The Illusion of Murder

by McCleary, Carol

  I let out a scream that causes the poor rickshaw man to stumble and almost fall as he brings it to an abrupt halt.

  “Sorry,” I tell him. “Keep going, please.”

  I put my hands back over my ears and she pulls one off. “Stop being a child. I expect better of you. I’m giving you the best advice you will ever get. Go enjoy the magical, sensual passion he’ll give you. You won’t regret it.”

  “And will I enjoy returning home as an unwed mother?”

  “Come now, every woman knows there are ways to avoid conception. If you don’t know, I’ll show you, but I don’t think you’re a virgin. Wait!” She leans closer and whispers, “Do you prefer women?”

  “I prefer you stop harassing me and deliberately embarrassing me. But since you raised the subject of lovers, why don’t you tell me what is going on between you and your mystery man that has put a cloud over us since Port Said?”

  “Look.” She points to Japanese women happily playing shuttlecock in the streets. “Wouldn’t you say they are some of the prettiest women in the world? One would think an artist painted their faces … those perfectly shaped cherry lips and rosy cheeks. Not to mention their silky black hair. What amazes me is the graceful way they move while walking in those god-awful wooden sandals.”

  In other words, she has changed the subject.

  “My maid at the hotel says that rather than carry a purse, the women put money, combs, hairpins, anything they will need when they leave the house up their sleeves.” She gives me a sympathetic look. “Like most women, I’m sure they carry their hearts on their sleeves, too.”

  * * *

  THE RICKSHAW DROPS US OFF at a covered market where everything from fish and rice, to cloth and chopsticks, are sold from booths. Sarah wanders off by herself to find a blind person to give her a bath and massage. “It’s a profession the Japanese reserve for the blind and they charge almost nothing.” She grabs my arm. “Come with me, it will loosen you up for Frederick.”

  I jerk my arm out of her grasp and she leaves me laughing. Despite her teasing, I admire her. I believe I’m a modern woman with a proper rein on my passions, while she is completely free and uninhibited toward men and sex. A quality I secretly envy.

  Wandering through stalls of goods, I find myself daydreaming about what it would be like between me and Frederick if I had Sarah’s sense of freedom until I spot a pair of shoes on a woman’s feet that cause me to stop and stare.

  I can’t see the woman because she is on the other side of a wall. The stalls are partitioned by bamboo walls that leave a wide space at the bottom for air to circulate beneath and it’s that space that reveals the shoes—and the leather that catches my attention. It matches the description that the fake Mrs. Cleveland used in Hong Kong to describe the shoes of the woman who hired her: light brown, with bumps that have little holes or nicks on them.

  My heart is already racing as I make my way through the ceramic shop I’m in and go into the shop next door to see who is wearing the shoes.

  I hurry around the corner and almost fly into a woman, quickly taking a step back and exclaiming, “Sorry.”

  “Perfectly all right.”

  The young assistant to the Aussie sharpshooter smiles at me. I look down; she’s the shoe wearer.

  “What’s the matter? Have I picked up a little something on my shoes?”

  “No, not at all,” I stammer. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be rude, but I saw your shoes and wondered if they are sold here.”

  A complete lie. Her shoes are a high-top laced shoe similar to my own, an Occidental style completely unlike the five-inch-high Japanese sandals that make people look as if they are walking on stilts.

  “Hardly the local style, don’t you think?” she says.

  I had assumed she was an Aussie like the Murdocks, but while her accent is British, it carries a hint of some other European country. She has dark hair, green eyes, and a tanned complexion.

  “It’s the leather I find interesting, the bumps and all, I’ve never seen it before. What kind is it?”

  “Ostrich, those big birds that don’t fly.”

  “Ostrich? Really. My name is Nellie Bly.”

  “Cenza.”

  She offers no last name.

  “We almost met—once.”

  “Oh yes, with me baring it all. I’m glad you didn’t appear offended. Most women have been so indoctrinated by their husbands to the point that they would faint at the suggestion of love between women.”

