When Julian had signed the bill they agreed that they should meet down in the hall at half past seven, have the Kuan-yin loaded into the van and be ready to set off at a quarter to eight. They then went upstairs to spend the afternoon in their respective rooms.
Considerably relieved to be free of his unattractive guests, Julian partially undressed and lay down on his bed. Somehow he had yet to get through another five hours before he could take the first active step in his attempt to secure Merri’s freedom. To have gone out into the city would not, he knew, have served to distract his thoughts; so it was better to surrender to them, although they were far from happy ones.
When he had set out from Hong Kong he had counted on having the aid of Bill, his father and a Chinese couple—the man of whom might prove more capable than any of them in bargaining with Hayashi—and a pleasant woman whom, should Hayashi refuse to do a deal, he might possibly be willing to allow to share Merri’s captivity and comfort her until her mother could be persuaded to come to Japan. With the assistance of four such people, gathered as had been earlier planned in Urata’s house, Julian had even toyed with the idea that, should Hayashi prove obdurate, they might resort to force and detain him there until he agreed to send for Merri.
But now the situation was very different. Bill was out of the running; his father might, conceivably, still be playing some deep game, so could not be relied upon entirely; and, although the Paos had faithfully carried out their mission of bringing the Kuan-yin to Kyoto, Julian instinctively felt that he would not trust either of them further than he could see them.
The more, too, that he thought of the whole business from start to finish the more gloomy he became about his prospects of inducing Hayashi to part with Merri in exchange for the Kuan-yin. For what now seemed an endless time he had buoyed himself up with that hope; but Tilly Sang had never put much faith in his idea, and he himself knew, only too well, that Hayashi was as cunning as a weasel. When offered the Kuan-yin he must have laughed to himself at the thought that his plot was going to bring him a quite unexpected and valuable bonus. Somehow he would manage to trick them out of it. Without acknowledging that Merri was his prisoner he might turn the conversation to women and remark that he was looking for a new concubine, then revert to her disappearance, offer his co-operation in searching for her and ask for the Kuan-yin as the price of his assistance. Faced with some subtle threat of that kind how could they refuse to give it to him? And he would still hold Merri as the bait to bring her mother to Japan.
Minute by minute the long afternoon wore away into evening. At half past six Julian got up to shave and dress. He had only just gone into the bathroom when his telephone rang. It was Hidari Rinzai and he was down in the lobby. Julian told him to come up at once.
As soon as the little man entered the room Julian saw from the grin on his wisened face that he had good news, and two minutes later he had poured it out. He said that with a good part of the money Julian had given him he had succeeded in suborning a maid in Hayashi’s house. Merri was there, locked in an upstairs room. No harm had come to her and she was being well looked after; but she was very sad and wept a lot.
Greatly relieved that she was there, and safe and well, Julian sat down at the desk in the window and wrote a cheque for a handsome sum in Rinzai’s favour. As he gave this reward to the detective his hand was trembling with excitement at the thought that, now he knew definitely that Merri was in Hayashi’s house, he could go to the police and demand that they should search it.
A second later his elation ebbed, for his old fear had suddenly recurred to him—that going to the police might ruin everything. Before entering Hayashi’s house they would have to get a search warrant from a magistrate, and they might not be able to do that until the following morning. If, as Tilly Sang believed, Hayashi had men among the police whom he paid for information he might be warned, and during the night spirit Merri away to some other hiding place. After a moment’s thought Julian asked:
‘What chance do you think there is of getting into the house and rescuing Miss Sang?’
Rinzai shrugged. ‘Iss possible but would be difficult. Hayashi not often leave house and he have several menservants. But pick time perhaps maybe.’
‘I happen to know that he is going out to dinner this evening,’ Julian said quickly.
‘Ah! Chance good then. Master go, servants also seek amusing. Go too. One stay perhaps and few women. That all.’
‘Do you know in which room Miss Sang is locked up?’
‘Yes, sir. Corner room on upper floor, south end of house, on right of landing back side of building.’
