The Kingdom of Slender Swords
CHAPTER XXVII
LIKE THE WHISPER OF A BATS' WINGS
On the other side of Tokyo that night Doctor Bersonin sat with Phil inhis great laboratory. Dinner had been laid on a round table at one endof the room. This was now pushed into a corner; they sat in deep leatherchairs with slim liqueur glasses of green _creme de menthe_ on a standbetween them, with a methyl lamp and cigars.
Phil had more than once refilled his glass from the straw-braided,long-necked vessel at his elbow. He was restless and ill at ease. Thetense excitement that had followed his hour with Bersonin at the Clubhad been allayed by the lights and movement of the cherry-festival; butin that cool, bare room, under the continuous, slow scrutiny of theexpert's pallid, mask-like face, the sense of half-fearful elation hadreturned, reinforced by a feverish expectation.
During the dinner, served at ten, conversation had been desultory, fullof lapses broken only by the plaintive chirp of the _hiwa_ from itscorner. When the cigars and cordial had been brought by thesilent-footed Ishida, Bersonin had risen to draw the curtain closelyover the window and to lock the door. When he came back he stood beforethe mantelpiece, his arm laid along it, looking down from his toweringheight on the other's unquiet hand playing with the chain of thespirit-lamp. His face was very white. Phil drew a long, slow breath andlooked up.
Bersonin spoke. His voice was cold and measured; the only sign ofagitation was in the slow, spasmodic working of the great white fingersagainst the dark wood.
"I have brought you here to-night," he said, "to make you a proposition.I have need of help--of a kind--that you can give me. It will requirecertain qualities which I think you possess--which we possess in common.I have chosen you because you have daring and because you are nottroubled by what the coward calls conscience--that fool's name forfear!"
Phil touched his dry lips with his tongue. "I have as little of that asthe next man," he replied. "I never found I needed much."
Bersonin continued:
"What I have to say I can say without misgiving. For if you told itbefore the fact there is possibly but one man in Japan who would thinkyou sane; and if you told it after--well, for your own safety, you willnot tell it then! Your acceptance of my proposition will have a definiteeffect on your prospects, which, I believe, can scarcely be looked on asbright."
Phil muttered an oath. "You needn't remind me of that," he said withsurly emphasis. "I've got about as much prospects as a coolie stevedore.Well, what of it?"
The cold voice went on, and now it had gathered a sneer:
"You are twenty-three, educated, good-looking, with the best of lifebefore you--but dependent on the niggardly charity of a rich brother forthe very bread you eat. Even here, on this skirt of the world wherepleasures are cheap, it is only by dint of debt that you keep your headabove water. Now your sedate relative has come to sit in judgment onyour past year. What does he care for your private tastes? What will hedo when he hears of the _geisha_ suppers and the bar-chits at the Cluband the roulette table at the bungalow? Increase that generous stipendof yours? I fancy not."
Phil lit a cigar with a hand that shook. The doctor's contemptuous wordshad roused a tingling anger that raced with the alcohol in his blood.He, with the tastes of a gentleman, as poor as a temple-rat, while hisbrother sailed around the globe in his steam-yacht! He saw his allowancecut off--saw himself driven to the cheap expedients of the Bundbeach-comber, cringing for a _yen_ from men who had won his hundreds atthe Roost--or perhaps sitting on an under-clerk's stool in someSettlement counting-house, shabby-genteel, adding figures from eight inthe morning to five at night. No more moon-light cherry-parties on theSumida River, or plum-blossom picnics, or high jinks in the Inland Sea.No more pony-races at Omori, or cat-boat sailing at Kamakura, orphilandering at the Maple-Leaf Tea-House. No more laughing Japanesefaces and tinted fingers--no more stolen kisses in bamboo lanes--no moreHaru!
He struck the stand with his fist. "And if--I agree?" he said thickly."What then?"
Bersonin leaned forward, his hands on the stand. It rocked under hisweight. "I have talked of money. I will show you a quick way to gainit--not by years, but by _days_!--wealth such as you have never dreamed,enough to make your brother poor beside you! Not only money, but powerand place and honors. Is the stake big enough to play for?"
Phil stared at him, fascinated. It was not madness back of thosedappled, yellowish eyes. They were full of a knowledge, cold andmeasured and implacable.
"What do you--want me to do?" He almost gasped the words.
The expert looked him in the eye a full moment in silence, his fingerscrawling and twitching. Then, with a quick, leopard-like movement, hewent to the wall-safe, opened it and took out what seemed a square metalbox. In its top was set an indicator, like the range-finder of a camera.Its very touch seemed to melt his icy control. His paleness flushed; hishand trembled as he set it upon the desk.
"Wait!" he said. "Wait!"
