All the Tears in China

by Sulari Gentill

  “Of course. I’m terribly sorry if—”

  “Do not be sorry, Mr. Sinclair. I have very much enjoyed this evening in your company. Rarely do I disembark on arrival—the lot of a driver, you know.”

  Rowland walked Singh out to the Buick so that he could thank the driver again. Singh assured him that he had not been at all alarmed by his part in the excursion and was prepared to discharge more dangerous duties if the need arose.

  Amused, Rowland waved Singh into the late-night congestion of Kiangse Road and returned to his friends. Wing Zau, who had been noticeably quiet in Singh’s presence, reanimated somewhat, and told them of Shanghai during the war, emptied of Englishmen and Europeans who had returned to fight for king and country on both sides of the conflict. He spoke of the Chinese labourers who had dug the allied trenches. “After the war, the Shandong Peninsula, Chinese land, was given to the Japanese. Many Chinese believe that our allies betrayed us.”

  Rowland frowned. “They probably did. The spoils of war don’t often bring out the best in men.”

  “No, no… I apologise Mr. Sinclair.” Wing shook his head. “A wise man does not allow past wrongs to poison the friendships he makes today.”

  “An ancient Chinese saying?” Milton topped up Wing’s glass with Sassoon’s cognac.

  Wing shrugged. “Perhaps. I read it on a restroom wall in Boston, but I’m sure my honourable ancestors would concur.”

  Rowland laughed. “When were you in Boston, Mr. Wing?”

  “I was a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in my youth, Mr. Sinclair. My dear father had a great deal of faith in western education.”

  “Had? Did MIT disappoint him?”

  “No, it’s not that. Father was arrested and executed in the purge of Communists from Shanghai.”

  Edna gasped. “Oh, Mr. Wing.”

  Clyde shook his head. “We’re truly sorry to hear that, Wing.”

  Wing nodded sadly in the wake of their condolences. “They were difficult years. All the tears in China might have flooded the HuangPu. For my mother’s sake, I went to work for Sir Victor. There is a certain protection afforded to the Cathay.”

  Rowland pondered this. Sassoon did seem to wield a great deal of power and influence in Shanghai, and he had gone to great lengths to distance the investigation of Alexandra Romanova’s death from the hotel itself.

  “Shall we have some music?” Edna suggested before the conversation became too sombre. “Where do you suppose Sir Victor keeps the records? Perhaps he has some Fats Waller… Rowly, what’s wrong?”

  He grimaced. “Nothing really.” He felt inside his pocket for the silver discs Van Hagen had given him that morning. “I just remembered that Mr. Van Hagen had given me these.”

  Rowland placed the first disc on the gramophone’s turntable and they all stood around to listen, intrigued by the Cathay’s elaborate method of taking messages.

  The voice that came out of the bell was scratchy, but it was that of Andrew Petty. He spoke smoothly and without awkwardness, but possibly he had left recorded messages at the Cathay Hotel before.

  “I say, old boy, where on earth are you? I heard about this awful business in your suite, quite outrageous if you ask me. My condolences, old bean. A positively dreadful introduction to Shanghai. Now they tell me you’ve checked out—I don’t wonder! But the jumped up little demagogue behind the counter won’t tell me where your digs are now. So I shall have to leave that to you. Telephone me via the exchange and let me know where you’re staying. I don’t suppose you’ve had someone show you the sights yet. And there are, of course, matters of business aside from pleasure. Well then… Toodle-oo old boy.”

  Rowland stifled a yawn. “I’ll call him in the morning.”

  “Who made the other messages?” Edna asked, looking closely at the silver discs.

  “Put them on and let’s see.”

  Edna chose one and exchanged it with the one already on the turntable. She set the needle.

  “Mr. Sinclair…”

  Rowland stiffened, and stepped closer to the gramophone. The voice was Alexandra Romanova’s.

  “Mr. Sinclair… is this working? Oh yes. Dear Mr. Sinclair, I’m afraid I won’t be able to keep our appointment for tea and cakes today. I hope you will forgive me and come find me at the Jazz Club this evening. I must talk to you, to explain, though I cannot come this afternoon… he will know. I think you are kind, Mr. Sinclair… Rowland, so I hope you will understand, that you will help me.”

