A Coffin from Hong Kong

1

The fat man, sweat beads on his balding head, leaned forward to look out of the window as the ‘No Smoking’ sign flashed up.

“Well, here we are-Hong Kong,” he said over his shoulder. “Looks pretty good. They say there’s no place quite like it on earth. Could be they are right.”

As his big head was cutting off my view, I busied myself with my safety-belt. Finally when he leaned back to fix his own belt, I managed to catch a glimpse of green mountains, the sparkling blue sea and a couple of junks before we were bumping gently along the runway.

The fat man who had been my companion from Honolulu, reached up to collect a camera and a Pan-Am overnight bag.

“Are you staying at the Peninsula?” he asked me,

“I’m on the other side.”

His sweating face showed disapproval.

“Kowloon’s better: better shops: better hotels, but maybe you’re here on business?”

“That’s right,” I said.

The explanation seemed to satisfy him.

The other passengers in the aircraft began to collect their hand luggage. The usual polite pushing and shoving went on for a while before I could squeeze myself out into the hot sunshine.

It had been a good trip, slightly over-long, but I had enjoyed it

Ten minutes later, I was through the Customs and out into the noisy, bustling approach to the airport. I saw my fat companion being whisked away in a tiny hotel bus. He waved to me and I waved back. Half a dozen or so rickshaw boys converged on me, shouting and waving anxiously. Their old, yellow, dried up faces were imploring. As I stood hesitating, a broad, squat Chinese, neatly dressed in a city suit, came over to me and gave me a little bow.

“Excuse me, please,” he said. “Perhaps I can help you? You would like a taxi?”

“I want to get to the Celestial Empire Hotel at Wanchai,” I said.

“That will be on the island, sir.” He looked slightly surprised in a polite way. “It would be best to take a taxi to the ferry and cross to Wanchai. The hotel is close to the ferry station on the other side.”

“Thanks a lot,” I said. “Will the driver speak English?”

“Most of them can understand a little English.” He signalled to a taxi at the head of the rank. “If you will permit me…”

He went on ahead. I picked up my bag and went after him. He spoke to the driver in what was probably Cantonese. The driver, a lean dirty-looking Chinese, grunted, glanced at me, then away.

“He will take you to the ferry, sir,” the squat man said. “The fare will be one dollar: not an American dollar, you understand, but a Hong Kong dollar. As you will probably know mere are approximately six Hong Kong dollars to the American dollar.” He beamed at me. Every tooth in his head seemed to be capped with gold. “You will have no trouble in finding the hotel on the other side. It is opposite the ferry station.” He hesitated, then added apologetically, “You know this particular hotel is scarcely for American gentlemen? Forgive the interference, but most American gentlemen prefer to stay at the Gloucester or the Peninsula. The Celestial Empire is for Asians.”

“Yeah, but that’s where I’m staying,” I said. “Thanks for your help.”

“You are welcome, sir,” he said, and taking a limp wallet from his pocket, he presented me wirli his card. “You may need a guide. It is my business to take care of American gentlemen when they visit Hong Kong. You have only to telephone…”

“Thanks. I’ll remember that.” I tucked the card under the strap of my wrist watch, then as he stepped back, bowing, I got into the taxi.

On the flight over I had. boned up on Hong Kong, discovering the mainland where the Kai Tak airport is situated is called the Kowloon Peninsula and across the Straits is the island of Hong Kong, reached by fast ferry-boat service in four or five minutes.

Wanchai, where Jefferson had lived, was a waterfront district of Hong Kong.

The drive to the ferry took only a few minutes. The Kowloon waterfront teemed with jog-trotting humanity. There seemed to be about only one European to every hundred Chinese: the scene reminded me of a disturbed ants’ nest. Coolies, carrying fantastic burdens slung on duck bamboo poles, trotted in and out of the traffic, oblivious of the risk of being run down. Big American cars, driven by fat, sleek Chinese businessmen, rickshaw boys dragging crates and odd looking merchandise in their two-wheeled chariots and heavy trucks crowded the broad street. Gay red signs in Chinese lettering decorated the shop fronts. Small, dirty Chinese children with babies strapped to their backs played in the gutters. Chinese families squatted on the sidewalk outside their shops, shovelling rice into their mouths with chop sticks.

At the ferry, I paid off the taxi, bought a ticket at the turnstile and got on the ferry-boat that was already crowded with Chinese business men, American tourists and a number of pretty Chinese girls wearing Cheongsams, slit either side to show off their shapely legs.

I got a seat by the rail and as the ferry-boat churned through the blue waters of the Straits towards the island of Hong Kong, I tried to orientate myself to my new surroundings.

It seemed a long time since I had left Pasadena City. My journey had been delayed a couple of days because of my murderous visitor. I hadn’t told Retnick the whole story. I had told him I had walked into my apartment, found the punk there and had started a fight. What he was doing there, I lied, I had no idea -probably a sneak-thief. Retnick didn’t like it. Particularly, he didn’t like the silencer on the gun, but I stuck to my story and got away with it. At least, I was able to leave for Hong Kong and that was all I was worrying about.

I was pretty sure the man who had hired the punk to kill me had been the mysterious John Hardwick. I had bought another.38 Police special. I told myself I mustn’t move without it in the future: something I promised myself, but quickly forgot.

The ferry-boat bumped against the landing-stage and everyone, including me, crowded off.

Wanchai was nearly one hundred per cent Chinese. Apart from two burly American sailors who were chewing gum and Staring emptily into space, the waterfront was given up to jog-trotting Chinese, coolies staggering under impossible burdens, vegetable vendors squatting on the kerb, Chinese children minding Chinese babies, a dozen or so young Chinese girls who stared at me with inviting, shrewd black eyes and the inevitable rickshaw boys who sprang into life at the sight of me.

Sandwiched between a shop selling watches and a shop selling cheap toys was the entrance to the Celestial Empire Hotel.

Lugging my bag, I managed to cross the road without getting run down and toiled up the steep, narrow stairs leading to the tiny hotel lobby.

Behind the counter at the head of the stairs sat an elderly Chinese wearing a black skull cap and a black tunic coat. Long straggly white hairs came from his chin. His almond-shaped eyes were as dull and as impersonal as black crepe.

“I want a room,” I said, setting down my bag.

He eyed me over, taking his time. I wasn’t wearing my best suit and my shirt had suffered during the flight. I didn’t look like a bum, but I didn’t look a great deal better.

He produced a dog-eared paper bound book which he offered me together with a ball-point pen. The book contained nothing but Chinese characters. I wrote my name and nationality in the required spaces and gave him back the book and the pen. He then lifted a key from a rack and handed it to me.

“Ten dollars,” he said. “Room Twenty-seven.”

I gave him ten Hong Kong dollars, took the key and as he waved his hand to the right-hand side of the narrow passage, I set off, lugging my bag. Half-way down the passage, a door opened and a thin, white American sailor, his cap set at a jaunty angle, stepped out in front of me. There was no room to pass so I turned sideways and waited. Behind him came a stocky Chinese girl wearing a pink Cheongsam, a bored expression on her flat face. She reminded me of a well-fed Pekinese dog. The sailor brushed past me, winking. The girl went after him. I walked on down the passage until I came to room twenty-seven. I sank the key into the lock, opened up and walked into a ten foot by ten foot room with a double bed, an upright chair, a cupboard, a wash-bowl standing on a set piece of white painted furniture, a strip of worn carpet and a window giving onto a view of another building that was possibly a laundry, judging by the towels, sheets and odd underwear drying on bamboo poles projecting from the windows.

I put down my bag and sat on the hard bed. I was sweating and feeling grimy. I would have liked to have been at the Gloucester or the Peninsular where I could have had a deluxe shower and an ice cold beer, but this was business. I hadn’t come this far to indulge in luxury. This was where Herman Jefferson and his Chinese wife had lived. If it had been good enough for them, it would have to be good enough for me.

After a while, I began to sweat less. I poured water into the cracked bowl and had a wash. Then I unpacked and put my stuff away in the cupboard. The hotel was very quiet. I could just hear the murmur of distant traffic, but nothing else. I looked at my strap watch. The time was twenty minutes to six. I saw the card the squat Chinese had given me tucked under the strap and I pulled it out and read the inscription. It said: Wong Hop Bo. English speaking guide. There was a telephone number. I put the card in my wallet, then opening the door, I stepped into the passage.

A Chinese girl was leaning against the door-post of the room opposite. She was small, compactly and sturdily built: her glistening black hair was done up in a thick bun at the back of her neck. She was wearing a white blouse and a close-fitting bottle green skirt. She was nice to look at without being sensational. She was looking directly at me as if she had been waiting patiently for some time for me to appear.

“Hello, mister,” she said with a wide, nice smile. “I’m Leila. What is your name?”

I liked her smile and I liked her dazzling strong white teeth.

“Nelson Ryan,” I said, closing my door and turning the key. “Just call me Nelson. Do you live here?”

“Yes.” Her friendly black eyes ran over me. “Few American gentlemen ever stay here. Are you staying here?”

“That’s the idea. Have you been here long?”

“Eighteen months.” She had a peculiar accent. I had to concentrate to understand what she said. She stared at me with that stare that meant what she meant. “When you want to make love, will you come and see me?”

I was fazzed for a moment, then I managed a smile.

“I’ll remember, but don’t depend on it.”

A door farther up the passage opened and a fat little man who could be either Italian or French came out. He hurried by me, not looking at me. He was followed by a very young Chinese girl. I didn’t think she could have been more than sixteen, but it is hard to judge with these people. She gave me a hard, interested stare as she passed me. I was now under no illusion about the kind of hotel I had landed myself in.

Leila put her beautifully shaped hands under her tiny breasts and lifted them.

“Would you like to come to me now?” she asked politely.

“Not right now,” I said. “I’m busy. Some other time perhaps.”

“American gentlemen are always busy,” she said. “Tonight perhaps?”

“I’ll let you know.”

She pouted.

“That really doesn’t mean anything. You will either come or you won’t.”

“That’s the idea,” I said. “Right now I have things to do,” and I went off down the passage to the lobby where the old Chinese reception clerk sat as stolid and as inevitable as Buddha.

