CHAPTER XIV
“Say, Topham! I’m mighty glad to see you.” Stites, secretary of legation in Tokio, lifted his wine glass and leaned across the spotless cloth. “Mighty glad to see you. A glass of wine with you, old man.”
Topham lifted his glass and smiled. “Thank you,” he answered. “It makes a fellow feel good to be welcomed like this. You people have been mighty good to me.”
“Oh! Well!” Stites laughed. “We’ll show you the other side of it tomorrow.”
The two young men sat at a little round table at the English Hotel where nightly the foreigners and the fashionable world of Tokio dined and criticized each other’s clothes. Around them were men and women of all types—Germans, English, a few Americans, fewer French, many Japanese, some in native dress and others looking strangely awkward in European garments. Little dark waiters slipped swiftly, though not hurriedly, through the throng. The hum of conversation,punctuated by the click of ice on the rims of delicate glasses rose above the thrumming of the quaint oriental music. The night was heavy with the perfume of lilies. Far away, through the broad windows, across the roofs of the city, the bay gleamed silvery in the moonlight.
Topham took it all in. “It’s beautiful,” he said. “Beautiful! I’ve never been to Japan before and it—well, it’s overpowering.”
“Of course! Everything is, in this country. We’ve got maids at the embassy—the custom of the country, my boy—that are dreams of loveliness. Madame l’Ambassadrice objected and to please her I tried to get ugly ones. Nothing doing, my boy. There aren’t any in Japan—except those that wear Melican man’s clothes.”
Topham smiled. “I like it,” he said.
“Oh! Do you, indeed! Naturally you would. All sailors do. But look out, old man. Times aren’t what they used to be. Don’t trust the old romances on Japan or you’ll get into trouble.”
“I won’t.” Topham stared around him. All about were interesting-looking men and pretty women. “Who’s that?” he asked. “The tall man at the table to your right?”
“That’s Cosdon, the British naval attaché!There’s the Spanish attaché just beyond. Most of the attachés dine here. I’ll introduce you to a bunch of them after a while. You’ll be the whole works at our shop, you know. We haven’t had any sort of attaché, navy or army, for six months. And we’ve needed ’em; needed ’em like the devil.”
“Why?”
“Why what? Why did we need them? Well, you can’t play chess without pawns. You fellows are the pawns. We diplomats can’t play spy, you know; but you navy and army men are licensed.”
Topham raised his eyebrows. “Why not use the natives?” he asked; “or are they too patriotic?”
“Patriotic nothing! That’s all bunkum just like the jiu jitsu. The Japs are no better than any other nation and I guess they’re a little worse. They’ve got cowards and traitors just like other people—maybe more so. But you can’t trust traitors, you know; they won’t stay hitched. Besides, we need skilled men. The Chief has been cabling to Washington for attachés for six months, but the cotillions didn’t seem willing to spare anybody until you came. And they sent you in the end by the longest way round.”
Topham looked his sympathy. It had been three months since he had left Berlin. The Nevada,which he had joined at Brindisi, had dawdled along via Port Said, Aden, and Singapore and had reached Manila just too late to enable him to catch the swift, direct passenger steamer for Japan and compelling him to take a much slower and roundabout boat.
“I could have come quicker,” he admitted. “But the Nevada needed a watch officer, and—”
“And so you spent three months in coming by water instead of ten days coming by Siberian railway. And all the while the need for you here was increasing. I understand you speak Japanese, Topham.”
“A little!”
“Only a little?” The secretary was disappointed. “That’s bad—unless it’s only your beastly polite way of disdaining knowledge. Well! you’ve got your work cut out for you here! The Japs mean to fight us, and we have been grossly negligent in preparing for them. We haven’t even informed ourselves as to the extent of their preparations. The Chief has done what he could, but it hasn’t been much.”
Topham leaned back and let his eyes rove over the expanse of city and bay beneath the windows.No scene could be more peaceful. War seemed to him far-off and impossible.
“You really think they mean to fight?” he questioned. His tones expressed doubt, though much less than he felt.