  The recording became faint—barely audible.

  “May God protect you…”

  The gramophone scratched silence.

  Rowland lifted the needle and played it again.

  “Oh, Rowly.” Edna grabbed his hand before he could play it a third time. “That poor girl.” The sculptress’ voice was unsteady. Even on the recording, there had been a palpable fear in Alexandra Romanova’s voice. And just hours later she would be dead.

  Rowland nodded. “God, if we hadn’t stepped out…”

  Edna pulled him down to sit beside her. “We don’t know that, darling. You would have helped her if you’d been given the chance.”

  Milton cursed. “What the hell is going on here? Did she say anything to you, Rowly—that night at the Jazz Club?”

  Rowland shook his head. “We talked about music, and books. She spoke of returning to Russia one day with her brother. She made sure I wasn’t married before she suggested I ask her to tea. She was charming and confident… there was nothing.”

  “She made a beeline for Rowly,” Clyde said thoughtfully. “It was as if she had singled him out.”

  Edna bit her lip. “That’s hindsight. She might just have found Rowly particularly handsome.”

  “Perhaps,” Clyde conceded, “but considering what’s happened… She did say she wanted to explain, that she wanted him to understand. That sounds like she wanted to talk about more than standing him up for tea.”

  Rowland nodded. “Clyde’s right. She’d already apologised for breaking the appointment. What could she have possibly wanted me to understand?”

  “She used the recording like she was writing a letter,” Edna observed.

  “Many people do.” Wing Zau poured another round of brandy. Despite the roaring fire, Alexandra’s voice had chilled them all. “Most people find leaving a spoken message quite awkward and uncomfortable at first. Some people shout, others giggle, and some speak as if they are dictating a letter or a telegram. Mr. Petty’s obviously left messages at the Cathay before, but I doubt Miss Romanova has.”

  Milton rested his elbows on his knees, sitting forward and swirling the brandy in his glass. “We need to decide what we’re going to do with the recording.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Randolph will use it against you, Rowly.”

  “How could he?”

  “He could well use it to allege that your relationship with Miss Romanova was much more than merely dancing with her the night before she was killed. You could read almost anything into what she said.”

  Rowland exhaled. He could see Milton’s point. But still. “We can’t withhold it, Milt. It may be a clue to who killed Miss Romanova.”

  “I agree,” the poet said carefully. “Or I would, if I thought Randolph was actually investigating who killed her. As far as I can tell, he’s already decided it was you. I say we don’t help him lock you up.”

  15

  CHRISTMAS MESSAGES

  BY PHONOGRAPH RECORDS

  LONDON, Nov. 12.

  A number of Australians living in London are taking advantage of the opportunity of sending messages to friends in Australia at Christmas by means of personal phonograph records. The novelty allows of a 90 seconds record for one shilling. The record is delivered to the customer before he leaves the shop.

  Sir Edward Macartney (Agent-General for Queensland) is sending greetings to the Brisbane Golf Club in this manner.

  Sydney Morning Herald, 14 November 1930 />
  They argued and drank well into the night. Milton was adamant that handing over the disc to Randolph would be a mistake; Rowland and Clyde were reluctant to withhold evidence that might lead to Alexandra Romanova’s killer. Edna did not want to do anything that might make matters worse for Rowland, and Wing would say nothing but that he would do or not do whatever they wanted him to.

  “Right,” Milton said finally. “What say you take the recording to your lawyers, Rowly? Let that fellow Carmel decide what to do with it. At least then they can prepare your defence first.”

  Rowland glanced at Clyde. It seemed a reasonable compromise. “Very well, that’s what we’ll do.”

  Edna leaned drowsily against Rowland’s shoulder. “Thank goodness that’s sorted.”

  “What about the other message, sir?” Wing picked up a third silver disc.

  “I guess we’d better listen to it,” Rowland said half-heartedly. It was already one in the morning.

  Wing placed the disc carefully on the turntable, wound the gramophone’s handle, and set the needle.

