest?”

“Unfortunately it is true,” said Chang Pei Ying. “In that he is doubly wrong, for it was a matter of duty that I accept the higher offer; and next month, if this thing had not come upon me, the temple would have been his, for Ma An Liang does not preach the pure Taoism and it is not good for the people of Cheyung that they should believe in magic.”

“That is what we believed,” said Hazard quietly. “And now my friend and I would put our two poor brains together. Would your excellency leave us alone?”

CHANG PEI YING assented to this cool request without apparent surprize and rather laboriously mounted the stairs. When he was gone Hazard turned to me swiftly.

“What do you make of this, Partridge?” he asked, a peculiar mixture of anger and elation in his voice.

“Frankly, nothing,” I confessed.

“Then nothing you’ve seen tonight gives you an idea?”

“Why,” I said, “we’ve seen nothing except that infernal Taoist mummery.”

“Um!” he grunted. “Well, what about this?”

He shoved out at me a tiny snarl of blue ravelings—half a dozen threads matted together.

“Why, that—” I hesitated.

“Take it. Look at it. What do you make of it?”

As I fingered the stuff, recognition came to me with a quick catch of the breath.

“Why, that—that looks as if—there’s no Chinese cloth made like that.”

“MacDonald’s gown?” questioned Hazard.

There was no use denying it.

“Yes. Where did you find it?”

“I found it,” half whispered Hazard, “perfectly visible, caught just under the window on a sharp edge of rock.”

“My ——, Hazard!” I cried. “You don’t think—”

“Well, I think,” said Hazard, smiling curiously, “that if MacDonald’s compound were thoroughly searched there’d be signs of recent digging found in it somewhere, and at least part of the silver sycees.”

“What the devil!” I remonstrated. “You’re wrong this time. It’s true he needed money, or thought he did, and true he’s at odds with Chang Pei Ying. I admit this is against him, but he isn’t a thief. He couldn’t be. We’ve laughed at him a little—but thieves don’t come to western China to do missionary work. It takes some courage, that, and—”

“Hold up, Partridge,” interrupted Hazard good-naturedly. “Who accused him? Not I—and yet what I’ve said is true. By the way, isn’t it also true that Taoist temples are accounted sanctuary, like the Buddhist monasteries, and are beyond search by the law?”

“Yes,” I said wonderingly.

“And yet I believe,” he went on thoughtfully, “that the priests claim that ugly god of theirs, Laotzu, has power to detect a criminal and mark him in some way, if he’s brought before them for judgment.”

“The Kansu Taoists make some such infernal pretence to help them get rid of people who are in their way. But what’s that to do with MacDonald?”

“A lot,” smiled Hazard, “as I think you’ll agree presently. But even now, don’t you begin to see the light?”

“Well,” I said slowly, “if MacDonald isn’t guilty, the evidence must have been planted against him. The man that planted it must have been the thief, because, until we were told, no one but Chang Pei Ying was supposed to know of the robbery.”

“You forget the party that sent the news to Peking,” said Hazard, with a queerly suggestive note in his voice.

“Why, yes,” I said, taken aback for a moment, “I had forgotten about that—but mayn’t that have been the thief, too?”

“Now we’re coming to it,” said Hazard with satisfaction. “The thing’s narrowed down to some one who wished to dispose of both MacDonald and Chang Pei Ying—Chang Pei Ying first by the suicide route, then MacDonald by accusation of the theft before Chang Pei Ying’s successor. I thought of that immediately I found these bits of cloth—which, by the way, would be no evidence before Chang Pei Ying, for if they’d been there when he examined this place after the theft there’s little doubt he would have found them. Until Chang Pei Ying told us of his changed attitude toward Taoism I wasn’t quite certain as to the villain’s identity.”

“It’s Ma An Liang,” I said. “A political aggressive—the hierarchy want one of their own men for magistrate, of course.”

“Unquestionably. And—well, there’s something else he’s done, I think, but we’ll let that go. Just now we’ll not worry about how he did it, either, that’ll probably come out. Now it’s a question of getting the sycees back. As I’ve said, I think we’ll find that he’s planted some of them around MacDonald’s grounds. It would be the natural thing for him to do, but the balance—where would you say that was?”

