1962 - A Coffin From Hong Kong

by James Hadley Chase

  MacPherson unlocked her bedroom door and moved into the tiny room. I remained in the passage, looking in. With professional thoroughness, he began to search the room. There were only three dresses hanging in the cupboard and only one set of underwear in one of the drawers. Leila’s belongings were pathetically small.

  MacPherson gave a sudden grunt as he peered into the bottom of the cupboard,

  “I thought as much . . .” he muttered, bent and came up with a small strip of tinfoil. He smoothed the foil out carefully. It appeared to come from a pack of ten cigarettes.

  “Know what this is?” he asked, showing me the foil. In its centre was a black smoky smudge.

  “You tell me,” I said.

  He bent once again and peered into the cupboard and this time he came up with a tiny, half-burnt candle: the kind you put on birthday cakes.

  He sat on the side of the bed, holding the tinfoil and the candle and became expansive.

  “She was a heroin addict,” he said. “Something like a dozen drug addicts kill themselves every week.”

  “What makes you so sure?” I asked.

  “Anyone having these two little gadgets is an addict,” MacPherson said. “Know how it works? They put heroin in the fold of the foil. They hold the lighted candle under the foil and then sniff up the fumes. It can be done in a few seconds. You know something? The stupidest thing the Government ever did was to wage war on opium smokers. They thought it was the easiest thing in the world to stamp out. Opium smokers have to have a room, a bed and the apparatus for smoking which is not only extensive but expensive. We never have any trouble in finding the room and smashing up the apparatus. An opium pipe costs quite a lot of money, and after a while the smokers got fed up with us breaking up their beds and their pipes and chasing them over the roofs. We kidded ourselves we were putting a stop to the drug traffic, but how wrong we were.” He pushed his hat to the back of his head while he looked at me. “The addicts found they could get heroin from opium and all they needed was a piece of tinfoil and a candle. They can inhale this poison anywhere: in the movies, public conveniences, trams, buses, taxis —anywhere. You keep your eyes open and you’ll see bits of candle grease in most unexpected places. That’ll tell you, as it does us, someone has been inhaling heroin. Opium smoking is an addiction, but it isn’t a killer. But make no mistake about it: heroin kills. If we had let the Chinks smoke their opium, we wouldn’t be trying hopelessly to cope with heroin addicts.”

  I rubbed the side of my jaw.

  “Thanks for the lecture,” I said, “but I don’t think she committed suicide and I don’t think she was a heroin addict. I think she was murdered and these two little gadgets were planted for you to find.”

  MacPherson’s stolid face showed no change of expression. He produced the inevitable pipe and began to load it.

  “Think so?” he asked, an amused note in his voice. “The Chief said you were a private investigator. I’ve read Chandler and Hammet—they wrote fiction. This happens to be real life.”

  “So it does,” I said. “Well, never mind. I don’t suppose it is very important.”

  “What makes you think she was murdered?” he asked with no show of interest.

  “Nothing that would convince you. What are you going to do with her things?”

  “I’ll take them to the station. Maybe someone will claim them. The old coot doesn’t know if she had any relations. I’ve talked to him before—he never knows anything about anything.” He got to his feet. “I wouldn’t worry your brains about her.” He tossed Leila’s belongings into a cheap fibre suitcase he found at the top of the cupboard. “If you had to deal with as many cases as we do like this, you wouldn’t give it a second thought”

  “I’m sure. That’s the idea.”

  He looked thoughtfully at me,

  “What idea?” he asked.

  “The men who killed her would want you not to give a second thought, wouldn’t they?”

  He suddenly grinned.

  “Oh, come off it. We handle hundreds of these suicide cases. . . .”

  I was sick of him.

  “I heard you the first time.” I crossed the passage to my room. “I’ll be here for a few more days if you should want me.”

  He peered at me, losing some of his confidence.

  “What makes you think I’ll want you?” he asked.

