Dark Eye of the Jaguar

by Robert Mitchell

  There was one last email from the Jesuits, offering to pay our air fares, business class, if we would bring the cross to Rome so that they could inspect it. They gave an undertaking that nothing would be placed in the way of our returning to Australia, together with the cross, if we couldn’t reach a settlement, always providing that the cross was what they were praying it was.

  “Just who the hell do they think we are?” Sue had exploded. “Since when has any church kept its word when its own interest was at stake?”

  “Hey, hey,” I had replied. “Settle down. Write and tell them to stop bothering us. Tell them that if they don’t, then we’ll have nothing further to do with them. Tell them we need time to do our own research on the cross, and that after that we’ll need time to reach a decision as to whether we’ll deal with them or put it on the open market.”

  “Is that all?” she asked.

  “It’s enough,” I replied. “Although you probably should add that we know how important it must be to them, and we’ll keep this in mind. But make it clear to them that they must leave us alone for at least a month or so. Tell them that they’re pushing us, and we don’t like to be pushed.”

  Sue’s email seemed to have had the desired effect. They backed right off, their answering email saying that if we needed any help with research, they would be quite happy to make their archives and other resources available, and that they were only a phone call away, day or night.

  We had our month, our respite. In a month we would have arrived in Beijing, and a fortnight later would have left again, either extremely rich, or…

  It was the morning of the tenth day before our departure that the other email arrived, and the story deepened, for this time it arrived in our regular email address, the one we had been using for years, and not in the dummy one we had been using to communicate with the Jesuits.

  You have my family’s property.

  That was all it said. There was no name at the foot of the email and no introduction.

  “Who is he?” I asked. “It’s not the Jesuits. It’s from a different email address. It’s even come through a different internet server.”

  “Write back and ask him,” Sue said. “Do you think it’s one of the bad guys?”

  “It can’t be,” I replied. “He would’ve written to the other email address, to the dummy one.”

  “Maybe he went back into the collectors’ website, and managed to hack into the original entries I posted?”

  “But you deleted all of that stuff,” I said. “The pictures would’ve disappeared at the same time you wiped all the messages off.”

  “Yes,” she replied. “You’re right. There shouldn’t be anything on the website.”

  “Can you check it?” I asked.

  “I did that weeks ago. There wasn’t anything on it.”

  “Can you check again?” I asked. “Do we have to go somewhere else to do it, or is it safe to use our machine?”

  “No, this one’s fine. We’ll just do a search. I don’t have to actually log in.”

  “There,” she said two minutes later. “There’s nothing listed. All the stuff we put on has been removed, from both sites. I had the Jesuit cross on one site, and the gold piece on another.”

  “Do you think he could’ve picked it up just before you deleted everything and waited until now before he said anything?”

  “Why would he bother to do that,” she replied. “Why would he wait so long?”

  “I don’t know. It just doesn’t make sense. If he’s seen the pictures of the cross, then he’d know the dummy email address. I would’ve thought he’d have used that, instead of somehow hacking into the collectors’ website and getting our email address, and the pictures.”

  “Maybe he’s worried that somebody else has also hacked into the dummy email address and he doesn’t want anyone reading what he wants to say to us,” she replied. “And we don’t even know whether it’s one person, or someone writing on behalf of a number of persons.” And then she asked: “What should we do?”

  “Write and ask him, or them, what they’re talking about, I suppose. We don’t know whether he’s asking about the gold piece, or the cross.”

  “It’s got to be the gold piece!” Sue said. “It can’t be the cross. If it was the cross, he would have used the dummy email address.”

  “Yeah, I hope you’re right,” I said. “For all we know he might be just a crack-pot. Ask him who he is and let’s worry about it tomorrow. We probably won’t get a reply today. Do you want to go down to the mall to send it?”

  “There’s no sense in going somewhere else to do this,” she said, starting to type out the email. “If he knows our email address, then he probably knows everything else about us.”

  I was wrong about having to wait for a reply. It came in just over an hour later.

  “They’re not in Europe,” Sue said. “It’s the middle of the night over there at the moment.”

  “What does he say?” I asked as Sue moved the curser across and clicked onto their email.”

  My name is Jackson Lee.

  I am the head of a very old Chinese family, living in Hong Kong. Like many others, my grandfather fled with his family to Hong Kong during the last days of the Boxer uprising in order to escape the vengeance which he knew the Western powers would wreak upon all who might have supported the Boxers. It was as he was leaving the walled city of Peking that his party was set upon by bandits. My grandmother was dragged away and was never seen again. My grandfather and his sons, together with some of their friends, managed to fight off the bandits, who were only interested in loot and women. The gold ornament that you put on the website, the one with the horses etched into the surface, belonged to my grandfather. When he reached Hong Kong, he made drawings from memory of all of the items of my heritage which were savagely stolen from our family on that terrible day. Unfortunately there was a flood at my grandmother’s house last year and many of the drawings were lost. When I was a child, my grandfather often spoke to me of the heirlooms which had been stolen. It was always with great sadness. He often showed me the drawings. It is how I recognised the gold piece.