I went down the stairs and out into the crowded, heat-ridden street. A rickshaw boy came running over to me.

“Police headquarters,” I told him as I climbed into the chair.

He set off at a jog-trot. After we had travelled two or three hundred yards, I realised the mistake of taking such a vehicle. The big, glossy cars and the trucks had no respect for rickshaws. Any second I felt I was going to be squashed either by a truck or by an over-large American car. I was relieved when we finally pulled up outside the Hong Kong Central Police Station, surprised to find I was still in one piece.

After stating my business to the desk sergeant, I finally got shown into a small, neat office where a Chief Inspector with grey hair and a military moustache regarded me with impersonal eyes as he waved me to a chair.

I told him who I was and he then told me who he was. His name was MacCarthy and he spoke with a strong Scottish accent.

“Jefferson?” He tilted back his chair and picked up a much-used, much-battered Dunhill pipe. As he began to fill it, he went on, “What’s all the excitement about? I’ve already dealt with an inquiry from Pasadena City about this man. What’s he to you?”

I told him I was acting for J. Wilbur Jefferson.

“I want to get as much information about his son and his Chinese wife as I can,” I said. “Anything you can tell me could be helpful.”

“The American Consul could be more helpful,” he said, lighting his pipe. He blew a cloud of expensive-smelling tobacco smoke towards me. “I don’t know much about him He was killed in a car crash. You’ve heard about that?”

“How did it happen?”

He shrugged.

“Driving too fast on a wet road. There wasn’t much to pick up when we found him. He was wedged in the car which had gone up in smoke.”

“No one with him?”

“No.”

“Where was he going?”

MacCarthy looked quizzingly at me.

“I don’t know. The accident took place about five miles outside Kowloon in the New Territories. He could be going anywhere.”

“Who identified him?”

He moved slightly, showing a degree of controlled patience.

“His wife.”

“Can you fill me in on his background? How did he earn his living?”

“I don’t think I can.” He took the pipe out of his mouth and stared at the smoking bowl. “He wasn’t my headache fortunately. He kept clear of us. Out here we don’t interfere with people unless they make a nuisance of themselves and Jefferson was careful not to do that. Every so often we got word about him. He wasn’t a desirable citizen. There isn’t much doubt that he lived on the immoral earnings of his wife, but here again, we don’t interfere with an American citizen if we can help it.”

“Any angles on the girl?”

He puffed smoke and looked bored.

“She was a prostitute, of course. That is a problem we’re trying to cope with, but it isn’t easy. These refugee girls have great difficulty in earning a living: prostitution is the easiest way out for them. We are gradually cleaning up the city, but it is uphill work.”

“I’m trying to find out why she was murdered.”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“I can’t help you there.” He looked hopefully at a pile of papers on his desk. “I’ve given all the information I have about these two to Lieutenant Retnick. There’s nothing more I can add.”

I can take a hint as well as the next man. I stood up.

“Well, thanks. I’ll nose around. Maybe I’ll turn up something.”

“I doubt it.” He pulled the papers towards him. “If there’s anything I can do…”

I shook hands with him and went out onto the busy Queen’s Road. The time was now hah past six. The American Consulate would be closed: not that I had much hope of getting any useful information about Jefferson or his wife from them. If I was going to get the information I wanted I would have to rely on myself to do the digging, but where to begin for the moment foxed me.

I wandered around the town for an hour, looking at the shops and absorbing the atmosphere of the place and liking it a lot. I finally decided I could do with a drink and I made my way along the waterfront towards Wanchai. Here I found a number of small bars, each with a Chinese boy squatting outside who called to me, inviting me in with a leer and a wink.

I entered one of the larger establishments and sat down at a table away from the noisy jukebox. Half a dozen American sailors lounged up at the bar, drinking beer. Two Chinese business men sat near me, talking earnestly, a file of papers between them. Several Chinese girls sat on a bench at the back of the room, giggling and talking to one another softly with the twittering sound of birds.

A waiter came over and I asked for a Scotch and Coke. When he had served me, a middle-aged Chinese woman, wearing a fawn and green Cheongsam, appeared from nowhere and took the vacant chair opposite me.

“Good evening,” she said, her hard black eyes running over me. “Is this your first visit to Hong Kong?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Do you mind if I keep you company?”

“Why no. Can I buy you a drink?”

She smiled: her teeth were gold-capped.

“I would like a glass of milk.”

I waved to the waiter who seemed to know what to get for he nodded, went away and came back with a pint glass full of milk.

“The food here is good,” she told me, “if you feel like eating.”

“A little early for me. Don’t you go for anything stronger than milk?”

“No. Are you staying at the Gloucester? It is the best hotel.”

“So I’ve heard.”

She eyed me speculatively.

“Would you like a nice girl? I have a number of very young and pretty girls. I have only to telephone and they will come here. You don’t have to have any of them if you don’t care for them. I will send for them, but they won’t worry you. You have only to tell me if one of them pleases you and I will arrange everything.”

“Thanks, but not right now. Do you have trouble in finding girls?”

She laughed.

“I have trouble in not finding them. There are too many girls in Hong Kong. What else can they do except entertain gentlemen? Hong Kong is full of pretty girls eager to make a little money.”

The Celestial Empire Hotel was only two or three hundred yards from this bar. It seemed reasonable enough that if this woman controlled the local prostitutes, she might have known Jo-An.

“A pal of mine when he was here last year met a girl he liked very much,” I said. “Her name was Jo-An Wing Cheung. I’d like to meet her. Do you know her?”

For a brief moment, her black eyes showed surprise. If I hadn’t been watching closely I would have missed the quick change of expression. Then she was smiling, her thin amber-coloured fingers playing a tattoo on the table.

“Yes, of course I know her,” she said. “She is a fine girl… very beautiful. You will like her very much. I could telephone her now if you like.”

It was my turn to hide my surprise.

“Well, why not?”

“She is my best girl,” the woman went on. “You wouldn’t mind going to a hotel with her? She is living with her parents and she can’t take gentlemen to her apartment. It would be thirty Hong Kong dollars for her and ten dollars for the room.” She showed her gold-capped teeth in a smile. “And three dollars for me.”

I wondered what old man Jefferson would say if I itemised these charges on my expense sheet.

“That’s okay,” I said, and it was my turn to smile at her. “But how do I know this girl is JoAn? She could be someone else, couldn’t she?”

“You make a joke?” she asked, looking intently at me. “She is Jo-An. Who else could she be?”

“That’s right. I make a joke.”

She got to her feet.

“I will telephone.”

I watched her cross the room to where the telephone stood on the bar. While she was telephoning, one of the American sailors moved over to her and put his arm around her shoulders. She waved him to silence and he looked across at me and winked. I winked back. The atmosphere in the bar was friendly and easy. There was nothing furtive about this transaction. By the time the woman had replaced the receiver, everyone, including the waiters, knew I had ordered a girl and she was on her way. They all seemed genuinely happy about the event.

The woman talked to the sailor and then picked up the telephone receiver again. Business seemed to be getting brisk.

I finished my drink, lit a cigarette, then signalled to the waiter for a refill.

Two Americans in violent beach shirts, came and sat at a table away from mine. When the Chinese woman had finished telephoning she came over to me.

“She will be only ten minutes,” she said. “I will let you know when she comes,” and nodding she went over to the two Americans and sat with them. After a five-minute conversation she got up and went to the telephone again.

A little over a quarter of an hour later, the bar door pushed open and a Chinese girl came in. She was tall and well built. She was wearing a black and white tight-fitting European dress. A black and white plastic handbag dangled from a strap she had wound around her wrist. She was attractive, sensual and interesting. She looked at the, Chinese woman who nodded towards me. The girl looked at me and smiled, then she crossed the bar, moving with languid grace while some of the American sailors ‘whistled to her, grinning in a friendly way at me.

She sat down beside me.

“Hello,” she said. “What is your name?”

“Nelson,” I said “What’s yours?”

“Jo-An.”

“Jo-An-what?”

She reached out and helped herself to one of my cigarettes from the pack lying on the table.

“Just Jo-An.”

“Not Wing Cheung?”

She gave me a quick stare and then smiled. She had very beautiful white teeth.

“That is my name. How did you know?”

“A pal of mine was here last year,” I said, knowing she was lying to me. “He told me to look you up.”

“I’m glad.” She put the cigarette between her painted lips and I lit it for her. “Do you like me?”

“Of course.”

“Shall we go then?”

“Okay.”

“Will you give me three dollars for Madame?”

I gave her three dollars.

The middle-aged Chinese woman came over, showing all her gold-capped teeth.

“You are pleased with her?”

“Who wouldn’t be?”

She collected the three dollars.

“Come and see me again,” she said. “I’m always here.”

The girl who called herself Jo-An got up and sidled towards the exit. I went after her, nodding to the sailors. One of them made the letter ‘O’ with his finger and thumb and then pretended to swoon into the arms of his pals. I left them horsing around and moved out into the hot bustling night where the girl was waiting for me.

“I know a clean cheap hotel,” she said.

“So do I,” I told her. “I’m staying at the Celestial Empire. We’ll go there.”

“It would be better to go to my hotel.” She gave me a sidelong look.

“We go to my hotel,” I said, and taking her elbow in my hand, I steered her through the crowds towards the hotel.

She moved along beside me. She was wearing an expensive perfume. I couldn’t place it, but it was nice. There was a thoughtful, faraway expression on her face. We didn’t say anything to each other during the short walk. She mounted the sharp flight of stairs. She had an interesting back and nice long legs. She waved her hips professionally as she moved from stair to stair. I found myself watching the movement with more interest than the situation required

The old reception clerk was dozing behind his barricade. He opened one eye and stared at the girl, then at me, then shut the eye again.

I steered her down the passage. Leila was standing in her open doorway, polishing her nails on a buffer. She looked the girl over and then sneered at me. I sneered back at her, opened my door and eased my girl through into the hot, stuffy little room.

I closed the door and pushed home the flimsy bolt.

