by Holly Baxter
Before Mrs. Logie could speak, Elodie held out the piece of paper with the Chinese characters on it. “They want Suzy’s jade or Father Anselm and General Cohen will be killed.”
“Who are ‘they’?” Still Mr. Lee did not seem particularly upset, although Elodie thought she saw his hands tremble briefly.
“Ming dao.” Elodie’s voice was overlaid by Mrs. Logie’s flat tones.
“It’s Harry,” she said, at the same time.
Mr. Lee slowly straightened up. He was wearing another Chinese robe, much plainer than those framed above him, in a deep azure blue. Its embroidery was simple and limited to the cuffs of the wide sleeves. Rather incongruously, Mr. Lee was also wearing a pair of plain white cotton gloves. They gave an almost clownlike contrast to the robe, for they were a little too big and the fingers flopped over at the ends. Mr. Lee stared at the two women and then he focused on Mrs. Logie.
“Impossible.”
“She saw him. She described him perfectly.” Mrs. Logie took a deep breath and almost whispered. “She saw the scar on his hand.”
Mr. Lee hissed something in Chinese, and his face was a mixture of disbelief and fear. “He is a Communist? Ming dao?”
“Apparently,” Mrs. Logie said. “They are holding the general and the priest.”
“You have twenty-four hours to bring the jade here.” Again Elodie held out the bit of paper. Slowly Mr. Lee came around the end of the table and took the paper from her.
“I do not know this place.” He looked at Elodie. “But you are familiar to me. Why?”
Elodie reminded him of the party where Webster had been killed and where she had been both waitress and witness. “This morning I was speaking to Father Anselm and General Cohen when three Chinese men came to take them away. They made me go, too, even though Father Anselm said I was just one of his students.”
“And are you?” Mr. Lee reached out a gloved hand and leaned on the table behind him for support. One of the old boxes almost fell off, and Mrs. Logie stepped forward quickly to steady it. Mr. Lee ignored her, his full concentration now on Elodie.
“No. I was there because of ming dao. I mean, the words ming dao—Mr. Webster said them before he died, and I was…curious.” She explained about going to the library and Mr. Evans’ suggestion that she speak to Father Anselm if she wanted to know more about China. “So I made an appointment and went to see him.”
“But…why should you do this?” Lee was puzzled—so much so that he seemed to have forgotten the paper in his hand.
“At first it was just curiosity. I’m a writer, you see. Words interest me.”
“But surely that’s not enough…Webster was killed for those words.”
“Yes, I realized that. But the guard shooting him seemed to be intentional. So at first it was just a mystery, you see. A puzzle. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. It was interfering with my work—I just had to find out what it was all about. And then they killed Bernice. She was my friend, and I got very angry.”
Lee was amazed. “You are a very unusual young woman.”
“A very foolish young woman.” Mrs. Logie’s voice was harsh. “You’re lucky they let you go.”
Elodie would have laughed if she wasn’t still so scared. “I told them they should deliver the message themselves. If they had, I wouldn’t be here. But he believed I was just a silly girl student, so he used me. He threatened me, and my family, too.”
“Harry could never understand women,” Mr. Lee said. “Even Helen—” He paused and glanced at Mrs. Logie. “Helen.”
Mrs. Logie nodded. “I always said she was in love with him. You refused to believe me.”
“If I had sent Helen…”
“You sent Bernice. And she recognized him. I think that’s why he killed her.” Elodie spoke sadly, wishing she could sit down and just have a good cry. Every bone in her body ached. “He didn’t want you to know he was here.”
“He hates me.” Mr. Lee spoke bitterly. “The feeling is mutual, but he is my son. From the beginning he was not like the others. Always cruel, always without conscience. My two older children are good children, they have made me proud. But their mother is dead. Harry was—”
“Harry is mine.” Mrs. Logie spoke softly. “God help me, he is mine.”
