dark man said reassuringly as he dropped the broken tooth-pick on his plate. 'You just tell me what you'd like, and I'll do the bidding.' He spoke in a monotonous, lulling tone of bland, sapless benevolence, but Denton was grateful.
'Well, perhaps some chair covers and curtains?' he suggested cautiously. 'Would that cost very much?'
'Depends who's bidding against you, doesn't it?' Mason said, with a mocking flick of scorn in the rising inflection of his voice. 'Come on, let's go to the tailor's first, get you fitted out.'
The tailor's was a dingy narrow room without windows, reaching back from an unpaved street into ever darker and mustier gloom. Six or seven Chinese men bent over sewing machines, working the treadles incessantly with their feet. Scraps of cloth lay scattered on the floor, which looked as though it had never been swept. The walls were grimy. Thick black cobwebs hung down from the ceiling. On a bare round wooden table near the back of the room stood several bowls with greasy chopsticks beside them. The table was littered with grains of rice and what looked like chicken bones, stained with a dark sauce. There was a smell of engrained dirt mingled with the heavy scent of incense which was drifting slowly up from some joss sticks smouldering dimly away at a little smoky red altar against the back wall.
A small man in a long grey gown shuffled towards them, bowing and hissing through his teeth. His face looked old, the skin thin and taut over his cheekbones.
'One piecee uniform for my friend, same same me.' Mason ordered. 'You makee one day fitting how muchee?'
The tailor glanced at Denton with a momentary gleam in his brown eyes. 'Today very busy,' he said impassively, gesturing to the hunched backs of his workers.
'Never mind busy. How muchee?' Mason demanded curtly.
The tailor's eyelids flickered. 'Forty dollar.'
'Forty? You must be mad! You before makee for me twenty-five dollar!'
The tailor smiled faintly. 'Long time makee for you. Now more dear.'
Denton, standing self-consciously beside Mason, grew aware of the workers' faces half-turned to listen while they sewed on at the same busy speed, pulling the cloth this way and that beneath the stabbing needles. There were smiles on their pale faces. One of them coughed and spat nonchalantly into a spittoon.
Mason damned the tailor, expostulated, threatened to walk out, and finally grudgingly offered thirty after the tailor had crept down to thirty-five. 'You makee chop-chop tomorrow night finish. Fitting morning time. Otherwise no pay.'
The tailor inclined his head a fraction and took a tape measure out of his sleeve. He hadn't raised his voice once in response to Mason's blustering. He'd bowed often and folded his hands courteously in front of him, yet his face had been unmoved, almost as though he hadn't even been listening. Denton sensed that he'd got the price he wanted and that Mason was put out. It was the first inkling he had that the Chinese were not all servile.
'Well, he knows your uniform allowance is forty dollars,' Mason muttered as the tailor's light, bony hands deftly measured Denton. 'Artful blighter knows how much you'll have to spend on shoes and a hat. He knows how much he can squeeze you for.'
The tailor called out the measurements to one of the workers, who jotted them down on a scrap of paper. Denton wondered how the tailor could measure him without even seeming to touch him, his hands were so light and nimble.
'Tell him which side you hang 'em,' Mason grunted as the tailor measured his inside leg.
'Sorry?'
'Oh never mind.'
Denton blushed, thinking that after all perhaps he had understood. 'Er, didn't you say I ought to get a stomacher as well?'
'Right, one piecee stomacher,' Mason patted his paunch. 'How muchee?'
'Five dollar.'
'Three.'
The tailor was measuring the width of Denton's trousers. 'Four-fifty. Special for you.'
Mason was evidently losing interest. 'Four,' he said, taking out a cigar.
The tailor stood up shaking his head mildly. 'No can do. Too muchee workee.'
'Oh all right then you blasted robber. Finish tomorrow, all right?' He bit his cigar and turned to Denton. 'That leaves you just enough for the hat and shoes. They've got it worked out to a tee.'
'Well it is much cheaper than in England,' Denton murmured. 'And I suppose he's got to pay all these workers here....'
Mason surveyed them indifferently, breathing out a blue curl of cigar smoke. 'You can bet he doesn't pay them much, if he pays 'em at all. Food and lodging probably, that's all. It's dog eat dog out here you know.'
'Lodging? Where?'
Mason snorted. 'On the floor. Where d'you think?'
7
NOW WHAT AM I BID for these curtains?' asked Jones, leaning forward over the table, resting his weight on his spreading finger-tips. 'Beautiful floral pattern, almost unused. Hold 'em up, Ah Koo. Up! Up! That's right. Shall we start at five dollars? Who'll start us off at five dollars?'
Ah Koo, barefooted, stood on the table, holding the curtains up one after another, his arms trembling with the strain. His wrinkled face smiled self-consciously, as if he were both embarrassed and proud of his prominence.
'These curtains graced our departed friend's sitting room and bed-room,' Jones was saying. He paused to glance round the room with an anticipatory leer. 'Eight lovely drapes from Whiteaway and Laidlaw's. And when they were drawn, who knows what sights they saw?'
A loud suggestive laugh from Mason led a snigger round the room. One of the stewards snaked his way between the tables, balancing a tea-tray on his hand. He set it down by the dark man, whose name Denton still didn't know. Denton glanced over his shoulder as he signed the chit. R Johnson.
'Six dollars I hear,' Jones called out. Ah Koo's arms quivered more and more unsteadily as he struggled to hold the curtains up, fold after fold. The smile on his face was growing fixed with the effort.
'Seven,' Johnson said.
'Eight,' called Mason. 'Why not?'
'Why not indeed? Eight I am bid.'
'You've just got some new ones,' Johnson murmured, pausing with his hand on the tea pot.
'And why shouldn't I get some more?' Mason asked provocatively. He glanced at Denton. 'Can't let 'em go too cheap, can we?'
'Any advance on eight?'
Denton hesitated as Johnson looked at him with raised, inquiring brows. Surely he could do without curtains? After all there were shutters. But impulsively, vertiginously, he nodded to Johnson.
'Nine dollars.' Johnson said, scarcely raising his voice.
'Nine fifty.'
'Only one dollar bids, Mr Mason,' Jones licked his lips. 'We're going up by single dollars only.'
'Ten, then,' Mason shrugged carelessly.
Johnson glanced inquiringlyly at Denton again. Denton rubbed his chin, blushing. Everyone was looking at him. He knew Mason was bidding against him on purpose, and he felt challenged. But he couldn't afford to spend much.
'Any advance on ten over there?' Jones asked hopefully.
Denton recalled the gleam in Mason's eyes at the execution that morning, and some small corner of his mind hardened. He nodded to Johnson.
'Eleven.'
'Eleven dollars? Mr Mason? Any advance? No? Sold for eleven dollars.'
Mason laughed loudly, looking round with eyes that sneered and yet at the same time seemed to seek approval. 'Well, that'll help pay old Smithy's bar debts, anyway.' he said.
Johnson leant closer to Denton. 'I knew he wouldn't go higher, once he'd bid nine fifty,' he murmured placidly. 'He was getting