She said to me, “Could you ewe me more than thirty dollars? I could be very nice to you for fifty.”

She pulled a zipper on the side of her dress to show goodwill. She was half out of the dress before I could stop her.

“Relax a moment,” I said, taking out my wallet. “We don’t have to rush at this.”

She stared at me. I took out Jo-An’s morgue photograph and offered it to her. Her flat, interesting face showed suspicious bewilderment. She peered at the photograph, then she peered at me.

“What is this?” she asked.

“A photograph of Jo-An Wing Cheung,” I said, sitting on the bed.

Slowly she zipped up her dress. There was now a bored expression in her black eyes.

“How was I to know you had a photograph of her?” she said. “Madame said you wouldn’t know what she looked like.”

“Did you know her?”

She leaned her hip against the bedrail.

“Is she all that important? I am prettier than she is. Don’t you want to make love to me?”

“I asked if you knew her.”

“No. I didn’t know her.” She moved impatiently. “May I have my present?”

I counted out five ten-dollar bills, folded them and held them so she could feast her eyes on them.

“She married an American. His name was Herman Jefferson,” I said. “Did you know him?”

She grimaced.

“I met him.” She looked at Jo-Ann’s photograph again. “Why does she look like this… she looks as if she’s dead.”

‘That’s what she is.”

She dropped the photograph as if it had bitten her.

“It is bad luck to look at dead people,” she said. “Give me my present. I want to go.”

I took out Herman Jefferson’s photograph and showed it to her.

“Is this her husband?”

She scarcely glanced at the photograph.

“I am mistaken. I have never met her husband. May I have my present?”

“You just said you had met him.”

“I was mistaken.”

We stared at each other. I could see by the expression on her I was wasting time. She didn’t intend to tell me anything. I gave her the bills which she slipped into her handbag.

“There’s more where that came from if you can give me any information about Jefferson,” I said without any hope.

She started towards the door.

“I know nothing about him. Thank you for your present.”

She slid back the bolt and with a jeering wave of her hips, she was gone.

I knew I had been taken for a ride, but as I was spending Jefferson’s money, I was a lot less depressed than I would have been if it had been my own money.

2

Later, I got tired of lying on the bed and I decided to go somewhere to eat. As I opened the bedroom door, I saw Leila, propping her body up against her door-post across the passage. She had changed into a scarlet and gold Cheongsam which gave her a very festive air. She had put a white cyclamen blossom in her hair.

“She didn’t stay long,” she said. “Why did you bring her here when I’m here?”

“It was strictly business,” I said, closing the door and turning the key. “I just wanted to talk to her.”

“What about?” she asked suspiciously.

“This and that.” I looked her over. She was really a very attractive little thing. “How would you like to have dinner with me?”

Her face brightened.

“That is a very good idea,” she said. She darted into her tiny bedroom, snatched up her handbag and joined me in the passage. “I will take you to a very good restaurant. I am very hungry. We will eat a lot of good food, but it won’t cost you much.” She started off down the passage to the head of the stairs. I followed her. We passed the reception clerk who was doing a complicated calculation with the aid of a bead calculator. His old yellow fingers flicked away at the beads with astonishing speed. He didn’t look up as we went down the stairs.

I followed Leila’s sturdy little back across the road to a taxi station.

“We will have to take a taxi to the Star Ferry,” she said. “The restaurant where we will eat is on the mainland.”

We picked up a taxi and drove to the Star Ferry, then we got on the ferry boat. During the trip over, she told me about a movie she had seen that afternoon. She said she went to the movies every afternoon. The Chinese, she explained, were very interested in the movies and they went as often as they could. From the queues I had seen outside every movie-house I could believe that. Leila said they began to queue at eleven in the morning to get the best seats.

When we reached the mainland, Leila suggested we should walk up Nathan Road. She said the exercise would sharpen her appetite.

It was not possible to walk two abreast and still more impossible to talk to her. At this hour the streets were crammed with people. Walking in the streets of Kowloon turned out to be quite an experience. Everywhere were glaring neon signs. Chinese characters, I decided,

made the best and most interesting of any neon sign. They lost the vulgarity of a sign you can read and became works of art. Cars, rickshaws and bicycles swarmed along the broad street. The sidewalk was packed with a steady flow of humanity: all as active as ants.

We finally came to the restaurant in a side street which was crowded with children playing in the gutters, vegetable vendors packing up their wares for the night, parked cars and the inevitable blaze of neon signs.

“Here we eat very well,” Leila said, and pushing open the swing door she entered the restaurant that emitted a noise like a solid punch on the ear-stunning and deafening.

We could see nothing of the diners. Every table was hidden behind high screens. The rattle of Mah Jongg tiles, the high-pitched excited Chinese voices and the clatter of dishes were overwhelming.

The owner of the restaurant opened two screens, bowing and smiling at Leila, and we were immediately submerged in noise and privacy.

Leila set her handbag down on the table, adjusted her brassiere, shifted her solid little bottom firmly in her chair and showed me her beautiful white teeth in a radiant and excited smile.

“I will order,” she said. “First, we will have fried shrimps, then we will have shark’s fin soup, then we will have beggar chicken-it is the speciality here. Then we will see what else there is to eat, but first we commence with fried shrimps.”

She spoke rapidly in Cantonese to the waiter and then when he had gone, she reached across the table and patted my hand.

“I like American gentlemen.” she told me. “They have much vitality. They are very interesting in bed and they also have much money. ‘

“Don’t count on either of those statements,” I said. “You could be disappointed. How long have you been in Hong Kong?”

“Three years I came from Canton. I am a refugee. I only escaped because my cousin owns a junk. He took me to Macau and then I came here “

The waiter brought us Chinese wine. He poured it into two tiny cups It was warm and reasonably strong. When he had gone, I said. “Maybe you know Jo-An Wing Cheung who is also a refugee.”

She looked surprised.

“Yes. I know her very well. How do you know her?”

“I don’t,” I said.

There was a pause as the waiter set before us a bowl of king-size shrimps cooked in a golden batter.

“But you know her name. How do you know her name?” Leila asked, snapping up a shrimp with her chopsticks and dipping it in Soya sauce.

“She was married to a friend of mine who lived in my home town,” I said, dropping a shrimp on the tablecloth. I nipped it up again with my uncertain chopsticks and conveyed it cautiously to my mouth. It tasted very good. “Did you ever meet him? His name’s Herman Jefferson.”

“Oh, yes.” Leila was eating with astonishing speed. Three-quarters of the shrimps were gone before I could spear my third. “Jo-An and I escaped from Canton together. She was lucky to find an American husband even though now he is dead.”

The waiter came with a bowl of fried rice in which was mixed finely-chopped ham, shrimps and scraps of fried egg. Leila filled her bowl and her chopsticks flashed as she whipped the food into her mouth. I lagged behind. To do justice to this meal, you had to have considerably more experience with chopsticks than I had.

“He lived with her at your hotel?” I asked as I dropped rice onto the tablecloth in a vain effort to keep pace with her.

She nodded.

The shrimps had disappeared and more than half the rice. She certainly had the technique of getting the most inside herself in the shortest time.

“He lived with her in a room next to mine for three months after they married, then he went away.”

A large bowl of shark’s fin soup appeared. Leila began to fill her bowl.

“Why did he go away?”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“He didn’t need her any more.”

As I could cat the soup with a spoon, I managed to keep pace with her.

“Why didn’t he need her any more?”

Leila paused for a moment to give me a cynical stare, then she went on spooning soup into her small, insatiable mouth.

“He only married her so she could keep him,” she said. “When he began to make money for himself, he didn’t want her.”

“How did she manage to keep him?” I asked, knowing what the answer would be.

“She entertained gentlemen as I do,” Leila said, and looked serenely at me. “We have no other means of making money.”

The waiter came through the screens. He brought with him a strip of matting which he laid ceremoniously on the floor.

Leila turned in her chair, clasping her small hands excitedly. “This is the beggar’s chicken. You must not miss seeing any of this.”

A Chinese boy came in carrying what appeared to be an enormous ostrich egg on a wooden plate. He rolled the egg onto the matting.

“The chicken is first rubbed with many spices and then wrapped in a covering of lotus leaves,” Leila explained, squirming around on her chair with excitement. “It is then covered with clay and put on an open fire and cooked for five hours. You can see the clay has become as hard as stone.”

The boy produced a hammer and cracked the egg open: from it came an aroma that was unbelievably delicious. The waiter and the boy squatted opposite each other. The boy eased the chicken out of the layers of lotus leaves onto the dish held by the waiter. The bird had been so thoroughly cooked the flesh fell from the bones as it unrolled onto the dish.

With skilled and enthusiastic hands, the waiter spooned pieces of the chicken into our bowls.

Leila’s chopsticks began to flash again. I began on my portion. It was quite the most sensational dish I had ever eaten. Leila paused for a brief moment, a shred of chicken held securely in her chopsticks to ask, “You like?”

I grinned at her.

“Sure… I like.”

There was no point in asking her further questions until the meal was over. I could see her concentration was now centred on the food and I didn’t blame her. We finished the chicken, then she ordered mushrooms, bamboo shoots, salted ginger and finally almond cake. By this time I had given up. I sat, smoking a cigarette, marvelling at the amount of food she could put away. After a further twenty minutes, she laid down her chopsticks and heaved a long, satisfied sigh.

“It was good?” she said, looking inquiringly at me.

I regarded her with considerable respect. Anyone who could eat as much as she had and still keep a nice shape was entided to respect.

“It was wonderful.”

She smiled contentedly.

“Yes, it really was wonderful. May I please have a cigarette?”

I gave her a cigarette and lit it for her. She blew smoke from her small neatly made-up mouth and then her smile became inviting.

“Would you like to return to the hotel now?” she said. “We could make love. It would be good after such a meal.”

“It’s early yet… we have the night before us,” I said. “Tell me more about Herman Jefferson. You say he began to make money three months after he married Jo-An. How did he make it?”

She frowned. I could see Jefferson as a subject bored her.

“I don’t know. Jo-An didn’t tell me. One day I found her alone and crying. She said he had left her. He no longer needed her because he was now making money.”

