James Chase - A Coffin from Hong Kong

I took a step forward, turned the door handle and gave the door a little push. It swung wide open.

It was a bare room. The floor was uncarpeted. There was a broad wooden bench that served as a bed with a wooden headrest to serve as a pillow. On an upturned packing case stood a metal kettle burned black, a small teapot and some small dirty tea bowls. Hanging on a hook on the wall was a filthy hand towel and below it was a basin and a large water jug The two figures squatting on the floor turned to stare at me. One of them was Mu Hai Ton. The other was a narrow-shouldered, lean-faced man, wearing a dirty black Chinese costume and a baggy black cap pulled down over his face.

For a brief moment I took him for Chinese, but a closer look told me he was European.

Mu Hai Ton gave a startled scream. The man swung his arm and the back of his hand caught her across the mouth, knocking her sprawling at my feet.

“You stupid bitch!” the man snarled, getting to his feet. “You led him right here! Get out!”

“Go on in, please,” the voice said behind me and I received a gentle prod in the back.

The girl scrambled to her feet, sobbing. She darted around me and I heard her clattering down the stairs.

I moved into the room. The man was staring at me, a vicious, cold gleam in his eyes.

I took a chance and glanced over my shoulder. Wong Hop Ho, the English-speaking guide, smiled apologetically at me. In his right hand he held a.45 Colt centred on my spine. He closed the door and set his back against it.

I examined the man before me. He looked half-starved and ill. He was unshaven and dirty and I could smell him.

“See if he has a gun,” the man said.

Wong pressed his gun into my spine. With his left hand he patted me over, found my gun and removed it. He then stood away.

I decided this man in front of me could be no one else but Frank Belling. If he wasn’t then nothing else made sense.

“Are you Belling?” I said. “I’ve been looking for you.”

“Okay, so you’ve found me,” the man said. “It’s going to do you damn little good.”

I looked at Wong who continued to smile apologetically at me.

“I certainly fell for you,” I said ruefully. “You were waiting at the airport to pick me up. That was careless of me. Who tipped you off I was coming?”

Wong giggled.

“We hear these things,’ he said. “You shouldn’t have been so curious, Mr. Ryan. You certainly shouldn’t have come here.”

“Well, I’m here,” I said. “I can’t help it if I’m curious… it’s my business to be curious.”

“What do you want?” Belling demanded.

“I’m trying to find out why Jo-An Jefferson was murdered. The idea was I should start from here and work back.”

His eyes glittered wolfishly in his thin pale face.

“Is that straight… she’s dead?”

“Yes… she’s dead.”

He took off his baggy cap and threw it aside. His sand-coloured hair needed cutting. He ran filthy fingers through his hair and his mouth tightened into a thin line.

“What happened to her?” he said. “Come on… give me the facts.”

I told him about the mysterious telephone caller, John Hard-wick, how I had been fooled into leaving my office, how I had found her dead on my return. I told him old man Jefferson had hired me to find her killer.

“He said his son would have wanted to find the man who killed her. He felt it was the least he could do to do what has son would have done.”

Belling said: “What are the police doing? Can’t they find him?”

“They’re getting nowhere. I’m getting nowhere either. That’s why I was looking for you.”

“Why the hell do you imagine I could help you?” he demanded, glaring at me. Sweat way running down his thin, white face. He looked frightened and vicious.

“You could tell me something about Jefferson,” I said. “Was he hooked up in this drug organisation you belong to?”

“I don’t know a thing about Jefferson! You keep out of this! Now get out! Jefferson is dead. Let him stay dead. Go on, get out!”

I should have been more alert, but I wasn’t and I suffered for it. I saw Belling look past me at Wong. I spun around. Wong stabbed me in the belly with his gun barrel. As I jerked forward in agony, he slammed the gun butt down on top of my head.

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 office. 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.