The Apple of Discord

General Wilson's flow of reminiscence was interrupted by the sudden entry of Brown. I saw by his distressed face as he beckoned me that a crisis had arrived.

"What is it?" I asked. "You can speak before General Wilson. He is our counsel now."

"The El Dorado Bank has just presented notes for a hundred and fifty thousand," he gasped.

The El Dorado Bank! I had no need of second sight to tell me from whose hand the blow had come. Peter Bolton had brought together another packet of Wharton Kendrick's paper, and had put it through the bank for collection. My heart sank, and my face must have grown as long and white as Brown's. Was the game up at last? Had the struggle ended in defeat?

"I'm afraid you're going to need my services," said General Wilson with a shake of his head. "Send out a hurry call to Kendrick's friends, and if they don't come to time, I'll see you through a meeting of the creditors." General Wilson spoke with professional cheerfulness, as though he would convince me that a meeting of the creditors was one of the pleasurable experiences of life.

As he spoke, the door opened, and I was startled to see Laura Kendrick enter. Her face was flushed, and excitement sparkled in her eyes. She paused irresolute, as she saw the two men with me, and I jumped to my feet and hastened to meet her.

"Am I too late?" she gasped.

"Too late?" I echoed in wonder.

"For the money–uncle's money, you know!" she cried impatiently, as she saw no sign of comprehension on my face.

"Why, I guess we can let you have whatever you need," I said. "It had better go to you than to the creditors' attorneys."

"No–no!" she cried, grasping my arm and looking up in my face, "I don't mean that. I mean the money that uncle put away. It's in the safe deposit vaults."

"The safe deposit vaults!" I cried, grasping her meaning at last. "Why didn't I think of that?"

"I ran as soon as I heard the words," she said. "Am I in time?"

"To the minute," I said. And at the words she sank into a chair with the reaction from the stress of anxiety.

Brown knew nothing of any safe deposit vault, so with a hasty word of explanation to General Wilson, I seized my hat, and said to Laura:

"You had better come over with me."

"I suppose I'd best go," she said. "It's a feeling I have, and as I don't have such inspirations very often I'd better obey this one."

"How did you find out about the money?" I asked as we descended the stairs.

"Why, uncle got dreadfully uneasy this morning, and I couldn't quiet him. He went over and over his words–'million,' and 'notes,' and 'five-sixteen'–and sometimes he called your name, and sometimes he called for Mr. Brown, and he was much vexed that you didn't understand him. Then about half an hour ago he cried out angrily, 'Go over to the safe deposit and get it. Why don't you do as I tell you?' At that I flew, and here I am." And she looked up in my face with an anxious smile.

The safe deposit building was but half a block away, and we were soon in the office. There was a minute or two of consultation between the officials when I had delivered my credentials as the representative of Wharton Kendrick. Then one of them asked:

"Have you the key number of the box?"

I was nonplussed for the moment, but Laura Kendrick whispered:

"Remember the number he has been calling out for the last two nights."

"Five-sixteen," I replied confidently.

The guardians of the treasure-house bowed, led me to the vaults and at my demand unlocked the box.

At the top of the miscellaneous papers that the box contained were two book-like packages, both marked with the inspiring figures "$500,000." I tore off the wrapping of the larger package. It was filled with gold notes of large denominations, and the slip that bound them was indorsed "For the Syndicate." The other package proved to be filled with United States bonds. It was all clear now. Wharton Kendrick had deposited his contribution to the syndicate's fund in this box instead of in the special account in the Golconda Bank, and had provided here his reserve of securities with which to meet the outstanding notes.

Laura Kendrick exclaimed with delight at the sight of this wealth.

"Is it all there?" she cried.

"Yes. Here is the full million he has been talking about, and there seem to be more securities in the box. You have saved the day for us. We should have gone to wreck without you," I replied.

"Well, I've been fuming and fretting all these days because I was so useless, but now if you'll take me to the carriage I'll go home with my self-respect quite restored."

"It was you that made the battle worth while," I murmured.

