Mrs. Pollifax, watching Robin, said, "You have something in mind for us, I'm thinking?"
He grinned. "You bet. I'll wipe away our footprints now—dragging my jacket across them should do it, although I shudder at the cleaning bill—and after Mr. Hitchens has established his footprints on the floor we'll go back to the car, all of us, and take Mr. Hitchens to a telephone. After that he'll be on his own."
"How did he get here?" put in Mrs. Pollifax quickly.
"Taxi," said Robin, ushering them out into the sunlight and removing his jacket.
"Taxi," repeated Mr. Hitchens. "Never heard of you . . . came alone in a taxi ..."
"Your turn now," said Robin, emerging from the hut. "Walk inside, discover the body, do a little pacing back and forth and walk out."
Once Mr. Hitchens had complied, still murmuring "Taxi . . . never heard of you ..." they prepared to leave. But Mrs. Pollifax, the last to go, lingered for just a moment on the threshold of the hut and looked back at the huddled body of Inspector Hao in the comer.
"God bless," she whispered to whatever spirit might be lingering, and silently pledged her help to find his killer and his son.
They left Mr. Hitchens in Yuen Long, where he practiced his new role by thanking them loudly for giving him a ride when he had flagged them down. "But you will be looking for Alec now?" he asked in a lower voice, anxiously.
"Yes," promised Robin, "but it's better you not know how or where, because you might let it slip."
As Robin gunned the motor, Mrs. Pollifax leaned forward to call to him, "Leave messages—knock on my door—keep in touch, Mr. Hitchens! Oh dear, he does look lonely," she said as Robin turned the car and headed back toward Hong Kong, leaving Mr. Hitchens standing uncertainly beside a stall heaped with vegetables.
"He won't be lonely for long," Robin told her, "he'll shortly be surrounded by police and newspapermen— this is going to be very big news on the island."
"And you and I?"
"We," said Robin, "are going to burgle the Hao residence."
She laughed. "How smoothly things go when one knows a cat burglar! You're amazing, Robin, but won't there be people in the house?"
"He and Alec lived alone," explained Robin. "Wife dead, older daughter married and living in Bangkok, second daughter in college in Europe somewhere, Alec newly graduated from college and back home to job-hunt. The house is off Lion Rock Road in Kowloon and the important thing is to get there before the police."
Mrs. Pollifax nodded. "Hoping, I suppose, that Damien Hao left behind some clue to all this that Alec may have missed . . . Have you visited the house before?"
"Only to knock—twice as a matter of fact—when no one was at home. I seem to recall a lavish amount of shrubbery for concealing nefarious people like myself but if you'll put that fantastic hat back on your head, dear Mrs. P., it will add a marvelous note of respectability to our mission, because no burglar would ever dare to wear such a hat, believe me."
When they reached the Hao's neighborhood and Robin pointed out their target Mrs. Pollifax saw that he was certainly right about the shrubbery. There was a six-foot wall around the house and the outline of a tile roof nearly hidden by trees, among them, noted Mrs. Pollifax, a mimosa. Robin parked discreetly across the street and they approached the gate in the wall quickly, with the confidence of two people given every right to be there. Four minutes later, following Robin's expertise with a set of delicate lock-picking instruments, they were inside the house.
It was dim inside, the matchstick shades at each window sending alternating lines of sun and shadow across the tile floors. There was a living room, a dining room, a small kitchen and a screened porch in the rear. It looked like any suburban house in America to Mrs. Pollifax, except for a niche in the living room that bore a large gilt Buddha smiling serenely down at their feeble worldly struggles, and at their entrapment in anger, greed and delusion: The Eightfold Path, she remembered with a smile.
"Upstairs," Robin said impatiently. "We need a desk, a study, a safe."
A moment later they had entered Inspector Hao's study at the top of the stairs and were staring at a room swept by chaos: at a steel file cabinet battered open with a sledgehammer, at a desk whose drawers stood open with half their contents strewn across the floor.
"I was afraid of this, damn it," growled Robin. "With Alec out of the way someone had carte blanche here."
