by John Creasey
“I won’t forget,” Mannering said.
Quite suddenly and without the slightest warning, he wondered if there could be any significance in the remark; if Wang Lu was telling him that he had seen the other passport. Had there been a real fight, or simply a pretence at one? Had he let the raiders in? Had he even helped them to search the room? There was no way of being sure, but it was useless for Mannering to try to tell himself that he was hopelessly wrong; he could be right. He must be careful with Wang Lu, with everyone whom he did not know could be trusted.
How could he be sure of anyone except the police?
Wang Lu was waiting at the lift when he left the room, and pressed the call-button the moment he appeared. He bowed as Mannering stepped into the big lift car. The lift-man was big for a Chinese, and had a face not unlike the raider whom he remembered so well. Now he was really getting everything out of focus; all Chinamen were beginning to look alike, he wasn’t proof against that idea after all.
A large taxi was waiting. Two rickshaw boys, at the end of the driveway, looked at him yearningly, and one called out: “Rickshaw much better than taxi.”
Bumping up and down in that would just about tear his head from his shoulders, Mannering thought wryly. He got into the taxi, and the driver started off smoothly and slowly. He turned right towards the ferries which Mannering had seen from the air but not from the land. The Star Ferry terminal was a blaze of light, and hundreds of people were scurrying towards it and away from it; scurrying was the only word, everyone seemed to be in a hurry. Mannering made himself look round, and saw three sets of headlights not far behind; it was possible that any of the cars was deliberately following him. Was this driver reliable?
They pulled up slowly at a small pier, floodlit and gay with coloured lights, with American sailors in white standing alertly at attention, two or three civilians waiting, twenty or thirty Chinese, including two rickshaw boys, clustering around. Mannering got out.
“How much is that?”
“With the best compliments of the hotel, sir. They are very sorry such a bad thing should happen to you.” The little driver smiled and bowed, and skilfully evaded a tip.
Mannering stepped into the blaze of light, and an even brighter light flashed as someone took a photograph. Two sailors and a civilian stepped forward.
“A launch is just coming alongside from the Chesapeake, sir,” the civilian said. “May I have your name please?”
“Sure. I’m James C. Mason.” Mannering took the false passport from his pocket and handed it over; the man glanced at it more carefully than he appeared to, and handed it back.
“Glad to have you with us, Mr. Mason. If there’s anything you need while you’re in Hong Kong, just call on us.”
“Why, thank you.”
Mannering looked out into the harbour, where so many lights glowed, and the outline of the aircraft-carrier was vivid and gay, as if designed to conceal the menace which the great ship could create.
A launch bedecked with coloured lamps and flags pulled alongside; only the crew was in it. A dozen or so people already waiting went ahead of Mannering. As he stepped forward to the head of the pier, he saw Lovelace hovering on the edge of the crowd, smiling but showing no other sign of recognition. It was a good thing to feel that the police were taking no chances, and—
He felt something clutch his ankle.
On one side the water lapped gently, reflecting the lights and the shadows; just ahead were the others stepping on to the launch, and underneath the wooden pier was a man tugging at his leg, trying to make him lose his balance. Mannering grabbed a wooden post. He nearly lost his balance, and did not realise that as he moved, he crushed the detaining hand against the wooden post. He heard a screech, and felt the grip relax. He saw the hand disappear, and heard a splash. On the instant, searchlights from stationary cars snapped out, vivid and bright, and began to move about the water. Mannering saw the head and shoulders of a man swimming as several sailors, and Lovelace, came running along the wooden pier.
“You all right, sir?”
“You okay?”
“What was it, Mr. Mason?”
Mannering said: “I guess I slipped.” That might satisfy the sailors although it certainly wouldn’t be good enough for Lovelace. He wanted desperately to go on board the Chesapeake, and was afraid that this might stop him; a word from Lovelace most surely could. Then he realised that everything had happened so quickly and those lights had been snapped on; the sailors had undoubtedly been warned to look out for trouble.
Would they stop him from going?
“Are you all right to take this launch, sir? The Admiral’s launch will be here in ten minutes and you would be very welcome on board.” It was the man who had examined his passport.
