SIXTEEN
The Ho Teh Road was a squalid, unlit thoroughfare of decayed, ricketty buildings, mostly private dwellings of an exceedingly doubtful-looking character with a handful of shops here and there, shops that were still open, hopefully but without custom, their seedy proprietors sitting motionless behind their wares, beneath the usual banner signs hanging from the upper storeys. The tops of the crumbling buildings seemed to touch overhead to shut out the clusters of friendly stars. There was a curious, almost overpowering smell, compounded of rotting vegetables and human sweat, and probably opium and many other things besides. Shaw was deposited at the door of Mi Ling’s establishment, where he paid off the ricksha and for a moment watched the coolie as he turned and ran his vehicle back into more auspicious surroundings. Mi Ling’s was a crummy-looking place, with rotting shutters and peeling paintwork, set a little back from the line of the other buildings. A sound of tinny music came to Shaw’s ears as he walked past a muscular custodian and pushed open the swing door. He stepped into an entrance hall and found that the outside appearance of Mi Ling’s was, to say the least, deceptive.
The floor of this hall was of mosaic tiles of brilliant colouring; around the walls, in niches, were set figures of men and women, the women mostly naked, the men old and venerably bearded . . . it was symbolic of something, that juxtaposition, Shaw fancied, and it probably set the tone of Mi Ling’s . . . some of the figures were made of compressed silk by a process known only to an older generation of Chinese, others were of purest jade. They must have been worth a small fortune in any man’s currency. The air was filled with an erotic incense, a warm, heady pervasion that seemed to be wafting through grilles set in the walls. As Shaw looked around with interest, a door opened behind a screen. There was evidently some system of warning when anyone entered from the street— not surprisingly, in view of those jade and silk figures. A tall Chinese, a waiter, came through, bowing low as he saw the Englishman.
Politely he asked, “Mr. Smith?”
Shaw nodded. “Correct. I’m expecting a lady. . . .”
“The lady is already here, master, and is waiting for you. If you will please follow me?”
The Chinese turned away through the door, holding it open for Shaw who followed him along a corridor and up a flight of stairs to a landing. From a door ahead of the stair more music came faintly. The waiter went towards this door and bowed Shaw through. He walked into a dimly-lit room partitioned into private cubicles. At the end of this room some kind of intimate cabaret-in-miniature was taking place and, apart from candles set in lanterns, one in each cubicle, the light from the stage provided the only illumination. In this light Shaw could see that most of the diners were elderly men of varying nationalities, some of them closeted with young women, some of them alone.
The waiter bowed himself past Shaw. “Excuse, please,” he murmured deferentially. “This way, please, master.” He led Shaw to a cubicle half way along on the left of the room, and stopped, bowing once more. From the shadows a voice said, “Smith, you are late, but how nice it is to see you,” and he saw the lantern’s gentle light falling on fine, very blonde hair curling round a pair of shell-like ears, and a thin, clinging, deeply slit dress—a jade-green cheongsam that suited her perfectly.
He said, “It’s nice to see you too. I’m sorry I’m late.” The waiter disappeared. Shaw sat down opposite the girl. “Now perhaps you’ll explain,” he said accusingly.
She said at once, putting a finger to her lips, “No. Here we must not talk—even with the cubicles, it is not entirely safe. Soon we shall talk of the important things.”
He shrugged and said lightly, “All right. For now I’ll just spend the time telling you how beautiful you are!”
She laughed. “Oh, that is corny, Smith, but I shall like it very much indeed! And in return I shall tell you how intriguingly handsome you are, in a craggy kind of way, and how much I admire your kind of man, who is tough, and probably quite ruthless with women. But there are other things you can talk to me about also, Smith .. . about Hong Kong, of what I can see while I am here—of the places I must visit, of Hong Kong’s history since the British came, of typhoons and pirates and beautiful, seductive women who lured British sailors to their doom . . . all that sort of thing, you know?” She gurgled with suppressed laughter, looking into his eyes in the lantern’s light. “It interests me so much, all that. And now, Smith, here is the waiter. Are you good at ordering Chinese food, Smith?”
He smiled into the blue eyes and then looked up at the waiter, hovering now at his elbow. “I can always try,” he said, taking a large menu card from the Chinese. “What do you like . . . Miss Tegner?”
Distantly she said, “Oh, how that is like the British, to leave it to the woman! I like to be taken charge of, Smith. I thought you would have known that.”
“I was simply being polite—that’s a British habit, too, sometimes—but if you insist, I adore taking charge of women. Meanwhile, you’ve asked for it.” Shaw ran his eye down an immense list of numbered Chinese dishes and gave his order. Behind the table waiter, a wine steward hovered, and Shaw, glancing down the list of Chinese drinks, ordered instead a white wine that he felt would please the girl, a Bommes from the vineyards of Chateau Lafaurie-Peyraguey. When the Chinese had withdrawn he said quietly, “Let’s cut the historical sketch and the guidebook stuff, at any rate while the waiter isn’t around. I’m not very good at that sort of thing.”
