CHAPTER VIII
THE CURIO-SHOP
ANY one seeking articles of beauty and value will find the antique shops of Fifth and Fourth Avenues and some of the side streets a veritable mine of riches.
We had no trouble in locating Nichi Moto’s. It was a small, quaint, dusty rookery, up a flight of steps, in an old row of frame houses which must have been just about paying the owner enough to cover the taxes against the day when the land value would have risen and a sky-scraper would replace them.
A gilt sign swung in front of the shop, and as we entered we noticed that the yard in front, for the houses sat back some distance from the sidewalk, was adorned with little dwarf trees and other Japanese plants.
I could not help being impressed by the peculiarly unimpressive exterior which gave little hint of the wealth of beautiful articles that were housed in the most artistic interior.
Kennedy and I sauntered in, just like any other connoisseurs who had no special object yet were always on the lookout for something that might appeal to their tastes.
It was still comparatively early and the shop was as yet deserted, but the polite and smiling Nichi advanced to meet us with a ready bow and an inquiry as to what was our honorable pleasure.
“Oh, we are just looking about,” explained Kennedy, “picking up a few things here and there for a den.”
“You are welcome,” Nichi invited, showing back of the inevitable smile a row of perfect, pearly teeth and a keen eye. “You could not have come to a better or more reasonable place. You will find everything just as it is represented.”
Kennedy thanked him and commenced browsing around among the objects, about which indeed one did not have to exaggerate in order to praise.
There seemed to be everything imaginable in the shop. Beautiful cloisonné enamel, articles in mother-of-pearl, lacquer, and champlevé enamel crowded splendid little koros, or incense-burners, vases, tea-pots.
One could feast his eye on enamels, incrusted, translucent and painted. Some were the work of the famous Namakawa of Kioto, others of Namakawa of Tokyo. Satsuma vases, splendid and rare examples of the potter’s art, crowded gorgeously embroidered screens with the sacred Fujiyama rising in the stately distance.
“Is there nothing in particular I can show you?” reiterated Nichi, eager to talk about his wares.
“N-no,” hesitated Kennedy, “at least not yet, thank you.”
As we walked about slowly examining the articles, Nichi busied himself about the shop, always alert to answer a possible question and clinch a possible sale.
Now and then I glanced at him covertly out of the comer of my eye, so as not to let him catch me scrutinizing him. He was a small, wiry chap, like many of his race, with an impassive, expressionless face and beady, watchful eyes.
The more I looked, however, the less I felt that I knew or could know about him. I can not say whether it was the very blankness of his features that impressed me, or whether there was something there which we of the West could never fathom.
KENNEDY and I had gradually worked our way toward the back of the shop when I heard Craig remark as if in surprise—
“Why, Walter, look at these perfectly stunning Mexican curios over here in this corner.”
I followed his gaze and found that, sure enough, set apart from the other things, was indeed a very passable collection of Mexican objects of art.
There were objects there that told of both the ancient and modern in the wonder land to the south of us. Little figures of clay depicting all phases of the life of the people, made in Guadalajara, basket-work, and beadwork were interspersed with antiquities, a few idols, ornaments, jewels and utensils of the Aztecs, Toltecs and Mixtecs.
The attentive Nichi was hovering close behind us.
“I have heard that you are interested in Mexican art, too,” ventured Kennedy, turning to him.
“Indeed? Who has told you?” inquired Nichi deferentially, but with well concealed curiosity.
“I have many friends from Mexico,” hastened to explain Craig. “Some of them meet down at the Mexican cabaret. I suppose you are acquainted with the place? I have heard your name mentioned by them now and then, and I determined if I was ever in this neighborhood with a few minutes to spare to drop in and make the acquaintance of one whom they valued so highly.”
“I am delighted, I assure you, to make your acquaintance,” responded Nichi, “and I hope you will thank my kind friends down there. Who is it that you know?” he asked, not committing himself.
“I can’t say just who it was that I heard mention your place,” replied Kennedy guardedly, “but I know several of them—Señora Ruiz, Señor Sanchez, Mrs. Hawley—oh—and of course Señor Alvarez who has just come to New York.”