My return to the office brought an outburst of joy. At my announcement of the result, Brown jumped up with an enthusiastic whoop, and lumbered about the room with awkward capers. Then he checked himself suddenly, and very shamefacedly begged my pardon.

"I haven't done that since I was a boy, sir," he said. And I believed him.

With the business once more on a solid basis, I walked over to Partridge's office to relieve his anxiety on the subject of Wharton Kendrick's solvency. He had gone to the Exchange, and I followed him thither.

Pine Street was still thrilling with the energy of a steam-engine working at high pressure. Waves of excitement agitated the crowds that hung about the entrance of the Stock Exchange, and there was the familiar succession of roars and barks with which the traders in stocks find it necessary to transact their business. Yet I thought I saw a weakening of interest among the speculators–a lessening of the tension among the excited men who were following the course of the market. I leaped to the hope that the crisis was passing.

As I reached the steps of the Exchange the confused roar of the crowd was interrupted. Three short, sharp explosions crackled upon the air with staccato distinctness and the clamor hushed for a moment with a suddenness as startling as the shots themselves. A dozen yards down Pine Street a thin cloud of blueish smoke rose and drifted away on the morning breeze.

For a moment the crowd surged back as though in fear, and I saw a bent, white-bearded man standing with a revolver in his hand, looking down at a prostrate something on the pavement. A few trailing threads of smoke floated up from the revolver's muzzle. Then there was a forward rush, and the crowd closed in; but in that momentary glimpse I had recognized the bent form and dreamy face of Merwin.

The hush gave way to shouts. Men were running from all directions. The crowd pushed closer. Windows overlooking the place were suddenly filled with excited observers, questions were eagerly exchanged, and the cry rose:

"Peter Bolton has been shot!"

At the name of Bolton the blood bounded through my arteries with suffocating force, and I pushed my way through the throng with feverish energy. When I broke through the ring that surrounded the prostrate form, a policeman was just laying his hands on Merwin, and raising his dub as if to strike him. The old man handed his revolver to the officer, and cried:

"I am Merwin. He has robbed me of my money for twenty years, and he said I should die a beggar. And I shot him!"

On the pavement lay Peter Bolton. His hands were pressed to a reddening circle on his coat, and his face was drawn into an expression of anxious fear. As I bent over him, a look of recognition flashed into his eyes. And even in the pangs of dissolution a sardonic smile drew down the corners of his mouth, while has sarcastic voice, reduced in volume till it was scarcely more than a whisper, drawled painfully:

"You've missed your chance, Hampden. You'll never get rich now. I fought–you all–and I've beat–you all."

He paused in weakness, and the murmur of voices about me filled my ears. There was scarce a sympathetic tone to be heard, and thrice the words floated to me:

"It's a wonder he didn't get it before."

Peter Bolton had lived without good will to man, and he was dying without man's regret. He summoned up his failing energies and continued:

"If I had another day, your–man–Kendrick–would–be–smashed!" The last word was spoken almost as a hiss. Then the blood welled up in his throat, and with a convulsive effort to rise he fell back and was still.

The Bolton-Kendrick Feud was over.

CHAPTER XXXI

THE BROKEN WEB

With the death of Peter Bolton there was an immediate slackening of the tension in the commercial exchanges. The shock of his sudden end turned men's minds for a little from the market-place, and when they turned back it was not the same. The enginery of evil that he had set in motion to crush Wharton Kendrick ran slower and slower, and at last came to a stop.

"The El Dorado Bank has thrown up the sponge," said Partridge when I met him at noon. "They were acting for Bolton more than for themselves in this deal. Now that the old fox has gone, they have lost stomach for the fight."

And with this assurance, I walked the street with the buoyancy of heart that follows a hard-won victory.

I was still in exultant frame of mind when I came a few minutes later upon the personification of Gloom. It was Parks. His mouth was drawn down into an expression of somber weariness of the world. A piece of court-plaster ornamented his cheek; and his right eye was swollen and discolored until it resembled nothing so much as an overripe tomato.

"Why, what's the matter?" I asked with exuberant spirit. "You look like the day after the fight."

He looked resentfully at me, with a sad shake of the head.

