"Where? There are no hiding places . . . unless you expect us to believe she crawled up inside the fireplace chimney."
"Not there, no. Nor are there any secret closets or passages or any other such hocus-pocus. She was hidden —"
"— in the same place as her spirit props," Sabina interrupted, "within the sideboard." Her testy glance at Quincannon said he'd hogged center stage long enough; she wasn't above a bit of a flare for the dramatic herself, he thought fondly. "The interior is hollow, and she is both tiny and enough of a contortionist to fold her body into such a short, narrow space. The catch that releases the hinged top can be operated from within as well. Once the room was in total darkness and Vargas began invoking the spirits, she climbed out to commence her preparations. Under her robe, I'll warrant, is an all-black, close-fitting garment. Black gloves and a mask of some sort to cover her white face completed the costume. And her familiarity with the room allowed her to move about in silence."
"All well and good," Buckley said, "but the woman was outside the locked door, pounding on it, less than a minute after Vargas was stabbed. Explain that."
"Simple misdirection, Mr. Buckley. Before the stabbing she replaced all props in the sideboard and closed the top, then unlocked the door, the key made a faint scraping and the bolt clicked, sounds which John and I both heard. Then she crossed the room, plunged her dagger into Vargas, re-crossed the room immediately after the second thrust, let herself out into the darkened hallway, and relocked the door from that side. Not with Vargas's key, which remained on the sideboard, but with a duplicate key of her own."
No one spoke for a cluster of seconds. In hushed tones, then, Grace Cobb asked, "Why did you do it, Annabelle?"
The psychic assistant's mouth twisted. Her voice, when it came, was with passion. "He was an evil unbeliever. He mocked the spirits with his schemes, laughed and derided them and those of us who truly believe. I did his bidding because I loved him, I obeyed him until the spirits came in the night and told me I must obey no longer. They said I must destroy him. Angkar guided my hand tonight. Angkar showed me the path to the truth and light of the After-world . . ."
Her words trailed off; she sat staring fixedly. Looking at no one there with her blazing eyes, Quincannon thought, but at whatever she believed waited for her beyond the pale.
It was after midnight before the bumbling constabulary (Quincannon considered all city policemen to be bumbling) finished with their questions, took Annabelle away, and permitted the others to depart. On the mist-wet walk in front, while they waited for hansoms, Cyrus Buckley drew Quincannon aside.
"You and Mrs. Carpenter are competent detectives, sir, I'll grant you that even though I don't wholly approve of your methods. You'll have my check for the balance of our arrangement tomorrow morning."
Quincannon bowed and accepted the financier's hand. "If you should find yourself in need of our services again . . ."
"I trust I won't." Buckley paused to unwrap a long-nine seegar. "One question before we part. As I told you in your offices, the first séance Mrs. Buckley and I attended here was concluded by Vargas's claim that Angkar had untied him. We heard the rope flung through the air, and when the gas was turned up we saw it lying unknotted on the floor. He couldn't have untied all those knots himself, with only one free hand."
"Hardly. Annabelle assisted in that trick, too."
"I don't quite see how it was worked. Can you make a guess?"
"I can. The unknotted rope, which he himself hurled across the room, was not the same one with which he was tied. Annabelle slipped up behind him and cut the knotted rope into pieces with her dagger, then hid the pieces in the sideboard. The second rope was concealed there with the props and given to Vargas after she'd severed the first."
"His planned finale for tonight's séance too, I fancy."
"No doubt. Instead, Annabelle improvised a far more shocking finish."
"Made him pay dearly for mocking the spirits, eh?"
"If you like, Mr. Buckley. If you like."
Quincannon had time to smoke a bowlful of shag tobacco before a hansom arrived for him and Sabina. Settled in the darkened coach on the way to Russian Hill, he said, "All's well that ends well. But I must say I'm glad this case is closed. Psychic phenomena, theocratic unity . . . bah. The lot of it is —"
"— horsefeathers," Sabina said. "Yes, I know. But are you quite sure there's no truth in it?"
"Spiritualism? None whatsoever."
