When I awakened the next morning, Harlan was already dressed and reclining in an easy chair. His eyes were closed wearily, as though he had not yet had enough sleep.
“Morning, Ware,” I called. “How’s the head?”
“Glad you’re awake, Andrews,” he replied. “I am bad company for myself this morning, On top of knowing that I made a damned ass of myself last night, I’ve had a most horrible nightmare that hangs on like a leech. Can’t seem to shake it off, even now when I’m wide awake. Serves me right, of course, after what I did last night. What do you suppose possessed me, Andy?
Can’t excuse myself on so few drinks. And that hellish dream! Got to tell it to you, Andrews, even though it’s silly as the deuce; then maybe I can forget it.”
He glanced up shamefacedly to see if I was listening as he continued: “The whole thing started out of a great glare of light that almost blinded me at first and which I realized afterwards was the headlights of a car. A speeding car, coming toward me, which for no reason filled me with great glee. Then I became conscious that it was Pat’s car, and there was Pat speeding toward me—toward all of us, as fast as she could. She was coming to the party, of course. As I ran down the long, dark road to meet her, waving my arms and shouting greetings, I saw something white in the seat beside her. Then, as the car drew nearer, it became—that thing in there!” He nodded toward the studio, as he covered his eyes.
“Then I could see Pat’s face, and it was no longer smiling as she grappled desperately with the thing that had its long, bony hands on the steering wheel and was turning it against Pat’s strength toward the steep, dark embankment at one side of the road. Terror-stricken, I tried to run to help her, but I couldn’t move an inch! You can’t imagine the horror that gripped me as I stood there in, the dark road, unable to move, while that thing battled with Pat over the wheel, swerving the speeding car dangerously from side to side of the road, getting nearer and nearer the embankment until, with a great crash of broken glass and a shriek from Pat, they plunged over into the darkness below. Then I woke up.
The Specter at the Feast chapter 3
But it is strange how intimacies and friendships are forgotten like dreams when they are no longer part of us. After a few months, the studio seemed quite the same, and most of the boys with the exception of Bob and myself could come into the room without a quick look to that corner and its ever-present reminder.
Pat stayed in Europe longer than we had expected, and it was almost a year after Novello’s death that I heard from her at home. She phoned that she was driving in from Long Island where she lived, and would drop by school for me at luncheon time if I wanted her to. Of course, I would be delighted to see her, and then I remembered too, the thing I must tell her.
I was waiting for Pat at the door when she drove up. We lunched at a little tea room around the corner and Pat had six escorts instead of one. For the rest of the students coming out at lunch time had recognized her car and insisted on joining us. Pat seemed quite her merry self again. I wondered how I would warn her about the thing in the studio for I feared she might return there with us and get a bad shock.
On the way back, I insisted upon walking alone with Pat. Sympathetically as I had hoped to put it, I fear I was very blunt. Her eyes filled with tears, but she pressed my hand and said: “Thanks, Andy, a lot, I understand.” As the rest of the group came up, she raised her head, smiled quickly and I don’t think they could have noticed any difference in her manner. She chatted gaily at the door, but refused to come up to the studio, pleading that she had other engagements and must hurry away.
WAS putting her in the roadster when Harlan
Ware, who had just heard of Pat’s return, came down. He rushed over to take her hands. At that moment, I felt sorry for him, for I knew he had missed Pat terribly. He pleaded to join her for a little spin, that they might talk, and they drove away together.
We saw Pat quite a lot during the next few weeks at luncheons and parties. But she never came back to the studio, although Harlan tried to persuade her several times, saying her refusal was “blamed nonsense.”
It was the second week in June, and the class was already in a flutter of anticipation about the annual class banquet set for the last Thursday of the month. This event always caused considerable excitement among us, for it was held in the studio and only for class members. There was something about coming back to a familiar scene of toil in holiday attire and bent only on pleasure that lent an atmosphere to the evening.
Two days before the party, Harlan Ware announced that Pat had consented to attend with him. We were surprised at her final decision but we were enthusiastic about it, for we had missed her and we remembered what a big part she had been of the two previous annuals.
