Erle Gardner - Erle Stanley Gardner’s The Case of the Murderer’s Bride and Other Stories

When she had wiped her eyes and looked at the little morsel of humanity in her arms, she had screamed in terrified anguish.

No one had known of Leung Fah’s girl. Because she had no husband, she had kept her offspring as a secret; and because she slept in one of the poorest sections of the city, where people are as numerous and as transient as bats in a cave, she had been able to maintain her secret.

Since no one had known of her child, no one had known of her loss. Night after night she had gone about her work, moving stolidly through the heat and stench of the city, her face an expressionless mask.

Sahm Seuh, the man who had only three fingers on his right hand, and whose eyes were cunning, moving as smoothly moist in their sockets as the tongue of a snake, had noticed her going about her work, and of late he had become exceedingly solicitous. She was not looking well. Was she perhaps sick? She no longer laughed, or paused to gossip in loud tones with the slave girls in the early morning hours before daylight. Was it perhaps that the money she was making was not sufficient?... Sahm Seuh’s oily eyes slithered expressively. Perhaps that too could be remedied.

Because she had said nothing, because she had stared at him with eyes that saw not and ears that heard not, her soul numbed by an anguish which made her as one who walks in sleep at the hour of the rat, Sahm Seuh grew bold.

Did she need money? Lots of money — gold money? Not the paper money of China, but gold which would enable her to be independent? Aiiii-ahh. It was simple. As simple as the striking of a match. And Sahm Seuh flipped his wrist in a quick motion and scratched a match into flame to illustrate his meaning. He went away then, leaving her to think the matter over.

That night, as she moved through the narrow thoroughfares of the city, her mind brooded on the words of Seuh...

Canton is a sleepless city of noise. At times, during the summer months, there comes a slight ebb of activity during the first few hours after midnight, but it is an ebb which is barely perceptible to occidental ears. In the large Chinese cities people sleep in shifts because there is not enough room to accommodate them all at one time in houses. Those who are off-shift roam the streets, and because Chinese ears are impervious to noise, just as Chinese nostrils are immune to smells, the hubbub of conversation continues unabated.

Daylight was dawning, a murky, humid dawn which brought renewed heat to a city already steeped in its own emanations — a city of silent-winged mosquitoes, oppressive and sweltering heat, unevaporated perspiration, and those odors which cling to China as an aura.

Sahm Seuh stood suddenly before her.

“That gold?” he asked. “Do you wish it?”

“I would strike a match,” she said tonelessly.

“Meet me,” Sahm Seuh said, “at the house in The Alley of the Sky Horse where three candles hum. Open the door and climb the stairs. The time is tonight, at the last minute of the hour of the dog.”

And so, as one in a daze, Leung Fah turned down The Alley of the Sky Horse and shuffled along with leaden feet, her eyes utterly without expression, set in a face of wood...

Night found her turning into the The Alley of the Sky Horse.

In a house on the left a girl was playing a metallic-sounding Chinese harp. Ten steps back of her a bean peddler raised his voice in a long, howling “o-w-w-w-w e-o-o-o-o.” Fifty feet ahead, a family sought to scatter evil spirits by flinging lighted firecrackers from the balcony.

Leung Fah plodded on, circling a bonfire where paper imitation money, a model sedan chair, and slaves in effigy were being sent by means of fire to join the spirits of ancestors. Three candles flickered on the sidewalk in the heavy air of the hot night.

Leung Fah opened the door and climbed stairs. There was darkness ahead, only darkness. She entered a room and sensed that others were present. She could hear their breathing, the restless motions of their bodies, the rustle of clothes, occasionally a nervous cough. The hour struck — the passing of the hour of the dog, and the beginning of the hour of the boar.

The voice of Sahm Seuh came from the darkness. “Let everyone here close his eyes and become blind. He who opens his eyes will be judged a traitor. It is given to only one man to see those who are gathered in this room. Any prying eyes will receive the kiss of a hot iron, that what they have seen may be sealed into the brain.”

Leung Fah, seated on the floor, her feet doubled under her, her eyes closed tightly, sensed that men were moving around the room, examining the faces of those who were present by the aid of a flashlight which stabbed its beam into each of the faces. And she could feel heat on her cheeks, which made her realize that a man with a white-hot iron stood nearby ready to plunge the iron into any which might show signs of curiosity.

“She is strange to me,” a voice said, a voice which spoke with the hissing sound of the yut boen gwiee — the ghosts of the sunrise.

“She is mine,” the voice of Sahm Seuh said, and the light ceased to illuminate her closed eyelids. The hot iron passed by.

She heard a sudden scream, the sizzling of a hot iron, a yell of mortal anguish, and the sound of a body as it thudded to the floor. She did not open her eyes. Life, in China, is cheap.

At length the silent roll call had been completed. The voice of Sahm Seuh said, “Eyes may now open.”

Leung Fah opened her eyes. The room was black with darkness.

“Shortly before the dawn,” Sahm Seuh said, “there will be the roar of many motors in the sky. Each of you will be given a red flare and matches. To each of you will be whispered the name of the place where the red flare is to be placed. When you hear the roar of motors, you will crouch over the flare, as though kneeling on the ground in terror. When the motors reach the eastern end of the city, you will hold a match in your fingers.

“There will be none to watch, because people will be intent on their own safety. When the planes are overhead, you will set fire to the red flares, and then you will run very rapidly. You will return most quickly to this place; you will receive plenty gold.

“It is, however, imperative that you come to this place quickly. The bombing will last until just before daylight. You must be here before the bombing is finished. You will receive your gold. In the confusion you will flee to the river. A boat will be waiting. It will be necessary that you hide for some time, because an investigation will be made. There are spies who spy on us, and one cannot explain the possession of gold. You will be hidden until there is more work to be done.”

Once more there was a period of silence, broken only by the shuffling of men and of whispered orders. Leung Fah felt a round wooden object thrust into her hands. A moment later, a box of matches was pushed into her fingers. A man bent over her, so close that his voice breathed a thought directly into her ears, almost without the aid of sound.

“The house of the Commissioner of Public Safety,” he said.

The shuffling ceased. The voice of Sahm Seuh said, “That is all. Go, and wait at the appointed places. Hurry back and there will be much gold. In order to avoid suspicion you will leave here one at a time, at intervals of five minutes. A man at the door will control your passing. There will be no lights, no conversation.”

Leung Fah stood in the darkness, packed with people whom she did not know, reeking in the stench of stale perspiration. At intervals she heard a whispered command. After each whisper the door would open and one of the persons in that narrow crowded staircase would slip from the suffocating atmosphere into the relative coolness of the street.