"Sir," he exclaimed, "it is unfair to jest. I have suffered the burial of my hopes. I am done with the affairs of life."

"What!" I cried. "Have you given up the revolution? Have you abandoned the battle for the rights of the people?"

"The people be damned!" responded Parks angrily. "Why should I give my life to fight for those who won't fight for themselves? Why should I scheme for the slaves who have not the sense to follow the leaders who point the way to emancipation? We perfect our plans to free them from the oppressions of a capitalistic government, and when we call on them to take arms and follow us they fall to robbing Chinamen. When I appeal to them to follow me to the City Hall instead of the wash-house, the response I get is a black eye. That's my reward for devotion to the rights of the people."

"It must have been a most demonstrative meeting," I replied without a trace of sympathy, "and it did one good thing, for it knocked some sense into you."

"Hampden," said Parks, with a lofty air that made a comic contrast with his flaming eye, "I forgive you the expression. But I assure you I retract nothing of my views. What I have learned is that the great era for which I have worked can not be brought about by men who understand neither their wrongs nor their rights. We must educate them until they see the truth."

"Oh, then I suppose you are on your way to the City Hall to get your leather-lunged orator out of jail to resume his teachings?"

Parks flushed angrily.

"Kearney?" he cried. "He can rot in his cell for anything I will do to get him out. I refuse, sir, to voice the suspicions that I have been forced to entertain, but he is a hindrance, not an aid to the cause of the people. They must be taught the large truths, not the little truths, if they are to act wisely. Let us not mention his name."

I left Parks at the corner of Kearny and Merchant Streets, and walking down to the door of the City Prison, applied for permission to see the prisoner I had captured in the final riot above the Mail docks. The death of Peter Bolton made it likely that I could induce him to answer the questions he had flouted the previous night.

I was admitted without difficulty, and found the cages filled with scores of men herded together into brutal contiguousness.

It was impossible to examine the prisoner before these cell-mates, but by the exercise of diplomacy I secured the privilege of talking with him in the comparative quiet of the Receiving Hospital. The man was brought shambling in, cast an impudent glance at me, and then looked sullenly at the floor. His pale face and sunken eyes and cheeks betrayed the opium smoker, and his manner was that of the hoodlum.

"You had better make a clean breast of it," I exhorted him. "I suppose you know that Bolton is dead."

"Yep," he said uneasily. "The old rooster that done for him was in here. He didn't look like he'd nerve enough to kill a cat."

"Well, I warn you that you have no one to protect you now, and your only chance of getting off with a light punishment is to answer my questions and tell the truth."

"Ask what you like, cully," he replied with an impudent leer. "You can bet I'm too fly to give up anything I ain't wanting you to know. I ain't a-goin' to split on the man that paid me, even if he has gone to the morgue. I'm game, I am." And he straightened himself with a pitiful exhibition of the criminal's pride.

"Oh, you needn't be afraid of giving away Bolton's secrets," I said. "I know more about them than you do." And I mentioned several incidents of his employment that made his eyes open and his face pale with the fear that he was caught beyond escape. "What I want you to tell me is what Bolton was doing with Big Sam?"

The spy looked sullenly at the floor, and shook his head. And it was not until I had threatened to put a charge of attempt to murder against him that he replied:

"Well, I don't see as there's any harm in tipping it off to youse on that. The old rat's game was to get Big Sam to put up money for them crazy bunko-men on the Council of Nine. He done it, too. I'll bet he got the coolie to put up as much as he gave himself."

"Did you take the money from Big Sam to Bolton?"

"Me? Not much! They was too fly to let me get my nippers on it. I was plain messenger-boy–that's what I was–and I carried a lot of talk about what the Council was going to do. You knows all that game. If youse want it, I can give youse a yard of it now."

I could well believe that this creature was not trusted with any of the purposes that these men had in their alliance. So I turned to the question:

"What was that Chinese paper in the pocket of the overcoat you left with me that night you tried to kill me when I chased you out of Mr. Kendrick's yard?"

