ERLE STANLEY GARDNER
The Danger Zone
A few blocks to the north of Market Street in San Francisco, Grant Avenue ceases to be a street of high class stores and becomes a part of China.
Major Copely Brane, freelance diplomat soldier of fortune, knew every inch of this strange section. For Major Brane knew his Chinese as most baseball fans know the strength and weakness of opposing teams.
Not that Major Brane had consciously confined his freelance diplomatic activities to matters pertaining to the Orient. His services were available to various and sundry. He had accepted employment from a patriotic German who wished to ascertain certain information about the French attitude toward reparations; and it was perhaps significant of the Major’s absolute fairness, that the fee he had received from the German upon the successful completion of his task was exactly the amount which he had previously charged a French banker for obtaining confidential information from the file of a visiting ambassador as to the exact proposals which the German government was prepared to make as a final offer.
In short, Major Brane worked for various governments and various individuals. Those who had the price could engage his services. There was only one requirement: the task must be within the legitimate field of diplomatic activity. Major Brane was a clearing house of international and political information, and he took pride in doing his work well. Those who employed him could count upon his absolute loyalty upon all matters connected with the employment, could bank upon his subsequent silence; and best of all, they could rest assured that if Major Brane encountered any serious trouble in the discharge of his duties, he would never mention the name of his employer.
Of late, however, the Major’s activities had been centered upon the situation in the Orient. This was due in part to the extreme rapidity with which that situation was changing from day to day; and in part to the fact that Major Brane prided himself upon his ability to deliver results. There is no one who appreciates results more, and explanations less, than the native of the Orient.
It was early evening, and the streets of San Francisco’s Chinatown were giving forth their strange sounds – the shuffling feet of herded tourists, gazing open-mouthed at the strange life which seethed around them; the slippety-slop of Chinese shoes – skidded along the cement by feet that were lifted only a fraction of an inch; the pounding heels of plain-clothesmen who always worked in pairs when on Chinatown duty.
Major Brane’s ears heard these sounds and interpreted them mechanically. Major Brane was particularly interested to notice the changing window displays of the Chinese stores. The embargo on Japanese products was slowly working a complete change in the merchandise handled by the curio stores, and Major Brane’s eyes narrowed as he noticed the fact. Disputes over the murder of a subject can be settled by arbitration, but there can be but one answer to a blow that hits hard at a nation’s business.
Major Brane let his mind dwell upon certain angles of the political situation which were unknown to the average man. Would the world powers close their eyes to developments in Manchuria, providing these developments smashed the five-year plan and . . . ?
