“What he actually did was conduct negotiations to buy a block of apartments for a client, only under the table he helped fix it so some outside friends of his underbid the client and got the property! He got his cut, of course, and he also got canned for unethical conduct.
“He showed up down in Los Angeles, opened his own firm, and moved into Beverly Hills. For a year or so he seemed okay, then they started getting complaints about some of his clients. Seems they were shady car dealers, and some of the barred-room boys with the ‘sanitariums’ that are nothing but drunk cures, a few hoods, two stock shysters who were caught in illegal deals and went to jail. But Sedgwick never even got indicted.
“He’s smart, and slick, and has very sticky fingers. He’s still got his office down in L.A., and they consider him a bit of a con-man, but they’ve never made anything stick. About two years ago he showed up here, opened a sub-office, and took on representing the Temple down at Half Moon Bay. We’ve never had a complaint here, but he’s a boy who likes the fast buck.”
“Very pretty,” Chan said. “To me it seemed that he is very close to Madame Li. With the Khan dead, I wonder who will take over the cult?”
“I guess we’ll have to find out. Is there any money to be made running it, I wonder?” Wade said.
“It is a thought,” Chan agreed. “Was there any indication that Madame Li and Sedgwick might have known each other previously? Both, I note, were in Los Angeles not too many years ago.”
“Well, none that we found so far, but Sedgwick did show up around the Temple soon after Madame Li married the Khan. What made her eligible to be the ‘Snow Princess’ of the cult anyway? Does that go with the marriage?”
“I do not know,” Chan said. “Possibly an inquiry to L.A. might be in order to learn if The Temple Of The Golden Horde has any associations down there.”
“Will do,” Wade said.
Chan rubbed at his nose for a moment. “You mentioned Mr. Sedgwick being involved in a sanitarium, one of the barred-room operations?”
“He was. Unlicensed home for sick rich people, mostly a high-priced drunk cure. A hide-out for ‘sick’ crooks, a place to keep rich Uncle Joe out of the way while you use his money. All that kind of operation.”
Chan nodded. “I wonder -“
“Captain!”
Wade and Chan turned quickly. One of Wade’s detectives stood in the room doorway. He carried the brass-bound chest of the scroll. He came toward the Captain.
“Cap’n, did I hear Inspector Chan say he doesn’t know how anyone found him in this hotel?”
“Yeah,” Wade said. “If I know Charlie, no one -“
Chan said, “Perhaps the detective knows how I was found?”
“Yeah,” the detective said, “I think I do.”
The detective placed the brass-bound chest on a table, then touched one of the brass plates on the corner. “Here,” he said. “This, brad. Take a close look at it.”
Chan bent close to the brad indicated. Brass-capped like the others, it seemed no different, except that it appeared to be loose. Carefully, Chan inserted a fingernail under the hood and, wiggling it, managed to pull the brad out. The stem formed a miniature signal device.
“At the airport,” the detective said, “they only had to follow the signal.”
Chad nodded, went on staring at the small chest. “Child’s play to wait at the airport for all Honolulu flights and hear the signal no matter what disguise I wore.”
Wade took the device, looked at it, then at the chest. “So someone in Honolulu marked the chest. Who, Charlie?”
“Any of those present in house of C.V. Soong - Madame Li, assistant George Hastings, Mr. Soong himself, or Carleton Sedgwick who was on the grounds.”
“But Betty Chan must be clear, then, right?” Wade said.
“Not necessarily,” Chan said. “Hastings could be an accomplice, after the chest and relay the information to Betty Chan in San Francisco.”
“And Madame Li could have fixed it for the Khan,” Wade said. “He came to get it, undercover. The one person no one would suspect because it was going to him anyway. Only something went bad.”
“Possibly,” Chan nodded.
The detective who had found the device said, “We just got same more word on that Madame Li, Captain. Seems she was leader of her own cult down in L.A. a few years ago - The China Rebirth Society. It was getting a hold in the Chinese community, taking in some other Orientals like Vietnamese and a few Japs, when they got busted for illegal drug use in their ceremonies. Seems they were building faith by zonking out some of their richer devotees.”
