A man walked carelessly through Hyde Park with the air of one who had no destination. He was tall and straight, his shoulders were thrown back, his chin had that upward lift which seems part of the physiognomy of all who have followed a soldier’s career. His face, lean and well-featured, was tanned with the tan of strong suns and keen cold winds, and though the day was chilly and a boisterous breeze swept across the bare spaces of the Park, he wore neither overcoat nor muffler. The upturned moustache and the shaggy eyebrows suggested truculence; the threadbare suit, for all its evidence of pressing and ironing, suggested that he had found patches of life none too productive.
A close examination might have revealed little darns at the extremities of his trousers, for he had a trick of brushing his heels together as he walked--a trick disastrous to garments already enduring more than their normal share of wear.
He walked carelessly, swinging his gold-headed malacca cane--incongruously magnificent--and whistling softly and musically as he moved.
The Park was almost deserted, for it was dusk, and the weather conditions were neither ideal nor inviting. Occasionally the gusty wind bore down a flake or two of snow and the skies overhead were sullen and grey.
He had reached the Ranger’s House before he examined a cheap metal watch, which was affixed to his person by no more pretentious guard than a broad ribbon, bearing a suspicious resemblance to a lady’s shoe-lace.
The watch had stopped--he arrested his progress to wind it, deliberately and with great earnestness. This done, he continued his stroll, bearing down towards the Serpentine.
He stood for a few moments cheerfully contemplating the dreary stretch of water, and three sad water-fowl, which came paddling toward him in the hope of sustenance, paddled away again, sadder than ever, for he offered no greater assistance to life than a cheerful chirrup.
He turned as a sharp footstep came to him from the gravelled path. A girl was walking quickly toward him from the Kensington end of the Park. Something in her face attracted his attention--if ever fear was written in a human countenance it was written in hers. Then, into view round a clump of bushes, came three men. They were small of stature, and it needed no second glance to tell him their nationality, for despite their European dress and their hard Derby hats, they wore their clothes in the négligé style which the Oriental alone can assume.
The girl saw the tall man and came towards him.
“I’m so sorry to trouble,” she said breathlessly, “but these men have been following me for two days--but never so openly----”
She stopped and appeared to be on the verge of tears.
He bowed, a little slyly, and glanced at the three Chinamen, who now stood a dozen paces away, as though uncertain as to what was the next best move.
With a jerk of his head he beckoned them, and after a moment’s consultation they obeyed the gesture.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“No savee,” lisped one of the men. “No savee them pidjin.”
He exchanged a few rapid sentences with his companions and a smile flickered momentarily at the corner of the tall man’s mouth and vanished.
“What for you walkee this piecee lady all same time?” he asked.
Again the sotto-voce conference and the leader of the three shook his head.
“No makee walkee samee time,” he said. “Makee walkee John allee samee, piecee lady no b’long.”
The tall man nodded. He took from his waistcoat pocket a light blue porcelain disc and laid it on the palm of his hand and the three Chinamen walked nearer and examined it. They were puzzled by the demonstration.
“No savee,” said the spokesman.
Captain Talham replaced the button in his pocket.
“Why do you follow this lady, you dogs?” he asked quickly, and the men shrank back, for he spoke in the hissing Cantonese dialect.
“Excellent lord,” said the speaker humbly, “we are magnificent students walking as is our custom in the evening, and we have not the felicity of having seen this gracious and beautiful lady before.”
“You lie,” said the tall man calmly; “for if that were so, why did you say, ‘Let us go away until this pig is out of sight, and then we will follow the woman?’”
The man he addressed was silent.
“Now you shall tell me what you mean,” said Captain Talham and drew from his pocket the sky-blue button, fingering it thoughtfully.
This time the men saw and understood, and, as if at a signal, they bowed low, recognising in the inquisitor a mandarin of the Fourth or Military Class.
“Great mandarin,” said one of the three who had not spoken. “We are servants of others, and it is said that ‘the wise servant is dumb when the bamboo falls and dumb till he dies, when he is dumb for ever.’”
The tall man nodded.
“You shall give me your hong that I may know you,” he said.
After a little hesitation, the man who was evidently the leader, took a little ivory cylinder from his pocket, and unscrewed it so that it came into two equal portions. The cylinder was no larger than a thick pencil and less than two inches long. One half was made up of an inking pad and at the end of the other was a tiny circular stamp.
Captain Talham held out the palm of his hand and the other impressed upon it the tiny Chinese character which stood for his name. One by one his fellows followed suit, though they knew that death might be the result of their disclosure.
The tall man examined the name carefully.
“‘Noble Child,’” he read, “‘Hope of the Spring,’ and ‘Star above the Yamen.’”
