Free Bat-Wing by Sax Rohmer

"Yes, but such laws are an insult to every intelligent
man."
    He sat down again rather heavily, and I stood looking from him to the
landlady, and wondering what I should do. The matter was decided for
me, however, in a way which I could never have foreseen. For, hearing a
light footfall upon the step which led up to the bar-parlour, I turned
—and there almost beside me stood a wrinkled little Chinaman!
    He wore a blue suit and a tweed cap, he wore queer, thick-soled
slippers, and his face was like a smiling mask hewn out of very old
ivory. I could scarcely credit the evidence of my senses, since the
Lavender Arms was one of the last places in which I should have looked
for a native of China.
    Mr. Colin Camber rose again, and fixing his melancholy eyes upon the
newcomer:
    "Ah Tsong," he said in a tone of cold anger, "what are you doing here?"
    Quite unmoved the Chinaman replied:
    "Blingee you chit, sir, vellee soon go back."
    "What do you mean?" demanded Mr. Camber. "Answer me, Ah Tsong: who sent
you?"
    "Lilly missee," crooned the Chinaman, smiling up into the other's face
with a sort of childish entreaty. "Lilly missee."
    "Oh," said Mr. Camber in a changed voice. "Oh."
    He stood very upright for a moment, his gaze set upon the wrinkled
Chinese face. Then he looked at Mrs. Wootton and bowed, and looked at
me and bowed, very stiffly.
    "I must excuse myself, sir," he announced. "My wife desires my presence
at home."
    I returned his bow, and as he walked quite steadily toward the door,
followed by Ah Tsong, he paused, turned, and said: "Mr. Knox, I should
esteem it a friendly action if you would spare me an hour of your
company before you leave Surrey. My visitors are few. Any one, any one,
will direct you to the Guest House. I am persuaded that we have much in
common. Good-day, sir."
    He went down the steps, disappearing in company with the Chinaman, and
having watched them go, I turned to Mrs. Wootton, the landlady, in
silent astonishment.
    She nodded her head and sighed.
    "The same every day and every evening for months past," she said. "I am
afraid it's going to be the death of him."
    "Do you mean that Mr. Camber comes here every day and is always fetched
by the Chinaman?"
    "Twice every day," corrected the landlady, "and his poor wife sends
here regularly."
    "What a tragedy," I muttered, "and such a brilliant man."
    "Ah," said she, busily removing jugs and glasses from the counter, "it
does seem a terrible thing."
    "Has Mr. Camber lived for long in this neighbourhood?" I ventured to
inquire.
    "It was about three years ago, sir, that he took the old Guest House at
Mid-Hatton. I remember the time well enough because of all the trouble
there was about him bringing a Chinaman down here."
    "I can imagine it must have created something of a sensation," I
murmured. "Is the Guest House a large property?"
    "Oh, no, sir, only ten rooms and a garden, and it had been vacant for a
long time. It belongs to what is called the Crayland Park Estate."
    "Mr. Camber, I take it, is a literary man?"
    "So I believe, sir."
    Mrs. Wootton, having cleared the counter, glanced up at the clock and
then at me with a cheery but significant smile.
    "I see that it is after time," I said, returning the smile, "but the
queer people who seem to live hereabouts interest me very much."
    "I can't wonder at that, sir!" said the landlady, laughing outright.
"Chinamen and Spanish men and what-not. If some of the old gentry that
lived here before the war could see it, they wouldn't recognize the
place, of that I am sure."
    "Ah, well," said I, pausing at the step, "I shall hope to see more of
Mr. Camber, and of yourself too, madam, for your ale is excellent."
    "Thank you, sir, I'm sure," said the landlady much gratified, "but as
to Mr. Camber, I really doubt if he would know you if you met him
again. Not if he was sober, I mean."
    "Really?"
    "Oh, it's a fact, believe me. Just in the last six months or so he has
started on the rampage like, but some of the people he