Stolen Idols Read online

  CHAPTER III

  "Well," Claire exclaimed, laughing at Gregory Ballaston across thetable, "how have you enjoyed your dinner?"

  "Immensely," he answered, with enthusiasm.

  "Have you ever dined more strangely?"

  "I don't think I have," he confessed. "It was most frightfully kind ofyour uncle to ask me. I was never so surprised in my life."

  "Nor I," she admitted candidly. "To tell you the truth, when we all cametogether in the warehouse this afternoon, it seemed to me from hismanner that you were not particularly good friends, and I was afraid hewas going to hurry me off without a word. Then your intense curiosity tohave another look at that Image----"

  "Entirely assumed," he interrupted. "I wanted a chance to be introducedto you."

  "Of course that wasn't in the least obvious," she laughed. "Anyhow, eventhen I never dreamed of this. It was just when you were going that heasked your name again and seemed so interested. Do you realise that hemust know something about you or your family?"

  "I wondered," Gregory admitted.

  She glanced at the door through which her uncle had disappeared insearch of cigarettes.

  "Anyhow," she continued, "it is delightful to think that you are goingto be a fellow passenger on the Kalatat. Don't you sympathise with mefor being rather glad to get away from here?"

  He looked around at the almost empty room, at the comfortless linoleumupon the floor, the Chinese servants, moving like ghosts about thetable, at the cane-bottomed chairs, the few articles of cheap furniture.It was an amazing environment.

  "Your uncle," he remarked, a little hesitatingly, "apart from hishousehold surroundings, seems to be a man of great taste."

  "He has wonderful knowledge," she said, "and a wonderful sense ofbeauty, but he lives absolutely within himself. I am perfectly certainhe doesn't know that he has eaten curried chicken and rice every nightfor a week. Why, if I hadn't thought of it, we'd have had nothing butwater for dinner."

  "You're a good Samaritan," he murmured.

  "Come and sit outside," she invited. "The verandah is the only possibleplace here. We're a great deal too near the rest of the houses, but thecity looks almost beautiful now the lights are out, and the harbour iswonderful. The chairs, as you will discover, are horrible, and thereisn't a cushion in the place."

  "Tell me about yourself," he begged, when they were established, "andwhy you came here."

  "You see," she confided, "Mr. Endacott's brother, my father, was aprofessor at Harvard. He died when I was eleven years old and my motherdied a year afterwards. I was sent to boarding school in Boston and NewYork. When I was nineteen I was to be sent either to an aunt in Englandor to my uncle here. My aunt in England lives at a place which remindsme of your name--Market Ballaston, it is called."

  He looked at her in astonishment.

  "Why, that is where I live!" he exclaimed. "Tell me your aunt's name?"

  "De Fourgenet," she replied. "She married a Frenchman, the Comte deFourgenet."

  "Good God! Madame!"

  "Madame?"

  "That is what we call your aunt in the neighbourhood," he explained."She is my father's greatest friend. You know, of course, that she is aninvalid."

  "I have heard so," the girl admitted. "A motor accident, wasn't it?...Uncle," she went on, as he stepped through the window, "do you realisethat Mr. Ballaston knows Aunt Angele?"

  "I imagined that he might," Mr. Endacott acknowledged, a little drily."It was not until I heard your name for the second time," he continued,turning to the younger man, "that I realised who you must be."

  "It is a very small world," Gregory Ballaston remarked tritely, as heaccepted one of the cigars which Mr. Endacott was offering.

  "Geographically it has contracted for me during the last twenty-fiveyears into a radius of a few miles round the city here," Mr. Endacottconfided. "To come back into the world again at my time of life willseem strange."

  "But you won't really mind it," the girl assured him. "You will find acountry house not too far from Aunt Angele, you will have all yourmanuscripts, your books, your treasures round you. It is true, isn't it,that you sit in your little office every day without stirring? Why, youcan do the same thing in England as here. And then, there must be someof your old Oxford friends who would like to see you."

  Mr. Endacott smiled thinly.

  "Thirty years," he reminded her, "is a long way to look back. To pick upthe threads, the friendships dropped more than a quarter of a centuryago, is not easy. At the same time," he went on, "it is right that Ishould return to England. It marches well with affairs here."