  “Well, we could read a detective story together,” I said and shut the door in his face.

  chapter ten

  I felt now was the time to spend some of old man Jefferson’s money. I was sure the reception clerk could tell me more than he had told MacPherson if there was a cash inducement.

  As soon as I was sure MacPherson had left, I went down to where the old clerk was sitting. He eyed me suspiciously but when I made motions to the telephone, he bowed a reluctant permission.

  I called Wong Hop Ho’s number. He answered immediately as if he had been sitting by the receiver waiting for me to call.

  “Remember me?” I said. “You gave me your card at the airport. I need an interpreter.”

  “It will give me great pleasure, sir,” he said.

  “Will you meet me outside the Shanghai and Hong Kong Bank in half an hour?”

  He said he would be delighted to be there.

  “I would like a car.”

  He said it would be a pleasure to arrange anything for me. He was entirely at my disposal. It didn’t sound as if business was over brisk for Mr. Wong Hop Ho.

  I thanked him and hung up. Then bowing to the reception clerk who bowed back, I left the hotel and took a taxi to the bank.

  I cashed some of the travellers’ cheques Janet West had given me and with my hip pocket bulging with Hong Kong dollars, I waited on the sidewalk for Wong Hop Ho to appear.

  He arrived ten minutes later, driving a glittering Packard. We shook hands and I told him my name. He said he would be happy if I called him Wong. All his American clients called him that and he would consider it an honour for me to do so too.

  I got in the car beside him.

  “We’ll go back to my hotel,” I said. “I want some information from the reception clerk who doesn’t speak English.” As he looked faintly surprised, I went on, “I am a private investigator and I am working on a case.”

  He flashed his gold teeth at me in a delighted smile.

  “I read many detective stories,” he said. “It is a pleasure to meet a real-life detective, sir.”

  I lugged out some of my dollars and offered him fifty of them.

  “Will this take care of your fees for a day or so?” I said. “I’ll probably need you from time to time in a hurry.”

  He said that would be quite satisfactory, but the car would have to be considered as an extra. As I was spending Jefferson’s money, I said that would be all right. I was sure I could have bargained with him, but I wanted his full co-operation and I felt I might not get it if I cut corners.

  We drove to the hotel and leaving the car on the waterfront, we crossed the road and mounted the stairs to the hotel lobby.

  “This is not a good hotel,” Wong said on the way up. “I would not advise you to stay here, sir. I can arrange for a nice room for you at a distinguished hotel if that would please you.”

  “Let’s leave it for the moment,” I said. “Right now I have a job to do.”

  We arrived in front of the old reception clerk who bowed to me and looked blankly at Wong who looked blankly back at him.

  “Tell him I want to ask some questions,” I said to Wong. “I will pay him if he can help me. Wrap it up so he won’t take offence.”

  Wong went off into a long speech in Cantonese with a certain amount of bowing. Half-way through the speech, I got out my roll of money and counted out ten five-dollar bills, made them into a neat little roll and put the rest away.

  The old reception clerk immediately took more interest in what I was holding than in what Wong was saying. Finally, Wong said it would be a pleasure for the clerk to answe
r any of my questions.

  I produced the morgue photograph of Jo-An.

  “Ask him if he knows this girl.”

  After staring at the photograph, the reception clerk got in a huddle with Wong who then told me the girl used to live at the hotel. She left fifteen days ago without paying her hotel bill and was I willing to pay it?

  I said I wasn’t.

  After further questions, Wong went on, “She was married to an American gentleman who shared her room here. His name was Herman Jefferson and he died unfortunately in a car accident. It was after this gentleman had died, the girl left without paying her bill.”

  I produced the photograph of Jefferson that Janet West had given me.

  “Ask him if he knows who this is?” I said to Wong.

  There was an exchange of words after the clerk had stared glassily at the photograph, then Wong said, “It is the American gentleman who lived here.”

  “How long did he live here?”

  Through Wong, the reception clerk said he had lived in the hotel until he was killed.

