by Holly Baxter
“We should call the police.” Mrs. Logie seemed to have come to a decision. “You have the address there in your hand. Send them there. They will release the General and the priest and you will still have your jade to sell.”
Elodie agreed. She wanted to call Archie. Archie would know what to do. The man outside couldn’t see what she was doing, he wouldn’t know. But first she wanted to call home, to hear her mother’s reassuring tones, and to warn them to be careful. In her mind echoed Harry Lee’s threat to her family as well as herself. There might be people watching her house even now. “First I have to call home,” she said, quickly. “Then we can call the police.”
“The police will kill my son.” Lee’s voice rose, thin and high. “He is evil, but he is my son.”
“He is my son, too, and I say let him die.” Mrs. Logie’s face was set. “If he lives his evil will go on and on and on. Let there be an end to it.”
“Please.” Elodie looked from one to the other. “Let me call home and warn them.”
“We’ll have to go back to the house, there’s no phone here.” Mrs. Logie knocked on the outer door and they heard the bolt slide back. The guard opened the door and looked in.
“We’re going back to the house.” She glanced back at Mr. Lee. “All of us.”
He opened his mouth as if to protest, then his shoulders slumped. He came around the table with a lingering glance at the jade, then followed them down the long glass passage to the house. They heard the guard close the treasure house door and lock it.
Mrs. Logie led them straight to Lee’s library and indicated the phone. She seemed, suddenly, to be in charge. Mr. Lee just slumped into a chair and stared down at his black satin slippers. Slowly, finger by finger, he drew off the white cotton gloves.
Elodie rang her home number. After a minute, Alyce answered. “Browne residence.”
“Alyce, let me speak to Mumma.”
“She’s next door, Mrs. Morgan isn’t very well. Where are you, Ellie? It’s so late. We were worried…”
“I’ve been…delayed.” She couldn’t tell Alyce any of this, she’d burst with foolish excitement, run to the neighbors, terrify everyone. It was Thursday. Ellie took a deep breath, and thought of Maybelle, sitting in her chair and eating pickles while she read the latest novel and let her hair dry. “Is Maybelle there?”
“Yeees…just a minute.” She could tell Alyce was disappointed. After a moment, Maybelle’s clear and amused tones came down the line.
“Don’t tell me you’re out with that policeman again.”
“No. Listen—I’m at Mr. Lee’s house and there’s trouble. You must get Mumma back. You must all stay in the house and keep the shades drawn.”
“What on earth…”
“No. Listen. You might all be in danger. You have to believe me, May. It has to do with jade and Bernice getting killed and…honestly, it’s really true. You have to trust me and do what I say.”
“All right. I believe you.” Maybelle knew when to argue and when to listen. Silently, Elodie blessed her. Maybelle’s voice sharpened. “What about you?”
“I’m all right at the moment, but I have to stay where I am. I’m going to hang up now, and call Archie. He’s—” There was an odd sound and the phone went dead. She looked at Mr. Lee and Mrs. Logie. “The phone…”
Mrs. Logie came across and took the phone and receiver from her. She rattled the hook on the side of the phone again and again. Then she slowly replaced the receiver and put the phone down. “It’s dead. Your man outside must have cut the line.”
Elodie sat down hard on the nearest chair.
Harry Lee had told the truth. She was being watched.
There was no way to get help now.
Chapter Twenty-two
At the Browne residence, the doorbell rang.
Before Maybelle could stop her, Alyce went to the door and opened it. A strange woman stood there, wearing a bright orange coat and a peculiar hat with leaves and a big fake orange on it. Her shoes were orange, too, and Maybelle knew immediately that she had paid a great deal for her outfit, because looking so outrageous in these hard times was expensive. As it was, the hat, coat and shoes were wet, which did them and the woman herself no favors. It had started to rain about ten minutes before, just as Maybelle returned from fetching Mrs. Browne from next door.
Ever since, Maybelle had been on the telephone, trying to re-establish the broken connection to Ellie. The operator said there was a fault on the line.
“Hello, dear.” The woman in the doorway smiled at Alyce. “May I come in? My name is Sal Schultz. I work with your sister.”
