My Strangest Case Part 9

"Perhaps you will now be good enough to tell me what that business is?"

I replied, taking my note-book out of a drawer preparatory to writing down what they had to say.

"In the first place, sir," the man began, "we of course understand that everything we have to tell you will be regarded by you as strictly private and confidential?"

"That goes without saying," I replied. "If I were to divulge what my clients tell me, my business would not be worth a day's purchase. You can rest a.s.sured that everything you may impart to me will be treated in strictest confidence."

"We thank you," said Kit.w.a.ter. "The story I have to tell you is perhaps the strangest that has ever been told to mortal man. To begin with, you must understand that my companion and myself have but lately arrived in England. We have been for many years missionaries in China, sowing the good seed in the Western Provinces. I do not know whether you have ever visited that country, but even if you have not you must be aware to some extent of the dangers to which our calling is subjected. We carry our lives in our hands from the moment we leave civilization until we enter it again. There are times, however, that compensate one for all the trials that have to be undergone."

"You must excuse me," I said, "if I remind you that my time is valuable, and that, however interested I may be in the missionary work of China, I cannot allow it to interfere with my business. The sooner you tell me in what way you want me to help you, the sooner I shall be able to give you the answer you are seeking."

"I must implore your pardon," the man continued, humbly enough, "I am afraid our calling, however, is apt to make us a trifle verbose. If you will allow me, I will put what I have to say in as few words as possible."

I bowed and signed to him to proceed.

"Our case is as follows," he began. "As I have told you, we have been in China for several years, and during that time we have had the good fortune to enroll not a few well-known names among our converts. To make a long story short, we were so successful as to be able to persuade even the Mandarin of the Province to listen to our message. He was an enormously rich man, one of the richest perhaps in China, and was so impressed by the good news we brought to him that, on his death-bed, he left to us for the benefit of the mission all his wealth, in gold, silver, and precious stones. It was a princely legacy, and one that would have enabled us to carry on our mission with such success as we had never before dreamed of."

"But if you were so lucky and so much in love with your profession, how does it come about that you are in England now?" I inquired.

"I will tell you why," he answered, leaning towards me and tapping with his fingers upon the edge of my writing-table. "It is a sad story, and the mere telling of it causes me more pain than you would believe. You must understand that at the time of the Mandarin's death an English traveller, who had been pa.s.sing through the Western Provinces, reached our city and took up his abode with us. Needless to say we were overwhelmed with grief at the loss of our patron. The treasure he had presented us with we took to the mission and deposited it in a safe place. We had no suspicion of any sort of treachery. I fear my companion and I are not men of the world, that is to say we do not go about suspecting evil of our neighbours."

"I think I understand," I said. "You brought the treasure home, put it in what you considered a safe place, and one day awoke to find your estimable guest missing and the treasure gone with him. Have I guessed correctly?"

"You have hit the mark exactly," Kit.w.a.ter replied. "We woke one day not only to find the treasure gone, but also ourselves and our mission seriously compromised. The relations of the dead man not only accused us of having alienated him from the faith of his forefathers, but also of having robbed him of his ancestral treasure. We could not but admit that we had been presented with the wealth in question, and when it was demanded of us, we could only explain that we had lost it in our turn.

You can imagine the position for yourself. At the best of times the foreigner is not popular in China, and our situation was particularly unpleasant. Situated as we were in one of the wildest portions of the empire, and accused of the basest sacrilege, that is to say of violating the home of a dead man, we could hope for but small mercy. The man who had robbed us had entirely disappeared and no trace of him could be discovered. To attempt to offer any explanation, or to incriminate him, was out of the question. We could only suffer in silence."

He paused and heaved a heavy sigh.

"And what form did your punishment take?" I inquired, for I was beginning to be interested in their story.

"Can you not see for yourself?" the man answered. "Can you not see that I am blind, while my companion is dumb? That was what they condemned us to. By that man's villainy I am destined never to look upon G.o.d's earth again, while my companion will never be able to converse with his fellow-men, except by signs. We are in the world, yet out of it."

I looked at them both in amazement. Their tale seemed too terrible to be true. And yet I had the best of evidence to show that it was correct.

"And why have you come to me? What do you want me to do? I cannot give you back your sight, nor your friend his power of speech."

"But you can help us to find the man who brought this misery upon us,"

Kit.w.a.ter replied. "That is what we have come to ask of you. He must not be permitted to enjoy the wealth he stole from us. It is sacred to a special duty, and that duty it must perform. We are not overburdened with riches, in fact we are dependent upon the bounty of another, but if you can help us to recover the sum that was stolen from us, we will gladly pay whatever you may ask! We cannot say more than that."

"But this is a most unheard-of request," I said. "How do you know where the man may be at this moment?"