Mr. Lee glanced toward the woman who acted as his housekeeper. His expression softened, and for a moment he seemed younger, remembering. “My first wife was an invalid for many years. Harriet was a kind and gentle nurse, and I came to love her. A child was born. Then, when my wife died, we married.” Lee’s eyes suddenly glittered with tears. “But for many reasons, we never made the marriage public.”
“It was my choice,” said Mrs. Logie. “I thought it would make business with China difficult if they knew he had a child by a white woman and married her. I was wrong. Harry always felt it was because we were ashamed of him. It…turned him.”
Mr. Lee briefly laid a white-gloved hand on her arm. His touch was gentle, affectionate. “It was not that. Something in him was bad from the very beginning.” He looked back at Elodie. “My ancestors were not always…”
Mrs. Logie—or Mrs. Lee as she really was—put her hand over his. “He is what he is. Evil has its own life to live—it finds homes where it can.”
Elodie stood listening to all this, sorry for them, sorry for everything, but there was little time for sorrow or regrets now. “He might really kill them, then?”
“Harry never made idle threats.” Mrs. Logie stepped back from her husband, but spoke earnestly to him. “You have to hand over the jade.”
Mr. Lee looked bleak. “That is no guarantee he won’t kill them. The General works for Chiang Kai Shek and the priest supports his government. If you hadn’t recognized Harry, Miss Browne, I might have believed handing over the jade to ming dao would save them. But now I cannot. Harry will make sure they die—to shame me.”
***
It was getting late. Archie had poured enough real coffee into Hugh and Drew to sober them up. If anything, it had made them feel worse.
“What about a missing person report?” Hugh asked, his face lighting up.
Archie shook his head. “They haven’t been missing long enough.”
“Oh.”
They were in Archie’s car, watching the street lights come on. The speakeasy they had been in was on a busy street, but the rush hour had passed. They were parked in front of a barber’s shop, and within they could see an elderly man sweeping up the hair that had fallen to the floor during the day. Either he wasn’t too enthusiastic about his job, or he was spinning it out to last as long as possible. Drew stared at him, fascinated.
“Do you suppose he has a method?” He spoke to no one in particular. “Like blonde hair first, then red, then brown? Or maybe—”
“Can it, Wilson.” Archie was still angry at the two of them. He started the engine.
“Where are we going?” Hugh asked.
“Back to the beginning.” Archie waited a moment for a car to pass, then pulled out. A few minutes later they were back on Addison Avenue.
The ground floor windows of St. John’s House were alight, but only one or two on the floor above. Archie rang the bell and waited. Eventually the door opened and a priest stood there. He had a napkin in his hand. “Yes?”
“I’d like to speak to the man in charge, please.”
“We’re having our evening meal—” the priest began, with an apologetic smile. He was middle-aged and graying, not the young one they had spoken to earlier.
“This is important.” Archie’s smile was not apologetic. “A matter of life or death.” He reached into his jacket and produced his badge.
“Oh, if it’s a matter of a sick call—”
“It’s not. Please—the man in charge.”
The priest frowned. “This is a purely domiciliary establishment.” When that produced only puzzlement on the three faces before him, he relented. “Well, our most seni
or resident is Father James, and he deals with housekeeping and so on.”
“He’ll do.” Archie stepped forward, causing the priest to step back. “Well, you can wait in here.” He indicated the lounge. “I’ll get him.” He started away, then turned back. “He won’t like missing dessert. He’s very fond of—”
“Keep it for him.” Archie was on the verge of shouting but managed to keep his voice even.
Drew suddenly spoke up. “Do you know Father Anselm?”
“Why, yes, of course.”
“Do you want him to be killed?”
The man’s face went white. “Dear Lord—”
“Just get your Father James, please.” Archie took hold of Drew’s arm and dragged him into the lounge as the young priest scuttled off. He pushed Drew into a chair. “You didn’t need to say that.”
“Oh, yes, I did.” Drew was unrepentant. “After his dessert this Father James would want his coffee, then his cigar, then a prayer or two. These people take the long view of life. All in God’s good time.”
