The Case of the Curio Dealer by William Hope Hodgson (top 10 novels .txt) 📖

The Case of the Curio Dealer

by William Hope Hodgson

S.S. Iolanthe,

October 29.

I MET a rum sort of customer ashore in ‘Frisco to-day. At least, I was the customer, and he, as a matter of fact, was the shopman. It was one of those Chinese curio shops, that have drifted down, somehow, near to the water front. By the look of him, he was half Chinaman, a quarter negro, and the other quarter badly mixed. But his English was quite good, considering.

“You go to England, Cap’n?” he asked me.

“London Town, my lad,” I told him. “But you can’t come. We don’t carry passengers. Try higher up. There’s a passenger packet ahead of my ship; you’ll see her with the prettily painted funnel.”

“I not want to come,” he explained. Then he came a step nearer to me, and spoke quieter, taking a look quickly to right and left; but there was no one else in the shop.

“Want to send a blox home, Cap’n — a big long blox. Long as you, Cap’n,” he told me, almost in a whisper. “How much you take him for? Send him down to-night, when dark?”

“Who’ve you been murdering now?” I said, lighting a cigarette. “I should try the bay, and have a good heavy stone or two in the sack. I’m not in the body-hiding line.”

The man’s yellow dusky face went quite grey, and his eyes set, for an instant, in a look of complete terror. Then some sense of comprehension came into them, and he smiled, in rather a pallid kind of way.

“Yo mak-a joke, Cap’n,” he said. “I not murder any one. The blox contain a mummy, I have to consign to the town of London.”

But I had seen the look on his face, when I let off my careless squib about the corpse; and I know when a man’s badly frightened. Also, why did he not consign his box of mummy to London in the ordinary way; and why so anxious to send it aboard after dark? In short, there were quite a number of whys. Too many!

The man went to the door, and took a look out, up and down the street; then came away, and went to the inner door, which I presumed was his living-room. He drew back and shut the door gently; then took a walk round the backs of the counters, glancing under them. He came out, and walked once or twice up and down the centre of the shop, in a quick, irresolute kind of way, glancing at me earnestly. I could see that his forehead was covered with sweat, and his hands shook a little, as he fumbled his long coat-fixing. I felt sorry for him.

“Now, my son,” I said at last, “what is it? You look as if you badly needed to tell somebody. If you want to hand it on to me, I’ll not swear to help you; but I’ll hold my tongue solidly afterwards.”

“Cap’n, Sir,” he said, and seemed unable to get any further. He went again to the shop door and looked out; then once more to the inner door, which he opened quietly. He peeped in; then closed it gently, and turned and walked straight across to me. I could see his mind was pretty well made up. He came close up to me, and touched a charm which I wear on my chain.

“That, Cap’n!” he said. “I too!” And he pulled aside a flap of his coat-robe, and showed me a similar one.

“They can be bought for a couple of dollars, anywhere,” I said, looking him slam in the eyes. As I said so, he answered a sign I had made.

“Brother,” he said. “Greatly good is God to have send you in my distress ;” and he answered my second sign.

“Brother,” I said, as I might have spoken to my own brother, “let us prove this thing completely.” And, in a minute, I could no longer doubt at all. This stranger, part Chinese, part negro and part other things, was a member of the same brotherhood to which I belong. Those who are also my brothers will be able to name it.

“Now,” I said, “tell me all your tale, and if it is not against common decency to help you, you may depend on me.” I smiled at him encouragingly.

The man simply broke down, and cried a few moments into his loose sleeve.

“You take the blox, Cap’n Brother,” he said, at last. “I pay you a t’ousand dollars now this moment.”

“No,” I told him. “Tell me all about it, first. If it is murder, I can’t help you, unless there are things to excuse you; for if you have murdered, you have no longer any call on me, as a brother.”

“I not done murder, Cap’n Brother,” he said. “I tell you all. You then take blox for t’ousand dollars?”

“If you’re clear of anything ugly in this matter,” I said, “I’ll take your box into hell and out again, if necessary, and there’ll be no talk of pay between us. Now get going.”

He beckoned to me, and took me round the counter. Here was a long box, a huge affair, very strongly made, and with a hinged lid. He took hold of the lid, and lifted it.

“The mummy!” I exclaimed; for the thing was plain there before my eyes, in its long, painted casing — a huge man or woman it must have been, too.

“My son, Cap’n Brother,” said the Chinaman.

“What?”

“Him there,” said the Chinaman.