  This was the first false note in the interview. Leila had said Jefferson had left nine months ago. Now this old buzzard was saying he lived in the hotel up to three weeks ago when he had died.

  “I heard Jefferson only stayed here for three months,” I said, “then he left his wife and lived elsewhere. That would be some nine months ago.”

  Wong looked surprised. He talked earnestly to the reception clerk, then he said, puzzled, “He is quite sure the American gentleman remained here until he died.”

  If the reception clerk was telling the truth, then Leila had been lying.

  “Tell him Leila said Jefferson left here nine months ago. Tell him I think he is lying.”

  Wong got into a long huddle with the reception clerk, then suddenly, smiling, he turned to me. “He is not lying, Mr. Ryan. The girl was mistaken. Jefferson left early in the morning and returned very late. It is easy to see why this girl didn’t meet him and imagined he had left.”

  “Then why did Jo-An tell her he had left?” I demanded.

  The reception clerk had no answer to that one. He drew in his neck like a startled tortoise and blinked at me. He began to fidget and I could see he was thinking he had given full value for money and he would be glad to be left in peace.

  Wong said, “He does not know the answer to that question, sir.”

  “What did Jefferson do for a living?” I asked, shifting ground.

  The reception clerk said he didn’t know.

  “Did any Europeans ever come to see him here?”

  The answer to that one was no.

  “Did Jo-An ever have any friends to visit her?”

  The answer again was no.

  I realised with a feeling of irritated frustration I was getting nowhere. I had come around in a full circle unless Leila had been telling the truth.

  “Did Jo-An leave any of her things in her room when she left?” I asked casually.

  This was a trap question and the reception clerk walked into it.

  “No,” he said through Wong. “She left nothing.”

  I pounced on him.

  “Then how did she manage to walk out of here with her belongings and not pay her bill?” I demanded Wong saw the fairness of this and he barked at the old man. For a moment he hesitated, then scowling, he said she had left a suitcase but he was holding it against the rent.

  I said I wanted to see it. After some more talk, the old reception clerk got up and led me down the passage to the room next to Leila’s. He unlocked the door and produced a cheap imitation leather suitcase from under the bed.

  Wong, who had followed us, said, “This case belonged to the girl, sir.”

  I examined the suitcase. It was locked.

  “You two wait outside.”

  When they had gone, I closed and bolted the door. It didn’t take me a couple of minutes to force the locks on the suitcase.

  Jo-An possessed a slightly better outfit than Leila, but not a great deal better. I turned over the things I found. At the bottom of the suitcase was a large white envelope, its flap tucked. I opened the envelope and shook out a glossy print of Herman Jefferson: a replica of the photograph Janet West had given me. Across the foot of the photograph was scrawled: For my wife, Jo-An. I stared at the hard gangster face, then returned the photograph to the envelope and replaced it where I had found it.

  I sat on the bed and lit a cigarette. I wondered how Janet West, miles away in Pasadena City, and Jo-An in Hong Kong could both have owned the same photograph. I told myself that Jefferson must have given it to them, but suddenly and far away, a note of interrogation started up in my mind.

  I thought back on the conversation I had had with Leila. What the reception clerk had said didn’t tally with what she had said . . . one or the other was lying. Why should Leila have lied?

  After some more thought I came to the conclusion there was no point in remaining in this sordid little hotel. I would have to look elsewhere to find the clue to this mystery.

  I got to my feet, crossed the room and stepped out into the passage.

  Wong was leaning up against the wall, smoking a cigarette. He straightened and bowed as I came out. The reception clerk probably had gone back to his desk: he wasn’t there.

  “I hope everything is satisfactory, sir,” he said.

  “I guess,” I said. “I’m leaving here. Is there a hotel at Repulse Bay?”

  He looked faintly surprised.

  “Why, yes, sir. There is the Repulse Bay Hotel: a very fine hotel. Would you like me to arrange accommodation for you there?”

  “If you can fix it, I’d like to move in right away.”

