The Ragged Edge Part 9

"But what is it?"

"An American university. Now, I'll be getting along. Give him his medicine every half hour. Keep his arms down. I'll have my man Wu over here as soon as I can get in touch with him. We'll get this chap on his feet if only to learn what the trouble is."

Downstairs he sought the hotel manager.

"Can you pull him through?" was the anxious question.

"Hope to. The next few hours will tell. But it's an odd case. His name is Taber?"

"Howard Taber."

"Confidentially, I'm a.s.sured that he has another."

"What gives you that idea?"

"Well, we could find no letter of credit, no letters, no labels in his clothes--not a single clew to his real ident.i.ty. And stony broke."

"Not quite," replied the manager. "He left an envelope with some money in it. Perhaps I'd better open it now." The envelope contained exactly five hundred dollars. "How long will he be laid up?"

"Three or four weeks, if he doesn't peg out during the night."

The manager began some computations. "There won't be much left for you," he said.

"That's usual. There never is much left for me. But I'm not worrying about that. The thing is to get the patient on his feet.

He may have resources of which we know nothing," the doctor added optimistically.

"But, I say, that girl is a queer one."

"I shouldn't call her queer. She's fine. She'll be mighty interesting to watch."

"For an old bachelor?"

"A human old bachelor. Has she any funds?"

"She must have. She's headed for America. Of course, I don't believe she's what you would call flush. But I'll take care of her bill, if worst comes to worst. Evidently her foresight has saved me a funeral. I'll remember that. But "fine" is the word. How the deuce, though, am I going to account for her? People will be asking questions when they see her; and if I tell the truth, they'll start to snubbing her. You understand what I mean. I don't want her hurt.

But we've got to cook up some kind of a story to protect her."

"I hadn't thought of that. It wouldn't do to say that she was from the hospital. She's too pretty and unusual. Besides, I'm afraid her simple honesty will spoil any invented yarn. When anybody is natural, these days, we dub them queer. The contact is disturbing; and we prefer going around the fact to facing it. Aren't we funny?

And just as I was beginning to lose faith in human beings, to have someone like this come along! It is almost as if she were acting a role, and she isn't. I'll talk to her in the morning, but she won't understand what I'm driving at. Born on a South Sea island, she said."

"Ah! Now I can get a perspective. This is her first adventure. She isn't used to cities."

"But how in the Lord's name was she brought up? There's a queer story back of this somewhere."

The manager extended his hands at large, as if to deny any responsibility in the affair. "Never heard of a sing-song girl; never heard of a geisha! Flower of the Lotus: the sing-song girl called her that."

"The White Hollyhock would fit her better. There is something sensual in the thought of lotus flowers. Hollyhocks make one think of a bright June Sunday and the way to church!"

"Do you suppose that young fool has done anything?"

The doctor shrugged. "I don't know. I shouldn't care to express an opinion. I ought to stay the night through; but I'm late now for an operation at the hospital. Good night."

He departed, musing. How plainly he could see the patch of garden in the summer suns.h.i.+ne and the white hollyhocks nodding above the picket fence!

Ruth sat waiting for the half hour, subconsciously. Her thoughts were busy with the possibilities of this break in her journey.

Somebody to depend upon her; somebody to have need of her, if only for a little while. In all her life no living thing had had to depend upon her, not even a dog or a cat. All other things were without weight or consequence before the fact that this poor young man would have to depend upon her for his life. The amazing tonic of the thought!

From time to time she laid her hand upon Spurlock's forehead: it was still cold. But the rise of the chest was quite perceptible now.

From where had he come, and why? An author! To her he would be no less interesting because he was unsuccessful. Stories ... love stories: and to-morrow she would know the joy of reading them! It was almost unbelievable; it was too good to be true. It filled her with indefinable fear. Until now none of her prayers had ever been answered. Why should G.o.d give particular attention to such a prayer, when He had ignored all others? Certainly there was a trap somewhere.

So, while she watched, distressed and bewildered by her tumbling thoughts, the packet, Canton bound, ruffled the placid waters of the Pearl River. In one of the cabins a man sat on the edge of his narrow bunk. In his muscular pudgy hand was a photograph, frayed at the corners, soiled from the contact of many hands: the portrait of a youth of eighteen.

The man was thick set, with a bright roving eye. The blue jaws suggested courage and tenacity. It was not a hard face, but it was resolute. As he balanced the photograph, a humorous twinkle came into his eyes.

Pure luck! If the boy had grown a moustache or a beard, a needle in the haystack would have been soft work. To stumble upon the trail through the agency of a bottle of whisky! Drank queer; so his bottle had rendered him conspicuous. And now, only twenty-four hours behind him ... that is, if he wasn't paddling by on the return route to Hong-Kong or had dropped down to Macao. But that possibility had been antic.i.p.ated. He would have to return to Hong-Kong; and his trail would be picked up the moment he set foot on the Praya.

Pure luck! But for that bottle of whisky, n.o.body in the Hong-Kong Hotel would have been able to identify the photograph; and at this hour James Boyle O'Higgins would have been on the way to Yokohama, and the trail lost for ever.

Ho-hum!

CHAPTER IX

The Hong-Kong packet lay alongside the warehouse frontage. Ah c.u.m patrolled the length of the boat innumerable times, but never letting his glance stray far from the gangplank. This was automatically rather than thoughtfully done; habit. His mind was busy with a resume of yesterday's unusual events.

The young man desperately ill and the girl taking care of him! Of course, there could be only one ending to such a bout with liquor, and that ending had come perhaps suddenly but not surprisingly. But the girl stood outside the circle of Ah c.u.m's knowledge--rather profound--of human impulses. Somehow logic could not explain her.

Why should she trouble herself over that young fool, who was nothing to her; who, when he eventually sobered up, would not be able to recognize her, or if he did, as something phantasmagorical?

Perhaps he should not apply the term "fool"; "unfortunate" might be the more accurate application. Besides, he was a Yale man. He might be unfortunate, but he would scarcely be a fool. The Yale spirit!

Ah c.u.m smiled whimsically. After fifteen years, to find that peculiarly Occidental attribute--college loyalty--still alive in his heart! A Western idea that had survived; an idea that was merely the flower of youthful enthusiasm!

With his hands still in his sleeves, his chin down in speculation over this phenomenon, he continued his patrol.

"Hey, you!"

Ah c.u.m stopped and turned. Framed in one of the square ports of the packet was a face which reminded Ah c.u.m of a j.a.panese theatrical mask. One side of the face was white with foamy lather and the other ruddy-cheeked and blue-jawed.

"Speak English?" boomed the voice.

"Yes; I speak English."

"Fine! I'll be wanting a guide. Where can I get one?" asked O'Higgins.

"I am one."