He nodded his head.
“You may go,” said he; and with two little jerky bows the men turned and walked quickly in the direction from whence they had come.
He had time now to observe the girl, a grave and bewildered spectator of the scene. She was a little above medium height, and slight. Her hair was bronze-red and her face singularly beautiful. The skin was clear and white--so white as almost to suggest fragility. Her eyes were big and grey, and the two curved eyebrows, so sharp of line as to recall the pencilled brows which the mid-Victorian poet popularised, were dark, and contrasted with the glowing glory of the hair above. The nose was inclined to be retroussé, and the lips were faultless in shape and a warm red.
She presented the effect which the beautifiers of the world strive to attain, yet fail, for here nature had, in some mysterious fashion, blended all colourings in a harmony. She was well dressed, expensively so. Her simple gown suggested the studied simplicity which has made one Paris house famous the world over; and there was luxury in the furs about her throat and in the huge muff which was suspended with one hand.
“I don’t know how to thank you,” she began; and indeed she was in some embarrassment, for whilst he was obviously a gentleman, he was as obviously a very poor gentleman.
He smiled and there was good comradeship and the ease which begets friendship in the brief glimpse of even white teeth.
“In this world,” he said, with no apparent effort at oratory, “existence is made tolerable by opportunity, and no aspect of opportunity is so coveted as that which afforded a gentleman to secure the safety, the peace of mind, or the happiness of a lady.”
It was oratorical all right: there could be no doubt as to that, but there was no effort, no shaming after effect, no labour of delivery. He was neither self-conscious nor ponderously pleasant, but the periods marched forth in an ordered stream of words, punctuated in the process, so it seemed, by some invisible grammarian.
She flashed a dazzling smile at him which was partly thanks for her relief, partly amusement at his speech. The smile died as suddenly because of her amusement and her fear that he would realise why she smiled. (As to that she need not have worried, for Ted Talham had no fear of appearing ridiculous.)
“Perhaps you would allow me to see you safely from this place,” he said courteously. “Civilisation has its dangers--dangers as multitudinous and as primitive as the wilds may hold for the innocent and the beautiful.”
She flushed a little, but he was so obviously sincere, and so free from pretension, that she could not be offended.
“They have been following me for days,” she replied. “At first I thought it was a coincidence, but now I see that there was no reason for their dogging my movements.”
He nodded, and they walked on in silence for a while, then:
“Are you associated with China in any way?” he asked suddenly.
She smiled and shook her head.
“I have never been to China,” she said, “and know very little about the country.”
Again a silence.
“You have friends associated with China?” he persisted, and saw a little frown of annoyance gather on her forehead.
“My mother--that is to say, my stepmother has,” she said shortly.
He curled his moustache thoughtfully. She noted with an odd feeling in which pleasure and annoyance were mixed, that he was very much “the old friend of the family.” It was not exactly what he said, or the tone he adopted. It was an indefinable something which was neither patronage nor familiarity. It was Talham’s way, as she was to discover, to come with pleasant violence into lives and be no more and no less in place than they who had won their positions in esteem and confidence through arduous years of service.
“Perhaps your mother’s friends have given you something Chinese which these men want?” he suggested, and again saw the frown. Somehow he knew that it did not indicate hostility to, or annoyance with, himself.
“I have a bangle,” she said; “but I do not wear it.”
She stopped, opened a silver bag she carried on her wrist, and took out a small jade bracelet. It was set about at intervals by tiny bands of gold.
“May I see it?”
She passed it to him. They were nearing Marble Arch, and she had insensibly slackened her pace. Now they both stopped whilst he examined the ornament. He scrutinised it carefully. Between each band was an inscription, half obliterated by wear.
“This bangle is two thousand years old,” he said simply, and she gasped.
“Two thousand!” she repeated incredulously.
“Two thousand,” he repeated. “This is quite valuable.”
“I know,” she said shortly.
He detected something of resentment in her tone.
“What do those characters mean?” she asked. “Is it something I shouldn’t know?” she asked quickly.
She looked up at his face. There was a dull flush on his face and a strange light in his eyes.
He fingered the jade bracelet absently.
“There is nothing you should not know,” he said briefly--for him. “There is much that I have wanted to know for years.”
She was puzzled, and showed it.
“Listen,” he said, and read, turning the bracelet slowly as he read:
“I am Shun the son of the great mechanic Chu-Shun upon whom the door fell when the Emperor passed. This my father told me before the day, fearing the treachery of the eunuchs. Behold the pelican on the left wall with the bronze neck… afterwards the spirit steps of jade… afterwards river of silver, afterwards… door of bronze. Here Emperor… behind a great room filled with most precious treasures.”
