3

I heard myself saying silently, “Frank Belling is English, isn’t he?” and a voice that sounded like the voice of Chief Inspector MacCarthy replied, “That’s right… he’s English.” And yet the thin, dirty specimen who said he was Frank Belling had spoken with a strong American accent. Was it possible an Englishman could have picked up such an accent? I didn’t think so.

A sudden stab of pain in my head concluded these thoughts and I heard myself groan.

“All right… all right,” I said aloud. “You’re not hurt all that bad. You’ve just had a bang on the head. You have to expect that in your business. You’re lucky to be alive.”

I opened my eyes. I could see nothing. It was as dark as a tunnel, but the familiar smell told me I was still in the room where Wong had coshed me. I sat up slowly, wincing at more stabbing pains and I gently felt the bump on my head. I sat there for some minutes, then I made the effort and got to my feet. The door would be behind me and to the left. I groped my way to it, found the door handle and opened the door. A feeble light burning on the landing made me blink. I stood in the doorway listening, but heard only the gentle murmur of many voices in the alley below. I looked at my strap watch. The time was five minutes past midnight. I had been unconscious for about half an hour… quite long enough for Belling and Wong to have got well away.

My one thought now was to get out of this evil-smelling hole.

As I started towards the stairs, I heard someone coming up. I slid my hand inside my coat. The gun holster was there still strapped to my side, but it was empty. The beam of a powerful flashlight hit me in the face.

“What do you think you’re doing here?” a familiar Scottish voice demanded.

“Slumming,” I said and relaxed. “What are you?”

Sergeant Hamish, followed by a uniformed Chinese police officer, came on up the stairs.

“You were spotted coming in here,” he said. “I thought I’d better see what you were up to.”

“You’re a little late. I’ve been holding a one-sided conversation with your pal Frank Belling.”

“You were?” He gaped at me. “Where is he?”

“He’s skipped.” I fingered the lump on the back of my head. “A Chinese pal of his boffed me before we had time to exchange confidences.”

He moved the beam of his flashlight so he could see the back of my head, then he whistled. “Well, you asked for it, coming here. This is the toughest spot in Hong Kong.”

“Would you take that goddam light out of my eyes? My head hurts,” I growled at him.

He moved past me into the room and swung the light around. Then he came out. “The Chief Inspector will want to talk to you. Let’s go.”

“He’ll want to talk to a Chinese girl named Mu Hai Ton too,” I said and gave him the girl’s address. “You’d better get after her. She’s likely to have skipped.”

“What’s she got to do with this?”

“She led me to Belling. Hurry it up, friend. You could miss her.”

He said something in Cantonese to the policeman with him who clattered off down the stairs.

“You come on,” he said to me and we followed the policeman into the dark, evil-smelling alley.

Half an hour later I was back on the island and sitting in Chief Inspector MacCarthy’s ofifce. They had got him out of bed by radio-telephone and he looked none too pleased. We had cups of strong tea in front of us. My head was still aching but the tea helped.

Sergeant Hamish leaned against the wall, chewing a tooth-pick, his cop eyes blankly staring at me. MacCarthy sucked at his empty pipe while he listened to my story.

I didn’t tell him about the Silver Mine Bay outing. I felt if I had told him he might have turned hostile. I told him how I had wanted to talk to Mu Hai Ton, how I had found her through the Madame at the Wanchai bar and how I had seen her surprise and distress when I had told her Jo-An was dead.

“I had an idea she might want to pass on the news,” I said, “so I waited across the road and followed her into the walled city.”

I told them how Wong had suddenly appeared, what Belling had said and how Wong had coshed me.

After a long pause, MacCarthy said, “Well, you asked for it. You should have come to me.”

I let that one go.

He sat for some moments thinking over what I had told him, then before he could say what was on his mind, the telephone bell rang. He scooped up the receiver, listened, then said, “Well, keep after her, I want her,” and hung up.

“She didn’t return to her apartment,” he said to me. “I have a man watching the place and we’re looking for her.”

I hadn’t expected she would have been there waiting for them to pick her up. I wondered if they would eventually find her in the harbour the way they had found Leila.

“Have you a photograph of Frank Belling?” I asked. “I have an idea this guy wasn’t Belling. He was an American.”

MacCarthy opened a desk drawer and took out a fat file which showed he was taking more interest in Belling than he had led me to believe. He opened the file and took out a half-plate glossy print which he flicked across the desk so it fell right side up in front of me.

I looked at the photograph and felt a queer creepy sensation crawl up my spine. It was the same photograph that Janet West had given me: the hard gangster face Janet West had said belonged to Herman Jefferson.