“What are you good at?” she asked, giving him an amused and quizzical look.
He shrugged. “Plenty of things. Name it and I’ll do it. Only, not that. . . not till I’m less busy, anyway.”
“Smith, you disappoint me,” she said, pouting and drawing the ends of her hair beneath her nose in that gesture that he felt was so characteristic of her. “I wanted so much for you to take me around . . . while I am here visiting my cousin.”
“So that’s it,” he said, watching her closely. “Miss Tegner, I’m a very busy man, you’ve no idea just how busy currently. I hate to say this, but can’t he take you around?”
“He?”
“Your cousin.”
“He is a she, Smith, and I consider it ungallant of you to suggest my cousin should take me over—since you are under the impression she is a man! I prefer screaming jealousy to lack of gallantness, Smith. In any case my cousin is sick, and old, and bedridden. Strictly she is not my cousin, but my mother’s. She also is at the Shanghai.”
“Your mother?”
“My cousin! She has had a suite there for many years.”
“She must be enormously rich,” he said sardonically.
“She is, Smith, she is what you would call rolling. And this is quite, quite true. I stay with her when I come to Hong Kong, which I do now and then, on business.” She smiled. “I am not quite so ignorant of Hong Kong as I made out, Smith. It is just that I would like you to take me around!”
He asked, “What sort of business brings you here?”
“My own business. Here in Hong Kong I am sometimes able to contact Chinese writers, men and women who have managed to smuggle their manuscripts through from the mainland, and are seeking Western publishers for them.” Into the pause that followed he said mischievously but with intent to raise a satisfactory answer, “If you’ve come here, even partly, to be with your cousin, you shouldn’t be gallivanting. After business hours, you should be in attendance at the sick bed.”
She gave a light laugh, the silvery sound that did things to Shaw. She was too attractive by far, he thought—and the more dangerous to a conscientious agent because of it. He said, “Tell me about this joint—Mi Ling’s. It looks pretty sordid from the outside.”
Again she laughed. “Possibly you may consider it sordid inside, too, Smith!”
He chose to misunderstand. “It doesn’t look like it from where I’m sitting. It looks elderly and respectable . .. more or less, anyway.”
“I was not speaking of the dining-room. All sorts of people come h
ere—Chinese, English, Japanese, German, mostly rich men, and—” She broke off, lowering her voice. “Mi Ling offers other things in his establishment.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Go on?”
She shrugged, then looked at him directly and said in a still low but level, matter-of-fact voice, “Young girls, gambling—opium, I believe. Mi Ling caters for most of the vices, Smith.”
Shaw remembered his thoughts about the symbolism of the young naked females and the bearded old men. He said slowly, “Yes, I know what you mean. Why isn’t it raided?”
“In Hong Kong?” Her tone chided him. “But you are thinking perhaps of the opium . . . I understand the premises are raided from time to time on that account, and on that account only. But money talks here as elsewhere, Smith, and the opium smokers’ prison at Tai Lam gathers few of its inmates from Mi Ling’s!”
He grunted. “Anyway, I hope it isn’t raided while we’re here.”
She smiled. “You and I have no opium, Smith!”
He smiled back at her, then reached across the table and took her hand in his. He said, “Do you know, I’m beginning to lose all my capacity for being surprised at you—Helma.” Suddenly he had the curious but strong feeling he’d known this girl all her life, that they were very old friends . . . which was in itself a surprising thing considering they’d met only the once before, back across the world in the Savoy. But there was something about her that made a man feel thoroughly at home with her and anyway he had long ago given up being shy with women . . . just then the waiter came back with the soup and Shaw started in on some small-talk. Only half his mind was on what he was saying; clearly Ingrid Lange—or Helma Tegner—fitted into the picture somewhere, and he felt instinctively that she was on his side, but he knew she wasn’t the girl to be bulldozed whatever she had said about masterful men and he had to be patient and wait for her to
give. But he was conscious all the while that there were only four days left before Skyprobe IV would be forced to ditch. Shaw went through that meal with mounting impatience, and, though the food was as good as Ingrid had promised, no particular appetite.
At last, during the coffee, she said suddenly, “Now there will not be long to wait, Smith. Catch the waiter’s eye and when he approaches, leave the cubicle to speak to him . . . so that you do not embarrass me, y6u understand? You will say to him that you would like a room so that the lady, who is feeling unwell, can he down. He will understand perfectly.”
There was a glint of sheer wicked delight in her eyes. Once again Shaw felt the blood thrust urgently through his veins.
SEVENTEEN
A young Chinese girl met them outside the door of the restaurant, bowed, and turned away with an indication that they should follow. She led them up another flight of stairs and opened the door of a room leading off the second landing. Here she left them alone. The room was small, furnished in Western style and thickly carpeted, with a soft, wide divan bed and a table beside it, and on this table a gold-shaded bedside lamp. Apart from a chair, there was no other furniture in the room.
