Chapter XII The Lottery Ticket
In the midst of the lull that followed the failure of Peter Bolton’s assault on the fortifications of commerce, I was surprised to find on my office desk one morning the following letter:
RESPECTFUL SIR:
to yours we this day instructed to remind you that your presence is more than agreeable. Having placed to your credit a money sum drawn according to ticket, should be your worshipful servant to have presented for payment.
As ever your faithful, KWAN LUEY & Co.
This missive, written in a beautiful Spencerian hand, was for some minutes a puzzle. I read over its tangle-worded lines two or three times before it dawned upon me that it must concern the lottery ticket that I had purchased in Peter Bolton’s office. The ticket had been handed to me with the promise that I should have “heap big money,” and I drew from the letter’s flowery but uncertain language the inference that the promise had been fulfilled. If confirmation had been necessary, the letter confirmed the testimony of my eyes when they had assured me that the seller of the ticket was Big Sam. It was impossible that any other Chinese would have known that I was the holder of the paper, or would have procured the sending of the derangement of words that had come over the name of Kwan Luey. As nothing more important called for my attention I indulged my curiosity by setting put at once for Kwan Luey’s store.
Kwan Luey showed himself superior to any narrow prejudices in regard to the objects in which it was fitting for a merchant to trade. In one window he exhibited a fine collection of silks, ebony carvings, sandal-wood ornaments, and figured Chinese coats. In the other he had piled all manner of fine porcelain, ivory and lacquered ware. The counters in the front part of the store showed a similar division of salable goods. Farther back could be seen mats of rice, boxes of tea, bags of Chinese roots, and piles of mysterious and uncanny Chinese edibles. In his office clerks were counting Mexican dollars and packing them in stout boxes for shipping to China, the earnings of his countrymen. The closed rear rooms, I surmised, were devoted to the operation of the two or three lotteries he was reputed to control.
Kwan Luey himself stood just outside his office, a short, well-fed, well-dressed Chinaman, whose rounded, dark-brown face denoted a cheerful mind. I called him by name.
“What you wan’?” he asked suspiciously, prepared to deny his identity if my errand were not to his liking.
I introduced myself, and as my name brought no sign of enlightenment to his face, I presented his letter as a card of identification.
He gravely read it with all the pride of authorship kindling in his eye, and as gravely handed it back to me.
“How you like him, eh? Plitty good letteh, eh?”
I assured him that I could not have bettered it myself.
Kwan Luey gave a gratified smile.
“I lite him,” he explained. “I go Mission school fo’ yeah. I leahn lite, all same copy-book. I all same beat teacheh, eh?”
“You are a Christian Chinaman, then, Kwan Luey?”
“You Clistian?” he asked.
“I hope so.”
He gave me a sly glance, and said:
“I Clistian Chinaman when Clistian man wan’ buy goods.”
“But not when Clistian man wants money?” I asked.
Kwan Luey smiled the bland smile of China, and made no direct reply.
“You wan’ money, eh?” he said. “You heap lucky, eh?”
“Well, I don’t know.”
“You catch-em ticket?”
I produced the square of paper I had received from Big Sam.
“What does that say?” I asked.
Kwan Luey took the paper, and drew his eyelids together till there showed but two narrow slanting slits between them as he pretended to examine it.
“Him say—him say—I look-em book and see what him say.” And with his bland smile still rendering his face innocent of meaning, he retired to his office. He reappeared a moment later.
“Him say you dlaw two hund’ fitty dollah,” was his announcement.
The comedy of the lottery ticket was being played out to the end. I was convinced that the paper was a direct order from Big Sam to pay me the money, but as I looked into the brown mask of Kwan Luey’s face I recognized the folly of attempting to draw from him any word that he was unwilling to speak. But as he counted twelve twenty-dollar gold pieces and a ten into my hand I could not forbear saying:
“And what does Big Sam expect me to do with the money?”
I thought I detected a slight movement of Kwan Luey’s eyes—a momentary contraction of the lids, as though a beam of light had flashed across them and was gone. It was the only sign of surprise I could detect.
“You sabby Big Sam?” he asked blandly.
“Yes, I sabby Big Sam.”
“And you no sabby what to do with you’ money? You no sabby dlink—all same Clistian? You no sabby hoss-lace? You no sabby pokah?” And at this enumeration of the white man’s facilities for disposing of superfluous wealth he laughed with the ironic laugh of China.
