Shanghai Secrets

by Sulari Gentill

  And so the journalist strolled with them. Though it seemed she had not been long in Shanghai herself, Emily Hahn appeared to have an affinity with the city. She walked confidently, sidestepping rickshaws instinctively, all the time chatting gaily as she pointed out buildings of significance along the way, like a tour guide of sorts. The day was bright and sunny, though the spring was not yet warm—to Australians anyway. The streets were busy and vibrant, a weaving parade of colour and diversity. With midday approaching, delivery men picked through the traffic on bicycles stacked precariously with tiffin tins. Rowland fell back a little, extracting the notebook from his breast pocket to sketch the strain and movement of the rickshaw men. When he looked up again he saw his companions had stopped, waiting for him.

  “Probably best not to wander off after everything that’s happened, Rowly,” Clyde said almost sternly.

  Rowland put away his notebook. “Sorry. Old habits.”

  “We should be careful, mate. Someone’s already tried to snatch you once.”

  “That wasn’t personal.”

  “We can’t be sure.” Clyde glanced sideways at Wing Zau, who was watching the road nervously.

  Rowland nodded. “Hopefully Du Yuesheng’s thugs won’t try anything in broad daylight, but you’re right.”

  They remained within a step of each other as they made for the Cathay with neither haste nor undue delay. It was not till they saw the taxi stopped on the street outside the hotel that they remembered Ranjit Singh.

  Rowland groaned. “I wonder how long the poor man’s been waiting.”

  Milton peered into the taxi. “He’s not here.”

  “Are you sure it’s the right taxi?” Edna asked.

  “No,” Rowland admitted.

  “Come on.” Edna took his hand and pulled him towards the building. “We’ll ask at the reception desk. Perhaps your Mr. Singh enquired there.”

  The mystery of the missing taxi driver was solved the moment they entered the hotel foyer. Ranjit Singh was at the desk arguing with the concierge. In the daylight and standing, the Sikh was noticeably tall and immaculately attired in a dark three-piece suit which contrasted the deep red of his turban.

  “I’m afraid Mr. Sinclair is no longer a guest of the Cathay Hotel,” the concierge insisted.

  “I don’t understand. The gentleman assured me—”

  “Mr. Singh, I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting.” Rowland stepped in to explain the change of plans. He pulled Singh aside and slipped him the address of Sassoon’s house on Kiangse Road. “It’s only a couple of blocks away,” he said.

  “Never mind, sir,” Singh said. “I will wait.”

  Rowland checked his watch. “We were going to have lunch in the restaurant here. We’ll be at least an hour, probably two.”

  “Then if you don’t mind, sir, I will go home and come back. Tiffin time, you know.”

  “Of course, Mr. Singh. Thank you.”

  Emily Hahn also took her leave. “I’ll call on you all soon,” she promised as she stepped into Sassoon’s private elevator.

  “Welcome back, sir.” Van Hagen eyed the Australians warily. “Will you be—”

  “We escorted Miss Hahn to her appointment with Sir Victor,” Rowland said pleasantly. “The rest of us hoped we might take a table in the Cathay Room, since we’re here.” Over Van Hagen’s shoulder he could see Wing Zau slip, as agreed, through the staff entrance which led to the service corridors.

  Van Hagen seemed flustered. “I’m not sure the restaurant has any tables available.”

  “I’m sure there’s something.”

  “No, sir, I’m sure there’s not. Perhaps if you’d made a reservation…”

  “Give Mr. Sinclair and his friends my table.” Sassoon emerged into earshot with Emily Hahn on his arm. “Miss Hahn and I will be dining elsewhere.” He winked at Rowland. “After all, we can’t throw the man out and then deny him basic succour.”

  “As you wish, Sir Victor.” Van Hagen’s face was unreadable. “There have been a number of messages for your party, Mr. Sinclair,” he added as Sassoon and Emily Hahn departed. He took several metal discs from a compartment under the desk and placed them in a large envelope, which he handed to Rowland.

  “What on earth are these, Mr. Van Hagen?”