Julian’s pulses were racing again as he asked, ‘If I made it very well worth your while, would you be willing to go in with me and help me to get Miss Sang out?’
The detective thrust out his hands. ‘No, sir. Pliss excuse. I not break law. If caught I lose licence. No money you give make good for end my business.’
‘I appreciate that,’ Julian nodded. ‘Still, you could lend me a gun, or sell me one. I don’t mean to kill anybody, but I may come face to face with the servants and need a weapon to hold them up.’
‘No, sir; no!’ Rinzai again vehemently declined. ‘All pistols numbered, and permit now required to carry in Japan. If found on you traced to me. Big trouble for lending. Not doing, sir. No.’
Feeling that he stood no chance of persuading the little man to change his mind, Julian thanked him again and quickly got rid of him.
It was by then nearly seven o’clock and he had to make a decision that was all-important. Should he go to the dinner and try to make a deal with Hayashi or use his absence from his house to make an attempt to rescue Merri? His hopes of pulling off a deal had dwindled sadly; so, after a few minutes’ thought, he made up his mind to go in and try to get her.
Although, owing to the import of arms now being forbidden in so many countries, he no longer travelled with a pistol in his luggage, he had always retained a short sword cane. It was in the form of a leather-covered swagger stick such as many Army officers carried, and he had bought it during the war. It looked innocent enough, but had been made by the Wilkinson Sword Company and contained a deadly steel blade about fifteen inches long. Getting it from the bottom of a suitcase he tried it, to see that it still drew easily, then put it handy to slide down the inside of his trousers so that it would lie against his left thigh when he went out.
Sitting down again at the writing desk, he wrote two letters. The first was a brief note to Urata, simply saying that he had been unavoidably detained; so not to wait dinner for him, but he hoped to come in later. The second was much longer and to the police. In it he said that he had received information that a Miss Sang, who had been kidnapped in Hong Kong on the 3rd March, was being held prisoner in Mr. Inosuke Hayashi’s house and that he was about to attempt to free her. Should they receive the letter they could take it that he had been overcome by the servants and was also being held prisoner there. In that event he would rely on them to take immediate action and come to the assistance of Miss Sang and himself.
By the time he had finished it was a quarter past seven, and to avoid having to give an explanation down in the lobby he decided to tell the Paos at once that he would not be coming with them. Taking his note to Urata with him, he went along to their room.
In answer to his knock Pao cried, ‘Who iss there?’ and when Julian told him he shouted back, ‘Cannot come in. My wife undressed.’
To that Julian replied in a sharp voice. ‘Then come to the door. I wish to speak to you urgently.’
After an interval of at least a minute Pao Tin-yum unlocked the door and opened it, but only a couple of inches. His shifty eyes alive with suspicion he said, ‘Iss not time yet to go. We not ready. What you wish?’
‘To tell you that I shan’t be coming to the dinner after all,’ Julian replied abruptly. ‘Something has occurred that will prevent my doing so; but I will engage a taxi to guide you to the Nest of the Phoenix and when you
get there I want you to give this letter to Mr. Urata.’
‘Whether you come is no matter,’ Pao returned indifferently. ‘I am responsible for the Kuan-yin. Mrs. Sang make it clear that it for me to hand over goddess if Hayashi agrees our terms. But will do as you wish.’
Then, having taken the letter, he shut the door.
As Julian walked back to his room he felt more than ever distrustful of the Paos, and even thought it possible that they had been got at by Hayashi. But it was no good worrying about that now and, anyhow, they knew nothing about his own intentions. The important thing for him to decide at the moment was at what time he should make his attempt to get into Hayashi’s house.
