The Clue of the New Pin

I

The establishment of Yeh Ling was just between the desert of Reed Street, and the sown of that great and glittering thoroughfare which is theatreland. The desert graduated down from the respectable, if gloomy, houses where innumerable milliners, modistes and dentists had their signs before the doors and their workrooms and clinics on divers landings, to the howling wilderness of Bennet Street, and in this particular case the description often applied so lightly is aptly and faithfully affixed, for Bennet Street howled by day and howled in a shriller key by night. Its roadway was a playground for the progeny of this prolific neighbourhood, and a “ring” in which all manner of local blood-feuds were settled by waist-bare men, whilst their slatternly women squealed their encouragement or vocalized their apprehensions.

Yeh Ling’s restaurant had begun at the respectable end of the street and he had specialized in strange Chinese dishes. Later it had crept nearer and nearer to The Lights, one house after another having been acquired by the unhappy looking oriental, its founder.

Then, with a rush, it arrived on the main street, acquired a rich but sedate facia, a French chef and a staff of Italian waiters under the popular Signor Maciduino, most urban of maîtres d’hôtel, and because of gilded and visible tiles, became “The Golden Roof.” Beneath those tiles it was a place of rosewood panelling and soft shaded lights. There was a gilded elevator to carry you to the first and second floors where the private dining-rooms were—these had doors of plate glass, curtained diaphanously. Yeh Ling thought that this was carrying respectability a little too far, but his patron was adamant on the matter.

Certain rooms had no plate glass doors, but these were very discreetly apportioned. One such was never under any circumstances hired to diners, however important or impeccable they might be. It was the end room No. 6, near to the service doorway which led through a labyrinth of crooked and cross passages to the old building in Reed Street. This remained almost unchanged as it had been in the days of Yeh Ling’s earlier struggles. Men and women came here for Chinese dishes and were supplied by soft-footed waiters from Han-Kow, which was Yeh Ling’s native province.

The patrons of the old establishment lamented the arrival of Yeh Ling’s prosperity and sneered at his well-dressed customers. The well-dressed customers being, for the most part, entirely ignorant that their humble neighbours had existence, ate their expensive meals unmoved and at certain hours danced sedately to the strains of The Old Original South Carolina Syncopated Orchestra, which Yeh Ling had hired regardless of expense.

He only visited the fashionable part of his property on one day of the year, the Chinese New Year, a queer little figure in a swallow-tailed coat, white-vested, white-gloved and tightly, as well as whitely collared.

At other times, he sat at ease midway between the desert and the sown in a pokey little parlour hung about with vivid pictures which he had cut from the covers of magazines. Here, in a black silk robe, he pulled at his long-stemmed pipe. At half-past seven every night, except Sundays, he went to a door which opened on to the street, and was the door of one of those houses which linked the two restaurants, and here he would wait, his hand upon the knob. Sometimes the girl came first, sometimes the old man. Whichever it was, they usually passed in without a word and went up to Room No. 6. With their arrival Yeh Ling went back to his parlour to smoke and write letters of great length and beauty to his son at Han-Kow, for Yeh Ling’s son was a man of great learning and position, being both a poet and a scholar. He had been admitted a member of the Forest of Pencils, which is at least the equivalent to being elected an Academician.

Sometimes, Yeh Ling would devote himself to the matter of his new building at Shanford and dream dreams of an Excellency who would be its honoured master—for all things are possible in a land which makes education a test of choice for Ambassadorial appointments.

He never saw the two guests depart. They found their way to the door alone, and soon after eight the room was empty. No waiter served them; their meals were placed in readiness on a small buffet and as No. 6 was veiled from the observations of the curious by a curtain which stretched across the passage, only Yeh Ling knew them.

On the first Monday of every month, Yeh Ling went up to the room and kowtowed to its solitary occupant. The old man was always alone on these occasions. On such a Monday, with a large lacquered cashbox in his hand and a fat book under his arm, Yeh Ling entered the presence of the man in No. 6, put down his impedimenta on the buffet and did his reverence.

