Shanghai Secrets

by Sulari Gentill

  Clyde shook his head. “People are going to recognise your vampire,” he warned. “It might be defamation.”

  Rowland smiled. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Clyde laughed. “Ed’s ghoul is carrying a bowl of tripe for some reason.”

  Edna pulled a face. “I would have thought the reason perfectly obvious.”

  “Eddie!”

  Rowland recognised the voice, though he was surprised to hear it. He turned.

  A man in a cream linen suit ran towards them with an enormous bouquet of roses held out before him. Bertram Middleton. Rowland frowned. The last time they’d met, he’d punched the journalist. That was several weeks ago now, but not enough time had passed to make him regret it.

  Edna stood. “Bertie. What on earth are you doing here?”

  “I’m looking for an answer.” He smiled.

  “An answer for what?”

  “The most important question in the world, my darling. I got that job at the Sydney Morning Herald. I hope you realise what that means.”

  “I’m sure I have no idea.”

  Middleton laughed too loudly. “My new position carries with it a substantial increase in salary and prospects.”

  “I’m happy for you, Bertie.”

  “For us, Eddie.” Middleton smiled. “I’ve made a reservation at Romano’s for this evening.”

  Edna shook her head. “I’m sorry, Bertie, I can’t—”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “No.”

  “Next week then.”

  “We’re going to China.”

  “China?” Middleton’s eyes narrowed and moved to Rowland. “Why the devil are you going to China?”

  “Because I want to,” Edna said evenly.

  “Is Sinclair going to China?”

  “Yes, I am.” Rowland’s voice hinted at impatience.

  The smile faded from Middleton’s lips. “Eddie, darling. I don’t think you’ll want to go once I’ve asked my question.”

  Clyde cleared his throat and looked away. Rowland was equally unsure of what to do. This was not the first time an optimistic swain had tried to press his case with Edna. In normal circumstances, they would have given the poor fool privacy for his impending disappointment.

  “Don’t ask the question, Bertie.” Edna’s voice was clear but there was compassion in her face. Rowland moved to make a discreet exit, but a momentary flash of fury in Middleton’s face stopped him. Perhaps Clyde, too, had seen it, because he also remained where he was.

  Middleton took a breath and smiled again. Too broadly. “I understand,” he said. “It would be unfair to spoil your trip when you can’t change your plans.” He handed her the flowers. “Perhaps you’ll be able to pick up a few things for your trousseau in Shanghai.”

  Edna shook her head. “Bertie—”

  Middleton cut her off. “Let’s go dancing, Eddie. We should celebrate.”

  “There’s nothing to celebrate,” the sculptress said firmly.

  “Don’t be like that, Eddie.” Middleton laughed. “I’m sure you’ll have a lovely time. We’ll miss each other, of course, but I’ll be waiting for you when you return, and we can—”

  “No!” Edna said loudly now. “Listen to me, Bertie. Don’t wait. There’s nothing to wait for.”

  “Believe me, I don’t want to wait either.” He grabbed her wrist.

  Rowland moved immediately. His hand clamped down on Middleton’s shoulder and wrenched him back. “Perhaps you should leave, Middleton.”

  “Perhaps you should mind your own business!” Middleton snapped back. He attempted to shake Rowland off. “Unhand me before I knock you flat.”

  Rowland’s brow arched sceptically. Middleton became enraged. “I know what you’re trying to do, Sinclair. And I won’t allow it!”

  Clyde stepped in now. “Settle down, mate.”

  Middleton appealed to Edna. “Tell them, Eddie. Tell them about us.”

  “There’s nothing to tell, Bertie. I’m sorry, but I don’t want to see you again.”

  “I don’t believe you, Eddie.” He turned to Rowland. “He’s making you say that—”

  Rowland had had enough. He pulled Middleton away from Edna. “For God’s sake, man, you’re making a bloody a fool of yourself.”

  “She loves me, Sinclair,” Middleton hissed. “Always has. She just doesn’t know how to tell you.”

  “Don’t be absurd, Bertie!” Edna said furiously.

