Mrs. Pollifax and the Hong Kong Buddha (11 page)

“I’m noted,” said Mr. Hitchens happily.

“What fun,” she said. “You occupy most of the front page, too, I’m delighted for you, but how are you feeling, Mr. Hitchens? Your wound, I mean.”

His hands groped toward his head. “The ice seems to have melted now. It was just fatigue, I’m sure, but my head had begun to throb.” He removed the hat and the ice bag dropped into his lap. Picking it up he said, “You wouldn’t have room for this in your purse, would you?”

“No,” she said calmly, “I’m already carrying a Beretta pistol and a suicide note and there’s no room for an ice bag.”

Nodding philosophically he tucked it into his pocket. “But you’ve not found Alec?”

“Unfortunately not yet,” she said, and they both fell silent as a gorgeously robed and bejeweled man entered the lobby, followed by a retinue of equally as exotic personages, moved across the lobby to the elevators and were whisked out of sight.

“Squantum was never like this,” said Mr. Hitchens with a shake of his head.

“Squantum?”

“Where I live, near Boston, but what about Alec?”

“We didn’t find him but we found a number of highly interesting clues,” said Mrs. Pollifax, “and Robin wants us both to have breakfast with him in his suite tomorrow at eight o’clock to talk about possibilities.”

Mr. Hitchens looked pleased.

“He also wants you to look at a photograph, and to—” She paused, seeing that Mr. Hitchens’s gaze was now on a tour group that had entered the lobby, a group of tired-looking Americans led by a young Chinese woman with an insignia on her jacket. What startled Mrs. Pollifax was that Mr. Hitchens’s jaw was slowly dropping and his eyes widening in astonishment.

“What is it?” asked Mrs. Pollifax.

Mr. Hitchens closed his mouth with a snap. “I don’t believe it,” he said, and then, “I don’t believe it!” A smile spread slowly across his face. “It’s Ruthie,” he said, and stood up and called out her name.

A woman in the group turned, peered across the lobby, saw Mr. Hitchens and looked as astonished as he had looked a moment ago. Detaching herself from the others, she took a few hesitant steps toward him, stopped, then hurried on to be met in midlobby by Mr. Hitchens, who gave her a shy embrace. Their approaches implied a difficult parting long ago, and a certain amount of uncertainty about meeting.

Mrs. Pollifax smiled as she watched. Ruthie, she remembered, was the wife who had never expected Mr. Hitchens to live an exciting life. His first wife, he had told her, was a kindergarten teacher, his second an aspiring young actress, and his third wife an aspiring young magician. Ruthie, she felt instinctively, was the first wife because no show-business aspirant would ever conceal her personality so firmly behind character. Ruthie was small, and at first glance plain, but at second glance there was an arresting piquant quality about her plainness; her nose, for instance, had an interesting upturn and her chin, though small, was stubborn, and her brown eyes almost too large for her face. She was wearing a brown suit and sensible shoes and she was nearing
forty: a nice little brown sparrow of a woman, thought Mrs. Pollifax, smiling at the sensible and practical manner in which she was meeting her former husband. Only the suddenly flushed face betrayed her pleasure at seeing him.

“But I don’t understand,” Mrs. Pollifax heard her saying. “What are you doing in Hong Kong of all places?”

Mr. Hitchens turned eagerly toward Mrs. Pollifax. “She’s here on a tour,” he called. “It’s Ruthie!”

Ruthie turned quickly to follow his glance, and Mrs. Pollifax recognized the sudden fear in her eyes as she searched for the person to whom Mr. Hitchens was speaking.
She still loves him
, thought Mrs. Pollifax;
is she expecting another young actress or magician?
For Mrs. Pollifax was already writing the scenario of their last parting, and was waiting only to discover if it was accurate.

Ruthie’s glance softened as she saw Mrs. Pollifax. “Oh,” she said. “Oh!”

Mrs. Pollifax smiled on her with warm understanding. “The reasons for Mr. Hitchens being here,” she said, leaving the couch to join them, “are so intricate—I’m Emily Pollifax, by the way—and he has become so embroiled that why don’t you just show her the newspaper, Mr. Hitchens?”

The flush on Ruthie’s face had subsided; now it burgeoned again as Mr. Hitchens unfolded his newspaper and showed her the photographs on the front page. “Police business,” he explained. “Ruthie, you’re looking absolutely lovely!”

“And I,” said Mrs. Pollifax firmly, “have another errand to do and so I will excuse myself and leave you both to enjoy the rest of the afternoon together.”

