Mandarin Yellow (Socrates Cheng mysteries)

by Steven M. Roth

  “Why would I want to create such a misdirection as you imagine?” Bing-fa said.

  “To stoke my interest in helping you, then to keep me focused on the Mandarin Yellow, all the while deflecting my attention from the real purpose of the burglary.”

  Socrates looked at Bing-fa for some clue indicating Bing-fa admitted Socrates was correct. He saw none.

  “Nothing about the burglary except getting your hands on the Secret Protocol mattered to you,” Socrates said. “Not the Mandarin Yellow, not the other stolen objects, and not the postponement of the exhibit. Not even your so-called loss of face. The only thing that mattered was getting back the original Secret Protocol so you could destroy it before the authorities got their hands on it and discovered it was a fake.”

  Bing-fa dismissed Socrates’ explanation with the flick of his hand and the shrug of one shoulder.

  “As I said, Mr. Cheng, your imagination is overly fertile.”

  Socrates ignored Bing-fa’s cavalier dismissal and continued.

  “To avoid this possibility, you wanted to recover the Secret Protocol yourself so you could destroy it. But to do this and not be exposed, you also needed to recover most of the other stolen objects. That way you could destroy several of them, including the original Secret Protocol, and place the blame for their destruction on the burglars. No one would ever consider the possibility that all you really wanted destroyed was the Secret Protocol, or that you, not the burglars, was responsible for destroying it.”

  “That is nonsensical,” Bing-fa said. “Why would I want to engage in such a preposterous act?” Bing-fa’s face flushed. “I have constantly striven to rescue and preserve my country’s cultural patrimony and national treasures, not destroy them.”

  “We both know the answer to that,” Socrates said. “Don’t we.”

  SOCRATES RELAXED FOR the first time since arriving at the Golden Dragon. He crossed one leg over the other and folded his hands together on his lap, interlacing his fingers. When he was sure he had Bing-fa’s full attention, he said, “You were willing to destroy the original Secret Protocol and a few other cultural artifacts because you knew that Secret Protocol wasn’t a national treasure, knew it, too, was a fake.” He paused, then said, “You couldn’t take the chance anyone else might find out.”

  Bing-fa’s eyes narrowed. “This is very interesting,” he said softly, “but nothing more than your imagination. Do you have evidence to support this brash accusation?”

  Socrates shook his head.

  “No evidence, Bing-fa, just common sense, some logic, a bit of intuition, and the realization that this is the only explanation that makes sense, the only way all the pieces fit together.”

  Bing-fa raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. He locked his eyes on Socrates’ eyes.

  “The fake original Secret Protocol must have been salted among Mao’s private papers sometime before the public announcement of the proposed exhibit,” Socrates said. “That’s why no scholar I contacted had ever heard of the document until the exhibit’s publicity. Before that, the Secret Protocol didn’t exist except in the mind of the person who commissioned its creation.”

  Socrates stood up, turned his chair around and straddled it, facing Bing-fa. He rested his arms over the top of the chair’s back. He felt more in command of the situation sitting this way.

  “When the archivists discovered the Secret Protocol among Mao’s papers, the document achieved instant provenance, as well as historical and cultural legitimacy, because Mao’s private papers, until their selection for the exhibit, had remained under lock and key since his death. It was natural no one suspected that a fake document had been placed among the Chairman’s legitimate, locked-up papers.

  “The unraveling of the scheme started because of the burglary,” Socrates said. “I assume you were caught off-guard like everyone else by the break in, but once the burglary occurred, you had no choice but to retrieve the Secret Protocol before the police did. That’s where I came in. I was your means to retrieve it, your protective coloring, your stalking horse.

  “I suppose you knew from Jade’s stepmother I collected fountain pens. You used that information and the presence of the Mandarin Yellow in the exhibit to suck me in by pretending that recovering the pen was the focus of your efforts.

  “You further fed my interest by implying that if I was successful, you might change your position concerning my relationship with Jade.”