“Yes,” responded Nichi, “I have been in Mexico and the art is—what is it you call it—a hobby—with me.”
“Señor Alvarez seems to be exceptionally well-informed on the antiquities,” continued Kennedy.
“Yes,” agreed Nichi colorlessly. “I intended to expand my business and deal in Mexican articles, too. This was the beginning. But,” he added with a shrug of his shoulders and a deprecating smile, “this unpleasant affair with your country came along and—well—I scarcely think Mexican things will be popular for some time, unfortunately.”
“A remarkable man, Señor Alvarez,” persisted Kennedy, seeking to draw Nichi on. “A diplomatist and a scholar, at once.”
“There is much culture in Mexico which you Americans do not know,” ventured Nichi, adroitly changing the subject.
He was inscrutable to me. Kennedy gave up for the moment the attempt to lead the conversation lest he might arouse suspicion. Evidently he considered that Nichi’s welcome was too good to spoil by forcing it.
We turned again to the Japanese objects, as perhaps less risky for the present. As we wandered toward the other corner of the back of the shop, Kennedy noticed, behind some bronzes of the Japanese Hercules destroying the demons and representations of other mythical heroes of the race, a large alcove or tokonoma.
Nichi was evidently very proud of it, for he was at pains to point out to us the panels decorated with peacocks, storks and cranes. It seemed to have an exotic atmosphere, and the carvings and lacquer about it added to the illusion. On one side, also, was a miniature representation of a chrysanthemum garden.
Carved hinoki wood framed the panels and the roof of the artistic bower was supported by columns in the old Japanese style. In fact the whole seemed to be a compromise between the very simple and austere and the polychromatic. The dark woods, the lanterns, and the floor tiles of dark red, the cushions of rich yellow and gold, all were most alluring.
Kennedy sat down with an exclamation of approval.
“This has the genuine air of the Orient,” he approved.
Nichi was flattered.
“Will the gentlemen drink a little saki?” he asked deferentially.
We thanked him, and Nichi, with a glance around that took in the front door and showed no other customers, went to a stairway in the rear and called down to what must have been a basement, “Otakal.”
Evidently those were the living-quarters of the curio-dealers, for a moment later a peculiar looking, almost white attendant appeared and Nichi spoke a few words to him in their own language.
Forthwith Otaka disappeared and promptly produced four glasses and some rice-brandy on a tray with some little cakes. The brandy was poured out and Kennedy pledged our better acquaintance.
It was delightfully foreign to New York to sit in such a bower and I felt almost as if we should soon see a dancing geisha-girl or something that would complete the feeling one had of being transported suddenly across the Pacific. The sounds of street traffic and the distant rumble of an elevated railroad through an open window destroyed the feeling, however.
Nevertheless, there was plenty to think about. There, for instance, was Otaka, taking his own saki, quietly, apart from us.
I could not help watching him drink, for it was done so strangely. First he took the cup, then a long piece of carved wood which he dipped into the saki. He shook a few drops on the floor, to the four quarters, then with a deft sweep of the stick lifted his heavy mustache by means of the piece of wood and drained off the saki at a draft.
Those peculiar actions attracted my attention to him, and I saw that Kennedy, although carrying on a conversation with Nichi, now and then stole a glance in that direction.
OTAKA was a peculiar man, of middle height, with a shock of dark, tough, woolly hair, well-formed and not at all bad looking. He had a rather more robust general physique and I could not help comparing him to Nichi and thinking perhaps he was a meat-eater and not wholly confined to the regular Japanese diet.
His forehead, too, I noticed, was narrow and sloped backward, the cheek-bones prominent, the nose hooked, broad and wide, with strong nostrils. His mouth was large, with thick lips and a not very prominent chin; his eyes dark gray and almost like those of a European.
“They are very much excited down at the cabaret,” I overheard Kennedy remark. “I suppose you have read in the papers of the deaths of Madame Valcour and Professor Neumeyer? They used to come around often, and we met them there.”
Nichi seemed to have unbent a little, an effect which was due perhaps to the sociability of the saki. Still, he was not to be caught off his guard and Kennedy did not try to press the questioning.
“Yes,” he assented, “I read the American papers and have read of it. It is not a wonder that they are excited. Who would not be in their places?”