“Drugs?” Wade snapped. “What kind and where were they getting the stuff?”
“Mostly opium, they smoked up a storm in their ceremonies. Don’t know the source, never traced.”
Charlie Chan was staring again at the heavy, brass-bound chest that carried the priceless scroll. His hooded eyes blinked very slowly. Captain Wade saw him, and turned to look at the box himself. Chan reached out and took the box, he began to turn it slowly in his hands.
“Six scrolls come to San Francisco in six boxes. Priceless scrolls no one can sell easily, therefore it’s unlikely anyone would want to steal them. Very important contents, and everyone examines them, but who looks at the chests?”
He went on turning the heavy little chest in his delicate hands, his fingers feeling and probing like a surgeon, his dark eyes narrowed to observe every chink and blemish and fitting on the box. His fingers moved, pressed, felt, and there was a faint sound of metal moving. Only a hair, but one brass plate on a corner moved with a tiny click.
Wade stared. “You think -?”
Chan said nothing. He bent close to where the small plate had moved. He pushed and the whole end of the box slid a quarter of an inch. Pushed again in all directions, delicately, and the end of the box slid up a full inch! Once more, sliding the panel sideways, and it slid off completely revealing a hidden space no more than a half an inch deep but across the entire end of the box.
“Ancient Chinese were very clever at making secret boxes. Common child’s toy, but many boxes were made that were not child’s toys. Very cunning work, and it leaves nothing revealed to even the sharpest eye.”
Captain Wade took the box, looked at the revealed flat cavity. He rubbed his fingers in a corner of the narrow cavity. He put the finger to his lips, licked it lightly. He nodded to Chan. “Heroin, Charlie. I’m sure, but I’ll have it analyzed at the lab anyway. There was heroin in this box.”
Chan thought for a moment. “Benny Chan carried five boxes into this country. Four arrived without incident at the Temple of the Golden Horde. The fifth caused the death of Benny Chan, and was dropped on the beach. Why?”
“You know?”
“Perhaps,” Chan said. “Angela Smith was violent and hysterical about ‘demons’ that pursued Benny Chan. She raved about ‘violation’ of sacred scroll, about ‘him’ violating the scroll. I think she saw Benny Chan open the box! He may have opened the secret panel by mistake, and seen the contents of hidden compartment. Confused, not knowing whether to report it, afraid of danger to his loved Temple.”
“And whoever was to get the heroin spotted Benny, chased him, and drowned him!” Wade exclaimed.
“That would seem the answer.”
“Who, Charlie?”
“I think only Miss Angela Smith can tell us.”
“How?”
“At the moment, this is only a guess in the dark. Possibly the box will tell us more, including the source of the heroin. You will investigate both areas, Mort?”
“Okay, and you?”
“I think I will take a small trip. I’ll return by tomorrow.”
XIV
FROM THE AIRPORT in Santa Barbara, Charlie Chan took a taxi to a motel on upper State Street, and went to bed. He left a call for seven A.M. He wanted to be working early in the morning.
After a quick breakfast the next day, he drove in a rented ear out past the old missio
n to Foothill Road, and then turned up the road to the Botanic Gardens until he reached Tunnel Road. Number 1499 was a large, old, Spanish-style mansion of adobe brick and red-tiled roofs. Its rich grounds stretched lushly up the steep slope of the mountains, and two gardeners worked in the distance in the clear winter morning.
Two cars were in the garage, Mr. and Mrs. J. Farley seemed to be home, which was why Chan had come so early - to be sure. He parked and walked up to the heavy front door. He had to ring three times before he finally heard movement inside, a slow, light movement approaching the door.
The woman who opened the door was tall and blonde, and in her late forties but looked much younger. Or she had looked much younger. Now she looked older, drawn, the deep furrows of some suffering on her handsome face. Her eyes had some of the manic look of Angela Smith, half crazy, and physically she resembled the dead girl, too.
“Yes?” she said, her voice low and dull.
