Adventure, July 1, 1928 — page 176: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

170 matter. As for Liu Tang, he seemed to thrive on it. The old man, and to some extent Quental, were the only two who went to pieces. I stayed there because of Valérie. For a long time I never said anything to her, nor she to me; but we understood one another all right. She knew I was her friend. “That’s why I went about with my eyes skinned,” he continued. ‘‘When I found out that I had joined a concern that was five-sixths a smuggling business, it didn’t worry me much. I knew there was a good deal more than that going on behind the scenes. I had to watch four people: Scala, Eugene Pai, Liu Tang and the sultan. I had no idea what I was likely to discover, but I soon struck oil. It hadn’t taken me long to size up Mr. Eugene Pai, or Quental either; and I guessed that they had both got more re- sponsibility than was good for them. I learned that they were carrying on busi- ness in a small way on their own. They were selling stuff privately and faking the way-bills.” “But surely Scala checked his own stores?” Eade asked. ‘He wouldn’t be such a fool as not to do that!” “Of course he did,” said Charles. “But not all the smuggled rubber that Quental brought down from the Malay States went into that godown. Quental always came into the harbor from the south, where there was a narrow strait between Singan and the islet, that rounded a coral reef at the end of what we called Seraglio Point. They gave it that name because the channel was like a miniature Bosporus; and behind Seraglio Point there was a shallow creek, running in a northwesterly direction, just like the Golden Horn. Scala knew Constanti- nople well, and so did Le Camus. “Quental nearly always came in at night; and Eugene Pai with two or three Chinese—who made a good thing out of the ‘squeeze’—used to wait for him on the south side of Seraglio Point with a raft. They would take off as much sur- plus stuff as they could carry and store it in a safe place in the jungle—a hole in CHARLES GILSON ‘the ground covered with branches and palm leaves, something like an elephant trap.” “Did you discover that by chance?” Eade asked. “No, sir. Not by a long chalk. When you find a rat run, you may bet your last dollar it leads to a chicken coop, I struck their track in the jungle and, being a bit of a woodsman, I had no diffi- culty in finding their hiding-place.” “What did you do then?” asked Eade. “Did you take the story to Scala and make an enemy of Eugene Pai for life?” “No fear,” said Charles. ‘I didn’t care two hoots whether they swindled Scala or not. I didn’t even tell Valérie about it, until months afterward—after I had discovered that her brute of a husband was thinking of selling her to the sultan.” “And how did you find that out?” “Eavesdropping,” Charles confessed. “By then Valérie and I were beginning to understand one another. She had warned me there was danger ahead, though she didn’t know anything for sure. I risked my life one night by getting inside the palace, which is nothing more or less than a fair sized bungalow, with a separate building for the harem. “They discussed business in the most mongrel language that any two human beings ever spoke. Though I was hiding under the window and ¢ould overhear every word that was said, I could only understand half of it. It was made up of Malay, Chinese, French, pidgin English, Dutch and Pulu Petak, the southern dialect of Borneo. As I understood them all, except the two last, I managed to get hold of the drift of what they were talking about. “The next day,” he went on, “I toid Valérie about it. We met by appoint- ment in the jungle, out by Seraglio Point. I offered, then and there, to take her away; but she wouldn’t go because of her father. We thought we were alone, but we weren’t! We had been shadowed by Eugene Pai. I expect he got the wind up when he had seen me going off in that direction. comicloooks.com