Marcia Muller - The Body Snatchers Affair

A waste of time and money, having the document translated? No. While it didn’t absolve Mock Don Yuen of complicity in James Scarlett’s murder, it strengthened Quincannon’s growing belief that the old man was not the one plotting a criminal takeover of Chinatown. He was not cold-blooded enough, nor recklessly ambitious enough at his age, to have masterminded such a scheme. His son was. And so was Little Pete.

Which one, then? Or was it possible that the two of them were in cahoots, Mock Quan’s vicious invective against Fong Ching nothing but a smokescreen? Possible, but highly unlikely. Pete had long been a ruling force in Chinatown crime, a man who relished his position of power; while he might want to gain command of the Hip Sing’s gambling network, he would never agree to share with a rival to get it. If he was behind the Bing Ah Kee snatch, it was in an effort to gain control by devious means. Yet he had had plenty of opportunity to start war between the Kwong Dock and the Hip Sing before this, and hadn’t done so. The death of Bing Ah Kee might have acted as a trigger; he could have other, hidden reasons as well. But it still seemed out of character for him to have risked the wrath of Blind Chris Buckley and the Chinatown flying squad by ordering the murder of a white man. Or, for that matter, to have made an ally of James Scarlett in the first place.

Which left Mock Quan. More and more, he seemed the most likely candidate. How to prove it, though? And how to do so before more blood was shed on the streets of Chinatown?

Quincannon sat staring into space, pondering the dilemma. He was still pondering, and beginning to make out the shape of things, when the sound of the door opening and Sabina’s voice snapped him out of his reverie.

Sabina’s demeanor immediately aroused Quincannon’s suspicions. She looked less energetic than usual, sleep-deprived, and her “Good afternoon, John” had what he deemed a somewhat distracted, almost formal note. The result of a long, passionate night with that damned Montgomery fellow? The notion made his heart ache and his blood pressure rise.

It rose even higher when she shed her coat and he saw the white rose corsage pinned to the bosom of her shirtwaist. Before he could stop himself, he said, “That looks to be an expensive corsage. Where did you get it?”

“What would you say if I told you it was a gift from a secret admirer?”

“I’d ask you not to keep his name secret.”

“Of course you would. Well, it wasn’t. I bought it from Ross Cleghorne in exchange for some information. For ten dollars.”

“Ten dollars! That coxcomb is as big a crook as some of those we’ve put in prison—”

“At least he’s a gentleman most of the time.”

Her snappish tone warned him that she was in no mood for any more personal questions or comments, and especially not badinage. (Not that he was in the mood for raillery, either.) Anything other than a strictly professional conversation would cause serious friction and that was to be avoided now more than ever.

“Was Cleghorne’s information helpful to your investigation?” he asked.

“You mean the Blanchford case?”

“You have another at present?”

She was seated now at her desk, shuffling through the mail he’d placed there, and it seemed to him that she hesitated before answering. “No. Only my part in the Scarlett matter. I stopped at Elizabeth Petrie’s earlier. She has Mrs. Scarlett’s confidence as well as ours.”

“Splendid.”

“As for the Blanchford body snatching,” Sabina said, “you needn’t concern yourself. I have the matter well in hand.” She didn’t seem to want to discuss it in any detail. Playing her cards close to the vest, as he himself often did, until a resolution was imminent.

“I can say the same for the Scarlett affair. Though there are certain complications.”

“Yes?”

He told her about his talk with Lieutenant Price the night before and the possibility of a premature raid on Little Pete’s shoe factory. “It will serve no purpose except to turn up the heat on an already boiling pot. I doubt Fong Ching is behind the ferment in Chinatown. I’m more convinced than ever now that Mock Quan is the guilty party, working at cross-purposes to those of his father and the Hip Sing elders. But I don’t have enough evidence to convince that blockhead Chief Crowley.”

“What makes you so sure it’s Mock Quan?”

“The nature of his character, or lack of it. He’s capable of any vicious act, including cold-blooded murder. In fact, I’m beginning to believe that it was he, not one of the boo how doy, who shot James Scarlett.”

Sabina arched a skeptical eyebrow. “Disguised as a coolie food seller? Why, for heaven’s sake? Why wouldn’t he have sent one of his hatchet men to do his dirty work?”

“I can’t say for certain. He may have had a personal reason. Or he may not have trusted an underling to break the Chinese code of nonviolence against white men. Or it could be a mental aberration, a power-mad megalomaniac’s need to indulge in daredevil acts and to satisfy bloodlust. He covets Little Pete’s criminal empire, and he doesn’t care a whit who dies, white or yellow, in his quest to take it over.”

“You make him sound like a monster.”

“Just so, if I’m right about him. And I believe I am.”

“What led you to the conclusion he murdered Scarlett?”

“His hat.”

“His— Are you serious, John?”

“Never more so. The gunman outside the Cellar of Dreams wore a black slouch hat with a dark-colored topknot, as I told you. The more I thought about that topknot, the more certain I became that its color was red. And a red topknot—”

“Is a symbol of the highborn.”

“Yes. Exactly.”

“It’s called a mow-yung, ” Sabina said.

Now it was Quincannon’s turn for the lifting of an eyebrow. “How do you know its name?”

“And why shouldn’t a woman know something you don’t?”

He chose to let that pass without comment. “Coolie food sellers don’t wear such hats and neither do the boo how doy . The assassin therefore has to have been a high-caste Chinese. To my knowledge Little Pete has never resorted to personal violence, and never against an Occidental. That leaves only Mock Quan.”

“If it was a mow-yung on the shooter’s hat.”

“It was. I’m convinced of it.”

“Mock Quan is just one of many highborn Chinese,” Sabina pointed out.

“Yes, but he’s the only one keeping company with the woman who seduced James Scarlett and started him on his opium addiction.”

“Dongmei? You tracked her down?”

“I did. Last night I persuaded Lieutenant Price to allow me a look at his files. She’s a known consort of Mock Quan’s and her address was noted. I paid a visit to her apartment this morning.”

“And what did she have to say for herself?”

“She wasn’t there. I took advantage of the opportunity to search the premises.”

“Illegal trespass, John?”

“In the cause of justice,” he said piously. He saw no reason to mention his brief confrontation with Dongmei and its somewhat ignominious conclusion. “I found a black slouch hat with a red topknot among her effects. It could belong to no one except Mock Quan.”

Sabina considered this. Then she asked, “What of the snatching of Bing Ah Kee’s corpse? What is his purpose in that?”

“I’d bet five gold eagles,” Quincannon said, “that he has the corpse stashed somewhere and intends to produce it soon, to be found somewhere that will place the onus on the Kwong Dock and bring about the tong war he desires. If that doesn’t finish off Little Pete, he reckons, Will Price’s flying squad will. Thus leaving him in a position to step into the wreckage and build a new criminal empire.”