Shanghai Secrets

by Sulari Gentill

  And so the Australians left with only the knowledge that whatever the reason for Kung’s presence in the Cathay’s foyer, it was not because he was staying there.

  Singh took them back to the house in Little Russia to pick up Wing Zau before driving them all to Blood Alley, a short road just off the Bund. The street was within the border of the French Concession, between Rue du Consulat and Avenue Edward VII, and was officially named the Rue Chu Pao-san. It was a precinct of low bars and dives, brothels and opium dens. There were many such districts in Shanghai, but Blood Alley was legendary as the most seedy of all. Early evening saw the short street move from a sinister languor to a kind of degenerate vibrancy. Sailors on shore leave, in search of comfort and vice, moved in uniformed packs for safety, though they leapt eagerly into the frequent brawls. Singh was not at all happy about their intent to seek Sergei Romanov in Blood Alley. “I should accompany you, but it would be foolhardy to leave the motorcar unguarded here.”

  Milton smiled. “Despite appearances, Mr. Singh, Clyde and I have not always been gentlemen of means.”

  “Indeed, we still have no means,” Clyde pointed out.

  “Blood Alley is not so different from Darlinghurst back home. You can rest assured we are perfectly accustomed to the business that goes on here.”

  “The chap we spoke to said he’d seen Sergei panhandling outside the Palais Cabaret,” Clyde said, pointing out the theatre across the street. “So we’ll begin there.” He glanced at Wing apologetically. “We may need to speak to some of the girls who work there. Milt and I can deal with the ones who speak English, but you’ll need to sweet-talk the others, Wing old mate.”

  Wing Zau seemed uneasy, but he nodded. “Of course. My words will be honey.”

  Milton patted his shoulder. “Attaboy!”

  The entrance to the Palais Cabaret was choked with American sailors in their bellbottom whites trying to catch the next show. Some were distracted from their purpose by the painted women who called their wares from the corners and alcoves. The mood was festively salacious, loud American voices, laughter, and swagger. Milton, Clyde, and Wing checked the rows of hawkers and entertainers for Sergei, but there was no sign of the Russian.

  They spoke to the girls who leant against the wall with one knee bent. Milton and Clyde struggled with pidgin, compensating with gestures that were greeted with giggles and guffaws. Wing had more success speaking Shanghainese and then basic Russian to glean that a man of Sergei’s description had set up a game of chance outside Maxim’s Café.

  He signalled the Australians, and they left the theatre for Maxim’s. There was again no sign of Sergei. They took a table inside so Wing could question the waitresses. Clyde and Milton watched on amused as he made jokes and paid compliments in a language they did not understand, but in a manner that made his meaning plain. Finally, after taking a flower from the vase on the table and handing it to one of the young women, he turned to the Australians triumphantly. “He’s at George’s Bar. Apparently that where he spends his winnings. She says he did well today, so he’ll be there for a while.”

  “Well done, comrade!” Milton placed a generous gratuity on the table for the helpful waitress. “Tell her thank you.”

  They made their way then to George’s Bar, pausing only by the Buick to inform Singh of their progress. George’s catered to a more subdued clientele than nearby Finnemore’s or the Silver Dollar. Its patrons were committed drinkers, uninterested in whores or dancing. The tall stools along the mahogany bar were already taken by the regulars, except for the couple on either side of a tall, unkempt Russian. As they got closer, they understood why. Sergei Romanov reeked.

  “Bloody hell,” Milton muttered, turning his head and taking a deep breath as if he intended to hold it from then on. He took the seat beside Romanov and signalled the bartender. “A bottle of your best vodka for my friend.”

  Romanov looked up slowly, started, and pulled back abruptly. By then Wing and Clyde had him surrounded.

  “Sergei,” Milton said calmly. “You have nothing to fear from us, mate. We’re here to help you.”

  Romanov’s eyes were wild with terror as he looked frantically about the bar. The barman glanced over. The other drinkers seemed to sink lower into their shoulders.

  Romanov tried to run. Clyde grabbed him. “Steady on, Sergei. Don’t you remember us?”

  “Where is she?” Romanov said. “The girl. Is she dead too?”

