The Apple of Discord

"Oh, indeed," said Miss Kendrick, straightening her small figure and tip-tilting her small nose, "I consider Big Sam an interesting man, and I'm sure I should like to talk with him. And as for reason, I have no doubt he's quite as open to conviction as the rest of his sex. I shan't have the slightest hesitation in appealing to him, or even to those explosive highbinders, if it's necessary to Moon Ying's interests."

"Why, my dear young lady," protested Mr. Baldwin in his most superior manner, "you surely can't be thinking of going down to Chinatown and talking to those fellows. It's altogether absurd."

"Well, if you consider it absurd to try to save a girl's life or happiness, I don't," said Miss Kendrick tartly. And for the rest of the evening Mr. Baldwin sat under a cloud, and I enjoyed a brief period of sunshine.

CHAPTER VIII

A CONTRIBUTION TO THE CAUSE

I confess that, despite all discouragements, I spent as much time as I could spare from my duties in haunting the Kendrick house; yet I found the pursuit of Peter Bolton, and the oversight of the Council of Nine, a more exacting task than I had expected.

On Peter Bolton's ultimate purposes I could secure no direct light whatever. For the time he appeared to have suspended relations with the Council of Nine, yet his activities in conferring with bankers, brokers, merchants, lawyers, and men of no classification, were so various and bewildering that I was compelled to keep watch in many directions. Twice Parks and Waldorf, the president of the Council of Nine, visited his office, and were turned away without seeing him, though on at least one of these visits he was within. His plans appeared to have taken another direction than the schemes of the Council, yet there was nothing in his movements that revealed whatever designs he might have against Wharton Kendrick's property or life.

Nevertheless I took the precaution to station a number of watchmen about Wharton Kendrick's house, masqueraded as gardeners and stable-men. The episode of the spy had shown plainly that Peter Bolton's emissaries had no scruples about invading the premises. Furthermore, Big Sam's assurance that the highbinders would never dare to attack the white man's place, confirmed as it was by the history of San Francisco's Chinese population, did not justify me in neglecting precautions. Even a highbinder might have an exception to his rules, especially when more than one tong was interested in the recovery of Moon Ying. Therefore I kept two men on guard in the daytime and four at night.

One effect of Peter Bolton's activities was easy to discover. His contribution to the cause had inspired a marvelous activity among the agents of the Council of Nine. Clubs were organized, a few for the propagation of radical ideas, but most of them for the ostensible purpose of driving the Chinese from the city. The intent of the Council was to make the revolutionary clubs the main strength of their organization, but it soon became evident that the anti-Chinese movement had outrun their plans. "The Chinese Must Go," was so popular a cry that it was taken up by elements over which the Council had no control. But outwardly the Council was prospering, and the meetings inaugurated by Parks and Kearney down by the Old City Hall soon attracted such crowds that they were encouraged to seek a larger forum on the sand-lots by the New City Hall. The plans for driving out the Chinese were seized upon eagerly by the thousands of unemployed workmen, as well as by the disorderly elements of the city's population. Multitudes attended the meetings that were held nightly and on Sundays, and sporadic outbreaks of hoodlums, who beat Chinamen and plundered wash-houses, were frequently reported. The newspapers began to pay attention to the meetings, and as a genuine interest was shown in them by the working-men of the city, there was soon a hot rivalry to see which paper should attract the largest sales by the fullest accounts of the speeches and the most extended reports of the growth of the anti-Chinese propaganda. Under the stimulus of publicity the movement spread with startling rapidity, the politicians began to count upon it as a force to be reckoned with, and serious-minded citizens were shaking their heads over the possibilities of disorder that it covered.

These possibilities were increased by the threatening condition of affairs in the eastern States. There was a rapidly increasing tension in the relations between capital and labor, and a railroad strike was organizing that would paralyze industry from the Atlantic to the Mississippi. It was felt that the spark of Eastern example might furnish the torch for San Francisco.

With matters in this state, Clark came to me one day with every mark of perturbation and alarm.

"The Council of Nine is in funds," he gasped.

"That's an enviable situation," I replied. "Where did they get them, and what are they going to do with them? Hold a smoker at the House of Blazes?"

Clark looked a little vexed at the bantering tone.

"They've bought guns with them, sir."

"Bought guns?" I said. "How many? A dozen?"

"Guess again," said Clark, with an aggrieved air at my declination to take his information seriously. "If you'd say a thousand you'd come nearer to it."

"A thousand!" I cried, rousing at last to the gravity of his information. "How could they do that?"

"Easy enough," said Clark. "They got thirty thousand dollars night before last, and yesterday they cleaned out all the gun stores in town."

"Thirty thousand dollars!" I exclaimed. "Whew! Is this old Bolton's second contribution?"

"I reckon he's the one that give it," said Clark, "but I can't be sure. There ain't any one else with that much money that's interested in the cause. Habernicht was trying to tell me that it came from the International Treasury, but I'm willing to bet my boots that the International Treasury never had thirty thousand cents in it, let alone thirty thousand dollars."

It was Peter Bolton, beyond doubt, who had taken the role of fairy godfather for the Council of Nine, and I raked my imagination in vain to conceive the purpose that had inspired this amazing generosity.

