CHAPTER XII.

THE MESSAGE OF THE DEAD.

It was an embarrassing situation for Tillizinni. He saw the older man’s eyes fixed on him accusingly as the youth, dazed and white, picked himself up from the floor. Yet the detective said nothing.

“You shall hear from me, Signor Tillizinni,” said De Costa, senior. He spoke with deliberation, and his tone was full of menace. “Scotland Yard shall know that you consort with this adventurer, who, in addition to being a pirate, is also a common thief.”

Tillizinni checked a movement of his impulsive friend with a gesture.

“A common thief?” he repeated pleasantly.

“A common thief--a burglar--who ransacked my house a fortnight ago,” said De Costa. “Who cut a way through a door, and found--nothing!”

He bared his teeth in a triumphant smile.

“Here!” He thrust his hand into the inside pocket of his coat and pulled out a short bladed knife, protected by a leather sheath.

“The burglar left this behind on a desk he had forced,” he said. “You will observe, Ned, that your initials are on the blade--N.T.--Ned Talham!”

Tillizinni smiled as the old man replaced the knife and made for the door.

“Yet another fact to lay before Scotland Yard,” he said pleasantly, as he opened the door for the angry pair. “N.T. also stands for Nicholos Tillizinni.”

The son had reached the landing, and De Costa was passing through the doorway to follow the waiting servant. At Tillizinni’s words he turned.

“You?” he asked.

Tillizinni bowed.

“I came searching for a certain document stolen from the Chinese Embassy,” he said. “Would you allow your son to wait in another room whilst I tell you something?”

De Costa paused irresolutely.

He walked to the door.

“You may wait downstairs for me,” he said.

He came back and closed the door after him. Tillizinni strolled to the other end of the room, his hands in his pockets, his dark brow puckered in a thoughtful frown. He strolled back to meet De Costa.

“Won’t you sit down?” he said, but the old man made no move.

“As I said, I went to your house--burgled it if you will--it is one of the crimes which I permit myself. I came to seek a certain dossier containing a document which I had every reason to believe was in your possession.”

“You found nothing?” said the old man steadily.

“I found nothing,” agreed Tillizinni. “At any rate, I did not find that which I set forth to find. What I did discover, however, was rather interesting. It was that you had at least three visitors on that night, and that they had all been Chinamen, and that one, and the most important of these”--he spoke slowly--“was quite in ignorance as to the visit of the others.”

Not a muscle of the old man’s face moved.

“Go on,” he said.

Tillizinni had picked up a fountain pen from the desk and was pointing his remarks with little flourishes which were peculiarly his.

“Well,” he began, and stopped with an exclamation of apology, for from the waving fountain-pen a few drops had fallen upon the white shirt-front of the visitor.

He stepped forward impulsively with his handkerchief and wiped them clean.

De Costa was in some doubt as to whether he should reject such civility. Then Tillizinni resumed.

“The presence of the two men was rather a mystery. I found no indication that they had stayed any time, and I gathered by the fact that you had written very elaborate directions, that they had come to consult you as to the best method of getting out of England.”

Still the man made no sign.

“You had carefully written--possibly on two half-sheets of notepaper, since I found the corresponding halves with the tell-tale address upon them in the wastepaper basket--a string of names of places written in English and blotted on a fairly clean pad. Since those names occur twice I gathered there was some slight difference between them, and I gather that you had advised them to take different routes.

“One went by way of Ostend to Petrograd, Moscow, and Tomsk, and _viâ_ the Trans-Siberian Railway; the other was apparently advised to leave by way of Liverpool on a Chinese cargo boat which sailed this morning. This much I gathered from the fact that you had given him the name of an agent in Liverpool to whom he could apply. That also you very indiscreetly blotted.”

The old man’s face was livid now.

“And what do you make of all this?” he asked with a show of bravado.

“As far as I can understand,” said Tillizinni, “two men in your pay are responsible for the abstraction of a very important document from the Chinese Embassy. Piecing the story together I understand that you are in agreement with Soo, a scholarly gentleman and a mutual acquaintance.”

He bowed ironically.

“At the last moment, or possibly long before the last moment, you feared that Soo would play you false, and went behind his back to bribe two hirelings to deliver what was found to you. Possibly you did not see the workings of the Chinese mind, nor foresee the tragedy which must inevitably occur when one member of the party engaged to rob the ambassador happens to be the brother of your defrauded partner.”

“The brother!”

De Costa was shocked, he was terrified; they read that in his eyes.

Tillizinni nodded.