  “Who—Ed? Do you mean Ed?” Milton asked. “No, Sergei. She’s fine, safe…but,” he added thoughtfully, “if we’re going to keep her safe, we’ll need your help.”

  “No, no, I cannot help.”

  “You have to.” Clyde grimaced. “For pity’s sake, Sergei. You smell like you’ve been sleeping in a swamp.”

  The bartender put the bottle of vodka Milton had ordered on the bar. “You know this man?” he demanded.

  “Yes,” Milton replied, handing him several banknotes.

  “Then get him out of my establishment. He’s putting off the customers.”

  Clyde placed his hand firmly on Sergei’s shoulder. “That’s not a bad idea. You look like you could use a proper meal.”

  Milton held the bottle of vodka tantalisingly just out of Romanov’s reach. “How about it, Sergei? Will you help us? Will you let us help you?”

  “The other one,” Romanov said. “Sasha’s rich foreigner with blue eyes—is he dead?”

  “No.”

  “Then I come.”

  They flanked Romanov out of the bar in case he changed his mind and bolted, for the Russian still seemed anxious and wary.

  “Sorry about this, Mr. Singh,” Milton whispered as they bundled the pungent man into the back of the Buick. Wing took the front seat, and the Australians sat in the back with their guest. Milton gave Romanov the bottle of vodka to keep him calm. Singh drove as fast as he could back to the grand house in Little Russia.

  * * *

  Rowland opened his eyes. He swallowed. His throat was sore. He didn’t feel well, but he felt better than he had for a day or two. It took him a little while to recall where he was. He turned his head looking for Edna, the last thing he remembered.

  “Hello, Rowland. So glad to see you awake.”

  “Mr. Carmel…” Rowland’s voice was strained but steady. “Where’s Ed?”

  Carmel smiled. “I asked the lovely Miss Higgins if I might talk to you alone for a moment. She was kind enough to oblige.” He took off his spectacles. “Rowland, I have some worrying news. The chief inspector is trying to have your bail revoked. Apparently you assaulted a warder, occasioning actual bodily harm.”

  “I see.”

  “I understand that you were provoked. Making a man believe he’s being hanged is…well, just not British. And I’ll make that case, but it’s unlikely we’ll be able to get any of the warders to corroborate your side. Dr. Le Fevre has serious concerns that, in your current condition, you will not survive reincarceration.”

  Rowland’s brow furrowed but he said nothing.

  “I know young men are heedlessly brave and reckless with their own lives, but you must realise that if you are convicted, your friends will be implicated. They may even be prosecuted.”

  Rowland eyes darkened. He moved to sit up.

  “I don’t want to distress you, my boy—not in your condition—but I do want you to really consider whether your vendetta against the Germans is worth alienating the only people who may be able to help you now. Randolph’s so-called evidence is circumstantial. With Mr. Yiragowa’s assistance, we can have these charges dropped, at least long enough for you to leave China.”

  Rowland pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes as he tried to think clearly.

  Carmel exhaled. “I don’t know if you are aware of this, but your dear brother Wilfred saved my life twice during the Great War. I consider it my duty and my
privilege to save yours in return. Please…I beg you to allow me to do so.”

  Rowland looked up. The lawyer was emotional, fraught. Rowland shook his head. “Let me talk to my friends…”

  “I’m afraid there is no time for that. I really must urge you to act now. Please, Rowland. I cannot tell Wilfred that I failed to protect you.”

  “You honestly believe selling the Sinclair wool to the Japanese will keep me out of gaol?”

  “I do. I think it’s the only way to proceed. For your sake and that of your friends.”

  Rowland took a deep breath. He glanced at the clock on the wall opposite his bed. Nine in the evening. “Can you draw up a contract by morning?”

  Carmel leaned forward. “Yes, yes, of course.”

  “Draw it up and I’ll sign tomorrow.”

  * * *

  “Where the bloody hell have you been?” Alastair Blanshard was distinctly unhappy.

  “We could ask the same.” Milton was not going to be bullied.

  “Who in God’s name is that?” Blanshard said as a clearly inebriated Russian stumbled through the door with an empty vodka bottle in his hand. “And what is that unholy smell?”