“Of course! Of course! No doubt at all! They want to fight and they will fight. The only question is as to when they’ll fight. Japan means to be the England of the Pacific, and she means to dominate China, including Corea and Manchuria. The open door—Bah! No Japanese intends to allow it a moment longer than he must. Oh! they’ll fight! And they’re getting ready to fight now.”
Topham listened respectfully. Listening was Topham’s long suit. But he did not for an instant believe.
“Is there anything new,” he asked. “Things seemed quiet enough in Manila. Of course, I was there for only a day and hadn’t much time to pick up details. There was something in one of the papers about some trouble in San Francisco, I believe; but—”
“That’s the opening. A sort of gambit, you know. The Japs there claim they have a treaty right to send grown Japanese men to study in the public schools with white boys and girls—girls,you understand. It’s intolerable, of course! But they are using it as a pretext to stir up bad blood. They’re cunning. They are trying to make capital for themselves in Europe and particularly in England. Blood is thicker than water and they’ll have to have a mighty good excuse for war with the United States if they want England’s sympathy. And what’s more,” the secretary leaned forward, “I have reason to believe that they are dickering with Germany!”
Topham started and picked up his glass hastily, to mask his movement. Since he had met the Countess Elsa, any mention of Germany made his pulses stir.
“Natural enough, isn’t it?” he questioned. “Of course Japan would want to be on good terms with Germany. Probably she would like to be on terms with France, too; and perhaps even with Russia. But why should that mean anything against the United States. Frankly, Stites, I’m from Missouri on the Japanese question. You’ll have to show me!”
“Events will do that all right,” rejoined the other, a trifle grimly. “But, with Germany, it’s scarcely a question. Ever since that woman got here—”
“What woman?”
“The smartest, prettiest woman I ever knew and that’s saying something. Say, Topham, did you ever play stud-poker?”
“Well, I’veheardof it,” admitted the officer, grinning.
“Oh! Have you? Well! you know how it’s played? The dealer deals one card around face down, and everybody looks at it secretly. Then he deals around again and again, card by card, all face up, until each man has a full poker hand. After each round, you bet what you like. All the cards in all the hands except one are exposed. It’s the one secret card that makes the doubt in the game. Only one card, and yet it makes the game more exciting than if all five were hidden. Well! diplomacy is much like that—especially diplomacy as this woman plays it. She has shown all her cards except one—what Germany is to get out of it all. A mighty clever woman, Topham, and as pretty as she is clever.”
“Who is she?”
“Well, now, who knows. She calls herself—” the secretary broke off and craned his neck, trying to make out more clearly the identity of a little group of people who had just entered the dining-room.“She usually comes here to dine,” he went on, slowly, “And maybe—yes! There she is. She’s the lady approaching—the one in grey. She calls herself the Countess Elsa del Ouro Preto. Sounds Spanish, but she is really German as they make ’em.”
Topham never knew how he got to his feet. There was a roaring in his ears and the lights danced around him. Only one thing held steady—the splendid eyes of the Countess Elsa.
She was coming toward him. Her tiny jewelled slippers made no sound on the mats that covered the floor, but her silken robes swished as she moved. In the aureole of her hair trembled a single diamond; a belt of rubies clasped her waist. Ah! How beautiful she was. How she fitted into the scheme of things in this bizarre eastern world! Topham’s glass shattered in his hand and the pieces tinkled on the floor as he looked.
Then she saw him. For an instant the traitor blood ebbed to her heart, leaving her face whiter than man had ever seen it before. Then it rushed back in a crimson tide, burning. But she walked on. Her eyes held Topham’s for a second; then wandered indifferently past. Carelessly she turned to the huge blonde German who walked by herside—a man with the broad ribbon of the Black Eagle across his breast—and made some laughing remark. Indifferently, without sign of recognition, she passed—passed to where an obsequious waiter held a chair ready.
Topham’s legs gave way under him. It needed not the protests of the horror-stricken secretary to drag him down into his chair.
“For God’s sake, man! Careful! Everybody is watching you! Do you know her?”
Topham shook his head slowly. “I thought I did,” he muttered. “But—I do not.”