A COFFIN FROM HONG KONG

by James Hadley Chase

  I looked through my mail and dropped most of it into the trash-basket. There was a letter from a woman living on Palma Mountain who wanted me to find the person who had poisoned her dog.

  I was typing her a polite letter telling her I was too busy to help her when there came a knock on my door.

  I said to come in.

  Jay Wayde, my next-door neighbour, came in. He looked slightly embarrassed as he came to rest a few feet from my desk.

  “Am I disturbing you?” he asked. “It’s not my business really, but I wondered if they had found out who killed her.”

  His curiosity didn’t surprise me. He was one of those brainy types who can’t resist mixing themselves up with crime.

  “No,” I said.

  “I don’t suppose it helps,” he said apologetically, “but thinking about this, I remember hearing your telephone bell ring around seven o’clock. It rang for some time. That was after you had left.”

  “My telephone is always ringing,” I said, “but thanks. Maybe it might help. I’ll tell Lieutenant Retnick.” He ran his hand over his close-cropped hair.

  “I just thought ... I mean in a murder investigation every little thing can be important until it is proved otherwise.” He moved restlessly. “It’s an odd thing the way she got into your office, isn’t it? I guess it has been a bit difficult for you.”

  “She got into my office because the killer let her in,” I said, “and it hasn’t been difficult for me.”

  “Well, that’s good. Did they find out who she was?”

  “Her name is Jo-An Jefferson and she’s from Hong Kong.”

  “Jefferson?” He became alert. “I know a friend named Herman Jefferson who went out to Hong Kong: an old school friend.”

  I tilted back my chair so I could put my feet on the desk.

  “Sit down,” I said. “Tell me about Herman Jefferson. The Chinese woman was his wife.” That really shook him. He sat down and gaped at me.

  “Herman’s wife? He married a Chinese?”

  “So it seems.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned!”

  I waited, watching him.

  He thought for a moment, then said, “Not that it shocks me. I’ve heard Chinese girls can be attractive, but I can’t imagine his father would be pleased.” He frowned, shaking his head. “What was she doing here?”

  “She brought her husband’s body back for burial.”

  He stiffened.

  “You mean Herman’s dead?”

  “Last week ... a car accident.”

  He seemed completely thrown off balance. He sat there, staring blankly as if he couldn’t believe what he had heard.

  “Herman . . . dead! I’m sorry,” he said at last. “This will be a shock to his father.”

  “I guess so. Did you know him well?”

  “Well, no. We were at school together. He was a reckless fella. He was always getting into trouble: fooling around with girls, driving like a madman, but I admired him. You know how kids are. I looked on him as a bit of a hero. Then later, after I had gone through college, I changed my views about him. He didn’t seem to grow up. He was always drinking and getting into fights and raising general hell. I dropped him. Finally, his father got tired of him and shipped him out East. That would be some five years ago. His father has interests out there.” He crossed one leg over the other. “So he married a Chinese girl. That certainly is surprising.”

  “It happens,” I said.

  “He died in a car accident? He was always getting into car smashes. I wonder he lasted as he did.” He looked at me. “You know to me this is damned intriguing. Why was she murdered?”

  “That’s what the police are trying to find out.”

  “It’s a problem, isn’t it? I mean, why did she come here to see you? It really is a mystery, isn’t it?”

  I was getting a little bored with his enthusiasm.

  “Yeah,” I said. Through the wall, I heard a telephone bell start ringing. He got to his feet.

  “I’m neglecting my business and wasting your time,” he said. “If I can remember anything about Herman that I think might help, I’ll let you know.”

  I said I’d be glad and watched him leave, closing the door after him.

  I sank lower in my chair and brooded over what he had told me. I was still sitting there, twenty minutes later, still brooding and still getting nowhere when the telephone bell jerked me out of my lethargy. I scooped up the receiver.

  “This is Mr. J. Wilbur Jefferson’s secretary,” a girl’s voice said: a nice, clear voice that was easy to listen to. “Is that Mr. Ryan?”

