Noble House

by James Clavell

  “No. No thanks. Let’s go, shall we?”

  Smyth was shorter than Armstrong but well built and his uniform suited him. Awkwardly, because of his arm, he picked up his raincoat and began to lead the way, then stopped. “Bugger, I forgot! Sorry, SI, Brian Kwok called, would you call him? Want to use my office?”

  “Thanks. Is there any coffee? I could use a cuppa.”

  “Coming up.”

  The office was neat, efficient and drab, though Armstrong noticed the expensive chairs and desk and radio and accoutrements. “Gifts from grateful customers,” Smyth said airily. “I’ll leave you for a couple of minutes.”

  Armstrong nodded and dialed. “Yes, Brian?”

  “Oh hello, Robert! How’s it going? The Old Man says you should bring her to HQ and not investigate her at East Aberdeen.”

  “All right. We’re just about to leave. HQ eh? What’s the reason?”

  “He didn’t tell me, but he’s in a good mood today. It seems we’ve a 16/2 tonight.”

  Armstrong’s interest peaked. A 16/2 in SI terms meant they had broken an enemy cover and were going to take the spy or spies into custody. “Anything to do with our problem?” he asked cautiously, meaning Sevrin.

  “Perhaps.” There was a pause. “Remember what I was saying about our mole? I’m more convinced than ever I’m right.” Brian Kwok switched to Cantonese, using oblique phrases and innuendoes in case he was overheard. Armstrong listened with growing concern as his best friend told him what had happened at the track, the long private meeting between Crosse and Suslev.

  “But that means nothing. Crosse knows the bugger. Even I’ve drunk with him once or twice, feeling him out.”

  “Perhaps. But if Crosse’s our mole it’d be just like him to do an exchange in public. Heya?”

  Armstrong felt sick with apprehension. “Now’s not the time, old chum,” he said. “Soon as I get to HQ we should have a chat. Maybe lunch and talk.”

  Another pause. “The Old Man wants you to report to him as soon as you bring the amah in.”

  “All right. See you soon.”

  Armstrong put down the phone. Smyth came back in. Thoughtfully he handed him a coffee. “Bad news?”

  “Nothing but bloody trouble,” Armstrong said sourly. “Always bloody trouble.” He sipped his coffee. The cup was excellent porcelain and the coffee fresh, expensive and delicious. “This’s good coffee! Very good. Crosse wants me to bring her to HQ directly, not here.”

  Smyth’s eyebrows soared. “Christ, what’s so important about an old hag amah?” he asked sharply. “She’s in my jurisdic—”

  “Christ I don’t know! I don’t give the f—” The bigger man stopped his explosion. “Sorry, I haven’t been getting much sleep the last few days. I don’t give the orders. Crosse said to bring her to HQ. No explanation. He can override anyone. SI overrides everyone, you know how it is!”

  “Arrogant bastard!” Smyth finished his coffee. “Thank God I’m not in SI. I’d hate to deal with that bugger every day.”

  “I’m not in SI and he still gives me trouble.”

  “Was it about our mole?”

  Armstrong glanced up at him. “What mole?”

  Smyth laughed. “Come on for chrissake! There’s a rumor among the Dragons that our fearless leaders have been advised to find the bugger very quickly. It seems that the minister’s even roasting the governor! London’s so pissed off they’re sending out the head of MI-6—presume you know Sinders arrives tomorrow on the BOAC flight.”

  Armstrong sighed. “Where the hell do they get all their information?”

  “Telephone operators, amahs, street cleaners—who cares. But you can bet, old lad, at least one of them knows everything. You know Sinders?”

  “No, never met him.” Armstrong sipped his coffee, enjoying the excellence, the rich, nutty flavor that was giving him new strength. “If they know everything, who’s the mole?”

  After a pause, Smyth said, “That sort of info’d be expensive. Shall I ask the price?”

  “Yes. Please.” The big man put his cup down. “The mole doesn’t bother you, does he?”

