James Chase - A Coffin from Hong Kong

MacPherson’s stolid face showed no change of expression. He produced the inevitable pipe and began to load it.

“Think so?” he asked, an amused note in his voice. “The Chief said you were a private investigator. I’ve read Chandler and Hammet-they wrote fiction. This happens to be real life.”

“So it does,” I said. “Well, never mind. I don’t suppose it is very important.”

“What makes you think she was murdered?” he asked with no show of interest.

“Nothing that would convince you. What are you going to do with her things?”

“I’ll take them to the station. Maybe someone will claim them. The old coot doesn’t know if she had any relations. I’ve talked to him before-he never knows anything about anything.” He got to his feet. “I wouldn’t worry your brains about her.” He tossed Leila’s belongings into a cheap fibre suitcase he found at the top of the cupboard. “If you had to deal with as many cases as we do like this, you wouldn’t give it a second thought”

“I’m sure. That’s the idea.”

He looked thoughtfully at me,

“What idea?” he asked.

“The men who killed her would want you not to give a second thought, wouldn’t they?”

He suddenly grinned.

“Oh, come off it. We handle hundreds of these suicide cases…”

I was sick of him.

“I heard you the first time.” I crossed the passage to my room. “I’ll be here for a few more days if you should want me.”

He peered at me, losing some of his confidence.

“What makes you think I’ll want you?” he asked.

“Well, we could read a detective story together,” I said and shut the door in his face.

I felt now was the time to spend some of old man Jefferson’s money. I was sure the reception clerk could tell me more than he had told MacPherson if there was a cash inducement.

As soon as I was sure MacPherson had left, I went down to where the old clerk was sitting. He eyed me suspiciously but when I made motions to the telephone, he bowed a reluctant permission.

I called Wong Hop Ho’s number. He answered immediately as if he had been sitting by the receiver waiting for me to call.

“Remember me?” I said. “You gave me your card at the airport. I need an interpreter.”

“It will give me great pleasure, sir,” he said.

“Will you meet me outside the Shanghai and Hong Kong Bank in half an hour?”

He said he would be delighted to be there.

“I would like a car.”

He said it would be a pleasure to arrange anything for me. He was entirely at my disposal. It didn’t sound as if business was over brisk for Mr. Wong Hop Ho.

I thanked him and hung up. Then bowing to the reception clerk who bowed back, I left the hotel and took a taxi to the bank.

I cashed some of the travellers’ cheques Janet West had given me and with my hip pocket bulging with Hong Kong dollars, I waited on the sidewalk for Wong Hop Ho to appear.

He arrived ten minutes later, driving a glittering Packard. We shook hands and I told him my name. He said he would be happy if I called him Wong. All his American clients called him that and he would consider it an honour for me to do so too.

I got in the car beside him.

“We’ll go back to my hotel,” I said. “I want some information from the reception clerk who doesn’t speak English.” As he looked faintly surprised, I went on, “I am a private investigator and I am working on a case.”

He flashed his gold teeth at me in a delighted smile.

“I read many detective stories,” he said. “It is a pleasure to meet a real-life detective, sir.”

I lugged out some of my dollars and offered him fifty of them.

“Will this take care of your fees for a day or so?” I said. “I’ll probably need you from time to time in a hurry.”

He said that would be quite satisfactory, but the car would have to be considered as an extra. As I was spending Jefferson’s money, I said that would be all right. I was sure I could have bargained with him, but I wanted his full co-operation and I felt I might not get it if I cut corners.

We drove to the hotel and leaving the car on the waterfront, we crossed the road and mounted the stairs to the hotel lobby.

“This is not a good hotel,” Wong said on the way up. “I would not advise you to stay here, sir. I can arrange for a nice room for you at a distinguished hotel if that would please you.”

“Let’s leave it for the moment,” I said. “Right now I have a job to do.”

We arrived in front of the old reception clerk who bowed to me and looked blankly at Wong who looked blankly back at him.

“Tell him I want to ask some questions,” I said to Wong. “I will pay him if he can help me. Wrap it up so he won’t take offence.”

Wong went off into a long speech in Cantonese with a certain amount of bowing. Half-way through the speech, I got out my roll of money and counted out ten five-dollar bills, made them into a neat little roll and put the rest away.

The old reception clerk immediately took more interest in what I was holding than in what Wong was saying. Finally, Wong said it would be a pleasure for the clerk to answer any of my questions.

I produced the morgue photograph of Jo-An.

‘Ask him if he knows this girl.”

After staring at the photograph, the reception clerk got in a huddle with Wong who then told me the girl used to live at the hotel. She left fifteen days ago without paying her hotel bill and was I willing to pay it?

I said I wasn’t.

After further questions, Wong went on, “She was married to an American gentleman who shared her room here. His name was Herman Jefferson and he died unfortunately in a car accident. It was after this gentleman had died, the girl left without paying her bill.”

I produced the photograph of Jefferson that Janet West had given me.

“Ask him if he knows who this is?” I said to Wong.

There was an exchange of words after the clerk had stared glassily at the photograph, then Wong said, “It is the American gentleman who lived here.”

“How long did he live here?”

Through Wong, the reception clerk said he had lived in the hotel until he was killed.

This was the first false note in the interview. Leila had said Jefferson had left nine months ago. Now this old buzzard was saying he lived in the hotel up to three weeks ago when he had died.

“I heard Jefferson only stayed here for three months,” I said, “then he left his wife and lived elsewhere. That would be some nine months ago.”

Wong looked surprised. He talked earnestly to the reception clerk, then he said, puzzled,

“He is quite sure the American gentleman remained here until he died.”

If the reception clerk was telling the truth, then Leila had been lying’.

“Tell him Leila said Jefferson left here nine months ago. Tell him I think he is lying.”

Wong got into a long huddle with the reception clerk, then suddenly, smiling, he turned to me. “He is not lying, Mr. Ryan. The girl was mistaken. Jefferson left early in the morning and returned very late. It is easy to see why this girl didn’t meet him and imagined he had left.”

“Then why did Jo-An tell her he had left?” I demanded.

The reception clerk had no answer to that one. He drew in his neck like a startled tortoise and blinked at me. He began to fidget and I could see he was thinking he had given full value for money and he would be glad to be left in peace.

Wong said, “He does not know the answer to that question, sir.”

“What did Jefferson do for a living?” I asked, shifting ground.

The reception clerk said he didn’t know.

“Did any Europeans ever come to see him here?”