  I said it was.

  “Mr. Jefferson would like to see you. Could you come this afternoon at three o’clock?”

  I felt a sharp stirring of interest as I opened my date book and surveyed its blank pages. I had no appointment for three o’clock this afternoon: come to that, I had no appointment for any day this week.

  “I’ll be there,” I said.

  “It is the last house, facing the sea on Beach Drive,” she told me. “Beach View.”

  ‘I’ll be there.”

  “Thank you.”

  She hung up.

  I held the receiver against my ear for a brief moment while I tried to recapture the sound of her voice. I wondered what she looked like. Her voice sounded young, but voices can be deceptive. I hung up.

  My morning passed without incident. I envied Jay Wayde whose telephone seemed to be constantly ringing. I could also hear the continuous clack-clack of a typewriter. He was obviously a lot busier than I, but then I had the mysterious Mr. Hardwick’s three hundred dollars to keep me from starving anyway for a couple of weeks.

  No one came near me, and around one o’clock I went down to the Quick Snack Bar for the usual sandwich. Sparrow was busy so he couldn’t bother me with questions, although I could see he was itching to be brought up to date on the murder. I left with the rush hour still in full swing, aware of his reproachful expression as I left without telling him anything.

  Later, I drove out to Beach Drive, the lush-plush district of Pasadena City. Here, rich retired people lived with their own private beaches, away from the crowds that invaded the city during the summer months.

  I reached the gates of Beach View a few minutes to three o’clock. They stood open as if I were expected and I drove up a forty-yard drive, bordered on either side by well-kept lawns and flower-beds.

  The house was over large and had an old-fashioned air. Six broad white steps led up to the front entrance. There was a hanging bell-pull and the front door was of fumed oak.

  I pulled the chain and after a minute or so, the door opened. The butler was a tall gloomy- looking old man who stared impassively at me; raising one busy eyebrow inquiringly.

  “Nelson Ryan,” I said. “I’m expected.”

  He moved aside and motioned me into the dark hall full of heavy dark furniture. I followed him down a passage and into a small room containing a few uncomfortable looking chairs and a table on which lay some glossy magazines: a room that had the atmosphere of a dentist’s reception-room. He indicated one of the chairs and went away.

  I stood around for about ten minutes, looking out of the window at the view of the sea, then the door opened and a girl came in.

  She was around twenty-eight to thirty, slightly taller than average: dark, nice to look at without being sensational. Her eyes were slate blue, intelligent and remote. She had on a dark blue dress that merely hinted of her well shaped body. The neckline was severe and the skirt length modest.

  “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, Mr. Ryan,” she said. Her smile was slight and impersonal. “Mr, Jefferson is ready for you now.” “You are his secretary?” I asked, recognising the clear, quiet voice.

  “Yes. I’m Janet West. I’ll show you the way.”

  I followed her out into the passage and through a green baize door into a big old-fashioned but comfortable lounge lined with books and with double windows opening onto a seclud
ed walled garden full of standard rose trees that were giving of their best.

  J. Wilbur Jefferson was reclining on a bed-chair, fitted with wheels. He lay in the shade just outside the double windows: an old man, tall, thin and aristocratic with a big hooked nose, skin as yellow as old ivory, hair like white spun glass and thin fine hands heavily veined. He was wearing a white linen suit and white buckskin shoes. He turned his head to look at me as I followed Janet West into the garden.

  “Mr. Ryan,’’ she said, drawing aside and motioning me forward, then she went away.

  “Use that chair,” Jefferson said, pointing to a basket chair close to him. “My hearing isn’t as good as it was so I’ll ask you to keep your voice up. If you want to smoke . . . smoke. It’s a vice I have been forced to give up now for more than six years.”

  I sat down, but I didn’t light a cigarette. I had an idea he might not like cigarettes. When he had smoked, he would have smoked cigars.