  “I have learned that there is nothing wrong with people of like desiring flocking together.” I give the shoes another look. “I’ve heard of ostriches. Their feathers are popular. Are they an Australian creature?”

  “There are ostrich ranches in the Outback, though I believe the big birds are native to Africa.” She glances down at my feet. “If we wore the same size, I would give mine to you since you are so enamored with them.”

  “Actually, it was Virginia Lynn who told me about them. You were wearing them the night you hired her.”

  She raises her eyebrows. “I’m sorry, I’m afraid I don’t know your friend. Wasn’t that the name you mentioned during the magic act?”

  So much for my frontal assault. I should have guessed she had been in the audience.

  She brushes against me as she leaves. “If you want a little fun, drop by our cabin. Otherwise, piss off, bitch.”

  Amazing. She’s hard and nasty not far beneath her skin. I have a strong desire to go after her and demand she tell me what she knows, but not only would I get nowhere, I’d probably go to jail for punching her the next time she used foul language on me.

  “Nellie!” Sarah comes toward me, walking much too spryly for a granny. “What a wonderful experience. He had the hands of an angel.” Seeing the look on my face, she adds, “And you look like the devil just spit in your eye.”

  55

  Frederick calls on me soon after I return to the hotel and I meet him in the lobby.

  “What do you know about ostriches?” I demand, before he can get a word out of his mouth.

  “Ostriches? Big, fast, nasty beasts. Full-grown males weigh in at over three hundred pounds and are dangerous if cornered. A man I knew climbed drunk into a corral of them one night. They kicked him to death. He probably forgot they kick forward, not back like a horse. Why do you ask?”

  “When I was in Hong Kong, a woman approached me in the hotel and said she was Amelia, John Cleveland’s wife.”

  “What? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t tell you because I assumed you hired her to get something from me.”

  “What are you talking about? I didn’t hire anyone. Nellie—”

  “Stop.” I hold up my hands. “You say you didn’t hire her. So it could have been your friend, Lord Warton.”

  “I don’t monitor Lord Warton’s actions—nor does he mine. We’re not working together, we just have a common interest of queen and country, but that is all we have in common. Did the person in Hong Kong get … what did you say it was?”

  “Look me in the eye and tell me from the depths of your heart that you have not worked with Lord Warton to lead me astray on this investigation.”

  He locks eyes with me and says with sincerity, “You have my word as a gentleman.”

  I sigh. He’s lying, of course, but there is no use pursuing it. We would simply end up again with a standoff, each bluffing while pretending to be completely innocent, neither wanting to show their hand. “Did you want to see me about something?”

  “Quite so. A Japanese diplomat I met in South Africa has invited me to dinner tonight and there will be a special performance afterward—dancing girls called geishas. Would you like to go?”

  “I would love to,” I tell him. He had used the magic words, of course—it is not in me to miss something special.

  “I’ll call for you at six. Now what’s this about ostriches and something you have? You must tell me—”

  I step by him. “You’l
l have to excuse me, I have to freshen up for dinner tonight.”

  * * *

  THE DINNER IS HELD IN A TRADITIONAL Japanese home that forms a great contrast to what I am accustomed to back home. The house is small and dainty, like a playhouse indeed, built of a thin shingle-like board that is fine in texture, despite the fact that our host is a man of some position.

  Nothing was said on the way over about the Hong Kong ostrich mystery. Frederick has an uncanny ability to pretend complete disinterest in the intrigue that seems to be whirling around and under every rock I turn over, while I am determined not to give him an ounce of what I know until I get a pound of his secrets.

  “Chimneys and fireplaces are unknown in the country,” Frederick tells me.

  I find the design of the house both unusual and clever. The first wall of the house is set back, allowing the upper floor and side walls to extend over the lower flooring, making it a portico built in instead of on the house. Light window frames, with their minute openings covered with fine rice paper instead of glass, are both doors and windows in one. The frames don’t swing open and shut as do our doors, nor do they move up and down like our windows, but slide like rolling doors. They form the partitions of the houses inside and can be removed at any time, throwing the floor of two rooms together.