“She didn’t tell you how?”

“Why should she? It wasn’t my business.”

“Did he come back?”

“Oh, he came back from time to time.” Leila pulled a face. “Men come back when they want a change. He only came back for a night now and then.”

“What did Jo-An do when he left her?”

“Do?” Leila stared at me. “What could she do? She worked as before.” 75

“Entertaining gentlemen?”

“How else could she live?”

“But if Jefferson was making money and she was his wife, surely he gave her something?”

“He gave her nothing.”

“Do you know where he lived after he left her?”

“Jo-An told me he had rented a big villa belonging to a Chinese gambler at Repulse Bay. I have seen the place.” Leila heaved an envious sigh. “It is very beautiful… a big white villa with steps leading down into the sea with a little harbour and a boat.”

“Did Jo-An ever go there?”

Leila shook her head.

“She was never asked.”

The waiter came in smiling and bowing. He gave me the check. The price of the meal was ridiculously cheap. I paid while Leila watched with a happy expression on her face.

“You are pleased?” she asked.

“It was a wonderful meal.”

“Let us go back to the hotel then and make love.”

I was in Hong Kong. There was this odd atmosphere of surrender to the senses that made argument difficult. Besides, I had never made love to a Chinese girl. It was something I felt I should do.

“Okay,” I said, getting to my feet. “Let us go back to the hotel.”

We went out into the noisy dark night with the clatter of Mah Jongg tiles following us.

We began to walk down Nathan Road.

“Perhaps you would like to buy me a little present?” Leila said, taking my arm and smiling persuasively at me.

“I could be talked into it. What had you in mind?”

“I will show you.”

We walked a little way, then she steered me into a brilliantly lit arcade of small shops. Before each shop stood a smiling, hopeful Chinese salesman.

“I would like to have a ring to remember you by,” Leila said. “It need not be an expensive ring.”

We went into a jewellers and she selected an imitation jade ring. It wasn’t much of a ring, but it seemed to delight her. The salesman asked forty Hong Kong dollars. Leila and he spent ten minutes haggling and finally she got it for twenty-five dollars.

“I will always wear it,” she said, smiling at the ring on her finger. “I will always remember you by it. Now let us go back to the hotel.”

It was after we had left the ferry boat and I was waving to a taxi that I lost her. It is something I haven’t been able to understand even now. Three heavily-built Chinese, in black city suits, jostled me as the taxi moved towards me. One of them bowed and apologised in imperfect English while the other two surrounded me, then the three moved off to a waiting car. When I looked around for Leila she had vanished. It was as if the sidewalk had opened and had swallowed her up.

3

I spent fifteen fruitless minutes walking up and down the vast approach to the Star Ferry without seeing Leila, then with a feeling of uneasiness mixed with irritation I took a taxi back to the hotel.

The old reception clerk was dozing behind his counter.

“Did Leila come back?” I asked him.

He opened one heavy eyelid, stared blankly at me and said, “No speak English.” and the eyelid snapped shut.

I went to my room. Leila’s door was shut. I turned the handle and the door swung open into darkness. I groped for the light switch and turned it on. I looked into the clean little room: no Leila.

Leaving the door open and the light on, I entered my room, also leaving the door open. I sat on the bed, lit a cigarette and waited.

I waited a little more than an hour. Then because it was more comfortable, I stretched out on the bed. In half an hour, lulled by the heat and the heavy eating, I went to sleep.

I woke, feeling hot, damp and uncomfortable. The early morning sun was filtering through the shutters. I raised my head and looked at my strap watch. The time was twenty minutes to eight. I sat up and stared across the passage into Leila’s empty room. A creepy sensation moved icily up my spine. I had a sudden feeling that something bad had happened to her. She hadn’t run away from me. I was sure of that. She had been spirited away and I could guess why. Someone had decided she not only knew too much but she had been talking too much.

I considered what to do. I got off the bed, closed my door, shaved and washed as best I could in the cracked basin. I put on a clean shirt, then feeling slightly better than a dead man, I stepped into the passage, locked my door and went to the head of the stairs.

A Chinese boy sat behind the counter: probably the reception clerk’s grandson.

“Leila hasn’t returned to her room,” I said.

He giggled with embarrassment and bowed to me. I could see he hadn’t understood one word I had said.

I went down the stairs, waved away an eager rickshaw boy and signalled to a passing taxi. I told the driver to take me to police headquarters.

I was lucky. Chief Inspector MacCarthy was getting out of his car as I arrived. He took me to the police canteen where we were served with strong tea in thick white mugs.

I told him the whole story.

I found his attitude infuriating. This was the first time I had ever done business with a British cop. His calm stolid don’t-let-panic manner made my blood pressure rise.

“But something’s happened to her,” I said, trying to keep from shouting. “I’m sure of it! One moment she was right with me- the next she had vanished and she hasn’t returned to the hotel.”

He produced his Dunhill pipe and began to fill it.

“My dear chap,” he said, “you don’t have to get worked up about it I’ve had fifteen years’ experience handling these girls. They are here today-gone tomorrow. She probably saw someone she thought had more money than you. It is a well-known dodge with these girls. They get what they can out of you-then they disappear.”

I drank some of the tea and fought against grinding my teeth.

“This is different. We were going back to the hotel-oh, the hell with it! Someone thinks she’s talking. She’s been kidnapped.”

“Talking about what?”

“I’m trying to solve a murder case,” I snarled at him. “She was giving me information.”

MacCarthy blew expensive-smelling smoke at me. He smiled the way a parent smiles when his first-born has said something cute. I could see he regarded me as just another American screwball.

“What information could she give you to solve a murder that happened in America?” he asked.

“She told me Herman Jefferson rented a luxury villa at Repulse Bay. She told me he suddenly began to make money three months after he married and because he was making money he left his wife.”

He smiled that bright Britannic smile that has even fazzed the Russians.

“My dear chap, you shouldn’t pay any attention to what a Chinese prostitute tells you-you really shouldn’t.”

“Yeah. I guess I’m simple. You think she was kidding me and was staying out of her room just to give me an uneasy night?”

He blew smoke at me.

“It’s part of a prostitute’s job to stay out all night.”

“Do you know of any Americans living out at Repulse Bay?”

“I believe there are quite a few.”

“Would you know if Jefferson had a place out there?”

“If he had, I would have known, but he hadn’t.”

“So she was kidding me?”

He smiled his diplomatic smile.

“That of course could be the explanation.”

I got to my feet. I knew I was wasting time.

“Thanks for the tea. I’ll be seeing you.” 79

“Always glad to help.”

I took a taxi back to the hotel. The old inception clerk had taken up his position behind the counter. He bowed to me. I would have liked to have questioned him, but the language barrier was too much of a handicap. If I were going to get anywhere, I would have to find an interpreter. It was then I remembered the English-speaking guide, Wong Hop Ho, who had given me his card at the airport. He might be able to help me.

I went to my room. I saw Leila’s door was closed and I paused to knock. There was no answer. I tried the door handle, but the door was locked. I knocked again, listened, hearing nothing, then shrugging, I went to my room.

It was too early to do anything constructive so I took off my jacket, tie and shoes and stretched out on the bed. I did a litde thinking that got me nowhere, then I dozed off.

It was after ten o’clock when I woke to the sound of gentle tapping on my door. I swung my legs off the bed and opened the door.

The Chinese boy bobbed, smiling, pointing down the passage. I put on my shoes, then followed him to the reception desk. The old clerk offered me the telephone receiver.

It wt; Chief Inspector MacCarthy calling me.

“This girl you were telling me about,” he said, “You did say you bought her a jade ring last night?”

I stiffened.

“Yes… it was imitation jade.”

“Would you take a taxi to the Chatham Road police station? It’s on the Kowloon side. They have a girl there-could be this girl you’re talking about. She is wearing an imitation jade ring.”

“Is she dead?” I asked, aware my stomach muscles were tight.

“Oh, very.” I could almost smell his expensive tobacco smoke coming over the line. “It’d help if you would identify her. Ask for Sergeant Hamish.”

“Another Scotsman?”

“That’s right. Lots of Scotsmen in the police force.”

“Probably a good thing for Scotland,” I said and hung up.

Forty minutes later, I walked up the steps leading to the Chatham Road police station. Just inside the large lobby was a big frame hanging on the wall containing a number of gruesome morgue pictures- photographs of some fifty dead Chinese men and women who had been found in the Straits or in the streets with an appeal both in English and in Chinese to identify them.

The desk sergeant showed me into a tiny office where a hard-faced young man with blond wavy hair and a cop stare was examining a file. He nodded to me when I introduced myself. He said his name was Sergeant Hamish.

“You have a body for me to look at,” I said.

He took from his pocket a battered briar pipe. The Hong Kong police seemed to be pipe-smoking types. I watched him fill it as his cold, green eyes considered me without much interest.

“That’s right. The Chief Inspector seemed to think you could identify her. She was fished out of the Straits last night around two. Not much of her left. She must have been caught by one of the ferry steamers from the look of her.”

I felt sweat sticking my shirt to my back.

He got to his feet.

“These damn people are always killing themselves,” he said conversationally. “Every day we collect half a dozen bodies. The Chinese just don’t seem to take their lives seriously.”

We went down a passage, across a yard and into the morgue. From the number of forms under the coarse twill sheets, business seemed pretty brisk this morning.

He led me to a table, covered with a thick rubber sheet. He lifted a corner of the sheet, groped under it and produced a small amber-coloured hand on which was an imitation jade ring.

“I’ve had eggs and bacon for breakfast,” he said chattily. “If you can identify her by the ring, it’ll save me risking a throw-up.”

I looked at the ring and the small, slim fingers. It was the ring I had bought Leila.

“That’s the ring,” I said, and I felt really bad.

He put the hand back out of sight.

“Okay, I’ll tell the Chief Inspector.”

I reached forward and lifted the rubber sheet. I looked for a long moment at what was left of Leila. I wished I hadn’t, but I had to say goodbye to her. I dropped the sheet into place.

