“Is, has or is trying to?”
Mr. Cayterer took his cigar from his mouth, and, turning it in his hand, studied it without visible satisfaction. The cigar was, I perceived, burning quite crookedly, a detail not without its significance.
“Well, he’s got two nails in me and his hammer’s up over the third.”
“So. Suppose we take a look at the couple you’ve got.”
“We’ll get around to that, Thin, Do you know anything about China? About Chinese affairs today?”
“Only that all those dinguses they sell in Chinatown don’t come from there.”
“That’s something to know,” the promoter replied gravely, and frowned again at his unevenly lighted cigar.
Clasping my hands in my lap, I repressed my impatience, my impulse to fidget. No one who had read, in The Jongleur, my appreciation of Danko’s poems could have accused me of being without sympathy for the primitive; hut I felt, none the less, listening to the casual metaphors, the jocular irrelevancies, with which Papa and Mr. Cayterer skirted around whatever business had brought us here, that these circumlocutions, these survivals of Indian council fire and bushman community hut, might well have been dispensed with in favor of modem conciseness and clarity.
“China’s got a central government,” the promoter approached the point of our conference at last, “but it doesn’t mean anything. Maybe tomorrow there’ll be a new president, dictator, emperor. It doesn’t make much difference if there is, or which. What power there is is in the hands of the tuchuns — the governors of the provinces. A real central government will come when one of the tuchuns is big enough to buy in or beat out the other tuchuns. I think I know who’ll be that one — and that’s what got me into this.
“Never mind his name, but he — this special tuchun — and I are old friends. We’ve done business together in the past and, what’s more, made a profit at it. Now look! The U.S. is the U.S., and China is China, but politics is politics and people are people. The leading candidates for the job of running China just now are Chang Tso-lin and Feng Yu-hsian, with a few weaker ones trailing them. They’ve been making their plays for some time, and they’ve got themselves nicely balanced. One wins here, the other wins there. Neither is strong enough to push the other out of the way — a stand-off.
“That sounds familiar, huh? Sounds like a good American presidential convention, doesn’t it? Well, what happens here when a couple of candidates get themselves balanced like that? I’ll tell you what happens. Somebody you haven’t thought of, but who has been doing some thinking on his own account, breaks loose and grabs the job. Well, the dark horse tuchun in this case is my friend. It’s a gamble. He’s got a good chance of putting it across, but he needs backing, good round dollars. If he wins there’ll be concessions — mines and maybe some oil. If he loses there’ll be nothing. It’s a plain gamble — put up your money and take your chances. But it’s a good gamble because I know my man and he’s on the level.
“I didn’t have the money to swing the deal by myself, and wouldn’t if I could. I’m a little bit too old to plunge into anything up to the hilt. So I formed a syndicate, took in four others who don’t mind risking something on a likely game. So each of us put up his share, and the money was waiting to be shipped to China — and then came the first nail.”
From a drawer of his desk Mr. Cayterer took a small white envelope which he handed to Papa. Standing up, I looked at it over Papa’s shoulder. It bore a Japanese stamp and a Kobe postmark, and was addressed in a somewhat heavy though irregular hand:
Hopkins F. Cayterer, Esq.,
1021 Seaman’s Bank Building,
San Francisco, Calif., U.S.A.
The letter it enclosed, in the same handwriting, read:
My dear Mr. Cayterer —
By the best of tuck I find myself in a position to be of great assistance to you. It is a near thing, but if you act quickly I can keep your arrangements with the Honorable K. from coming to the attention of the press.
The New York draft should be made payable to my order, but should be sent to Mr. B. J. Randall, General Delivery, Los Angeles, California. — This letter should be in your Hands by the tenth of the month and the draft should reach Mr. Randall by the fifteenth at the very latest. Trusting that you will not endanger your Asiatic plans by incautious actions, I am,
Most respectfully yours,
P. S. Ten thousand dollars will be sufficient. T.
“So.” Papa rolled the cigar in his mouth and laid the letter on the desk. “Know him?”
“Never heard of him before.” And then Mr. Cayterer said a most astounding thing: “I sent him the ten thousand.”
Papa expressed his astonishment in three words that I need not repeat here. My own amazement was fully as great as my parent’s; it seemed preposterous that a man of Mr. Cayterer’s caliber should have submitted to so brazen a demand.
“You see he’s got me,” Mr. Cayterer defended his folly. “Maybe he doesn’t really know anything, is just guessing. It’s a cinch he can’t prove anything. But that’s no good. One hint and the game’s up. The State Department wouldn’t do a thing to me if they got wise! And then there are the rival tuchuns, the Japanese, the Russians and British, and even my man’s own supporters. They would all pile on him like a ton of bricks if they smelled the game before he’s ready to pull the trigger.
“If he wins we won’t have to worry about what howling these parties do. The gravy will be ours, and they can yap their heads off for all the good it’ll do them. But a suspicion now would ruin us. What else could I do? Paying hush money is foolish, but there I am: millions in it if we win and three lines in a newspaper can beat us. What else could I do but send this Throgmorton his money and hope he’d go on a spree on it and get his throat cut?”
“Didn’t you even try to get hold of these birds?” Papa asked, face and voice indicating clearly how little he valued the promoter’s defense.
“Yes, I tried, but it did me little enough good. I sent word to China to have the Japanese end looked to, and I’ve had Randall hunted for in Los Angeles, but with no luck. Not being able to go to the Post Office Department for help crippled us. Then I heard from them the second time.”
He produced another letter, similar to the first, in which Throgmorton thanked him for the draft, declined his invitation to a conference, suggested that in the interests of secrecy Mr. Cayterer’s agents had better stop their inquiries into his (Throgmorton’s) affairs, declared that several unforeseen matters had arisen to make necessary the expenditure of an additional twenty-five thousand dollars, and instructed Mr. Cayterer to send a draft for that amount to B. J. Randall, General Delivery, Portland, Oregon.
“And you?” Papa asked.
“Sent it.”
“So. Now what do your partners — the other members of your syndicate — think of your generosity?”
“They” — there was an odd reluctance in the promoter’s voice and he was staring at a distant chair — “know nothing about these letters, yet. Have you noticed anything... anything peculiar about the letters?”
“American paper, but that proves nothing.”
“The handwriting—” Mr. Cayterer stopped watching the distant chair and looked at Papa and at me with the eyes of an orator who is about to startle his audience. “The handwriting is mine.”
To that I said, nothing, while Papa said, “So.”
“It is. Not exactly mine, you understand, but — well, it’s about like mine would be if I tried to disguise it and didn’t make too good a job of it.”
“And that’s why you didn’t show it to the others?”
“Yes, or that’s one of the reasons. They might have thought I was trying to put something over on them. But I would have been tempted to pocket the loss and keep quiet anyway. A couple of the members of the syndicate could be frightened out easily enough.”