  “The answer to both questions is Sergei Romanov,” Clyde said.

  “God! Has he been hiding in a cesspit?”

  “Perhaps.” Clyde took the empty bottle out of Romanov’s hand. “We’re not going to get anything sensible out of him right now.”

  “Allow me, Mr. Watson Jones.” Wing stepped forward to take Romanov’s arm from Clyde. “A gentleman’s gentleman is experienced in the art of treating excessive consumption and inducing sobriety. Come along, Mr. Romanov.”

  Wing pulled Romanov’s arm over his shoulders and tried to guide his stagger towards the stairs.

  “Allow me to assist you, Mr. Wing.” Singh rolled up his sleeves and took the Russian’s other arm. The stench brought tears to his eyes. “Perhaps we should start by putting him under a shower.”

  Holding his breath, Wing could only nod. Fortunately Romanov’s inebriation had reached a point of compliant stupor, and so they were able to coax him up the stairs.

  Clyde and Milton took Blanshard into the drawing room, telling him quickly about the state in which Rowland had emerged from Ward Road Gaol. Blanshard listened gravely.

  “So Carmel came back?”

  “Yes. We thought you’d used your contacts to fetch him.”

  Blanshard shook his head. “No, my contacts in Nanking couldn’t find him. I did, however, discover the name of the client for whom he was acting. It appears Mr. Carmel also represents Andrew Petty.”

  “Petty? Are you sure?”

  “Petty let it slip himself.”

  Milton swore. “Would Andrew Petty have known about Bertram Middleton?”

  “Carmel might have mentioned it to him.” Clyde checked his watch. It was late, but the lawyer had promised he would not rest until Rowland had been exonerated. Perhaps he was still in the office. “We should ask him. I’ll telephone to let him know we’re on our way.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Rest For Tuberculosis

  I was visiting an ex-heavyweight amateur boxing champion who was a patient in a tuberculosis hospital. He looked so well that I told him he didn’t look like a T.B.

  “Well,” he said, “I am one all right. I’m lying on my back for a year, then sitting up for six months, then up and around the grounds for another six months, and then home.”

  He was not only a good fighter or boxer, but he loved to fight, and yet he was willing to remain absolutely quiet for two years in order to get well.

  …It is rest that allows the protecting scar tissue to form slowly yet surely.

  When rest by simply lying down is not sufficient to allow the protecting wall to form, then other means of resting the lung—cutting the nerve that moves lung, injecting air into the pleural cavity in which the lung lies—may be used.

  However, for the great majority of patients, simply resting for long period brings about the cure.

  —Northern Star, 21 January 1935

  * * *

  Le Fevre snapped shut the doctor’s bag as Edna walked into the room.

  “Mademoiselle Higgins. I’ve just given Monsieur Sinclair a sedative to help him sleep. I’m afraid he will not be lively company, but rest is vital to his recovery.”

  Edna smiled. “I might just sit with him till he drifts off.” She smoothed the covers on Rowland’s bed. He mumbled a drowsy greeting. “How is he?” she asked Le Fevre.

  “Quite unwell,” Le Fevre said disapprovingly. “It’s imperative he rests.” The physician regarded her almost accusingly.

  “Of course. I won’t stay more than a couple of minutes. And I won’t say a word.”

  “I shall return tomorrow morning. He should sleep till then.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Le Fevre.”

  “Good night, Mademoiselle.” The physician tipped his hat and walked out. Edna waited until his footsteps faded before she closed the door. She relaxed a little. There was something about Le Fevre that unnerved her.

  “Rowly!” she said, startled to find him sitting up when she turned from the door.

  He moved his finger to his lips and beckoned her over. Opening his hand he showed her the pills Le Fevre believed him to have swallowed.

  “Oh Rowly, you have to take your medication,” she whispered.

  “I haven’t got tuberculosis, Ed. Just a bit of a chest cold. Do you know where my clothes are?”

  “Why?”

  “We have to get out of here, and I really don’t want to walk the streets of Shanghai in my pyjamas.”

  “What? Rowly, be reasonable. You’re ill.”