  I am asking that you return it to me. I am willing to pay a substantial reward for its return. Is there any possibility that when you acquired the gold piece you also acquired a number of pieces of jade as well? If there were then there is a possibility that they were also my grandfather’s.

  I am prepared to send photographs of the drawings that my grandfather made of his pieces of jade. There are nine of them. I will send them to you in Australia, or to any other country of your choosing, so that you can study them before you return the pieces to me, if you have them.

  This gold piece was looted from my family and, as such, is my family’s rightful possession, however I would not like this matter to be resolved with animosity, and I am well able to compensate you fairly. My family has prospered well since it first arrived in Hong Kong.

  I eagerly await your reply.

  “He hasn’t said anything about the cross,” Sue said.

  “Why should he?” I asked.

  “Well, if he got into our emails, he would have seen where we put the cross on to the collector site.”

  “Maybe he got in after you deleted the emails about the cross, but before you deleted those ones about the gold piece,” I said.

  “Maybe, but it’d be a pretty huge coincidence.”

  “I wonder if he’s the one behind the break-in at Martin’s neighbour’s house,” I queried. “That could be the reason why he hasn’t mentioned the cross.”

  “If it was him that broke in then he’s taking a risk talking to us,” Sue replied.

  “Why?”

  “Well, we could tell the police about him.”

  “I don’t think they’d be bothered,” I replied. “Nothing was stolen. This guy wouldn’t have done it himself, even if he was connected to it.”

  “It’s interesting that he only wants to buy that one gold piece and ha
sn’t mentioned any others,” Sue said. “If he used to look at the drawings of all the stuff that was stolen from his grandfather, then the other gold piece we have should possibly have been listed there as well. I would’ve thought he would have given us a description of every other piece which had been stolen, and not just the one we put on the website. I wonder if the jade pieces did belong to his grandfather, or whether he’s just fishing.”

  “Do you want to ask him?” I asked.

  “No, not at the moment,” she replied. “Why, do you think we should?”

  “I think we should tread very carefully where this guy is concerned. I think he’s trying to pull the wool over our eyes.”

  “How?” she asked.

  “Well, if he managed to hack into the collectors’ site and get our email address, then he’s probably also hacked into our emails themselves and he’s got all of the pictures of the jade we sent to Jenkinson-Smythe.”

  I watched as Sue’s eyes went wide with the realisation as to just how much this guy could have gathered from our emails.

  “I told you we should have deleted all the emails, including the ones to John Jenkinson-Smythe!” she snapped.

  “If he hacked into the collectors’ website then he did it way before you did anything about the emails. He’s been sitting on this, just waiting for the right moment.”

  “So,” she said, her face considerably paler. “What’ll we say to him?”

  “Well, I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to get into any sort of negotiation at this point in time, and I don’t want to tell him anything more than what he probably already knows. I don’t want to tell him that we have the jade pieces, but I don’t want to lie to him about them either. We have to assume that he knows everything we’ve told John.”

  “Why don’t we lie to him?” she asked.

  “Because it’d be too easy to be caught out in the lie. It’s probably best if you write back to him and just tell him we’re going to seek some legal advice on the matter, and this might take a couple of weeks. And then ask him how much of a finder’s fee he’s thinking about for the gold piece. Oh, and tell him it was the only one we found.”

  “Do you think we should go and see that woman at the antique shop in Nudgee again, and get a valuation on it?”

  “Maybe. We’ll wait and see whether he makes an offer or not, although I don’t think her valuation would be much help.”

  “Why not?” she asked.

  “Well, she didn’t really have any idea when we showed both of the gold pieces to her. If you remember, she wanted us to leave them with her so she could check out auction catalogues and books and things.”

  “No, all she wanted was to take some pictures.”

  “Well, that’s the problem. She takes pictures, shows them to other dealers and collectors, and very soon the whole world knows what we have, and this bloke Jackson Lee finds out that we have two pieces and not just the one. No, I’d rather just keep it quiet for the time being.”

  “Okay,” she replied. “I guess you’re right. So, I’ll send the email to this Lee, and try to put him off for a few weeks?”

  “Yes.”

  His reply was only half an hour behind Sue’s email.

  Dear Ben & Sue,

  I only ask that you do not dispose of the gold piece in the interim. As to a reward for returning the piece to my family, I was thinking of something in the order of five thousand United States dollars.

  You have said that the gold piece that you placed on the site was the only one that you found. But were there any pieces other than ones of gold? Were there perhaps several pieces of jade such as those I referred to earlier? My grandfather had nine of them and all nine were stolen. I am attaching the photographs of the drawings done by my grandfather which I mentioned in my earlier email. If any of those items were also acquired by you, my offer would no doubt be extended to cover these pieces as well.

  I eagerly await your reply.

  Jackson Lee

  “How the hell does he know our names?” I yelled.

  “If he’s got people who can hack into the collectors-forum website and get our email address, then the same people would have no problem hacking into Yahoo itself and getting our personal details.”