  “No, not at all. I’m doing my job thank you very much and it’s not my job to worry about moles or to try to catch them. The moment you catch and snatch the bugger there’ll be another bugger subverted or put into place and we’ll do the same to them, whoever the them are. Meanwhile if it wasn’t for this bloody Ho-Pak mess this station’d still be the best run and my East Aberdeen area the quietest in the Colony and that’s all I’m concerned about.” Smyth offered a cigarette from an expensive gold case. “Smoke?”

  “No thanks, I quit.”

  “Good for you. No, so long as I’m left alone until I retire in four years all’s well in the world.” He lit the cigarette with a gold lighter and Armstrong hated him a little more. “By the way, I think you’re foolish not to take the envelope that’s left in your desk monthly.”

  “Do you now?” Armstrong’s face hardened.

  “Yes. You don’t have to do anything for it. Nothing at all. Guaranteed.”

  “But once you’ve taken one you’re up the creek without a paddle.”

  “No. This’s China and not the same.” Smyth’s blue eyes hardened too. “But then you know that better than I.”

  “One of your ‘friends’ asked you to give me the message?”

  Smyth shrugged. “I heard another rumor. Your share of the Dragons reward for finding John Chen comes to 40,000 HK an—”

  “I didn’t find him!” Armstrong’s voice grated.

  “Even so, that’ll be in an envelope in your desk this evening. So I hear, old chap. Just a rumor, of course.”

  Armstrong’s mind was sifting this information. 40,000 HK covered exactly and beautifully his most pressing, long overdue debt that he had to clear by Monday, losses on the stock market that, “Well really, old boy, you should pay up. It has been over a year and we do have rules. Though I’m not pressing I really must have the matter settled….”

  Smyth’s right again, he thought without bitterness, the bastards know everything and it’d be so easy to find out what debts I have. So am I going to take it or not?

  “Only forty?” he asked with a twisted smile.

  “I imagine that’s enough to cover your most pressing problem,” Smyth said with the same hard eyes. “Isn’t it?”

  Armstrong was not angry that the Snake knew so much about his private life. I know just as much about his, though not how much he has or where it’s stacked away. But it’d be easy to find out, easy to break him if I wanted to. Very easy. “Thanks for the coffee. Best I’ve had in years. Shall we go?”

  Awkwardly, Smyth put on his regulation raincoat over his well-cut uniform, adjusted the sling for his arm and put his cap to the usual jaunty angle and led the way. As they went, Armstrong made Wu repeat what had happened and what had been said by the youth who claimed to be one of the Werewolves and later by the old amah. “Very good, Wu,” Armstrong said when the young man had finished. “An excellent piece of surveillance and investigation. Excellent. Chief Inspector Smyth tells me you want to get into SI?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s important, an important branch of SB, sir. I’ve always been interested in security and how to keep our enemies out and the Colony safe and I feel it would be very interesting and important. I’d like to help if I could, sir.”

  Momentarily their ears focused on the distant wail of fire engines that came from the hillside above.

  “Some stupid bastard’s kicked over another stove,” Smyth said sourly. “Christ, thank God for the rain!”

  “Yes,” Armstrong said, then added to Wu, “If this turns out as you’ve reported, I’ll put in a word with SB or SI.”

  Spectacles Wu could not stop the beam. “Yes sir, thank you, sir. Ah Tam is really from my village. Yes sir.”

  They turned into the alley. Crowds of shoppers and stall keepers and shopkeepers under umbrellas or under
the canvas overhangs watched them sullenly and suspiciously, Smyth the most well known and feared quai loh in Aberdeen.

  “That’s the one, sir,” Wu whispered. By prearrangement Smyth casually stopped at a stall, this side of the doorway, ostensibly to look at some vegetables, the owner at once in shock. Armstrong and Wu walked past the entrance then turned abruptly and the three of them converged. They went up the stairs quickly as two uniformed policemen who had been trailing from a safe distance materialized to bottle up the front. Once the narrow passageway was secure one of them hurried up an even smaller alley and around the back to make sure the plainclothes detective was still in position guarding the single exit there, then he rushed back to reinforce the undermanned barricades in front of the Victoria.