Well, the evening had finally arrived, after a lackadaisical day at school, during which little work had been done while we gathered in groups and chattered about the possibilities of the evening.
Most of the gang had come early and in high spirits. “Chubby” Collins had started off the evening with his three impersonations, rendered to shouts of laughter although the crowd had seen them many times. Pretty Maybelle Fenton was ensconced becomingly in the window seat, strumming a uke, while four of the boys hovered over her, harmonizing extravagantly on moonlight melodies. There was little Sally Folsom, a la John Held, Jr., perched atop the piano, with a cigarette in one hand and a cocktail in the other. Clever little girl, Sally, but you had to watch her drinks.
Someone had suggested dancing, and after a few turns I had gone downstairs with a couple of the boys for a smoke. When I came back, I saw Bob making the rounds as though looking for someone, and I went over to join him.
“Haven’t seen Pat and Harlan, have you?” he asked. I looked at my watch and was surprised to find it was almost eleven o’clock. And no sign of Harlan and Pat! We made inquiries from some of the rest, but no one had seen Harlan since school hours when he had promised to be there early and “with a pink ribbon in his hair.” He had confided to a few of the boys that he meant to ask Pat a very important question that night and had gone home in a high mood.
The dancing and hilarity had lulled for a while and capable Betty Lindsey was busying herself with seating arrangements at the table when Harlan walked in alone.
Two of the girls ran up, to ask excitedly what he had done with his charge. He replied shortly: “Pat had a headache. Didn’t feel she should come.” His voice was calm, but his face was flushed and I knew he was furiously angry at what he called Pat’s “blamed nonsense.” Angry and jealous—of a memory!
“Chubby” mixed him a drink, then commandeering Les Corbin for a steed, he rode up in state to deliver it. Harlan laughed at this and seemed to be regaining his composure, but he became sullen again at the table. I sat opposite him and noticed that he was punishing the wine steadily. He had already had enough to make him drop the mask of amused interest he had worn earlier at supper, and he no longer laughed at the clever things little Sally Folsom on his left cooed in his ear. He was scowling fiercely in the direction of the corner. I realized this with a shock. I don’t think anyone else had noticed it, for there was much gaiety and laughter about the table.
Then suddenly he rose, strode over to the corner, took the poor thing of bones down, carried it back and say it in a chair at the head of the table. It was all done so quickly that some of the crowd had not seen it until it was seated there. Three of the girls shrieked and ran from the table. It did look grotesque—this grinning, ghastly thing at the head of a banquet table, with a bony hand at either side of its plate.
I pushed back my chair and stared at Harlan, wondering if he had suddenly gone mad, There was a diabolical expression of vengeance and jealousy in his bloodshot eyes and his mouth was twisted cruelly. He was pouring drinks for those nearest him, for himself, and for the thing of bones! With a gesture, he raised his glass to the stark jaws, and adding to the already incredibly gruesome scene, he began in a voice that seemed to choke and rattle deep down in his throat:
“Look at him, fellows! My lucky rival! Drink, drink to him, boys! He wins—with a heart turned to dust! Damn you, Novello! I tried to bring her here tonight—to show her how you’ve changed. You haven’t, to her—that’s the way with women—they shut their eyes to see! Damn your grinning pack of bones! Why don’t you laugh ? Laugh aloud ! You’ve beaten me, haven’t you ? You win! You win, damn you ! Here’s—here’s— to you !” He finished brokenly, as he picked up the wine he had poured for the thing and flung it through the grinning teeth. Then with one movement he gulped his own drink and fell back sobbing in his chair, his head in his arms on the table.
Then “Chubby” strolled back into the studio and slammed the door.
I got up to follow him, but Harlan stopped me at the door. “Stay with me, won’t you, Andrews?” He shuddered, He was sitting on the edge of the couch, digging his fingers through his hair. He did look done-up, poor devil.
“All right,” I replied. “Turn in. I’ll be with you in a minute.”
I stepped into the studio, but everybody had gone—even “Chubby,” with whom I had wanted to have a few words. How deserted the place looked! I certainly wasn’t going to linger long here. I lighted a cigarette and sat down at the far end of the room, with my back to the table for a few quick puffs.