“Mrs. Farley?” Chan said. “My name is Charlie Chan; I am working on the murder of your daughter. May I come in?”
“Chan?” the woman said, blinked. “Murder?” She blinked again, her manic eyes looking around him and past him as if for something she could understand. “They were Chinese. That Snow Princess, she’s Chinese. What are you doing here?” She shook her head as if to clear a fog. “No, suicide they said.”
“I’m sorry, the police now think it was murder. Your daughter was disturbed, went to seek peace at The Temple of The Golden Horde. Did you speak with her in the last days?”
A man appeared in the long, cool, stone-floored entry hall behind the woman. A big, heavy man with almost white hair and wearing rough western clothes.
“Went?” the man said. “No, Angela didn’t go to that Temple - we sent her! God damn us, we sent her!”
“James,” the woman said, turned. “Please. How could we know? We did what we thought best.”
The man, James Farley, laughed. “I wonder how many crimes have been done under that slogan; we did what we thought best! Best for whom? Eh? Whose best were we thinking of!”
“We were thinking of Angela!” the woman cried.
“Sure,” the man said bitterly. He looked at Chan. “You want to know about Angela’s death? About that Madame Li? About us, the smart parents? You’re a cop?”
“Inspector Chan, yes,” Chan said. “You are Mr. Farley, the father of the dead girl?”
“Stepfather, God help me,” the man said, his voice cracking. He stared at Chan, then nodded, “Come on in. I’ll tell you about Angela.”
Farley led Chan and the woman into a vast, low living room with dark ceiling beams and rich old Spanish furniture. They were horse people, Chan could see, and the detective also saw that there was a lot of money. Farley waved him to a high-backed Spanish arm chair. The woman sat on the very edge of another chair. Farley remained standing, paced.
“Angela was my wife’s child by her first marriage. I adopted her legally, but she never really liked me, you see?” the pacing man said. “Why should she have? Who says a child has to like the man her mother marries after dumping her father?”
“James, please,” Mrs. Farley said. “Don’t whip you -“
Farley didn’t seem to hear her as he went on pacing.
“She was unhappy, wild, always in trouble,” he said. “Oh, nothing terrible; just hard to handle, you know? An annoyance!” He went on pacing. “Then a few months ago she ran off with a young punk, stole a car, was picked up drunk. We paid the boy off, but she was pregnant. We got her an abortion; and sent her off to Madame Li. For her own good, right?”
“She was disturbed, James! Sick. She needed help!” Mrs. Farley cried.
“Disturbed, sure, but not sick; and she needed help all right but not the kind we gave her!” Farley said “I’d heard about Madame Li and her ‘Sanctuary Retreat’ at that Golden Horde Temple from a friend in Los Angeles who’d had trouble with one of his kids. He told us Madame Li specialized in helping disturbed kids by spiritual treatment at her Temple, especially kids who wouldn’t listen to their parents. For a price, of course. A big price, but she guaranteed they would find peace and give no more trouble or worry. So we sent Angela to find peace, and she found it, didn’t she?”
“James no please,” Mrs. Farley moaned, wrung her hands. “We couldn’t know what was going to happen.”
“No, we couldn’t know that, but we knew what we were doing! We were sweeping her under the rug, getting her off our backs! So we could have peace! For us! Madame Li’s Sanctuary is a private prison, isn’t it! A very expensive private prison for rich parents who want their defiant children restrained! The spiritual treatment is drugs, and brainwashing, and barred windows! The peace of fear and locked doors, all guaranteed! No more trouble or worry for the parents! A racket to handle kids the easy way, keep them locked up and out of the way!”
Chan said softly, “You can prove this? Madame Li uses drugs, physical restraint?”
“Of course we can prove it!” Farley snapped. Then he stopped pacing, looked at Chan. “You said… murder. Are you sure? You know why? Or who?”
“Did Angela talk to you before she escaped from the Temple? A phone call? Letter? Any word?” Chan asked.
“No nothing,” Farley said.
“We… we weren’t supposed to contact Angela too often,” Mrs. Farley said. “That was part of the treatment.”