“What! Now?” I asked again, staring.

He nodded, and glanced round the shop, anxiously.

“Dead!” I said. “Is he embalmed?”

“No, Cap’n Brother,” he said. “The mummy-case empty. My son under there, hiding. Him sleep with much opium I give him. I ship him to you to-night. First I tell you why —

“I belong to the Nameless Ones, we call them. They are a brotherhood also, an’ have live for two t’ousand years. I belong also with two other brotherhood; for in China I have importance by family and relation. But this have to do with the brotherhood of the Nameless Ones. My son a little wild. Him drink Engleesh spirit, an’ him come home drunk an’ there three of the Nameless Ones brotherhood speak secret with me; but him drunk an’ not heed nothing. Him come in an’ sit down an’ laugh. The Number 7, that is the President, order him to go out, an’ him put the thumb to his nose — so I The President have a great anger; but hold it; for I am old in the brotherhood, an’ the young man is my son; but not of the brotherhood.

“The President again order my son to go; an’ my son, in the badness of his great drunk, him” (the man bent and literally whispered the terrible detail to me), “him pull the hair tail of the President, an’ the tail a false one, which I not know before, an’ the tail come away in the hand of my son, an’ the President naked there before us.

“The President wish to kill my son immediately; but I had great speech with him, an’ reasoned much, an’ he consent the young man grow first sober, an’ afterward be tried by the Second Sixty of the brotherhood of the Nameless Ones that have live two t’ousand year.

“This was yesterday, an’ when they gone away, I put my son to grow sober, an’ I prepare the mummy-case to hold him, an’ when him sober, I tell him, an’ him nearly die with great fear; for they will take out his heart, an’ hang it in a gold ball over the door of our great Hall; for memory of so great a rude to the President of the brotherhood that is older in all China than all.

“Then I tell my son, I have escape planned for him. I give him strong opium drink an’ put him in the mummy-case.

“This happen day before yesterday. In the night, they come for my son; but I tell them him not here. Him away to drink again. They say I hide him. If they find I hide him, they dis-bowel me for a false brother. I say I not hide him. I tell them search house. They search house; but not think of mummy-case; for mummy long in my shop, an’ real; but I burn mummy when I prepare case for my son; an’ mummy cost five t’ousand dollars. But I care not, for it save my son.

“They have brothers that make a search all drink saloon in ‘Frisco. They have a hundred, two hundred to look for my son that make rude to the President of the Nameless Ones that have live for two t’ousand year. But they find him not.

“Then they put a brother here in my house to keep watch, an’ a brother in the street, an’ how shall I save the life of my son?

“Then you come in Cap’n Brother, an’ I see the sign upon your coat, an’ you Engleesh, an’ I have a new courage an’ I tell you. An’ all you now know.”

“Good Lord!” I said. “I’ve heard of the Nameless Ones, but you don’t tell me they’ll kill a lad, just for pulling the pigtail of their beastly old President?”

“Hush! Cap’n Brother!” said the man, white with fear, and staring first at the door behind him and then at the outer doorway. “You not speak so, Cap’n. You go now. I not want them to see me talk to you. I send blox down to-night, when dark.”

“I’ll go when I’ve satisfied myself on one or two points, brother,” I said. I walked straight across the room, and gently opened the inner door and peeped. I wished to test this extraordinary tale. It sounded so unreasonable to my West-built brain and constitution; though I knew there was a good chance of it being every word true.

Well, what I saw in there, quite satisfied me. There was the biggest Chinaman I ever saw in my life, sitting cross-legged on a cushion on the floor, and across his knees he held the longest and ugliest-looking knife I’ve set eyes on, before or since.

I shut the door, even quieter than I opened it; and when I turned to my new friend, his face was like a gray mask, and he couldn’t speak for nearly a minute.

“It’s all right, brother,” I said; “he never saw me. I’d got to double-prove that tale of yours, before I got mixed up with it. I believe it now, right enough; only it’s hard to understand there’s a live devil, and this kind of devilry going on, not twenty fathoms away from my own ship.”

“You — you take him, Cap’n Brother, you promise true?” he managed to get out, at last; his one thought for that son of his.

“Yes,” I said; “but you’ve not got to bring him aboard to-night. Why, if what you say is right, they’d guess in half a tick; and then it would be too late, except to bury him. You leave it to me, I’ll think out a way. I’ll send my Second Mate up later to buy one of those bamboo curio sticks of yours. He’ll give you a note, telling you