I remembered her sighing with happy contentment after we had eaten that memorial meal. I saw again her sturdily-built little back as she had walked ahead of me. I hadn’t known her for long, but her personality had impressed me. I felt I had lost someone important.

There was a detective waiting for me on the other side of the ferry. He was a large red-faced man who said his name was MacPherson: there seemed no end to these Scotsmen. He took me back to the hotel in a police jeep.

He talked to the reception clerk in haltering Chinese, then took the key of Leila’s room.

As we went down the passage, he said, “The old coot’s cagey. We would close up this hole. He isn’t admitting she was a tart- can’t say I blame him.”

I hated him for sentimental reasons. Leila, I felt, deserved something better for an epitaph than being called a tan by a Scotch cop.

MacPherson unlocked her bedroom door and moved into the tiny room. I remained in the passage, looking in. With professional thoroughness, he began to search the room. There were only three dresses hanging in the cupboard and only one set of underwear in one of the drawers. Leila’s belongings were pathetically small.

MacPherson gave a sudden grunt as he peered into the bottom of the cupboard,

“I thought as much…” he muttered, bent and came up with a small strip of tinfoil. He smoothed the foil out carefully. It appeared to come from a pack of ten cigarettes.

“Know what this is?” he asked, showing me the foil. In its centre was a black smoky smudge.

“You tell me,” I said.

He bent once again and peered into the cupboard and this time he came up with a tiny, half-burnt candle: the kind you put on birthday cakes.

He sat on the side of the bed, holding the tinfoil and the candle and became expansive.

“She was a heroin addict,” he said. “Something like a dozen drug addicts kill themselves every week.”

“What makes you so sure?” I asked.

“Anyone having these two little gadgets is an addict,” MacPherson said. “Know how it works? They put heroin in the fold of the foil. They hold the lighted candle under the foil and then sniff up the fumes. It can be done in a few seconds. You know something? The stupidest thing the Government ever did was to wage war on opium smokers. They thought it was the easiest thing in the world to stamp out. Opium smokers have to have a room, a bed and the apparatus for smoking which is not only extensive but expensive. We never have any trouble in finding the room and smashing up the apparatus. An opium pipe costs quite a lot of money, and after a while the smokers got fed up with us breaking up their beds and their pipes and chasing them over the roofs. We kidded ourselves we were putting a stop to the drug traffic, but how wrong we were.” He pushed his hat to the back of his head while he looked at me. “The addicts found they could get heroin from opium and all they needed was a piece of tinfoil and a candle. They can inhale this poison anywhere: in the movies, public conveniences, trams, buses, taxis -anywhere. You keep your eyes open and you’ll see bits of candle grease in most unexpected places. That’ll tell you, as it does us, someone has been inhaling heroin. Opium smoking is an addiction, but it isn’t a killer. But make no mistake about it: heroin kills. If we had let the Chinks smoke their opium, we wouldn’t be trying hopelessly to cope with heroin addicts.”

I rubbed the side of my jaw.

“Thanks for the lecture,” I said, “but I don’t think she committed suicide and I don’t think she was a heroin addict. I think she was murdered and these two little gadgets were planted for you to find.”

MacPherson’s stolid face showed no change of expression. He produced the inevitable pipe and began to load it.

“Think so?” he asked, an amused note in his voice. “The Chief said you were a private investigator. I’ve read Chandler and Hammet-they wrote fiction. This happens to be real life.”

“So it does,” I said. “Well, never mind. I don’t suppose it is very important.”

“What makes you think she was murdered?” he asked with no show of interest.

“Nothing that would convince you. What are you going to do with her things?”

“I’ll take them to the station. Maybe someone will claim them. The old coot doesn’t know if she had any relations. I’ve talked to him before-he never knows anything about anything.” He got to his feet. “I wouldn’t worry your brains about her.” He tossed Leila’s belongings into a cheap fibre suitcase he found at the top of the cupboard. “If you had to deal with as many cases as we do like this, you wouldn’t give it a second thought”

“I’m sure. That’s the idea.”

He looked thoughtfully at me,

“What idea?” he asked.

“The men who killed her would want you not to give a second thought, wouldn’t they?”

He suddenly grinned.

“Oh, come off it. We handle hundreds of these suicide cases…”

I was sick of him.

“I heard you the first time.” I crossed the passage to my room. “I’ll be here for a few more days if you should want me.”

He peered at me, losing some of his confidence.

“What makes you think I’ll want you?” he asked.

“Well, we could read a detective story together,” I said and shut the door in his face.

4

I felt now was the time to spend some of old man Jefferson’s money. I was sure the reception clerk could tell me more than he had told MacPherson if there was a cash inducement.

As soon as I was sure MacPherson had left, I went down to where the old clerk was sitting. He eyed me suspiciously but when I made motions to the telephone, he bowed a reluctant permission.

I called Wong Hop Ho’s number. He answered immediately as if he had been sitting by the receiver waiting for me to call.

“Remember me?” I said. “You gave me your card at the airport. I need an interpreter.”

“It will give me great pleasure, sir,” he said.

“Will you meet me outside the Shanghai and Hong Kong Bank in half an hour?”

He said he would be delighted to be there.

“I would like a car.”

He said it would be a pleasure to arrange anything for me. He was entirely at my disposal. It didn’t sound as if business was over brisk for Mr. Wong Hop Ho.

I thanked him and hung up. Then bowing to the reception clerk who bowed back, I left the hotel and took a taxi to the bank.

I cashed some of the travellers’ cheques Janet West had given me and with my hip pocket bulging with Hong Kong dollars, I waited on the sidewalk for Wong Hop Ho to appear.

He arrived ten minutes later, driving a glittering Packard. We shook hands and I told him my name. He said he would be happy if I called him Wong. All his American clients called him that and he would consider it an honour for me to do so too.

I got in the car beside him.

“We’ll go back to my hotel,” I said. “I want some information from the reception clerk who doesn’t speak English.” As he looked faintly surprised, I went on, “I am a private investigator and I am working on a case.”

He flashed his gold teeth at me in a delighted smile.

“I read many detective stories,” he said. “It is a pleasure to meet a real-life detective, sir.”

I lugged out some of my dollars and offered him fifty of them.

“Will this take care of your fees for a day or so?” I said. “I’ll probably need you from time to time in a hurry.”

He said that would be quite satisfactory, but the car would have to be considered as an extra. As I was spending Jefferson’s money, I said that would be all right. I was sure I could have bargained with him, but I wanted his full co-operation and I felt I might not get it if I cut corners.

We drove to the hotel and leaving the car on the waterfront, we crossed the road and mounted the stairs to the hotel lobby.

“This is not a good hotel,” Wong said on the way up. “I would not advise you to stay here, sir. I can arrange for a nice room for you at a distinguished hotel if that would please you.”

“Let’s leave it for the moment,” I said. “Right now I have a job to do.”

We arrived in front of the old reception clerk who bowed to me and looked blankly at Wong who looked blankly back at him.

“Tell him I want to ask some questions,” I said to Wong. “I will pay him if he can help me. Wrap it up so he won’t take offence.”

Wong went off into a long speech in Cantonese with a certain amount of bowing. Half-way through the speech, I got out my roll of money and counted out ten five-dollar bills, made them into a neat little roll and put the rest away.

The old reception clerk immediately took more interest in what I was holding than in what Wong was saying. Finally, Wong said it would be a pleasure for the clerk to answer any of my questions.

I produced the morgue photograph of Jo-An.

‘Ask him if he knows this girl.”

After staring at the photograph, the reception clerk got in a huddle with Wong who then told me the girl used to live at the hotel. She left fifteen days ago without paying her hotel bill and was I willing to pay it?

I said I wasn’t.

After further questions, Wong went on, “She was married to an American gentleman who shared her room here. His name was Herman Jefferson and he died unfortunately in a car accident. It was after this gentleman had died, the girl left without paying her bill.”

I produced the photograph of Jefferson that Janet West had given me.

“Ask him if he knows who this is?” I said to Wong.

There was an exchange of words after the clerk had stared glassily at the photograph, then Wong said, “It is the American gentleman who lived here.”

“How long did he live here?”

Through Wong, the reception clerk said he had lived in the hotel until he was killed.

This was the first false note in the interview. Leila had said Jefferson had left nine months ago. Now this old buzzard was saying he lived in the hotel up to three weeks ago when he had died.

“I heard Jefferson only stayed here for three months,” I said, “then he left his wife and lived elsewhere. That would be some nine months ago.”

Wong looked surprised. He talked earnestly to the reception clerk, then he said, puzzled,

“He is quite sure the American gentleman remained here until he died.”

If the reception clerk was telling the truth, then Leila had been lying’.

“Tell him Leila said Jefferson left here nine months ago. Tell him I think he is lying.”

Wong got into a long huddle with the reception clerk, then suddenly, smiling, he turned to me. “He is not lying, Mr. Ryan. The girl was mistaken. Jefferson left early in the morning and returned very late. It is easy to see why this girl didn’t meet him and imagined he had left.”

“Then why did Jo-An tell her he had left?” I demanded.

The reception clerk had no answer to that one. He drew in his neck like a startled tortoise and blinked at me. He began to fidget and I could see he was thinking he had given full value for money and he would be glad to be left in peace.

Wong said, “He does not know the answer to that question, sir.”

“What did Jefferson do for a living?” I asked, shifting ground.

The reception clerk said he didn’t know.

“Did any Europeans ever come to see him here?”

The answer to that one was no.

“Did Jo-An ever have any friends to visit her?”

The answer again was no.

I realised with a feeling of irritated frustration I was getting nowhere. I had come around in a full circle unless Leila had been telling the truth.

“Did Jo-An leave any of her things in her room when she left?” I asked casually.

This was a trap question and the reception clerk walked into it.

“No,” he said through Wong. “She left nothing.”

I pounced on him.

“Then how did she manage to walk out of here with her belongings and not pay her bill?” I demanded Wong saw the fairness of this and he barked at the old man. For a moment he hesitated, then scowling, he said she had left a suitcase but he was holding it against the rent.

