James Chase - A Coffin from Hong Kong

“Always glad to help.”

I took a taxi back to the hotel. The old inception clerk had taken up his position behind the counter. He bowed to me. I would have liked to have questioned him, but the language barrier was too much of a handicap. If I were going to get anywhere, I would have to find an interpreter. It was then I remembered the English-speaking guide, Wong Hop Ho, who had given me his card at the airport. He might be able to help me.

I went to my room. I saw Leila’s door was closed and I paused to knock. There was no answer. I tried the door handle, but the door was locked. I knocked again, listened, hearing nothing, then shrugging, I went to my room.

It was too early to do anything constructive so I took off my jacket, tie and shoes and stretched out on the bed. I did a litde thinking that got me nowhere, then I dozed off.

It was after ten o’clock when I woke to the sound of gentle tapping on my door. I swung my legs off the bed and opened the door.

The Chinese boy bobbed, smiling, pointing down the passage. I put on my shoes, then followed him to the reception desk. The old clerk offered me the telephone receiver.

It wt; Chief Inspector MacCarthy calling me.

“This girl you were telling me about,” he said, “You did say you bought her a jade ring last night?”

I stiffened.

“Yes… it was imitation jade.”

“Would you take a taxi to the Chatham Road police station? It’s on the Kowloon side. They have a girl there-could be this girl you’re talking about. She is wearing an imitation jade ring.”

“Is she dead?” I asked, aware my stomach muscles were tight.

“Oh, very.” I could almost smell his expensive tobacco smoke coming over the line. “It’d help if you would identify her. Ask for Sergeant Hamish.”

“Another Scotsman?”

“That’s right. Lots of Scotsmen in the police force.”

“Probably a good thing for Scotland,” I said and hung up.

Forty minutes later, I walked up the steps leading to the Chatham Road police station. Just inside the large lobby was a big frame hanging on the wall containing a number of gruesome morgue pictures- photographs of some fifty dead Chinese men and women who had been found in the Straits or in the streets with an appeal both in English and in Chinese to identify them.

The desk sergeant showed me into a tiny office where a hard-faced young man with blond wavy hair and a cop stare was examining a file. He nodded to me when I introduced myself. He said his name was Sergeant Hamish.

“You have a body for me to look at,” I said.

He took from his pocket a battered briar pipe. The Hong Kong police seemed to be pipe-smoking types. I watched him fill it as his cold, green eyes considered me without much interest.

“That’s right. The Chief Inspector seemed to think you could identify her. She was fished out of the Straits last night around two. Not much of her left. She must have been caught by one of the ferry steamers from the look of her.”

I felt sweat sticking my shirt to my back.

He got to his feet.

“These damn people are always killing themselves,” he said conversationally. “Every day we collect half a dozen bodies. The Chinese just don’t seem to take their lives seriously.”

We went down a passage, across a yard and into the morgue. From the number of forms under the coarse twill sheets, business seemed pretty brisk this morning.

He led me to a table, covered with a thick rubber sheet. He lifted a corner of the sheet, groped under it and produced a small amber-coloured hand on which was an imitation jade ring.

“I’ve had eggs and bacon for breakfast,” he said chattily. “If you can identify her by the ring, it’ll save me risking a throw-up.”

I looked at the ring and the small, slim fingers. It was the ring I had bought Leila.

“That’s the ring,” I said, and I felt really bad.

He put the hand back out of sight.

“Okay, I’ll tell the Chief Inspector.”

I reached forward and lifted the rubber sheet. I looked for a long moment at what was left of Leila. I wished I hadn’t, but I had to say goodbye to her. I dropped the sheet into place.

I remembered her sighing with happy contentment after we had eaten that memorial meal. I saw again her sturdily-built little back as she had walked ahead of me. I hadn’t known her for long, but her personality had impressed me. I felt I had lost someone important.

There was a detective waiting for me on the other side of the ferry. He was a large red-faced man who said his name was MacPherson: there seemed no end to these Scotsmen. He took me back to the hotel in a police jeep.

He talked to the reception clerk in haltering Chinese, then took the key of Leila’s room.

As we went down the passage, he said, “The old coot’s cagey. We would close up this hole. He isn’t admitting she was a tart- can’t say I blame him.”

I hated him for sentimental reasons. Leila, I felt, deserved something better for an epitaph than being called a tan by a Scotch cop.

MacPherson unlocked her bedroom door and moved into the tiny room. I remained in the passage, looking in. With professional thoroughness, he began to search the room. There were only three dresses hanging in the cupboard and only one set of underwear in one of the drawers. Leila’s belongings were pathetically small.

MacPherson gave a sudden grunt as he peered into the bottom of the cupboard,

“I thought as much…” he muttered, bent and came up with a small strip of tinfoil. He smoothed the foil out carefully. It appeared to come from a pack of ten cigarettes.

“Know what this is?” he asked, showing me the foil. In its centre was a black smoky smudge.

“You tell me,” I said.

He bent once again and peered into the cupboard and this time he came up with a tiny, half-burnt candle: the kind you put on birthday cakes.

He sat on the side of the bed, holding the tinfoil and the candle and became expansive.

“She was a heroin addict,” he said. “Something like a dozen drug addicts kill themselves every week.”

“What makes you so sure?” I asked.

“Anyone having these two little gadgets is an addict,” MacPherson said. “Know how it works? They put heroin in the fold of the foil. They hold the lighted candle under the foil and then sniff up the fumes. It can be done in a few seconds. You know something? The stupidest thing the Government ever did was to wage war on opium smokers. They thought it was the easiest thing in the world to stamp out. Opium smokers have to have a room, a bed and the apparatus for smoking which is not only extensive but expensive. We never have any trouble in finding the room and smashing up the apparatus. An opium pipe costs quite a lot of money, and after a while the smokers got fed up with us breaking up their beds and their pipes and chasing them over the roofs. We kidded ourselves we were putting a stop to the drug traffic, but how wrong we were.” He pushed his hat to the back of his head while he looked at me. “The addicts found they could get heroin from opium and all they needed was a piece of tinfoil and a candle. They can inhale this poison anywhere: in the movies, public conveniences, trams, buses, taxis -anywhere. You keep your eyes open and you’ll see bits of candle grease in most unexpected places. That’ll tell you, as it does us, someone has been inhaling heroin. Opium smoking is an addiction, but it isn’t a killer. But make no mistake about it: heroin kills. If we had let the Chinks smoke their opium, we wouldn’t be trying hopelessly to cope with heroin addicts.”

I rubbed the side of my jaw.

“Thanks for the lecture,” I said, “but I don’t think she committed suicide and I don’t think she was a heroin addict. I think she was murdered and these two little gadgets were planted for you to find.”