  “You realise, sir, the hotel is rather out of the way. If you are thinking of seeing Kowloon, it isn’t very convenient.”

  “That won’t worry me. Tell the old guy I’m checking out and get my bill.”

  “There are no further questions you wish to ask him?” Wong asked, his face showing disappointment.

  “No. Let’s get out of here.”

  Thirty minutes later we were in the Packard, driving along the beautiful road towards Repulse Bay.

  chapter eleven

  Repulse Bay turned out to be something very special and the hotel matched it. To my thinking the set-up with its mountains, its concealed bays with an emerald green sea looked better than most of the pleasure spots I’d ever visited, and in my time, I had been lucky to have visited a number of them.

  Wong managed to get me a room in the hotel overlooking the bay. He left me the Packard and departed with much bowing, assuring me he was at my service should I need him again.

  I got busy as soon as I had unpacked by beginning on the telephone book and then talking to the reception clerk of the hotel probing for a lead to Herman Jefferson. Neither the telephone book nor the clerk had heard of Herman Jefferson.

  I then asked the hall porter on the theory a hall porter of a good hotel knows everything. I asked him if he knew who owned a villa close by with steps down to the sea into a small harbour complete with boat.

  He regarded me thoughtfully before saying, “You mean Mr. Lin Fan’s villa, sir? It is now occupied by Mr. Enright and his sister: they are Americans.”

  “Did you ever hear if a guy named Herman Jefferson lived there?” I asked.

  He shook his head. I could see he was getting a little bored with me.

  “Jefferson? No, I don’t know the name, sir.”

  Later in the afternoon, I put on a pair of swim trunks and went down to the crowded beach. I hired a pedalo and took it out into the bay. After some hard, solid work, I got in a position to see the whole coastline. I quickly spotted Lin Fan’s villa. It was situated on a promontory, isolated and very lush, with a terrace garden and winding steps leading down to a small harbour where a fast-looking speedboat was moored.

  I propelled my boat towards the villa and when I got within two or three hundred yards of the harbour. I paused to study the place, th
inking if Herman Jefferson had really rented this place as Leila had said he had, then he must have suddenly found the opportunity of making really big money. But had he? Had Jo-An told Leila he had rented this villa to save face? It was the kind of lie one woman might tell another.

  I suddenly became aware of two tiny sparkling dots showing from a top window of the villa and I moved on. I had a sudden naked feeling. I propelled my craft along the coast for ten minutes, knowing someone was watching me from the villa through a pair of field glasses, the lenses of which were catching the sun. Then I turned my craft, still aware I was being watched and made my way back to the beach.

  I glanced up at the villa as I passed it. The two sparkling dots remained focused on me. I tried to look like a tourist, and I asked myself why I was creating so much interest. I got back to the beach as the sun was going down, and I returned to the hotel, wondering what my next move should be.

  I was still undecided the following morning. Around ten o’clock, I went down to the beach. After a quick swim, I stretched myself out on the sand and pushed Herman Jefferson, Janet West, old man Jefferson and poor little Leila out of my mind. I gave myself up to the sun, the sound of the surf and to the feeling of surrender that Hong Kong gives you which is hard to resist.

  I lay there for maybe an hour, dozing and letting the sun soak into me. Then I became aware that someone had passed close to me and I lazily opened my eyes.

  She was tall and slim “and burned a golden brown by the sun. Her salient points which were interesting were scarcely concealed by her scarlet bikini. I saw most men lying on the beach were staring at her . . . so I stared too.

  She walked across the hot sand towards the sea, swinging a big sun hat in her hand. Her hair was the colour of ripe corn. She was as intriguing and as beautiful as a motif from a Brahms s symphony.

  I watched her drop her hat carelessly on the sand and then slide into the sea. She swam well with strong expert strokes that took her quickly out to the distant raft. I watched her hoist herself onto the raft and she sat with her feet in the water. She looked lonely out there all on her own and I had a sudden urge to keep her company.