CHAPTER XI
THE FORTUNE TELLER
THE banquet that was to be the talk of New York for many a day had progressed with wonderful éclat. The costumes of the guests, the elaborately bizarre decorations, the strange music, the unusual dishes spiced with a bountiful supply of occidental vintages, the courtesy of the hosts, the exotic atmosphere—all had made the affair a success from the start. Rare souvenirs, not to be priced, had augmented the entente cordiale.
With the cessation of gastronomies came an entertainment of wizardry, of parlor acrobatics, of indoor fireworks, until the bewildered beholders were brought to the tiring point.
Then, at the sound of a gong, a booth was brought in—a hooded tent of silken brocades, and Ten Shin arose.
"Much of which you have so courteously shared with us tonight," he said, "belongs to the past—the passing China soon, we hope, to be revivified with lessons learned from American ingenuity and advancement. But there is one element that always appeals, particularly to the fair sex. That element is the future. A member of our little embassy has arrived today from China, bringing important matters and, while he has been too fatigued from his long and accelerated journey to join us, he has consented to give some manifestation of his skill as a diviner."
There was a murmur of anticipatory delight and again the gong sounded. From behind high curtains four Chinamen, dressed in vivid emerald silk, brought forward a palanquin of brightest scarlet lacquer on which were illuminated golden dragons in raised and lustrous metal work. Six-clawed they were, noted McNeill, tense with the sense of something pregnant. This they placed by the tent and disappeared.
A weird chant, high pitched, nerve thrilling, came from unseen musicians, the shrill piping of the Chinese clarionet and the twang of the gekken. The room was very quiet and the lights grew gradually dim. Then the scarlet curtains of the palanquin glowed fiery red, faint streaks of light appeared through the folds of the tent and a figure emerged from the carriage. It was clad in silk of the vividest yellow and the robes, McNeill noticed, as his fingers gripped those of Helen next to him, were of priestly cut. The figure was squat. In its rotundity it might have been ludicrous, save for a certain dignity that emanated from it and because of that of the two princely hosts. The face, projecting from the folds of the hood, was that of a turtle—was that of Tao Chan, high-priest of the Hoang Lung.
McNeill was not surprized. But he marked the effort Helen made to suppress her feelings of astonishment and, perhaps, of terror, though there was, as he assured her, no fear of anything out of the way happening there with so many American guests present. Yet there was something that thrilled him with a sense of hidden power—of mystery. He glanced at Remsden. Remsden was staring at Tao Chan as he might have looked at a basilisk, his eyes projecting, his lower jaw sagging.
Tao Chan had evidently arrived with the duplicate, leaving some excuse, or perhaps a second replica, behind him. This one was to be exchanged for the original. Everybody's face was to be saved. Helen, by Chinese drugs, to be cured, Remsden to be left as president, and relieved of his Damoclean fate. Only the museum would suffer and be none the worse for it, thought McNeill, knowing other spurious objects venerated there as real.
He, Neill McNeill, had brought this about by taking advantage of China's position as the Sick Man of Asia, looking to America for aid. The princes had come with a dual purpose—to get the claw and to establish friendly relations. Which cause they held the greater McNeill did not venture to imagine. He did not care, feeling certain that the evening would see the end of their troubles unless Remsden proved obstinate. In this case McNeill promised himself that he would devise a little pressure on his own account.
Ten Shin turned to the lady on his right.
"Would you read the future?" he asked her. "I am sure that for you it will be rosy."
Tao Chan had entered the little tent and taken his seat before a stand of dark wood, the legs formed of writhing dragons. There was a dish in front of him.
"You will not be spirited away, I assure you," went on the prince. "I will not guarantee that you will not be enchanted, but turn about is fair play."
The guest laughed nervously at his raillery but consented to enter the tent. The curtains closed and there was only a low murmur to be heard, drowned largely by the rising notes of the orchestra. In less than two minutes the woman came out.
"Your wizard is a flatterer, prince," she said. "I wish I could believe half he promised, though he does not speak very good English."
"He has learned it for the occasion," said Ten Shin gravely.
Liu Chi next asked his dinner partner and she disappeared. McNeill could hear the first visitant answering questions.
"I can't describe it," she replied. "Wait till your turn. He showed me a funny plate first and then—I don't remember really what happened. It was all over so quickly, but he told me a lot of strange things that might come true. I hope so."
