1962 - A Coffin From Hong Kong

by James Hadley Chase

  I moved farther to my right, then I saw the long grass ceased to exist. Another four feet ahead of me would bring me to barren rocky ground which dipped sharply to a slope, probably to the side of the hill, running down into a valley.

  I lay listening and waiting. I heard nothing. Without raising my head, I could see nothing.

  I did the Indian trick of putting my ear down on the ground and listening intently. For several minutes I still heard nothing, then I heard him. I guessed he was about fifty yards to my right. He was crawling towards me, hidden in the long grass and he would be on me pretty soon if I didn’t do something about it.

  I tried to judge just where he was, but that wasn’t possible. At least I knew from which direction he was coming. I waited a minute longer, then feeling naked and pretty scared, I rose out of the grass with a quick jinking movement, jumping first right, then left to throw the other joker’s aim off. I was aware of a distant crack of a rifle shot. The bullet went wide by yards. I saw a movement in the grass six yards from me and I started for it.

  A Chinese, wearing a blue coat and trousers with a baggy black cap rose out of the grass and grinned at me. He was small, thin and wiry. The sun flashed on the knife he held in his hand. I didn’t give him a chance to get set. I dived for him, my right hand groping for the knife hand, my left hand for his throat.

  I hit him in the chest with my shoulder and we went down into the high grass with a bone shaking impact. I had his wrist and him by the throat. He tried to get his fingers into my eyes, but I slammed the top of my head into his face. I heard him grunt. He didn’t stand a chance. He was half my weight and half my strength. I got the knife away from him, then I fastened both hands around his throat. He squirmed under me, but not for long. I squeezed into his skinny throat until I saw his eves roll up and felt him go limp. Panting a little, I heaved myself off him, keeping flat, wondering if the other joker was on his way down.

  I waited some minutes until the Chinese began to move. I crawled around him and sat him up by shoving against his shoulder blades, but keeping flat myself. His cap had fallen off in the struggle. From where the sniper lay my man could have been me and that’s what the sniper thought or maybe he didn’t care. A rifle cracked and suddenly my man’s face was a mask of blood. It was good shooting. I let the limp body drop back into the grass, then I crawled backwards until I was about fifteen yards from the body.

  I waited. From time to time I pressed my ear to the ground. It was a long wait. The hands of my watch showed half past six before the sniper lost patience and decided to come down and find out what had happened.

  He came with plenty of confidence, knowing I was either dead or harmless. By parting the grass a little I was able to see the hillside from where the last shot had come. I caught sight of him coming down the hill, a rifle under his arm, squat, powerfully built, incongruous in his black city suit . . . the man who had been watching me in the Enright villa and who I had seen on the ferry-boat.

  Watching him come, I had a creepy sensation. It had been Stella’s idea for me to come to this lonely island. I had been invited to the Enright villa, and this squat Chinese, walking so confidently towards me, had been there to take a look at me. It seemed to me as I lay in the long grass that I had walked into a prepared trap from which I wasn’t supposed to escape.

  At the rate he was moving, he would be with me in less than ten minutes. I crawled through the grass to collect the long-bladed knife. It didn’t give me a lot of confidence. A knife against a rifle isn’t fair odds. I looked around and found a flat, heavy stone larger than my hand. I collected that too.

  By now the squat Chinese was walking along the path. He had slowed his pace and was moving more cautiously, but he still seemed to have plenty of confidence because he carried the rifle under his arm.

  By now I had squirmed farther from the body . . . twenty yards of high grass separated us. The squat Chinese would come on the body before he came on me.

  He was now too close for me to watch him. I lay flat, gripping the stone in my right hand and the knife in my left.

  I could hear him. I heard him give a little grunt. Cautiously I lifted my head. He had found his pal and was standing over him, staring. He jerked his head up and we looked at each other. The rifle slid from under his arm into his hands. As I threw the stone, he squeezed the trigger. The flying stone spoilt his aim but it wasn’t all that bad a shot. The bullet scraped the top of my shoulder. My stone was luckier. The edge of the stone caught his right hand, splitting the skin. He dropped the rifle, and as he bent to pick it up, I was on him.