“This one, thank you,” Mannering said, thankfully. He allowed them to hand him over the side of the pier to the thwarts of a launch where the dozen passengers were now sitting, watching him with curiosity and concern. A sailor steadied him until he was sitting down, and the launch began to move crisply, with the wind fresh and cool against his forehead and face. He was aware of the inquisitive glances of all the other passengers, but kept looking across the harbour towards the lights of the island. Now no one spoke to him. For a second time the fascination of the scene drew fears out of him, making him oblivious of everything else except a kind of suspended anxiety. Almost before he expected it, they were slowing down to go alongside. The Chesapeake looked enormous and the lights were less dominating here; the great length and solid hull were awesome. Lights shone on the floating platform fastened to the bottom of the aircraft-carrier’s accommodation ladder, lights ran up the side of the ship. Officers in service dress whites were at a middle platform, and the top one which was level with the hangar-deck.
Mannering stepped on to the gangway, and he was halfway up the shallow steps of the ladder before he realised that his headache had gone, swept away by the moment of near-panic on the pier. There was another curious fact; he knew what had happened, knew there had been another attempt to kill him by drowning, and that there was no, or little, doubt that he was known to be John Mannering, but it did not worry him. His hand slid over the varnished wooden rail, and he began to appreciate the spit and polish of the stainless steel and brass-work of the ladder. The officer of the deck stood at the quarter deck, with the bosun’s mate just behind him, as if ready to lift the pipe on the lanyard round his neck to pipe the guests on board. He did not; but there were the formalities of “I request permission to come aboard, sir,” from the officer with the party and a welcome aboard for each guest.
Grey, seemingly wingless, aircraft, their wings folded while they were on the hangar-deck, had a curious chill gleam. Above Mannering’s head were hundreds of gaily coloured flags, ahead of him long tables set with cutlery and glasses, laden with turkeys and hams, a cold buffet to dream about, then the vice-consul and one of the most attractive women he had seen for a long time welcomed him in his assumed name. He was passed on from one to another, offered food and drink, all non-alcoholic, which was just as well if he did not want to bring his headache back. Airmen or seamen, he wasn’t sure which, hovered around as the party from the launch moved along the huge deck. Every corner seemed to have its groups of men and women, eating and drinking. Rare and exotic delicacies were thrust in front of him in bewildering succession by men in spotless white. On one table there was a cake, a model of the carrier which looked big enough to fill a small room. Music from South Pacific seemed to come from a big but unseen orchestra. Most of the airmen and sailors were Europeans, but there were some Chinese, some negroes, some Japanese.
Mannering had that curious sense that wherever he moved he was being watched. The guests were as cosmopolitan as any group could be, the dresses as exotic as the food, from saris to long evening gowns, cocktail dresses to burnous. There were diamond tiaras, bejewelled turbans, and magnificent mantillas; it was like a pre-war reception, quite beautiful in every way. Voices were sub
dued in the corners but grew louder the larger the group. At last Mannering was handed up to a spot beneath a huge No Smoking sign. There an Admiral Mannering knew from photographs and the American Consul-General waited to receive them.
The Admiral was brisk, breezy, amiable; two women cornered him. The Consul-General was a tall, rather willowy man with iron grey hair brushed back from his forehead in waves, immaculate in tails, quiet-voiced, easy-mannered. His wife hardly came up to his shoulder. She was a plump little dove of a woman, homey and homely, dressed in a magnificent sequined gown of sea-green colour. Their escort took the group up, the Consul-General shook hands with them all, and said to Mannering: “Glad to have you with us, Mr. Mason. And I’m glad you came to no harm this afternoon. If you don’t mind mixing business with pleasure, Sir Hugh Brabazon would like a word with you.” He rested a hand lightly on Mannering’s forearm, then turned to the next guest. A man who had shepherded the party through looked up at Mannering with a bright grin, and said: “Would you like to meet Sir Hugh now, sir?”
“I certainly would.”