“Why did she use a false name? Was that part of the treatment, too?” the detective asked.
“Yes,” Farley said. “They called it assuming a new identity in the spirit realm, but I knew all along it was just a safety measure for them in case anyone came snooping around. My God, what did we put that girl through!” The man held his head in his hands, sat down now.
“Sometimes mistakes are made,” Chan said gently. “The question now is why was Angela murdered? I think she saw something. Do either of you know what it could have been?”
Mrs. Farley shook her head, “We hadn’t spoken to Angela in nearly a month. They sent us reports, but we were supposed to keep away.”
“They?” Chan said.
“That Sedgwick does most of the talking, the business,” Farley said. “You’re sure Angela was murdered, Inspector Chan? I mean… why?”
“Fairly certain. Motive? Perhaps to keep her quiet,” Chan replied.
“Yes,” Farley said. His haggard face seemed, for an instant, almost happier. “At least, maybe she didn’t kill herself. Maybe we didn’t drive her to that. It’s something to know.”
“Possibly Angela was coming to you when she was murdered,” Chan said. “She may have been drugged, but not broken. She wanted to tell me something. She wanted to help the police; a strong girl.”
The two Farleys looked like people Chan had just given a million dollars tax-free. Hope in their faces that perhaps their daughter had not been broken, suffering and suicidal.
“I wish we could help more,” Farley said.
“Perhaps you have helped enough,” Chan said. “There is now a motive for murder.”
XV
WHEN HE ARRIVED back at the San Francisco airport, Charlie Chan noticed the two silent men in dark business suits who followed him casually out of the terminal. He gave no indication he had seen them, but went straight to police headquarters downtown. In Captain Wade’s office he made three telephone calls; to Lieutenant Forbes in Half Moon Bay, to the Temple to say he was bringing down the scroll, and to Betty Chan.
“The solution is close,” he told the girl. “I’ll pick you up at the book store in half an hour.”
“Where are we going, Inspector Chan,” the girl asked, her voice a shade wary.
“To offer condolences at the Temple of The Golden Horde - and reveal murderer.”
“I’ll be ready,” Betty Chan said determinedly.
An hour later Captain Wade turned the police car into the side road that led to the isolated Temple as the evening shadows began to fall, and the night fog drifted in from the sea through the s
ilent trees. The high iron gates were locked, and Wade had to park. They used the small side gate, and walked again up the curving gravel drive toward the pagoda and the two other buildings.
A figure came out of the fog and the evening shadows from the direction of the main head quarters of the cult. It was C.V. Soong. The old philanthropist seemed pale and drawn as he hurried up to Chan, Captain Wade and Betty Chan.
“Inspector Chan! What happened? Madame Li called me in Honolulu to tell me the terrible news about the Khan, and that the scroll hadn’t been delivered!”
Chan’s voice was mild, “The scroll is safe in the hands of the original messenger.”
Soong looked doubtful.
Chan held out the brass-bound chest. Soong’s eyes glowed, and he breathed a deep sigh of obvious relief, as he reached for the small chest.
“Thank God! I’m sorry, Inspector, I shouldn’t have doubted that you’d get it through safely no matter what happened.”
“Your praise is not deserved,” Chan said. “The killer caught me by surprise, and would easily have stolen the box if it had been the object of theft and murder.”
“Well, no matter,” Soong said, “I’ve got the scroll, and all six are safe!” The old scholar-tycoon frowned. “But if it wasn’t the scroll, why was the Khan murdered? Does this mean that Benny Chan and the Smith girl were also murdered?”
Betty Chan said, “I knew my brother had been murdered all along! I told you all! And no one would listen.”
“It would appear now that you were indeed correct,” Chan said. “It remains only to find the killer and reveal the motive. Mr. Soong, where is Madame Li and where is Carleton Sedgwick?”
“Madame Li is in the pagoda with the Khan’s body,” Soong said. “I haven’t seen Sedgwick.”
“Then I suggest we all go to pagoda,” Chan said.
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