“That’s unfair.” Hugh sounded resentful.
“It’s common sense. I don’t say it’s wrong.” Drew was still just drunk enough to be philosophical. “Just that you have to goose them to get them moving.”
“It seems to have worked.” Archie had seen an elderly priest hurrying toward them. White-haired and limping slightly, he leaned on an black cane and looked upset. He came into the lounge and glared at them.
“What’s all this about Anselm?” he demanded. “What’s the damn fool gotten himself into this time?” Hugh indicated a chair and the priest sat down impatiently. “Well?”
“This morning a young woman came to see Father Anselm—” Archie began.
“One of his students. They’re always taking up his free time.”
Hugh spoke up. “Not quite. She was my cousin, Elodie Browne. She was interested in finding out something about China. It concerned a group called ming dao—”
“Means nothing to me.” Father James was dismissive. “Anselm is the China expert. I myself know more about Poland. Father William was in Mexico. We house mostly priests in transit here. Father Anselm is one of our few permanent residents.”
“Yes, well, while they were talking another man joined them—”
“Probably Cohen. Go on.”
“Who’s Cohen?” Archie leaned forward suddenly. “Not a priest, surely, with that name.”
Father James managed a smile. “No. General Cohen, from China. Two-Gun Cohen they call him. Sounds like a gangster, but a very nice man, very interesting. Anselm was very proud to have him here as a guest. Go on, go on.” The elderly priest’s eyes went toward the hallway down which he had arrived, obviously wondering what was happening to his dessert in his absence.
“Three Chinese men joined them, and then they all left together, rather quickly. We think they’ve been kidnapped.”
“Nonsense.”
“We don’t think so. We think they are all in serious danger. We have to find them as quickly as possible.”
The old man finally gave them his full attention. “You told Father Peter that Anselm could be killed.”
“Yes.” They all spoke at once.
Father James closed his eyes for a moment and his lips moved slightly. When he finished his prayer he clutched at the top of his cane and stared at them sadly. “The Chinese. It’s the Chinese, you say.”
“That’s right. Possibly a secret society. They have killed already, and could easily kill again.”
“All right—I can see why they might want General Cohen, he might be worth a ransom. I gather he’s someone quite important in China. But why Anselm? And why this young girl?”
“Wrong place, wrong time.”
The old man’s face went a little grey and he slumped in his chair. Hugh leapt up and went to him, but he was waved away. “I’m all right.” He felt in a pocket of his cassock and produced a small box, from which he extracted a pill and placed it under his tongue. After a moment he seemed a little better. “I can’t see what I can do for you. This is so bizarre…”
“Do you have any idea where they might have been taken?”
He shook his head. “No, no, of course not. Chinatown, presumably. But—”
“Yes…but.” Archie understood the “but” only too well. Chinatown was another world within Chicago, secretive, complex. Quite beyond the big city’s corruption, it had its own wars, its own crimes, its own sins, and its own innocents. Telling them apart was the problem. In both worlds.
Father James rubbed his right knee absently, then suddenly brightened. “I believe I can help you. Or, rather, I know a man who probably can help you. He’s Anselm’s closest friend in the Chinese community, and if anyone knows what’s going on, he does. Here—give me a bit of paper.” Drew produced a notebook and tore out a page, passing it with a pencil to Father James, who with some difficulty wrote down a name and address. “Dr. Tsung, his name is. I remember, because he sent me something for my arthritis. It tasted dreadful, but it did ease the pain.” He handed the paper to Archie.
Staring down at the paper, Archie felt a small leap of hope. At last, a way in. Please, God, let this Dr. Tsung not be a man of polite bows, smiles, and lies. If he is Anselm’s friend, let him help us. He suddenly realized he was praying, and was startled at himself. It had to be the atmosphere in this place, he thought. All these holy pictures, all these dog collars. He realized Father James was looking at him and smiling sympathetically.
“Don’t worry, my son. God listens to everyone.” His rheumy eyes went to Drew. “Especially to sinners.”