“You sure this is Belling?” I said. MacCarthy stared blankly at me.

“That’s a police photograph. We distributed a number of them to the newspaper agencies and to the newspapers when we were trying to pick him up. Yes… that’s Frank Belling.”

“That’s not the man I talked to… the man who said he was Frank Belling.”

MacCarthy drank some of his tea and then began to fill his pipe. I could see by the expression in his eyes he was beginning to dislike me. “Then who was the man you talked to?”

“Did you ever meet Herman Jefferson?”

“Yes… why?”

“Got a photograph of him?”

“No… he was an American citizen. Why should I have a photograph of him?”

“Can you describe him?”

“Thin, sharp-featured with thinning sand-coloured hair,” MacCarthy said promptly.

“Sound like the man I talked to… the man who said he was Frank Belling.”

There was a long pause, then MacCarthy said heavily, “Jefferson is dead. He was killed in a road accident and his body was shipped to America.”

“Jefferson is alive… anyway, he was alive two hours ago,” I said. “That description of yours fits him.”

“The body in the car matched Jefferson’s size,” MacCarthy said as if trying to convince himself. “The body was so badly burned identification wasn’t possible but his wife identified him by the ring on his finger and the cigarette case he was carrying. We had and still have no reason to think he was anyone else but Jefferson.”

“If it wasn’t Jefferson and I’m damn sure it wasn’t, who was it?” I said.

“Why ask me?” MacCarthy said. “I’ve still no reason to think Jefferson is alive.”

“A tall thin man with pale green eyes, thin sandy hair and thin lips,” I said. I thought for a moment, then went on, “He had a crooked little finger on his right hand, come to think of it, as if it had been broken at one time and had been badly set.”

“That’s Jefferson,” Hamish said. It was the first time he had said anything since I had come into the ofifce. “I remember the crooked finger. That’s Jefferson all right.”

MacCarthy puffed at his pipe.

“Then who was buried?” he asked uneasily. “Whose body was sent back to America?”

“My guess is that it was Frank Belling’s body,” I said. “For some reason Jefferson tried to kid me he was Belling.”

“Why should he do that?”

“I don’t know.” I touched the bump on my head and grimaced. “If it’s all the same to you, Chief Inspector, I’ll go to bed. I’m feeling like something the cat has dragged in.”

“You look like it,” he said. “Let’s have a description of Wong.”

“He looks like any other Chinese to me. Squat, fat with gold teeth.”

“That’s right,” MacCarthy said and stifled a yawn. “They all look alike to us just as we all look alike to them.” He turned to Hamish. “Take as many men as you want and go through the walled city. See if you can find Jefferson. You won’t, but we’ve got to try.” To me, he said, “Okay, Ryan, you go to bed. You can leave this to us.”

I said I would be glad to and went out of the ofifce with Hamish.

“Looking for Jefferson in the walled city is like looking for the invisible man,” Hamish said bitterly. “No one knows anything. Everyone covers up for everyone. I might have Jefferson right next to me and I wouldn’t know it.”

“Cheer up,” I said unfeelingly. “It’ll give you something to do.”

Leaving him swearing, I picked up the Packard and drove back to the Repulse Bay Hotel. I felt old, tired and worn out.

I left the elevator on the fourth floor where my room was. The night boy, a grinning, bowing Chinese, wearing a white drill jacket and black trousers, bowed to me as he handed me my key. I thanked him and walked to my room. I unlocked the door and entered the sitting room. Most of the rooms in the hotel had sitting rooms. The bedroom was beyond drawn curtains that divided the two rooms. I turned on the light and pulled off my jacket. The air-conditioner made the room pleasantly cool.

My one thought was to take a cold shower and then go to bed, but it wasn’t to be. As I parted the curtains and moved into the bedroom, I saw the bedside lamp was on.

I saw a woman lying on the bed. It was Stella Enright. She had on a gold and black cocktail dress. She had kicked off her shoes that were lying by the bed.

The sight of her gave me a shock. For a moment I thought she was dead, then I saw she was breathing by the rise and fall of her breasts. I stood there, staring at her, aware of the pain in my head and wondering what the hell she was doing here and how she got in. Then I remembered the grinning night boy and guessed she had bribed her way in.

As I watched her, she slowly opened her eyes and looked at me, then she lifted her head. Sitting up, she swung her long legs off the bed.

“I’m sorry,” she said and smiled. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep. I just got bored waiting for you.”

“Have you been waiting long?” I asked, more for something to say. I sat down in an armchair, watching her as she slipped into her shoes. She patted her hair and then stood up and came into the sitting-room.