“In the temple.”

“Yes, but where in the temple?”

“There’s only one place for it,” I said, after a moment’s thought, “and that’s somewhere near Laotzu the Unapproachable. They’d be safe there, even from the Taoist acolytes themselves, which is saying a great deal.”

“I thought we’d agree on that. Now as to the manner of getting hold of them. We might be able to argue Chang Pei Ying into breaking the law and custom and making a search for them, but I doubt it. And even if we did—well, Ma An Liang’s a clever devil. There’d be delay, maybe a fight, and he might find means of spiriting the silver away from the temple as he seems to have spirited it out of this cellar. We must think of a way to take him by surprize, and fortunately the Taoists themselves have provided the way.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” said Hazard, “there’s MacDonald, upon whom Ma An Liang is dead anxious to fix this crime. There’s the evidence against MacDonald, which would justify us in accusing him. There’s the Taoist claim that Laotzu has the power to detect guilt. Chang Pei Ying could probably be prevailed upon to scatter a few soldier
shimbos
(policemen) through the audience which would gather to see MacDonald’s trial. That’s about our only chance to get Ma An Liang on even terms. It would be a risky business if we weren’t absolutely sure of our conclusions.”

“It seems to me a bit risky anyway,” I said, “but we can narrow the location of the silver down a bit more. If it’s near the image—where we’ve agreed it is—it must be under it. There’s no other place for it.”

“Right you are. Well, we’ll see Chang Pei Ying and send for MacDonald.”

“Poor Chang Pei Ying!” I murmured as we ascended the stairs. “All this doesn’t save him from the suicide order.”

“Perhaps not,” said Hazard thoughtfully, “and then again— Well, we’ll see about that, and also by what sort of magic they got the money out of this cellar, which I admit I can’t yet comprehend.”

III

WHEN all parties think they have something to gain in a matter, an agreement is quickly reached. Chang Pei Ying balked but little at our proposal after we’d gotten him to believe in Ma An Liang’s guilt.

MacDonald’s fervor against Taoism impelled him even more than his very human rage when we showed him the evidence that had been planted against him in the cellar and in his own compound—for there, the next morning, after two hours’ probing, we found about a hundred silver sycees buried, as Hazard had prophesied. Of course Ma An Liang’s sinister face grew grim with satisfaction at the seeming opportunity we offered him to dispose effectually of his Christian competitor.

The one trouble we had was when Hazard asked Chang Pei Ying to entrust him for the day with the suicide cord. It seemed that there was some rule that a condemned man shouldn’t let the cord out of his possession, but must return it to Peking immediately before executing its sentence. Personally, I didn’t see why Hazard wanted it; but he finally won his point, after taking Chang Pei Ying to one side and talking with him for some time.

It was Ma An Liang’s proselyting and vindictive idea to make the trial a public spectacle—a proposal against which neither Hazard nor I could offer effective arguments. We did, however, insist upon ourselves being the custodian of the prisoner’s person until Laotzu had passed upon his guilt or innocence, when, of course, Chang Pei Ying would send him to the American consular authorities in Sianfu. That, whatever Laotzu’s verdict, as matters outwardly stood, for the seeming evidence against him was already strong enough to warrant trial, and there was no proper jurisdiction in Cheyung.

So, late that afternoon, MacDonald—his bushy red beard fairly bristling with not unnatural rage and his fiery face and eyes alight with it—stood perhaps six feet in front of the altar of Laotzu and the two inferior gods, with Hazard and myself on either side of him. Just behind us sat Chang Pei Ying in a ceremonial chair brought from the
yamen.
Behind him the temple was crowded with curious townspeople, mainly Taoist converts, with the acolytes whom Ma An Liang had brought from Kansu sprinkled here and there. When I considered what was going to happen I was glad to remember that there were
shimbos
obedient to Chang Pei Ying scattered through that audience.

The outer door had been closed and the windows shuttered. The place was lighted, as it had been the preceding night, with dimly flickering candles and reddish flames from the two sacrificial bowls. Even this light was absorbed somewhat by billowing folds of purple silk which overhung the whole chamber at a height of about fifteen feet.