by Jake Logan
Or more.
Walking up the broad steps, he went into the dank museum and waited a few seconds for his eyes to adjust. The day was cold and bright outside. The interior of the museum was illuminated by a dozen flickering gas lamps hung high on the walls. They hardly provided enough light to turn the place into a twilight.
Slocum immediately noticed the Specials lounging about. They made no effort to conceal who they were or that they were well armed. He wondered who would dare such men to see pieces of green rock—other than himself. And he was less interested in the jade artifacts than he was in getting Sir William to help him fathom the intricacies of the Chinese mind. Any help the British explorer could give might solve his problems with the Sum Yop and On Leong tongs.
“I’m looking for Sir William Macadams,” Slocum said to a man dressed in a fancy uniform.
“Does Sir William know you were coming?”
Slocum considered his answer. If he said no, he would be turned away.
“He and I go back a ways. Of course he is expecting me. In fact, I’m late. I hope that doesn’t put him out. He’s a bit excitable.”
“Don’t I know it,” the man muttered. “The other night didn’t help, either.”
“I should say not,” Slocum said, wondering what had happened.
“Come along. I think he’s in the curator’s office. Hell, I know he is. He’s been going over every single report ever filed in the museum.”
“What’s he looking for?”
“Heaven knows. He and his secretary are copying volumes.”
“You make it sound as if they’re up to no good.”
The man’s eyes went wide. He remembered he was talking to someone supposedly on good terms with the explorer.
“Oh, no, nothing like that. Here’s the office. Go right in.”
“Thanks,” Slocum said.
He opened the door and froze. Suddenly glad he had asked for the violet water after his bath, he stared at the strawberry blonde seated behind the desk. The light cast her face in shadows, but Slocum thought she was about the prettiest woman he had seen in ages.
He swallowed hard. She was even prettier than Anne.
“May I help you?”
“Yes, ma’am, I’m looking for Sir William. You must be his secretary.”
“I am. Tess Lawrence.” She rose and thrust out her hand. Slocum did not know whether to kiss it or shake it from the way she presented it to him. He reckoned the limeys were big on grand gestures so he took it and kissed it. She recoiled as if he had burned her with his lips.
“I beg your pardon!”
“Isn’t that how one greets an English lady?”
“I don’t really know,” Tess said. “I’m from Boston.”
“You are Sir William’s secretary?” He enjoyed the dismay on her lovely face. He had flustered her, and now she struggled to regain her poise.
“Who else might I be?”
“The gent in the uniform thought you were stealing all the museum’s secrets, whatever they might be.”
“We are doing no such thing! Sir William wanted to use the files as reference for future expeditions. That is all. He would never steal another’s research ideas!”
“You might let the folks around here know that,” Slocum said.
“What is your business with Sir William? He had nothing scheduled for this afternoon.”
“Are you sure?”
“I make all his appointments and keep them in this book.” She leaned forward slightly to place her palm on a small book with a floppy black cover.
Slocum pulled the book from under her hand, opened it, picked up a pencil from the desk and hastily scribbled his name.
“There. It’s all official now. I’m supposed to see Sir William right about now.”
“You are an impudent man,” she said, but there was no sting in her words. If anything, she seemed as intrigued by Slocum as he was with her.
“Where is he? I can’t believe he stepped out for even an instant.”
“Why? Because these records are so fascinating?”
“Because I can’t imagine any man wanting to be away from you longer than a minute or two. Maybe not even that long.”
“Is that some Western charm?”
“Only if it gets me to see Sir William,” Slocum said. Tess Lawrence enjoyed the banter more than he did. It was about time to see her employer and find out what the tong war was all about.
“I see,” she said. “He will be back later.”
“What happened the other night? It spooked the hired help.”
“I…it was in the Alta California. Did you not see the story?”
“Been busy,” Slocum said. Anything going on in a museum that reached a major newspaper had to be important doings.
Tess detailed the attempted robbery. He saw how reluctant she was to say anything more about the four men who had been arrested by the police.
“How many of them died during questioning?” Slocum watched her reaction. He had hit the bull’s-eye. The San Francisco police were not known for their gentle ways. Such questioning as they were likely to have dished out had offended the Bostonian woman’s civilized sensibilities.
“One escaped,” she said. “He attacked a police captain and Sir William and escaped.”
This surprised Slocum. Not many men were good enough or dangerous enough to break out of a San Francisco jail in plain view of a police captain.
“Sounds like the prisoner was a dangerous hombre,” Slocum said.
“Yes, a real desperado. If that is the term.” Tess looked worried now. “He was Chinese. Sir William thinks he was from the south of China and spoke Cantonese. And that he was a sailor from his manner of dress.”
Slocum tensed. She was going into too much detail. He waited for what was sure to come. He was not disappointed.
“You appear to be a capable man, a true son of the range. Are you currently employed?”
“In a manner of speaking,” Slocum answered. “I’m not being paid for it, though. It’s a matter of repaying a debt.”
“Is that why you want to see Sir William?”
He nodded.