  “Phonographic discs, sir.” He pointed to a number of booths along one wall of the foyer, which Rowland had assumed contained telephones. “Messages are recorded in the cubicles and left for guests. There’s a gramophone in the drawing room at your new address, I believe.”

  Rowland thanked the concierge and slipped the discs into his pocket. He expected that at least one disc contained a message from Petty. He wondered if the businessman knew about the murder of Alexandra Romanova.

  Before they proceeded into the Cathay Room, Rowland cashed a cheque large enough to ensure they would not run out of yuan for some time, and handed Van Hagen the letter he’d drafted to Wilfred, taking a moment to add a note about his meeting with Carmel and Smith before arranging for it to be despatched as a telegram.

  “Probably a good thing you’ll be on the other side of the world when Wilfred receives it,” Milton observed.

  “True.” Rowland offered Edna his arm.

  The Cathay Room was busy feeding Shanghai’s elite. After a word from Van Hagen, they were escorted to Sassoon’s table on the balcony. The Huangpu and Shanghai’s skyline were laid before them, and for several moments, they disregarded their menus, mesmerised by the vista of colliding civilisation below.

  They were seated before fine china and silver service, Irish linen napkins, and moist, warmed towels to refresh their hands. They were offered fine wine and sparkling champagne, and recommended a selection from the menu.

  Wing joined them just as the entrées were being served.

  “I took the liberty of ordering for you, Mr. Wing,” Edna said as he took his seat awkwardly. “I do hope you like lobster bisque.”

  Wing stared at the elegantly set table and hesitated.

  “I’m sure we can reorder if it isn’t to your liking,” Edna added.

  “Not at all, Miss Higgins,” Wing said hastily. “You must forgive me, as much as it seems an Australian custom, I am unused to sitting down with my master.”

  “Please don’t call me that, Wing.” Rowland passed the salt to Milton. “You make me sound like Stoker’s Dracula.”

  Edna laughed.

  “We must find a way of working together, Mr. Wing, that doesn’t render either of us uncomfortable.” Rowland began on his salmon croquettes.

  “Even so, sir—”

  “Can you not think of us all as colleagues?” Milton said in an attempt to be helpful.

  “Colleagues?”

  Milton beckoned Wing closer and lowered his voice. “We’re working together to find out who killed Miss Romanova and how she ended up in our suite. I would say that made us colleagues at least.”

  “For the love of God, we’re not—” Clyde began, alarmed.

  “Actually, I think we probably are,” Rowland interrupted. There was no point in pretending. He couldn’t just carry on as if nothing had happened, as if a young woman had not danced with him one evening and died in his suite the next day.

  Wing stared at his plate. “Yes,” he said, finally lifting his head. “We are working together—as colleagues.” He smiled. “I will not call you master again.”

  Milton raised his glass. “Words to live by, comrade.”

  “Did you learn anything, Mr. Wing?” Edna asked. “From your friends on the staff?”

  Wing nodded. “Miss Romanova lived on Nanjing Road in the French Concession. She had a brother.”

  Rowland nodded. “Sergei. She mentioned him. He teaches music, I believe.”

  “About that, you know more than I.” Wing started nervously on his bisque. “The chef
believes that there was man, a suitor.”

  “Does he know this man’s name?”

  Wing shook his head. “He only saw him waiting for her. They would walk together. A black-skinned gentleman. Chef thought he was one of the musicians perhaps.”

  “Might this have been a crime of passion?” Milton mused. “If this man was jealous of Rowly, leaving her body in his suite might have been an act of revenge.”

  Rowland said nothing.

  Edna glanced at him. “If he was…if he did…you couldn’t have known, Rowly.”

  “Of course,” Milton said quickly. “You were just the poor sucker she danced with.”

  “Miss Romanova needed money.” Wing looked up from his meal. “She borrowed from the barman who worked at the Jazz Club and from the other taxi girls.”

  “Do you know why she needed money?”

  “No one seemed to know. But she had asked many of them for loans. The barman said he gave her what he could because she seemed desperate. Perhaps she too…” Wing trailed off self-consciously.

  “If so, would she also be in debt to Du Yuesheng?”

  “Perhaps, but there are others who lend.”

