AFTER leaving the midshipmen at the hotel, O’Neil led his friend Marley to a much frequented Japanese eating house, on the outskirts of Shibu Park, kept by an American. There he believed he would find some one who could tell him about the mysterious Robert Impey. The boatswain’s mate understood quite plainly that Phil would be able to find out all that was possible about the man from the people of his world and that he, Jack O’Neil, was to get what information there was in the keeping of those of the underworld. In other words, O’Neil guessed, and rightly, that Impey, in Phil’s belief at all events, was leading a dual life.
O’Neil and Marley seated themselves at a small table from where they could observe those about them, for the dining-room was nearly filled with foreigners. Many waiters, both men and women, moved quietly about administering to the wants of their patrons.
The proprietor stood behind a raised counter and directed the service, collecting the bills as those who had satisfied their hunger paid and went their way.
O’Neil gave his order to a waitress and at the same time slipped a hastily penciled note into the Japanese girl’s hand, pointing to her foreign master.
The sailors watched him read the note and then glance up at them, following the girl’s pointing finger. In a few seconds he was wringing O’Neil’s hand.
“Well, shipmate, how are you?” he exclaimed. There was real pleasure in “Billy” Williams’ face. “This supper is all on me,” he cried gladly. “It’s been a long time since you and me have been together, and there ain’t nothing in the house too good for Jack O’Neil.”
O’Neil smiled good humoredly, and the three men sat down at the little table. Williams called up an assistant, and sent him to take his place at the cash drawer.
“Making money?” This from O’Neil.
“Well, I ain’t losing any, but I miss our own ships,” Williams replied, still smiling. “The ‘Alaska’s’ the first we’ve had for nearly a year. American sailors certainly spend their money nobly. The foreign sailors make the eagle squeal on every dollar they hold before letting go of it.”
“Where’s the madam?” O’Neil asked. His eyes were searching the crowd. In his mind’s eye he saw a graceful Japanese woman of some ten years ago, Haru-san by name, whom Williams had married and settled down after receiving his honorable discharge from the United States navy.
“She’s back in the house,” Williams answered in an offhand way. “She don’t come into the restaurant any more. If you’ve got time, we’ll go back and see her after you’ve finished supper. She often speaks of you.”
An appetizing supper had been set before the two sailors, and they without ceremony commenced the attack. Williams sat watching them in silence, his smile broadening at the evident appreciation in his friends’ faces of the good fare they were eating.
“Billy, you’ve been here in Tokyo long enough to know who’s who?” O’Neil asked the question, shoving back his chair in sign of the end of his meal.
“If there’s any one I don’t know, you can bet that Haru-san does,” was Williams’ quick reply.
“Then, who is this fellow Robert Impey?” O’Neil asked eagerly.
Williams shook his head. “Don’t know the party, never comes here,” was his answer.
“Oh! he ain’t our kind,” O’Neil returned with a smile to set the matter straight. “He belongs to the court set, drives his own automobile, knows the American ambassador.”
Williams appeared to be deep in thought. “Believe I have heard of him, but don’t know anything against him, if that’s what you mean,” he answered.
O’Neil signed by nods of his head that Williams had guessed rightly.
“Hey! George,” Williams called, standing up and beckoning to the owner of the name sitting in the midst of half a dozen American sailors at a table across the room. “Come here a minute. I want you to meet an old friend of mine.”
The man addressed rose slowly, finishing a story that he had been telling his amused audience, and to the accompaniment of a loud chorus of laughter joined Williams and the two sailormen.
“Robert Impey,” George Randall repeated, after he had shaken hands and heard Williams’ question, “is one of the cleverest foreigners in Japan. No one knows his business better than himself, and he’s stingy with his information about what he’s here for. Where did you hear of him?” A suspicion had entered Randall’s head.
“Bill Marley and I was having an argument,” O’Neil hastened to explain. “You see, we saw him run down a Jap on the street with his chug-chug carriage about an hour ago. Bill and I helped him to get clear and we was naturally curious to know who we’d helped. We heard his name, but that’s all.”
“That’s as far as my knowledge goes too,” Randall added. “He and I revolve in two widely different orbits.”