When I had finished smoking-, I walked over to the wall switch near the door to turn out the lights. Might as well leave things as they were until morning, I thought. I’ll go to bed now.
I turned the switch, the lights went out and my heart almost stopped beating! Good God, what was that fluttering, reddish glow behind me, over my shoulder! I was paralyzed for the moment and afraid to turn around, for I remembered too well the thing sitting at the table. Suppose those tales one heard were true? Suppose poor Novello’s spirit——Well, I couldn’t stand here all night. Slowly, half leaning against the door, I turned to look. Boy, what a relief! With a sigh and a little chuckle, I relaxed against the door. A good laugh for the fellows tomorrow. What an old woman I was getting to be. Afraid of my own shadow— might as well be that way, as to be afraid of the glow of a few almost burned-out candles sputtering in a dark room. The candles on the table, of course. I’d forgotten all about them.
I opened my eyes and looked again. I stared—for I was fascinated by the gruesome beauty of that fantastic scene. The flicker of almost exhausted candles casting an eerie, wavering light on the deserted banquet table in the great dark studio—the only remaining guest, that thing of bones at the head of the table. That grinning, ghastly thing with its unearthly expression of misery and mockery. Little lights and shadows that chased themselves across the hideous face and almost made it seem animated—
Maybe I was going mad, standing here staring so long at that thing—I made an effort to pull myself together, walked quickly to the table, extinguished the candles and went in to rejoin
Harlan,
The Specter at the Feast chapter 1
Aquoted Bob Sanderson, as we stood LAS, poor Yorick. I knew him well,”
with a group of fellow students gazing at the grinning ghastly thing of bones. It had arrived at the studio that morning and was already mounted in its corner terribly still, it stood, and with an air of serene dignity. But it might have shrieked through its clenched teeth, so compelling was its presence.
I sought the eyes desperately as a man does when he is shaken and needs assurance or understanding. Empty sockets! Unbelievable that inert cavities could hold such an expression of sardonic misery! I cringed before them. Eyes that were more hideous for not being there at all!
And there was that incongruous, eternal grin that seemed to say: “Look at me. Once I was like you, fellows. Once I could join in your merry banter and gossip o’ mornings. I, too, stood working before a clay figure, pressing, molding, making beauty with my hands. Poor mortal hands that found courage to fashion imperishable things, when they themselves must come to this decay. Andrews, my pal and confidant, why do you stare at them so? Why don’t you clasp them as you used to in your morning greeting?”
I stepped forward under the spell of an anguished memory to grasp those fearful, bony joints and recoiled, chilled with horror.
“But why?” The relentless grin seemed to say when I looked up again. “They used to warm your heart and set your day right.
Yours, too, will be like this, some day——”
Involuntarily, I looked at my own hands and shuddered.
“Andy!” A voice startled me, soft-spoken as
it had been, and I turned to Bob, who had called me. He, too, had stood staring a long moment, after quoting the Melancholy Dane, and as I looked into his darkened eyes under the familiar scowl, I knew he had meant no derision.
“Come away, old fellow,” he said. “This- this thing is getting us. Mustn’t be maudlin, but damned if I want any work and its consequent study of anatomy to make me as cold-blooded as some of the fellows here.
“Did you hear them jesting’ and making clever, derisive quips about life, inspired by that poor thing? Damn it, Andy, I knew that men of science, doctors, sculptors and the rest, get so familiar with our mortal machines that they have no illusions about the so-called souls that go with them. Atheists in their hearts, to the last man! It’s not for me to say whether that’s a blind spot from too much looking; but until they’re able to give me better proof of where consciousness goes when it leaves the body even temporarily, I’ll be
on the fence—with a periscope.”
Pell Street Blues chapter 7
LEISURELY, from his loose sleeve, the
Manchu drew a paper—the paper which a few months earlier, Foh Wong had signed on the editor’s request—and which Yang Shen-Li now read aloud:
“Herewith, for the sum of five thousand dollars, I employ Kang Kee to kill my wife—”
Foh Wong grew pale. He stared at the Manchu, who stared back. There was in their eyes the old hate that had never weakened. Alone they were with this searing, choking hate. The outer world and its noises seemed very far away. There was just a memory of street cries lifting their lean, starved arms; just a memory of river wind chasing the night clouds that clawed at the moon with cool, slim fingers of silver and white.