Ingrid Lange turned to Shaw and put her arms around his neck. She drew his face down towards her own and kissed him on the lips; her own were soft, yielding, warm . . . and delightful. After a moment she drew away a little and whispered into his ear, “Poor Smith . . . you are such a conscientious man! It is talk you want now—not love. Am I right, Smith?” Her eyes were mischievous.
“For now, yes,” he told her. “I’m still human somewhere underneath, though.”
She gave a soft laugh, a laugh full of understanding. “I know that, Smith. However, we will now only talk, as you wish. I have things of importance to tell you, and this was the safest way.” She added, “Also, we must continue to be safe, no?”
“Meaning?”
She whispered, “We must behave as we are expected to behave. I would not trust Mi Ling too far, Smith. Many important persons come here because it is discreet, but it seems to me that Mi Ling could add a good deal to his fortune by eavesdropping on conversations in these rooms.”
“Bugs?”
“Exactly,” she answered. “And it would not do, to look for them and inhibit them.”
“Right,” he said. “I’m all in favour of cover!”
* * *
They lay close together on the divan, with his arms around her. Her head nestled in the crook of his elbow, her mouth close to his ear. She spoke softly, almost without moving her lips, so that her words were like a breath caressing his ear. She said, “I shall not tell you the whole story of how I have come by certain informations. I prefer always to keep my contacts and my sources private, for reasons which must be obvious to you, and please, I shall not expect you to press me on this, Smith.”
“What’s the information?” he asked impatiently.
“First,” she said, “you told me in London what your job is . . . and naturally I have read in the papers that there is trouble in the spacecraft that is orbiting the earth, and that an important British-born scientist is aboard this spacecraft. So, you see, I put two and two together. You understand? I recalled your visit to me, and I told myself, Smith, that the officially released story about this Skyprobe IV is not entirely the real and truthful one. Do you follow this?”
“I follow,” he whispered.
“Good.” She moved slightly on the divan, settling herself more comfortably. Shaw felt the movement of her body against his own. She went on, “I have heard something else, something that made me come all the way on from Bangkok to Hong Kong ... for certain reasons.”
He said, “Just a moment. How did you know I was on my way here, anyhow?”
She told him, “Very soon after your visit I had flown to Bangkok on my own business, since Fetters’s death had interrupted what I had gone to London to do. In Bangkok I heard the news of which I have just spoken, and it indicated to me quite strongly that you would also know of it, and would come to Hong Kong because of it. So, you see, I also came! It was the sheerest chance, I confess, that I happened to travel on the same flight as you from Bangkok. Now, will that be enough of explanation, Smith?”
He said, “It’ll do for now, unless you care to tell me if you came on here principally to take another look at my manly beauty!”
“No, Smith, not quite that,” she answered with a low laugh.
“You disappoint me. What’s the information, then?”
She said, “In London you asked me about Rudolf Rencke.”
“I certainly did. Well?”
“He is here in Hong Kong, Smith. Did you not know?”
He sat up with a jerk. “Rencke—in Hong Kong! I’ll bet any money this is the last place he’ll turn up! He wouldn’t be thrusting his face into a British possession just at this particular moment of history, believe you me!”
She said, “I believe you are mistaken. I was told positively that he had passed through Bangkok for Hong Kong.”
He shook his head. “Whoever told you that had his wires crossed, Ingrid. How sure are you that he was in Bangkok, anyway?”
“Very sure, Smith. My . . . informant had seen him for himself.”
He said softly, “Well, that’s quite interesting, anyway.”
“This part of it you believe, Smith, but not that he is in Hong Kong?”
He said, “That’s right. For certain reasons I believe he’s very likely to be in this part of the world—unless my theories are all to hell, that is! But he won’t be in the colony. My guess is, he’s headed a long way farther north—and maybe by way of Red China at that.” He paused, and lay back again on the divan beside the girl. His mind raced over the possibilities. If Rencke was in the vicinity, then it seemed to him that this fact alone helped to confirm that the North Pacific area contained the recovery base for the interception operation. He had to get north to the Sea of Okhotsk . . . this couldn’t possibly be left to the searching forces, who in any case would never get that authority from their respective Governments. To fly military aircraft over Russi
an territory could well be to precipitate trouble, even war, and gain nothing. The Communists had quietly to be presented with a fait accompli—and the threat of exposure to world opinion of the incontrovertible physical fact of the interference base. If only he could get hold of Rencke . . . but Rencke couldn’t be in Hong Kong, whatever the girl believed. With an alert out for him and the whole North Pacific area under general suspicion, he could never have slipped through the security net into the colony—nor, even if he believed he could get in, would he likely to chance his ability to get out again. Shaw repeated firmly, “He won’t be here, Ingrid. Your informant fell for a bum leak if you ask me. Rencke just trailed a red herring that worked.”
She was silent for a moment, then with disappointment in her voice as if she had unwillingly accepted Shaw’s verdict, she asked, “Where, then, do you think he has gone, Smith?”
“As I said—north! A long way north, into Russian territory. Now I’ll tell you something else: that’s where I have to head for, too.”
“How, Smith? How do you find your way into Russian territory?”
“That’s the big question! All I can tell you is I have to get there.”
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