A Coffin From Hong Kong (12 page)

"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."

"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 pipesmoking 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 redfaced 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, halfburnt 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.

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.