The Concubine's Daughter (68 page)

Looking even more closely at the tracery, she saw that the claws of each outstretched talon were missing, leaving minute spaces where they should have been. Carefully, she fitted the dragon claw into the recessed spaces. The pins lined up, and she pushed them into place, but sprang no hidden lock. She was about to put away the pouch when a slip of paper fell to the floor, bearing a drawing of the Pa-kua, with its eight sacred trigrams of three broken and unbroken lines, and the words
The Double Dragon Has Eight Eyes.

The panel was placed low in the back of the desk, and Sing needed to kneel in order to study it. She found that the Double Dragon crest was repeated by a replica below, the bulging eyes of each creature inset with beads of turquoise. Again, although each moved easily when she pressed it with a fingertip, no hiding place emerged. Studying the tiny symbol, she remembered Master To’s instructions in Pa-kua:
We must always face the trigram correctly, or chaos will reign.

Sing tried again, using the sequences of broken and unbroken lines as a guide to press the dragons’ eyes in new combinations, until, with a series of eight definite clicks, a wide, shallow drawer sprang smoothly open. Inside lay a collection of files tied with tape, several ledgers, and numerous sealed envelopes. The top one of these was addressed with two words:
My Child
.

Trembling, Sing broke the wax seal, to find a folded vellum sheet embossed with her father’s chop. She moved to the window, where sunlight fell on the boldly written lines:

Among the papers, she found a collection of files labeled YELLOW DRAGON, but she turned her attention first to her father’s personal diaries. It was early the following morning by the time she finished reading Ben Devereaux’s account of his life. The diaries ended abruptly on the date of her mother’s death—the page as blank as the life that had ended except for a single name scrawled across the page as though by another hand:
Chiang-wah.

One morning, as she stepped from Ben’s study onto the terrace, Ah-Kin turned from tending the urns of marigolds to bow to her politely. “Forgive me, mistress. May I beg a moment of your time? There are things I must show you that are for your eyes alone.”

Sing returned his bow. “It will be my honor to follow wherever you
may lead in these blessed gardens.” She followed the gardener to an old stone wall behind a screen of black bamboo, down a short flight of steps to the little shrine of Pai-Ling. Opening its scarlet doors, he stepped aside to reveal a golden statue of Kuan-Yun, bathed in a blaze of rainbow light. “The heavens have forgiven my master Di-Fo-Lo. In his grief, he flung the goddess from the cliff. For years she lay at the bottom of the sea, until fishermen raised her in their nets. They were afraid that the ghost of Di-Fo-Lo would haunt them if they did not return it to the shrine.”

He beamed with pleasure as Sing bowed before the statue. “When Kuan-Yun was returned, I knew that you would soon follow. I have kept her safely in my home with other things that were precious to your mother.”

At the feet of the goddess, among fresh flowers and ripe fruit, lay a box encrusted with seashells, a child’s bamboo flute, a sheaf of letters bound with a golden ribbon, and a pair of sandals splendidly woven from flax grass.

From the Yellow Dragon files in her father’s office, Sing learned the true nature of the triad threat against the House of Devereaux. Under a plain black cover, the first journal outlined the history of the Yellow Dragon secret society—from its centuries-old origins as an underground resistance army pitched against tyranny and corruption, to one of Shanghai’s most notorious tongs—and named the controlling family dating back several generations as the House of Ho-Ching, whose eldest sons served as supreme overlords, or dragon heads. Focusing on the years from 1880 to 1900 and the dragon head Ho-Tzu “Titan” Ching, it detailed crimes from extortion, torture, and murder to kidnapping, arson, and blackmail against prominent government officials of the day. It was signed “Jean-Paul Devereaux.”

Angus had told Sing of the empire her grandfather had built with the staggering profits of dealing in opium. It had been taken from him, and his properties burned to the ground with the Boxer Uprising of 1900. The second journal was similarly laid out, but in the more flourishing
hand of her father. It covered major Yellow Dragon activities in Hong Kong and Macao—under the dragon head J. T. Ching.

When she had read each page twice and digested every word, she called Angus Grant and told him of her find.

“Have you told anyone else, anyone at all?” he asked immediately. Sing assured him she had not.

“Good lass,” he said. “Put them away under lock and key until I get there.”

He arrived in less than forty-five minutes, and insisted she fetch the file to him so that he would not see the secret drawer. “If Ben had wanted me to know, he’d have told me.” Sing had never seen the usually easygoing lawyer look so tense.

He poured himself a Glenfiddich from the bottle she had set aside for him. “I want you to bring me the file on J. T. Ching; I’ll copy it and bring it back. Tell no one of this, not even Toby or Miss Bramble. If it is what I think it is, it might as well be a case of dynamite on a short fuse.”