  “You can’t protect him forever, Eddie,” Middleton replied. “It’s time to tell him that you are not for sale!”

  Some of the other artists working on murals nearby came over now. “What’s the trouble, mate?”

  “This chap wandered in by mistake,” Rowland replied calmly. “He’s just leaving.”

  Middleton hesitated, but faced with a wall of men, he stepped back and stalked out towards the entrance gate.

  “Are you all right, Ed?” Rowland asked as they all drifted back to work.

  The sculptress nodded. She seemed uneasy as much as angry. “I’ve refused to see him since I discovered what he did last year.”

  Rowland picked up his paintbrush, touched by her loyalty. Edna’s lovers were temporary, but her friends weren’t. To them, she was fiercely protective and unwaveringly steadfast. The previous year Middleton had passed certain information to the papers in an effort to publicly discredit Rowland Sinclair, whom he saw as a rival for the sculptress’s affections. Wilfred had used his influence to successfully keep the scandal and its accompanying photographs from being published, but it might otherwise have ended very badly indeed.

  “I’ve not replied to his letters; I’ve returned his gifts unopened and lately his letters too. I can’t understand why he thinks I might even consider marrying him,” Edna whispered, frustrated.

  Rowland resisted an absurd impulse to take her into his arms and suggest she marry him instead.

  While many men had fallen in love with Edna Higgins, most seemed to accept that she would not belong to any of them.

  “I should have a word with him,” Rowland murmured. “Make sure he understands that his attentions are not welcome.”

  Edna declined firmly. “We’ll be leaving for China soon. By the time we get back, Bertie will have forgotten about me.”

  They stayed late that night, determined to finish the mural to thereby guarantee Clyde’s release, returning exhausted to Woodlands House, which was now in the midst of final preparations for their impending absence.

  At Wilfred’s insistence, Rowland’s studio was locked, and many of his paintings removed from the walls in other parts of Woodlands House. Rowland bore this without protest. As much as his artistic reputation had been built on the manner in which he painted nudes, those depictions were also very likely to offend his Aunt Mildred.

  With Clyde’s place in their party now secured, they made the necessary arrangements for an extended stay in the Far East with renewed vigour. Having travelled with Rowland previously, his friends already possessed wardrobes that belied their own stations and befitted the first-class accommodations to which Rowland Sinclair was accustomed. Rowland’s high street tailors attended the Woollahra mansion to see to any clothing repairs, alterations, and replacements, and trunks were packed with tailcoats, dinner suits, evening gowns, hats, ties, gloves, and every other form of attire they might need.

  It was in the midst of all this that Clyde introduced Rowland to a businessman from his hometown, Batlow, in the Snowy Mountains. Danny Dong had travelled to Sydney after he’d heard through one of the local Watson Joneses that Clyde was going to China. He brought with him an ornate chest, which he asked his old friend to take to Shanghai.

  Clyde raised the matter with Rowland, who was amused and a little uncomfortable that Clyde had felt the need to ask his permission at
all. “We’d be very happy to take it, Mr. Dong.”

  Dong was effusively grateful. “My cousin will collect it from you,” he promised, shaking their hands warmly as he took his leave.

  “Rowly, I’m sorry,” Clyde began after the door had closed behind Dong. “It’s a hell of a request, but I’ve known Danny and his family all my life.”

  “Don’t be daft, Clyde.” Rowland dismissed his friend’s concern. Clyde never took generosity for granted and was occasionally unnecessarily grateful for what Rowland considered the smallest thing. Rowland glanced at the growing collection of trunks being readied for their departure. “We’re not travelling lightly, after all. Mr. Dong’s box of souvenirs will be neither here nor there in the sum of things.”

  And so the beautifully carved chest was added to their luggage.

  Lenin was taken back to Oaklea and placed under the care of Wilfred’s younger sons and the gardener. Wilfred muttered about the imposition of “Rowly’s bloody dog,” but the hound was not unwelcome.