Then the Manchu spoke:
“If I lose my head, you lose yours. Only—I am not afraid of losing mine, being a brave man, an iron-capped prince; whereas you, O coolie, are—” “A coward,” the other said dully.
“Precisely. But brave man and coward shall be united in death. Together our souls shall jump the dragon gate.” Yang Shen-Li turned toward the door. “I shall now go to the police of the coarsehaired barbarians, and—”
“Wait!”
“Yes?”
Unconsciously, Foh Wong used the words which, decades ago, in Ninguta, the Manchu had used:
“Is there a price for your silence?”
“There is.”
“How much?”
“Everything,” announced the Manchu, sitting down, slipping a little fan from his sleeve and opening it slowly. . . .
He had not arrived tonight, he related, but twenty-four hours earlier. He had spent the time with Yung Tang, talking over the whole matter with him, and making certain arrangements. For instance, bribing a Chinese doctor who would certify that Foh Wong had died—of heart failure.
“You,” the merchant whispered, “you mean to—”
“Kill you? Not at all. Did I not tell you there is a price for my silence? And would your life be the
price? No, no! Your life is sacred to me.”
“Then?”
“Listen!” Yang Shen-Li went on to explain that, with the help of the physician’s certificate, Na Liu would be buried as Foh Wong, while it would be given out that she had gone to China on a lengthy visit. “Clever—don’t you think?” he smiled.
“But what will happen to me? How, if I’m supposed to be dead and buried, can I show my face?”
“You can’t,” said the Manchu grimly. “You will live in the garret of your house until death—may it not be for many years! You will see nobody— except me. You will speak to nobody—except to me. Nobody will know that you are among the living—nobody except me and Yung Tang. This shall be a bond between you and me. The moment
you break it, I shall go to the police and—”
“But my business—my money—”
“I shall look after it. For before—shall I say?— your death, you shall have made a will—you are going to sign it presently—making me trustee of your estate for your absent wife. You will leave her your whole fortune—all, that is, save eighteen thousand dollars—make it thirty-eight thousand— which you will leave to Yung Tang. . . . Hayah!”— as the other began to plead and argue. “Be quiet, coolie! For today I command—and you will obey!”
AND thus it is Foh Wong is cooped up in the sweltering garret of his Pell Street house, with the door locked and the windows tightly shuttered, and an agony of fear forever stewing in his brain. It is thus that Yang Shen-Li is lording it gloriously over Foh Wong’s clerks, spending Foh Wong’s money recklessly; and in the evening, after a pleasant hour or two at the Azure Dragon Club, mounting to the second floor, bowing courteously to his wrinkled old wife and asking her:
“Moonbeam, was there ever love as staunch as ours?”
Always she gives a quaint, giggling, girlish little laugh. And at times, hearing the echo of it, Foh Wong wonders—then forgets his wonder in his fear.
Pell Street Blues Chapter 5
WHENEVER he thought of Si-Si, which was often, he beat his wife. And one day, at the Azure Dragon Club, stretched out on a mat, between them a table with opium-lamps, pipes and needles and ivory and horn boxes neatly arranged, he complained of his fate to Yung Tang, who inclined his head and spoke sententiously:
“Women are useless unless they be the mothers of our children.”
“That is so.”
“My own wife drinks—too much. She talks— too much. She spends—too much. But she has given birth to a daughter and three sons. Ah”— while with agile fingers he kneaded the brown poppy cube which the flame gradually changed to amber and gold—“better a drunken, nagging, extravagant wife who is fertile, than a virtuous one who is as barren as a mule.”
“Yes,” agreed Foh Wong. “Better a fat, dirty pig than a cracked jade cup.”
“Better,” the editor wound up the pleasant round of Mongol metaphor, “a fleet donkey than a hamstrung horse.”
For a while they smoked in silence. The fragrant, opalescent fumes rolled in sluggish clouds over the mats. Then Foh Wong asked:
“Your daughter Si-Si is, I understand, of marriageable age?”