  It was like charging against the side of a house. He had twisted sideways, his legs spread to take the shock of my charge. His hand flashed up and grabbed my wrist. He had fingers like steel. I went flying over his head to land on the ground with a jar that shook the breath out of my body. I was dimly aware I had lost the knife. I was also aware that my fall had brought me to the side of the hill. Letting myself go limp, I started to roll. I heard him coming after me. After I had rolled fifty yards or so, I dug my heels into the soft ground and stopped. I was dizzy and breathless. I saw him coming, a vicious grin on his fat, yellow face, but without the gun.

  I was on my feet as he reached me, below him and at a disadvantage, but he was coming too fast to stop. I swerved aside at the moment of impact. He tried to grab me, but his hooked fingers slid off my arm as he went careering past. I swung around and planted my shoe in his fat behind. He pitched forward and slid down the hill on his face.

  I found another flat, heavy stone which I snatched up and threw after him. The stone caught him on the back of his head and blood flew. He went on down the hill, kicking up the dust, but limp. Maybe I had smashed his skull. I didn’t care. All I knew he wouldn’t worry me for some time . . . if ever.

  Breathing heavily, feeling a burning in my shoulder, I set off down the path, walking unsteadily, towards the Silver Mine Pier.

  chapter fourteen

  I walked into the bar on the Wanchai waterfront at exactly eight o’clock. I had showered and changed and had put an adhesive plaster on the bullet graze on my shoulder. It felt sore and hot, but I was lucky it was no worse.

  The bar was full. There were about twenty American sailors drinking and dancing and some thirty Chinese girls, all wearing Cheongsams, crowding around the bar or dancing. There were a few Chinese businessmen in the booths, drinking whisky and talking earnestly.

  The juke-box was blaring jazz loud enough to break a sensitive eardrum. I stood just inside the door, looking around. The Chinese Madame came out of the noise and the cigarette smoke, smiling. She led me to one of the few vacant booths and sat me down.

  “What will you drink?” she asked, standing over me, her hard glittering eyes avoiding my stare.

  “A Scotch . . . and you?”

  “I’ll get you a Scotch.”

  She went away and I lost sight of her behind the screen of dancers. After a five-minute wait, a waiter come to my table and put down a Scotch and soda. I waited. It was another ten minutes before the Chinese woman came back to my table and sat down. She looked a little worried.

  “Mu Hai Ton will see you,” she said, “but not here. She wants you to go to her apartment.”

  Another trap? I wondered. I was still a little shaky after my experience of the afternoon. I was now wearing a suit and had my .38 police special in its holster out of sight but ready for business.

  “Where is she?”

  “It is not far. I can arrange a taxi for you.”

  I hesitated, then nodded.

  “Okay . .. but how do I know she is the right girl?”

  “She has her papers. She will show them to you. She is the right girl.”

  “Do I go now?”

  “She is waiting.”

  I finished my drink and got to my feet.

  “After I’ve talked to her and after I am satisfied she is the right girl I will pay you fifty Hong Kong dollars.”

  She smiled stiffly.


  “That’s all right. I will get you a taxi.”

  I waited. After a few minutes she returned.

  “He knows where to take you. The apartment is on the top floor. You will have no difficulty in finding it.”

  I said I would be seeing her and I went out into the hot night. The taxi-driver grinned cheerfully at me as I opened the cab door. I got in and he drove off. It was a six-minute drive through the crowded back streets of the Chinese quarter. The taxi pulled up outside a jeweller’s shop. The driver pointed to a side door, grinning happily. I paid and over tipped him and watched him drive away before I pushed open the door and began to mount steep , stairs that brought me to a landing. Facing me was an elevator. I took it to the top floor. As it came to rest, I slid my hand inside my jacket and eased the gun a little in its holster. Then I stepped across the landing to a red-painted door. I rang the bell.