  “I did no such thing,” Bing-fa said. He frowned.

  “That’s exactly what you did. That’s why you suggested I talk with Jade before I decided about helping you. How else should I have interpreted that statement, if not that way?”

  Bing-fa shrugged.

  “The irony is Jade obviously didn’t know the original Secret Protocol was a fake. That’s why she felt compelled to have the Triad steal it for her and why she intended to replace it with her own bogus version.”

  “Assuming what you have said is true, are you suggesting I am responsible for my daughter’s death?”

  Ah, Socrates thought, so now she’s your daughter again.

  “Yes, I am. And for the events that followed, including the other deaths, although I admit the burglary and murders were unintended consequences of your scheme,” Socrates said. “You had no way of knowing the original fake Secret Protocol would fuel Jade’s obsession with Madam Chiang and give rise to the unplanned outcomes that followed.

  “If Jade had known that the original document was a fake, she could have exposed it for the forgery it was and rescued Madam Chiang’s reputation from the damning text without orchestrating the burglary and causing the other disastrous events that resulted.

  “So, yes,” Socrates said, “that’s what I’m saying. The planting of the original forged Secret Protocol among Mao’s papers inadvertently brought about Jade’s death, the director’s death, the death of the cultural attaché, and the death of my friend, Brandon, as well as the symbolic deaths of the Eldest Brother and the Twins.”

  SOCRATES LOOKED FOR some affirmation from Bing-fa, but he saw none so he proceeded to argue his brief.

  “When the original Secret Protocol was secretly placed among Mao’s papers and then brought to light in the exhibit’s publicity and catalog, you couldn’t have anticipated that Jade would believe it was genuine and would set in motion a plan to substitute her own sanitized forgery in its place.”

  Bing-fa shook his head slowly. “You are speculating, Mr. Cheng. That is all this is.”

  Socrates ignored Bing-fa’s statement. “By substituting her forged Secret Protocol for the exhibit’s original document, Jade believed she could protect Madam Chiang’s reputation and still leave intact in the forged document those references to Chiang that were the very reason for the creation of the original Secret Protocol.”

  Bing-fa clearly was losing patience. “And that reason would be what, Mr. Cheng?” he said with icy contempt.

  “To thoroughly discredit Chiang Kai-shek once and for all. To tear apart and render his reputation fully damned in the eyes of history. To drive a wooden stake through the heart of his reputation.”

  “Assuming you are correct, Mr. Cheng, how would the original Secret Protocol have achieved this since it already was widely known that Chiang was a thief, that he stole millions of dollars from Unites States foreign aid? Indeed, his international nickname was the Little Bandit.”

  Socrates, against his better judgment, smiled at this reminder of Chiang’s nickname. Then he said, “By putting on public display a previously unknown, but fictitious aspect of Chiang’s corruption — his fabricated collusion with Mao to intentionally lose the Civil War. As we both know, Bing-fa, there was no such agreement between Chiang and Mao.”

  Bing-fa slowly and deliberately rearranged the sash that tied his gown. He ran his palms across his lap and smoothed out the silk covering the top of his legs. Then he looked back up at Socrates.

  “There is another fatal flaw in your theory, Mr. Cheng. Both Secre
t Protocols also discredit Chairman Mao’s glorious reputation.” Bing-fa paused, looked into Socrates eyes, then smiled victoriously.

  “If the original Secret Protocol was a fake, as you claim,” Bing-fa continued, “if it was intended to discredit Chiang, why would the creator of the document, who obviously would have been an enemy of Chiang to do what you claim he did, also discredit Mao in the document, since Mao and Chiang were sworn enemies? I believe such a person would not do any such thing to undermine the resplendent reputation of the glorious Chairman.”

  “Fair question,” Socrates said. “The answer’s found in the publicity for the exhibit, specifically, in the catalog’s printed description of the original forged Secret Protocol.”

  “Meaning what?” Bing-fa said.