  Both the host and hostess speak English and when I tell them that I am interested in learning more about their culture and customs, they satisfy my yearnings.

  In a private moment, the hostess tells me that women of her country have tested European dress, but finding it barbarously uncomfortable and inartistic, they went back to their exquisite kimonos, though they retained the use of European underwear, which they found more healthful and comfortable than the utter absence of it, to which they had been accustomed.

  “Gracefulness is taught in our schools,” she says. “As girls, we are taught graceful movements, how to receive, entertain, and part with visitors, how to serve tea and sweets gracefully, and the proper and graceful way to use chopsticks.”

  It is a pretty sight to see this lovely woman use chopsticks—and an ugly one to see me make use of them! At dinner the instruments are laid out for us on rice paper. The chopsticks are probably twelve inches in length, but no thicker than the thinner size of lead pencils. The sticks are whittled in one piece and split only half apart to prove that they have never been used. One breaks the sticks apart before eating, and after the meal they are destroyed.

  My regret as I dine with these charming people, and the only regret of my trip, and one I can never cease to deplore, was that in my hasty departure I forgot to take a Kodak. On every ship and at every port I met others—and envied them—with Kodaks. They could photograph everything that pleased them; the light in those lands is excellent, and many were the pleasant mementos of their acquaintances and themselves they carried home on their plates.*

  * * *

  AFTER DINNER, IN THE COOL OF THE EVENING we go to a house that has been specially engaged to see the geisha girls. Several others, members of foreign diplomatic missions, are also attending.

  At the door are the wooden shoes of the household, and we are asked to take off our shoes before entering, a proceeding rather disliked by some of the diplomatic party, who refuse absolutely to do as requested. A compromise is effected, however, by putting cloth slippers over our shoes.

  The second floor has been converted into one room, with nothing in it except the matting covering the floor and a Japanese screen here and there. We sit upon the floor, for there are no chairs in Japan, but the exquisite matting is padded until it is as soft as velvet. It is laughable to see us trying to sit down, and yet more so to see us endeavor to find a posture of ease for our limbs. We are about as graceful as elephants dancing.

  A smiling woman in a black kimono sits several round and square boxes containing burning charcoal before us. These are the only Japanese stoves. Afterward, she brings a tray containing a number of long-stemmed pipes—Japanese women smoke constantly—and a pot of tea and several small cups.

  Impatiently, I await the geisha girls. The tiny maidens glide in at last, clad in exquisite, trailing, angel-sleeved kimonos. The girls bow gracefully, bending down until their heads touch their knees, then kneeling before us murmuring gently a greeting that sounds like “Konbanwa!” and drawing in their breaths with a long, hissing suction, which is a token of great honor.

  The musicians sit down on the floor and begin an alarming din upon samisens, drums, and gongs, singing meanwhile through their pretty noses. If the noses were not so pretty I am sure the music would be unbearable to one who has ever heard a chest note.

  The geisha girls stand posed with open fan in hand above their heads, ready to begin the dance. They are very short with the slenderest of slender waists. Their soft and tender eyes are made blacker by painted lashes and brows; their midnight hair, stiffened with a gummy wash, is most wonderfully dressed in large coils and ornamented with gold and silver flowers and gilt paper pom-poms. The younger the girl the more gay is her hair.

  Their kimonos, made of the most exquisite material, trail all around them, and are loosely held together at the waist with an obi-sash; their long-flowing sleeves fall back, showing their dimpled arms and baby hands. Upon their tiny feet they wear cunning white linen socks cut with a place for the great toe. When they go out they wear wooden sandals.

  The Japanese are the only women I have ever seen who can wear rouge and powder and not be repulsive, but the more charming because of it. They powder their faces and have a way of reddening their under lip just at the tip that gives them a most tempting look. The lips look like two luxurious cherries.