  There was a slight delay, then the door swung open. A Chinese girl looked inquiringly at me.

  She was tall and slim and very pretty. She wore a cream silk, heavily embroidered Cheongsam and scarlet sandals. Her black hair was adorned with two lotus blossoms.

  “I’m Ryan,” I said. “I think you’re expecting me.”

  She smiled, showing brilliantly white teeth.

  “Yes . . . come in.”

  I moved into a large room full of flowers and furnished with modern light oak furniture. The big windows had a view of the sea.

  “You’re Mu Hai Ton?” I asked as she closed the door and walked with easy grace to an armchair.

  “That is my name.”

  She sat down, resting her slim hands in her lap, her eyebrows slightly raised, the smile in place.

  “How do I know that?”

  The question seemed to amuse her. She waved a hand to the table.

  “My papers are there.”

  I checked her identity card. She had arrived in Hong Kong five years ago. Her age was twenty-three. Her profession was that of a dancer.

  I relaxed a little and sat opposite her.

  “You knew Herman Jefferson?” I asked.

  She nodded, continuing to smile.

  “Yes, I knew him. He died two weeks ago.”

  “You knew his wife?”

  “Yes, of course. I was a witness when they married.”

  “Do you know what Jefferson did for a living?”

  “Perhaps now I have answered some of your questions, you will tell me who you are and why you have come here,” she said, still not losing the friendly smile.

  “I’m making inquiries for Jefferson’s father,” I told her. “He wants to know more about how his son lived out here.”

  She lifted her eyebrows inquiringly.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. He’s paying me to get the information so I’m trying to get it. I’m willing to pay you for any information you can give me.”

  She cocked her head on one side.

  “How much will you pay?”

  “It depends on how much you can tell me.”

  “You want to know how he made a living?” She grimaced. “He didn’t make a living. He took money from Jo-An.”

  “Ever know a girl called Leila?”

  “Yes . . . she lived with Jo-An.”

  “Leila told me Jefferson rented a luxury villa out at Repulse Bay.”

  She threw her head back and laughed. She had a nice laugh and her throat was very beautiful.

  “He couldn’t even afford to pay the rent at the Celestial Empire. He was no good . . . a bum.”

  “I heard he was tied up in the drug trade,” I said casually.

  That got a reaction. She stiffened and her smile went away. She stared at me, recovered herself, and shrugged.

  “I know nothing about the drug trade.”

  “I didn’t say you did. Did you ever hear he was running heroin from Canton into Hong Kong?”

  “No.”

  “Frank Belling did it.”

  “I don’t know anything about that.” She was watching me closely now, a little frown furrowing her forehead.

  “You knew Belling, didn’t you?”

  “I met him once . . . at the wedding.”

  “He was Jefferson’s friend?”

  “I suppose so. I don’t know anything about him.”

  “I heard after the marriage, Jefferson left his wife and hired this villa at Repulse Bay.”

  She moved restlessly.

  “He lived with her at the Celestial Empire until he was killed,” she said. “He never had a villa at Repulse Bay.”

  I offered her a cigarette, but she refused. As I lit up I asked myself why I was pursuing this line of questioning. Everyone I had met and questioned had said the same thing except Leila. Why should I instinctively feel Leila was telling the truth and all the others were lying?

  “Let’s talk about Jo-Ann,” I said. “Did you know her well?”

  She nodded.

  “She is one of my best friends. I am very sad she has gone to America. I hope soon to hear from her. She promised if she could arrange it for me to go there too.”

  I hesitated for a moment, then decided to go all the way.

  “You haven’t heard then?” I asked.

  She looked inquiringly at me.

  “Heard . . . what?”

  “She’s dead.”

  She started back as if I had slapped her face. Her eyes opened very wide and she put her hands to her breasts. I was watching her carefully. She wasn’t play-acting. What I had just told her had come as a violent shock.