"Not spiritualism. The existence of a spirit afterlife."
"Don't tell me you give a whit of credence to such folly?"
"I have an open mind."
"So do I, my dear, on most matters."
"But not the paranormal."
"Not a bit of it."
For a time they sat in companionable stillness broken only by the jangle of the horses' bit chains, the clatter of the iron wheels on rough cobblestones. Then there was a faint stirring in the heavy darkness, and to Quincannon's utter amazement, a pair of soft, sweet lips brushed his, clung passionately for an instant, then withdrew.
He sat stunned for several beats. At which point his lusty natural instincts took over; he twisted on the seat, reached out to Sabina with eager hands and mouth. Both found yielding flesh. He kissed her soundly.
In the next second he found himself embracing a struggling, squirming spitfire. She pulled free, and the crack of her hand on his cheek was twice as hard as the slap in Vargas's spirit room. "What makes you think you can take such liberties, John Quincannon!" she demanded indignantly.
"But . . . I was only returning your affection . . . ."
"My affection?"
"You kissed me first. Why, if you didn't care to have it reciprocated?"
"What are you gabbling about? I didn't kiss you."
"Of course you did. A few moments ago."
"Faugh! I did no such thing and you know it." Her dress rustled as she slid farther away from him. "Now I'll thank you to keep your distance and behave yourself."
He sat and behaved, not happily. Had he imagined the kiss? No, he wasn't that moonstruck. She had kissed him, for a fact; he could still feel her lips against his. Some sort of woman's game to devil him. He imagined her smiling secretly in the dark—but then the hack passed close to a streetlamp and he saw that she was leaning against the far door with her arms folded, unsmiling and wearing an injured look.
The only other explanation for the kiss . . . but that was sheer lunacy, not worth a moment's consideration. It must have been Sabina. Of course it was Sabina. And yet . . .
The hansom clattered on into the cold, damp night.
Jade
La Croix had not changed much in the three years since I had last seen him. He still had a nervous twitch, still wore the same ingratiating smile. We sat together in a booth in the Seaman's Bar, on Singapore River's South Quay. It was eleven-thirty in the morning.
He brushed at an imaginary speck on the sleeve of his white tropical suit. "You will do it, mon ami?"
"No," I said.
His smile went away. "But I have offered you a great deal of money."
"That has nothing to do with it."
"I do not understand."
"I'm not in the business anymore."
The smile came back. "You are joking, of course."
"Do you see me laughing?"
Again, the smile vanished. "But you must help me. Perhaps if I were to tell you the reason—"
"I don't want to hear about it. There are plenty of others in Singapore. Why don't you hunt up one of them?"
"You and I, we have done much business together," La Croix said. "You are the only one I would trust. I will double my offer. Triple it."
"I told you, the money has nothing to do with it. I'm not the same man I was before you went away to Manila or Kuala Lumpur or wherever the hell you've been."
"Mon ami, Ibeg of you!" Sweat had broken out on his forehead.
"No." I stood abruptly. "I can't do anything for you, La Croix. Find somebody
else."
I walked away from him, through the beaded curtains into the bar proper. La Croix hurried after me, pushed in next to me as I ordered another iced beer. When the bartender moved away La Croix said urgently, "I beg of you to reconsider, M'sieu Connell. I . . . as long as I remain in Singapore my life is in grave danger . . ."
"La Croix, how many times do I have to say it? I'm not in the business anymore. There's nothing I can do."
"But I have already—" He broke off, his eyes staring into mine, and then he swung around and was gone.
I finished my beer and went out into what the Malays call the roore hond, the oppressive, prickly heat that was Singapore at midday. There were a few European tourists about—talking animatedly, taking pictures the way they do—but the natives had sense enough to stay in where it was cool.
I walked down to the river. The water was a dark, oily bluish-green. Its narrow expanse, as always, was crowded with sampans, prahus, small bamboo-awninged Chinese junks, and the heavily laden, almost flat-decked lighters called tongkangs. There was the smell of rotting garbage, intermingled with that of salt water, spices, rubber, gasoline, and the sweet, cloying scent of frangipani. The rust-colored roofs that cap most of Singapore's buildings shone dully through thick heat haze on both sides of the river.