W
inifred Bramble announced a
Flood Relief Ball to be held in the Peninsula Hotel, with the proceeds to be used to help rebuild the ruined village of Tai-Po. On Winifred’s advice, Sing attended the ball in Western dress, an evening gown of oyster-colored silk and a string of black pearls. Her hair was dressed in gleaming coils high upon her head, showing the length of her neck and the matching pearls in her ears.

She knew that people wondered and whispered about her. Being in the company of foreigners had taught her to look and act as they did, to use the English language and avoid the subject of her heritage. If any Chinese she encountered muttered against her, she pretended not to hear or understand. She was well aware that the English ladies looked down at her; for all of Winifred’s efforts to introduce her into society as “a young friend from Macao,” Sing knew she was dismissed as “Captain Hyde-Wilkins’s Eurasian bit of fluff.”

She had quickly learned that to observe much and say little was her best defense. She would not allow herself to be intimidated into staying home, especially when the cause was so close to her heart.

On this evening, Sir Justin Pelham’s party was second in importance only to the governor and his entourage, so she expected little in the way of confrontation. Every prominent Hong Kong family or enterprise was represented, including the foreign consulates and the wealthiest members of Chinese society.

Sing stepped from the Rolls-Royce on Toby’s arm, to follow Sir Justin
and Lady Pelham past the gushing fountain and up the wide marble steps to the famous foyer of the hotel. Both Colonel Pelham and Captain Hyde-Wilkins were resplendent in their dress uniforms, with miniature medals and decorations on scarlet cutaway jackets and golden cummerbunds to match the braided trappings of rank.

Elegant in a velvet evening dress and her beloved garnets, Winifred Bramble was escorted by Angus Gordon in the dark blue uniform of a major in the Hong Kong Volunteers. But it was the stunning girl on the arm of Captain Hyde-Wilkins who turned heads as they entered the grand ballroom.

The colonel’s table was in pride of place, close to the raised stage but enough to one side to suggest exclusivity. Sing listened to the speeches, enjoyed the music of the string orchestra, and played her part in the proceedings when called upon to do so, but in truth she was uncomfortable and would welcome the evening’s end. With the speeches over, Toby led her to the dance floor. She held her head high, looking neither right nor left.

As if he read her thoughts, Toby held her close and whispered in her ear, “They stare because you are the most breathtaking woman in the room. It is called good old-fashioned jealousy.”

She felt safe in his arms, her love for him growing stronger with each day, but she was not yet free to show it. When they returned to the table, a man stood with his back to them, talking with Lady Pelham—a short, stocky man dressed in an expensive American tuxedo, the jacket stretched across once-powerful wide shoulders. When he turned to face them, Sing found herself looking into the flushed face of J. T. Ching.

It was as shocking as if she had been suddenly disrobed. The sounds of the ballroom seemed to melt away as Lady Pelham introduced her.

“Ah, there you are my dear. This is Mr. Ching, one of our most important guests. And a most generous one, I might add, when it comes to helping those less fortunate.” She gestured gracefully. “Mr. Ching, may I present Miss Devereaux, a new friend of ours from Macao.”

Sing’s heartbeat quickened as the taipan offered his hand. She saw the dawning of surprise become a smile that spread across his broad face
but did not reach his eyes. Only deep-rooted discipline stopped her from snatching her hand away. Instead, she smiled politely as he lifted it slowly to his loose lips to plant a lingering kiss.

“Miss Devereaux was of great help in the aftermath of the typhoon,” Lady Pelham went on, “even though she was herself quite badly injured at Tai-Po.”

Ching’s expression did not waver. Only the light of triumph in his eyes told her that a change of fortune could not hide the truth of who she was.

He bowed with exaggerated elegance. “It is always an honor and a great pleasure to meet those who show concern for our underprivileged people.” His hot hand let go of hers reluctantly. “I too am always happy to help in my humble way …”

“Mr. Ching is too modest,” Margaret Pelham broke in. “It was he who founded the floating clinic in Shatin and the tuberculosis wing of Queen Mary Hospital, not to mention the civic center that bears his name.” She laughed melodiously. “I could go on, but I fear I might embarrass the poor man.”

Sing took her seat beside Toby, while Ching remained standing, smiling down at her. “Surely we have met before,” he said, his tone communicating clearly to Sing that he would enjoy this game immensely.

“I do not think so, sir,” she said quietly.

Ching persisted, the smile twisting his mouth unpleasantly. “How could I not remember such a charming young lady?”