  The musicians begin a long chanting strain, and these bits of beauty dance. With a grace, simply enchanting, they twirl their little fans, sway their dainty bodies in a hundred different poses, each one more intoxicating than the other, all the while looking so childish and shy, with an innocent smile lurking about their lips, dimpling their soft cheeks, and their black eyes twinkling with the pleasure of the dance.

  After the dance the geisha girls make friends with me, examining, with surprised delight, my dress, my bracelets, my rings, my boots—to them the most wonderful and extraordinary things—my hair, my gloves. Indeed they miss very little, and they approve of all.

  They say I am very sweet, and urge me to come again, and in honor of the custom of my land—the Japanese never kiss—they press their soft, pouting lips to mine in parting.

  “You were a big hit with the Japanese women,” Frederick says as he escorts me into the hotel lobby. “The fact that you are on a great adventure is amazing to them.”

  “It’s amazing to me, too,” I say, giving him a coy look. “So many interesting things have occurred on my journey.”

  “Is there something you’d like to tell me?” he asks.

  He delivers the question with a stern tone, the kind used by fathers to children and overbearing husbands to wives.

  “Yes, there is. I had a wonderful time tonight. Thank you. And I do have a question. How was John Cleveland dressed the day he told you on the beach that he was staying at Port Said?”

  “What kind of nonsense is this? He was wearing clothes, not native garb, the clothes any British wears in a city.”

  “Ahh…”

  He stares at me, his lips working but not knowing what revelation I’d gotten from the gods this time. But my triumphant grin tells him he gave the wrong answer.

  He stamps off, his face a map of frustration.

  Why did I do that? His tone had irked me, of course, not to mention his one-sided demand that I confide in him while he keeps his cards facedown.

  Oh well, it’s not in me to let sleeping dogs lie, anyway. From the time I’d met him, I’ve been bugged by his claim that he spoke to Mr. Cleveland on the beach and the business about the clothes just popped into my head. I don’t know if he had actually spoken to a man on the beach, but even if he had, it certainly wasn’t Mr. Cleveland who left the
ship wearing sailor’s work clothes and would have had room in his small sea bag only for his Egyptian disguise.

  56

  Frederick doesn’t send over any invitations for the rest of my stay in Japan, but I have a pleasant time and even get Sarah to visit Tokyo with me.

  The incident with Cenza and the ostrich shoes spiked my paranoia, and I keep an eye out for trouble when I should be totally relaxing in the exotic atmosphere. I have no clue as to the woman’s place in the intrigue; she didn’t board until long after Port Said—but she spooks me. She strikes me as someone who could smile to my face while she slips a knife between my ribs.

  One of the pleasant events of my stay is a luncheon given for me on the USS Omaha, an American war vessel lying in the bay. Afterward, I return to the hotel and gather my possessions. A number of new friends in launches escort me to the Oceanic, and when we hoist anchor the steam launches blow loud blasts upon their whistles in farewell to me, and the band upon the Omaha plays “Home, Sweet Home,” “Hail Columbia,” and “The Girl I Left Behind Me,” in my honor.

  I wave my handkerchief so long after they are out of sight that my arms are sore for days.

  Sarah simply shakes her head at the sight of the battleship hailing me. “All my success on the stage and I have never had an entire warship crew adore me. All of those men … wasted on a woman with a virgin mentality.”

  Everything promises well for a pleasant and rapid voyage. Anticipating this, Chief-Engineer Allen caused to be written over the engines and throughout the engine room, this date and couplet:

  For Nellie Bly,

  We’ll win or die.

  January 20, 1890.

  The runs are marvelous until the third day out and then a storm comes upon us. They try to cheer me, saying it will only last that day, but the next day finds it worse, and it continues, never abating a moment; head winds, head sea, wild rolling, frightful pitching, until I fretfully wait for noon when I can slip off to the dining room to see the run, hoping that it will have gained a few miles on the day before, and always being disappointed.