"I reckon," continued Clark, "that they've got a corner on everything that'll shoot, except what's in the arsenals, and they're counting on getting those when the time comes to rise."

"Well," said I, "I don't see just how this affects Colonel Kendrick, for they could get him with one rifle just as well as with a thousand. But whatever the game is, we can block it right now. Just give me the number of the building where they have stored those guns, and I'll see the Chief of Police."

"Good God!" cried Clark, seizing my arm. "Do you want to get me killed?"

"Why," I argued, "you aren't the only man who knows about them. There must be dozens if not hundreds of men in the scheme, and there would be no more reason to put the blame on you than on the others."

Clark shook his head, and his white face showed the fierce grip of terror.

"I'm a dead man if you go to the police," he said huskily, gulping down the lump that rose in his dry throat. And no repetition or variation of my argument could move him. So at last I promised to keep the information from the police, and sought Wharton Kendrick's office to lay this perplexing information before my client.

Kendrick was not at his desk.

"He went out some time ago, Mr. Hampden," said a clerk.

"Where would I be likely to find him? It's quite important."

"He didn't say, and I got the idea that he wasn't likely to be back to-day."

I wrote a note giving information of the armament, and leaving it on his desk, turned to go, when the door opened and General Wilson bustled in. His round red face glowed in the frame of his short, yellow-gray side-whiskers even more fiercely by day than by night, and his self-importance was even more scintillant than when he had bustled into Kendrick's library.

"What! Kendrick not in?" he cried explosively. "Why, I don't see how you San Franciscans do any business. I haven't found a man in his office this morning. Why, God bless me, is this you, Ham–Hamfer–"

"Hampden," I said, assisting him to the name. "I'm glad to see you, General Wilson."

"Exactly–Hampden–Hampden," said the general, shaking hands. "I never forget a name or a face. It's a trick you ought to cultivate, my boy. You'll find it of more importance than half your legal learning, when it comes to the practical business of the law. There's nothing better in managing clients and jurors and court officials. It's likely to be worth anything to you to come on a man you haven't met for twenty years and call him by his name. The beggar always beams with satisfaction–thinks you've been doing nothing all those years but carry his name and face in your mind, and is ready to do you a good turn if it comes his way."

"Very true," I said, as General Wilson paused for breath.

"Now I remember," he continued, with a wave of his arm, "that I won one of my hardest fought cases by that little talent of being able to call a man's name after I have once heard it. 'Twas when the Rockland and Western was suing the R. D. & G. about the right of way into St. Louis. The matter was worth a trifle of two or three million dollars, and we had a jury trial, and it was a damned ticklish business. 'It's two to one on the other side,' said the president of the Rockland and Western, 'and if you pull us out, Wilson, you're a wonder.' 'God knows what a jury will do,' I told him, 'but if it's in the power of mortal man I'll get you out with honors.' I talked to cheer him up, but I didn't feel half as hopeful as I let on to be. My unprofessional opinion was that we were in for a licking. I'll bet you the price of this building, Hampden, that we would have had to take our medicine if it hadn't been for an old acquaintance of mine. I used to know him when we were young fellows in Ohio. He was clerking in a grocery store while I was dusting the books in Lawyer Boker's office. Now, what was his name? Oh,–ah–yes, I remember–Westlake, or something like that. Well, as he came into the court, I saw him, and by the look on his face I was sure he was called in the case. I knew him in an instant and I hurried up to him, shook him by the hand, and said 'Westburn'–yes, it was Westburn, not Westlake–I said 'Westburn, God bless you, it's thirty-five years since the night we dropped that watermelon, and I haven't got over mourning the loss of it yet.' By Jove, Hampden, you ought to have seen the fellow beam to think that the big lawyer from Chicago had remembered him all that time, and we had a five-minute chat that turned out to be worth everything to my clients. He got on the jury, and there wasn't a point or an argument I made that was lost on him. He told me afterward that he never heard a speech to beat the one I delivered in closing for my side. Well, the jury was out nearly two days, but on the strength of that speech my old friend talked the last of them over and we got judgment. So there, my boy, you see what it's worth to call up names. It's one of the tricks of trade that we share with statesmen and kings."

"And hotel clerks," I added irreverently, with something of envy for the general's talent at finding cause for self-congratulation.

General Wilson flushed a little deeper red, and looked at me doubtingly. I hastened to add an expression of complete agreement with the conclusions he had announced.

"Well, God bless us," he cried, "I can't be waiting here all day for Kendrick. I want to talk over that tule land proposition with him, but as he isn't here I'm going over to talk on the same business with a miserly old curmudgeon named Bolton. As it concerns Kendrick, in a way, maybe you'd like to come along as his representative." And with a commanding gesture General Wilson intimated his desire for my company, and linked arms with me in the affectation of deepest confidence.

I had for several days been meditating on the problem of an interview with Peter Bolton, and, accepting General Wilson's offer of a convoy as a gift of benignant chance, was soon climbing the stair to the curmudgeon's office to the boom-boom of General Wilson's gasconades, and wondering how I might surprise the secret of Peter Bolton's plans.