"We do not know, or we should scarcely have asked your a.s.sistance,"

Kit.w.a.ter replied with some show of reason. "It is because we have heard of your wonderful powers in tracing people that we have come to you. Our only cause for attending the trial at which you saw us was to hear the evidence you gave and to draw our own conclusions from it. That those conclusions were complimentary to you, our presence here is evidence of.

We know that we could not put our case in better hands, and we will leave it with you to say whether or not you will help us. As I said just now, my companion is dumb, while I am blind; we cannot do much ourselves. Will you not take pity upon us and help us to find the man who betrayed and ruined us?"

"But he may be at the other end of the world at this moment?" I said.

"That does not matter," he returned. "We know that wherever he may be, you will find him. All we ask you to do is to bring us face to face with him. We will manage the rest. It will be strange then if we are not able to get him to a proper way of thinking."

This was the most unusual case I had had to do with, and for the moment I scarcely knew what to say. I turned to the blind man once more.

"Have you any idea where the man went after he robbed you?"

"He crossed the province of Yunnan into Burmah," he replied. "After that he made his way through Mandalay to Rangoon, and s.h.i.+pped on board the steamer _Jemadar_ for London."

"When did the _Jemadar_ reach London?"

"On the twenty-third of June," he answered. "We have made inquiries upon that point."

I made a note of this and then continued my inquiries.

"One other question," I said. "While we are on the subject, what do you suppose would be the total value of the treasure of which he robbed you?"

"That is very difficult to say," Kit.w.a.ter replied, and then turned to his companion and held out his hand. The other took it and tapped upon the palm with the tips of his fingers in a sort of dot-and-telegraph fas.h.i.+on that I had never seen used before.

"My friend says that there were ninety-three stones, all rubies and sapphires; they were of exquisite l.u.s.tre and extraordinary size.

Possibly they might have been worth anything from a hundred and seventy thousand pounds to a quarter of a million."

I opened my eyes on hearing this. Were the men telling me the truth? I asked myself, or were they trying to interest me in the case by exaggerating the value of the treasure?

"What you say is almost incomprehensible," I continued. "I trust you will forgive me, but can you substantiate what you say?"

"When we say that we are willing to pay your expenses in advance if you will try to find the man, I think we are giving you very good proof of our _bona fides,_" he remarked. "I am afraid we cannot give you any other, seeing as I have said, that we are both poor men. If you are prepared to take up our case, we shall be under a life-long grat.i.tude to you, but if you cannot, we must endeavour to find some one else who will undertake the task."

"It is impossible for me to decide now whether I can take it up or not,"

I said, leaning back in my chair and looking at them both as I spoke. "I must have time to think it over; there are a hundred and one things to be considered before I can give you a direct reply."

There was silence for a few moments, and then Kit.w.a.ter, who had been holding his usual mysterious communications with his friend, said--

"When do you think you will be able to let us have an answer?"

"That depends upon a variety of circ.u.mstances," I replied. "It is a matter difficult to average. In the first place there is no knowing where the man is at present: he may be in London; he may be in America; he may be in any other portion of the globe. It might cost five hundred pounds to find him, it might cost five thousand. You must see for yourselves how uncertain it all is."

"In that case we should be prepared to give security for the first-named amount, or pay you half in advance," Kit.w.a.ter replied. "I hope you do not think, Mr. Fairfax, that we are endeavouring to play you false? You can see for yourself that our injuries are permanent, and, as far as they go, are at least evidence concerning the truth of our story. You can also see for yourself how this man has behaved towards us. He has robbed us of all we hold valuable, and to his act of treachery we owe the mutilations we have suffered. Can you wonder that we are anxious to find him?"

"I do not wonder at that at all," I said. "My only feeling is that I must regard it as an entirely business matter."

"We cannot blame you," Kit.w.a.ter replied. "Yet you must surely understand our anxiety for a definite and immediate answer. The man has had a considerable start of us already, and he has doubtless disposed of the jewels ere this. At whatever price he sold them, he must now be in possession of a considerable fortune, which rightly belongs to us. We are not vindictive men; all we ask is for our own."

"I quite agree with you there," I replied. "The only question in my mind is, who shall get it for you? Let me explain matters a little more clearly. In the first place I have no desire to offend you, but how am I to know that the story you tell me is a true one?"

"I have already told you that you will have to take our word for that,"

he said. "It will be a great disappointment to us if you cannot take the matter up, but we must bear it as we have borne our other misfortunes.

When we realized the way you managed those bank people we said to each other--'That's the man for us! If any one can catch Hayle he's that person.' It naturally comes to us as a disappointment to find that you are not willing to take up the case."

"I have not said that I am not willing," I answered; "I only said that I am not going to commit myself until I have given the matter due consideration. If you will call here at four o'clock to-morrow afternoon, I shall be able to give you a definite answer."

"I suppose we must be content with that," said Kit.w.a.ter lugubriously.