“Come in, come in.” Maybelle put the phone down and came across the room. Maybe this odd-looking woman knew something about what was going on.
“Thank you.” Sal came in. Behind her, Alyce stood staring.
“Alyce, close the door and lock it.” Maybelle snapped.
Startled, Alyce did as she was told, then came back into the room. Remembering her manners, she spoke hesitantly. “Umm—may I take your coat?”
“Yes, thank you, I’m wet through.” Sal shrugged off the coat, revealing a lime green dress that was too tight for her. Even in its stretched and distended state Maybelle recognized it—they had featured it in the January issue. Sal handed the coat to Alyce, who blinked at the clash of colors.
Maybelle held out her hand. “I’m Ellie’s sister, Maybelle. That’s Alyce. Please sit down—I’ll get my mother. She’s in the kitchen.”
Sal’s grip was firm but brief. “Ellie’s not here, then?”
“No. I just had a telephone call from her.”
Sal froze halfway down into an armchair. “She called here?”
“Yes. She—”
“Thank God, she’s still alive, then.” Sal completed her descent into the armchair with a thump and a grateful sigh.
“What?” demanded Alyce. “What did you say?” Her big brown eyes looked even bigger as her face grew pale. She looked from the older woman to her sister. “What does she mean, ‘still alive’? May? What’s going on?”
“Honey, I wish I knew. Go get Mumma and Marie, would you?”
Maybelle watched her go though the dining room, then leaned closer to Sal. “She said she was at Mr. Lee’s and was going to call Archie, but then we were cut off.”
“At Mr. Lee’s?” Sal was startled. “Are the others with her, too?”
“What others?”
“The priest and some other man named Cohen. Drew rang me and said they had all been kidnapped together. He was going down to Chinatown with Ellie’s cousin and Archie to find them.”
“She didn’t say anything about anyone else. Is Archie that policeman Ellie doesn’t like? You mean the police already know about this?”
Sal looked evasive. “Well, not exactly. And she does like him, by the way, she just doesn’t realize it yet.”
“But we have to call the police right away.” Maybelle started to get up.
Sal reached out to stop her. “They tried that. The police don’t believe them, and Archie is afraid of calling in the police because…”
“But he must. They have to search…”
Sal shook her head. “They don’t know where to start. They aren’t even sure they’re in Chinatown. And apparently there’s some connection with…” Sal stopped, and eyed Maybelle, assessing her. She was beautiful but seemed to have a brain. “With the Syndicates. At least, Archie thinks so. He doesn’t trust the police at the moment, and I guess he knows what he’s talking about. I told Drew I would come here and explain, but you seem to know more than I do.”
“Only that Ellie isn’t in Chinatown.” Maybelle thought for a minute. “The others might be, I suppose. But how did she get away if they were kidnapped?”
“Kidnapped!?!” Mrs. Browne had come up as they were speaking, with Alyce and Marie right behind her. “Ellie has been kidnapped?” She glared at Maybelle. “You didn’t tell m
e?”
Maybelle looked up. “With a priest and another man.”
“Where is she?” Mrs. Browne was obviously torn between fear and outrage.
Maybelle cleared her throat and glanced at Sal. “She’s at that Mr. Lee’s house.”
“Well, then, we must go and get her.” Mrs. Browne was galvanized. “Alyce, Marie, get your coats, it’s raining…”
“No!” Maybelle had to shout to get through to her mother, who was bustling about with great purpose. “Ellie said we must stay here. I told you. She said we were in danger.”
“You never mentioned danger. You just said she was going to be late. You said something about her being worried about us. I thought you meant because of the storm warning on the radio. Now you tell me she’s with that Mr. Lee. Which is it?” Mrs. Browne was not going to be dissuaded easily from her rescue mission.
“She said…” Maybelle swallowed. “She said it had to do with Bernice and jade or something. She was serious, Mumma. She meant us to just stay here and wait.”
“But Bernice is dead!” Alyce said, in a gasp.
“Exactly.” Sal looked at each one in turn. “Exactly.”
“My stars, I don’t know what to think.” Mrs. Browne sat down on the hassock that stood in front of the late Mr. Browne’s favorite chair, which Sal had inadvertently chosen. Mrs. Browne suddenly seemed to see her for the first time. “Do I know you?”