I followed the line of the waterfront for a short way until I came to one of the smaller godowns or storage warehouses. Harry Rutledge, the big, florid-faced Englishman who ran the place, was there, supervising the unloading of a shipment of copra from one of the lighters.
"Can you use me today, Harry?" I asked him.
"Sorry, lad. Plenty of coolies on this one."
"Tomorrow?"
He rubbed his peeling red nose. "Cargo of palm oil due in," he said musingly. "Holdover, awaiting transshipment. Could use you, at that."
"What time will it be in?"
"By eleven, likely."
"I'll be here at ten."
"Right-o."
I moved on along the river. I had never really gotten used to the heat, even after fifteen years in the South China Seas, and I was sweaty and dry-mouthed and I wanted another iced beer. But not in the Seaman's Bar, and it would be better if I had something to eat first. I had not eaten all day.
Here and there along the waterfront are small eating stalls. I stopped at the first one I saw and sat on one of the foot-high wooden stools, under a white canvas awning. I ordered shashlick and rice and a fresh mangosteen. I was working on the thick, pulpy fruit when the three men walked up.
The two on either side were copper-skinned, flat-eyed, and stoic. Both were dressed in white linen jackets and matching slacks. The man in the middle was about fifty, short and plump; his skin had the odd look of kneaded pink dough. He was probably Dutch or Belgian, I thought. He wore white also, but that was the only similarity between his clothes and those of the other two. The suit was impeccably tailored, the shirt of silk; the leather shoes were handmade and polished to a gloss. On the little finger of his left hand he wore a gold ring with a jade stone in the shape of a lion's head—symbolic, probably, of the Lion City.
He sat down carefully on the stool next to me. The other two remained standing. The plump man smiled as if he had just found a missing relative. "You are Daniel Connell?" he asked.
"That's right."
"I am Jorge Van Rijk."
I went on eating the mangosteen.
"You were at the Seaman's Bar a short while ago. In the company of an acquaintance of mine."
"Is that so?"
"M'sieu La Croix."
"The name's not familiar."
"Come now, Mr. Connell. What did he want of you?"
"I don't see that it's any of your business."
"Ah, but it is. It is very much my business."
"Then go ask La Croix."
"An excellent suggestion," Van Rijk said. "However, he seems to have temporarily eluded us."
"Too bad for you."
"Necessarily, then, I must ask you. What did he want?"
"He wanted to sell me something," I said. "But I wasn't buying."
"No?" Van Rijk smiled again, but his eyes were as cold as dry ice. "You are a pilot, are you not?"
"Not anymore."
"A pilot for hire, I'm told. La Croix wished you to fly him somewhere."
"You think so? You weren't there."
"To what destination?"
"I didn't let him get that far."
"What destination, Mr. Connell? When and from where?"
"Ask as many questions as you want. I don't have any answers for you."
Van Rijk was losing patience; his eyes said so and so did the threatening tone when he said, "You would be wise not to play games with me, Mr. Connell."
"I'm not playing games. Why should I? I don't know who you are or what your connection is to La Croix and I don't much care."
"Then tell me what you know of La Croix's plans, or . . ."
"Or what, Van Rijk?" My patience was gone, too. I laid my hands flat on the table, leaning toward him. That brought the other two in closer; one of them put his hand inside his jacket. "Or you sic your two bodyguards or whatever they are on me? I'm sure they're armed to the teeth, but I doubt you'd have them shoot me in a crowded bazaar. Or try to kidnap me, either. In fact I doubt you'll make any trouble at all, unless you want to spend some time in a city penjara for street brawling."
Anger blotched his pink cheeks. The other two were poised on the balls of their feet, watching me, waiting for orders from Van Rijk. But I'd read him right; he didn't want anything to do with the Singapore polls. He got slowly and stiffly to his feet.
"There will be another time, Mr. Connell," he said. "When the streets are not so crowded." Then he stalked off, threading his way between the tables, his two orang séwaan-séwaan at his heels. The three of them disappeared into the waterfront confusion.