  “I’ve made inquiries about you, Mr. Ryan,” he went on after a long pause while his pale brown eyes went over me intently, giving me the feeling he was looking into my pockets, examining the birthmark on my right shoulder and counting the money in my wallet. “I am told you are honest, reliable and not without intelligence.”

  I wondered who could have told him that, but I put my modest expression on my face and didn’t say anything.

  “I have asked you here,” Jefferson went on, “because I would like to hear first-hand this story of the man who telephoned you and how, later, you found this Chinese woman dead in your office.”

  I noted he didn’t call her his daughter-in-law. I noted too that when he said ‘this Chinese woman’, his mouth turned down at the corners and there was distaste in his voice. I guess for a man as old and as rich and as conventional as he, the news that your only son has married an Asian could come as a jar.

  I told him the whole story, remembering to keep my voice up.

  When I had finished, he said, “Thank you, Mr. Ryan. You have no idea what she wanted to see you about?”

  “I can’t even make a guess.”

  “Nor have you any idea who killed her?”

  “No.” I paused then added, “The chances are this man who calls himself John Hard wick did it or at least he is implicated.”

  “I have no confidence in Retnick,” Jefferson said. “He is a brainless fool who has no right to his official position. I want the man who murdered my son’s wife caught.” He looked down at his veined hands, frowning. “Unfortunately, my son and I didn’t get along well together. There were faults on both sides as there usually are, but I realise now that he is dead that I could have been much more tolerant and patient with him. I believe my lack of tolerance and my disapproval of his behaviour goaded him to be wilder and more reckless than he would have been if he had been more understood. The woman he married has been murdered. My son wouldn’t have rested until he had found her murderer. I know his nature well enough to be sure of this. My son is dead. I feel the least I can do now is to find his wife’s murderer. If I succeed, I shall feel I have squared my account with him to some extent” He paused and looked across the garden, his old face hard and sad. The slight breeze ruffled his white hair. He looked very old but very determined. He turned to look at me. “As you can see, Mr. Ryan, I am an old man. I am burnt out. I get tired easily. I am in no physical shape to hunt down a murderer and that is why I have sent for you. You are an interested party. This woman was found in your office. For some reason the murderer has tried to shift the responsibility onto you. I intend to pay you well. Will you find this man?”

  It would have been easy to have said yes, taken his money and then waited hopefully to see if Retnick would turn up the killer, but I didn’t work like that. I was pretty sure I didn’t stand a chance of finding the killer myself.

  “The investigation is in the hands of the police,” I said. “They are the only people who can find this man—I can’t. A murder case is outside an investigator’s province. Retnick doesn’t encourage outsiders stirring up the dust. I can’t question his witnesses. It would get back to him and I would land in trouble. As much as I would like to earn your money, Mr. Jefferson, it just wouldn’t work.”

  He didn’t seem surprised, but he looked as determined as ever.

  “I understand all that,” he said. “Retnick is a fool. He seems to have no idea how to set about solving this case. I suggested he should cable the British authorities in Hong Kong to see if we can find out something about this woman. We don’t know anything about her except she married my son and was a refugee from Red China. I know that because my son wrote about a year ago telling me he was marrying a Chinese refugee.” Again he looked across the garden as he said, “I foolishly forbade the marriage. I never heard from him again.”

  “Do you think the British police will have information about her?” I asked.

  He shook his head.