"Oh, youse is the feller that got that coat, are you? Well, that paper was just an order or ticket that would let me into Big Sam's tong house when the tong was meeting–so as I could see him without losing time. It wasn't no use to me; but Big Sam let on he was giving me first cousin to the Mint when he passed it over."

Nothing more was to be got out of this man, so I left the fetid prison, and followed up the line of inquiry by seeking Big Sam.

I found him just entering the store that led to his dwelling. He received me with courtesy, but there was a trace of suspicion in his eyes as he invited me to follow him to his office.

"I suppose I do not bring news in telling you that our mutual acquaintance, Mr. Peter Bolton, is no more," I said, as we entered the oriental hall. In that room with its intricate ornamentation, its grotesque carvings and garish hangings, Peter Bolton and the troubled city of San Francisco seemed thousands of miles away, and I felt like a traveler in Cathay, who had come overseas bearing news of distant countries.

"You are not the first to tell me," said Big Sam. "I had the regret of hearing it some hours ago."

"It was a sad loss to the Council of Nine," I said, watching narrowly if the name brought any change of expression to his face. But no shadow crossed the yellow mask with which he concealed his thoughts.

"I am not familiar with Mr. Bolton's relations with society," said Big Sam blandly. "But I'm sorry to have lost a good customer."

It was hopeless to study that changeless mask–hopeless to seek to match the Oriental in guile. So I abandoned the task and asked bluntly:

"Now that Peter Bolton is dead, and the Council of Nine is in jail, and the conspiracy is smashed beyond repair, would you mind telling me why you contributed money to such a harebrained scheme?"

"Your question makes an unwarranted assumption," said Big Sam dryly. "I know nothing about contributing money to Councils of Nine, or other harebrained revolutionists."

"Oh," I said, "you need not fear that I am asking this in the character of a public prosecutor. It is merely a feeling of private curiosity. In protecting Mr. Kendrick's affairs I have learned most of the inside history of the movement. And I should really like to know what led a man of your intelligence to further a cause that was apparently so opposed to his interests."

Big Sam looked at me in silence with calm and unflinching gaze for two or three minutes, and I suspected that the expediency of my mysterious disappearance was canvassed behind the inscrutable veil of his eyes. Then a sarcastic smile stole about the corners of his mouth, and he said:

"I am sorry to disappoint you. I must plead ignorance of the circumstances you mention. If Mr. Bolton was the representative of criminal or treasonable designs, I do not know it. But if it will be of any assistance or satisfaction to you, I will describe a hypothetical case. Let us suppose that an harassed race had found an insecure footing–say in Sumatra. Suppose that the head man of this harassed race had been approached by the leader of a revolutionary party, with whom he had been in business relations. This leader, or backer, or whatever you wish to call him, we may suppose, insists on the prospects of success of the revolutionary movement–enlarges on the certainty of disturbances to come among the classes of the people most opposed to this alien race, and urges its head man to raise up friends in the revolutionary party by a contribution of money. I put it to you, Mr. Hampden, would it be worth this man's while–in Sumatra, you understand–to pay enough to secure toleration for his race, in case its enemies came into possession of the government?"

"Candidly–since you ask my opinion–it was the most unpromising investment I could have suggested."

Big Sam was so far nettled by my judgment on his hypothetical case that he dropped his diplomatic pretense, and said:

"A judgment after the fact, Mr. Hampden, when it is easy to be wise. Yet even now it is not difficult to see that bitterness and division have been sown among the enemies of my race. Action against us has been postponed for years–perhaps for all time. The mass of your people–especially beyond the mountains–are shocked at the excesses of the past week, and will oppose the demands made by your disorderly classes. Like all the weak, we must conquer by the division of those who could harm us. The division has come."

"I think you mistake its extent," I said. "The riots may have roused a prejudice in the Eastern States against the demand for the exclusion of your race. But it is only a temporary check. It will not be five years before there is a law on the statute books forbidding the coming of your people."