CHAPTER IX

PETER BOLTON

Peter Bolton's office conformed to the first principles of art. It supplied an appropriate frame for Peter Bolton himself. The outer room presented to the eye of the visitor four bare and grimy walls that had once been white, a bare and worn board floor, two kitchen chairs and a rickety desk. There was, however, nothing shrinking or apologetic about this meager display of furnishing. It smacked not of poverty, but of an inclement disposition in its owner. In the inner room the walls and floor were as bare and grimy as those of the outer office, but the furnishing was a little less disregardful of personal comfort, for it held five solid chairs, a solid safe that made a show of bidding defiance to burglars, and a solid desk, behind which sat Peter Bolton himself.

The outer office was empty, save for the uninviting chairs and the rickety desk, and General Wilson, with a quick jerk, opened the inner door and bustled into the room.

"Ha-ha, Bolton!" he cried, "I catch you with your washee-washee man, eh? That's right, that's right. Cleanliness next to godliness, you know–though you can't always be sure that the Chinese washman is to be recommended on either count. Hey, John, you trot along now. I want to talk to Mr. Bolton."

Glancing over General Wilson's head I saw the thin, sour face of Peter Bolton, and behind the mask of its dry expression I thought I recognized a passing flash of mental disturbance that suggested fear, or even consternation. Then a sardonic smile tightened and drew down the corners of the mouth, and his hard, nasal voice twanged out a grudging word of recognition.

At the same moment the "washee-washee" man stepped to the doorway, and I was startled to find myself looking into the face of Big Sam. He was dressed in the coarse blue jeans and trousers of the Chinese working-man, his hat was drawn down over his eyes, and his face was of a darker hue than I remembered it. But the man shone through his disguise as plainly as the sun shines through colored glass.

I recovered from my surprise in an instant, and halted him in the outer room.

"This is a lucky meeting," I said. "I have been wondering whether I ought to report to you about your ward. She is badly hurt, but is now out of danger."

The man glanced at me with expressionless eye.

"I no sabby you," he said with the true coolie accent. "What you wan'?"

"Oh," I returned, repressing my amusement at this preposterous attempt to deceive me, "if Kwan Sam Suey, sometimes known as Big Sam, doesn't want to hear what I have to say, I am in no hurry to say it."

"No sabby Big Sam," said the Chinaman gruffly.

"And I should really like to know," I said, lowering my voice, "what Big Sam is doing with Mr. Bolton."

"I no sabby Missah Bolton," growled the Oriental.

"You don't 'sabby' the man you've just been talking with?"

"I no sabby him name. I no sabby you' name. I sabby him one man–I sabby you 'nothe' man. I come sell him lotte'y ticket. You likee buy lotte'y ticket?"

This appeared to be an excellent chance to trap the wily Oriental. I replied that I would risk twenty-five cents on his game, and waited with a smile for the excuse that would be invented to put me off. But Big Sam had made up for his part with more attention to detail than I had supposed. At my word he calmly drew forth from his capacious sleeve a blank ticket and a marking brush.

"I make you good ticket," he said gravely, marking ten of the squares. "You sabby Kwan Luey?"

"Yes, I sabby Kwan Luey." He was one of the big merchants of Chinatown, and among other things did a brisk banking and lottery business among his countrymen.

"Dlawing to-mollow," said the Chinaman. "You take 'em ticket Kwan Luey you get 'em heap big money." And with a brusk nod he was gone.

I stared after him in perplexity. My eyes were never more certain of anything than of the identity of this man with Big Sam. And yet he had carried off his imposture with such assurance that, for a moment after he had disappeared, I was shaken in my conviction. But it was only for a moment. With a glance at the paper in my hand and with a recollection of his parting words, certainty returned, and I was convinced that the ticket was an order on Kwan Luey for money. Was Big Sam trying to bribe me, or was he attempting thus to provide for the expenses of the Chinese girl? Nothing had been said on the delicate point of meeting her charges for food, care and lodging. Possibly he had chosen this eccentric way of putting the money in my hands.

There was, however, another question more perplexing than that of money. What were the relations between Bolton and Big Sam? Here for the second time I had evidence that they were in secret alliance. The business of supplying coolie workmen was not of such disrepute that it had to be conducted in disguise. Could it be possible that Big Sam was one of Bolton's agents in the plot to overthrow Wharton Kendrick? And if so, was the Chinese girl brought under the Kendrick roof as a part of Peter Bolton's tortuous policy?

As there was no answer to my questions to be had by studying the ticket Big Sam had given me, I thrust it into my pocket and followed General Wilson into Peter Bolton's private den.

There are certain natures whose approach brings an access of mental or physical repulsion. A man may conform to all the sanitary laws, and yet appeal quite as objectionably to the inner spirit as the Eskimo reeking of spoiled blubber appeals to the physical senses.

To approach Peter Bolton was like putting your hand on the spider to which current metaphor compared him. If you liked spiders, he was doubtless a pleasant enough companion. But as for me, I share the popular prejudice against the arachnidæ, and found myself at once in mental antagonism to Mr. Bolton.

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