He looked swiftly about the room. His eye rested on the bamboo cage anda quick gleam shot across his face. He opened the wire door and thelittle bird hopped to his finger. He moved a metal pen-rack to the verycenter of the desk and perched the tiny creature on it. It burst intosong, warbling full-throated, packed with melody. Bersonin set the metalcase a little distance away and adjusted it with minutest care.
"Sing, Dick!" he cried loudly; "sing! sing!--"
The song stopped. There had come a thrill in the air--a puff of icy windon Phil's face--a thin chiming like a fairy cymbal. Phil sprang up witha cry. The fluffy ball, with its metal perch, had utterly disappeared;only in the center of the desk was a pinch of reddish-brown powder likethe dust of an emery-wheel, laid in feathery whorls.
He stared transfixed. "What does it mean?" he asked hoarsely.
The doctor's voice was no longer toneless. It leaped now with an evilexultation. "It means that I--Bersonin--have found what physicists havedreamed of for fifty years! I have solved the secret of the love andhatred of atoms! That box is the harness of a force beside which theengines of modern war are children's toys."
He grasped Phil's arm with a force that made him wince. The amber eyesglittered.
"At first I planned to sell it to the highest bidder among the powers. Iwas a fool to think of that! The nation that buys it, to guard thesecret for itself, must wall me in a fortress! That would be the rewardof Bersonin--the great Bersonin, who had wrested from nature the mostsubtle of her secrets! But I am too clever for that! It must be _I_--_Ialone_--who holds the key! It shall bring me many things, but the firstof these is money. I must have funds--unlimited funds. The money Idespise, except as a stepping-stone, but the money _you love_ and musthave! Well, I offer it to you!"
Phil's heart was beating hard. The tension of the room had increased; ahundred suffocating atmospheres seemed pressing on it. "How--how--" hestammered.
Bersonin took a paper from his pocket, unfolded it and laid it on thestand. It was a chart of Yokohama harbor. A red square was drawn in themargin, and from this a fine, needle-like ray pointed out across theanchorage. With his pencil the Doctor wrote two words on the redsquare--"The Roost."
Phil shrank trembling into his chair. He seemed to see the other lookingat him over clinking glasses at the Club, while voices spoke from thenext room. "_What if one of those Dreadnaughts should go down in thisfriendly harbor!_" It came from his lips in a thin whisper, almostwithout his volition--the answer to the question that had haunted himthat day.
A gleam like the fire of unholy altars came in Bersonin's eyes.
"Not one--_two_! A bolt from a blue sky, that will echo over Europe! Andwhat then? A fury of popular passion in one country; suspicion and alarmin all. Rumors of war, fanned by the yellow press. The bottom droppingout of the market! It means millions at a single _coup_, for, in spiteof diplomatic quibbles, the market is like a cork. The Paris bourse issoaring. Wall Street will make a new record to-morrow. In London,Consols are at Ninety-two. My agents are awaiting my
word. I have many,for that is safer. I shall spread selling orders over fivecountries--British bonds in Vienna and New York, and steel and Americanrailroads in London. I risk all and you--nothing. Yet if you join handswith me in this we shall share alike--you and I! And with the winningswe get now we shall get more. Trust me to know the way! Money shall bedirt to you. The pleasure-cities of every continent shall be yourplaygrounds. You shall have your pretty little Japanese _peri_, andfifty more besides."
Phil's face had flushed and paled by turns. He looked at the expert witha shivering fascination: "But there are--there will be--men aboard thoseships...." He shuddered and wrenched his gaze away.
Bersonin put out his great hand and laid it on the other's shoulder--itsweight seemed to be pressing him down into the chair.
"Well?" he said, in a low intense voice. "What if there are?"
There was a long silence. Then slowly Phil lifted a face as white aspaper. A look slinking and devilish lay in it now.
The doctor bent down and began to speak in a low tone. The sound passedaround the room, sibilant, like the sound of a bat's wings in the dark.
* * * * *
It was an hour before midnight when Phil opened the gate of the expert'shouse and passed down the moon-lighted street. He walked stumblingly,cowering at the tree-shadows, peering nervously over his shoulder likeone who feels the presence of a ghastly familiar.
In the great room he had left, Bersonin stood by the fireplace. Thenervous strain and exaltation were still on him. He poured out a glassof the liqueur which he had not yet tasted and drank it off. The hotpungent mint sent a glow along his nerves. Behind him Ishida wasmethodically removing the dinner service. The doctor crossed the roomand stood before the bamboo cage. He drew back the spring-door andwhistling, held out his finger.
"Here, Dick!" he called. "Here, boy!"
There was no response.
He started. His face turned a gray-green. He drew back and stealthilyturned his head.
But the Japanese did not seem to have noticed the silence. With the trayin his hands, he was looking fixedly at the feathery sprays ofreddish-yellow dust on the polished top of the desk.