  “Would he know where we live?” I asked.

  “He’d know everything that we listed with Yahoo,” she replied. “And that includes our address.”

  “Bugger!”

  “Do we admit that we still have the two jade pieces?” she asked. “We could always say that we sold the other two after we sold one of them to John Jenkinson-Smythe. He must know we’ve got them, or that we had them. We’ve got to assume that he’s seen the email we sent to John with the pictures.”

  “Are they the same as the ones in the drawings he just emailed?”

  “They could be the same. Get the other two from the safe while I print out a picture of the one we sent to John and we’ll compare them with the pictures he’s sent.”

  I fetched the two jade pieces from the safe out in the garage.

  “They might be the same,” Sue said, although with a little doubt in her voice. “The head of the pig on this one is a lot bigger, and the shape’s a bit wrong on that one.”

  “What about the one we sold to John Jenkinson-Smythe?” I asked. “That one definitely looks like it could be the same.”

  “Maybe,” she replied, holding the picture up against the screen. “It probably is. I think the three of them are probably some of the same ones that he’s talking about. His grandfather was drawing from memory, don’t forget.” She paused, rubbing her fingers across the smooth jade surface of one of the pieces. “So, do we tell him we’ve still got them?”

  “No. Let him think that the gold ornament, or whatever is, and the cross were the only things made of gold left to you by your aunt. Then tell him we’ve sold the few pieces of jade that I found in the writing box. If he thinks we still have the jade pieces as well as the gold piece he’ll only get more anxious, more insistent. We have to string him out long enough so that we can get to Beijing, find the chest and get back here.”

  “I don’t think he’s going to wait that long,” Sue replied.

  “Well, do you have a better idea?”

  “No.”

  I leaned over Sue’s shoulder as she typed out the message to him. Within half an hour we had a reply.

  Please do not treat me as an ignorant Chinese person. I know that you wrote to the descendant of the person who originally owned the writing box, the soldier who was in China at the time of the Boxer uprising. I have some of your emails to him and some of his replies to you. But alas, I have not been able to recover any of the attachments that you sent to him. Those emails told me that you sent a piece of jade to him, a piece of jade that you found in the box. I know that he had three pieces to choose from, and that he chose one with ‘interwoven branches and leaves’. I am already negotiating for its purchase from Mr Jenkinson-Smythe. It is one of the pieces drawn by my grandfather.

  I ask again. What did you find in the writing box besides the gold ornament, and the three pieces of jade, one of which you sold to Mr Jenkinson-Smythe?

  “He’s certainly persistent,” Sue said.

  “Yeah, but is he lying when he said that he couldn’t download the pictures from the email we sent to John Jenkinson-Smythe?”

  “He’s lying,” she replied.

  “Of course,” I said. “That’s how he’s got the so-called drawings that his grandfather was supposed to have made.”

  “You think the drawings are fakes?” Sue asked.

  “Of course they are. He must think we’re stupid. He’s obviously hacked into the emails that had the photos, knocked up a few drawings, purposely making them not quite conform to the pictures, and then made up the story about his granddad.”

  “You could be right,” she replied. “But what about the drawings of the other six pieces of jade? Do you think he just made them up?”

  “O
f course,” I said. “But none of that matters now. He knows what we’ve got. There’s no use lying about them. We might as well sell them, if he offers a fair enough price. It’s either sell them to him, or put them on eBay, or list them with some auction house and pay commission. At least this way we’d at least get the full amount free and clear and the whole deal would be nice and quiet.”

  “Okay.”

  “So write back to him,” I said. “And say that we didn’t think the jade pieces would mean anything to him as we’d been told that they were mid 19th century, and not old enough to be a part of his family’s heritage.”

  The reply came through almost immediately. He’d been sitting patiently in Hong Kong, waiting for us to react.

  Yes, you are right. They are 19th Century pieces. They were carved by my grandfather’s uncle. I am attaching the remaining drawings of these pieces, which show the rear of each one. You will see my great uncle’s signature in Chinese. It is a pity that none of the other pieces were in the box.

  “Signatures?” Sue said. “Did you notice any writing on those pieces of jade?”

  “No,” I replied.

  “I’ll get them,” she said and hurried off. She was back within minutes. Sure enough, there was a pair of Chinese characters on the back of each piece, way down near the bottom, hardly noticeable unless you were looking for them.

  “They’re the same as in the drawings,” I said. “The bugger’s telling the truth! We never sent pictures of the backs to Jenkinson-Smythe. Maybe he wasn’t able to download the pictures from the email after all.”

  “What else does he say?” Sue asked, and we both went back to the computer screen.

  If you have ascertained that they are 19th century in date, then you have no doubt also ascertained their value on the antique market. You will know that they are worth perhaps three or four hundred US dollars in Australia for each piece, perhaps even more in Hong Kong or Singapore. If you have not had them valued, then I urge you to do so. There are several dealers to whom you could make an approach in Brisbane.