Broken Meats: A Harry Stubbs Adventure (9 page)

“That’s a
vile way to use blind children.” I often passed the Normal School, where they
taught the blind to be piano tuners.

“They’re
not blind when they start,” said Reg. “It’s an evil cult. They say no man ever
faced the Xiongshoo Mang and lived. That may be an exaggeration, but still, you
are a very lucky man, Harry. Or a very valiant one, I should say.”

“Why did
they need someone like him to apprehend a little fellow like Yang?”

“Never try
to figure the Chinese out, Harry,” Reg advised. “East is East…They’ve got
wheels within wheels, and you’ll always end up behind them. Their lot—the
Yellow Emperor’s Clan—torture Yang because his lot in the Si Fan have
tortured one of their lot. Because their lot tortured one of his lot. It all
comes out in the wash. These feuds go back centuries, and there’s nothing you
or I can do to stop them. That’s something you have to learn. They’ve tumbled
Yang now, and I don’t expect he’ll be staying here much longer if he knows
what’s good for him.”

“You didn’t
tip them the wink, did you?”

“Not me!”
Reg chuckled at the idea. “I tell you, the Si Fan never forget a grudge; they
just keep adding to the list. The fellow that tipped them off—he’ll be
found one day, next week or next year or in ten years' time, with his tongue
cut out by the Si Fan. They spy on each other and betray each other and torture
each other. It will out sooner or later.”

“Will they
be after my blood?”

Reg sipped
his ale thoughtfully before shaking his head. “They respect a strong man.
You’re just a hired soldier. Chinese soldiers change sides all the time
depending who pays them, it’s expected. But betrayal – that’s another
matter!
 
Anyway, now he knows
they’re after him, I expect Yang will be off soon enough.”

Reg seemed
well satisfied when he left. For Reg, seeing the back of Yang would be enough
to settle the matter, but I was not so sure. I did not think Yang was stirring
up mischief. His object was Roslyn D’Onston. Powell struck stone dead in the
library was a sign that D’Onston was alive, ruthless and in possession of
uncanny powers. And if there was any truth in what Howard said, D’Onston would
kill again and again in pursuit of some hidden purpose. It was difficult to put
this in words for Reg, and Arthur would be equally dubious. Only Yang was
likely to understand.

I was
content enough when I made my way back home later that night, but my sleep was
not a peaceful one.

I woke
suddenly in the early hours, a thing I rarely do. Usually, you can tell what’s
woken you easily enough—a dustbin lid blown off, or fighting cats. I lay
listening, but the night was completely still.

I rolled over
to look at the luminous radium dials on the alarm clock. Something was wrong
with the conformation of my bedroom, which seemed to press closer on me than it
should. The wall had moved somehow, or perhaps the wardrobe. I reached and
switched on the bedside light.

Towering
over me like a wall of flesh was the fat Chinese wrestler. He stood with his
arms folded, big and motionless as a granite pillar. His face was bruised where
I had hit him that afternoon.

At the
click of the light switch, he unfolded his arms and reached for my throat. I
jumped violently and woke up—really woke up this time. My room was empty.
I checked under the bed and in the wardrobe and locked the door. Even then, I
did not feel entirely safe. After I climbed back into bed, I kept opening my
eyes at intervals to reassure myself that it had all really been a dream.

I got to
thinking again about the fight with the wrestler and what I could have done and
how I would defend myself if we were to meet again. There was the ice axe on my
dressing table, but that was cumbersome for a close fight. Then I recalled some
knuckle-dusters, which Arthur had issued me as a contingency for a particular
job. I had never used them, knuckle-dusters being dangerous things to carry or
use, and they had lain neglected ever since in a bottom drawer. I fetched them
out and put them over my hands. They were cold at first but soon warmed, and
the weight was a comfort.

I slept
badly until the morning.

Chapter Eight: An Interview at the Convent

The next morning, Yang was in a charcoal-grey suit with narrow
pinstripes, and apart from some stiffness in his shoulder, he looked as good as
new. I know I never looked so well the day after a fight though, unlike Yang, I
did not disguise the bruises on my face with powder. Iodine was as far as I
ever went.

He was not
his usual energetic self though. “Yesterday,” said Yang quietly, “you rescued
me from an unfortunate situation..”

I was
painfully aware how embarrassing that must be for Yang. He had suffered the
supreme loss of face of being humiliated in front of an inferior and then
requiring that inferior’s help. He was, in his own way, the proudest of men.
The whole episode must have wounded his pride severely.

“Yes,” I
said. “I really am very sorry about that, Mr Yang.”

Yang opened
his mouth, and closed it again. Then he let out an unexpected bark of laughter.
It must have been the look on my face as I apologised for saving his life that
did it.

I laughed
as well, but two seconds later Yang had resumed his poker face. There might
just have been the faintest lines at the corners of his mouth. “I accept your
apology, Mr Stubbs,” he said at last and extended his hand.

