CHAPTER II. THE MAN IN THE DRAWER.
His Excellency Prince Chu-Hsi-Han, Ambassador to the Court of St. James, picked up the card from the tray, and examined it calmly through his rimless glasses.
“Is the distinguished stranger below?” he asked.
“Excellent Highness,” said the Mongolian in the livery of the Embassy, “I placed the distinguished stranger in the red room.”
The Ambassador nodded.
“Conduct him to my unworthy presence,” he said, and the servant bowed twice and left the room silently.
He returned in a few minutes and announced the visitor in faultless English.
“Signor Tillizinni.”
Tillizinni, spare of build, with his keen, eager face and his black and white colouring, formed a strong note in that room of soft pearl-blue draperies and shaded lights. He offered his hand with a little bow to the impassive Oriental who rose from his desk to meet him.
“Your Excellency expected me?” he asked, and the Ambassador smiled, for Tillizinni spoke in the Chinese--that peculiar “Mandarin Chinese” which only the statesmen and diplomatists of China employ.
“You are a veritable signor,” he said quietly. “You have the accent which suggests a course of training in the forbidden city.”
Tillizinni flushed--he was susceptible on the intellectual side.
“I am flattered,” he said. “Yet I studied no nearer to Pekin than Florence.”
“I congratulate you,” said the Prince, and with his own hands drew a chair forward.
“Be seated,” he said, “and tell me exactly what you require.”
He was speaking in English now.
Tillizinni took from his pocket a long envelope and extracted a number of newspaper cuttings.
“Your Excellency wrote an article in the North American Review,” he said, “which dealt extensively with the early history of your country.”
The Ambassador nodded.
“You dealt extensively with the life of the First Emperor.”
Again the Ambassador nodded.
“One could not deal effectively with the history of China,” he smiled, “unless one wrote of the First Emperor. He built the great wall and stimulated all the best efforts of my countrymen--and though it was two thousand years ago, his influence is still felt.”
It was Tillizinni who smiled now.
“His influence is felt here in London,” he said grimly, “and in no place more completely than in Scotland Yard, which, as your Excellency may know, affords me employment.”
“At Scotland Yard?”
The Chinese Ambassador’s eyebrows rose.
“At Scotland Yard,” repeated the other. “But if your Excellency will proceed----”
The Prince was a great littérateur, and since he was riding his hobby, needed little encouragement.
“The First Emperor did many wonderful things,” he said. “He also did many things, which I say humbly and with due reverence to his illustrious memory”--he bowed his head--“were not wise, for he destroyed all the literature which China possessed, burnt books and documents, and forbade on pain of death any attempt on the part of students to retain the writings of the just. All this you will find dealt with in the story in a sketchy way.”
Again Tillizinni nodded.
“Here is a paragraph I would like to direct your special attention,” he said, and indicated a page on which a paragraph had been outlined with blue pencil.
“Pardon me!” said his Excellency. He was apologising for the fact that it was necessary for him to employ his pince-nez; for your well-bred Chinaman be he all but blind, does not wear his spectacles in the presence of his guest.
“Ah, that,” he tapped the blue paragraph with his finger, “that is a literal extract from the writings of our greatest historian, and describes the burial of the First Emperor.”