Drew stared back at him, expressionless. “Lucky for us, then,” he said.
***
“But you have to!” Elodie held out her hands in supplication. “He gave you twenty-four hours.”
“He gave me nothing,” Lee Chang said. “And I have a buyer, a museum in Philadelphia. If the General dies I will get the money back to China somehow. I am a man of honor. I said I would raise the money and I will. The General will understand.”
“But can’t you at least try?” Elodie’s voice cracked. “The priest will die, too.”
“The priest knew what he was doing.” Lee was looking more stubborn by the minute. He had gone back around the table and resumed packing, placing things carefully in correspondingly shaped pockets in the boxes.
“What is Suzy’s jade? Is it so valuable? Is it worth men’s lives?”
“T’zu-hsi.” He corrected her pronunciation. “When the old Empire fell, many pieces were looted from the Imperial Palace. The private personal collection of the Dowager Empress completely disappeared. It was unique. See for yourself.” Lee straightened and indicated the box in front of him. Elodie came around the table and stared down.
It was the chess set, one piece of which had been in the photograph held in Bernice’s dead hand. It was not like anything else in the room. It was modern and it was astonishing. The pieces were either a deep gleaming black or a pale ghostly white. Each piece was set in a base of gold shaped like some strange plant with tendrils that curled up the sides of the carved jade. She reached out a tentative finger and touched the largest of the black pieces. The King seemed to draw her hand to pick it up. Next to the chess set was a set of pink jade cups with a matching larger vessel—all heavily carved in the old style, but set in silver mounts full of curls and whorls in the style called Art Nouveau.
“She took much of the old and made it new.” Lee Chang spoke quietly, fingering what appeared to be an elaborate gold and dark green jade tiara. “This was to be worn to the Court of the English Queen Victoria, but the visit was never made. To create it she destroyed a perfect T’ang horse. Fine Imperial quality jade is getting more rare by the day, now. She would choose only the best.” He reached into a very small box and withdrew a female figure, the lines smooth and flowing. He placed it in her hand. “Some old pieces she revered. This is one of the ‘lost’
Ch’ien Lung pieces. Hold it, feel it.” It was cool and smooth, the color the palest green with streaks of darker green that the carver had worked into the lines of the woman’s robe. There was a barely discernable but intricate pattern incised in the robe of the figure, and Elodie thought it must be the goddess Kwan Yin again.
Her fingers involuntarily closed around the small figure, her thumb stroked the smooth graceful lines. It was cool, so cool, and so satisfying to hold. “It’s so simple, and yet…” She couldn’t find the words.
Lee Chang smiled at her. “Be careful. You could be seduced by the stone.” When she looked up at him, puzzled, he nodded. “They call it ‘jade madness.’ In the past twenty years or so it has ensnared many Westerners. T’zu-hsi had it, too. Look.” He reached for a square box, and lifted the lid. Within lay the most beautiful things Elodie had ever seen. Two butterflies. One in gold and one in silver or platinum, each with outspread wings set with many tiny cabochons of jade in different colors, and detailed in diamonds and pearls. The gold work was again in the sinuous, sensual style of Art Nouveau. It was simply incredible. She longed to see what was in the other boxes.
Mrs. Logie had been silent through all this, but now she spoke up. “Chang,” she said, softly. “The General and the priest are good men. Their ghosts will not leave you. They will be waiting for you when you yourself die.”
“Thousands could die if the Kuomintang government does not get its money.” Lee spoke a little too loudly, a little too fast, but his voice wavered at the end. “Yet another civil war is coming.”
“That would not be on your head, but on the heads of Chiang Kai Shek and others who will make decisions, wrong or right. This is in your hands. Here and now.”
“The museum—”
“No, Chang.” Her voice remained soft, but it seemed sharp enough to pierce him. He was silent.
Elodie had been looking at a clock on the table, and suddenly realized it was not just an ornament but was keeping what was probably the right time. Nineteen hours left. And she should have been home long ago.