“The brother,” he repeated, “of Ts’i Soo was the unfortunate man who was found doubled up in the bureau of the ambassador’s study. As I say, you probably did not foresee this unpleasant ending to the adventure, and went into it with no more idea than of being party to a minor felony. Your men killed the Chinaman who called himself ‘Star above the Yamen’ because they saw no other way of silencing him. They brought the documents straight on to you.”

“That is a lie!” said De Costa.

“They brought the documents to you,” repeated Tillizinni, “and they have never left you day or night.”

He took a step closer to De Costa, and the old man shrunk back. His hands went up to his right breast.

“They are probably in an inside pocket of your waistcoat,” said Tillizinni. “May I see?”

He reached out his hand, but before he could touch him the old man turned with a snarl, dashed open the door, and swung himself through it, descending the steps at a pace which did credit to his age, but was disastrous to his dignity.

Tillizinni laughed. He sat back in his chair and laughed that silent chuckle of his for fully three minutes.

“But why--why,” protested Talham, “why not have taken the papers whilst you could? For heaven’s sake, why did you let him go?”

Tillizinni shook his head.

“I could not take the document from him,” he said with a smile, “because I had already taken it when I was wiping his shirt front,” and he laid on the table a thin folded sheet closely written in Chinese characters.

Very slowly Talham read:

“Chu, Mi, Tsan Sui, and Tulm, ............ together ............ as brothers, swearing ............ This we say, being mechanical men from divers provinces brought together, because of our great skill, to the shadow of the Emperor’s house (here was something indecipherable) that we shall finish the tomb, fitting bronze doors, also working on a machine which the philosopher made.

“One of us to the other said--if the Emperor be buried and with him mighty treasures, how easy will it be for us--we shall know all the mechanical secrets of this place--to find a means for returning, and, if there be treasure buried, to take it away with us; and we agreed. So we have set this down for the guidance of our sons if we be dead when the great attempt shall be made, that the bronze door which shall fall at the entrance, and may not be lifted except with the strength of fifty bullocks--and the ............ be taken away.

“We have made a pit so large as the door itself, and there is nothing solid beneath that floor; so that if you shall find at either side of the entrance, between two great rocks carved two bronze images buried the length of a finger, between stones, you shall pull these and the door will fall as it fell before, but never to be raised, save with the strength of fifty bullocks.

“And inside is a large cave with two silver lamps which shall burn on the day of its closing, and from one of these lamps there is a long chain of bronze which runs through a tunnel along the roof, and is mechanically connected (here again the manuscript is indecipherable).

“If you shall pull upon the silver lamp which is nearest the door of bronze, the whole of the door of silver which is at the foot of the steps shall open. I myself made this tunnel and placed the chain therein, fixing with mechanical contrivance.

“Beware of all steps save the spirit steps, for they are devilishly made by..............

“Inside the silver door you shall find the great rivers working marvellously, and on the roof of the cave, which has been made smooth with great labour, many stars shaped ........ precious stones. And here will the Emperor be laid--he and his wives, and in a pit which we have dug on either side shall be cast the ornaments of gold and silver, and the jewels which he wore in his lifetime, and the jewels also of his wives and of his blood relations.

“Let our memories be blessed by our children, that we have brought fortune to them, and made them richer than kings, and given them dominions greater than the provinces of the barbarians.”

Talham read these documents through twice, scribbling in his angular writing a rough translation the first time and amending as he read it again.

He looked up at the detective.

Tillizinni had been infected with something of the fever which possessed the other.

“What do you think?” asked Talham.

“I think it is a wonderful discovery,” said Tillizinni, and he meant it, for that document to him was as precious as anything which Talham might secure from the vaults beneath Mount Li.

It was written on paper of extraordinary texture. Indeed, it was as thin as that quality which is known as “Indian paper” to-day.

Very few of the characters had been damaged, and such obliterations as there were, were caused by the folds in the document.

Talham looked up with a puzzled frown.

“Still, this tells us nothing as to the locality of the mountain?” he said.

Tillizinni shook his head.

“Curiously, I have never thought that the locality was ever likely to be established,” he said. “Probably the Chinese ambassador referred to the locality of the tomb rather than the exact geographical position of the mountain.

“I have been looking through some books in the British Museum,” he said, “and it appears that the Emperor had expressed a desire to be buried in the land of his birth. As you knew, he was practically a usurper of the Chinese throne. The Empire as we know it to-day had no existence until he brought the provinces together into a united whole. He was a sort of prehistoric Bismarck.”

“I have thought of that, too,” said Talham. “The old kingdom of Ts’in was situated in a rough circle, of which the town of Hoo Sin is the centre. It is obviously not the Mount Li in the neighbourhood of Pekin.”

There was a long silence; which Talham broke.