“Sit down,” said Jesse Trasmere, and he spoke in the sibilant dialect of the lower provinces. Yeh Ling obeyed, hiding his own hands respectfully in the full sleeves of his gown. “Well?”

“The profits this week have fallen, excellency,” said Yeh Ling but without apology. “The weather has been very fine and many of our clients are out of town.”

He exposed his hands to open the cashbox and bring out four packages of paper money. These he divided into two, three of the packages to the right and one to the left. The old man took the three packages, which were nearest to him and grunted.

“The police came last night and asked to be shown over the houses,” Yeh Ling went on impressively. “They desired to see the cellars, because they think always that Chinamen have smoke-places in their cellars.”

“Humph,” said Mr. Trasmere. He was thumbing the money in his hand. “This is good, Yeh Ling.”

He slipped the money into a black bag which was on the floor at his feet. Yeh Ling shook his head, thereby indicating his agreement.

“Do you remember in Fi Sang a man who worked for me?”

“The drinker?”

The old man agreed to the appellation.

“He is coming to this country,” said Mr. Trasmere, chewing a toothpick. He was a hard-faced man between sixty and seventy. A rusty black frock-coat ill fitted his spare form, his old-fashioned collar was frayed at the edge and the black shoestring tie that encircled his lean throat had been so long in use that it had lost whatever rigidity it had ever possessed, and hung limp in two tangled bunches on either side of the knot. His eyes were a hard granite blue, his face ridged and scaled with callosities until it was lizard-like in its coarseness.

“Yes, he is coming to this country. He will come here as soon as he finds his way about town and that will be mighty soon, for Wellington Brown is a traveller! Yeh Ling, this man is troublesome. I should be happy if he were sleeping on the Terraces of the Night.”

Again Yeh Ling shook his head.

“He cannot be killed—here,” he said. “The illustrious knows that my hands are clean—”

“Are you a man-of-wild-mind?” snarled the other. “Do I kill men or ask that they should be killed? Even on the Amur, where life is cheap, I have done no more than put a man to the torture because he stole my gold. No, this Drinker must be made quiet. He smokes the pipe of Pleasant Experience. You have no pipe-room. I would not tolerate such a thing. But you know places.”

“I know a hundred and a hundred,” said Yeh Ling, cheerfully for him.

He accompanied his master to the door, and when it had closed upon him, he returned swiftly to his parlour and summoned a stunted man of his race.

“Go after the old man and see that no harm comes to him,” he said.

It seemed from his tone almost as though this guardianship was novel, but in exactly the same words the shuffling Chinaman had received identical instructions every day for six years, when the thud of the closing street-door came to Yeh Ling’s keen ears. Every day except Sunday.

He himself never went out after Jesse Trasmere. He had other duties which commenced at eleven and usually kept him busy until the early hours of the morning.

II

Mr. Trasmere walked steadily and at one pace, keeping to the more populous streets. Then at exactly 8:25 he turned into Peak Avenue, that wide and pleasant thoroughfare where his house was situated. A man who had been idling away a wasted half-hour saw him and crossed the road.

“Excuse me, Mr. Trasmere.”

Jesse shot a scowling glance at the interrupter of his reveries. The stranger was young and a head taller than the old man, well dressed, remarkably confident.

“Eh?”

“You don’t remember me—Holland? I called upon you about a year ago over the trouble you had with the municipality.”

Jesse’s face cleared.

“The reporter? Yes, I remember you. You had an article in your rag that was all wrong, sir—all wrong! You made me say that I had a respect for municipal laws and that’s a lie! I have no respect for municipal laws or lawyers. They’re thieves and grafters!”

He thumped the ferrule of his umbrella on the ground to emphasize his disapproval.

“I shouldn’t be surprised,” said the young man with a cheerful smile, “and if I made you toss around a few bouquets that was faire bonne mine. I’d forgotten anyway, but it is the job of an interviewer to make his subject look good.”

“Well, what do you want?”

“Our correspondent in Peking has sent us the original proclamation of the insurgent, General Wing Su—or Sing Wu, I’m not sure which. These Chinese names get me rattled.”

Tab Holland produced from his pocket a sheet of yellow paper covered with strange characters.