He read it twice, then handed the bracelet to the girl. She looked at him for the space of a minute. Here, in the heart of prosaic London, with the dull roar of the traffic coming to them gustily across the sparse herbage of a most commonplace park, Shun the son of Chu-Shun spoke across the gulf of twenty centuries.
“It is very wonderful,” she said, and looked at the bracelet.
“I think you had better let me keep this bracelet,” he said; “at any rate for a while. I beg you to believe”--he raised his hand solemnly--“that I consider only your own safety, and I am moved to the suggestion by the knowledge that you attach no sentimental value to the ornament, that it was given to you by somebody whom your mother likes, but who is repugnant to you, and that you only wear it in order to save yourself the discomfort and exasperation of a daily argument with your parent.”
She stared at him in open-eyed amazement.
“How--how did you know that?” she asked.
“You carry it in your bag. You frowned when you took it out to show me,” he said cheerfully. “You carry it in your bag only because you must keep it by you in order to slip it on and off when you are out of somebody’s sight. If it were your fiancé, you would either wear it or leave it at home--engaged people clear up their differences as they go along. Evidently you are a lady of strong character, strong enough to respect the foibles or the demands of your elders. Therefore it must be your father or your mother; and since fathers are naturally indignant and notoriously unsentimental, I cannot imagine that he would insist----”
“Thank you,” she said hurriedly. “Will you keep the bracelet for me, and return it at your leisure to this address?”
She extracted a card from her bag, and he looked at it and read:
Miss Yvonne Yale.
406, Upper Curzon Street, S.W.
“Yvonne,” he read gravely. “I’ve never known anybody named Yvonne.”
He put the bracelet in his inside pocket, and buttoned the worn coat again.
“I have no card,” he said. “I am Captain Ted Talham of the Victorian Mounted Infantry, of the Bechuanaland Mounted Police, of the Imperial Bushmen, and I am, in addition, a general in the army of the Dowager Empress of China, a mandarin of the Fourth Class, and a wearer of the Sun of Heaven and the Imperial Dragon Orders.”
He recited this with all gravity. There was no glint of humour in his eyes. The girl checked her smile when she realised how serious this good-looking man was. There was pride in the recital of his dignities: it was a very important matter that he should be Captain of Irregular Horse, and as tremendous a happening that he should wear the decorations of the Manchu dynasty.
She held out her hand.
“I am sure my mother will be glad to meet you,” she said, “and as for myself I cannot tell you how grateful I am that you should have been so providentially at hand this afternoon.”
He bowed, a ceremonious and correct little bow.
“That is the luck of the game,” he said.
There was an awkward pause. He was so evidently trying to say something more.
“I think it is right, and it is my duty,” he said at last, “to point out to you the very significant fact that so far I have not offered you my address. This,” he went on oracularly, “is all the more significant and alarming when I tell you that the intrinsic value of the bangle”--he tapped his pocket--“is anything from fifteen hundred to twenty-five hundred pounds.”
“Impossible!” said the startled girl.
It was altogether an amazing afternoon.
He nodded.
“Possibly the latter figure,” he said. “Let the fact sink into your mind, and add to it the alarming intelligence that I have no address, and I have no address because I have exactly three yen in unchangeable Chinese silver between myself and the ravening world.”
A wave of pity surged over the girl, and there were tears in her eyes--tears that sprang most unexpectedly from unsuspected wells of sympathy.
She fumbled in her bag, but he stopped her.
“I beg of you,” he said reproachfully. “If you can’t trust me with two thousand pounds’ worth of jade, believe me, I can trust you with my secret, and a secret is only existent just so long as either of the two parties affected do nothing overtly or covertly to destroy the basic foundation upon which it rests. My secret is momentary penury--remove that and the secret ceases to be.”
He would have said more, but checked himself.
“In fact,” he concluded, “if you offer me money, I shall offer you your jade bangle, and there will be the end of the matter.”
She was laughing now--her eyes danced with merriment.
There was something amusing in the situation. This seedy gentleman with his unchangeable yen, his problematical dinner and bed, with two thousand pounds in his inside pocket, appealed to her sense of the grotesque. If young De Costa knew! Young change-counting, bill-checking, tipless De Costa, who had given her two thousand pounds in the innocence of his heart.
“Promise me that you will call?” she asked laughingly, “with or without the bangle.”
“With the bangle,” he said. “To-night I shall make it very clear to the ‘Noble Child,’ ‘Hope of the Spring,’ and ‘Star of the Yamen’ that the bracelet has passed to my possession and that henceforward if they wish to follow its wearer they must follow me.”
He shook hands again, lifted his hat, and turning abruptly, left her.