“Delay,” he said, “is repugnant to the active mind; action is the essence of vitality. Seconds, strenuously saved at one end, are lessened hours of peace at the other.”

“When you have finished delivering these excellent maxims,” said Tillizinni with a faint smile, “perhaps you will come to the point.”

“My point is this,” said Talham shortly; “we must go along and find that tomb before somebody else discovers it. You see, we have the information which was denied to De Costa and to his confederates--the information contained in the jade bracelet.”

“We?” said Tillizinni, raising his eyebrows.

“We,” said Talham calmly. “You have been so kind to me, and have offered me such hospitality, even going so far to advance me the small sums which were necessary to my sustenance. No, no,” he went on, for Tillizinni would have hushed him down, “these matters, material as they are, show the tendencies of a soul. I once thought,” he mused, but Tillizinni cut him short.

The orations of Captain Talham were inclined to err on the side of longevity, and Tillizinni regarded himself as more or less ephemeral.

Besides which, Tillizinni had work to do, a description of Soo had been circulated up and down the country, and every haunt which might shelter him had been systematically searched. The ports were being watched, and no Chinaman went on board an ocean-going liner without first passing the strict scrutiny of detectives who were watching the outgoing steamers. In spite of this fact no trace of the man could be found.

Neither Talham nor Tillizinni agreed with the theory that he had been drowned in his attempt to escape, and Talham, who invariably held stronger views than most men, and expressed them with greater strength, even went so far as to accompany the dragging parties on the banks of the canal, and at intervals to deliver little speeches on the futility of vain effort--an embarrassing situation from which Tillizinni delivered the searchers by the exercise of his tact.

By Tillizinni’s instructions, the house in Curzon Street was watched day and night. He had no illusions, he knew full well that if Soo could strike a blow at Talham through the girl, he would do so.

The newspapers had arisen to the occasion and had referred exultantly to the “bottling up” of the fugitive Chinaman. It was a little phrase coined in a hurried moment which caught the fancy of the great public; the “bottling up” of England to hold an escaping murderer, appealed to the popular imagination.

Curiously enough, the greatest difficulty had been found in identifying Soo with any known person in China. The Governor of Tai-pan, with whom the Chinaman claimed relationship, had telegraphed to his Government that his only son was pursuing his studies in Nanking, and could not possibly be the wanted man.

Nevertheless, though the Chinese Government had promised every assistance to bring the culprit to justice, and to thoroughly punish him if he reached Chinese territory, Tillizinni knew that it was for China that the man would make.

Talham had gone home, and the precious document had been locked in Tillizinni’s safe, and he himself was preparing for a greatly-needed night’s rest, when his sleepy servant brought a plain envelope addressed to the detective.

“How did this come?” asked Tillizinni.

“By a little boy, sir,” said the man.

Tillizinni held the envelope to the light. It showed nothing more sinister than a folded sheet of paper, and he slit it open. There were only a few words, but those words were particularly interesting.

The letter was without superscription, and ran:

“Some day I will ‘bottle up’ somebody who is very precious to your friend, and you may be sure that when she is once again in my hands, nothing you can do will save her.”

Tillizinni re-read the letter and sent for the messenger.

The boy could tell him little, except that a man had given the letter to him to deliver, and since the description of that man did not in any way tally with the description of Soo, Tillizinni gathered that the messenger originally sent, had chosen a deputy, for reasons of his own.

He sent the boy away, read the letter for the third time, and after telephoning to assure himself that the guards he had fixed in Curzon Street were at their posts, he went to bed and slept as soundly as any man could sleep who had not closed his eyes in slumber for forty-eight hours.

It was broad daylight when his servant brought him in his chocolate and toast. With it came one of the few letters which were addressed personally to him. It was from Yvonne Yale, a charming little note of thanks for the service he had rendered, but she made no mention of Talham.

Tillizinni smiled.

Now that the excitement had passed, and the exhilaration of the rescue subsided, he imagined that the girl might very properly blame Talham for the part he had played. In this he was wrong, as he was to discover.

He spent the whole of the day at Scotland Yard in the laboratory, making experiments to demonstrate the value of a new finger-print method.

He did not see Talham that night, nor the next day either, for the matter of that, but on the third day following the discovery of the paper, and the fourth after the abduction of the girl, Talham came to see him in a state of great excitement.

“Soo is in London,” he said briefly, and seemed pleased with himself that he could report information to the encyclopædia detective.

Tillizinni nodded.

“I know that,” he said.

“What is more,” said Talham, “I’ve been followed about for the last two days by a couple of men. I tried to lure them into a dark court last night to beat them up.”

“I’m very glad you didn’t,” said Tillizinni drily, “because those were eminently respectable members of the Metropolitan Police, whom I have put on to protect you from whatever harm might be coming to you.”