“We can’t get in touch with our interpreters and knowing that you are a whale—an authority on the language, the news editor wondered if you would be so kind.”

Jesse took the sheet reluctantly, gripped his bag between his knees and put on his glasses.

“ ‘Wing Su Shi, by the favour of heaven, humbly before his ancestors, speaks to all men of the Middle Kingdom,’ ” he began.

Tab, notebook in hand, wrote rapidly as the old man translated.

“Thank you, sir,” he said when the other had finished.

There was an odd smirk of satisfaction on the old man’s face, a strange, childlike pride in his accomplishment.

“You have a remarkable knowledge of the language,” said Tab, politely.

“Born there,” replied Jesse Trasmere, complacently, “born in a godown on the Amur River and could speak the three dialects before I was six. Beat the whole lot of ’em at their own books when I was so high! That all, mister?”

“That is all, and thank you,” said Tab gravely, and lifted his hat.

He stood looking after the old man as he continued his walk. So that was Rex Lander’s miserly uncle? He did not look like a millionaire and yet, when he came to consider the matter, millionaires seldom looked their wealth.

He had settled the matter of the Wing Su proclamation and was immersed in a new prison report which had been published that day when he remembered an item of news which had come his way and duly reported.

“Sorry, Tab,” said the night editor, “the theatre man has flu. Won’t you go along and see the lady?”

Tab snorted, but went.

The dresser, hesitating, thought that Miss Ardfern was rather tired, and wouldn’t tomorrow do?

“I’m tired, too,” said Tab Holland wearily, “and tell Miss Ardfern that I haven’t come to this darned theatre at eleven p.m. because I’m an autograph hunter, or because I’m collecting pictures of actresses I’m crazy about; I’m here in the sacred cause of publicity.”

To the dresser, he was as a man who spoke a foreign language. Surveying him dubiously, she turned the handle of the stained yellow door, and standing in the opening, talked to somebody invisible.

Tab had a glimpse of cretonne hangings, yawned and scratched his head. He was not without elegance, except in moments of utter tiredness.

“You can come in,” said the dresser and Tab passed into a room that blazed with unshaded lights.

Ursula Ardfern had made her change and was ready to leave the theatre except that her jacket was still hung on the back of one chair, and her cloth cloak with the blue satin lining was draped over another. She had in her hand a brooch which she was about to put into an open jewel-case. Tab particularly noticed the brooch. A heart-shaped ruby was its centrepiece. He saw her pin it to the soft lining of the lid and close the case.

“I’m extremely sorry to worry you at this hour of the night, Miss Ardfern,” he said apologetically, “and if you’re annoyed with me, you have my passionate sympathy. And if you’re not mad at me, I’d be glad of a little sympathy myself, for I’ve been in court all day following the Lachmere fraud trial.”

She had been a little annoyed. The set of her pretty face told him that when he came in.

“And now you’ve come for another trial,” she half-smiled. “What can I do for you, Mr.—?”

“Holland—Somers Holland of The Megaphone. The theatre reporter is sick and we got a rumor tonight from two independent sources that you are to be married.”

“And you came to tell me! Now, isn’t that kind of you!” she mocked. “No, I am not going to be married. I don’t think I ever shall marry, but you need not put that in the newspaper, or people will think I am posing as an eccentric. Who is the lucky man, by-the-way?”

“That is the identical question that I have come to ask,” Tab smiled.

“I am disappointed,” her lips twitched. “But I am not marrying. Don’t say that I am wedded to my art, because I’m not, and please don’t say that there is an old boy and girl courtship that will one day materialize, because there isn’t. I just know nobody that I ever wanted to marry and if I did, I shouldn’t marry him. Is that all?”

“That’s about all, Miss Ardfern,” said Tab. “I’m really sorry to have troubled you. I always say that to people I trouble, but this time I mean it.”

“How did this information reach you?” she asked as she rose.

Tab’s frown was involuntary.

“From a—a friend of mine,” he said. “It is the first piece of news that he has ever given to me and it is wrong. Goodnight, Miss Ardfern.” His hand gripped hers and she winced.