I suggested that Big Sam might have intended another destination for the money.
“Oh,” said Kwan Luey innocently, “you likee Big Sam tell you what do? I likee send letteh to Big Sam. You takee letteh, him tell you what do.”
The letter was already in his hand, and he passed it to me as gravely as though the coincidence was but one of the common events of life.
“I see that you were prepared for me,” I said, with a tinge of sarcasm in my voice, and wondered how Kwan Luey would have brought the errand about if I had not served his purpose by introducing Big Sam’s name.
The Chinaman smiled placidly.
“I no sabby,” he said. “Good-by. Some day you wan’ some nice thing, you come Kwan Luey’s stoah.”
I drew the conclusion that Big Sam wished to see me, and had arranged that Kwan Luey was to find a pretext for sending me to his office. Why he should not himself have sent word of his wish, I could not guess, unless it was a part of his policy to avoid direct paths where indirection could be made to serve.
A few minutes later I walked into the store beneath Big Sam’s residence and put foot on the dingy stair that led to his office. A short, stout Chinaman tried to halt me with a “What you wan’?” but I pushed him aside and passed up the steps. I knew my way through the semi-darkness of the passage, and stumbled upward without wish for guidance or thought of danger. I had not mounted half the ascent before I heard something of a commotion above me—the shutting of a door, a scurry of feet, and a rumbling sound as though a heavy table had been moved across the floor. I amused myself with the thought that I had caught Big Sam’s household unprepared for visitors and imagined the flight of the feminine portion of his family at the sound of my approaching footfall.
I reached the landing. The hall was deserted, and, turning toward the building’s front, I knocked at the one door that led from the passage. There was no answer, and I knocked again. As a third knock brought no response I turned the knob and opened the door for myself. To my surprise Big Sam’s room of state had disappeared. In place of the large and handsome office, with its profusion of ornamentation and its oriental furniture, I found myself looking into a narrow passageway between blank walls. I looked about the hall with the thought that I must have mistaken the door. But there was no other entrance to be seen, and I looked again in perplexity at the passage, unwilling to believe the evidence of my eyes. As I turned to make sure of the transformation I heard a click as of a spring lock snapped, a smart push at my back sent me staggering forward, and the door banged behind me.
It took but a moment to recover myself and face about. But I was too late. The door had been securely locked. A few blows on the panels sufficed to assure me that it was of too solid construction to yield to anything less powerful than an ax; and though the frame rattled at my efforts, I saw that I was a prisoner, unless I could find some other way of egress. I spared the door the kicks and blows that were called for by my first impulse. If I had been fool enough to get into this trap, I had at least sense enough to recognize that I should not better myself by knocking the skin off my knuckles in the effort to attract attention. The persons whose ears I could reach did not need to be informed of my presence. They had attended to the little detail of putting me there, and might be assumed to be aware of the honor I was doing them without further demonstration of the fact.
I turned to look once more at my prison. It was hardly five feet wide, and might have been thirty feet long, and appeared to turn a sharp corner and lead toward the rear of the building. Evidently I was at the entrance of one of the labyrinths of Chinatown, famous in police reports.
Up to this moment I had felt no fear at my situation. It seemed indeed to be something of a practical joke at which I could afford to laugh. I had evidently wandered into the wrong building, been mistaken for a detective, or a tax collector, or some equally unpleasant person, and had been turned in here out of the way of doing mischief. I had but to reveal the object of my visit—provided I could find anybody to reveal it to—and I should be sent on my way with apologies. But some remembrance of the gruesome tales of the deeds that had been done in these labyrinths suggested that the sooner I found speech with some one, the better chance of safety I should have. I was about to venture down the passage in search of a guide when I was startled to hear a voice speaking in my ear in perfect English:
“If Mr. Hampden will have the patience to wait a moment, he will be welcome.”
It was the voice of Big Sam, and I looked about me with the thought that I should find him at my side. But I was still the only tenant of the passage, and in perplexity I scanned the walls and ceiling. At a second glance my eye lighted upon a small bull’s-eye of glass set in the wall. It doubtless served as an observatory from which suspicious characters might be examined, and some arrangement of speaking tubes gave communication by voice.
“Thank you,” I said, as I made these observations. “I am in no hurry.”
I had scarce spoken when a part of the wall swung back, and Big Sam stood in the opening.