  The inside of the tenement was as dingy and filthy as the outside with mess and debris on every landing. Smyth was leading and he stopped on the third landing, unbuttoned his revolver holster and stepped aside. Without hesitation Armstrong leaned against the flimsy door, burst the lock and went in quickly. Smyth followed at once, Spectacles Wu nervously staying to guard the entrance. The room was drab with old sofas and old chairs and old grimy curtains, the sweet-rank smell of opium and cooking oil on the air. A heavyset, middle-aged matron gaped at them and dropped her newspaper. Both men went for the inner doors. Smyth pulled one open to find a scruffy bedroom, the next revealed a messy toilet and bathroom, a third another bedroom crammed with unmade bunks for four. Armstrong had the last door open. It let into a cluttered, filthy, tiny kitchen, where Ah Tam bent over a pile of wash in the grimy sink. She stared at him blankly. Behind her was another door. At once he shoved past and jerked it open. It was empty too, more of a closet than a room, windowless with a vent cut in the wall and just enough space to fit the small string mattressless bunk and a broken-down chest of drawers.

  He came back into the living room, Ah Tam shuffling after him, his breathing good and his heart settling down. It had taken them only seconds and Smyth took out the papers and said sweetly, “Sorry to interrupt, madam, but we’ve a search warrant.”

  “Wat?”

  “Translate for us, Wu,” Smyth ordered and at once the young constable repeated what had been said and, as previously arranged, began to act as though he was the interpreter for two dullard quai loh policemen who did not speak Cantonese.

  The woman’s mouth dropped open. “Search!” she shrieked. “Search what? We obey the law here! My husband works for the government and has important friends and if you’re looking for the gambling school it’s nothing to do with us but it’s on the fourth floor at the back and we know nothing about the smelly whores in 16 who set up shop and work till all hours making the rest of us civ—”

  “Enough,” Wu said sharply, “we are police on important matters! These Lords of the police are important! You’re the wife of Ch’ung the dustman?”

  “Yes,” she replied sullenly. “What do you want with us? We’ve done noth—”

  “Enough!” Armstrong interrupted in English with deliberate arrogance. “Is that Ah Tam?”

  “You! You’re Ah Tam?”

  “Eh, me? Wat?” The old amah tugged at her apron nervously, not recognizing Wu.

  “So you’re Ah Tam! You’re under arrest.”

  Ah Tam went white and the middle-aged woman cursed and said in a rush, “Ah! So it’s you they’re after! Huh, we know nothing about her except we picked her off the street a few months ago and gave her a home and sal—”

  “Wu, tell her to shut up!”

  He told her impolitely. She obeyed even more sullenly. “These Lords want to know is there anyone else here?”

  “Of course there isn’t. Are they blind? Haven’t they raped my house like assassins and seen for themselves?” the shrew said truculently. “I know nothing about nothing.”

  “Ah Tam! These Lords want to know where your room is.”

  The amah found her voice and began to bluster, “What do you want with me, Honorable Policeman? I’ve done nothing, I’m not an illegal, I’ve papers since last year. I’ve done nothing, I’m a law-abiding civilized person who’s worked all her li—”

  “Where’s your room?”

  The younger woman pointed. “There,” she said in her screeching, irritating voice, “where else would her room be? Of course it’s there off the kitchen! Are these foreign devils senseless? Where else do maids live? And you, you old maggot! Getting honest people into trouble! What’s she done? If it’s stolen vegetables it’s nothing to do with me!”

  “Quiet or we shall take you to our headquarters and surely the judge will want you kept in custody! Quiet!”

  The woman started to curse but bit it back.

  Armstrong said, “Now, what…” Then he noticed that several curious Chinese were peering into the room from the landing. He stared back, took a sudden pace toward them. They vanished. He closed the door, hiding his amusement. “Now, ask both of them what they know about the Werewolves.”

  The woman gaped at Wu. Ah Tam went a little grayer. “Eh, me? Werewolves? Nothing! Why should I know about those foul kidnappers. What have they to do with me? Nothing nothing at all!”

  “What about you, Ah Tam?”

  “Me? Nothing at all,” she said querulously, “I’m a respectable amah who does her work and nothing else!”