Ruthie said breathlessly, “Oh no—that is, you mustn’t think—I’m on a tour, you know, and we’re kept very busy, for instance tonight we visit Hong Kong’s nightclubs and—”

Mr. Hitchens, regarding her with pleasure, said “But why not see Hong Kong’s night life with
me
tonight, Ruthie?”

At this point Mrs. Pollifax withdrew, leaving them to the pitfalls and delights of reunion, and escaped to room 614 to find quieter clothes for a reconnaissance trip all her own.

O
nce in her room Mrs. Pollifax exchanged her dress for a plain cotton skirt, striped shirt and sandals, and tied a blue-striped scarf around her head. Following this she dug into her suitcase for the hard-cover notebook she always carried with her. Tearing out its first page—into which she’d copied data on the birds at the Zoological Garden for Cyrus—she critically inspected the remaining unlined pages until, nodding with satisfaction, she cut some twenty sheets from their binder and slid them into her purse. Leaving her room she visited the mall again, where she bought a professional-looking clipboard. Then she headed for the main exit where she captured a taxi and gave the driver the name of the street on which Mr. Detwiler lived, but not the precise number.

A surprise soon awaited her: on an island where space was at a premium Mr. Detwiler lived at the base of Victoria Peak in what was obviously a prime residential
area, on a pleasant, tree-shaded street where space was of no concern at all, and well-manicured lawns stood between each house. Mrs. Pollifax paid her fare, thanked the driver and stood looking around her, wishing she’d worn her dress and hat after all. Casually she strolled up the street past number 3216 with its discreet sign planted among the shrubs: 3216—D
ETWILER
—
J
ASMINE
H
OUSE
.

“Small but elegant,” she murmured, and comparing it with his shop in the central district, so modest in size and placed in such an out-of-the-way corner, she reminded herself that he did, after all, deal in diamonds. With a sigh she thought,
In for a penny, in for a pound, Emily. Courage!
and continuing past his house she turned in at number 3218—T
HE
F
INCH-
B
ERTRAMS
—T
HE
B
EECHES
.

A maid answered her ring, a little Chinese woman in a voluminous apron. “Good afternoon,” said Mrs. Pollifax pleasantly, “I’m taking an advertising survey on how many hours of television you watch each day?”

The woman looked blank. Behind her a clipped English voice called, “Who is it, Ming?” and a chic young woman appeared, looked Mrs. Pollifax over carefully, shrugged and invited her inside.

“Why not?” she said. “My husband won’t be home for hours, Ming speaks no English and my God it gets boring in this place.”

Some thirty-five minutes later Mrs. Pollifax wrenched herself free, having learned rather too much about Mrs. Finch-Bertram, about her bridge games and her shopping, how little she saw of her husband and of how when she did see him he was either on the telephone all evening or they were entertaining clients at the club. Mrs. Finch-Bertram’s attention apparently did not include
her neighbor at number 3216; she did, however, watch television and Mrs. Pollifax carefully noted down her replies: soap operas when she was at home, “although of course they’re too boring for words,” and anything suspenseful “where I can see what clothes they’re wearing these days.” The problem with being a listener, thought Mrs. Pollifax as she achieved the street again, was that one became such a repository of unsolicited information, and in this case the wrong sort for her purposes.

She had much better luck across the street at number 3217—T
HE
W
ONGS
; the door was opened by a stunning young Chinese mother wearing blue jeans, her three children lurking behind her and giggling through the entire interview.

“Television? Oh it’s my baby-sitter,” Mrs. Wong told her with a laugh. “You’ve hit the right house, it’s on constantly, I bless RTV every day.”

Mercifully Mrs. Pollifax was not invited inside, and after scribbling down Mrs. Wong’s answers to her mythical survey, she asked brightly, “And the house just across the street, are there children at number 3216?”

Mrs. Wong shook her head. “Oh no, that’s Tom Detwiler, he’s a bachelor. Haven’t seen him around for ages but his housekeeper watches TV, I’m sure.”

