by Nick Carter
Nick let what he hoped was shock and agitation show on his face. "My God!" he blurted. "Murdered? Bob? I… I can't believe it. How? Why?"
The officer replaced his cap. His eyes were steady on Nick's. "It's early times yet for that, sir. We know how, well enough. He was chopped to death with hatchets. Why is another question. We thought you might be able to help us there."
This time Nick's surprise was quite genuine. "Me? What makes you think that? I only saw Bob for a few hours yesterday. Before that I hadn't seen him for years." All true. A good liar always kept as near the truth as possible.
Inspector Smythe tapped on the rail with his swagger stick. "We had an anonymous phone call early this morning, sir. Our man thought it was a woman, though the voice could have been disguised. Anyway, we were told to go to a deserted godown on Shanghai Street where we would find the body of a white man in a basket." Muscles moved below the fat along the inspector's jawline. "We did, and we found the basket right enough. A rather small basket!
The anonymous caller said you were a friend of the deceased, Mr. Harrington, and that if we questioned you we might find out something about his death."
In deeper and deeper, Nick thought with irritation and a sense of mild despair. No use trying to puzzle it out now. Just play it straight, brazen it out, and hope for a clue later.
He met the inspector's level stare. "I can't tell you anything, I'm afraid. Bob left the dance early last night and I haven't seen him since. So I don't see how I can help you, much as I'd like to."
Inspector Smythe tapped the rail again with his swagger stick. "It's only routine, sir, but I'd like you to come along to T-Lands Station with me. There's the identification to be made, in any case; I'm sure you won't mind doing that. We'll just have a nice chat and maybe we can get to the bottom of this."
Nick thought of Boy's body beneath the bed. "Right now, you mean?"
Inspector Smythe did not smile. "If it's convenient, sir.
It was goddamned inconvenient. If someone got to nosing around and found the body he would be in big trouble. It might take weeks to clear himself, and a caged hawk catches no snakes.
"Okay," said Nick. He started aft. "I suppose I had better bring my passport and all that?"
Smythe nodded. He was following along just behind Nick. "And the ship's papers, if you will, sir. Routine, you know. Just for the record."
The inspector waited just inside the bedroom door as Nick got his passport, Customs clearance, and health papers. He was careful not to glance at the bed. The inspector tapped a smooth chin with his little baton and said, "Smasher of a yacht."
Nick explained how he had borrowed it from Ben Mizner. That part of his cover was solid rock, at least. He found the ship's papers in a drawer in Mizner's private stateroom — he had been told where to find them — and he and the inspector went topside again. The officer did not appear too much interested in Corsair, except as a "smasher," and if he noted the sampan at the bow he said nothing.
"Probably shan't have to keep you long," he told Nick as they climbed aboard the patrol boat. "A formality, you know. But there are some rather puzzling aspects about all this, and you might be able to help."
Nick merely nodded and watched the harbor water bubble and boil as the powerful screw bit into it. He could foresee, pretty well, at least part of what was coming. They probably suspected Ludwell had been CIA and were hoping he could be trapped into confirming it.
The very fact that they didn't know Ludwell was CIA meant that he hadn't been working with them, and the Limeys didn't like free-lance operations in their backyard.
At his side, Inspector Smythe said, "I hope you've a strong stomach, Mr. Harrington. What you've got to look at isn't very pretty."
Chapter 6
A Missing Hand
The morgue was in a sub-basement of T-Lands Station, that grim castello overlooking the harbor from the Kowloon side. The inspector and Nick walked the short distance from the police pier and, as they turned off Salisbury Road, the inspector said: "I think we'll have you identify the body first. It won't take long. Then we'll go to my office and chat while your papers are checked out."
They made their way through a maze of dank, dimly lit corridors. Nick wondered if the inspector was playing a little game of cat and mouse. He shrugged inwardly. He wouldn't worry. He couldn't see how they could possibly have enough to hold him — not Clark Harrington. Killmaster might be another matter! They could blow his cover and make Hong Kong very unpleasant for him.