  “Dead? How can she be dead?” she said huskily. “What happened?”

  “She was murdered a few hours after arriving at Pasadena City.”

  Her face suddenly fell apart. There was no other description for it. Her face crumpled and she didn’t look pretty any more.

  “You’re lying!” she said in a muffled strangled voice.

  “It’s a fact. The police are trying to find her killer.”

  She began to cry, holding her face in her hands.

  “Go away,” she moaned. “Please go away.”

  “Take it easy,” I said. “I’m sorry to have given you a shock. I’m trying to find her killer myself and you could help me. Now, listen . . .”

  She jumped to her feet and ran into another room, slamming the door. I stood for a moment hesitating, then I went out and closed the front door. I got in the elevator and rode down to the next floor, then getting out I waited, listening. I heard her front door open, there was a pause, then it shut. I went up the stairs silently and listened outside the red-painted door. After a few minutes I heard the tinkle of the telephone bell. I heard her talking softly and rapidly, but too softly to hear what she was saying. When she hung up, I went down the stairs to the elevator and took it to the ground floor. I walked out onto the crowded bustling street. Across the way was an arcade of shops. I entered and stood looking at various complicated cameras offered at give-away prices, my eyes from time to time looking at the door to the apartments opposite I could see reflected in the mirror in the showcase. I was acting on a hunch, but after ten minutes of waiting, I began to wonder if the hunch was going to pay off. Then just as I was about to give up, I saw her come out into the street. If I hadn’t been watching carefully I wouldn’t have recognised her. She was now wearing the drab black costume of the working peasant: the short coat and the baggy trousers. She looked to right and left and then walked quickly away towards the waterfront. I went after her. She was easy enough to follow. She reached a taxi rank, spoke to the driver, then got in. The taxi edged its way into the traffic.

  I was lucky. The driver of the second taxi in the rank could understand a little English. I told him to follow the taxi ahead and showed him a twenty-dollar bill. He grinned cheerfully, nodded and as soon as I was in his cab, he went after the taxi which was now fifty yards ahead.

  Mu Hai Ton got out at the Star Ferry station. I gave her a head start, then paid off my driver and went after her. Sh
e went third-class and I went first. The ferry-boat took us to the Kowloon City pier which is close to the Kai Tak airport.

  From the ferry station she took a rickshaw. I decided it would be safer and easier to follow her on foot, but I had misjudged the speed a rickshaw boy can travel and I nearly lost her. By running hard, stared at by the Chinese who must have thought I was crazy, I just managed to hang on to the rickshaw, but only just.

  She left the rickshaw in a narrow street, swarming with vendors, rickshaws and coolies trotting along with their heavy burdens and I watched her enter an alley that I knew led into the old walled City of Kowloon.

  This pan of Hong Kong was in actual fact Red Chinese territory. At one time the British authorities had no right to enter it, and it had become a sanctuary for criminals and drug addicts. But now, conditions having become so bad, the police made a regular patrol, and there had been no protest from the Red Chinese Government. But it wasn’t a place where any European would want to go.

  I went after her. In the narrow crowded alleys with their stinking open drains, there was no hope of quick concealment.

  If she had looked back she would have seen me, but she didn’t. I kept twenty yards behind her, jostling the filthy-looking Chinese who stared at me with drug bemused eyes, moving away from me as if I were something untouchable.

  We walked some distance through a maze of horrible alleys, then she paused at a door, pushed it open and went into a house. I waited a moment, aware I was being watched by a number of Chinese who either squatted or leaned against the wall of the alley, their faces the colour of mushroom fungus, the pupils of their eyes like pinpoints. I didn’t believe they even saw me, but their fixed stare gave me the creeps.

  I pushed open the door. Facing me was a steep, narrow flight of uncarpeted stairs. I moved in and closed the door. I listened. Somewhere above I could hear a woman’s voice. I eased my gun in its holster, then went silently up the stairs to a landing. Facing me was a door. To my right was another door.