  “Yes… Sinclair… Sinclair? How does this infernal contraption work? Oh yes then. Alastair Blanshard here. Look, Sinclair, I’m leaving Shanghai for a couple of days. I’ll be in touch when I return. There are a couple of things you should know. In the meantime, I want you to be particularly careful. Do not take any chances. I’ll explain when I get back. With regards and so forth—Blanshard.”

  Rowland groaned, suppressing a curse. Blanshard and his ridiculous obsession with cloak and dagger! He had no idea what exactly the Old Guardsman was doing in Shanghai, but it appeared he was at least still playing at being a spy.

  For a few moments they contemplated the recording, and then Clyde broke the somnolent silence.

  “So, Rowly, what do you think?”

  Rowland shifted, trying not to wake Edna who had fallen asleep on his shoulder. “It’s my considered opinion we should go to bed and deal with it in the morning.”

  Milton stretched. “I’ll second that.” He poked the sculptress. “Wake up, Ed. You’re too fat to carry up to bed.”

  Edna was not so deeply asleep that the poet did not get a fitting response.

  Rowland laughed as he helped her to her feet. “Our troubles will still be here in the morning… perhaps by then it will all make a little more sense.”

  Rowland was the first to wake the next morning. He had again slept fitfully, haunted by Alexandra’s last message. What had she wanted to speak to him about? What could she have needed to explain? Surely it had to be something more than why she couldn’t meet him for tea. He showered and dressed and slipped downstairs, still contemplating the recording. Kiangse Road was already busy though it was barely light. The clatter of rickshaws passing the louvered shutters, the faint cacophony of languages.

  Rowland stared at the silver discs beside the gramophone. They were all simply marked “Sinclair”. He’d have to play them again to determine which was which. Bracing himself, he wound the gramophone. Alexandra’s message was the second and as chilling and tragic in the light of day as it had been the evening before. Rowland ran a hand through his hair as she signed off, allowing the disc to run while he mentally replayed everything she’d ever said to him. Another voice caught his attention, a man’s voice. Faint, speaking what sounded like French.

  “Votre Majesté!”

  Rowland looked up sharply. Your Majesty?

  Alexandra’s voice. “I’m sorry. Don’t. Please, I’m coming.”

  And then nothing. Rowland moved the needle and listened again. He let the disc play out in case there was anything else. There was not.

  Edna came down the stairs in pyjamas. “Rowly? What on earth are you doing up so early? It’s barely six in the morning.”

  He beckoned her over and played her the end of the recording that they’d missed the night before.

  “Votre Majesté? She’s not—”

  “I don’t know. It seems unlikely.”

  “Still, Romanova.”

  “There are probably thousands of Romanovas. Ed—it doesn’t mean… The Russian royal family was executed by the Bolsheviks.”

  Edna pushed the oversized sleeves of her pyjamas up to her elbows. Though she’d awoken only shortly before, her eyes were bright. “There are rumours that the youngest princess escaped.”

  Rowland rubbed the back of his neck absently. He had of course heard the widespread speculation that the Princess Anastasia had survived. There were even stories that both Anastasia and her brother, the tsarevich, had been spared or escaped the slaughter of the Romanovs—a romantic hope more than anything else. “Surely if she was a princess in hiding from the Bolsheviks, she wouldn’t call herself Romanova?”

  “Perhaps the Romanov name is all she has left.”

  Rowland began to wonder now. There had been a sense of divine right to Alexandra’s determination to return to Russia… but that was possibly common to all aristocrats. “She sounded terrified.”

  “Of someone who called her ‘your Majesty’.” Edna reset the needle and listened again. “I’m certain he’s not a Frenchman,” she said. “His accent isn’t right.”

  Rowland nodded. Edna’s mother had been French and her mother’s language had been her first. He could hear it now, himself. An unnecessary heaviness in the r… not obvious but the man was probably not French.

  Edna took him by the hand. “Come with me, I’m going to teach you how to make a pot of tea.”

  “Why?”

  “Because a grown man should not be quite so helpless without servants.”