"They," echoed Mrs. Pollifax, beginning to feel a presence and wondering if a personality would eventually arrive, too. "Well, whoever they are they were certainly in a hurry. This must be how and where they found that slip of paper to use for a suicide note. What are we looking for?"
"Anything with words written or typed on it—and we're in a hurry, too," said Robin grimly. "You take the desk, I'll take the floor and the two filing cabinets."
"Treasure hunt," murmured Mrs. Pollifax, and sat down at the desk to sift what remained in the drawers: a bottle of ink, an abacus, a snapshot album, a few pencils, loose photos and a thick stack of white typing paper.
"Nothing," said Robin angrily, slamming shut the last drawer of the file cabinet. "They took everything of any importance, damn it, and there are only bills on the floor."
Mrs. Pollifax had carefully exhumed the neat pile of typing paper from its drawer; now she gripped the sheets firmly at one corner and waved them back and forth to see if anything had been caught among them. A torn fragment from a newspaper fluttered to the rug, and putting down the sheaf of paper she picked it up and looked at it.
"Good heavens!" she said in a startled voice.
Robin was at her side at once. "What is it?" and then, "Good God!"
It was the photograph of a man that had been roughly torn from a newspaper some time ago, for the newsprint was yellowed with age, and across the top of the clipping someone—undoubtedly Damien Hao—had angrily scrawled WHEN? The man in the news picture faced the camera squarely, as was the custom in prison photos, and there was an identifying prison number across his chest, but no name. The face was wooden, every feature sharpened by the bright lights bent upon it; there were no printed words included with the photo to explain the man but Mrs. Pollifax had recognized him at once. "Robin," she said, "I know this man, but what is he doing in Inspector Hao's desk drawer?"
Robin turned and looked at her strangely. "You mean, of course, that you know who he is."
Mrs. Pollifax shook her head. "No of course not, I mean I just keep running into him."
"Running into him?" Robin gripped her arm, his voice incredulous and urgent. "What do you mean, running into him? Where? For God's sake—"
She stared at him in astonishment. "Why, he was on the plane with me from San Francisco—we flew into Hong Kong together, and yesterday morning I saw him in Dragon Alley when I was watching for the young man I was to contact at Feng Imports."
Robin said in a strangled voice, "Plane . . . Feng Imports . . . Mrs. Pollifax, I think it's time you tell me exactly what your job is here in Hong Kong. This photo—this man—this is Eric the Red. "
A chilly finger of shock touched the base of Mrs. Pollifax's spine. "The terrorist? The head of the Liberation 80's Group? The Cairo assassinations, the French hostage affair?" Her shock moved into horror as she remembered the latter: those endless agonizing days, the miscalculations that culminated in the escape of the Liberation 80's Group and the bloody massacre they left behind ..."
"Let's get out of here," said Robin fiercely. "Let's get out of here and talk. My God, Mrs. Pollifax, if Eric the Red is in Hong Kong—"
He scarcely needed to complete the thought, Mrs. Pollifax had already slammed shut the desk drawers and was reaching for her purse. They fled, not speaking: down the stairs, out of the house and through the garden, into the street and to the car; and just in time, for as they drove away a police car turned into the street and passed them.
Glancing back Mrs. Pollifax saw it come to a stop in front of Damien Hao's home: the inspector's death was now official.
&
nbsp; 7
ROBIN DROVE QUICKLY AND SKILLFULLY TOWARD THE tunnel that would return them to Hong Kong, his face set in grim lines and his mind obviously occupied.
Mrs. Pollifax was grateful for the silence, for if Robin was considering all the ramifications of Eric the Red's being in Hong Kong, placing these beside the facts he'd already garnered, she in turn was considering the ramifications of a known and dangerous terrorist making his first stop in Hong Kong at Feng Imports . . . Feng Imports, where Mr. Detwiler was already under suspicion of betraying Carstairs and the Department, where she had not been allowed to see Sheng Ti, where she'd been given a costly Buddha and promptly placed under surveillance.
It was possible, she thought, that her assignment and Robin's assignment were dovetailing, and that a great deal more was going on at Feng Imports than anyone had guessed.
Robin said abruptly, "We'll go to my rooms, it's time you meet Marko." He leaned over and switched on the car radio and they listened to a crisp male voice announcing the death of Inspector Hao.