“Indeed.”
“She is betrothed?”
“Not yet, O wise and older brother.” Faint amusement lit up Yung Tang’s purple-black eyes.
“She is waiting for a proper man, a wealthy man.”
“I am wealthy.”
“I know.” Yung Tang pushed the warm bamboo pipe aside and substituted for it one of carved tortoise-shell with a turquoise tip and three yellow tassels. “She is devoted to her parents. She has given solemn oath to the Buddha the Adored, that she will not marry unless her husband invests— ah—twenty thousand dollars in my enterprise.”
Foh Wong stared at the other. He knew that— thanks to the weekly’s freely expressed proManchu attitude, contrary to that of Pell Street which, being coolie, was mostly revolutionary—its circulation and advertising had dropped; that therefore the editor was in awkward financial straits.
“Or, perhaps, fifteen thousand dollars?” he suggested.
“Or rather—nineteen?”
Foh Wong kowtowed deeply before the Buddha who looks after the souls of those about to die—for he was sorry for the destiny in store for his faded old wife, Na Liu.
“Sixteen and a half thousand is a goodly sum, the more so as I—should I give it—would be going counter to my political principles. It would mean a loss of face to me.”
“While, to me, it would mean a loss of face to accept money from a man who does not see eye to eye with me when it comes to China’s future. Thus—eighteen thousand dollars. Personally I dislike bargaining.”
THE editor smoked two pipes one after the other. He continued:
“It is wretched manners to praise your own, I know. But it has been remarked by certain people—truthful people, I believe—that Si-Si is a precious casket filled with the arts of coquetry, that when she washes her hands she scents the water, that her seventeen summers have only increased her charms seventeen times, and that”—calmly— “her hips are wide enough to bear many men children.”
Foh Wong sighed.
“My own wife,” he replied, “is a fallow field. There is none of my seed in the world to pray for me after death. Not that I blame her. Still—it is written in the Book of Meng Tzeu that she who cannot fulfill her charge must resign it.”
“You mean divorce?”
“No.”
“No?” echoed the editor, looking up sharply. “But a second wife is not permitted in this country.”
Foh Wong turned on his mat. He glanced through the window, up at the sky where the sun was gaping in the west like a great red door.
“Divorce,” was his answer, “is a custom of coarse-haired barbarians. Besides—a law of these same barbarians—alimony would have to be paid.
Expensive—eh?”
“Very expensive.”
“Not that I am stingy.” Foh Wong spoke with sincerity. “For my wife, should her soul jump the dragon gate, would have a splendid funeral. She would be buried in a large and comfortable redlacquer coffin, on the side of a hill facing running water, and with an elegant view over the rice paddies.”
“Her spirit,” commented Yung Tang, “would doubtless enjoy itself.”
“Doubtless.”
BOTH men were silent. The editor was caressing his cheek with his right hand. The dying crimson sunlight danced and glittered on his highly polished fingernails. He thought of a man whom he had talked to, and who had given his confidence, a few months back, during his visit to China; thought of the queer mission with which this man had entrusted him; thought how, fantastically, sardonically, fate can work its will—fate that ambles out of the dark like a blind camel, with no warning, no jingling of bells.
He smiled at the other, who, having emptied his pipe at one long-drawn inhalation, looked up and asked a casually worded question:
“I believe you have a cousin who is a hatchetman?”
“Yes. But—” The editor hesitated.
“His prices are exorbitant?”
“They would not be—to me. Only, I have discovered that it is one’s relatives whom one must trust least.”
“Just so.”
“I have a friend in Seattle. I shall communicate with him. I shall act slowly, discreetly. I shall think right and think left. There is no especial hurry.”
“Except”—courteously—“my desire for Si-Si.”
“Another summer will increase her charms eighteen times.” Yung Tang pointed at the table. “Will you smoke?”
“No more. I have a duty to attend to. You will write to Seattle?”
“Immediately.”
But the editor did not write to Seattle. He wrote, instead, to Hongkong; and he began his letter with a quotation from Confucius which said:
“The man who is departing on a sad journey often leaves his heart under the door—to find it on his return.”