“This way, please.” He found a path as if by magic through the massed crowd, led Mannering along a wide corridor, and then through a hatch. Once beyond that the festive air disappeared, here was the ship prepared as if for sea, grey, somehow forbidding, the ceiling a mass of pipes and wires. For a wild moment Mannering thought that he was being led into danger from the very heart of safety.
They reached a doorway, and the bright-faced young man tapped, then opened the door and stood aside, saying: “Mr. Mason, sir.”
Sir Hugh Brabazon rose from a chair in a small wardroom, which might have been in any ultra-modern building. He was a short, broad-shouldered, rugged-looking individual, vaguely like a sheep dog, with shaggy eyebrows and grizzled hair which really needed trimming. He was alone, and Mannering could not ask for more.
The door closed.
“Now, Mr. Mannering,” said the Police Commissioner, “supposing you tell me all about everything.” He paused to allow the significance of the “Mr. Mannering” to sink in, and then asked: “But first, what will you have to drink?”
Chapter Fifteen
Mood Of Aggression
Brabazon was obviously very pleased with himself; in fact he was almost smug. It was ridiculous, yet Mannering felt a flare of annoyance with the man, as he might if he had been hoaxed by someone whom he did not like. He hoped that he concealed the hostile reaction as he smiled, sat down on a swivel chair, and asked mildly: “May I have bitter lemon, by itself?”
The Commissioner looked startled. “Plain? Are you on the wagon?”
“Those with bruises on their cranium shouldn’t make the blood run hot,” Mannering said.
“Oh, I see. Come to think, your eyes are a bit bloodshot. You’re not feeling too bad, are you?”
“Just vengeful,” Mannering said. He watched the other man pour out; there was a small table next to the steel desk, with a comprehensive display of drinks on it. “How did you find out?” He took the glass, and sipped. “Cheers. Was it you who took my British passport?”
Again Brabazon looked startled. “No. Lost that, have you?”
“It was stolen this afternoon, and I thought your men might have taken it.”
“We didn’t, or I would have been told,” said the Commissioner confidently. “Was anything else stolen?”
“Some letters of credit, that’s all.”
“You can make sure you don’t lose anything over them,” observed the other bluffly. “And we can do something about the passport if you don’t get it back. No, we found out from that Webley .33 of yours. The Yard had warned us that you were likely to pay us a visit and among the odds and ends of information they sent was that you carried a Webley .33 and had a British licence. Your fingerprints were on it.”
After a very long pause, Mannering said softly: “Oh, were they?”
Brabazon nodded, and looked at him curiously. A telephone bell rang and he had to turn away to pick up the receiver. Mannering sat very still, playing with the stem of his glass and trying to still his raging temper. Not only had Bristow “warned” the Hong Kong police, when he was here virtually at the Yard’s request, but he had sent a set of fingerprints, as he would if any known criminal were going to visit the Crown Colony. Out of the Baron’s past there came a whiff of fear, which added fuel to the hot flame of his temper. The Baron’s fingerprints had never been taken, but in those days when Bristow had suspected him of being the Baron, his own had been. It was useless telling himself it was a good thing his identity could be proved beyond any doubt; he was livid.
Brabazon was saying: “… Yes, I fully understand … Yes, in about ten minutes, sir.” He paused, then put the receiver down and brushed a hand across his forehead. “The Governor is up top, and wants to talk to me, probably about the Li Chen business. So we’ll have to postpone our chat, unless there’s something useful you can say in five minutes.”
“I can tell you everything I intend to tell you in three,” said Mannering. “Presumably you know what Bristow told me and there’s no need to repeat that. In India …” He spoke with a lucidity matched only by its brevity, and Brabazon began to look pensive. After he had described the murder of the beggar woman and his talk with Raymond Li Chen, he went on: “So I came to Hong Kong in the hope that I might be able to help, believing that I was more likely to get by if I posed as an American. You know what’s happened here, so I need not go into that again, either.” Mannering’s voice was like ice. “What you can do is tell Bristow that I’m through with this job, once and for all, and that if he ever sends my fingerprints to another police force on any excuse whatsoever I’ll sue him and the Yard for defamation.”