“I’ve been here since ten o’clock,” she said. “I was worrying about you. I hope you don’t mind me coming here.” She hurried on before I could say anything. “What happened to you? I nearly missed the ferry. Why weren’t you waiting for me?”

“I was delayed,” I said, thinking of the thin Chinese with his knife and the squat Chinese with his rifle. “Now I’ll ask you something. Was it your idea that you and I should go to Silver Mine Bay?”

She sat on the arm of the armchair facing me, “My idea? What do you mean?”

“It’s not so hard, surely? When you suggested I should see the waterfall… was it your idea or did someone else suggest it to you?”

She frowned, staring at me for a moment, then she said, “I don’t know why you ask, but my brother told me to invite you. He said you were lonely and would be glad of company.”

“Is he your brother?” I asked.

She stiffened, stared at me and then quickly looked away. As she said nothing, I repeated the question.

“You’re asking the most extraordinary questions,” she said, still looking away from me. “What makes you ask that?”

“There’s no likeness between you,” I said, “and it seems odd to me that a girl like you should want to live with her brother.” I watched her hesitate, then she shrugged.

“No, he isn’t my brother. I’ve only known him a couple of months. Now, I’m sorry I ever met him.”

I gave up the thought of going to bed. I took out my pack of cigarettes and we both lit up. She slid off the arm of the chair into the chair itself and leaning back, she closed her eyes, inhaling deeply.

“Where did you meet him?” I asked.

“In Singapore. I was doing a strip act at a night club there,” she told me. “I’d come all the way from New York… like the dope I am. The night club was raided and I never got my money and I was strapped. Harry turned up. He had seen my act several times and he propositioned me. He had plenty of money, certain charm and… well, I went to live with him in a bungalow near the MacRitchie reservoir. It was nice out there. I had a good time with him until people began to talk, then it wasn’t so good.” She opened her eyes to stare at the burning tip of her cigarette. “I decided to go home, but Harry wouldn’t give me the fare. Then suddenly he had to come here. He got me a false passport. We came here as brother and sister.” She looked at me. “I still want to go home. Could you lend me the money? I’ll pay you back in a couple of months.”

“How did he get you a false passport?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know… I didn’t ask. Will you lend me the money?”

“I never lend that kind of money.”

“If it would make any difference, we could travel together.” She smiled stiffly at me. I had a sudden idea she was frightened. There was a bleak, scared expression in her eyes. “You know what I mean… value for money.”

“I want a drink,” I said. “Will you have one?”

She sat bolt upright, her eyes widening. “Don’t let anyone in here,” she said, her voice going shrill. “I don’t want anyone to know I’m here.”

“The boy knows. He let you in, didn’t he?”

“No. I got the number of your room and took the key off the board. There were two keys. He doesn’t know I’m here.”

I wished my head would stop aching.

“What are you scared about?”

She relaxed back in the chair, looking away from me. “I’m not scared. I just want to get away from here. I want to go home.”

“Why the sudden urgency?”

“Must you ask so many questions? Will you lend me the money? I’ll sleep with you now it you’ll promise to give me the money.”

“I’ll give you the money if you’ll tell me all you know about Harry Enright.”

I saw her hesitate, then she said, “I know very little about him really. He’s just a playboy having himself a good time.”

I was too tired to be patient. “Well, if that’s all you know I’ll keep my money,” I said and getting to my feet I crossed to the telephone. “I’m going to order a drink and then I’m going to bed… alone. You’d better get out before the waiter comes.”

“No… wait.”

I called room service and asked for a bottle of Scotch and ice. As I replaced the receiver, she got to her feet.

“Will you really give me the money if I tell you what I know about him?”

“That’s what I said.”

“I think he is a drug smuggler,” she said, clenching and unclenching her hands.

“Why do you think that?”

“People come to see him at night. When we were in Singapore he used to go down to the docks and meet sailors. The police once raided our bungalow in Singapore and they searched the place, but they didn’t find anything. Here, we get night visitors. They are always Chinese. He goes out in the early hours in his boat.”

“Jefferson did live in your villa before you came?”

“Yes. Harry told me not to tell you. When Jefferson was killed, Harry was sent from Singapore to replace him. The villa is conveniently situated for receiving drugs.”

There came a gentle tap on the door.

“That’s the waiter,” I said. “Get into the bathroom and stay quiet.”

As soon as she was in the bathroom and had shut the door, I went across the room to let the waiter in.

Just outside the door, smiling, was Harry Enright. He had a .38 automatic in his hand which he pointed at me.