  “It is possible, but not likely. Every year more than a hundred thousand of these unfortunate refugees come into Hong Kong. They are stateless people with no papers. I have a number of contacts in Hong Kong and I try to keep up to date with the situation. As I understand it, h is this: refugees fleeing from Red China are smuggled by junk to Macau which, as you probably know, is Portuguese territory. Macau can’t cope with the invasion nor do they wish to. The refugees are transferred to other junks sailing for Hong Kong. The British police patrol the approaches to Hong Kong, but the Chinese are patient and clever when they want to get their own way. If a junk carrying refugees is spotted by the police, the police boat converges on it, but there are hundreds of junks fishing the approaches to the island. Usually the refugee junk succeeds in mixing with the fishing junks that close protectively around it and since all junks look alike, it becomes impossible for the police boat to find it. I understand the British police are sympathetic towards the refugees: after all, they have had a horrible time and they are escaping from a common enemy. The search for them ceases once the junk succeeds in reaching Hong Kong’s territorial waters. The police feel that as these poor wretched people have got so far, it wouldn’t be human to send them back. But all these people are anonymous. They have no papers. The British police supply them with new papers, but there is no means of checking even their names. From the moment they arrive in Hong Kong, they begin an entirely new life with probably new names: they are reborn. My son’s wife was one of these people. Unless we can find out who she really was and what her background was, I doubt if we’ll ever discover why she was murdered and who her murderer is. So I want you to go to Hong Kong and see if you can find out something about her. It won’t be easy, but it is something Retnick can’t do and the British police wouldn’t be bothered to do. I think you can do it and I’m ready to finance you. What do you think?”

  I was intrigued by the idea, but not so intrigued that I didn’t realise it could meet with no success.

  “I’ll go,” I said, “but it could be hopeless. I can’t say what chances I have until I get out there, but right now, I don’t think I have much of a chance.”

  “Go and talk to my secretary. She’ll show you some letters from my son that may be helpful. Do your best, Mr. Ryan.” He gave me a slight gesture of dismissal. “You will find Miss West in the third room down the passage to your right.”

  “You realise I can’t go at once?” I said, getting to my feet. “I’ll have to attend the inquest and I’ll have to get Retnick’s say-so before I leave.”

  He nodded. He seemed now to be very tired.

  “I’ll see Retnick doesn’t obstruct you. Go as soon as you can.”

  I went away, leaving him staring stonily in front of him: a lonely man with bitter memories tormenting his conscience.

  I found Janet West in a large room equipped like an office. She sat at a desk, a triple cheque book in front of her and a pile of bills at her elbow. She was writing a cheque as I entered the room. She looked up, her eyes probing. She gave me a slight smile which could have mean
t anything and indicated a chair by the desk.

  “Are you going to Hong Kong, Mr. Ryan?” she asked, pushing the cheque book aside. She watched me as I sat down.

  “I guess so, but I can’t leave at once. I could make it by the end of the week if I’m lucky.”

  “You will need a smallpox shot. Cholera too would be wise, but it isn’t compulsory.”

  “I’m all up to date with my shots.” I took out a pack of cigarettes, offered it and when she shook her head, I lit up and put the pack back in my pocket. “Mr. Jefferson said you had some letters from his son. I need every scrap of information I can get, otherwise it’ll be just so much waste of time going all that way.”

  “I have them ready for you.”

  She opened a drawer and took out about six letters which she handed to me.

  “Herman only wrote once a year. Apart from the address I’m afraid they won’t tell you much.”

  I glanced through the letters: they were very short. In each one was an urgent request for money. Herman Jefferson was no correspondent, but he certainly seemed to have had money on his mind. He merely stated he was in good health and he wasn’t having any luck and could his father let him have some money as soon as he could. The first letter was dated five years ago and each letter was written at yearly intervals. The last letter, however, did interest me. It was dated a year ago.

  Celestial Empire Hotel,

  Wanchai

  Dear Dad,

  I’ve met a Chinese girl and I’m marrying her. Her name is Jo-An. She has had a tough life as she is a refugee from China, but she’s pretty, smart and my type of woman. I guess you won ’t be exactly pleased with my news, but you’ve always said I must lead my own life so I’m marrying her. I’m satisfied she ’ll make me a good wife. I’m looking around for an apartment but it is not easy as prices come high. We may decide to stay on here at the hotel. It is convenient in some ways although I prefer to have a home of my own.

  I hope you will send us your blessing. If you feel like sending a cheque towards an apartment it would be very welcome.