“I can make nothing of it from the papers,” remarked Kennedy very truly, for the papers were floundering about even more hopelessly than Dr. Leslie had been when he appealed to Craig.
“Otaka, take away the empty cups,” ordered Nichi, and the attendant hastened to carry out the order.
I knew that Kennedy was longing to ask whether Alvarez had been around to call on him, but at each attempt to ask naturally Nichi seemed to be able to change the subject. I could not help feeling an admiration for the skill of the little curio-dealer in keeping us to the open and avowed purpose of our visit to his shop, and, though he did not betray it, I knew how chagrined Kennedy must be at every baffling turn.
We rose to continue our inspection of the place. There were ivories of all descriptions. Here was a two-handed sword of the Samurai, with a very large ivory handle, a quaint scabbard and a wonderful steel blade.
Kennedy seemed keenly interested in the collection of warlike implements on this side of the shop. He reached over and picked up a bow. It was short and very strong. He held it horizontally, as if for shooting, and twanged the string.
Then he examined with interest an arrow, about twenty inches long, and thick—made of cane with a point of metal very crudely fastened to it. He fingered the deep blood groove in the scoop-like head of the arrow and looked intently at a reddish brown incrustation on it.
Nichi was watching him keenly, too.
“I thought the Japanese law prohibited that?” remarked Kennedy, balancing the arrow.
“It does,” hastened Nichi. “Such arrows are rapidly growing extinct. I see you are well acquainted with things Japanese. That is what makes it valuable.”
Kennedy considered the arrow and bow critically, holding them up together to get the effect, as if they were hung on a wall.
“It is a bargain,” replied Nichi, as Craig inquired the price.
“I’ll take it,” agreed Kennedy, laying it down as if he were not quite satisfied and wanted to buy something more expensive but had not the money. “It will be just the thing for my den. I like things that are odd and different from what others buy.”
“Where shall I send it?” inquired Nichi.
“Oh, never mind sending it,” said Kennedy. “It is light and I am going directly home. I can carry it just as well.”
We spent five or ten minutes more looking about and then, as some other customers appeared in the doorway, we bowed ourselves out, promising to come when again Nichi received a new consignment which he had been expecting from the Orient.
We walked away, Kennedy carrying his purchase carefully under his arm.
“That other Jap was a strange chap,” I observed.
“He wasn’t a Jap,” corrected Kennedy. “He was an Aino, one of the aborigines who have been driven by the Japs northward, into the island of Yezo.”
I had heard of the race, but only knew of them indistinctly.
“They are not Japs, then?” I asked.
“No. Most ethnologists, I believe, think of them as a white race, nearer akin to Europeans than to the Asiatics. The Japanese have pushed them northward and now they are trying to civilize them.”
“Otaka looked comparatively civilized for an aborigine,” I ventured, “except for that peculiar ceremony with the saki.”
“Perhaps. But on their native heath they are a dirty, hairy race. Evidently when they are brought under civilizing influences they adapt themselves to the new environment. They say they make very good servants. Still, they are really of the lowest type of humanity—of the very dregs!”
“Are they dangerous?” I asked.
“No,” he replied. “I have been told that they are a most inoffensive and peaceable people, good-natured and amenable to authority. But they become dangerous when they are driven to despair by cruel treatment, which probably accounts for some of the notions that exist about their barbarity.
The Japanese Government has lately become very considerate of them—though I don’t believe all Japanese are. Still, they say the Japs like the Aino women for wives.”
We took a surface car uptown again to the laboratory where, sticking in the letter-slot of the door, we found a message from Burke. It read:
I have a line on our friend downtown. Meet me at eight in Bowling Green.
“Morelos!” interpreted Kennedy immediately.
“Walter, there is no use of your wasting time the rest of the day. I have a lot of things to do here in the laboratory. I see Dr. Leslie has sent up the materials he promised, too. Incidentally drop in and see McBride at the Vanderveer. Don’t tell him too much, but just let him know that we are making progress.
“Don’t forget—eight o’clock—Bowling Green,” he concluded, his coat off already, plunging into the investigations he had planned in his workshop of scientific crime.