We shook
hands. Yang no longer had that long nail on his little finger. It must have
broken off somewhere in the struggle.

“You fought
well,” he said simply.

I told him
about my meeting with Howard the previous evening and how Lavinia had been
unmasked as Roslyn D’Onston—according to Howard anyhow. Arthur might not
have appreciated my sharing that intelligence. On the other hand, Arthur had
asked me to help Yang, and that was what I was doing.

“This
places me in a difficult position,” I said. “I need to know what action you
plan to take with this person. But you understand that, whatever kind of feud
your people may have with Roslyn D’Onston, the law here is still the law.”

“In China,
foreigners are not subject to Chinese law. If, for example, you were to murder
someone in Shanghai, the local police could only hand you over to the British
Embassy. A curious quirk of our colonial history.” Yang spoke lightly but with
animation. “Of course, the moral justice of the universe is another matter.
Like water, it runs in its own way regardless of human concerns.”

“That’s as
may be.”

“Roslyn
D’Onston shot a Chinese man in California over some gold,” Yang added.

“That’s a
matter for the American authorities.” It was a pompous thing to say.

Yang shook
his head. “Mr Stubbs, Roslyn D’Onston is a very powerful individual—more
powerful than Powell guessed. My many efforts have not located him; he leaves
ripples, but that is all. He is as elusive as water in water.”
 
Like Jack the Ripper, I thought, who
stayed invisible with all London looking for him.
  
“If I were to confront this woman,
I could prove nothing. And if she truly is D’Onston…” Yang shrugged. “The
likely outcome would be my death.”

“Why did
you come here, if not for revenge?”

“My
superiors wished to make D’Onston show himself. I could have arrived quietly. I
did not need to advertise myself by sending a letter, and parading in
distinctive clothes and car.”

He took
another drag on his cigarette, waiting to see if comprehension would dawn.

“They sent
you as bait,” I said. “That’s a rotten thing to do.”

Yang gave
another shrug, indicating his life or death was not worthy of consideration.
“There is a story about a traveller chased by a tiger to the edge of an abyss.
The man took hold of a vine and started to climb down when he saw an angry
dragon at the bottom of the abyss, and when he looked up, the tiger was lashing
its tail above. As he hung on, a mouse started to gnaw away at the vine he was
clinging to. The man was ready for death when he noticed a wild strawberry
growing next to him, so he plucked it. It was the sweetest he had ever tasted.”

Yang took a
final puff and delicately crushed the stub of the cigarette into a china
ashtray. Then he became business-like.

“Collins is
gone, you said? This is unfortunate. It will be necessary to talk to the woman
Sally. You described how she was assaulted before Collins drove off the assailant
with a volley of shots. This may be an event of some importance.”

“Why is
that?”

“You will
arrange an interview, and all will become clear.”

“What about
Lavinia?”

“It will
not be profitable to meet with her at this point.”

I recalled
that Arthur had arranged for a cleaning job for Sally at the Virgo Fidelis
convent. I went in search of him so he could help us set up a meeting. It was
past ten o’clock in the morning, but Arthur had not yet retired to bed after
his night’s work. He was in the Electric Café with the telephone on the
table in front of him. He had been much involved with handling a shipment of
pineapples and had been able to shift almost all of them. With fresh fruit,
there was no time to lose, and Arthur was fretting over the final few.

“Ham and
pineapple,” he said the moment he saw me, snapping his fingers. Evidently, the
sight of me gave him an idea. “That’s the way the Yanks eat it. Your esteemed
father ought to be able to shift a few crates of pineapples if he sells them
cheap with every order of ham.”

“I don’t
know,” I said doubtfully. I enjoy pineapple upside-down cake as much as the
next man, but fruit and meat is a strange combination. It reminded me of the
Chinese meal I had enjoyed the previous day—not the sort of thing normal
English people were likely to sit down to.

“Well,
maybe he can start a new fashion over here. I’ll send him two crates on spec,
and he can do what he likes with them.” Arthur scribbled a note to himself.
“Now, what can I do for you?”

I explained
about Sally; Arthur did not seem surprised that Yang wanted to talk to her.
“I’ll make a phone call,” he said. “What’s the time now? Go round there at one
o’clock, and you can talk to her then.”

I had never
been in Virgo Fidelis before. Most of it was given over to a girls’ school, and
we were directed to a room that must have been the head teacher’s study or
something like it. The walls were bare except for a wooden crucifix on one side
facing a rather overly coloured picture of the Virgin Mary on the other.

Sally was
waiting for us, her hands folded in her lap. She wore a long black skirt, a
plain blouse, and no makeup. I hardly recognised her. She smiled timidly at me
but wouldn't make eye contact with Yang.

“I’m a
different woman now,” she assured me. “I’ve left all that behind me.”

She pushed
her hair back with one hand. It was cut short now and kept falling in front of
her face. Oddly, Sally looked younger than when I had seen her before.

“So I
understand,” I said.

