Magic Lantern (Rogue Angel) (33 page)

It was gone. They had to concentrate on what crumbs they had left.

“Mrs. Rollison—quite an invigorating old bird, and I use that as a term of endearment—took it upon herself to photocopy all of the pages. She found me absolutely charming when I presented myself on her doorstep and asked after the diary.”

Annja made herself be calm, but she was exploding with questions.

“I had to endure a lot of cheek pinching, but I persuaded her to part with a copy of her computer file. I’m sending it along now through the FTP site Professor Beswick has accessed. Since Mrs. Rollison is quite the expert in Chinese written language across the ages, and a suitable person will take some time to locate even with my connections, I also got her to share her partial translation with us. She’s still working on the document.”

Fiona interrupted at that. “Even though you’re quite taken with Mrs. Rollison and her translation abilities, I’d like to have the translation double-checked.”

Ollie put a hand over his heart as though wounded. “Seriously, Ms. Pioche?”

Fiona sighed. “Sometimes, Ollie, dear though you are to me, you are insufferable.”

“How very magnanimous and eloquent of you. I’ve currently got the document with two other learned souls who shall get back to me forthwith because I bribed them heavily with your money. Since you’re a woman of means, I saw no reason not to get the best available.”

“I trust they’re working independently, as well?”

“Definitely.”

“How long will their translations take?”

“Days, I’m afraid. But since time is of the essence, I asked them to work the diary backward, believing that the last entries would be the most beneficial.”

“Thank you, Ollie.”

Ollie gestured broadly. “I live only to serve, Ms. Pioche.” He smiled. “From the pages Mrs. Rollison has translated, the diary belonged to a man named Tsai Chien-Fu. At the time of the writing, he was a Chinese official working with the Shanghai banks in the late 1790s.”

Excitement flared through Annja and she couldn’t help grinning.

Edmund was smiling, too. “Looks like we’re back in the race.”

“I don’t want to dim your spirits, but I would like to put things in perspective for you.” Ollie looked serious. “Mrs. Rollison has been quite diligent in her translation, and I gave it a read-through as I was preparing it to send to you. There is no mention of a treasure. Tsai Chien-Fu appears to have been a very thorough Chinese bureaucrat working for the emperor. And quite boring.”

Fiona waved that away. “But is there any mention of Anton Dutilleaux?”

“As it turns out, Ms. Pioche, there is. Tsai Chien-Fu worked with Anton Dutilleaux.”

* * *

FOR OVER AN HOUR, EDMUND’S computer downloaded the graphic-intensive files through the server. As each page of the diary came through, he printed it out and sent it to Annja’s computer so they could all look at the work being done.

Most of the reading was dry material. Tsai Chien-Fu wrote mostly about the day-to-day business of Shanghai banking as he learned it. He was fastidious about his recollections of the people he met and the transactions that were made.

“Typical bureaucratic documentation.” Sitting at the table, Fiona leafed through the pages of translation she’d been passed.

“The Qianlong Emperor wasn’t known as a generous person and was very conservative.” Annja kept her focus on the images on her computer, blowing up the characters and searching for hidden meanings. It was mostly wasted effort on her part, though, because she couldn’t read Chinese and only had the barest acquaintance with the characters. “He abdicated the throne in favor of his son, the Jiaqing Emperor, so he wouldn’t rule longer than his grandfather, the Kangxi Emperor. That didn’t really matter, though, because he ruled his son, anyway, until his death three years later.”

Edmund stared at her. “No one plays Trivial Pursuit with you, do they?”

“I knew Dutilleaux was there during the Qianlong Emperor’s reign. I read up on the history.” Annja turned her attention back to the documents. “The point is that Tsai had every reason to make sure he had a separate record of what he was doing. In case the emperor’s accountants took his books.”

“This isn’t going to help us much.”

Fiona held up a printout. “Tsai seemed quite enamored of Dutilleaux, though.”

Annja looked at the paper. “When’s that from?”

“October 22, 1790. This details how the two of them met.”

Edmund consulted a small notepad. “Dutilleaux was in Shanghai from 1786 to 1792. He went to work at the Shanghai bank in 1790.”

Annja thought about that. “So the two of them met in 1790, and two years later, Dutilleaux left. Did he have another job offer?”

“No. He returned to Paris and began his career in magic.”

“He didn’t have much time to work on it.”

“On the contrary, Dutilleaux was a magician before he went over to Shanghai. He just didn’t have his act together. Before then, he’d toured the small Parisian theaters but didn’t have much success. He took the accounting job in Shanghai to avoid debtors’ prison. Over the next few years, he was able to pay off his creditors and sharpen his craft.”

Fiona sipped her tea. “Tsai was quite impressed with Dutilleaux’s sleight of hand. In some of these references, Tsai calls Dutilleaux ‘Xian.’”

That caught Annja’s attention. “I don’t know enough Chinese to do much more than survive in the country, but that’s a word I know. The literal translation is
magician.
Or wizard or shaman. Among other things. But if Tsai was calling Dutilleaux that, I’d be willing to assume that’s why he did.”

Tilting the paper, Fiona started searching. “All right, if we now know that Xian was a pet name for Dutilleaux, then this later part makes more sense.” She handed papers over to Annja. “In this section, Tsai refers to putting all his hope into the Xian.”

“The translator could have inferred the article. Tsai might have been referring to Dutilleaux.” Annja leaned over to more closely examine the paper. It didn’t do any good. She still didn’t have enough of a command of the language to make a difference.

Fiona looked at Edmund. “Do you know when Dutilleaux left Shanghai to return to Paris?”

Edmund consulted his notes. “July 15.”