  Wilfred called twice to further supplement Rowland’s knowledge of commerce. Rowland tolerated his brother’s efforts with something akin to goodwill. Perhaps it was a good time to be despatched to China. It seemed both he and Edna had reason to get away while passions cooled.

  Chapter Four

  “DON’T GO TO SHANGHAI.”

  The Prime Minister (Mr. J. A. Lyons) stated yesterday that the British Minister in China had reported that unemployment amongst British subjects in Shanghai was so serious that persons who were known to contemplate proceeding there should be warned not to do so.

  He understood that Australian stowaways had been arriving at Shanghai.

  —Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate, 3 January 1934

  * * *

  Rowland Sinclair cast his eyes across an Eastern Babylon.

  Colour was muted by fog, which seemed also to soften the cacophony of sound. On the water, Chinese junks fluttered around steamships like exotic birds, light and graceful against the lumbering momentum of the liners. The port was busy this morning, disembarking passengers and cargo. The waterfront teemed with movement and purpose, scuttling rickshaws, traders, locals in both traditional attire and the Western fashions, amidst the grand buildings of the international settlement. Taxicabs vied for customers, but the Australians had already been warned about the dangers of bandit drivers. The hotel had, in any case, arranged cars to collect them.

  Edna leaned against Rowland, her arms folded tightly against the cold. Stray tendrils of hair, which had escaped the confines of her cloche, had become copper coils in the damp wind. Rowland placed his arm about her shoulders.

  “We should go,” he said. “There’ll be time to gaze at Shanghai later.”

  The sculptress glanced up at him and smiled. “Still, it’s breathtaking, isn’t it?”

  Rowland laughed. The catch in his breath had nothing to do with the city. Even after all this time, the sculptress had that effect. He pointed out the hotel which would be their base.

  The Cathay Hotel was located in the magnificent gothic-styled Sassoon House which overlooked the Huangpu River. The pyramidal copper-sheathed roof distinguished it among the colonial grandeur of the buildings along the waterfront district known as the Bund, and made it plainly visible from the dockside.

  “We’ve got a bit of a space problem, Rowly.” Milton held open the back of the Packard which had been sent to collect them. The back seat was piled with trunks and bags.

  “Why don’t we walk?” Edna suggested, unwilling to retreat from the vibrant reality of the Bund just yet. This was Shanghai, the Far East. The hotel would still be there when they’d finished exploring.

  “Ed, it’s freezing.” Clyde stood behind the Packard, his sun-lined face almost hidden behind the folds of his scarf. “That wind is brutal.”

  They had boarded an Imperial Airlines flight in the last burst of an Australian summer, flying to Singapore and taking a ship from there. The entire exercise had taken a mere ten days. For Clyde, Shanghai’s sharp spring was too sudden a change.

  “You chaps take the motorcar back to the hotel with the luggage,” Rowland offered. “Have them send another car back for us. I’ll keep Ed company.”

  Milton hesitated for a moment between the car and a gallant urge to insist Edna take his place. A blast of wind helped him decide for the relative warmth of the Packard’s cabin. “Ah, bitter chill it was! The owl, for all its feathers, was a-cold.”

  “Keats,” Rowland replied.

  The local driver was clearly unhappy with the plan. He shook his head emphatically and spoke first in Cantonese, and when that proved fruitless, in the pidgin by which the various cultures of the treaty port communicated. “No joss. Not safe, Missy. Cathay side, chop chop.”

  Edna smiled at him. “It’s kind of you to worry, sir, but I’ll be with Mr. Sinclair, and we can’t all fit.”

  The driver shook his head and said something in Cantonese that perhaps could not have been adequately expressed with the simplified lexicon of pidgin.

  “How about I stay with Rowly?” Clyde offered, shivering uncontrollably.

  “Your need is clearly greater than mine, Clyde darling.” Edna took Rowland’s hand. “We’ll be fine—we’ll wait right here so the driver knows where to find us. Honestly, I’m not cold.”

  “The sooner you set off, the sooner we’ll all be out of the wind,” Rowland added as Clyde hesitated.

  Clyde conceded. “Fair enough. If you’re sure. We’ll send a car for you as soon as we get to the hotel.”