While the above conversation had been taking place, O’Neil, sitting with his face toward the door, had seen the search-light of an automobile come quickly up the street and stop noisily outside of the restaurant. An attendant had hastened out in anticipation of influential guests and now returning came directly to their table. He whispered to Randall, and the latter rose at once, a half-surprised, half-guilty expression on his face.
“Good-night,” he exclaimed, attempting to hide his surprise. “We newspaper men, you know, are like doctors, subject to a hurry call at any time.”
After Randall had left them, O’Neil grabbed Marley by the arm and both took a hasty farewell of Williams.
“I’ll be in to-morrow for breakfast, Billy,” he said, giving no explanation of his sudden change of plans.
The sailor hurried after the receding figure of Randall. He saw him go direct to the waiting machine, and without a word jump in. The auto leaped forward, and as it passed under the arc light at the corner of the street, O’Neil received his reward in recognizing the man of whom he had been seeking information and with them also was Impey’s companion of the afternoon.
“So Randall, after all, must know something more than he wished to acknowledge about Robert Impey!” was O’Neil’s thought. He stood undecided for the fraction of a minute, thinking quickly and silently. Here was their opportunity to find out about the man in whom the midshipmen appeared to have taken more than a passing interest. It was really too good a chance to lose, at least, without trying. O’Neil was conscious of a half dozen rikishas which had hurriedly disentangled themselves from the score or more others outside Tokyo’s favorite sailor restaurant, and were silently waiting, their shafts lowered, for the sailors to enter. On the other side of the street a victoria was standing, the driver on the box seat, his eyes on the two Americans.
A nod from O’Neil was enough to cause him to snap his reins on the sleepy horses’ backs and in a few more seconds the boatswain’s mate had pushed the obedient Marley in and given a quick order to the mafoo at his side.
At breakneck speed the carriage rattled down the macadam road after the slowly dissolving light of the automobile.
“Bill, there ain’t the ghost of a show of catching those men,” O’Neil confided, “and if we did we’ve got nothing against them.” O’Neil glanced in amused interest at his friend, whose eyes were fairly bulging with excitement at the thought of an interesting chase after a possible criminal.
“I thought by the way you shoved me into this sea-going hack that you’d caught ’em with the goods,” declared the disappointed seaman in an injured tone.
“This gent on the box seat will soon be losing them,” the boatswain’s mate declared quietly while he gazed indifferently ahead.
The streets were crowded with people, many carrying lighted paper lanterns, and through these the carriage was being driven at a most alarming pace in the endeavor to keep the automobile in sight.
O’Neil was correct in his surmise, for presently the carriage slowed to a walk, while the little mafoo had dropped down from his seat by the driver and with many low bows and polite speeches, of which the sailors could only guess the purport, announced that, “The honorable automobile had been swallowed by a dragon, or else vanished into thin air.” At least this would have been the literal translation of the poetic speech if O’Neil and Marley could have correctly translated it into their own language.
O’Neil gave a few quick orders in his sailor Japanese to the mafoo, who nodded his smiling face in sign of understanding, and shortly the carriage turned up a less crowded street, while again the little horses were trotting gayly along, the shrill cry of the mafoo being raised periodically in warning the pedestrians plodding slowly along in the middle of the street; for in some streets in Japan sidewalks as yet are unknown luxuries.
“Why should that fellow Randall tell us he knew nothing of this Mr. Impey’s affairs?” O’Neil said, more as an introspection than with the hope that Marley could explain.
“I am always suspicious of these beachcombers in foreign ports,” the boatswain’s mate added; “they get sort of denationalized after they’ve been living apart from their own people, and they can’t always be trusted to play fair. Randall is an American, that’s a sure thing; you can’t miss the Broadway accent when you hear it so far from home.”
While O’Neil was yet carrying on his one-sided conversation the carriage had stopped, and the mafoo was knocking loudly at the door of a Japanese house in one of the less pretentious parts of the city. After the occupants of the house had gone through the usual formula to discover the identity of their unexpected visitors, the door was opened and the two sailors were asked to enter.
“Is Sago in?” O’Neil asked the shy girl who was holding the lantern inside the dark little anteroom, where visitors were expected to remove their shoes before entering the house. She nodded, and in her high-pitched voice a summons was directed upward.