He read aloud in his soft English, tracing the printed lines with his tapered fingers as he proceeded:
“In the 9th moon the First Emperor was buried in Mount Li, which in the early days of his reign he had caused to be tunnelled and prepared with that view. Then, when he had consolidated the Empire, he employed his soldiery, to the number of 700,000, to bore down to the Three Springs (that is, until the water was reached), and there a firm foundation was laid and the sarcophagus placed thereon. Rare objects and costly jewels were collected from the palaces and from the various officials, and were carried thither and stored in huge quantities. Artificers were ordered to construct mechanical crossbows, which, if any one were to enter, would immediately discharge their arrows. With the aid of quicksilver, rivers were made--the Yangtsze, the Yellow River, and the great ocean--the metal being made to flow from one into the other by machinery. On the roof were delineated the constellations of the sky, on the floor the geographical divisions of the earth. Candles were made from the fat of the man-fish (walrus), calculated to last for a very long time. The Second Emperor said: ‘It is not fitting that the concubines of my late father who are without children should leave him now’; and accordingly he ordered them to accompany the dead monarch to the next world, those who thus perished being many in number. When the interment was completed, some one suggested that the workmen who had made the machinery and concealed the treasure knew the great value of the latter, and that the secret would leak out. Therefore, so soon as the ceremony was over, and the path giving access to the sarcophagus had been blocked up at its innermost end, the outside gate at the entrance to this path was let fall, and the mausoleum was effectually closed, so that not one of the workmen escaped. Trees and grass were then planted around, that the spot might look like the rest of the mountain.”
Tillizinni nodded.
“That is the trouble,” he said.
“Trouble?”
It is not etiquette for a high-born Chinaman to express his astonishment in the exclamatory style of the West; yet the Prince was obviously astonished.
As briefly as possible Tillizinni gave a résumé of the events which had preceded and followed the stranding of the China mail-boat.
His Excellency listened, his features composed to that immobility which is characteristic of his race. When Tillizinni had concluded, he asked:
“You suggest that the thieves were seeking information which they knew I would publish, and which is to be found in every historical text-book on China.”
“I suggest to your Excellency,” said Tillizinni quietly, “that amongst your documents there was one which threw greater light upon the Treasure House of the Dead than anything you have published.”
The Ambassador was silent. His delicate fingers played restlessly with a silver paper knife on his desk, and his eyes were averted from the other’s face.
Tillizinni offered no encouragement to speech. He understood that he had been right in his surmise. There was reason for the attempted burglary and the reason was to be found in the contents of the mail-bag.
It was fully three minutes--no inconsiderable period of time--before the Ambassador spoke:
“I can only imagine,” he said at last, speaking very slowly, “that the people who tried to rob the safe desired information which I am not prepared to give.”
He looked up sharply.
“Do you realise, Mr. Tillizinni,” he asked, “that buried with Ts’in Hwang Ti are jewels computed to be worth over two million pounds?”
“Two millions?”
The Prince nodded.
“Two millions,” he repeated. “All the authorities agree that even in those days, China was enormously wealthy in gold and precious jewels, and that the value of the First Emperor’s possessions were enormous. He was originally the King of Ts’in, and he it was who established the Empire. By conquest alone he must have secured enormous wealth apart from that which he obtained through the recognised revenues of peace.”
The knowledge that this wealth lies buried is sufficient to tempt the foreign adventurer--no Chinaman save some of the worst criminal characters would desecrate a tomb.
“I have in my possession the exact location of Mount Li,” he added simply.
“But----”
“You think that is easy to find, but as a matter of fact the Empire is filled with Mount Lis, and though on one of these--the most obvious one--the tomb has been located, the great Emperor is really buried on a small and barren island in the Gulf of Pe-chili.”
Tillizinni’s eyes narrowed.
What mystery there was in the burglary had now vanished.
“Why is not the location generally known?” he asked.
The Ambassador favoured him with one of his rare smiles.
“The Emperor himself forbade the disclosure,” he said. “In China in those days, the Divine Sun of Heaven controlled not alone the destinies by the memories of men.”
Tillizinni rose to go.
“One last question,” he asked. “Do you intend publishing the information you have at any future date?”
“I do not,” said the Ambassador briefly.
Tillizinni had occasion to go into the red drawing-room, where he had left his hat and walking-stick.
A man was sitting waiting--a tall, good-looking man, jaunty enough in spite of the poverty of his attire.
“Captain Talham, I believe,” said Tillizinni, and the other rose.
“You are the gentleman who searched my luggage at King’s Cross cloak-room,” said Captain Talham, without resentment, and the detective laughed aloud.