Next morning, A-lu-te, Gregory and Wu-ming went ashore together as usual, but with much reluctance the latter excused himself from bathing and lunching with the others on the plea that he had to try to catch up with his business affairs. Then at a quarter to four the whole party met at the dock, A-lu-te returned to the yacht and the four men set off together for Quong-Yü’s.
They had no great distance to go, as San Francisco’s Chinatown lies down near the waterfront, and they were walking up its main boulevard before Gregory realised that they had entered it. He had expected a warren of narrow twisting streets and noisome alleys, with cotton-clad celestials hawking vegetables on the pavements and furtively sidling into low doorways. In the past the quarter had presented just such a picture, but now it consisted of fine modern blocks. The shops differed little from those in other business districts, most of their signs being in English, and the great majority of its inhabitants were wearing American clothes. The only striking indication of its individuality was that the city council had tactfully adorned it with tall lamp-posts of Chinese design that had tops like small pagodas.
After walking a few hundred yards up Grant Avenue, they turned down a side street, then along a narrow canyon-like thoroughfare that was flanked on both sides by warehouses. Half-way down it the road was blocked by a lorry, into which several crates of bananas at a time were being lowered by means of a big rope attached to a pulley. Kâo and Wu-ming were walking side by side down the middle of the street with Tsai-Ping and Gregory behind them. To pass the lorry they took to the narrow pavement and split up into single file, with Kâo leading and Tsai-Ping bringing up the rear. It was just as they had done so that Gregory noticed that his shoe-lace had come undone. Halting, he stooped down to tie it up, while Tsai-Ping walked on past him. Next moment there came a cry and a rending crash. A net full of heavy crates had struck Tsai-Ping full on the head. Beneath them he was smashed to the ground.
As some of the crates burst, scattering their contents, Gregory threw himself backwards. In doing so he caught sight of a Chinaman framed in the opening three stories up in the warehouse from which the bananas were being lowered. The man was in the act of thrusting a long knife back beneath his jacket.
Instantly Gregory realised that the pulley rope had not snapped but had been cut deliberately. Hard on the thought, another flashed into his mind. But for his shoe-lace having come undone, it would have been himself instead of Tsai-Ping now lying dead in the gutter.
8
The Real chinatown
Gregory’s first impulse was to dart into the warehouse and attempt to seize the murderer, but he promptly checked it. The man had already withdrawn from sight and he was three floors up. This could be no case of personal malice so he had obviously acted under instructions. He was probably the ‘hatchet-man’ of one of the Tongs. Anyhow, the other coolies would cover up for him and all say they could not remember who had been standing by the opening at the moment the rope parted. The deadly ambush must have been carefully planned and already the assassin would be making off by a pre-arranged escape route. Even if he could still be intercepted by a swift dash up the stairs, after only one brief glimpse it would be impossible to swear to his identity.
As Gregory ran forward to lend a hand in dragging the broken crates of bananas from on top of the Mandarin, another good reason occurred to him for refraining from any immediate attempt to pin the crime on its perpetrator. There seemed good grounds to suppose that he had been the intended victim. If so, and somebody was out to kill him, it would be to his advantage to continue to appear unaware that his life was threatened. Were he to proclaim his knowledge that the rope had been sliced through, it might be assumed that he had also tumbled to it that the murderous attack had been intended for himself. In that case any second attempt to bring about his death would be made by even more subtle means, so be more likely to succeed. Far better to say nothing, but make the utmost use of the warning he had been given, and hope by constant vigilance to foil an enemy made over-confident by believing him still ignorant of his danger.
Jabbering excitedly in a mixture of American and Chinese the little crowd that had swiftly gathered uncovered Tsai-Ping’s grotesquely twisted body. His cranium had been smashed like an egg-shell, and he must have died instantaneously. A policeman shouldered his way through the crush and began to take notes. A few minutes later an ambulance drove up to collect the corpse. Wu-ming, who appeared quite distraught by his uncle’s death, went off with it. Kâo had already been questioned by the cop, and when Gregory’s turn came he said nothing to upset the general assumption that their companion had been killed as the result of an accident. Then, on Kâo whispering to him that it would not now be seemly for them to pursue their intention of interviewing Quong-Yü, they returned in silence to the yacht.