I said I wanted to see it. After some more talk, the old reception clerk got up and led me down the passage to the room next to Leila’s. He unlocked the door and produced a cheap imitation leather suitcase from under the bed.

Wong, who had followed us, said, “This case belonged to the girl, sir.”

I examined the suitcase. It was locked.

“You two wait outside.”

When they had gone, I closed and bolted the door. It didn’t take me a couple of minutes to force the locks on the suitcase.

Jo-An possessed a slightly better outfit than Leila, but not a great deal better. I turned over the things I found. At the bottom of the suitcase was a large white envelope, its flap tucked. I opened the envelope and shook out a glossy print of Herman Jefferson: a replica of the photograph Janet West had given me. Across the foot of the photograph was scrawled: For my wife, Jo-An. I stared at the hard gangster face, then returned the photograph to the envelope and replaced it where I had found it.

I sat on the bed and lit a cigarette. I wondered how Janet West, miles away in Pasadena City, and Jo-An in Hong Kong could both have owned the same photograph. I told myself that Jefferson must have given it to them, but suddenly and far away, a note of interrogation started up in my mind.

I thought back on the conversation I had had with Leila. What the reception clerk had said didn’t tally with what she had said… one or the other was lying. Why should Leila have lied?

After some more thought I came to the conclusion there was no point in remaining in this sordid little hotel. I would have to look elsewhere to find the clue to this mystery.

I got to my feet, crossed the room and stepped out into the passage.

Wong was leaning up against the wall, smoking a cigarette. He straightened and bowed as I came out. The reception clerk probably had gone back to his desk: he wasn’t there.

“I hope everything is satisfactory, sir,” he said.

“I guess,” I said. “I’m leaving here. Is there a hotel at Repulse Bay?”

He looked faintly surprised.

“Why, yes, sir. There is the Repulse Bay Hotel: a very fine hotel. Would you like me to arrange accommodation for you there?”

“If you can fix it, I’d like to move in right away.”

“You realise, sir, the hotel is rather out of the way. If you are thinking of seeing Kowloon, it isn’t very convenient.”

“That won’t worry me. Tell the old guy I’m checking out and get my bill.’’

“There are no further questions you wish to ask him?” Wong asked, his face showing disappointment.

“No. Let’s get out of here.”

Thirty minutes later we were in the Packard, driving along the beautiful road towards Repulse Bay.

5

Repulse Bay turned out to be something very special and the hotel matched it. To my thinking the set-up with its mountains, its concealed bays with an emerald green sea looked better than most of the pleasure spots I’d ever visited, and in my time, I had been lucky to have visited a number of them.

Wong managed to get me a room in the hotel overlooking the bay. He left me the Packard and departed with much bowing, assuring me he was at my service should I need him again.

I got busy as soon as I had unpacked by beginning on the telephone book and then talking to the reception clerk of the hotel probing for a lead to Herman Jefferson. Neither the telephone book nor the clerk had heard of Herman Jefferson.

I then asked the hall porter on the theory a hall porter of a good hotel knows everything. I asked him if he knew who owned a villa close by with steps down to the sea into a small harbour complete with boat.

He regarded me thoughtfully before saying, “You mean Mr. Lin Fan’s villa, sir? It is now occupied by Mr. Enright and his sister: they are Americans.”

“Did you ever hear if a guy named Herman Jefferson lived there?” I asked.

He shook his head. I could see he was getting a little bored with me.

“Jefferson? No, I don’t know the name, sir.”

Later in the afternoon, I put on a pair of swim trunks and went down to the crowded beach. I hired a pedallo and took it out into the bay. After some hard, solid work, I got in a position to see the whole coastline. I quickly spotted Lin Fan’s villa. It was situated on a promontory, isolated and very lush, with a terrace garden and winding steps leading down to a small harbour where a fast-looking speedboat was moored.

I propelled my boat towards the villa and when I got within two or three hundred yards of the harbour. I paused to study the place, thinking if Herman Jefferson had really rented this place as Leila had said he had, then he must have suddenly found the opportunity of making really big money. But had he? Had Jo-An told Leila he had rented this villa to save face? It was the kind of lie one woman might tell another.

I suddenly became aware of two tiny sparkling dots showing from a top window of the villa and I moved on. I had a sudden naked feeling. I propelled my craft along the coast for ten minutes, knowing someone was watching me from the villa through a pair of field glasses, the lenses of which were catching the sun. Then I turned my craft, still aware I was being watched and made my way back to the beach.

I glanced up at the villa as I passed it. The two sparkling dots remained focused on me. I tried to look like a tourist, and I asked myself why I was creating so much interest. I got back to the beach as the sun was going down, and I returned to the hotel, wondering what my next move should be.

I was still undecided the following morning. Around ten o’clock, I went down to the beach. After a quick swim, I stretched myself out on the sand and pushed Herman Jefferson, Janet West, old man Jefferson and poor little Leila out of my mind. I gave myself up to the sun, the sound of the surf and to the feeling of surrender that Hong Kong gives you which is hard to resist.

I lay there for maybe an hour, dozing and letting the sun soak into me. Then I became aware that someone had passed close to me and I lazily opened my eyes.

She was tall and slim “and burned a golden brown by the sun. Her salient points which were interesting were scarcely concealed by her scarlet bikini. I saw most men lying on the beach were staring at her… so I stared too.

She walked across the hot sand towards the sea, swinging a big sun hat in her hand. Her hair was the colour of ripe corn. She was as intriguing and as beautiful as a motif from a Brahms s symphony.

I watched her drop her hat carelessly on the sand and then slide into the sea. She swam well with strong expert strokes that took her quickly out to the distant raft. I watched her hoist herself onto the raft and she sat with her feet in the water. She looked lonely out there all on her own and I had a sudden urge to keep her company.

I took a running dive into the sea and set out towards the raft with my best racing stroke which is impressive so long as I don’t have to keep it up too long.

I broke water a few yards from the raft, and hoisted myself up onto it.

She was lying on her side, her breasts heavy in their slight support, her eyes looking directly into mine.

“Tell me if I’m spoiling a beautiful solitude,” I said, “and I’ll swim away.”

She studied me. Now I was at close quarters, I could see she was a woman who had had plenty of experience with men. She had that air about her. She had inquiring, probing eyes of a woman who is interested in men.

“I was rather hoping for company,” she said and smiled. Her voice had that husky sexy tone you sometimes hear, but not often. “Who are you? You’ve only just arrived, haven’t you?”

“My name is Nelson Ryan,” I told her. “I was named after the English Admiral. My father spent all his spare time reading English naval history. He was nuts about Nelson.”

She rolled over on her back and her hard pointed breasts thrust towards the sky.

“I’m Stella Enright,” she said. “I live here. It’s nice to meet a new face. Are you staying long?”

Just how lucky can a man be? I wondered. Here is the sister of the man who rents Lin Fan’s villa. Then I recalled the sparkling dots of the watching field glasses. Maybe it wasn’t luck. Maybe this meeting was a little more subtle than luck.

“I wish I was… a week perhaps.” I took from my waterproof pocket a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. “You’re lucky to be able to live here. This place is pretty nice.”

I offered her a cigarette and we lit up.

“It’s all right… now is the best season, but the summer is bad.” She blew a thin cloud of smoke into the still air. “My brother is writing a book on Hong Kong. I run the house.” She lifted her head to look at me. “Are you staying at the hotel?”

“Yes. You have a house?”

“We have rented a villa. It belongs to a Chinese gambler.”

“Lin Fan?”

Her eyes showed surprise.

“That’s right. How would you know?”

“I heard.” I hesitated, then decided to push it as far as it would go. “I thought Herman Jefferson rented that place.”

She lifted golden eyebrows in what seemed to me genuine astonishment.

“Herman Jefferson? Do you know him?”

“He happens to come from my home town. Do you?”

“He’s dead… killed in a car accident.”

“I heard that. Did you know him?”

“Harry-that’s my brother-knew him. I met him once or twice. So you know him? Harry will be interested. It was an awful thing the way he died… awful for his Chinese wife.”

“You knew her?”

“I wouldn’t say that. I’ve seen her… a lovely little thing.” She flicked ash off her cigarette. “Some Chinese women are really attractive. She was. I could understand Herman falling for her. She was very intriguing.” She said it the way most women talk about a woman who is attractive to men: a bitter-sweet touch I didn’t miss. “She took his body back to America. I suppose she will stay there. After all, Herman’s father is a millionaire. I guess he’ll look after her.”

I resisted the temptation to tell her Jo-An was dead.

“Someone told me Herman came into money, left her and rented your villa.”

She half sat up, frowning.

“What an extraordinary story! Who told you that?”

“Oh, someone,” I said casually. “It isn’t true?”

“Why no… of course not!” She suddenly relaxed, smiling at me. “It’s too ridiculous. Herman was…” She paused, then shrugged her naked shoulders. “Well, frankly, Herman was a no-gooder. I didn’t like him very much, but he amused Harry. He just wasn’t any good. He went native. He never had any money. There were rumours he lived on this Chinese girl. He could never have afforded to rent Lin Fan’s villa. The very idea is ridiculous. Whoever told you that?”

The sound of a fast-moving motor-boat made both of us look out to sea. Coming towards us was a speedboat, cleaving through the sea and throwing up a white spray.

“Here’s Harry now,” Stella said and rising to her feet, balancing herself on the rocking raft, she waved.

The boat slowed and then the engines cut. It drifted close to the raft. A tall, sun-burned man, wearing a blue and white sweat shirt and white shorts grinned amiably at Stella. His handsome face was a trifle fleshy from good living and there was a network of fine veins, well disguised by his heavy tan that told me he liked the extra drink.

“I thought I’d pick you up. It’s lunch-time.” He looked inquiringly at me. “Who’s your boy friend?”

“This is Nelson Ryan. He knew Herman Jefferson,” Stella said and looked at me. “This is my brother, Harry.”

We nodded to each other.

“You knew Herman?” Harry said, “Well, what do you know? You here for some time?”

“Not more than a week, worse luck,” I said.

“Look, if you have nothing better to do tonight, why not come over to our place and have dinner with us? I’ll pick you up in the boat… it’s the only way to get to the place. Will you do that?”

