its solid Englishness reassuring. Mason led him through an outer office, where Chinese clerks sat watchfully silent at tall wooden desks. 'There's the door,' he nodded offhandedly. 'Got some work to do. Come to my room when you're finished. Number eleven, down the corridor.'
Denton tapped on the dark wooden door. After a moment, a calm, abstracted voice called out, 'Yes?' He turned the polished brass knob and went in.
A bald, bulbous-browed man with sallow skin sat writing at a large desk by the open window. The thick ring of hair round his head was a woolly grey, and he had a heavy drooping moustache. A punkah swung gently over the desk, creaking like the timbers of a ship. 'Yes?' Mr Brown asked again, stroking his moustache as he wrote.
'I'm Denton, sir.'
'Who?' Mr Brown dipped his pen in the ink well, then looked up inquiringly. 'Ah yes, of course. Mr Denton.' He shook the ink off the nib, examined the tip fastidiously, knitting his strangely scanty grey brows together, then laid the pen down, gesturing to the upright chair facing the desk. 'I was expecting you fifteen minutes ago,' he said precisely, glancing pointedly up at the mahogany-cased clock ticking on the wall beside his desk.
'Mr Mason brought me,' Denton murmured apologetically. 'I didn't know what time....'
'Ah yes.' Mr Brown stroked his moustache ruminatively. 'Met you off the boat, didn't he? What was it, the Orcades?'
'Yes sir.'
Mr Brown tilted back his head, gazing down his nose at Denton's crumpled collar. 'Pleasant trip?'
'Oh yes, sir, very pleasant thank you.'
'Good,' Mr Brown stroked his moustache again and tilted his head still further back, staring broodingly up at the punkah for more than half a minute, as if he were puzzled by its gentle flapping motion and didn't quite trust it. He seemed to have forgotten Denton was there.
Denton glanced uncomfortably at the topee hanging on the lowest branch of the hatstand behind the desk, then back at Mr Brown as he cleared his throat. Despite the heat, his high winged collar and cravat, his linen jacket and the mauve silk handkerchief tucked in his breast pocket were all creaseless and unsullied.
'Mason's shown you your quarters?' Mr Brown was asking. 'Quite satisfactory? Good. You can have tomorrow to get fitted out and settled in. Report for duty on Thursday morning. In the meantime, I....' His voice faded as his eyes narrowed faintly and he glanced up at the punkah again. A crease of annoyance appeared in the loose sallow skin of his forehead. Denton followed his upward gaze with respectful puzzlement. The wide, cloth-covered board had stopped its creaking motion and hung above them like a giant windless palm.
Mr Brown banged the bell on his desk imperiously three times, and after a few seconds the punkah started swinging again. The cool air fanned Denton's face and stirred the papers on the desk, so that they fluttered like leaves in a gentle breeze. 'And in the meantime,' Mr Brown resumed, 'here are some pamphlets regarding the duties you will be expected to perform, which I advise you to study attentively.' He passed a bundle of booklets, neatly tied with yellow tape, over the desk. 'I shall examine you orally on pamphlets three and four on Wednesday at 10 AM.'
'Yes sir.'
'The first two pamphlets merely give general information and so forth.'
'Yes sir.'
'That does not mean they can be disregarded.'
'No sir.'
'If your answers are satisfactory, you can start accompanying one of the established officers on his rounds.'
Denton looked down at the grey cover of the top pamphlet. There was a dark ring-stain on the corner and he imagined some previous probationary officer placing his glass there late at night while he swotted anxiously for the next day's examination.
'You will be expected to make some headway with the Chinese language, too. No doubt you have been told that? You will find a list of approved tutors in the mess. You may choose any one. Your fees will be paid by the service, of course. The details are in the first pamphlet.'
Denton nodded, glancing down at the ring-stained cover again, as if he expected to see the details there without having to open it.
'Your salary is paid in arrears,' Mr Brown went on, 'If you have not yet arranged a bank, I suggest the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank or the Chartered Bank. Both British and thoroughly reliable.'
'Thank you, sir.'
'They are on the Bund, of course.' Mr Brown's light blue eyes met Denton's for the first time with disturbing directness. 'Your contract is probationary at present, as you know, but with application, Mr Denton, I see no reason why you should not be substantiated at the end of two years.'
'Yes, sir, I'll try.'
'Stranger things have happened,' Mr Brown added obscurely, stroking his moustache ruminatively again. Just above his lip the flowing hairs were stained a dark yellow by tobacco. 'Mrs Brown and I would be glad if you could join us for dinner next Tuesday,' he said at last, as if the ruminative pause had been to consider whether Denton merited the invitation. 'Will that be convenient?'
'Oh, thank you sir. Yes, very convenient. Er, about what time?'
'Mrs Brown will send you a card. We usually dine at 9 PM.' He turned his head to glance at the clock again, then adjusted the papers on the desk. 'Well, that will be all for now, Mr Denton. Your quarters are quite satisfactory, you say?'
'Oh yes, sir,' Denton stood up. 'Very satisfactory.' He thought of his clothes still lying on the bare mattress.
'I don't suppose you've seen much of the city yet?'
'No, sir. Although we did see, I mean ...' Denton hesitated then went on. 'I mean we passed, er, an execution on the way from the ship.' His voice hushed slightly as he said 'execution,' and the image of the head swinging round on its queue swept over his mind.
'Really?' Mr Brown's scanty eyebrows rose. He took up his pen and examined the nib again. 'I would hardly have thought that was necessary,' he murmured. Then he leant forward, opening the file he had been writing in when Denton entered. 'Well, then, Thursday at ten o'clock.'
'Yes sir. Thank you, sir.'
He glanced up as Denton opened the door. 'Ten o'clock precisely, Mr Denton.'
4
BE WITH YOU IN A MINUTE.' Mason too was writing at his desk in his own, smaller, office. 'Got to finish off these damn reports. There's a paper over there, if you want to have a look at the local news.'
Denton sat down obediently in a cane chair beside the window and picked up the newspaper. The indemnity for the Boxer rebellion had definitely been agreed, the North China Daily News announced on its front page. The Dowager Empress had received the new German ambassador in Peking. In Shanghai, the American consul had given a reception in the international settlement to celebrate Independence Day.
Mason's pen scratched on while he grunted and sighed at his desk, occasionally muttering irritably under his breath.
'What does Bund mean?' Denton asked timidly when he saw Mason leaning back in his chair, sucking the end of his pen.
'What?'
'Bund?'
'Sort of embankment place. Indian term, originally. Got all the good-class buildings in it. Consulates and banks and the big hongs and so on. Not to mention the Customs House, of course.' He yawned, scratched his scalp with the end of his pen, examined it, and then leant forward to write again with a sigh. 'Shanghai Club, all those places. Bund is Hindi, actually.'
'Have you been to India?' Denton asked, impressed by Mason's knowledge.
'In my time,' Mason grunted, frowning as he wrote, as if to discourage further questioning.
Denton turned the page. Twenty-three pirates apprehended in Bias Bay had been handed over to the Chinese authorities. He read on quickly, to push away the blood-stained images that immediately leapt into his mind. Under Wanted