Adventure Magazine, Mid-September 1917 — page 117: what you’re looking at

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

The Vanished Plans collar unbuttoned at the throat, who lounged up the path and paused beside the captain. He was one of those nondescript white men whom one sees everywhere along the China coast and in the Philippines. He might have been a seaman from some tramp steamer at anchor behind the break- water, or a quartermaster employee, or a discharged soidier who picked up a pre- carious living by occasionally tending bar in an intramuros saloon, or perhaps a hanger- on of the boxing club at Palomar Park. Ap- parently he was idling away an afternoon, © and the menagerie had for the moment caught his interest; but presently I dis- covered that, while his eyes were fixed on the birds, he was speaking in a low tone to Brock. ‘He leaves tonight—they are still there— nobody’s come yet——” Without consciously trying I caught such fragments of what he was saying. At length Brock lifted his cap and passed his handkerchief slowly across his forehead. “All right, don’t lose him,’ he said in a ~ low Voice. It was evidently a signal for the American lounged on, while Brock continued his in- spection of the menagerie. That the man was in some way connected with the missing plans I did not doubt, but who was the ‘‘he” to whom he referred and where was he going? Could this be the man who, Brock had said, was shadowing Colonel Levin? I did not think so, for while such a man would pass unnoticed in the crowd on the Escolta or any other of the principal streets, at Fort Santiago or the club he would at once be spotted as an in- truder and asked his business. Evidently some one else was concerned in the theft, but who? I could not deter- mine, but I began to see what Brock had meant when he said that big game was afoot, and why he had refused to talk of what was happening. He must be sur- rounded by a network of spies, if, to avert suspicion from himself, he went to the gar- dens to confer with his agents, and even made a pretext for his visits. He must have read what was passing in my mind, for presently as we were retracing our steps, he turned to me, his eyes twink- ling: ‘““Make your conjectures, Peel, but keep them to yourself,” he said, and during the drive back he was silent, sitting relaxed 115 against the cushions, his eyes fixed in front of him, while a lighted cigaret slowly con- sumed itself between the fingers of the broad, sinewy hand, which rested on his knee. The next day his desk at Fort Santiago was unoccupied; and on inquiry of Major Rawlins F learned that the night before Brock had started on an inspection trip which would keep him away for some time. As to where he had gone Rawlins was a bit indefinite. ‘‘Somewhere up north,” he thought; and remembering what Brock had said about the possibility of his leaving, I did not press my questions. It was several days later before I heard anything more of him, and then in thelast way I should have suspected. “5 ONE morning I had left Clarke’s, and paused on the Escolta corner, awaiting an Intramuros car. In front of me was Plaza Moraga, the small square, where the big American trading- houses have their offices, where the Inter- national Bank is situated, and where a few of the small native and Chinese shops have overflowed from Calle Rosario. Occupying an inconspicuous building among them was one of the few Japanese stores in Manila, the “Bazaar of the Rising Sun.” I. had visited it a number of times in search of Japanese prints, and perhaps I should not have noticed its modest, gilt sign, but for a beggar who was squatting near its entrance. cities Manila possesses few beggars, and I wondered how this one had escaped the sharp eyes of the police, for while he was not begging, ‘‘mendicant” was plainly stamped him. As I watched him, he turned his head jn my direction; and, a moment later, rose and began to pick his way toward me through the maze of traffic which congests the Es- colta at this hour. I followed his progress without difficulty, for he wore a broad, stiff, bamboo hat, shaped like a panier, which the natives of the Ilocos provinces call salecots. I took him to be a decrepit fao who was too old to work. “Por madre de Dios, sevor,’’ he mumbled, as he paused in front of me,-holding out his hand. The lower part of his face was cov- ered by a long, soiled bandage, wound about his neck as though to protect a sore, and he COmicloo Unlike most Oriental. C©