Brabazon was staring at him in obvious amazement. Mannering, still feeling as angry as he sounded, got up without another word. There was a tense silence in the room and it seemed to drag on for a long time. Then in a composed but rather subdued way, the Commissioner said: “Bristow did it for your own good, you know. He told me that you often adopt disguises, and that if we ever needed to prove your identity, all we had to do was to take your prints. If we’d found you dead instead of alive in that bath tub at the Peninsular, we’d have been able to identify you without any trouble at all.”
“I find that most reassuring,” Mannering said.
Brabazon opened his mouth as if to speak again, then closed it, shrugged, half smiled, and said: “Well, I mustn’t keep the great man waiting. Would you care to meet him?”
“Not in my present mood, thanks.”
“Perhaps you’re wise,” conceded Brabazon, and he smiled more widely. “It may soothe your ruffled feathers a bit to know that you fooled all the Americans you met tonight, although they were taking a special interest in you. They knew what had happened at the Li Chens’ shop in Kowloon, although not what happened at the Peninsular. They’ve a very special interest in the investigation, because so many American nationals have treasures stored at Li Chens’, millions of dollars’ worth. A great many bought goods believing they could get a genuine certificate of origin, but could not. Others feel that the money involved is so small compared with the cultural value that the embargo is ridiculous. However, even the vice-consul, who spent seven years in London and knows you by reputation and sight as Mannering, doesn’t seem to have had the slightest inkling that you were a limey. Er—” He opened the door. “Sleep on it, will you?” As they stepped outside and a negro rating sprang to attention, he added almost as if against his will: “We could use your help, we’re in a damned awkward situation, and—well, as I say, sleep on it.”
It would be ungracious to refuse.
“Yes, I will.”
“That’s good,” said Brabazon. “I’ll call you in the morning. Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”
Much mollified, Mannering followed him up to the hangar-deck. This man was not easy to shake, and undoubtedly Mannering had shaken him. When he was on his own for a few minutes, eating f
ingers of game pie of a quality he did not expect to find outside England, he wondered what had made him blow off like that. Brabazon’s manner of half laughing, half deriding him had contributed, no doubt, but there was much more to it. He believed he knew what. He had been pushed around a great deal since this affair had started. In fact practically nothing had been done on his own initiative, and that was not a situation which he liked. By nature he liked to be on the attack, even if it was in defence; yet he had been on the retreat most of the time. He would never forget how much on the defensive he had been when he was so helpless in that bath.
He wanted to strike back, and he had struck at Brabazon.
“That wasn’t very clever,” he admitted to himself. “And the mood could be dangerous.” If he was to be effective in this or in any other investigation, then he had to be detached and not involved; objective, not emotionally angry. Perhaps it was a good thing that he had flown off the handle at Brabazon; it would warn him to be very much more careful. The wise thing now would be to meet the Governor, if only to show Brabazon that he was not sulking.
He moved towards a little group of which Brabazon was one, and then saw Paul Vansitter, one of New York’s most prominent fine art dealers, undoubtedly here for the exhibition. It was remarkably easy to forget the exhibition because of the more urgent problems.
Would it be staged?
Vansitter, a dapper, sandy-haired man with a Van Dyck beard, saw him but showed no sign of recognition, another fillip to his ego. Brabazon caught sight of him, and a pretty little woman detached herself from the group around the Governor, and approached him, smiling.
“Mr. Mason, I’m Jane Brabazon. My husband would be so glad if you would come and meet the Governor and his wife.”
The Governor, whom Mannering knew slightly and who was a member of one of Mannering’s clubs, was elderly, military, amiable to everyone, but there was an expression in his eyes which made Mannering wonder whether he felt quite as well-disposed as he seemed to. His wife, fifteen years or so younger, had a model’s distinction, a model’s slimness and gracefulness, with a hint of charm in her model-like aloofness. She was utterly uninterested in James C. Mason, but as Mannering moved away he saw her charm melt her aloofness when two Chinese couples came up, the women dressed by some oriental Dior and with gowns of such colouring it was hard not to stare. The men were very correct in their dress suits and carnations. The Governor’s wife appeared thoroughly to enjoy talking to them, and Mannering watched them thaw.