“I’m sorry!” He was all apologies and confusion.

“You’re very strong!” she smiled, rubbing her hand, “and you aren’t very well acquainted with us fragile women—didn’t you say your name is Holland? Are you ‘Tab’ Holland?”

Tab coloured. It wasn’t like Tab to feel, much less display, embarrassment.

“Why ‘Tab’?” she asked, her blue eyes dancing.

“It is an office nickname,” he explained awkwardly, “the boys say that I’ve a passion for making my exit on a good line. Really, I believe it is the line on which a curtain falls. You’ll understand that, Miss Ardfern, it is one of the conventions of the drama.”

“A tab-line?” she said. “I have heard about you. I remember now. It was a man who was in the company I played with—Milton Braid.”

“He was a reporter before he fell—before he went on to the stage,” said Tab.

He was not a theatre man and knew none of its disciples. This was the second actress he had met in his twenty-six years of life, and she was unexpectedly human. That she was also remarkably pretty he accepted without surprise. Actresses ought to be beautiful, even Ursula Ardfern, who was a great actress, if he accepted the general verdict of the press and the ecstatic and prejudiced opinion of Rex Lander. But she had a sense of humour; a curious possession in an emotional actress, if he could believe all that he had read on the subject. She had grace and youth and naturalness. He would willingly have stayed, but she was unmistakably ending the interview.

“Goodnight, Mr. Holland.”

He took her hand again, this time more gingerly and she laughed outright at his caution.

On the dressing-table was the small brown jewel-case and a glimpse of it reminded him:

“If there is anything you’d like to go in the Megaphone,” he floundered, “there was a paragraph in the paper about your having more wonderful jewels than any other woman on the stage.”

He was being unaccountably gauche; he knew this and hated himself. It did not need her quick smile to tell him that she did not wish for that kind of publicity. And then the smile vanished, leaving her young face strangely hard.

“No. I don’t think that my jewels and their value are very interesting. In the part I am playing now it is necessary to wear a great deal of jewelry—I wish it weren’t. Goodnight. I’m glad to upset the rumor.”

“I’m sorry for the bridegroom,” said Tab gallantly.

She watched him out of the room and her mind was still intent upon this broad-shouldered, towering young man when her dresser came in.

“I do wish, Miss, you hadn’t to carry those diamonds about with you,” said the sad-faced dresser. “Mr. Stark, the treasurer, said he would put them in the theatre safe for you, and there’s a night watchman.”

“Mr. Stark told me that, too,” said the girl quietly, “but I prefer to take them with me. Help me with my coat, Simmons.”

A few minutes later she passed through the stage-door. A small and handsome little car was drawn up opposite the door. It was closed and empty. She passed through the little crowd that had gathered to see her depart, stepped inside, placed the jewel-case on the floor at her feet and started the machine. The doorman saw it glide around the corner and went back to his tiny office.

Tab also saw the car depart. He grinned at himself for his whimsical and freakish act. If anybody had told him that he would wait at a stage-door for the pleasure of catching a glimpse of a popular actress, he would have been rude. Yet, here he was, a furtive and abashed man, so ashamed of his weakness that he must look upon her from the darkest corner of the street!

“Well, well,” said Tab, with a sigh. “We live and we learn.”

His flat was in Doughty Street, and stopping only to telephone the result of his interview, he made his way home.

As he came into the sitting-room a man some two years his junior looked up over the top of the armchair in which he was huddled.

“Well?” he asked eagerly.

Tab went to a large tobacco jar and filled his polished briar before he spoke.

“Is it true?” asked Rex Lander, impatiently. “What a mysterious brute you are!”

“Rex, you’re related to the Canards of Duckville,” said the other, puffing solemnly. “You’re a spreader of false tidings and a creator of alarm and despondency amongst the stage-door lizards—whose ancient fraternity I have this night joined, thanks to you.”

Rex relaxed his strained body into a more easy and even less graceful posture.

“Then she isn’t going to be married?” he said, with a sigh.

“You meant well,” said Tab, flopping into a chair, “and I know of no worse thing that you can say about a man than that he ‘meant well!’ But it isn’t true. She’s not going to be married. Where did you get hold of this story, Baby?”