Hayashi could be counted on to leave it a few minutes before eight, but for how long he would remain away was an unknown factor. Perhaps two hours; but as he was not a personal friend of Urata’s their conversation over the meal was unlikely to be more than an exchange of banalities, and if Hayashi proved impatient to see the Kuan-yin the whole business might be concluded in an hour. There then occurred to Julian the possibility that events might move much faster. He felt certain that Hayashi would have thought up some plan for attempting to get hold of the goddess without making any return for her and if the Paos were in with him they might help him to pull a really fast one. They would not take the Kuan-yin direct to Hayashi’s house, as to do so would be plain theft, but if he received it in the Phoenix they could not be accused of that. The dinner would be in a private room and Urata could be given a ‘Mickey Finn’ which would knock him out within a few moments of his drinking it. If that happened the Paos could also sham having been doped and Hayashi be back in his house with the Kuan-yin under half an hour.
There were quite a lot of snags to such a plan; but Julian knew the man he had to deal with and, although he would greatly have preferred to give the servants plenty of time to go out for the evening, fear that Hayashi might have hatched some plot of that kind decided him to go in soon after eight o’clock.
Having collected his sword stick and the torch he always kept beside his bed, he went downstairs and gave his letter to the police to an under-manager with very clear instructions that only if he were not back by eleven o’clock should the police be called in and the letter given to them. Then he asked for two taxis to be at the door at twenty to eight.
A few minutes later the Paos emerged from one of the lifts and the porters carried the big wicker basket containing the Kuan-yin to a place near the door, where Pao Ping sat down beside it while her husband went to fetch the little van. As soon as he had brought it round from the garage Julian watched the basket being loaded into it, then he gave instructions to the driver of one of the taxis he had ordered to lead the van to the Phoenix. Having given the party ten minutes’ start he got into the other taxi and told the man to put him down on the corner of the street in which lay Hayashi’s house.
By the time he arrived there it was fully dark and, having paid off his taxi, he walked round to the north wall of the garden. During his reconnaissance of the place that morning he had noticed the branch of a catalpa tree that hung down over the tall wall. After a quick glance to right and left to make certain that no-one was about, he tensed the muscles of his legs and jumped. His outstretched fingers caught the branch and it did not break. For a few seconds he swung there, then he pulled himself hand over hand along it until he was leaning against the top of the wall. Sending up a prayer that he might succeed in rescuing his beautiful Merri, he scrambled over and dropped down into the garden.
Chapter XIV
Mr. Hayashi Makes a Plan
While Julian had been giving lunch that day to the Paos, Inosuke Hayashi had been in consultation with his Chief of Staff, Udo Nagi.
They were dressed in the rich garments of their country and sat cross-legged opposite each other across a low table of exquisite workmanship. On it were a number of photographs. They were enlargements of films taken that morning through a telescopic lens on a dock in Osaka. Studying one that was of Tilly Sang, Hayashi said with a grim little smile:
‘As I felt sure it would be, this woman is Matilda Cray, who later became Madame Lo. She has changed little and is still beautiful. From her body I derived much pleasure. When I tired of her I sold her into a brothel in Macao. I do not recall the name of the man who bought her from me, but about a year later he sold his place to one Lo Kung. He took a fancy to her and made her his mistress. Later, when she had his child, Lo married her and for a while she acted as his “Madame” in the brothel. On Lo’s death she employed the man Ti Chang, who is now known in Hong Kong as Mok Kwai, as her manager. By then she was quite a wealthy woman and evidently decided to become respectable. It is true that she is an Australian, but the story you picked up that she met Lo there and married him in Singapore is false. As far as I know she has never been there, but transferred herself direct from Macao to Hong Kong. Brothels, as we well know, can be very profitable concerns and, it seems, she was loath to lose the big income she was making out of girls; so having sold her place in Macao for a handsome sum, she took Ti Chang with her to Hong Kong and set him up in the Moon Garden.’
Hayashi paused, so Nagi put in deferentially, ‘May it not be, honourable master, that the woman being already rich had Ti, or Mok as he is known there now, open the Moon Garden mainly for the purpose of obtaining information about Japanese visitors to Hong Kong? My reports show that all the girls there were instructed to show special willingness to oblige such visitors in any way, make them drunk if possible, and question them about their war experiences. Doubtless Mok passed on such information to Madame Lo—or Sang, as she now calls herself—thus enabling her to ensnare such men as visited the Moon Garden and were so foolish as to admit that they had served with the 230th Regiment during its victorious occupation of Hong Kong.’