It took a lot to shake Killmaster, but he was shaken now. They were alone in the morgue room and the inspector pulled the sheet completely off the body instead of merely revealing the face. Nick immediately understood why, and he kept his face impassive, knowing the inspector was watching him carefully for reaction.
Nick was shaken not so much at the death of Ludwell, but at the manner of it. The body was in six pieces, chopped and mangled. Two legs, two arms, the head and torso. All in their proper places on the grooved porcelain autopsy table. Nick took in the horror with one swift glance. There was not much resemblance to the friend he had known.
Inspector Smythe, the sheet still in his hand, was waiting for Nick to comment. The AXEman took the sheet from Smythe and covered Ludwell's remains.
"The right hand's missing." His stare was cold and Smythe, for some reason he could not explain, felt a slight chill trace through him. Later, in trying to describe the sensation to another officer, he said: "It was rather like having one quick glance into Hell. Then the door clanged shut."
Now he said, "Yes, it's missing. It wasn't in, er, in the basket with the rest. That's not unusual in cases like this. I'll explain it later, Mr. Harrington. But just now — do you positively identify this body as that of a Mr. Robert Ludwell, employed as a clerk at the American Consulate here?" The inspector's tone was dry and official.
Nick turned away from the autopsy table. "I do. It's Bob, all right. I suppose you've been in touch with the Consulate?"
"No," said the inspector. "As a matter of fact we haven't. Not yet. Oh, we will, of course, but we wanted to talk to you first. The anonymous phone call and all that, you know."
The inspector's small and rather bleak office overlooked the harbor. After being offered a drink, which he refused, Nick lit a cigarette and lounged indolently in a battered leather armchair. He must now play Clark Harrington to the hilt.
The inspector tossed his cap on a rattan sofa and smoothed fair hair over his bald spot. He lit a cigar and fussed for a moment with a small pile of papers on his desk. Finally he looked at Nick. "Just how much do you know about the Orient, Mr. Harrington? About Hong Kong in particular?"
Careful here. Nick shrugged. "Not too much, I guess. Just what any American tourist knows, I suppose. This is my first visit in years."
Smythe pursed his lips around the cigar and stared at Nick. "Yes, of course. You'll admit, then, that we have a right to be puzzled as to why you, or your friend Ludwell, should be mixed up in a tong killing?"
"A tong killing? Is that what it was?" Nick wondered just how his expression of curious innocence was going over.
Smythe nodded curtly. "Definitely a tong killing. And we know the tong — a terror organization known as The Society of the Red Tiger. They're number-one tong in Hong Kong, have been for years. Their finger is in every dirty pie, from murder on down to extortion and the protection racket. Nothing is too small, or too dirty, if it's profitable. Dope, girls, gambling, blackmail — you name it and they do it."
Nick knew better, but as long as he was posing as an innocent he had to act like one. "You admit you know all this, you even know they killed Ludwell, yet you're wasting time questioning me. Why aren't you out rounding up these killers?" He hoped the naiveté bit was coming off.
The inspector smiled a bit sadly. "I won't go into that, except to say that there are a lot of Red Tigers and I have very few policemen. Fine men, but not enough of them. We could round up some tong members easily enough,
but it wouldn't do any good. They never talk. Never. If they do they end up in a basket like your poor friend. In any case, Mr. Harrington, we are more interested in why Ludwell was killed rather than how or by whom. Why? It is most unusual for the tongs to kill a white man. Most unusual. Like gangsters everywhere, they never go looking for unnecessary trouble. And killing a white man in Hong Kong is trouble with a big T, Mr. Harrington. The Tigers must have had a very powerful motivation."
Nick agreed silently. He would have liked to know why himself. But only Ludwell could have told him — and Ludwell was on an autopsy table with his right hand missing.
He asked Smythe about the hand now.
"One of their peculiar trademarks," the inspector explained. "Sometimes they leave a crude picture of a tiger on a victim, or maybe just a chop, an ideograph meaning tiger, but sometimes they take the right hand. A bit of Chinese psychology, you might say. Very effective with the coolies and peasants.