“It’s Sal Schultz, Mumma,” Maybelle explained. “She writes for the radio with Ellie and…” She paused and looked at Sal.
“Drew Wilson. He’s with Hugh and Archie now, looking for Ellie and the others.”
“Hugh? Hugh knows about all this?” Mrs. Browne didn’t know where to put herself she was so agitated. Marie came over and put her hands on her mother’s shoulders, and Mrs. Browne reached up to touch them for reassurance. Alyce was nearly beside herself with excitement.
“Wow! Kidnappers and Chinamen and…it’s all like Fu Manchu!”
Sal looked at her with sympathy. “That’s make believe, Alyce. This is real, I’m afraid.”
But Alyce seemed unable to take that in. Her eyes were bright and her cheeks had red blotches on them. “It’s so…so…crazy!”
“We’ve gotten so accustomed to crime and death and sin in this city even the children can’t tell the difference. It’s not healthy. You’re not to listen to that kind of thing anymore, Alyce.” Mrs. Browne tried to invoke the only kind of order she knew, but her voice carried little conviction. The admonition was, as always, automatic, as she tried to come to terms with the situation that had suddenly erupted into their quiet and ordinary lives. She had always felt bad things only happened to bad girls, was confident her girls were unlikely to fall prey to the sins of the big city. No illegal drink, no bad company, no wicked behavior was ever going to touch any of them, least of all Ellie, who was so serious, who worked so hard.
Yet now, out of the blue, they were in the midst of something even more bizarre than Mr. Capone and his crooked associates had ever dreamt up. She honestly could have taken news that Ellie had been caught in a raid on a speakeasy, or in some gambling den. That was all too familiar ground these days. But this—
“She was just playing, you know,” Mrs. Browne suddenly said. “Just playing detective.”
“Like Nancy Drew.” Alyce nodded, as if this were, in fact, what any red-blooded American girl would do, given the stimulus of a man shot dead in front of her at some weird party. Why, it was just what Alyce herself would have done, too!
“All right.” Mrs. Browne drew herself up, folded her hands in her lap, and looked at Sal. “Tell me from the beginning. I want to know just how bad all this is.”
***
It was a small shop on the corner of Wentworth and 18th Street. The elevated trains ran nearby, filling the night air with their clatter. Chinatown stayed up late, for the streets were still busy. The address was correct by number, but all the legends on the windows were solely in Chinese. They entered, and were immediately assailed by a thousand scents. The walls were covered with hundreds of little glass-fronted drawers. Behind each glass panel could be seen different colored lumps of various substances, twisted roots, little twigs, powders, granules, even small white bones. The air was suffused with bitter and sweet, spicy and sharp, smells of all kinds both pleasant and extremely unpleasant. No one was in the shop, but strange music could be heard from the back, flutes and some plucked string instrument.
Hugh spotted a bell on the main counter and rang it. Almost immediately curtains in the rear wall parted and a small Chinese man of indeterminate age appeared. He could have been forty or four hundred and he was everybody’s idea of a Chinaman—his hair was in a queue, he wore a small black cap, and he was dressed in a long robe with wide sleeves that concealed his crossed hands. His face was wrinkled but benign. He bowed.
“Nin hao.” Archie spoke one of the few Chinese words he knew outside of menus. “You are Dr. Tsung?”
“I am. You require medicine?”
“No, thank you. We come on behalf of Father Anselm.”
Tsung’s manner immediately became more friendly. He smiled, revealing small teeth, four of them gold. “And how is the good father?” he asked.
“He is in serious trouble.” Hugh’s voice was impatient. “We need help for him.”
Dr. Tsung frowned. “But how can I help?”
“It’s Chinese trouble,” Drew said. “Ming dao trouble.”
Dr. Tsung closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them. They were as dark as obsidian, and filled with pain. “I feared this.” He gestured for them to follow him and went back through the curtains. Archie, Hugh and Drew exchanged glances, then followed the little man into another world.