"... discovered by Albert Hitchens, an American psychic brought to Hong Kong by Inspector Hao's son, Alec, to find his missing father. Mr. Hitchens had visited the shed yesterday afternoon with Alec Hao, and police are looking into his story that he was assaulted there and Alec Hao kidnapped, leaving Hitchens to find his way back to his hotel alone last evening.''
"A new Learning Experience for him," quoted Mrs. Pollifax dryly.
"This morning," continued the voice, "once recovered from the attack, he took a taxi back to the shed to look for Alec Hao and found instead the body of the missing police inspector. Police estimate that Damien Hao's death occurred sometime between 5 a. m. and 7 a.m. this morning. He was shot at close range with a nine-millimeter gun. There is no suggestion of suicide.''
"Good—that should startle his killers," put in Robin testily.
' 'Damien Hao was fifty-five, a member of the . . "
Robin snapped off the radio. "And Alec still missing! If it's the Liberation 80's Group that has him—"
"In general," said Mrs. Pollifax in a kind voice, "I think it better not to allow the imagination to take over at moments like this; it drains the energy."
Robin gave her a wan smile. "Experienced, are you?"
"Mildly," she admitted. "Much better to use energy looking for him, because whatever hell he's going through now it's his hell, and we can't manage or change it for him."
"Point well taken," said Robin as he edged the Renault into a parking space at the rear of the hotel. "All right, let's take ourselves to the freight elevator again and have that desperately needed conference, if you please."
"And meet Marko," she added.
"Yes, and meet Marko," he assured her.
Ten minutes later, in the sumptuous suite provided for Lars Petterson, Mrs. Pollifax was meeting Marko Constantine.
"So you are the cupid-playing and fantastic Emily Pollifax of whom I hear," he said, gravely studying her face as he held her hand in a warm grip. "The look of the innocence and of the great earth mother, and the spirit of a boy shinnying down ropes and knowing the karate. Salute!" he murmured, and kissed her hand.
Mrs. Pollifax laughed. "But I didn't expect such charm, I wasn't warned! How do you do, Marko."
"The charm is natural, for I am both French and Greek," he announced. "My delight at meeting you is thoroughly authentic—this you must believe—but I think now we get down to very serious business and you will not experience my charm for a long time because I have heard the news, Robin. You both found the body as well as this Mr. Hitchens?"
"Yes, we found Hao dead—and much more," Robin told him grimly.
"Then we talk," said Marko, and gestured Mrs. Pollifax to a nearby chair.
She sat down, both amused and impressed by Marko and glad that he was not an antagonist, for despite his charm she sensed in him the underlying toughness of steel. Outwardly he was small and lithe, a battered little man in his thirties with a radiant smile and a scar on his face that ran from his left cheekbone down to his jaw. His skin was swarthy, his hair black and his dark eyes surprisingly kind, with the wisdom of an old soul. She thought that he looked rather like a monkey, but a most agreeable monkey, for he was attractive—very attractive, she decided—in the way that unusual people so often were. He was wearing what must have been his chauffeur's uniform of the morning for he was entirely in black: a silk turtleneck jersey and black slacks, but she saw that he was barefoot as he sprang into a chair and tucked his feet under him.
Robin chose the couch, saying, "We sit and we tell you what we found in Damien Hao's house, which was quietly visited by the two of us after finding Hao dead. And then we hear from Mrs. Pollifax about Feng Imports."
"Feng what?"
Robin pointed to Mrs. Pollifax. "Her assignment, Marko, which gives every evidence of wandering into ours, because Eric the Red—"
"Eric the Red!" interrupted Marko. "Mon Dieu . . . ! No, I say frankly, my God!"
"Exactly," Robin agreed and, opening his wallet, he removed the torn news clipping and handed it to Marko, describing how it was found. "At which point, having unearthed it," he said, "Mrs. Pollifax confounded, startled and shocked me by casually announcing that whoever this man was she'd flown into Hong Kong on the same plane with him and had seen him yesterday morning coming out of Feng Imports when she was waiting to make a contact there."