"Most Chinese, especially the poor and ignorant, have a great fear of being maimed. They'll resist amputation, for instance, at the cost of their fives. They want to be buried in China earth and they want to be buried whole. They believe that if part of them is missing their spirits won't be able to rest — that their ghosts will have to wander the world looking for the missing arm or leg or whatever. The Tigers take advantage of that."
The inspector's smile was grim. "Very effective, too. When the Tigers really want to spread terror they take a bit of the victim and throw it in the harbor, where his ghost will never be able to find it because the fish will eat it."
They hadn't mutilated Boy. Nick knew why. It was simple. They hadn't been sure he would understand what it meant. You can't frighten a person unless he recognizes the trappings of terror.
The inspector tossed away his cigar and lit a fresh one. "We seem to be getting a bit off the subject, Mr. Harrington. Let's go on. Now, and I want you to think hard, can you think of any conceivable reason why your friend should be murdered by a tong? Did he ever say anything to you, or had you heard anything, anything at all, to indicate that he was mixed up with such a tong?"
Now the real lying would begin.
"No to both questions," said Nick Carter. "As I told you before, Inspector, I'm completely in the dark about all this. I know nothing. Nothing at all."
Smythe nodded. "You did tell me that you hadn't seen Ludwell in a long time before last night?"
"That's right." Nick explained the chance encounter with Ludwell in Nathan Road. And from that, he thought wryly, all this has stemmed. The dance at the Cricket Club. Miriam Hunt. Swee Lo. The dead ricksha coolie. Boy murdered. Now Ludwell hacked to bits. Himself on the carpet and in imminent danger of having a body found beneath his bed and, worse, his cover blown to hell. Call it cause and effect, a chain of events, or merely Fate throwing loaded dice. Call it what you would, it all added up to one stinking mess!
Inspector Smythe, in his own way, was as relentless as Hawk. His light-blue eyes were as cold as marbles as he stared at Nick. "So, since you hadn't seen Ludwell in a long time, he could have been mixed up in almost anything and you wouldn't have known it?"
Nick nodded in slow agreement. "I suppose he could have. And if he was — mixed up in something, as you put it — I don't think he would have mentioned it to me. We weren't that intimate."
"Hmm — yes. Of course. It wouldn't be likely."
Smythe took a sudden new tack. "As I told you, we think it was a woman who made the anonymous call. Would that mean anything to you? Anything at all?"
Killmaster regarded him blandly. "No. Why should it? Bob must have known a lot of women. I understood, from the little we talked, that he had been in Hong Kong quite a while."
Smythe caressed his balding forehead with a finger. "Yes. That, you see, is one of the most puzzling aspects of this matter. We, I, don't think any of the Tigers made that call, or had it made. They do have female members, of course."
Nick thought of Swee Lo and of how much he didn't know about her. It was a possibility to be investigated. Later.
"It's not the tong way," Smythe was saying. "For one thing, they would want as many people as possible to see the body. In that, er, condition. That's why they left it in an old godown where as many Chinese as possible would see it, know it was a Tiger execution — the death of a white man would especially impress them — and it would be a long time before anyone had the nerve to call the police. Normally we might not have found that body for two or three days."
Nick said, "So someone wanted it found immediately. And wanted me tied in with it."
Smythe rubbed his forehead again. "So it would seem, Mr. Harrington."
A Chinese sergeant, his uniform spotless and pressed and his silver buttons shining, came in. He saluted Smythe and laid some papers on the desk. Nick recognized his passport. He saw the sergeant give his superior a barely perceptible nod.
The sergeant left and Smythe pushed the papers toward Nick. "Your papers seem to be in order, sir. But if you don't mind, there are just a few more questions."
Nick relaxed in the armchair. He was over the first hurdle. At least they weren't going to hold him. That meant they hadn't sent a party to search the yacht and found Boy's body. He had been sweating that out.
He said he didn't mind at all.
The inspector fit yet another cigar. "Did Mr. Ludwell seem his normal self yesterday? Last night, when you two attended the dance at the Cricket Club, did he seem in any way disturbed? Upset? Frightened or nervous, perhaps?"