  “Would they kill her for an unpaid debt, as they tried to kill you?”

  “They would not have killed me, Mr. Sinclair—not while there was a chance I might pay the debt. They might have encouraged me to pay as a matter of urgency, but they would not have cut my throat.”

  Rowland nodded thoughtfully. It made sense. “Thank you, Mr. Wing. At least now we have an idea of where to begin.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  FASCIST TERROR RAGES FROM WEST TO FAR EAST

  Appalling Slaughter

  BY NAZI HEADSMEN CHINESE EXECUTIONERS & BRITISH BOMBERS

  The Communist International Executive Committee, at the conclusion of its thirteenth Plenum in Moscow last month, issued the following manifesto:PROLETARIANS! WORKERS OF THE WHOLE WORLD! COMMUNISTS! The blood of the best sons of the working class is being shed in all capitalist countries.

  …Chiang Kai-shek, who has called into his service German, British and American generals and Social-Democratic police presidents of the Grzeszinski stamp, is chopping off the heads of Chinese revolutionary workers and peasants by the thousand. In Shanghai in the autumn of last year, workers at an anti-war meeting were arrested. All were shot on the spot. In the summer of 1933 the Kuomintang hangmen arrested 150 participators in the Anti-Fascist Congress, shipped them to Nanking, and wreaked their bloody vengeance on them. In Japan, the ruling Fascist clique during the past two years has thrown 15,000 revolutionary workers, peasants and soldiers into its dungeons. Dozens of Japanese Communists have been killed. In Manchuria, Korea and Formosa, tens of thousands of people have been tortured for resistance to Japanese imperialist violence…

  —Workers’ Weekly, 2 March 1934

  * * *

  The telephone affixed to the hallway wall rang as Rowland unlocked the red door and held it open for Edna. She stepped in and ran to seize the Bakelite receiver in time. She handed the receiver to Rowland.

  Rowland spoke to the solicitor Gilbert Carmel briefly before returning the receiver to its cradle. “Mr. Du Yuesheng will meet with us this evening.”

  Wing looked quite ill.

  “Take heart, comrade,” Milton braced his shoulder. “You said yourself, they will not kill you while there is a chance you will pay… Rowly is that chance.”

  Wing hung his head. “I don’t know how to thank you—”

  “You already have. I’d rather you stopped.” Rowland tossed his overcoat at the stand by the door. He smiled, both surprised and triumphant when it caught on the hook.

  Edna laughed. “When you come to know Rowly a little better, Mr. Wing, you’ll learn that he really doesn’t like to dwell on things like that.”

  “Why?”

  “I expect it’s because our dear Rowly has never been completely comfortable with his unearned, capitalist wealth,” Milton said gravely. “His blood may be blue, but his heart is red through and through!”

  Rowland ignored the poet, opening a copy of the North China Daily News as he settled into an armchair.

  Clyde reached over and clipped Milton across the head. “You’re an idiot.” He turned to Wing. “Don’t look so alarmed, Mr. Wing. Rowly’s not a Communist.”

  Wing sat down. “The Communists have not fared well in Shanghai,” he said, looking directly at Milton. “When I was a younger man, there were many Communists in the city, but they have since fled or been found.”

  “Found? By whom?”

  “The Municipal Police. Some were imprisoned, others executed.”

  “Without trial?”

  “Yes.”

  Milton sat forward. “And this is what’s happened to all the Communists in China? I was wondering where the blazes they’d gone.”

  Wing paused. “I have heard that the army and the taipans have the Communists on the run in the north. They are all but defeated.”

  Milton and Clyde both winced in sympathy for their Chinese comrades.

  “So the Communists are hated here?” Edna perched on the arm of Rowland’s chair, concerned for Milton and Clyde, who were not always discreet about their philosophic convictions.

  “Shanghailanders consider them subversives. Dangerous.”

  “To whom?”

  “To business. Shanghai is all about business.”

  “What about the Chinese people? Do they hate Communists too?”

  “The Communists have strength in the rural areas, amongst the poor. There are many poor. But the taipans and the rich fear them.”

  “As they do in Australia,” Milton murmured.