Nodding, Fiona smiled. “On this page, Tsai talks about how the Xian carried all the seeds of his family’s future to more fertile pastures. This is dated July 15, and if memory serves me correctly, that corresponds with the Chinese Hungry Ghost Festival, the traditional day the deceased are believed to visit the living. By all accounts, a most singular day.”

Edmund looked hopeful. “Then perhaps there’s reason to believe that Dutilleaux stole nothing. Whatever treasure he was carrying was something he got from Tsai.”

“There’s still the question of what happened to Tsai.” Fiona returned to the printouts. “Tsai’s diary goes on for five more weeks, then stops abruptly. The last few entries are filled with his concern that the emperor’s men have discovered what he has done, and that they are going to kill him. He goes on to say that they didn’t know Xian was already gone.” She looked up at Annja. “You said that some of the information you had dug up indicated the Qianlong Emperor’s men were searching for Dutilleaux?”

“Yes.” Annja pulled up the information and scanned it. “According to this, there was a theft from the royal treasury. Several bank employees were executed.”

“Was Tsai one of them?”

Annja shook her head. “The information doesn’t say. But the time frame appears right. Sometime in the early days of September.” She took a deep breath. “We need to find out what happened to Tsai Chien-Fu.”

Fiona’s phone rang and she answered it. She talked briefly to Ollie, then took down a URL. When she was finished, she thanked her major-domo and passed the slip of paper to Annja.

“Ollie said we need to access that site. He says he got lucky and got video footage of the break-in at the Rollison home.”

Annja quickly typed the address into her computer and waited as the site came up. A video dawned on her screen and black-and-white footage rolled.

On the screen, Asian men got out of a nondescript sedan in front of what Annja assumed was the apartment building where Mrs. Rollison lived. The scene cut, then opened up again on a hallway view of the three men as they broke into a flat. This time the camera revealed that they were Asian. They returned seventeen minutes later carrying a box. The time lapse sped up to get through the waiting.

Fiona looked grim. “We have to believe that the diary is in Puyi-Jin’s hands now. He could well be caught up with us at this point.”

Annja pushed herself back from the table and took her computer. “Then he’ll probably be looking for Tsai Chien-Fu, as well. We’ll just have to find him faster.”

34

Searching back two hundred years of history while looking for one man was an arduous task. It was easier to track an event or political climate, or even an environmental one. Finding people lost in history could be hard. Fortunately, it was
only
two hundred years. Though, the task would have been much easier if Tsai Chien-Fu had been more than a drone at a Chinese bank filled with drones. Killers and kings were much easier to locate.

Consumed by her mission, Annja worked through the night. The Tsai family name was one of the less common in China, and the country had a lot of genealogical documentation despite the wars and unrest that had torn it apart at different times. Annja had hoped the name would be enough to help her find Tsai Chien-Fu.

It wasn’t. She failed and failed and failed again to the point she was ready to put her computer through the wall. In the end, it was the alt.history site that pointed the way.

At 5:53 a.m., a new posting came through from New Shanghai Girl. At Annja’s request, the young woman had investigated her friend’s family.

Ni hao again, Lantern Girl!

I’m glad my posting helped you find what you were looking for. Wouldn’t it be cool if your lantern was the same one my friend’s family had lost? Or if the two lanterns were somehow related? I mean, I know there are probably a million dragon lanterns, but this one’s gotta be special, right?

Anyway, my friend’s family still lives in the same place. They own a flower shop in Nanqiao Town, the largest city in the Fengxian district. The shop’s name translates to Beautiful Moon Petals, which has got to be one of the corniest names I’ve ever heard of. Her father’s name is Li Shusen, or Shusen Li if you want to write it in English.

But my friend’s mother’s maiden name was Tsai. Which, I think, is the name of the man in the picture. The Chinese one, not the European one.

My friend’s name is Guifang, but we call her Amy. Can I tell her that you may have found her family’s long-lost lantern?

Gotta go.
iCarly
is coming on and I have a paper due in Anthropology tomorrow!

New Shanghai Girl

Ni hao, New Shanghai Girl,

Don’t mention this to your friend yet. I’m planning on coming to Shanghai soon and can arrange a meeting. Maybe it will be a great surprise.

I appreciate all your help. Give me a post address and I’ll send you a few seasons of
iCarly
as a thank-you.

Lantern Girl

Annja woke Fiona and Edmund, then went to the kitchen and started the coffeemaker and put on a kettle of water for tea. Evidently her two companions had been up late because they were slow to rise. Working on nervous energy, Annja pulled sausage links and orange juice from the refrigerator. She found pancake mix in the pantry and set a frying pan on the stove to heat.

Taking a few apples from the bowl on the countertop, she washed them and chopped them into small pieces, then dropped them into a pan with a little water and set it to boil for applesauce. Turning her attention to the sausage links, she plopped the links into the frying pan to cook. She turned the sausages to brown them while she made pancakes.

By the time Edmund was sitting up and Fiona arrived fresh from the shower, Annja was placing the food on the dining table. She added fresh melon and grapes.

Fiona sat and arched an eyebrow. “You’re still in your clothing from yesterday. Did you sleep at all?”

“No.” Annja sat and dug into the meal. “But I think I found the Tsai family.”

Edmund paused in the middle of forking pancakes onto his plate. “Truly?”

“Yes.” As they ate, Annja told them the story of her discovery.

* * *

AFTER ANNJA HAD FINISHED relating her tale, they were well into the meal.

“Are you planning on contacting the Li family and finding out if they are indeed the family we’re looking for?” Fiona carved a sausage link with a knife and fork, then popped a piece into her mouth and chewed.