“I can offer you two dollars a day if you accept a position with Sir William.” Her lips thinned to a line, and the set to her jaw told Slocum she was determined. He also suspected she controlled the purse strings to Sir William’s payroll.
“You thinking on hiring me as a bodyguard?”
“You seem quite capable.” Tess averted her eyes and actually blushed. “You are well-built. And that six-shooter at your hip, well, it appears well used. You are a gunman, aren’t you?”
“Nope, just a man trying to do the right thing. I don’t kill people for money,” Slocum said.
Her blue eyes locked on his. The determination in her face hardened. “But you do kill people. If not for money, then for honor?”
“It has happened,” Slocum allowed.
“I am not offering you a job to kill people but to protect Sir William. If it requires gunning down someone, you would not hesitate?”
“Don’t know Sir William all that well to risk my life for him, even for two dollars a day,” Slocum said. “Would I be protecting you, too?”
“Of course not,” Tess said too quickly. “Who am I? No one would want to hurt me. I’m not a famous explorer.”
Slocum heard the change in tone when she spoke of Sir William and suspected she was more than a little in love with the man.
“He must be something special,” Slocum said.
“Oh, yes, he is. He—” Tess put her hand to her throat and looked past Slocum into the hallway. “You’re back, Sir William. I was talking to this man about possible employment.”
Slocum stepped to one side and let the Englishman come sweeping in, as if he were making a grand entrance on a huge stage before hundreds of people.
“I won’t hire for my next expedition for a month or more. After the jade is sent for display in Boston. You know that, my dear.
”
“Miss Lawrence told me about the dustup the other night,” Slocum said. Neither Sir William nor Tess corrected him. He was right. She was unmarried and from the worshipful look in her eyes, more than in love with Sir William. She was completely devoted to him.
“What a bother,” Sir William said. He looked at Slocum for the first time. “I say, are you interested in jade artifacts dating from the Tang Dynasty?”
“That’s close to what I wanted to palaver a mite with you about,” Slocum said.
“You want to palaver? That’s rich. Do come out into the display room, chap, and I’ll show you the finest collection of dynasty jade ever shown in these United States.”
He took Slocum’s arm and guided him from the room. Slocum cast a quick look over his shoulder at Tess. She was torn between accompanying them and continuing her transcription. Duty finally won out, and she sat reluctantly to continue her work.
“Yes, yes, here. Take a look at that, my good man. The imperial crown. The crown of the Jade Emperor himself!”
Slocum stared at the intricately carved crown. There was a certain impressive quality about it he could not put his finger on. It had nothing to do with the head that must have been under the crown. Rather there was a sense of majesty about the crown itself.
“How did you come by something that ought to be on the head of the Chinese emperor?”
“This, uh, this was an artifact I found while digging in southern China,” Sir William said. Slocum heard the lie.
“I read your broadside about the exhibit and how you collected all this.” Slocum looked around at the cases in the center of the large room. The usual exhibit cases had been pushed back against the walls as if they did not matter.
“You doubt my word?”
“I don’t hold it against you for wanting to show such gewgaws to folks here in this country. Did you take it off the head of the emperor himself?”
“Not exactly,” Sir William said uneasily. “There might have been a shipment of the emperor’s most cherished possessions that, uh, went astray. An observant man might notice and take advantage of inefficiency of governmental bureaucrats.”
“So you stole all this from the ruler of an entire country.”
“That is a crass way of phrasing it,” Sir William said haughtily.
“You seem to know a lot about the Chinese and their ways,” Slocum said. “Why would they kill each other over recovering a dead body?”
The sudden turn in the conversation nonplussed Sir William for a moment. But only for a moment. He launched into full professorial mode.
“You refer to the Chinese in this country? They consider themselves sojourners, temporary residents who will strike it rich and return to their home country one day. Those who die must be buried in Chinese soil, preferably in the town where they were born.”
“So the whole damn body has to be returned to China? What if it isn’t?”
“Unthinkable. The deceased’s soul would be forever trapped in what they consider a barbaric land. That would be worse than any indignity they might suffer while alive. There is one thing, though. The body does not necessarily have to be returned to their homeland, but the bones do. Something religious, I think.”
“So if one gent prevents the body of an enemy from being sent back for burial, he’s doing about the worst he can?”
“Oh, yes, quite. I can believe that would happen. Do you know of such a case?”
“The Sum Yop tong has the body of the leader of the On Leong tong and won’t give it up.”
“That is a frightening notion. Such rivalry could spark a tong war that would decimate this city.”
“That bad?”
“Ever so, ever so, my good man.”
“What would you recommend be done? To get the body back?”
“If the Sum Yops are not inclined to release the corpse—or the bones—there is not a great deal any Westerner can do,” Sir William said.
“If you were to give some advice…” Slocum began. He hesitated, then tilted his head to one side, listening hard. Something had changed in the museum. For a moment, he could not figure out what it was. Then he knew.
He threw his arms around Sir William and spun the explorer around and knocked him to the floor. At the same time, his hand flew to the ebony butt of his Colt Navy. Slocum drew and fanned off three quick shots toward the entrance to the display room.