A bachelor … a housekeeper … Mrs. Pollifax thanked her profusely, gave the children a last cheerful wave and decided to proceed directly to Detwiler’s house before meeting another Mrs. Finch-Bertram. Crossing the road she looked at the house with an eye this time for convenient corners in which to hide the very inconvenient son of a murdered police inspector. There was, for instance, a large garage at the end of the drive, with
rooms above it. The house itself gave the impression of being small but on closer inspection Mrs. Pollifax noticed an added wing that had been rendered invisible from the street by trees. Its architecture was a sophisticated blend of European and oriental: a bluetile roof that curved upward at each corner in the best Chinese style but below the roof the structure was sleekly contemporary, with discreet touches of stone and teak, and at the front door a massive brass knob in the shape of a dolphin. She rang and waited, hoping that Mr. Detwiler hadn’t been seized by an overwhelming impulse to dash back to his house at this hour, and that his housekeeper might be cherishing as many grievances as Mrs. Finch-Bertram to pour into a listening ear.

As it turned out, his housekeeper had only one grievance, and a very unexpected one, but for another voice and a listening ear she had a real need; Mrs. Pollifax had no sooner announced her advertising survey than she was urged to come in and do her survey in the kitchen over a good cup of tea.

“For I get that lonesome,” she told Mrs. Pollifax with a shake of her head. “O’Malley’s my name, by the way, Jane O’Malley … and if it wasn’t for me soaps I don’t know but what I’d hand in me notice, even though Mr. Detwiler pays me the moon, nothing stingy about ’im at all, but still if he don’t come home soon—!” She led the way into the kitchen, poured tea for Mrs. Pollifax in a charming Haviland cup, and sat down opposite her at the table.

Somewhat confused by this statement Mrs. Pollifax shook her head sympathetically, her voice subtly changing. “Alone all day? I suppose that means leaving dinner for the family on the stove instead of serving it decently.

“Family!” exclaimed Mrs. O’Malley. “There’s only him and no dinner at all, for he’s not been to home for two months now.”

“Not been to—” Mrs. Pollifax stopped and began again. “Oh yes, you
must
get lonesome, I can see that.” Was she serious, Mrs. Pollifax wondered: not at home for
two months …?

Mrs. O’Malley nodded. “Yes, and being here twenty-four hours of the day, too—I’ve an apartment over the garage, all very shipshape—there’s some as would say ‘Oh, what an easy time for you’ but who’s to cook for? A woman likes to have a man to cook for.”

“And a fine cook I’m sure you are,” said Mrs. Pollifax, nodding.

“I am, yes, me husband said I was the best, Lor’ love ’im—British Army he was, and us here so long I couldn’t ever go back to England, it’s not me home any more, and Mr. Detwiler, he’s ever so pleased with my dinner parties—when he gives ’em—for I’ve taken up gourmet, don’t you know.”

It was becoming a very real effort for Mrs. Pollifax to hide her astonishment over Mr. Detwiler’s absence from his home hut she managed to say soothingly, “Away on a business trip, is he?”

An odd expression came over Mrs. O’Malley’s round, honest face—puzzled, thought Mrs. Pollifax, reaching for a word to describe it. “
Some
sort of business,” she said, “although once a week comes his laundry to be done, brought by a delivery boy without a word of where he is, and back I send his clean shirts, just the right amount of starch as he likes, but what I say is, it’s downright depressing when once there was dinner parties—two, three times a week—and he had his lady friends too, he did. Very lively place it was until two
months ago, and now only the errand boy once a week, and me TV for company. So if you’re doing a survey you can put me down for lots of telly-watching because otherwise I’d be talking to meself from dawn to dusk.”

Two months
, Mrs. Pollifax was repeating to herself dazedly—how very extraordinary—and hadn’t Bishop told her that it was two months ago that Detwiler’s reports to the Department had become deceptive and misleading? Aloud she said warmly, “Oh yes, I can see that,” and, placing her clipboard on the table and bringing out her pen, she added with a smile, “Like Mrs. Wong across the street, who tells me that she too has her—uh—telly on all day.”

Mrs. O’Malley’s face softened. “Now she’s a dear little thing, and so much happier now her father-in-law’s dead.” She shook her head. “Such a Nationalist he was—talk talk talk—and she so patient!”

“Nationalist?”

“You know—what China was before the Reds took over, that general Whatsisname—Chiang Kai Shek—who moved his government to Taiwan and always schemed to get back to the mainland.” Seeing Mrs. Pollifax’s surprise, she explained in a kind voice, “No doubt it seems a long time ago to you, dear—all that happening—but not here in Hong Kong. You have to remember most of the refugees came here running away from the Communists, so there’s still feelings about it, like old Mr. Wong across the street flying his Nationalist flag every day on the lawn. Glad to see
that
gone, I can tell you! Now what was you going to ask me?”