The Tomb of Ts'in

Had Tillizinni written this story of the tomb of Ts’in Hwang Ti (the King of Ts’in who became Emperor literally) from the notes he had upon the case, it might have made a greater and a better book.

You would have pardoned such extravagance of style as he displayed in his extraordinary narrative, remembering that he is of Italian birth and that English is too full of pitfalls to the foreigner for his liking. For of truth, though Tillizinni speaks and writes the three Arabics, Moorish (which I think is the purest), Turkish, and Russian, with considerable fluency, and though he knows at least seven dialects in the Chinese tongue, and can converse in most of the modern languages, yet English, with its bland and inviting simplicity, is a tongue which more than any other baffles and overawes him.

They say of Nicholo Tillizinni, his predecessor in the chair of Anthropology at Florence, and the benefactor and more than father, whose name Tillizinni bears, that he spoke all languages save Welsh; but I have reason for believing that he never completely mastered the niceties of our tongue.

Particularly did Tillizinni wish to write clearly in this story which I now tell (by his favour and at his request), for it is a story like none other I have ever heard or read.

It concerns the tomb of the Great Emperor--the first Emperor of the Chinese, who died two centuries before the birth of Christ; it concerns that extraordinary genius and adventurer, Captain Ted Talham--surely the most talkative man in the world; it concerns, too, that remarkable woman, Yvonne Yale, and last but not least, The Society of Joyful Intention--the most bloodthirsty organisation the world has known. It concerns Tillizinni also, for Scotland Yard placed him on his mettle, set him a challenging task, which threatened at one time to bring ruin to the greatest detective in Europe.

That it likewise brought him within an ace of losing his life, I should not think it worth while mentioning at this stage, but for the fact that scoffers might suppose that he held life dearer than fame.

Tillizinni has never greatly interested himself in Chinese affairs, and though he had been instrumental in bringing many men to their doom, yet, curiously enough, none of these have been inmates of the Celestial Kingdom; so that he welcomed with the welcome which a blasé mind offers to anything in the shape of novelty, the invitation of Scotland Yard to make himself acquainted with the Society of Joyful Intention. The story proper which is set forth here, begins with the surrounding of the China Packet.

On the 24th of November, in the year of the great storm, there went aground off the Goodwin Sands the China-Orient liner Wu-song. She was a modern steamer of six thousand tons, built by the Fanfield Company in 1900, and she traded between London and the China Sea. On the night in question she was homeward bound and was coming up the Channel at half speed, a precaution taken by her skipper as a result of a slight and patchy fog which lay on the Channel.

Off St. Margarets, for some unaccountable reason, she shifted her course, and before anybody seemed to realise what was happening, she was aground. No sea was running at the time, the storm, it will be remembered, occurred a fortnight later, and with the aid of two Dover tugs she was refloated.

That would seem rather a matter for the Trinity Masters than for Scotland Yard, but for the fact that in the natural excitement attendant upon the grounding, a very determined attempt was made to force the Stubb safe in the captain’s cabin. Here again Scotland Yard might have dismissed the matter as a mere commonplace attempt to secure the safe’s contents by some person or persons unknown, but for the fact that this was the third attempt which had been made during the voyage.