A-lu-te was much surprised to see them back so soon, and when she heard the reason her eyes opened wide with shocked dismay; but for a woman to have made any comment or asked questions in such circumstances would have been a breach of good manners; so, bowing her head in a token of respectful grief, she at once retired to her cabin.
Within ten minutes the whole ship’s company was absorbed in the rituals of formal mourning, and Gregory learned that for the next twenty-seven hours no meals would be served in the saloon, or any conversation be entered upon apart from necessary exchanges among the officers concerning the running of the ship. His own narrow escape from death being so recent he was by no means averse to an evening’s solitude in which to think matters over quietly; and, having made himself comfortable in his cabin, he began to cogitate on a variety of factors which might have contributed to Tsai-Ping’s body having been so suddenly deprived of its spirit.
Gregory had one fact only to go on which he regarded as entirely beyond dispute. It was that, although he had not actually seen the coolie cut the rope, the man had done so. One glance at its end, as it lay where it had fallen in the gutter, had confirmed that. It had not frayed and finally parted after long wear. A sharp blade had sliced through two of its strands; only a part of the third was ragged and ravelled from having snapped under the strain. That partially severed end had been evidence enough on which to call in the homicide squad; but, for what at the time had seemed good reasons, Gregory had refrained from pointing it out to the policeman.
He wondered now if they were good reasons. His decision to say nothing had been taken with the thought fresh in his mind that the attack had really been directed against himself. It had seemed so obvious that had he not stopped to tie up his shoe-lace the crates would have fallen on his head. But on calmer reflection he realised that there was no certainty about that. If he had walked on, the coolie, staring down from above to identify the man he had been posted there to kill, might have waited another few seconds before slashing the rope. Then, just as had happened, Tsai-Ping would have been the one to be struck down.
Gregory’s thoughts turned to the unknown person on whose orders the coolie must have acted. If that person’s identity were known it would make it very much easier to formulate a sound guess about whom he had planned to have murdered. Although it was pure speculation, for the part of ‘villain off’ the first candidate to spring to mind was Quong-Yü.
The Tong boss certainly had an obvious motive for preventing anyone from poking their nose into his affairs; and, even more significant in this matter, professional killers in his service who were bound by oath to do his will. Yet it seemed to be going a little far to resort to murder before he had even been questioned. Again, did he even know what the visitors he expected were going to question him about?
Of course it was just possible that Kâo had told him over the telephone that they were searching for Josephine Août, and that a Mr. Sallust had secured information from the F.B.I. that he, Quong, had snatched her; but for Chinese like Kâo—brought up in tradition of circumlocution, prevarication, and a fundamental belief in postponing rather than facing issues—to have done so, seemed most unlikely.
&n
bsp; If Kâo had spilled the beans, and Quong was holding Josephine in some hide-out for his own pleasure, he would certainly regard Gregory as his most dangerous enemy. Therefore, should his passion for Josephine have decided him to hold on to her at all costs, it was against Gregory that he would direct his killers.
But no! That did not make sense. Unless Quong was stark staring mad, Gregory was the one person whom he would not dare to attack. Gregory was linked with the F.B.I. If he died in mysterious circumstances, knowing that Quong had a reason for wishing him out of the way the Tong boss was the first person they would pull in; and they would grill him until they had checked up on his every action for the past week. He would never be fool enough to take such a risk.
Perhaps then it really was Tsai-Ping whom Quong had planned to kill. But why? Against Kâo or Wu-ming, both of whom he knew, Quong might have had some old grudge; but he had never met Tsai-Ping, and the Mandarin had never even spent a night in San Francisco.