“Sorry to drag you out this time of the evening, Sago,” O’Neil explained as, in answer to the girl’s call, the captain’s Japanese steward came down the stairs to meet them, “but we need your help, so I looked you up.”
Sago’s sphinx-like face did not portray the surprise which O’Neil’s words might have been expected to cause.
“Please come inside,” the steward urged. “I wish to introduce you to my cousin and his family.”
O’Neil and Marley readily followed the steward, while curious Japanese of all ages appeared mysteriously from many directions to gaze upon their visitors.
Sago motioned with his hand to a Japanese of about his own age, which might be anything from forty upward, standing at the head of the landing. The Oriental bowed low with a loud hiss of his breath through his close shut teeth, while O’Neil and Marley insisted upon a good American hand-shake. The same process was gone through with about a dozen people who congregated about the sailormen. This formality over, the host clapped his hands and at once the women scurried away, like a covey of partridges, soon reappearing with refreshments, the usual cakes and tea.
“Do your friends speak English?” O’Neil asked in his usual direct way, avoiding unnecessary and useless ceremony.
Sago shook his head with an amused smile.
“Good!” O’Neil exclaimed. “Then I can tell you at once why we’re here.”
Sago listened quietly while O’Neil told him of the automobile accident to the messenger Oka and the finding of a letter near where the man was injured, but he gave the steward no further information as to its contents.
“What we want to do,” he added, “is to find this man Oka and see if he lost it, for he was on a message from the navy department, and Mr. Perry believes that the officials there were much more annoyed over the loss of something than over the injury to the man.”
Sago’s little almond eyes shone with excitement. “I have heard of it already. Oka lives only a short distance from here, and is a friend of my cousin,” he replied in quaintly pronounced English. “He is hurt badly, but he will not die. My cousin has already been to visit him. The letter he lost was an important one, and he is more sick over that than his wounds. Come, we shall go and pay a call on the injured man,” he added leading the way.
Leaving the house after saying good-bye very ceremoniously to Sago’s friends, the two Americans and the steward entered the carriage and under the latter’s guiding hand soon reached the small wooden cottage where lived the injured messenger.
“I have a gift for him from the young American officers,” O’Neil explained to Sago as they were admitted by a comely Japanese woman.
Oka was lying on his mats in one corner of the small living-room.
“It’s as clean as the quarter-deck,” Marley exclaimed admiringly, glancing critically about the tidy room.
The woman noiselessly glided to her husband’s side, kneeling at his head to tell him who his visitors were.
Over the man’s pale features came an expression of sudden joy as he glanced up at the two American giants, whose huge bulk, for both were over six feet tall, quite filled their part of the tiny room, while a faint voice asked a question.
“He thinks you have brought back the document he lost,” Sago interpreted.
“Tell him to describe it,” O’Neil ordered.
“He says it’s large, with the big red seal of the Emperor, and is addressed in black characters on the outside.” Sago had put the question and gave the sick man’s answer.
“Nothing doing,” Marley blurted out thoughtlessly, having been eagerly listening, mouth wide open.
“Just tell him we’re sorry, but we didn’t find his letter;—and say we came to give him this from the American officers,” O’Neil said, passing Sago the money that Phil had given him, “and tell him to let you or your cousin know if he needs more.”
O’Neil’s soft heart was touched and by mutual consent both he and Marley pressed into the woman’s hand at parting amounts of money which to her were large, but to the Americans meant simply a small amount of self-sacrifice and one day less liberty with money in their pockets.
“Well, Sago, you can go back to your happy family now,” O’Neil said banteringly as the three reached the waiting carriage, “unless of course you have in mind something entertaining for Bill and me; he’s in need of a little diversion, ain’t you, Bill?” with a poke in the seaman’s ribs. “You’re as glum as an oyster.”
Marley gave a forced smile. He recognized his mental inferiority to O’Neil and was content to listen in silence.
Sago gave orders to the mafoo, and the three were soon on the way back to the main thoroughfares of the city.
The carriage drew up, after about a half hour’s drive, in front of a Japanese theatre. O’Neil could not, of course, read the posters, but from the grotesquely painted pictures on sign boards in front of the entrance he saw that it was a naval play.