“Why, sure I’d be glad to, but I don’t want to trouble you to pick me up.”

“That’s nothing. Be down on the beach at eight o’clock. I’ll be there, and after dinner we’ll take the boat out. It’s wonderful at night in this tub.” He looked at Stella. “Are you coming?”

“Take me back to the beach first. I’ve left my hat.” She climbed into the boat. I couldn’t take my eyes off her slim, sun-tanned back as she got into the boat. She looked suddenly over her shoulder, catching me staring and she smiled as if she knew what was going on in my mind. “I’ll see you tonight,” she said, and with a wave of her hand she settled herself beside her brother. He nodded to me and the boat roared away across the bay towards the beach.

I lit a cigarette and dangled my feet in the water, my mind busy. I sat there for the next half hour, my body soaking in the sun, then feeling hungry, I slid into the water and swam to the shore.

I was down on the beach at eight o’clock, and after a few minutes’ wait, I saw the speedboat come out of the darkness. The driver was a powerfully-built Chinese who assisted me on board as if I were a cripple with abrupt little bows and a steely grip on my arm. Mr. Enright, he explained in guttural English, had been unable to come, and he presented his excuses.

The boat was fast, and within five minutes, we arrived at the little harbour below Lin Fan’s villa.

I toiled up the steps and reached the terrace, slightly breathless.

Stella, wearing a white evening dress, cut low enough to reveal the tops of her breasts, was lying on a bamboo lounging chair, a highball in her hand, a cigarette between her lips. A young Chinese servant stood expectantly in the shadows. There was no sign of Harry Enright.

“There you are…” Stella said, waving the highball at me. “What will you drink?”

I said Scotch and soda and the Chinese servant quickly produced the drink.

“Harry will be here in a moment. Sit there where I can see you.”

I could see into the big lounge that led off the terrace. The room was richly furnished in Chinese style with heavy lacquer cabinets, red silk on the walls and a big black mother-of-pearl inlaid table set for dinner.

“Some place you have here,” I said.

“Yes… it’s nice. We were lucky to have got it. We’ve only been here a few weeks… before we had an apartment in Kowloon. We like this much better.”

“Who was here before you?” I asked.

“I don’t think anyone was. The owner only decided to let the villa recently. He’s now living in Macau.”

Just then Harry Enright came out onto the terrace. He shook hands with me and then sat down opposite me.

The Chinese servant made him a highball.

After the usual polite chit-chat about the view and the villa, he asked, “Are you here on a business trip?”

“I’m on vacation,” I said. “I had the chance for a week or so off and couldn’t resist coming here.”

“Don’t blame you.” He studied me in a friendly way. “I’m crazy about Hong Kong. Stella was telling me you come from Pasadena City. Did you know Herman Jefferson well?”

“I know his father better. The old man is worried about Herman. He asked me to make inquiries about him when he heard I was coming this way.”

Enright looked interested.

“Is that right? What sort of inquiries?”

“Well, Herman had been out here for five years. He seldom wrote home. His father has no idea what he did with himself. He was pretty shaken when Herman wrote he had married an Asian.”

Enright nodded and looked over at Stella.

“I bet he was.”

“I think the old boy feels bad that he didn’t do more for his son while he was alive. Have you any idea what Herman did for a living?”

“I don’t think he did anything,” Enright said slowly. “He was a bit of a mystery. Personally, I liked him, but he wasn’t anyone’s choice.” He grinned at Stella. “She couldn’t stand the sight of him for one.”

Stella moved impatiently.

“Don’t exaggerate,” she said. “I admit I didn’t take to him. He thought any woman had to fall for him… I don’t like that type.”

Enright laughed.

“Well, you didn’t fall for him,” he said, and I caught a jeering note in his voice. “Probably sour grapes. Well, I liked him.”

“But then you are amoral,” his sister said. “You like anyone who will amuse you.”

The conversation was interrupted by the Chinese servant announcing dinner was ready. We moved into the lounge.

It was a Chinese meal which I enjoyed. We talked about this and that. Enright was very gay but I noticed Stella seemed preoccupied as if she were only half listening to our conversation.

As the meal was finishing, she asked abruptly, “Who told you Herman rented this villa, Mr. Ryan?”

“Herman rented this villa?” Enright cut in. “For Pete’s sake! Did someone tell you that?” He looked quizzingly at me.

“A Chinese girl,” I said. “I met her at the Celestial Empire Hotel where Jefferson lived. She told me.”

“I wonder why?” Stella said, frowning. “What an absurd thing to say.”

I lifted my shoulders.

“She was probably kidding me,” I said. For the past ten or twenty seconds I had suddenly felt I was being watched. I glanced around the room. “I asked her for information about Herman. Maybe she fell she should tell me something to earn what I was offering her.” There was a big mirror opposite me. I looked into it. Behind me, in the lobby outside the lounge, reflected in the mirror, I could see a squat shadowy figure of a man. He was Chinese, wearing a European suit. He was studying me intently. For a brief second our eyes met in the reflection of the mirror, then he moved back into the darkness of the lobby and disappeared. I felt a prickle run up my spine. There was something sinister and menacing about the man and I had trouble not to show by my expression I had seen him watching me.

“Chinese will say anything if they imagine it is what you want them to say,” Enright said. I was aware he was looking intently at me. “Chinese girls are the most fluent liars in the world.”

“Is that a fact?” I said. I looked again into the mirror, then with an effort shifted my eyes back to Enright. “Well…”

“Let’s go on the terrace,” Stella said, getting to her feet. “Will you have a brandy?”

I said no, and we wandered out onto the terrace. The moon had come up and was reflecting on the sea.

“I’ve a couple of telephone calls to make,” Enright said. “If you’ll excuse me, then we might take the boat out. Would you like that?”

I looked at Stella.

“If you like it, it suits me fine.”

“Oh, I’ll like it,’ she said in a resigned voice. “Harry can’t think of anything except his blessed boat.”

By then Enright had gone. She slid her arm through mine and led me to the balustrade. We stood looking at the sea.

“In a way that Chinese girl is lucky,” Stella said, and I caught a wistful note in her voice. “I expect Herman’s father will provide for her. I hear he is very rich.”

“She lost her husband,” I said, still not sure if I should tell her that Jo-An was dead.

She made an impatient movement.

“It was good riddance. Now she is free with money and she is in America.” She heaved a sigh. “I wish I were back in New York.”

“Is that where you come from?”

“Hmm… I haven’t been back for over a year now. I’m homesick.”

“Can’t you go? Do you have to stay here?”

She started to say something then stopped. After a long pause, she said, “I don’t have to stay here, of course, but my brother and I have done things together for so long it’s become a habit.”

She pointed to the mountain ahead of us. “Doesn’t that look lovely in the moonlight?”

I guessed she was deliberately changing the subject and I wondered why, but I played along. We were still admiring the view when Enright came onto the terrace.

“Well, let’s go,” he said. “How would you like to see Aberdeen-it’s the fishermen’s village here? It’s quite something to see.”

“Why, sure,” I said, and we left the terrace and filed down the steps to the boat. Stella and I sat immediately behind Enright who took the driver’s wheel. He sent the boat roaring out to sea.

It wasn’t possible to talk against the sound of the powerful engines. Stella sat away from me, staring out into the moonlit night. There was a depressed expression on her face as if she were concentrating on something that saddened her. My mind was busy too, turning over the bits of information I had gathered. I still couldn’t believe that Leila had lied to me. Either the Enrights were misinformed or they too, like the reception clerk at the Celestial Empire Hotel, were lying about Herman Jefferson… but why?

The village of Aberdeen was one of the most fantastic sights I have seen. The harbour was crammed with junks, shoulder to shoulder and swarming with Chinese with their relations and children. There was no hope of entering the harbour so Enright dropped anchor and we took a sampan rowed by a thirteen-year-old Chinese girl to the landing-stage. We spent an hour wandering around the tiny, interesting bay village, then Stella said she was tired and we returned to the boat. As we were being rowed in the sampan to the boat, Stella said, “Have you been to the islands yet? You should see them. You can take a ferry.”

“Not yet… no.”

“If you have nothing better to do tomorrow, I’m going to Silver Mine Bay. We could go together. I have a visit to make. While I’m visiting you might like to look at the waterfall. It is something to see, then we could come back together.”

“I’d like it fine,” I said.

“My sister is a very charitable soul,” Enright said. “We had a servant when we first came here. She was very old and we had to get rid of her. She lives at Silver Mine Bay. Stella visits her from time to time. She takes her things.”

He started the motor-boat engine and that stopped all talking. It took us twentv minutes or so to reach tn* villa. Stella left the boat and Enright said he would run me back to the hotel.

“Good night,” Stella said, pausing at the bottom of the steps to smile at me. “The ferry-boat leaves at two. I’ll look out for you on the pier.”

I thanked her for a wonderful evening and she lifted her hand in a little wave and then started up the steps as Enright opened the throttle and sent the boat roaring in the direction of the hotel.

He dropped me at the landing-stage.

“When did you say you were leaving?” he asked as I climbed out of the boat.

“About a week’s time… I’m not sure.”

“Well, you must come again. It’s been nice meeting you.”

We shook hands and then I watched him drive the boat out to sea.

I walked slowly up the beach towards the hotel. I couldn’t get out of my mind the sinister squat figure of the Chinese I had seen reflected in the mirror. I had an instinctive feeling he meant trouble.

6

The following morning I found myself in the office of the Third Secretary, American Consul.

I had had a little trouble getting to him, but by bearing down on old man Jefferson’s name, I was finally and reluctantly admitted to his office.

He was a fat, smooth-looking bird, surrounded by an atmosphere of diplomatic immunity. He read my card which lay on his desk by peering gingerly at it as if he felt by touching it he might pick up an incurable disease.

“Nelson Ryan… private investigator,” he intoned and then sat back and lifted supercilious eyebrows. “What can I do for you?”

“I’m working for J. Wilbur Jefferson,” I said. “I’m making inquiries about his son, Herman Jefferson, who died here in a road accident about seventeen days ago.”