Talham looked a little crestfallen. He had come prepared to accept a little praise from the other for his acumen and his powers of perception.

“But how do you know that Soo is in London?” asked Tillizinni.

“Because I saw him,” said the calm Talham, and secured his sensation.

Tillizinni raised his eyebrows.

“Saw him and did not arrest him?”

“It was rather difficult,” explained Talham. “I was on the platform of a tube station at Piccadilly Circus just as the train was moving out. In a rear carriage as it went past me, gathering speed at every second, I saw a man whom I’ll swear was Soo, with a perfectly fitting beard. I know him, moreover, by the scar above his left eye. Just as he came abreast of me he raised his eyes, and then I was sure. I couldn’t stop the train--which reminds me,” he said portentously, “that I must report the station-master and several of the employées on the Underground Railway for marked insolence.”

Tillizinni gathered that Talham had made himself objectionable, and sympathised with the station officials.

“I couldn’t telephone through to the next station, and if I had, I probably should not have got through in time,” he said, “and if I got through----”

“Anyway, you didn’t telephone at all,” said Tillizinni with a smile, “and he alighted at the next station, and disappeared.”

Talham nodded.

“I have known he’s been in London for some days,” said Tillizinni. “As a matter of fact, there is nothing very clever in finding that out, because I received a note which was unmistakably from him. Scotland Yard can do no more than they are doing, and unless he leaves in an aeroplane, and we have made provision for that contingency, I don’t see how he is to escape from England.”

Tillizinni had applied for leave, he told the other, and was prepared to leave for China the following week. If he had expected Talham to be excited or elated or in any way pleasantly surprised, he was doomed to disappointment.

Talham had taken it for granted that Tillizinni, despite all his multifarious interests, would grasp the opportunity to visit the Celestial Kingdom and enjoy the adventure which his enterprise promised.

“Everything, of course, depends upon what happens to Soo,” the detective went on. “I can’t leave if he’s arrested, I can’t leave if he’s not arrested. Our only hope for my holiday is that Soo, in some mysterious fashion which is peculiarly his, makes his escape from this country.”

As a matter of fact, the detective did not leave that week nor the next, nor that which followed.

On the Saturday of the third week came a letter; it bore the postmark of Madison Square Gardens post-office, and was in the handwriting of Soo. It was brief, and reiterated the threat which he had uttered in his shorter epistle, but more specifically, in language which need not be repeated nor transcribed.

Tillizinni locked it away with the other documents affecting the case and prepared for his departure.

* * * * *

There was one man as interested in the movement of Soo as Tillizinni.

Old Raymond de Costa, a bitter and hateful man, and also a fearful man. He dreaded the law on the one side, and the vengeance of Soo on the other, if it ever came out that it was he who had played him false.

The news published in the morning papers that Soo had reached America came as a great relief to the old man; it freed him to pursue his private feud against Tillizinni and his insufferable friend.

He discovered the loss of the document for which he had sacrificed so much, yet did not associate the detective with the theft until his valet drew attention to the ink-spot on the dress shirt which came back from the laundry.

“You’ve had some ink on your shirt, sir,” said the man.

With a scowl De Costa remembered the circumstances under which it had been acquired.

“Yes, throw it away,” he said shortly.

The man folded up the garment with a little smile.

De Costa detected it, and turned on him the vials of his vitriolic wrath.

“I’m very sorry, sir,” said the man apologetically. “I wasn’t smiling at the shirt, I was just remembering how a gentleman I once valeted was robbed of fifty pounds.”

“I don’t want to hear about it,” growled the old man.

Then curiosity got the better of him.

“I suppose you’re aching to tell me,” he said ungraciously. “How was it?”

“It happened in the West End,” said the valet. “A man was writing a note with a fountain-pen in the vestibule of one of the cafés. He happened to shake it, and some drops fell on the gentleman’s shirt. The gentleman who did it was very sorry and wiped it off with his own silk handkerchief, but my master lost a bundle of notes from the inside pocket of his coat whilst the wiping process was going on.”

As he proceeded, De Costa’s face was a study. He realised now how the paper came to be lost.

So Tillizinni had the paper, and had, too, evidence as to his complicity in the Embassy robbery! But had he? Nobody would be able to identify the documents which were stolen. It had been stated so at the inquest.

No, there would be no evidence to convict the respectable Raymond de Costa in that, or he would have been arrested by now. Besides, he was a known antiquarian and a collector of Chinese objects, art, and literature. There would be every excuse for his being in possession of such a thing. He had the transcription, and the document had no value now save to the antiquarian.

He must act at once.