  Though he did not think making tea could possibly be that complicated, Rowland allowed her to lead him into the kitchen and show him how to scald and warm the pot, measure out the leaves and steep the brew. He was, in the end, surprised that the task was so involved. But by the time the rest of the household descended to the lower floor, he had made tea for them all.

  Edna ran upstairs to dress, while Rowland played the men the end of the recording.

  “Do you have any inkling as to who that might be, Mr. Wing?”

  “There are a great many people in Shanghai who speak French, sir.”

  “Including you, Rowly,” Milton noted.

  “Still, it’s something.” Clyde sampled the tea. “Not bad, Rowly. You’ll be pressing your own suits next.”

  “Let’s not get carried away.”

  The notion was rendered unnecessary by the arrival of Ranjit Singh and his sister Harjeet. Harjeet Kaur Bal was a physically substantial woman, strong and cheerful. Her children were now grown and married themselves. She missed organising their day-to-day lives, being busy and needed, and so she had responded enthusiastically when her brother had told her of the hapless Australians who were in need of help. Their difficulties with the police aside, Harjeet trusted her brother’s assessment that these were good people, modern and a little wild in the way that Westerners were, but decent. They would pay well, he assured her, and he would be nearby. And so Harjeet arrived at Kiangse Road ready to take over the running of Victor Sassoon’s house.

  She liked Rowland Sinclair immediately. His British reserve was mitigated by an easy smile and his manners were impeccable. Milton Isaacs was a rascal, Harjeet thought, but not a bad boy. Clyde Watson Jones seemed a little older and perhaps wiser, but he was very respectful. Harjeet might have been scandalised by the easy familiarity with which Edna Higgins dealt with the men, but the young woman was a Westerner and Western women in Shanghai were often unconcerned about their reputations. In any case, Harjeet felt a creeping admiration of the utter lack of self-consciousness in Edna’s manner. It was endearing more than shocking.

  Wing Zau attempted to apprise Harjeet of the contents of the pantry and her duties, but she shooed him away, declaring that she had run households since before he wore trousers. He made a rather futile attempt to exert his authority and the exchange became somewhat heated before Wing emerged from the kitchen defeated. In twenty minutes, Harjeet Bal ser
ved them a breakfast of savoury pancakes and vegetable curry, accompanied by coffee and fresh fruit.

  “Right.” Rowland stood, having eaten his fill. “I’d better take Alexandra’s recording to Mr. Carmel, and then see if I can track down Andrew Petty. I’ve probably missed a couple of meetings already.”

  “Give us a moment to finish breakfast—”

  “There’s no need for you all to come—I expect it’ll be rather dull. We’ve barely had a chance to look around Shanghai properly. Why don’t you take the taxi and explore. I can walk to the Bund from here.”

  “Shouldn’t I come with you, sir?” Wing rose.

  “No, Mr. Carmel speaks English quite well for a lawyer. The others may need you more than I.”

  “Rowly, are you sure that Du chap—” Clyde began.

  “Mr. Du is no longer a problem. I telephoned the bank this morning.” Rowland glanced at his watch. “I don’t expect I’ll be all that long. What say I catch up with you somewhere?”

  “I think I’ll go with you anyway.” Clyde snatched the linen napkin from his collar and motioned towards Edna who had left the table to fetch her camera from the drawing room. “I’m a bit fed up with being Ed’s leading man.”

  Milton snorted, lifting his chin haughtily. “Believe me, my friend, while I’m in the frame you’ve a supporting role at best.”

  Clyde stood to retrieve his hat from the hook by the door. “Righto then, Rowly, we’ll leave Ed to make ‘An Idiot in Shanghai’ and go deliver this recording.”

  Rowland laughed. “Fair enough. If Ed can spare you.” He stopped, turning back to Milton and Wing. “Shall we meet at the Cathay tea rooms—let’s say half past two? I’d like to have a look at the recording booths.”

  His mouth full, the poet waved his fork in agreement.

  The sculptress was already rolling film and so their farewell and departure was captured on celluloid.

  The red door was barely closed behind them when Clyde raised the issue of Mrs. Dong, whose remains were still hidden beneath Clyde’s bed.