"No," Nick lied. "At least I didn't notice anything. He seemed perfectly normal."
"And afterward — did you two leave the club together?"
Careful here. Nick told the exact truth. Ludwell had simply vanished and Nick had taken Miriam Hunt for supper and, later, to Corsair.
The light-blue eyes blinked at the mention of Miriam Hunt's name. But the inspector only said, "Oh yes, Miss Hunt. A very lovely girl. Doing fine work here. I've met her on occasion. I rather envy you, Mr. Harrington."
You wouldn't, Nick said to himself, if you knew the end of the story. He reached for his passport and papers and tucked them away in his jacket pocket.
Inspector Smythe stood up and came around the desk. "We will, of course, turn the body over to the American Consulate as soon as possible. I don't know just how soon that will be, but I presume they will make all the arrangements. I'll keep you posted if you like, though maybe you would like to attend to that yourself, since he was a friend of yours?"
"Yes," said Nick. "I will. As a matter of fact I'm going to the Consulate when I leave here. A little business. But I'm sure they will handle everything."
And so they would. With the utmost discretion. Ludwell's cover would remain unbroken now, forever, with never a whisper of his CIA background. The Consulate, as a matter of security, would not know and no one who did would talk. Ludwell would be shipped back to the States as a minor clerk who had suffered a regrettable mishap. The end of the matter.
Yet not quite the end. Killmaster knew that now. During his brief stay in this office he had made up his mind. It was still not the death he resented so much as the manner of it — a man chopped to bits and a hand cast into the sea. It was a filthy death, and Bob Ludwell had been a good man. His death in such a manner, coupled with the callous slaying of a child, had tipped Nick away from his usual discipline and calm professionalism. They, he or she, whoever, was going to pay!
He made the decision quite irrevocably and was scarcely aware of it.
The inspector held out his hand. "I'm giving you back your passport, Mr. Harrington, but I'll ask you not to leave Hong Kong for a time yet. Not without notifying me personally. There just may be other questions."
They shook hands. Smythe's hand was dry and cold and his grip surprisingly strong.
Nick said: "Speaking of questions, Inspector, may I ask a couple?"
Smythe blinked at him. "By all means. What would you like to know?"
Nick lounged aga
inst the door, his big frame indolent, his sleek flow of muscle masked by the slightly too large jacket and slacks. He sometimes liked strangers to think him a bit flabby.
He said, with a smile of deprecation, the layman asking what was probably a stupid question, "This Bed Tiger outfit, Inspector — they must have a leader? Or leaders?"
Smythe went back behind his desk. His smile became a little fixed. Or was it wary?
"Oh, yes," he replied. "They do have a leader. A real bastard of a leader, I might say. His name is James Pok. Jim Pok, his friends call him. If he has any friends. Not that he needs them — he does all right without. He's the wealthiest Chinese in Hong Kong. Lives on the peak. Lives like a bloody sultan!"
The inspector sounded bitter.
Nick hoped he sounded hopelessly amateurish and vague. He said, "Then why can't you pull him in? Surely these tong men, these killers, don't kill without orders from above?"
He watched Smythe closely. The man picked up his swagger stick from the desk and toyed with it. His knuckles were white around the little baton.
"Mr. Harrington," said the inspector at last, "I don't think you quite understand. Of course Jim Pok gave the order for your friend's death. Or his lieutenant, a man named Huang, did. Every coolie in Hong Kong knows that by now. But they don't know why, any more than we do. And until we know why, and so have a chance at tracing a motive, it would be a great waste of time to haul Jim Pok in and question him. In any case, on my best information he's in Bed China just now. He does a lot of business with the Beds, does Jim. But we can never catch him at it. We can never catch him at anything. We get a few small fry now and then, we jail a few, and once in a great while we hang one, but we don't touch Jim Pok. He's as slippery as a snake. But I still have hopes. And now, Mr. Harrington, if you'll excuse me I'll get back to work. Your poor friend isn't the only corpse on hand, I'm sorry to say. Corpses are always in plentiful supply in Hong Kong."