‘Sagacious Nagi, about her method of learning that persons on whom she sought to be revenged were in Hong Kong, you are unquestionably right,’ Hayashi conceded. ‘But she might have employed other methods, and to secure five victims I could have thought of better ways than running a brothel for some twelve years; so the profit motive must have entered largely into that. However, it is certain that she received her information through her girls and, even if they were not successful in finding out where the men were staying, Mok could have had them followed to their hotels. After that she could have met with few difficulties. What virile Japanese could resist the temptation to pick up a beautiful big blonde woman if he saw her sitting alone in a lounge and she indicated that she was willing to talk to him? On learning that she was not a prostitute but a woman of the world and, as she would have told him, a lonely widow, his urge to overcome such scruples as she showed would have been irresistible. No doubt she made a great play of her reputation and not wishing to be seen in Hong Kong with a Japanese, then made casual mention of her little villa in Macao, and that she was going there for the week-end. So, it must have been, that the five men went to their deaths. But tell me in more detail about her departure from Hong Kong and arrival in Osaka this morning.’
‘The Luheck sailed from Hong Kong on Sunday last, honourable master. That morning, according to our agent’s report, a Chinese couple collected the Kuan-yin from the woman’s house in a small van, and drove with it to the dockside in Victoria. As my honourable master will be aware, Hong Kong being a Free Port there is no examination of outgoing baggage; so, having shown their passports at the emigration desk, the couple had the basket carried straight on board. It was locked up in a cabin next to the one they were to occupy and remained there throughout the voyage.’
‘And none of your people saw Madame Sang either on the dock or aboard the ship before it sailed?’
‘No, honourable master.’
‘Yet she must have been in the ship, for she was seen to walk off it this morning.’
‘Indeed, yes, honourable master. And, most fortunately, I suspected that she might somehow have smuggled herself on board, owing to a report I received that
on the same day as the Kuan-yin was taken from her house she had disappeared from Hong Kong. That was why I went to the dock myself this morning, with several of our people, to keep observation.’
‘Describe to me exactly the landing of her party.’
‘It was a little before eight when the Lubeck docked, honourable master. At about half past the passengers began to come off; first a few, then in a crowd. Madame Sang was among the crowd. Immediately I saw her I ordered that photographs should be taken. She was carrying only a small suitcase, and she appeared to be with another woman, to whom she spoke once, but only briefly. The woman was, I think, American, and had with her three children and much luggage. They went through the passport office together, but in the Customs shed Madame Sang left her, went out and took a taxi. By then all the passengers had disembarked, the last to do so being the couple with the Kuan-yin. When they came out of the Customs shed a small green van was waiting to meet them. Later I learned that it had been hired by cable. The Kuan-yin was loaded into it. Having given its driver some money and received from him a key, the man and his woman got into the cab and he drove off.’
‘You had both the taxi and the van followed, of course?’
‘Certainly, honourable master. The taxi took Madame Sang to a small hotel, the Fushimi, in Gojo Street; but she did not book a room, and remained there only half an hour while she had breakfast. When she came out she did not take a taxi. Carrying her small suitcase, she walked about a mile, asking the way several times by showing a slip of paper which must have had an address on it, until she reached Kitaoji Street. In this poor part of the city she looked about until she found a side turning with a row of lock-up garages in it. Meanwhile, it was to the same place that the man had driven the van. Unlocking one of the garages he had run the van inside and shut the door. Madame Sang went into it and also shut the door behind her. Ten minutes later the van came out, the Chinese woman locked the door, joined her husband in the cab and he drove off. About an hour ago they arrived at the Miyako. The couple were met by the Englishman, Day, about whose activities, honourable master, I have reported to you, and the Kuan-yin was taken up to a room he had booked for the couple who brought it.’
Bill for the Use of a Body Page 18