  And so they parted ways. Rowland and Edna stood in fog, watching the activity on the pier in companionable silence. They were accosted from time to time by taxi and rickshaw drivers in search of a fare. They refused politely and then firmly, as the invitations to ride became more insistent.

  When an overzealous driver grabbed Edna’s arm to pull her into his vehicle, Rowland intervened sharply. The man backed off smartly, but it left them both uneasy in the chaotic jostle of the dockside.

  “I’m beginning to think standing here is not the best idea,” Rowland murmured. He checked his watch. It had been nearly half an hour since Clyde and Milton had left.

  “We could have walked there by now.” Edna was more cross than concerned.

  Rowland glanced at the nearby taxi drivers who stood watching for the next opportunity to make their case.

  “Perhaps we should start walking; the hotel’s less than a mile away.”

  Edna nodded. “Yes, let’s. There’s probably been some mix-up about where exactly we’re waiting.”

  They set out into the fog, from which the sun seemed to rise into a sky still stained red by dawn. Despite the frenetic, congested activity of the port, traffic on the Bund was light at this early hour. At every intersection, bearded Indian policemen directed horse-drawn, man-drawn, and motorised vehicles with expansive gestures. The background babble was multilingual—Rowland recognised French, Russian, English, and German in amongst what he guessed was Cantonese, Mandarin, or perhaps one of languages of the Indian subcontinent.

  They wove through the bustle, dodging the blind hurtle of trams and crossing the Bund to the sparser foot traffic on the other side. People were dressed in the tailored clothes of the West, the looser styles of the East, and unique fusions that would be outlandish anywhere but Shanghai.

  A roadside stall selling painted fans caught Edna’s eye, and she begged for a minute to browse. Rowland stood by as she searched through its wares. He was a little bemused that the sculptress would be attracted to fans when the Shanghai wind cut to the bone. They purchased three silk and ebony pieces before they continued. Edna’s excitement was contagious, and Rowland found himself less resistant to this sojourn in the East. Perhaps it would not be as bad as he feared.

  They made their way quickly past the stately headquarters of banks
and consulates, and the baroque towers of the North China Daily News Building. Rowland turned up the collar of his overcoat against the wind while Edna purchased hot chestnuts from a cart. He was glad his friends had decided to accompany him.

  “Entschuldigung sie.” Someone tapped his shoulder from behind.

  He might have turned if Edna had not screamed. As it was, the butt of the gun glanced off his shoulder, rather than knocking him unconscious, and he was in a position to resist the assault that followed. There were half a dozen of them, solid men in dark western suits. They said nothing as they grabbed Rowland and tried to force a hood over his head.

  “Ed! Run!”

  The sculptress did so, but towards him, shouting for help at the same time.

  “Oi! What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Clyde’s voice. He dragged two men off Rowland and smacked their heads together.

  Rowland struggled to free himself from the others. Milton joined the fray. They were outnumbered, but assisted by the fact that resistance had not been anticipated.

  A black Buick screeched to a halt beside the skirmish, and its doors were flung open. Rowland’s attackers scrambled for the idling motorcar. More help arrived now—security guards from the buildings on the Bund, the Indian traffic policeman, and the chestnut vendor. Rowland attempted to hold onto one of his assailants, but the man twisted and kicked and leapt into the waiting vehicle. The Buick’s wheels squealed as it sped away.

  Clyde straightened, panting. “Well, that warmed us up.”

  Rowland picked up Edna’s handbag, which had been dropped in the scuffle, and returned it to her. “You all right, Ed?”

  She nodded. “It’s jolly lucky that Milt and Clyde turned up.”

  “Bit of a problem checking in without Rowly,” Milton said, dusting off his hat. “They eventually sent another car, but it returned without you.”

  “We figured you’d given up and taken shanks’s pony,” Clyde added. “So we left our trunks with the porter and came out to find you.”

  “Damn. Of course.” Rowland grimaced. The reservation was under Sinclair—he should have realised before he’d sent them on ahead.