  “Meaning that the catalog’s authors, the cultural attaché and the gallery’s director, neither of whom would have known that the original Secret Protocol was a fake, wrote in the catalog’s description of the Secret Protocol that the document demonstrated Mao’s integrity because Mao, unlike Big-Eared Tu, both Chiangs, and Stalin, did not accept cash embezzled from the stolen foreign aid.

  “The cultural attaché and gallery’s director also wrote that the Secret Protocol demonstrated Mao’s great pragmatism because his participation in Chiang’s scheme enabled the Chairman to defeat Generalissimo Chiang and obtain the complete rule of China for the Communist Party for a price paid to Chiang, not by the workers and soldiers of China, but by the United States, in the form of stolen American foreign aid. The catalog’s caption went on to laud Mao for his cleverness and to deride the West’s myopia.

  Bing-fa shook his head. He seemed to Socrates to be tiring of this discussion and its many twists and turns.

  “You still have not answered my previous question, Mr. Cheng. If what you have said is true, why would someone go to such efforts to discredit Generalissimo Chiang? His very existence carried its own disgrace. Who would care enough to take such unnecessary and extraordinary measures as you suggest against him?”

  “Who would care?” Socrates repeated, nodding his head matter-of-factly. He again fixed his stare on Bing-fa’s eyes.

  “Perhaps,” he said, “someone who believed that the lives of his parents and siblings had been destroyed by Chiang’s parasitic economic policies after the end of the War Against Japanese Aggression, by Chiang’s egregious corruption, and by the resulting hyper-inflation in China that destroyed the country’s middle class.

  “Perhaps someone whose family members, not able to live with their loss of face and the shame of their imposed poverty, brought additional disgrace to their children and ancestors by committing suicide.”

  Socrates took a deep breath. It was all out on the table now. There was no more for him to say. He felt better for having said it.

  Bing-fa studied Socrates’ face. “Why did you come here today, Mr. Cheng? What did you hope to accomplish other than to stir up matters better left dormant?”

  “I wanted to see.”

  “See what?”

  “See if you would admit your role in initiating the chain of events that destroyed your current family, yet failed to avenge the destruction of your former Shanghai family.”

  Bing-fa looked hard at Socrates as if studying him. Then he said, “Goodbye, Mr. Cheng.”

  Bing-fa stood up and walked over to the door, opened it, and stood by silently as Socrates walked out.

  ONCE OUTSIDE THE Golden Dragon, Socrates stood on the sidewalk and watched the sun set behind a building across H Street. After a few minutes, he walked toward home.

  He hadn’t gone far when he reached into his sports jacket pocket and removed a printed form he’d been carrying with him for days. As he walked, he read through the District of Columbia’s application to obtain a private investigator’s license. He mentally filled-in its blanks as he walked.

  His plan was simple. He would sit for the licensing exam, obtain his PI’s license, and continue to work at the law firm during the day, while at night and on weekends he would build an independent PI practice. Then, when he’d obtained enough regular business to sustain him, he would leave the law firm and become a fulltime PI, perhaps even performing occasional investigations for his former law partners.

  Socrates smiled as he approached Dupont Circle. Who would have ever guessed he’d become a PI? Certainly not him. He wouldn’t have taken that bet, no matter what the odds given him.

  Steve Roth has been a student of Chinese culture, philosophy and history for more than two decades. He is a contributing writer to Kung Fu Taiji magazine and the editor of several books on Chinese martial arts. Steve is a published historian with more than 100 published articles and monographs to his credit. He also is a longtime pen collector. Steve owns a 1927 Parker Pen Company Duofold Mandarin Yellow.

  Steve holds a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and history from Pennsylvania State University and a law degree from Duke Law School. Steve is a freelance writer focusing on computer technology. He lives with his wife, Dominica, in Washington, DC.

  You can contact Steve at StevenMRoth.Auhor@gmail.com or through his web page at http://www.StevenMRoth.com. You also can reach him on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.