Free In the Shadow of the Cypress by Thomas Steinbeck Page A

wells. Too many people had too much at stake to indulge a controversy that would only come back to haunt other aspects of their commercial and political interests. So in the end I believe nothing viable will be done to compensate the Chinese for their losses.
    I personally, and on my own account, went so far as to follow O’Flynn’s parting suggestion. I therefore advertised for two months on the message page of Railroad News. Without mentioning O’Flynn’s name, in case it had been changed recently, I requested only that “a recently departed employee of HopkinsLaboratory in Pacific Grove contact me on a matter of mutual interest and dire importance.” As I should have suspected from the first, no response has been forthcoming, nor do I really expect that I will hear any word from that quarter again.
    December 18, 1906
    T HOSE IN POLITICAL CIRCLES HEREABOUTS have informed me that the case for the people at China Point will not be resolved any time soon. Some interests are predicting a year or two, but the odds in favor of the plaintiffs are slim indeed. Unfortunately, this eventuality only fuels my sense of injustice and the absolute need for fair dealings all around.
    Embracing a circling flock of guilt-tinged sentiments, I determined at least to restore what little remained of the treasure Red Billy O’Flynn had discovered and sequestered away for his own profit. I began to believe that perhaps the return of my historically pertinent documents (in lieu of the artifacts themselves) might at least mitigate some small portion of the loss the Chinese community had recently experienced. Either way, my evidence could be of little use to anyone beyond a truly dedicated scholar of fifteenth-century Chinese inscriptions, or to the local Chinese themselves.
    I berated myself again and again for not insisting that O’Flynn tell me where he had hidden the stones before he departed. But then I have to acknowledge that I’m not really a person who finds overt confrontation a viable approach. Such a coarse contention between us might have inspired O’Flynn to make off with the rubbings and photographs as well.
    Since I could do little at present to alleviate my sense of culpability, I determined to unburden myself of the problem as best I could. With this in mind I sent word to Master Ah Chung, who I was given to understand was now the majordomo of the local tong at Point Alones. He soon returned a polite reply by messenger requesting I pay him a visit at the tong’s meeting hall on the following day at noon, which I did.
    Master Ah Chung met me promptly at noon and invited me to share tea. The small meeting hall was deserted except for three tong elders who sat to one side and said nothing during the whole proceedings. Ah Shu Chung, to use his formal name, spoke an educated English that was flawed only by the chronic Chinese difficulty with the consonants l and r, which one might easily get past with patience and a close attention to context.
    It was affirmed that he was acquainted with my erstwhile employee, Mr. Bill O’Flynn. He said that many people in the village had done business with Mr. O’Flynn, and that he was always held in high regard for his fair and honorable dealings. I then took the opportunity to inform him that, after what I had to impart, such an opinion might be significantly degraded. He invited me to speak at liberty, and so I went on to tell him everything I knew of O’Flynn’s activities and his subsequent discoveries at Cypress Point. I told Master Ah Chung all I knew of the Chinese artifacts that O’Flynn had unearthed under the fallen cypress and then brought to me for a scholarly examination and appraisal. I then presented Master Ah Chung with the portfolio containing the stone rubbings and photographs. I invited him to inspect the material in detail.
    What followed surprised me more than I can say. Master Ah Chung opened the folio and examined the contents in what appeared to be a very cursory