Another thing—if Quong was endeavouring to stall off a hunt for Josephine, what point would there be in his killing one of the investigating part when three others would survive to continue the inquiry?
Yet if Quong had not organised the ambush, who had? Kâo and Wu-ming had both had the opportunity to do so; and, as they had been walking side by side ahead of Gregory and Tsai-Ping, either could easily have ensured that the whole party took such turnings on the way to Quong-Yü’s as would necessitate their passing the warehouse from which the bananas were being loaded. Quong, on the other hand, could not possibly have played any part in directing them down one particular street out of a choice of three or four; and that very fact now seemed to eliminate him from the rôle of ‘probable villain’.
Kâo and Tsai-Ping were undoubtedly antipathic personalities. Both were ambitious men, and, although it was never referred to openly, Gregory had learned from A-lu-te that in secret the two of them had been waging a bitter struggle for power to influence appointments in the island. Could Kâo, knowing San Francisco and its Tongs, have taken advantage of this visit to the city to arrange for the liquidation of his rival?
That was certainly a possibility. But the word ‘rival’ passing through Gregory’s mind conjured up another thought. What of Wu-ming Loo? He too had a rival—not in the uncle whom he revered, but in the Englishman who had consistently come between him and the lady A-lu-te. Wu-ming also knew San Francisco and its Tongs. A Chinese of his wealth and influence would have known quite well how to set about securing the services of an assassin; and, on the excuse of catching up with his work, he had spent that morning alone in the city.
Visualising the scene of the crime, Gregory endeavoured to live again those few terrifying moments. While doing so he sought for any detail that he had registered then which might since have escaped him. Kâo and Wu-ming had been walking down the narrow street a good dozen paces ahead of himself and Tsai-Ping. As the two former fell into Indian file and stepped on to the pavement, to pass the lorry, he recalled now that he had noticed Wu-ming look upward. He had followed his glance and seen the rope net holding the crates of bananas slowly revolving a good thirty feet above the pavement. A moment later his shoe-lace coming undone had caused him to look down; then, on reaching the pavement, he had stopped to tie it up, while Tsai-Ping walked past him to his death.
When about to pass a lorry that was being loaded from above anyone might have glanced upward; so it was no proof of Wu-ming’s guilt that he should have done so. Yet if a man had planted a murderous ambush there he would hardly be able to resist the temptation to assure himself that the trap was ready to be sprung. Perhaps, therefore, it was not altogether without significance that whereas Kâo had not looked up, Wu-ming had.
Considering the matter further it occurred to Gregory that he had not so far given sufficient importance to the time factor. As the crates had been swinging some thirty feet above the ground, the assassin would have had to allow a couple of seconds for their fall. Had he intended to kill Tsai-Ping he would have waited until Gregory was beneath the crates before cutting the rope. As it was he must have timed the cutting for them to fall on Gregory, and seen too late that Tsai-Ping had stepped forward into his place.
Another small point emerged as Gregory was attempting to picture the scene as the murderer must have looked down upon it from above. To have picked out any one of the three Chinamen could not have been easy, as they were all wearing soft felt hats; but since his second day in San Francisco he had been wearing a panama. Its light-coloured straw and broad brim would have identified him beyond all doubt, making him the perfect target.
Later that night, before going to sleep, he went over the whole wicked business again, but could think of no other factor which might throw further light on it. There was, he knew, nothing concrete to go on except the fact that the coolie had deliberately cut the rope with intent to murder someone. Yet all his speculations led him to the belief that the ‘someone’ had been himself; and that it was Wu-ming, goaded into taking desperate measures by his insane jealousy, who had planned the attempt upon him.
It was not until the following evening that Gregory saw Wu-ming again, and when he did his belief was strengthened. The young man’s usually impeccable clothes looked as if he had slept in them, his face was haggard and his widely-space eyes were dim from weeping. Kâo and A-lu-te, who were condoling with him when Gregory came upon them in the upper-deck lounge, accepted as quite natural his hesitant explanation that his extreme grief was due to his having as a small boy cherished a deep affection for his uncle. But as Gregory had never seen him display the least trace of such a feeling towards Tsai-Ping, he thought it much more probable that his acute distress arose from a very different cause.