  "You must have found the life out in these parts very interesting, sir,"Gregory Ballaston remarked. "I don't know whether it would getmonotonous to you, but to any one coming upon it suddenly it is anamazing corner of the world. Off the ship, I have only seen threeEuropeans since I have been here."

  "It is for that reason," Mr. Endacott pointed out, "an unsuitable placefor my niece. My establishment here, too, is impossible. No Europeanwoman could keep house under the prevailing conditions. That is why I amhurrying my niece off, although I myself shall follow before long."

  "My father will be interested to see you again," Gregory ventured.

  "Your father, if his tastes had lain that way," Mr. Endacott ruminated,"might have been a brilliant scholar. He preferred sport and life. Wemet, not so many years ago, in Pekin. He was dabbling in diplomacy then.He certainly had the gifts for it. He was, in fact, the most popularEnglishman who ever appeared at the Court there. He was received andgranted privileges where I could never follow him. He was, I suppose,your instigator in this buccaneering expedition of yours."

  The young man laughed a little uneasily. There had been a vein ofcontempt in the other's tone.

  "I suppose it must have seemed a horrible piece of vandalism to you,sir," he remarked. "However, there it is. The adventure appealed to meand we wanted the money badly enough."

  His host looked out across the harbour at the swaying lanterns of thesmall boats and beyond to the great lighthouse.

  "Money!" he repeated. "The password of the West. Somehow I never thoughtI should return to it."

  "Money counts for something out here, too," Gregory protested. "Look atyour friend and partner, Wu Ling, trading up the river with machine gunsand rifles to protect himself. For what? To make money. He's doing itfor Johnson and Company. You're one of the firm, Mr. Endacott."

  The latter nodded.

  "Touche," he admitted. "But let me point out to you, young gentleman,that the things Wu Ling brings back to our warehouses are things ofbeauty."

  "Which he pays for with rubbish," Gregory rejoined. "Half of yourwarehouse is an abomination; the other half, I admit, a treasure house."

  Mr. Endacott gently inclined his head.

  "I cannot defend myself," he acknowledged. "I am a partner in the firmbecause they insisted. All my savings for twenty years, which I advancedto them, were, they tell me, the foundation from which the business hasbeen built up. But, believe me, I have never seen inside a ledger. Onceevery twelve months, a strange little man brings me a slip of paper. Ilook at it, and the business for the year is finished."

  "It is perhaps as well," Gregory observed, "that your associates areprobably honest. Wu Ling, for instance."

  "Wu Ling is an amazing person," Mr. Endacott pronounced.

  "Is he altogether Chinese?" Gregory enquired. "There have been timeswhen he has puzzled me."

  "No one but Wu Ling knows who Wu Ling is or where he comes from," wasthe enigmatic reply. "He is a power unto himself."

  "He saved my life," Gregory remarked, "but I don't think that heapproves of me."

  "Tell me, Mr. Ballaston," the girl asked, "have you looked at your Imageyet, the one you have on the ship?"

  "Not yet."

  Mr. Endacott turned his head. He was seated on the most uncomfortable ofthe three uncomfortable cane chairs; a stiff, unbending figure. His eyeswere turned specul
atively upon his visitor.

  "If there be any truth in the legend," he advised, "you will do well toleave it in its case."

  Gregory was doubtful.

  "I rather wanted to examine it," he admitted. "The part of the legendwhich interests me most is the part which has to do with the jewels."

  "Naturally," Mr. Endacott agreed, with unconcealed sarcasm. "Yet, in thestory of the fashioning of the Images, there has been nothing morevehement than the warning issued by the High Priest in whose day it wasdone. Here, he pointed out, by the great art of the sculptor, the Bodyand Soul were torn apart. All that was good and virtuous and that madetowards the beautiful in life was carven into the Image which our friendWu Ling seems to have purchased from the robber. All that was debasedand evil and which prompted towards sin was graven into the features ofthe one which you possess. Together, side by side, they were supposed tomake up the sum of humanity--the good and the evil balancing. Side byside, they might be looked at without evil effect; they might inspirethought--reflection of the highest order. There were indications thereof what to avoid, what passions to fight against; indications there,too, of what a man's aim should be, how to uplift oneself above sin andhow to climb always in one's thoughts towards the spiritual."

  They both listened, fascinated, to Mr. Endacott's thin, reedy voice; hisstill words, spoken without emphasis or enthusiasm, as they might havebeen spoken to a class of student philosophers. It was the girl whofirst ventured upon a question.