Marko whistled and turned to Mrs. Pollifax. "You must know how incredible this is to us. You must also know—Robin will have told you—why we are in Hong Kong. You find yourself completely sure this is the same man?"
"Yes," she said simply. "He was very much noticed because I had the misfortune to step on his foot, and later Mr. Hitchens scrutinized him carefully—you can try him on the photo, too, when he gets back. The man was traveling on a Canadian passport, by the way."
"You know that also!"
Mrs. Pollifax smiled faintly. "If he had been polite— but he made the mistake of calling attention to himself, a cardinal mistake, I believe, in anyone traveling incognito. He was flawlessly groomed, and I've no doubt his clothes all bore Canadian labels, but he did not like his foot stepped on."
"A leopard and his spots," murmured Marko. "It was believed he was hiding in Eastern Germany but lately rumors have surfaced that he had moved on to Italy."
Mrs. Pollifax said, "But when was he in prison?"
Marko turned to Robin. "It was at least ten years ago, was it not? In West Germany, I believe ... He broke out with the help of a woman friend, and of course following that—" He shrugged. "Following that you know the rest, he has left terror behind him in many countries. Too many. But please—you say he went at once to this place called Feng Imports?"
"He must have, because he still had his overnight bag with him."
Very softly Marko said, "If this is so it changes everything—everything! We know now what—but you will tell us please of this Feng Import shop and why you go there."
Mrs. Pollifax drew a deep breath and plunged into her explanation of why she had come to Hong Kong: she described Carstairs's alarm about Detwiler, how Sheng Ti happened to be known to her and why he was important; she described her visit to Feng Imports and her meeting with Mr. Detwiler and how she was followed afterward and she concluded with her interview of the previous evening with Lotus and a very frightened Sheng Ti.
"Eleven passports—and one of them no doubt Canadian," murmured Robin. "He did say eleven?" When Mrs. Pollifax nodded he said, "And he or Lotus will be contacting you tonight?"
"Yes, at least I assume so. If they can."
Robin and Marko exchanged glances. Marko said, "I think we must immediately go and see this place, don't you? Mrs. Pollifax must lead but not be seen, and I think we bring in—how many men?—to watch this place in case Eric the Red returns to it. But until we have more help I am thinking you will have to lose your secretary." His eyes twinkled at Robin. "Shall you phone or I?"
Robin said, "I will." He rose and
walked into another room and closed the door.
"And you," said Marko, rising in one fluid easy motion from his chair, "you are not too tired to show us? Tired from this game we play that sometimes brings violent death?"
"What matters," she said slowly, "is to prevent any more deaths. There's young Alec still missing, and if you're thinking what I am—" She did not finish her sentence, but Marko gave her an appreciative glance.
"Yes," he said, and they sat quietly until Robin reappeared.
"There'll be two men here by nine tonight—Krugg and Upshot," he told them, "and a third man—Witkowski—before morning. It's all they can spare at the moment but at least they begin to understand that things are beginning to happen here."
Marko nodded. "Good. I will go and pack my knapsack then, and take over until nine."
"Interpol, but still no local police?" commented Mrs. Pollifax as she placed her hat on her head and skewered it into place with a hatpin.
"I have to remind you that Damien Hao avoided them," Robin said dryly, "and don't forget all those stolen diamonds, which—if they went into bribes— bought a hell of a lot of people. A little paranoia helps in this job, as you know. I'd guess that most of the police here are as trustworthy as you and I, but if Hao was framed, and was murdered for what he learned, just how do we find which ones can be trusted? It's too chancy just now, like Russian roulette. My superiors are sending in men from Tokyo and Bangkok."
"And what is Marko packing?" she asked quietly.
"Food, radio transmitter, batteries, camera and film and probably a gun. Or so I'd guess. We'll hope like hell we can find a hiding place for him in your Dragon Alley."
Mrs. Pollifax felt a stir of excitement; her watch told her that it was almost two o'clock in the afternoon and that once again she would be missing lunch, but she felt that a missed lunch was a very small price to pay to watch two professionals at work. "I'm ready," she said as Marko emerged from the next room with his knapsack. "We're oft to the freight elevator again?"
Mrs. Pollifax and the Hong Kong Buddha Page 7