“I heard it,” said the other vaguely.

He was a boyish looking young man with a pink and white complexion. His face was so round and cherubic that the appellation of “baby” had good excuse, for he was plump of person and lazy of habit. They had been school fellows and when Rex had come to town at the command of his one relative, his uncle, the sour Mr. Jesse Trasmere, to take up a torturous training as an architect, these two had gravitated together and now shared Tab’s small flat.

“What do you think of her?”

Tab thought before replying.

“She’s certainly handicapped with good looks,” he said cautiously. At another time he would have added a word of disparagement or would have spoken jokingly of Rex Lander’s intense interest in the lady, but now, for some reason, he treated the other’s enquiry with more seriousness than was his wont.

Ursula Ardfern stood for the one consistently successful woman management in town. Despite her youth she had chosen and cast her own plays and in four seasons had not known the meaning of the word failure.

“She’s quite charming,” Tab said. “Of course, I felt a fool; interviewing actresses is off my beat anyway. Who is the letter from?” He glanced up at the envelope propped on the mantelpiece.

“From Uncle Jesse,” said the other without looking up from his book. “I wrote to him, asking him if he would lend me fifty.”

“And he said?—I saw him today, by-the-way.”

“Read it,” invited Rex Lander with a grin.

Tab took down the envelope and extracted a thick sheet of paper written in a crabbed, schoolboy-hand.

“Dear Rex (he read), your quarterly allowance is not due until the twenty-first. I regret, therefore, that I cannot agree to your request. You must live more economically, remembering that when you inherit my money you will be thankful for the experience which economical living has given to you and which will enable you to employ the great wealth which will be yours, in a more judicious, farseeing manner.”

“He’s a miserable old skinflint,” said Tab, tossing the letter back to the mantelshelf. “Somebody was telling me the other day that he’s worth a million—where did he make it?”

Rex shook his head.

“In China, I think. He was born there and started in quite a humble way as a trader on the Amur River Goldfields. Then he bought property on which gold was discovered. I don’t know,” he said, scratching his chin, “that I ought to complain. After all, there may be a lot in all he says, and he has been a good friend of mine.”

“How often have you seen him?”

“I spent a week with him last year,” said Rex, with a little grimace at the memory. “Still,” he hastened to add, “I owe him a lot. It may be if I wasn’t such a lazy slug and didn’t like expensive things, I could live within my income.”

Tab pulled at his pipe in silence. Presently he said:

“There are all sorts of rumors about old Jesse Trasmere. A fellow told me the other day that he is a known miser; keeps his money in the house, which, of course, is a romantic lie.”

“He hasn’t a banking account,” said the other surprisingly, “and I happen to know that he does keep a very large sum of money at Mayfield. The house is built like a prison and it has an underground strongroom which is the strongest room of its kind. I have never seen it, but I have seen him go down to it. Whether or not he sits down and gloats over his pieces of eight, I have never troubled to discover. But it is perfectly true, Tab,” he said earnestly, “he has no banking account. Everything is paid out in cash. I suppose he does have transactions through banks, but I have never heard of them. As to his being a miser,” he hesitated, “well, he is not exactly generous. For example, six months ago, he discovered that the man and his wife who looked after Mayfield, which is a very small house, were in the habit of giving the pieces of food left over to one of their poorer relatives, and he fired them on the spot! When I was there this year, he was shutting up all the rooms in the house except his own bedroom and his dining-room, which he uses also as a study.”

“What does he do for servants?” asked Tab, and the other shook his head.

“He has his valet, Walters, and two women who come in every day, one to cook and one to clean. But for the cook he has built a small kitchen away from the house.”

“He must be a cheerful companion,” said Tab.

“He is not exactly exhilarating. He has a fresh cook every month. I met Walters the other day and he told me that the new cook is the best they’ve had,” admitted the other, and there followed a silent interval of nearly five minutes.

Then Tab got up and knocked the ashes from his pipe.

“She certainly is pretty,” he said, and Rex Lander looked at him suspiciously, for he knew that Tab was not talking about the cook.