  "But, Uncle," she demanded, "you don't seriously believe that to livewith either of these statues without the other could really affect anyone's character?"

  "So runs the legend," was the quiet, almost solemn reply. "So it iswritten in one of the manuscripts recording their history. Thesuperstition, if it be a superstition, has at least a logical basis. Anenvironment of beauty and spirituality tends towards holiness; anenvironment of bestiality must, on the other hand, in time debase.Before these Images were fashioned, the philosophers of past ages usedtheir symbolism for a text, 'If thou wouldst be holy, live with holy andspiritual things. If thou wouldst avoid sin, turn thy back upon thepresentment of evil'."

  "But you don't really suppose, sir," Gregory ventured, "although, ofcourse, the idea is beautiful, that there is anything supernatural inthe influence which those Images might bring to bear upon any one'slife?"

  "My dear young man," Mr. Endacott expounded, "I do not even know whatempires of thought the word supernatural covers. I have pointed out thelogical basis for such a teaching. That is all. We are in a world herewhere one does not lightly reject superstitions. In the West thereexists a great world reared to the gods of materialism, unwarmed withthe flame of spirituality; the world of gold and stone and huge bankingaccounts, and prosperous cities, and hurrying, hastening lives. TheWestern brain holds no corner for superstitions, but casts themscornfully away. Live here for twenty years and you find the brain moreelastic, its cells more receptive, even its philosophy less inevitablybased upon the fundamental but dry-as-dust mathematical principles. Keepyour Image in its packing case, Mr. Gregory Ballaston. It will be timeenough when you get home to search for the jewels."

  The 'rickshaw which Gregory had ordered came lumbering up the hill. Herose with reluctance. Even in her stiff, uncomfortable chair, there wassomething very attractive about Claire, as she lay with her handsclasped behind her head, the light of a lantern upon her suddenlythoughtful face. He reflected, however, with a little thrill ofpleasure, that for six weeks she would be more or less his companion.

  "If we don't meet again before I sail, sir," he begged, turning towardshis host, "let me thank you for your hospitality. It will be a greatpleasure to see you and your niece in Norfolk."

  "This must be our farewell for the present, at any rate," Mr. Endacottsaid, as he shook hands. "My niece is going on board early to-morrowmorning, as I myself have a meeting to attend in the afternoon. Myrespects to your father. We shall meet without a doubt in England."

  "And we," Gregory added, in a lower tone, as he bent over his younghostess' fingers, "shall meet before then."

  She looked up at him, smiling. They were young and he was verygood-looking. Nevertheless she was American-trained, and it was in aspirit of frank comradeship that she replied.

  "I know that we shall have a lovely time on the voyage. Until to-morrow,then!"

  Gregory Ballaston was carried down the rough road, past the tangle ofhigh modern buildings--rabbit warrens of humanity--past the plasteredand wooden structures of older days, with their curved roofs and narrowwindows, through the confused streets which at every step became morethronged, towards the harbour, taking very little note of his progress,his thoughts engrossed, his mind fixed upon one problem. Already thememory of that strange meal, amidst surroundings so sordid that even thegirl's presence had been unable to modify them, was becomingovershadowed. His late host's cold words of advice seemed to have madenot the slightest impression upon him. He thought of the small packingcase in the purser's office with almost feverish impatience, joyful ofthe permission to sleep on board for the night, anxious only for themoment when he should reach the quay. Somehow or other Endacott'sserious, stilted talk had immensely confirmed his belief in theexistence of the jewels, and as for the rest--the warning he hadreceived--this, in all probability, simply proceeded from the vapouringsof a mind steeped in Orientalism, the mind of a scholar, removed forhalf a lifetime from the whole world of common sense and possibilities.Morally, he was as other young men. He would have scorned to cheat orlie; he had an inherited sense of honour and a sportsman's probity. Amean action would have revolted him--he was capable of a great one. Hewas a little selfish, a little narrow in his pride of name and race, ascourageous as any man might be, with the undoubted conceit of his class.Such as he was, he had no fear of change. He had never indulged inself-analysis. He accepted himself for what he was, which, on the whole,was something a little better than the average. He had no presentimentof even temporary ill-fortune, as he stepped into the ship's boatwaiting by the quay, and looked eagerly across the harbour to where thegreat steamer lay anchored with her blazing line of lights.