Sago bought the tickets, and they were shown seats in a small box close to the stage. O’Neil saw there were many American uniforms about the theatre and that the stage was draped with American and Japanese colors.
The curtain had already risen and the play was in progress.
O’Neil could not understand the language spoken, but the character of the play was only too evident. The scene was laid during a war between Japan and some foreign country.
O’Neil sat an amused spectator, but Marley had soon passed the amused stage. O’Neil watched him with almost as much relish as he did the play itself. Marley at first was interested, then excited, and last angry. When an American naval officer, for he told O’Neil in a sullen growl that was the intention of the queer uniform displayed by the villain, was shown to be rude to a Japanese lady of high rank and the hero, a Japanese naval lieutenant, interfered and vanquished by sword play his much bigger antagonist, it proved all O’Neil could do to suppress the irate sailorman, who would have gone to the American officer’s aid. Then the tide turned and a party of foreign sailors marched to the rescue of their officer.
“The nerve of those fellows, carrying our flag,” O’Neil exclaimed, for the first time showing his displeasure.
Marley was uttering imprecations under his breath; his strong hands were clutching the brass railing in front of the box.
Then on the stage the tide of battle turned; a company of Japanese sailors swarmed from the wings, rolling over their enemies like ten-pins. The American flag fell to the ground, where it lay, while the stage foreigners beat a hasty and inglorious retreat.
Before O’Neil could fathom the actions of Marley, the sailor had leaped over the low railing on to the small stage and within ten feet of the insulted flag. So quickly was it done, that those in the audience, so absorbed had they been in the scene before them, had not differentiated the real American sailor from the imitations. Even the actors were not aware that a newcomer with a feeling akin to murder in his heart was in their midst.
The faithful Jack O’Neil had sat spellbound for the fraction of a second, undecided what action should be taken. Sago’s eyes danced with excitement. Fully three-quarters American at heart, having lived fifteen years in the United States navy, he was as much out of sympathy with this quarrel-breeding play as was O’Neil himself.
“Bring the manager,” O’Neil cried suddenly, shoving the steward out of the box. “Tell him to call the police, for there’s going to be the prettiest little boxing match he’s ever seen,” and with that he was on the stage in Bill Marley’s footsteps.
O’Neil was close to Marley; in another step he could have laid hands upon him and carried him, if resistingly, to the box; but unfortunately for this peaceful intention of the boatswain’s mate, one of the Japanese actors was due to pick up the fallen flag and wave it in triumph above his head. His cue had come just as Marley’s hand was reaching out for the staff. Their hands nearly met and then Bill Marley’s doubled up, shot straight from the shoulder, and with terrific force, directly into the surprised actor’s face; he fell to the floor with a very unstagelike thud.
Yet even then the actors seemed blissfully unconscious that anything unusual was happening and it was not until nearly a dozen had gone down under the trip-hammer blows, measuring their length on the stage, that the situation was understood.
“Come away, you blooming idiot!” O’Neil exclaimed, grasping Bill Marley’s collar and dragging him backward, still waving madly the flag he had succeeded in rescuing.
But Bill Marley was in no mood to be led like a lamb by the collar even by his friend O’Neil. His fighting blood was aroused. His slow mind had been deeply outraged by this evident insult to his countrymen. His thoughts were alternating between the vague belief that it was his duty to contend single handed with those on the stage, erasing the impression of a Japanese victory, and that those impersonating American sailors needed only his leadership to turn the tide of battle.
“Come on, you little midgets!” His voice was loud and angry, but the firm twist which O’Neil had given his wide sailor collar nearly stifled the encouraging words that were to follow for the benefit of the vanquished stage foreigners.
“Follow me and we’ll show ’em——” The rest was only a gurgle, for O’Neil had encircled the excited sailor’s neck with a strong arm and had lifted him fairly off his feet.
The next second the boatswain’s mate had let go of his companion and the two were standing at bay against a score of infuriated Japanese, who had suddenly become cognizant of the true conditions.
O’Neil was still dizzy from the effects of a blow on the back of the head, received while he was yet struggling with Marley. Now the usually cool-headed petty officer was white hot with anger and resentment.
“Don’t let them get a hold on you, Bill,” was O’Neil’s warning, hissed through his closed teeth, while his two fists were driving forward like battering-rams.