I sat there for a time. Van Rijk and his threats didn't worry me much. There had been a time when they might have, but that time was two years dead; his type didn't bother me anymore. I wasn't even curious about his relationship with La Croix.
I drank a couple of iced Anchor beers in a nearby bar, then took a taxi to my flat on Punyang Street in Chinatown. A forty-minute nap, a tepid shower, and a fresh change of clothes put me in a better frame of mind. And by then I was thirsty again.
On Jalan Barat, not far away, there was a bar called the Malaysian Gardens—a gross misnomer. No flower, shrub or plant has ever been cultivated within a radius of one hundred yards of the place. Its façade was reminiscent of a Chinatown tenement and its barnlike interior was scruffy, bare, and redolent of the sweat, blood, and tears of its equally scruffy clientele. A dive the Malaysian Gardens may be, catering to the Caucasian, Eurasian, and Asian dregs, but the beer was cheap and nobody cared who or what you were. You could do your drinking alone or in the company of friendly and sympathetic—for the right price—bar girls. Mostly I did mine alone.
I had been there for perhaps three hours, sitting by myself at a rear table and thinking a lot of old and useless thoughts, when I realized I was being stared at. I was still fairly sober and it wasn't much of an effort to get my eyes focused. The starer was a woman. Not one of the bar girls a young Caucasian woman who didn't belong in the Malaysian Gardens.
She was standing about fifteen feet away, tall and dark-haired and well-dressed. In the smoky dimness of the Gardens it was difficult to determine her age, but she couldn't have been older than thirty. She had eyes for me alone, no question of that, but not for the usual reason women stare at men in bars. She seemed nervous and uncomfortable and maybe a little scared.
My being aware of her seemed to make up her mind about something. She came forward jerkily and stopped in front of my table. "You're . . . Mr. Connell? Dan Connell?" American, I thought. Or possibly Canadian.
"That's me."
"My name is Tina Kellogg. I'd like to talk to you. It's . . . it's very important to me."
I indicated an empt
y chair and invited her to sit down. "I don't know quite how to say this," she said. "I'm . . . I have no experience with this sort of thing."
"What sort of thing is that?"
She hesitated. "Well, intrigue, I guess you'd call it."
"That's a pretty melodramatic word."
"Yes, I know." She hesitated again. Then, in a rush, as if she needed to relieve herself of the pressure of the words: "Mr. Connell, I'm told that you fly people out of Singapore, people who can't leave any other way."
Christ, I thought. First La Croix, then Van Rijk, and now this woman. Some damn day this had been. "Who told you that?" I asked her.
"I don't know his name. A man I talked to on the waterfront. I spent most of the day asking around and this man said the person I should see was Dan Connell and that I could find him here most nights, so I . . ." Her voice trailed off.
"I can't help you," I told her.
"But . . . the man said . . ."
"I don't care what he said. I can't help you."
"It isn't very far, where I want to . . . where I have to go." Desperation put a tremble in her voice. "Just the Philippines. Anywhere near Luzon."
I drank from my glass. I thought she might go away if I ignored her, but she didn't.
"It's my father," she said. "The reason I have to get home so quickly. There was a telegram this morning, from the Luzon police. My father has been arrested. There have been terrorist attacks recently and they think he's involved with the Communist guerillas responsible." She took a deep, shuddery breath. "It's not true! I know my father. He's . . . we're Canadian. He owns a small import-export business, his sympathies are all with the present government. He would never become mixed up with the Communists—he'd have nothing to gain and everything to lose. It's all a mistake, a terrible mistake."
I sighed. "Why don't you just take one of the scheduled flights?"
"I haven't enough money. Nor any credit cards—my father doesn't believe in them."
"Can't someone in your family make the arrangements?"
"There's no one but my father and me."
"His business associates? Personal friends?"
She shook her head. "There's no one. I suppose I might be able to arrange something with his bank, but that might take days. And he has no close friends in Luzon. Even if he had, they'd be afraid to help me—afraid of being implicated with the Communists."
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