The silver wheel spinning toward him missed by inches. The hatchet man had released his weapon just as Slocum fired. Bullets raced faster than the deadly ax, and Slocum’s aim was perfect. All three bullets tore through the tong killer’s chest.
The hatchet clattered against the floor behind Slocum as he came out of his gunfighter’s crouch.
“Sir William! Are you all right?” Tess Lawrence ran from the back of the museum and skidded to a halt on her knees beside the fallen explorer.
“Quite right, my dear. You might say right as rain, thanks to this gentleman. You say you hired him? He earned his day’s pay, whatever that might be.”
Sir William got to his feet. Tess brushed him off, but he took no notice.
“Welcome to my employ.” Sir William thrust out his hand. This time there was no confusion. Slocum gripped it, engaged in a small battle of wills as Sir William tried to crush it and failed.
Slocum looked over at Tess, who beamed. He wondered what she was thinking. It was probably that she had hired the right man to protect her employer.
Slocum decided not to disagree, if that was what she was thinking.
7
“Stay back,” Slocum snapped. His six-gun still smoked, but he did not tuck it away in his cross-draw holster. Looking past Sir William revealed nothing out of the ordinary. Even the usual scurry of uniformed museum attendants did not occur. The Specials had disappeared as if they were nothing more than smoke on the wind.
He pushed past Tess Lawrence. The woman shot him another grateful look, then gripped Sir William’s arm and began asking if he was all right. She had been more in danger. Slocum was not certain if the hatchet had been aimed at him or Sir William. It was time to find out.
Hurrying into the foyer, he looked around and immediately saw why the museum employees were not bustling about asking questions. Two lay dead just inside the door. Both had their heads split open by a single hatchet blow. Slocum tried to judge if one hatchet man had been responsible or if there had been others. He backed away, went to the dead man and knelt beside him. Laying his gun aside for a moment, Slocum rolled the tong killer over and began searching him. The quilt jacket and the trousers had no pockets to search. Inside the cotton shirt had been stuffed a single sheet of paper covered with Chinese curlicues. Blood from at least two of the wounds Slocum had put into the man’s chest soaked the page.
“I say, what do you have there?”
“I told you to stay back until I’m sure there’s no more danger.”
“Oh, by Saint George and all the dragons, the museum workers are dead, aren’t they?”
“Deader than a doornail,” Slocum said. He handed Sir William the page. “Can you read this?”
“It has a drop or two of blood obscuring some of the ideograms,” Sir William said, holding the sheet up and peering at it. He saw two holes through the page as well as the blood. “You know that written Chinese is the same, no matter the dialect of the language?”
“So you can read it? Does it say who sent this killer?” Slocum poked the hatchet man. No response. He had died instantly from Slocum’s rounds.
“I am a bit rusty. It might take a spot of work.”
“It might be important,” Slocum insisted.
“It might be a laundry list, also,” Sir William countered. “They do not represent words by groups of letters, you understand. Rather, they draw pictures. There are thousands of ideograms to learn. No easy task.”
“Surely, you know how to decipher it,” Tess said, putting her hand on the explorer’s shoulder.
Slocum saw the
adoration in the woman’s eyes. And felt a sudden irrational surge of jealousy. Why should he care what Tess thought of Sir William? The woman could choose whoever she wanted, and she had obviously set her sights on the Britisher.
“Well, yes, of course, my dear.” The way Sir William spoke told Slocum that the sheet would be deciphered, possibly after long hours of hard work, but it would get done if only to maintain stature in his secretary’s eyes.
Slocum finished his examination of the dead tong man, then grabbed his gun and went exploring through the long narrow corridors of the museum, alert for any sound. He worried that the Chinese assassins moved so quietly. In a way, this was their terrain. Slocum could stalk through woods as quietly as any Indian but could never hope to match a Celestial hunting a victim along the streets of San Francisco.
When he had made a quick pass through all the unlocked rooms, he returned. Tess pressed close to Sir William as they answered questions from a policeman. Slocum saw the man’s three partners just outside the museum’s main door. They looked as if they would bolt and run at any instant.
“No hatchet man anywhere I can see,” Slocum said, sliding his six-shooter into its holster hard enough to get the policeman’s attention.
“This is the one who killed the Celestial?”
“He saved Sir William’s life!” blurted Tess.
Slocum still had not figured out if he had been the target for his involvement with Ah Ming and her On Leong tong. Just as easily, Sir William might have been the target of the inept attack.
“You recognize him?” Slocum asked.
“Whatya mean? I don’t go ’round tryin’ to identify the likes of them.”
“What tong does he belong to?” Slocum asked patiently.
“From the look of ’im, he’s a Sum Yop.”
That still did not tell Slocum who the killer had been after. From what he had heard from Sir William, the jade on display had all been stolen, virtually off the head of the Chinese emperor himself. That might make him a target by the tongs, though the earlier attack that had worried Tess so had been committed by Chinese sailors. Slocum was at a loss to figure it all out. Mostly, he wanted to stay alive.