He smiled as he dipped his brush into the inkpot; and it is worthwhile remembering that the Chinese ideographs sin (heart) and Menn (door), when placed one above the other and read together, make a third word, “Melancholy”—which latter, by a peculiar Mongol twist, is considered an equivalent of “eternal love.” And he wrote on while Foh Wong, having left the Azure Dragon Club, entered the joss temple around the corner.
There, without the slightest hypocrisy, he kowtowed deeply before the Buddha of the Paradise of the West—the Buddha who looks after the souls of those about to die—and burned three sweet-smelling hun-shuh incense sticks in honor of his wife. For once he had loved her. And he was sorry for the destiny in store for her. So, from this day on, he stopped beating her. On the contrary, he was kind to her—brought her presents of flowers and fruit, treated her—with no irony intended—as if she were an invalid not long for this world. And almost every evening he visited the joss temple; always he made kowtow before the Buddha and burned incense sticks—until Yu Ch’ang, the priest, declared that few men on Pell Street could compare to him in piety and rectitude.
NEAR the end of the year, Yung Tang reported to him that the matter was progressing satisfactorily. His friend in Seattle had secured the services of a hatchetman.
His name, said the editor, was Kang Kee. He had been a warlord fallen upon evil days. Therefore, thanks to his former profession, there was no doubt of his being a skilled and efficient killer; and given the fact that he was a stranger with no local tong affiliations, there was no doubt of his discretion.
“When will he be here?” asked Foh Wong eagerly.
Yung Tang shrugged his shoulders.
Kang Kee, he explained, was still in Hongkong; and surely, Foh Wong knew that times had changed since he himself had come to America. For there was now the law called the Asiatic Exclusion Act, to circumvent which the Chinese aspirant after Yankee coin had to travel many thorny roundabout roads and spend exorbitant “squeezes” right and left. Would Foh Wong, therefore, pay fifteen hundred dollars on account, to be deducted, later on, from Kang Kee’s price of five thousand?
The merchant grumbled, protested, finally went to the safe and counted out the money.
“I would like a receipt,” he said curtly. After all, he went on, he was a businessman. Here was a job for which he was paying. “Not that”—with grim humor—“I want you to particularize the—ah—
nature of the job.”
YUNG TANG smiled. His smile, had Foh
Wong noticed it, was queerly triumphant.
“I understand,” he said. “Just a few words acknowledging the money for—well, services to be rendered. . . . How’s that? I shall make it out in duplicate.”
“In duplicate?”—rather astonished.
“Yes. One for you, and one for me, as agent for Kang Kee.” With quick brushstrokes he wrote paper and copy, handed both to the other. “Will you look it over?”
“No, no!” exclaimed Foh Wong. “It is not necessary.”
The editor’s smile deepened. He knew that the merchant, in spite of his wealth, had never learned to read, that he carried the intricate details of his business transactions in his shrewd old brain, that he could just barely scrawl his name, but that for fear of losing face, he had never owned up to it. Besides—and here too Yung Tang saw through him—Foh Wong figured that the editor had no reason to cheat him. For though Si-Si was young and beautiful and desirable, there were few men in Chinatown willing and able to pay the eighteen thousand dollars which her father demanded and in fact—Foh Wong knew, having made inquiries here and there—needed desperately; and he had made assurance doubly sure by buying up, at a generous discount, a number of Yung Tang’s overdue notes.
He lit a cigarette, while the other signed the original and said:
“Will you countersign the copy?”
“What for? You received the money, not I.”
“I know. But—it would make the deal more binding.”
Foh Wong was puzzled. Make the deal more binding? He did not understand. Still, doubtless Yung Tang knew what he was talking about. He was a literatus, a learned gentleman; and the merchant, for all his success, was at heart the coolie who had never lost his respect for educated people. And—again the thought—the man needed him, could have no reason to cheat him.
“Very well.” He dipped brush in inkpot, and clumsily painted his signature. “Here you are.”
Even so, he felt relieved when, in the course of the afternoon, he dropped in on Ng Fat, the banker, and found out, by discreet questioning, that Yung Tang had bought a draft for fifteen hundred dollars made out to one Kang Kee, a former warlord residing in Hongkong.