“Don’t start anything smart, pal,” he said. “Just back in and keep your hands still.”

I backed in, keeping my hands still.

“Don’t look so hopeful,” Enright said, closing the door and leaning against it. “I told the waiter you had changed your mind… he’s gone away.”

“Okay for me to sit down?” I said. “The excitement is getting too much for me.”

I sat down, keeping my hands on my knees and I studied him. The smile was fixed. There was a cold, vicious expression in his eyes that warned me to be careful. The gun was steady in his hand and the sight was centred on a spot just between my eyes.

“You’re smart,” Enright said. “You don’t know how goddam smart you are. You did something I haven’t been able to do for the past three weeks.”

“What would that be?” I asked.

“You found Jefferson. I’ve been hunting for that son-of-a-bitch until I thought I’d go crazy. To think I nearly had you killed! Then you go out and find him… just like that.”

“I’m not following you,” I said. “Do you have to point that gun at me? I’ve had a heavy day and that gun looks lethal.”

Still keeping me covered, he moved farther into the room. He sat on the same chair arm on which Stella had sat not ten minutes ago.

“Don’t worry about the gun,” he said. “Just so long as you don’t start anything smart, you won’t get a bullet in your head. What did you tell the cops?”

“What makes you imagine I told the cops anything?”

“I’ve had a man on your tail from the moment you started showing interest in the villa. I spotted you in the pedallo. From that moment we haven’t taken our eyes off you.”

“We? You mean this drug-traffic organisation?”

“That’s it, pal. It’s a big thing… too big for you. It makes me sweat to think those two might have killed you. That was my mistake. I should have left you alone. I had no idea you were after Jefferson.”

“I wasn’t… I thought he was dead.”

“We thought he was too. He nearly had us fooled. We were hunting for Belling. Then you come along and you led us right to Jefferson.”

“So you found him,” I said, wondering what Stella was doing, shut in the bathroom.

“Yes, we found him.” His smile was vicious. “We found Wong too.”

“Who is Wong?”

“He was one of our group, but he made the mistake of throwing in with Jefferson. Right at this moment they are getting the treatment, then what’s left of them will be dumped in the sea.”

“What did they do to you then?”

“That’s the way we treat hijackers,” Enright said. “It’s the only way. What did you tell the cops?”

“Nothing they didn’t know already,” I said mildly. He stared at me for a long moment, then he stood up. “You and me are going for a little walk and then a little drive. There are four of my men outside. You make one move out of turn and it’ll be your last move. My boys carry knives. They can kill a guy from forty feet. By the time anyone knows you’re dead, they’ll be miles away: so watch it. Come on, let’s go.”

“What happens after the walk and the drive?” I asked.

He grinned at me. “You’ll find out. Up on your feet, pal, and watch it.”

I stood up as he backed to the door. He opened it and stood aside.

“The night boy won’t help you. He works for me, so don’t act foolish,” Enright said. “We’ll walk down the stairs. There’s another of my boys in the lobby. Just keep moving if you want to keep alive.”

We went out into the passage. Enright had put the gun in his pocket, his hand gripping the gun. The night boy grinned at me as we walked to the head of the stairs.

“Go on down,” Enright said. “I’m right behind you.” I plodded down four flights of stairs and into the big lobby.

It was strangely deserted. Only two men sat in lounging chairs. One of them was Sergeant Hamish. The other had cop written all over him. I hadn’t seen him before. I took one look at them and then flung myself face down on the plush carpet a split second before a gun roared behind me. I lay there, my heart hammering as more gunfire crashed above me. After a while, a shoe prodded me. “You can get up,” Hamish said.

I rolled over and looked up at him, then I got slowly to my feet. Enright was lying on his back, blood running from a wound in his face. His jacket was smoking. A second look at him told me he was dead. “Did you have to kill him?” I asked.

“If I hadn’t he would have killed you,” Hamish said indifferently. “Maybe he would even have killed me.”

“There are others and the night boy on the fourth floor is one of them.”

The other cop started for the elevator as Hamish said, “We’ve bagged the others. Who was the woman who telephoned us?”

I looked blankly at him.”Was there a woman?”

“How the hell should we be here if she hadn’t told us what was going on?” Hamish said irritably. “A woman telephoned. Who was she?”

“I wouldn’t know”, I said. “Maybe one of my fans.”

Half a dozen Chinese policemen came into the lobby. Hamish spoke to them, then jerked his head at me.

“Come on,” he said. “You’ll have to talk to the Chief Inspector.”

As the Chinese policemen were gathering up what was left of Enright, Hamish and I went out to the waiting jeep.