  Wing frowned. “You must understand, Mr. Isaacs; Du Yuesheng is not an ordinary businessman. He is a friend of Chairman Chiang Kai-shek.”

  Milton sat back in his chair, unperturbed. “So he’s a well-connected businessman.”

  Wing shook his head. “Du Yuesheng won this friendship, this allegiance, for his help in the purge of Communists from Shanghai.”

  Rowland lowered his paper. He’d still been in England when news of the Shanghai massacre had broken. The counter-revolutionary coup had seen Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist Party, the KMT, conduct a ruthless purge of thousands of Chinese Communists. Of course, the fact that the victims had been both Chinese and Communist had dampened outrage in the West. Indeed, some had applauded the firm action taken to stem the red tide. “Fortunately we are calling on Mr. Du to settle a debt, not to discuss politics.”

  Wing swallowed. “You do not understand. Du Yuesheng is the zongshi—the grand master.”

  Milton grinned. “That’s all right then. Rowly here is a Freemason too.” He glanced at Rowland, stuck out his right hand, wiggled his fingers and added a series of claps and a wink. “Rowly’ll give him the secret handshake, and they’ll be the best of mates.”

  “Of what exactly is Mr. Du the grand master?” Rowland said, trying not to laugh. He gathered by Wing’s bewilderment that they were not talking about membership of the Lodge.

  “Qīng Bāng—the Green Gang. It is a secret society.”

  “Like the Freemasons?” Clyde asked hopefully.

  Wing shrugged. “The Green Gang controls the opium trade in Shanghai, as well as gambling and many”—he glanced at Edna embarrassed—“sing-song houses.”

  Rowland frowned. It seemed they were about to call upon some kind of criminal gang lord. Considering the reason for which they were doing so, it was probably not surprising. Still, in his experience, even gangsters didn’t kill people trying to give them money.

  Edna moved to sit on the arm of Rowland’s chair. “Don’t go, Rowly—it’s too dangerous.”

  “The martial courage of the day is vain,” Milton murmured.

  “Wordsworth,” Rowland replied.


  Edna persisted. “Just have the lawyers send Mr. Du his money and be done with it.”

  Rowland pressed her hand gently. “I suspect it’s too late for that, Ed.”

  Wing nodded despondently. “Master Du does not tolerate disrespect. We must keep the appointment.”

  “Ed should stay here,” Clyde said suddenly. “Just in case—”

  “I’m not sure about leaving her alone,” Milton interrupted before Edna could protest. “Not after everything that’s happened.”

  Rowland nodded. They could not be sure that Alexandra Romanova’s murder had nothing to do with them beyond the scene of the crime. “You chaps stay here with Ed.” He folded his newspaper. “Mr. Wing and I will keep the appointment.”

  The voices of dissent were immediate in reply.

  “Not a good idea, Rowly.” Clyde folded his arms across his chest. “We need a show of force at least.”

  “What about Ed? We can’t—”

  “Of course we can’t,” Milton agreed. “We just have to figure out where we’re going to stow her.”

  “Stow?” Edna stood. “I’m not a stick of old furniture.”

  “Du Yuesheng is a traditional man, and superstitious.” Wing looked at the sculptress apologetically. “He may be offended if you bring a lady to a business meeting.”

  “What if Ed stays in the taxi with Singh?” Clyde suggested.

  Rowland turned to the sculptress. “What do you think, Ed?”

  Edna rolled her eyes. “I suppose I’ll be able to do something if you don’t return.”

  “Yes,” Wing said. “That may be required.”

  “What exactly do you propose to do?” Milton asked suspiciously. “You can’t march in there and—”

  “Don’t be absurd. I’ll go directly to the police, and if they do anything, I’ll go see Victor Sassoon.”

  The answer satisfied the men. Edna instinctively resisted all attempts to protect her, but she was not a fool.

  “You will just pay the man and leave, won’t you?” she said. It was more an order than a question.

  Wing groaned and Rowland sensed that the erstwhile butler was gripped as much with guilt as fear. “If it makes you feel any better, the police will be on hand to rescue us rather smartly, should that be required. They’ve been following us since we left the Cathay.”