  “Ed.” He took her hand. “Le Fevre is a fraud, a charlatan.”

  She tested his forehead for a fever, some cause of delirium. He was warm but not particularly so.

  “Rowly, you’ve been so ill. You don’t know what you’re saying.”

  “I’m not that ill. This diagnosis of tuberculosis is positively absurd.”

  Edna clasped his face between her hands and spoke slowly. “You’re not a doctor; Le Fevre is.”

  “He hasn’t so much as taken my temperature, Ed. He’s done nothing but sedate me!”

  “Perhaps he is experienced enough to tell without a thermometer…and darling, he’s just trying to keep you quiet so you get the rest you need.”

  “There’s nothing but a revolver in that bag of his—I got a glimpse of it when he was pretending to examine me.”

  Edna stared at him. “A gun?”

  He nodded. “And nothing else.”

  She exhaled slowly. “Right then. Mr. Carmel told us he was a specialist…”

  Rowland took her hands from his face and pressed them to his lips. “I’m not entirely sure what Carmel is up to, what Le Fevre’s told him. He seems convinced that unless I deal with the Japanese, I’ll die in prison. I’ve told him to draw up an agreement, that I’ll sign it.”

  “But—”

  “I don’t intend to go through with it, Ed.” He stood carefully. “I just needed him to leave, so we could leave.” Though he still felt quite weak, he was sure on his feet. “Perhaps you should leave first, Ed. You’re not a patient. You could tell them you were meeting someone for dinner and just leave—”

  The sculptress shook her head. “I made such a fuss about staying with you, they’d be suspicious. And I’m not leaving you, anyway.” She opened the cupboard and took out the dark grey suit and freshly laundered shirt they’d brought in when Rowland was admitted, though they hadn’t expected him to need them for several days. Rowland changed as quickly as he could. It was possible that one of the “nurses” would come in to check if Le Fevre’s pills had taken effect.

  Edna helped him slip on his shirt, still shocked by
the black bruises which covered his back and shoulders. He’d still not told them what had happened to him. She wasn’t sure he ever would.

  “How do you feel?” she asked, studying him anxiously. Whether or not he had tuberculosis, he had been ill when they’d collected him from Ward Road. She buttoned his shirt gently, being careful not to pull the fabric against his injuries. “I’m not sure you’re well enough to do this.”

  Rowland pulled a handkerchief out of his back pocket and turned away to cough. “It’s a chest cold,” he said when the paroxysm finally abated. “If we were in Sydney, you’d tell me to quit complaining and stop being such a baby.” He ran his hand through his hair in a vague attempt to tidy it.

  Edna helped him with his tie and then his jacket before she turned off the light and opened the curtain to look out. “So how are we going to do this?”

  “Le Fevre believes he’s sedated me, and convinced you that I’m dangerously ill. He probably won’t have expected us to try and walk out. With any luck, the night staff will be taken by surprise and not know what to do.”

  Edna looked at him sceptically. “You want to just walk out?”

  “I don’t think there’s any other way.”

  “We could get a message to Milt and Clyde, or the police.” Edna was not fooled by his refusal to bend to pain. “They’re going to try to stop us, and you’re in no condition to fight or even run.”

  There was a movement of light at the window. Rowland looked out to see Carmel’s Packard come through the gate. The chauffeur got out and opened the rear door. Looking down on the dimly lit garden, it took Rowland a few moments to recognise the gentlemen who climbed out with his lawyer: Yiragowa and Akhito. Le Fevre emerged from the front passenger seat, and the party proceeded briskly into Denville Sanatorium. “What the devil are they doing here?”

  Edna took his hand. Any doubts that he was completely lucid were long allayed. Rowland’s manner was urgent, but there was nothing fevered or hysterical about it. “What now, Rowly?”

  Rowland opened the door. They could hear Carmel and his guests below. He beckoned Edna out into the hallway and closed the door after her. Rowland scanned the long corridor. All the doors along it were closed. They tried each in turn. Loudening footsteps on the stairs counted down the time. All but Edna’s room were locked. They slipped into it. A poor hiding place but their only option. Rowland hoped it might give them enough time to slip past.