He fed a cigarette into his fat face.

“So?”

“He was a resident of Hong Kong. I take it he would have had to register here.”

“That is correct.”

“Can you tell me his last address?”

He moistened one fat finger and smoothed down his left eyebrow.

“Well, I suppose I could give it to you, but is it necessary? It’s a dead file now. It may take a little time to get it from the vaults.”

“Is that what you want me to tell Mr. Jefferson?” f asked. “I can’t imagine he would toss his bonnet over a windmill to hear a Third Secretary of the American Consul couldn’t be bothered to help him.”

He looked suddenly wary. Probably he had suddenly remembered just how much water the old man could draw if he wanted to.

Slightly flustered, he picked up the telephone and said, “Oh, Miss Davenport, will you bring me Herman Jefferson’s file… yes, Herman Jefferson. Thank you.” He replaced the receiver and hoisted a weary smile on his fat face, showing me his set of porcelain choppers. “Yeah… J. Wilbur Jefferson. I remember now… the millionaire. How is the old gentleman?”

“Still ready and willing to kick a backside when it needs kicking,” I said cheerfully. “He has a hell of a long leg and a hell of a heavy boot.”

The Third Secretary, whose name was Harris Wilcox, winced, then laughed as convincingly as a newly-wed husband laughs when meeting his mother-in-law for the first time.

“Wonderful how these old tycoons last,” he said. “He’ll probably see us both into the ground.”

There was a pause while we sat staring at each other for about two minutes, then the door opened and Miss Davenport, a willowy girl of around twenty-five, moved her well-built body to the desk and put a file, slim enough to be empty, before Mr. Wilcox. She glanced at me, then went out waving her hips the way secreraries with hips do while we both watched her until the door closed, then Wilcox opened the file.

“All his papers went back with the body,” he said apologetically, “but we should have something here.” He peered at the single sheet of paper in the file, then shook his head. “Not a great deal, I’m afraid. His last address was the Celestial Empire Hotel. He arrived in Hong Kong on September 3rd, 1956, and he has lived at the hotel ever since. He married a Chinese girl last year.”

“What did he do for a living?”

Wilcox again peered at the sheet of paper.

“He’s down here as an exporter, but I understand he didn’t do anything for a living. I guess he had private means although I understand that he lived very rough.”

“Would it surprise you to know he rented a luxury villa at Repulse Bay?” I asked.

Wilcox stared blankly at me.

“He did? He should have registered a change of address if he had done so. Are you sure? What villa?”

“The villa belonging to Lin Fan.”

“Oh, no, Mr. Ryan, I know that villa. Jefferson couldn’t possibly have afforded such a place. It would cost in English money at least four hundred pounds a month.”

“Right now the villa is rented by Harry Enright who lives there with his sister,” I said.

Wilcox nodded. His face showed sudden animation.

“That’s right. Enright took the villa over from some Englishman. I forget his name. Nice guy… I mean Enright, and what a sister!” He leered. “Probably the most attractive woman in Hong Kong.”

“I understood the villa was empty before Enright took it.”

“Oh no. There was some Englishman there. I never met him.”

“Jefferson and this Chinese girl were really married?”

He stared at me.

“Of course. They were married here. I could show you a copy of the marriage certificate if you want to see it.”

“Yeah: I’d like to see it.”

He did some telephoning, then as we waited, he said, “I remember her well-a pretty little thing. I had the job of clearing her papers and despatching the coffin… a sad affair.” He tried to look sad. “I was sorry for her.”

Miss Davenport minced in, gave Wilcox the certificate and then duck-tailed out. When we had got through watching her exit, Wilcox passed the certificate across the desk to me. I examined it. It did prove that Jefferson had married Jo-An a year ago. I learned that Frank Belling and Mu Hai Ton had been witnesses of the ceremony.

“Who is Frank Belling?” I asked, showing Wilcox the certificate.

He shook his head.

“I’ve no idea. A friend of Jefferson’s I guess. He must be English. We’ve no record of him.”

“And the girl?”

“I wouldn’t know. Probably a friend of Mrs. Jefferson.” He tapped his porcelain teeth gently with the end of his fountain pen and looked sideways at his desk clock.

I decided there was nothing further to learn from him so I got to my feet.

“Well, thanks,” I said. “I mustn’t take up your time.”

He said it was a pleasure to have met me. I could see it gave him more pleasure to see me go.

“You never met Herman Jefferson?” I asked at the door.

“Funnily enough I didn’t. He kept to the Chinese quarter. He seemed never to mix with my friends.”

I left the building and walked slowly over to where I had parked the Packard. On my way I had to sidestep two uniformed Chinese policemen who were dragging along a beggar woman and a screaming child. No one seemed to pay any attention to this little scene. When you have an influx of a hundred thousand refugees illegally entering this small island even,’ year, such a sight probably becomes commonplace, but it depressed me.

I sat in the car and turned over in my mind what I had learned. Not much, but perhaps I had a small lead to work on. I decided I wanted to talk to this Chinese girl, Mu Hai Ton, and also to Frank Belling.

I drove to the Central Police Station and asked to speak to Chief Inspector MacCarthy. After a little delay, I was shown into his office.

The Chief Inspector was cleaning his pipe. He waved me to a chair, blew through his pipe and then began to fill it.

“And what can I do for you this morning?” he asked.

“I’m looking for a man. His name is Frank Belling,” I said. “Can you give me a lead on him?”

MacCarthy lit his pipe and puffed smoke towards me. He would have made a poor poker player. Although his face remained expressionless, I saw his eyes become alert and hard.

“Frank Belling?” He removed his pipe and rubbed the warm bowl against the side of his nose. “Why are you interested in him?”

“I don’t know that I am. He happened to be a witness at Herman Jefferson’s wedding. Do you know him?”

MacCarthy stared blankly at the wall behind me, then reluctantly he nodded.

“Yes… we know him,” he said. “So he was a witness to Jefferson’s wedding. Hmm… interesting. You wouldn’t know where he is?”

“I’m asking you that… remember?”

“So you are.” He leaned forward and straightened his snowy while blotter. “Belling is a man we are anxious to contact. He is a member of a very active drug-running organisation here. We were about ready to grab him when he vanished. We’re still trying to find him. It’s my bet he’s either skipped to Macau or Canton.”

“Have you looked for him there?”

“We’ve made inquiries in Macau, but we haven’t any facilities to check on a man in Canton.”

I eased myself in the hard upright chair.

“He’s English?”

“Yes… he’s English.” MacCarthy tapped down the rising tobacco into the bowl of his pipe. “We know for certain he is part of an organisation here that is causing us a lot of trouble. Large quantities of heroin are being smuggled in from Canton. Up to a couple of weeks ago. Belling was playing an active part in getting the stuff into Hong Kong. We had been watching him for some time, waiting for a big consignment to come in.” He relit his pipe, then went on, “We had a tip from one of our informers that delivery was to be made on the first of this month. Then Belling vanished. It’s my guess he was tipped off we were readv to grab him and he skipped either to Macau or Canton.”

“The first of this month… that would be two days before Jefferson died?”

“So it would,” MacCarthy said, stared, then asked politely, “Does that mean anything?”

“I’m just getting the facts straight in my mind. The woman witness at the marriage was Chinese: Mu Hai Ton. That name mean anything to you?”

“No.”

I lit a cigarette while the Chief Inspector watched with disapproval.

“Do you think Jefferson was hooked up with the drug ring?”

“Maybe,” MacCarthy said, shrugging his shoulders. “We never got a line on him. I’ve no reason to think so, but if he was friendly with Belling, he could have been.”

“You can’t give me a line on the girl?”

“I’ll check our records. If I get anything I’ll let you know.” He stared quizzically at me. “You’ve moved to the Repulse Bay Hotel?”

“That’s right”

He shook his head enviously.

“You investigators have a nice life. Everything on the expense account I suppose?”

I grinned at him and got to my feet.

“That’s right,” I said. “Well, so long and thanks. I’ll be seeing you.”

I went down into the crowded Queen’s Road Central. The time was now half past eleven. I got in the Packard and drove to Wanchai waterfront. Leaving the car, I went into the bar where I had met the Madame who had drunk a glass of milk with me.

The place was empty of customers. Two Chinese waiters talked together behind the bar. They recognised me and one came over, showing gold-capped teeth in a wide smile of welcome.

“Good morning, sir. Very happy to see you again. A drink or perhaps lunch?”

‘I’ll have a Coke and rum,” I said. “Madame around?”

He looked at the clock over the bar.

“She’ll be here any moment, sir.”

I sat down and toyed with my drink. The Chinese woman didn’t appear for half an hour, but to the Chinese that was no time at all. I waved to her as she came in and she crossed the bar to shake hands. She sat down opposite me.

“I am very happy to see you again,” she said. “I hope all was satisfactory with the girl.”

I grinned at her.

“You pulled a fast one that time. She wasn’t Jo-An and you know it.”

One of the waiters came over with a pint glass of milk which he set before her. Then he went away.

“That was a mistake,” she said. “The girl was more pleasing than Jo-An. I thought you would not mind.”

“There is another girl I want to meet,” I said. “Her name is Mu Hai Ton. Do you know her?”

Her face was expressionless as she nodded.

“She is one of my very best girls. You will like her very much.”

“Only this time,” I said, “she will have to prove who she is. I have business to discuss with her.”

Madame thought for a moment.

“She will be able to prove who she is. What business do you want to discuss with her?”

“That need not concern you. When can I meet her?”

“I will try to arrange something. When would you like to meet her? Now?”

“Not right now. How about tonight? I’ll be here at eight o’clock. Will you arrange for her to be here?”

She nodded.

“If she is the right girl, and if she is co-operative, I will give you fifty dollars.”

“She will be the right girl and she will be co-operative,” Madame said, a sudden steely expression in her eyes,

I finished my drink.

“Then tonight at eight.” I got to my feet. “I will know if she isn’t the right girl so don’t pull another fast one.”

She smiled at me.

“You will be satisfied.”

I drove back to the Repulse Bay Hotel, feeling my morning hadn’t been wasted.