  Wu translated their answers. Both men noticed that his translation was accurate, fast and easy. Both were patient and they continued to play the game they had played so many times before. “Tell her she’d better tell the truth quickly.” Armstrong glowered down at her. He bore her no ill feeling; neither did Smyth. They just wanted the truth. The truth might lead to the identity of the Werewolves and the sooner those villains were hung for murder the easier it would be to control Hong Kong and the sooner law-abiding citizens, including themselves, could go about their own business or hobbies—making money or racing or whoring. Yes, Armstrong thought, sorry for the old woman. Twenty dollars to a broken hatpin the shrew knows nothing but Ah Tam knows more than she’ll ever tell us.

  “I want the truth. Tell her!” he said.

  “Truth? What truth, Honorable Lord? How could this poor old body be anyth—”

  Armstrong put up his hand dramatically. “Enough!” This was another prearranged signal. At once Spectacles Wu switched to Ning-tok dialect which he knew neither of them understood. “Elder Sister, I suggest you talk quickly and openly. We know everything already!”

  Ah Tam gaped at him. She had only two twisted teeth in a lower gum. “Eh, Younger Brother?” she replied in the same dialect, caught off guard. “What do you want with me?”

  “The truth! I know all about you!”

  She peered at him without recognition. “What truth? I’ve never seen you before in my life!”

  “Don’t you remember me? In the poultry market? You helped me buy a chicken and then we had tea. Yesterday. Don’t you remember? You told me about the Werewolves, how they were going to give you a huge reward …”

  All three saw the momentary flash behind her eyes. “Werewolves?” she began querulously. “Impossible! It was someone else! You accuse me falsely. Tell the Noble Lords I’ve never seen y—”

  “Quiet you old baggage!” Wu said sharply and cursed her roundly. “You worked for Wu Ting-top and your mistress’s name was Fan-ling and she died three years ago and they owned the pharmacy at the crossroads! I know the place well myself!”

  “Lies … lies …”

  “She says it’s all lies, sir.”

  “Good. Tell her we’ll take her to the station. She’ll talk there.”

  Ah Tam began shaking. “Torture? You’ll torture an old woman? Oh oh oh …”

  “When does this Werewolf come back? This afternoon?”

  “Oh oh oh … I don’t know … he said he would see me but the thief never came back. I lent him five dollars to get home an—”

  “Where was his home?”

  “Eh? Who? Oh him, he … he said he was a relation of a relation and
… I don’t remember. I think he said North Point … I don’t remember anything …”

  Armstrong and Smyth waited and probed and soon it was apparent that the old woman knew little though she ducked and twisted the probing, her lies becoming ever more flowery.

  “We’ll take her in anyway,” Armstrong said.

  Smyth nodded. “Can you handle it till I can send a couple of men? I really think I ought to be getting back.”

  “Certainly. Thanks.”

  He left. Armstrong told Wu to order the two women to sit down and be silent while he searched. They obeyed, frightened. He went into the kitchen and closed the door. At once Ah Tam pulled at her long ratty queue. “Young Brother,” she whispered slyly, knowing her mistress did not understand Ning-tok, “I’m guilty of nothing. I just met that young devil like I met you. I did nothing. People of the same village should stick together, heya? A handsome man like you needs money—for girls or his wife. Are you married, Honorable Younger Brother?”

  “No, Elder Sister,” Wu said politely, leading her on as he had been told to do.

  Armstrong was standing in the doorway of Ah Tam’s tiny bedroom and he wondered for the millionth time why it was that Chinese treated their servants so badly, why servants would work in such miserable and foul conditions, why they would sleep and live and give loyal service for a lifetime in return for a pittance, little respect and no love.

  He remembered asking his teacher. The old policeman had said, “I don’t know, laddie, but I think it’s because they become family. Usually it’s a job for life. Usually their own family becomes part also. The servant belongs, and the how chew, the good points of the job are many. It goes without saying all servants cream off a proportion of all housekeeping money, all foods, all drinks, all cleaning materials, all everything, however rich or poor, of course with the employers’ full knowledge and approval providing it’s kept to the customary level—how else can he pay them so little if they can’t make extra on the side?”

  Maybe that’s the answer, Armstrong thought. It’s true that before a Chinese takes a job, any job, he or she will have considered the how chew of the job very carefully indeed, the value of the how chew always being the deciding factor.