“I don’t
know what you want to talk to me for,” she said. “I can’t remember nothing. I
was drinking, and… I put it out of my mind.”

“I told Mr
Yang everything,” I said. “I was there at the pub, you know.”

“Were you?
See, I didn’t even remember that.”

“I was
there, and I heard what you said at the time. Except, at the time, you were in
some distress and couldn’t articulate too well. I thought, perhaps, with the
passage of time, you might be able to tell us more easily.”

Sally shook
her head. “Sorry, it’s like I said…”

Yang had
taken a square of gold foil from his pocket. He dexterously unfolded it into a
sort of Chinese lantern with tassels. It was on the end of a piece of twine,
and spun to and fro as he rolled the string between his fingers.

“This may
help,” he said, holding it up and looking into the whirling golden bauble as if
it were a crystal ball. “Look into the gold. See how it spins, how it catches
the light. Look into it. Look to the light inside it.”

Sally
obediently looked at the bauble.

“We don’t
want anything from you, Sally,” said Yang. “Just look into the light. Let your
mind go. You must have been working very hard at your cleaning. Now you can
relax for a bit. Just sit here and look at the golden lights going around and
around.”

I tore my
gaze from the spinning bauble with difficulty. Sally was gazing deep into it,
her eyelids heavy. For a moment, I wondered whether seconds had passed or
hours.

“You like
going to the cinema, Sally? Imagine you are there now, sitting in the back row.
It is a comfortable seat. You are feeling relaxed. The movie that you are
watching is a newsreel of that night. You see yourself on the screen, standing
at the end of the alley. You are safe and comfortable, watching the screen.
Your friend Collins is on the screen, too, waiting just around the corner. What
do you see next?”

“There’s a
funny sort of man coming down the street,” said Sally, picking up without
hesitation. “You can see him as he goes from the streetlight to shadow,
streetlight to shadow. He sort of shambles along.” She rolled her shoulders in
unconscious imitation of the peculiar gait. “He's tall and all covered up in a
long coat. But not really, because it doesn't reach all the way down, him being
so tall.”

“Now the
man in the long coat is approaching the Sally on the screen,” said Yang. “We’re
watching it in the cinema, and it’s a close-up of the two of them. What can we
see?”

“I’m
wearing my blue dress, and he comes right over, kind of slouching over and
leaning on the wall right next to me.”

“Can we see
his face?” asked Yang, still twirling the golden bauble as Sally looked into
it.

“Not at
first. He’s got a hat on, and it’s all in shadows, and there’s a scarf over his
mouth, and I don’t like that, either. I step back into the alley, not thinking,
just because he’s too close. Up close, he’s so big I have to lean back to look
at him.”

“You’re
still watching on the screen, remember,” said Yang.

“And he
unwinds the scarf from around his face, and that’s when I see it’s Billy
McCann. I’m so confused, because he’s been dead two years. He steps into the
alley—and I scream—”

“The cinema
projector catches for a moment there,” said Yang as Sally’s voice was starting
to rise. “So the image is frozen on the screen, and we can see what you saw.
But it’s on the screen, so he can’t harm us.”

Sally’s
expression softened again. She screwed up her eyes as though trying to make out
a picture.

“It’s dark
in the alley because it’s all in shadow, but that’s why it’s so scary. His arms
are wrong—one of them is bigger than the other. But his face… he’s got a
hat on, and this scarf over his mouth, but I can see this bit.” She ran a hand
over her face at eye level, indicating that strip covered by a masquerader’s
mask. “That’s why it’s scary. It’s dark, but I can see it because it’s glowing
except the eyes are like black holes. Glowing green like a corpse.”

Sally
stopped a moment, seeing that face again.

“And I
scream, and he stops a moment like he’s surprised, and Edward comes round the
corner and shoots him, bang bang bang bang.” She mimed a pistol with her hand.
“I run out of the way and into the street and into the pub…”

“And then
the lights come up,” said Yang, “and that’s the end of the film, and you’re
safe in the cinema. Comfortable and relaxed.”

He kept
twirling the golden bauble for another minute as Sally’s breathing slowed back
down to normal. Then he allowed it to come to a gradual stop.

“That was
very interesting, Sally,” he said, carefully folding up the gold foil. “You
have my appreciation.” He bowed slightly.

“And mine
too,” I added.

Sally
looked from me to Yang and back.

“Is that
it?” she asked.

“You have
been very helpful,” said Yang, standing up.

“Do you
know what—who…?” She trailed off, looking confused. Yang merely smiled
and bowed on his way out.

“It’s a
very peculiar case,” I said.

To my
surprise, Sally reached out and put a hand on my arm.

“Do be
careful, Mr Stubbs.”

Afterwards,
Yang wanted to go back to the hotel. Evidently, he was tired out by the whole
experience and his shoulder pained him. He indicated that my services would not
be needed for the rest of the day.

“Be ready
tomorrow,” said Yang. “Tomorrow, I think, we will discover some of the secrets
of life and death.”