Archie recognized it as a smaller version of Lee Chang’s bedroom, but without the bed itself. The colors were blue and green rather than red, but the furniture was similar, as were the hangings and pictures on the wall, but it lacked the clutter of Lee’s many personal treasures. Surfaces were plain, free of any objects save for a small blue and white porcelain bowl containing three oranges.
Tsung crossed to a modern Victrola and lifted the arm from the spinning record, silencing the plaintive melody of the flutes. “Sit, please.” When they had complied he, too, sat and looked at each one in turn, his gaze finally settling on Archie. “Tell, please.”
Archie spoke briefly and to the point, summing up what had happened as far as they understood it. Tsung nodded and nodded. When Archie had finished, Tsung sighed.
“The ming dao arrived in Chicago about six months ago. They immediately began pressuring our people to support the Communist cause. Many of us had relatives still in China, and they promised retribution if we did not comply. What Mr. Capone calls ‘protection,’ I believe?”
The others nodded in turn. Mr. Capone sold protection from Mr. Capone himself. Pay up or suffer the consequences. All too familiar to anyone in Chicago these days.
“Alternatively they offered assistance in bringing family members over here—depending on how much one could pay. There was little choice between them. Either way worked. Those that resisted—” he paused.
“Had their heads cut off?” Archie supplied.
Tsung nodded. “That was one thing they did. They also have been instrumental in greatly increasing the smuggling of opium into this country. It is the other coin in which they trade.”
“And what has that got to do with General Cohen and Father Anselm?”
A brief smile flickered in the corners of Dr. Tsung’s mouth. “Two-Gun Cohen. A remarkable man. He was very close to Dr. Sun.”
“Dr. Sun?” asked Hugh, who was not as familiar with China as he was with Cicero, Illinois—an equally foreign country with equally complex politics.
“Sun Yat Sen,” Drew said.
“A great man.” Tsung’s voice was reverent. “Sadly let down by the very countries he most admired, America and Britain. Cohen was his pr
otector, his advisor, his go-between. Now he does the same for Chiang Kai Shek, who fights to maintain those ideals but who is being undermined by Russia, Japan, even Germany. It was Cohen who brought T’zu-hsi’s jade here to sell so he could buy arms for Chiang’s Kuomintang government. How Chiang and Cohen got it is a mystery, but there was talk of a raid on the pirates of Bias Bay.”
“Pirates?” Hugh was astounded. “Pirates?” He could hardly believe his ears and had visions of Long John Silver in his three-cornered hat and peg leg.
“Piracy is still very much in evidence in China,” Dr. Tsung explained. “We are moving very too quickly from a feudal system to modern politics, much like Russia. These things normally happen gradually, but now men like Lenin for Communism and Dr. Sun for democracy try to jump the intervening stages. Anomalies remain—things become confused.”
“You’re telling me,” Hugh breathed.
Dr. Tsung nodded. “I am trying to, young man. As I said, the ming dao represent the worst aspects of Communism. When they got word that Father Anselm had brought T’zu-hsi’s jade from San Francisco to Chicago, they wanted the money it would bring for their cause rather than for the republicans.”
“Cohen brought it into the country but Father Anselm brought it here?”
“The General had business in Canada,” Dr. Tsung said. “I had not realized he had come down to Chicago so quickly.”
“How did the ming dao hear about the jade?” Archie asked.
Dr. Tsung gently waved his fingers. “A woman, I believe. It is often a woman. That has not changed.”
“So the ming dao have now kidnapped Anselm and Cohen in order to force Lee to surrender the jade?”
“That would seem to be so.” Dr. Tsung looked very sad. “I do not know Lee Chang very well. I do not know what he will do.”
“Where would they be holding Anselm, Cohen and the girl?” asked Archie.
Tsung frowned. “I have no idea. They could be here in Chinatown, but equally they could be anywhere in the city—even the suburbs. You see—” He paused. “This is very hard for me to say. Not only do the ming dao espouse Communism. I told you about the opium.” The others nodded. “There is new interest in opium outside of Chinatown, now. Great interest. Not as opium, I believe, but refined into a drug much more powerful than cocaine, which is so popular among the young at the moment. More powerful in effect and addiction, therefore more powerful in terms of social degradation, which the ming dao want, and much more powerful in terms of money.”