As ancestor worshippers, the Chinese regard patricide as the most appalling of all crimes, and next to it they rank the murder of any other male relative of a senior generation. Moreover, Wu-ming had been born and bred among an island polulation specially dedicated to preserve China’s ancient traditions. If, therefore, even unintentionally, he had caused his uncle to be killed it was not grief which had reduced him to this parlous state, but terror and remorse.
That, in spite of the years he had spent among unbelievers, he was still dominated by Confucian ideas soon became apparent by the concern he showed about the proper disposal of his uncle’s body. He had temporarily lodged it in San Francisco’s most expensive mortician’s parlour, where it was now in process of being embalmed. The purpose of his visit to the yacht that evening was to arrange for a suitable mortuary chapel to be fitted up on board; so that the Mandarin’s remains could be conveyed in a fitting manner back to the island for burial.
Kâo at once agreed that the honourable spirit of Tsai-Ping would know no rest until his bones reposed beside those of his honourable father—who had been the original head of one of the Seven Families responsible for colonising the island—and said that he would personally supervise the furnishing of a mortuary chapel. After a moment he added thoughtfully:
‘So far the Council’s decision to invite the Princess Josephine to become our Empress has resulted in nothing but disappointment and ill fortune. I am convinced that my instinct to abandon the project after her disappearance was a sound one. The Council’s having overruled me and sent me back to renew the search for her has now deprived us of the wise and upright Tsai-Ping. Clearly the whole venture is subject to the most evil influences. Therefore I am most averse to tempting providence further. In fact, I feel that the wisest course would be for me to accept the Mandarin’s death as an omen and bear his honourable remains home with a minimum of delay; then humbly submit to the Council that they should devise some other means of providing for the succession.’
Somewhat to Gregory’s surprise this defeatist pronouncement by Kâo was immediately countered by excited protests from both A-lu-te and Wu-ming. It was the former who got in first.
‘But Uncle!’ she exclaimed. ‘You cannot have forgotten what happened when the Council was faced with
this problem before. It had got to its wits’ end, and almost despaired of finding a solution until the proposal of making Josephine Empress was put forward. That happy way out of our trouble met with everyone’s approval; and since we are now convinced that she is still alive how can we possibly return without her?’—‘I entirely agree!’ Wu-ming cried with heat. ‘To disappoint our countrymen with no better justification than the fear that some misfortune might come upon us while endeavouring to carry out their wishes would be shameful.’
Such plain speaking by a Chinaman was quite exceptional, as even in the smallest transactions of daily life it is their custom to go to almost any pains to save one another from loss of ‘face’. It was inexcusable, even allowing for Wu-ming’s overwrought state, and Gregory was not surprised to see Kâo’s eyes go dark with anger at this open imputation of cowardice. But A-lu-te saved the situation by swiftly putting in:
‘You must not allow your concern for us to prejudice your judgment, Uncle. Your proposal to sacrifice your own principles in order to carry us out of danger does you much honour, but we could not agree to it.’
The fat man eagerly seized upon the come-back she had given him, and nodded vigorously. ‘You are right, my child. It was of you younger people that I was thinking.’
‘Of course I realised that, Sir,’ Wu-ming diplomatically completed the face-saving process. ‘But however evil the influences we have to combat, we must see this matter through. We owe that now not only to ourselves but to the dead. You are all aware how conscientiously my honourable uncle devoted his energies to tracing the Princess, and how alone among us he concentrated his every thought upon that duty. Since his death I have been greatly oppressed by recalling how little aid I gave him, and I feel that to make good that neglect is a debt I owe to his spirit. While standing by his bier this morning I took an oath that I would not engage in any other undertaking until this mission with which the Council charged him and yourself is completed.’
The Island Where Time Stands Still Page 14