Big Sam looked over my head, with the far-away gaze of one who was looking to the distant future. Then he sighed and spoke:

"Perhaps you are right. You must understand the temper of your people much better than I. But it will be as it will. If we are permitted to come unchecked, we shall build up on this coast a great Chinese State that will change the face of the world. We are adaptable, as you know. We are arming ourselves with the methods and machinery of western progress. Put a state of ten million of Chinese on this coast, and from this vantage point we shall break down the barriers between Orient and Occident, put the productive forces of the West into the hands of my people in China, add what is best in your life to the superior qualities of our institutions, and make China the leader instead of the hermit of the world."

Big Sam's face was calm with the self-possession of his race, as he described this vision, but his eyes glowed with magnetic fire, and his voice thrilled with enthusiasm as he spoke.

"A magnificent plan–but there are difficulties," I said.

"Difficulties, yes–but only such as the intellect and energy of man may overcome. The old order in China is tottering to its fall. The dynasty of usurpers is held in place only by the arm of the foreigner. Its strength is typified by its head–a child and a woman!" Big Sam spoke thus of the baby Emperor and the Empress Dowager, with an infinite scorn. "It needs but the man with the resources behind him to rouse China to herself–to show to the nations a new and magnificent civilization–more splendid and solid than the world has ever seen."

I was stirred to admiration at his dream.

"I believe," I said heartily, "that you are the man to do it, if it could be done by a single man. But I warn you now that the white race will never surrender California, except at the compulsion of arms."

Big Sam sighed again, but his face retained its impassive calm.

"In that case I shall live and die a Chinese merchant–Big Sam, the King of Chinatown, as your people are kind enough to call me."

There was something of pathos in this descent from the heights of his great projects. He had given me a glimpse of the purposes nearest his heart, had shown me something of the real man that lay behind the disguise of his impassive face and every-day pursuits. But he closed the door of his soul with a sudden contraction of his eyes, and said in a matter-of-fact tone:

"And now are you tired of the girl I intrusted to you? Is she still a convalescent?"

"Why, we have no thought of surrendering her," I said, in some surprise that he should renew the subject. "She is improving rapidly. She is able to walk about, and is considered a most tractable patient."

"That is very satisfactory," began Big Sam, but I interrupted:

"There is only one question agitating us about her. She seems so much above the women of your race we see about us that we should like to know something of her history."

Big Sam bowed courteously, as though I had offered him a compliment.

"I see that you are looking for a romance," he said. "Well, possibly I can gratify you. I had supposed myself that she sprang from a low parentage–or at highest from the shopkeeper class–though, as you say, she seems much above the Chinese women you are privileged to see. She came hither from an orphan home in Canton, and was said to be of unknown parentage. I have made further inquiries, however, and have just received a letter from a friend in Canton with a few details that may please you. The girl is the daughter of a mandarin, descended from a long line of scholars. But her father, mother, brothers and all known relatives perished in the plague, their fortune was confiscated, and the girl–then an infant–was turned over to the keeping of the orphanage."

"That is very interesting. Is there any chance of establishing her rights?"

"Not the slightest. But you will be glad to hear that I shall soon have a home for her among her own people." Big Sam was, as usual, coming to his point by indirection.

"I trust it is one you can recommend," I said bluntly.

"It is one that exactly fills the conditions under which the girl was taken," he responded dryly. "A reputable man of her own race–a merchant–wishes to make her his wife."

"He is well-to-do, I assume."

"Naturally, or he would not be able to meet the demands of the tongs."

"Has he another wife?" I asked, with mistrust of the Chinese domestic arrangements.

"None."

"In that case, I think he may be ready to offer his credentials in something less than a month."

"He will find it difficult to repress his impatience," said Big Sam gravely. "He is a widower."

And with a bow of ceremony he dismissed me.

CHAPTER XXXII

THE ANSWER

The duties of the day were at last done, and I turned toward the Kendrick house with a lively sense of my obligation to relieve the anxieties that might still be felt in that household. The afternoon had been taken up with the fag ends of our business complications, and darkness had set in before I could leave the office. The streets were quiet, and, except for the Vigilante patrols, were almost deserted.

As I neared my destination a large man halted me with a raised pick-handle, and said:

"Vere go you, mine vrendt? Don'd you petter go home?"