The Kingdom of Slender Swords

  CHAPTER XVII

  A SILENT UNDERSTANDING

  Phil descended from his _rick'sha_ at the Tokyo Club and paid thecoolie.

  The building faced an open square between the Imperial Hotel and theParliament Buildings, along one of the smaller picturesque moats, whichthe fever for modernization was now filling in to make a conventionalboulevard. A motor shed stood at the side of the plaza and an automobileor two was generally in evidence. The structure was small butcomfortable enough, with reading- and card-rooms and a billiard-room ofmany tables. It was the clearing-house for the capital's news, thegeneral exchange for Diet, Peers' Club and the Embassies. It was a placeof tacit free-masonry and conversational dissections. From five to sevenin the afternoon it was a polyglot babble of Japanese, English, French,German and Italian, punctuated with the tinkle of glasses and thecheerful click of billiard balls. Over its tables secretaries met togossip of the newest _entente_ or the latest social "affair," and_protocols_ had been drafted on the big, deep, leather sofas adjoiningthe bar.

  The door was opened by a servile bell-boy in buttons. Phil tossed hishat on to the hall-rack and entered. It was cool and pleasant inside,and a great bowl of China asters sat on the table beside the membershipbook. On the wall was a wire frame full of visitors' cards. He strodethrough the office and entered a large, glass-inclosed piazza where anumber of Japanese, some in foreign, some in native costume, werewatching a game of _Go_. Two younger Legation _attaches_ were shakingdice at another table. It was but a little past noon and the place hadan air of sober quiet, very different, Phil reflected, from the club onthe Yokohama Bund, which was always buzzing, and where he washail-fellow-well-met with everybody. Frowning, he passed into the nextroom.

  Here his eye lightened. Sitting in a corner of one of the huge sofaswhich sank under his enormous weight, was Doctor Bersonin. A littleround table was before him on which sat a tall glass frosted withcracked ice.

  "Sit down," said the expert. "How do you come to be in Tokyo? TheReview, I presume." He struck a call-bell on the table and gave an orderto the waiter.

  Phil lighted a cigarette. "No," he said, "I've come to stay for awhile."

  "You haven't given up your bungalow on the Bluff?" asked Bersoninquickly. There was an odd eagerness in his colorless face--a look ofalmost dread, which Phil, lighting his cigarette, did not see. Itchanged to relief as the other answered:

  "No. Probably I shan't be here more than a few days."

  The expert settled back in his seat. "You'll not find the hoteleverything it should be, I'm afraid," he observed more casually.

  "I'm not there," Phil answered. "I--I've got a little Japanese house."

  "So! A _menage de garcon_, eh?" The big man held up his clinking glassto the light, and under cover of it, his deep-set yellowish eyes darteda keen, detective look at Phil's averted face. "Well," he went on, "howare your affairs? Has the stern brother appeared yet?"

  Phil shifted uneasily. "No," he replied. "I expect him pretty soon,though." He drained the glass the boy had filled. "You've beentremendously kind, Doctor," he went on hurriedly, "to lend me so much,without the least bit of security--"

  "Pshaw!" said Bersonin. "Why shouldn't I?" He put his hand on theother's shoulder with a friendly gesture. "I only wish money could giveme as much pleasure as it does you, my boy."

  Two men had seated themselves in the next room. Through the open doorcame fragments of conversation, the gurgle of poured liquid and thebubbling hiss of Hirano mineral water. Bersonin lowered his voice:"Youth! What a great thing it is! Red-blood and imagination and zest toenjoy. All it needs is the wherewithal to gild its pleasures. After atime age catches us, and what are luxuries then? Only things to maketiresomeness a little less irksome!"

  Phil moved his glass on the table top in sullen circles. "But supposeone hasn't the 'wherewithal' you talk of? What's the fun without money,even when you're young? I've never been able to discover it!"

  "Find the money," said Bersonin.

  "I wish some one would tell me how!"

  Bersonin's head turned toward the door. He sat suddenly rigid. It cameto Phil that he was listening intently to the talk between the two menin the next room.

  "I needn't point out"--it was a measured voice, cold and incisive anddeliberate--"that when the American fleet came, two years ago,conditions were quite different. The cruise was a national _tour deforce_; the visit to Japan was incidental. Besides, there was really nofeeling then between the two nations--that was all a creation of theyellow press. But the coming of this European Squadron to-day is adifferent thing. It is a season of general sensitiveness and distrust,and when the ships belong to a nation between which and Japan there isreal and serious diplomatic tension--well, in my opinion the time is, atbest, inopportune."

  "Perhaps"--a younger voice was speaking now, less certain, less poisedand a little hesitant--"perhaps the very danger makes for caution.People are particularly careful with matches when there's a lot ofpowder about."

  "True, so far as intention goes. But there is the possibility of some_contre-temps_. You remember the case of the _Ajax_ in the Eighties. Itwas blown up in a friendly harbor--clearly enough by accident, at leastso far as the other nation was concerned. But it was during a time ofstrain and hot blood, and you know how narrowly a great clash wasaverted. If war had followed, regiments would have marched across thefrontier, shouting: 'Remember the _Ajax_!' As it was, there was a panicin three bourses. Solid securities fell to the lowest point in theirhistory. The yellow press pounded down the market, and a few speculatorson the short side made gigantic fortunes."

  A moment's pause ensued. Bersonin's fingers were rigid. There seemedsuddenly to Phil to be some significance between his silence and theconversation--as if he wished it to sink into his, Phil's, mind. Thevoice continued:

  "What has happened once may happen again. What if one of thoseDreadnaughts by whatever accident should go down in this friendlyharbor? It doesn't take a vivid imagination to picture the headlinesnext morning in the newspapers at home!"

  The ice in the tumblers clinked; there was a sound of pushed-backchairs.

  As their departing footsteps died in the hall, Bersonin's gaze liftedslowly to Phil's face. It had in it now the look it had held when hegazed from the roof of the bungalow on the Bluff across the anchoragebeneath. Phil did not start or shrink. Instead, the slinking evil thatruled him met half-way the bolder evil in that glance, from whosesinister suggestion the veil was for a moment lifted, recognizing atacit kinship. Neither spoke, but as the hard young eyes looked into thecavernous, topaz eyes of Doctor Bersonin, Phil _knew_ that the thoughtthat lay coiled there was a thing unholy and unafraid. His heart beatfaster, but it warmed. He felt no longer awed by the other's greaterage, standing and accomplishments. He was conscious of a new,half-insolent sense of easy comradeship.

  "Suppose," said Bersonin slowly, "I should show you how to find themoney."

  A sharp eagerness darted across Phil's face. Money! How much he neededit, longed for it! It could put him on his feet, clear off his debts,square his bridge-balance, and--his brother notwithstanding!--enable himto begin another chapter of the careless life he loved! He lookedsteadily into the expert's face.

  "Tell me!" he almost whispered.

  Bersonin rose and held out his hand. He did not smile.

  "Come with me to-night," he said. "I dine late, but we'll take a spin inmy car and have some tea somewhere beforehand. Tell me where your houseis and I'll send Ishida with the motor-car for you."

  Phil gave him the address and he went out with no further word. A great,brass-fitted automobile, with a young, keen-eyed Japanese sitting besidethe chauffeur, throbbed up from the shed. Bersonin climbed ponderouslyin. A gray-haired diplomatist, entering the Club with a stranger,pointed the big man out to the other as he was whirled away.