"Chinese hypnotism," whispered McNeill to Helen under cover of the chatter. "He read her own wishes. It will be your turn next. Don't be afraid. It is going to help us. I can guess what they are after."
At Liu Chi's request Helen went into the booth, remaining there a little longer than the rest. When she came out she was pale, and McNeill handed her a glass of wine.
"Don't talk now," he said. "Tell us later."
She nodded brightly at him.
"It sounded like good news," she said.
Some of the fairer guests refused; others accepted and the novelty began to wane. Tao Chan pleaded, or pretended to plead, exhaustion, and withdrew in the palanquin. Then the lights went up. Ten Shin arose with a toast to the United States and another orchestra, typically American, broke spiritedly into the "Star Spangled Banner." The brilliant assemblage rose. As the strains died, Liu Chi made his peroration.
"Heliogabalus," he said, "smothered his guests to death with rose petals. Tonight it is my cousin and myself who are smothered with your good-will, but not to death. And, though roses grow in China, we have a more typical flower that bears the charm of sweet forgetfulness—the faculty of dreamless sleep. The lotus! May its petals bring to all of you that boon to end the night."
The canopy above the table divided and a shower of fragrant blossoms fell while all the room was filled with mystical perfume. Laughing, congratulating, the guests departed, the princes standing to bid them farewell.
"We shall see you once more before we leave, I hope," said Ten Shin to McNeill and Helen. Then as they passed on he touched Remsden on the arm.
"A word with you, sir," he said pleasantly, and envious guests marked Remsden as one given special favors.
The two waited for Remsden in the anteroom. He came to them at last with the face of one who has seen his own ghost—his features twisted like a man who has suffered a stroke. All the way back to the limousine he did not speak but plucked clumsily at his own fingers. At the house he achieved speech with an effort, as if his lingual muscles had suffered paralysis.
"Neill and I will join you when you have taken off your wraps, Helen," he said.
She looked anxiously at him and then nodded.
"In the drawing-room," she replied. The men went into the library. Remsden poured brandy and gulped it down. Then he sank into the cushions of a big chair like a man of ninety.
"What is the matter with Helen, Neill?" he asked thickly.
"Leprosy," answered McNeill bluntly. Remsden clawed at the arms of the chair, gasping for breath and speech.
"My God!" he said. "I never thought—Ten Shin said—he said that—as a bruised plum is to a rotten fruit, as a stained pearl to a bowl of slime, so should my punishment be compared to hers. Oh, my God, Neill!"
"Brace up," snapped McNeill. "What else did he say? About the claw?"
"I am to show it him at the museum tomorrow—Tao Chan I mean. He is to handle it. The princes will be there. We—we may adjust matters. I do not know. I can not trust them. I must see Helen."
McNeill guessed what the adjustment would be. A little legerdemain, such as Wilson had shown in the desert, this time with Tao Chan as the prestidigitator. But had Remsden already been inoculated? How was he to be cured? And Helen?
"There are various degrees of leprosy, of course," he said. "Do you fancy that you are already infected?"
Remsden nodded.
"I know it," he groaned. "Something pricked my palm when I shook hands with Ten Shin, and he smiled when I started. But Helen—Helen has an antidote. I shall receive one tomorrow after"
"The claws are exchanged," supplied McNeill. "Let us go into the drawing-room."
They found the girl waiting and McNeill, answering a plea in Remsden's eyes, put the question to her:
"What happened in the tent? I can imagine that Tao Chan hypnotized you and questioned you. By so doing he could confirm my statement to the princes of your innocence in the stealing and substitution of the claw. But what did he say that you remember?"
"Why he told me that I had been suffering from some trouble with my hands but that I should soon be entirely well again. He gave me this."
She showed a tiny phial of gray jade wonderfully carven in the shape of a dragon and stoppered with a dragon's claw of gold that held a tiny ball of crystal. Within were some pellets of dull orange color.
"These are to be taken one every hour," she said, "dissolved in hot water. I have already taken one and I can feel a tingling in my numb finger."
She held it out for inspection. Remsden looked at it with a shudder.
"And he said that Mr. Remsden was in danger of sickness that was to be averted by the medicine that he, Tao Chan, would give him tomorrow. Are you to see him tomorrow?"
"Yes," answered Remsden. "Thank God I am. Good night, you two. Good night."
They watched him leave the room, feeble, bowed, a man old before his time. Then youth turned to youth.
THE END