30

CHINESE JUNK ON STAMP

An interesting stamp I have seen is the 10 cents stamps of the Republic of China, in it is shown the picture of an old Chinese junk, which is a symbol of ancient China. In the background is seen a railroad bridge over which is passing a train. This is evidently intended to show the desire of the newly formed republic for progress.

—William Parkinson (11)
Sun, 15 October 1922

The band members were at rehearsal in the Jazz Club. The venue was closed to patrons until the afternoon. Fortunately Van Hagen was not at the reception desk and Edna was able to gain them access by claiming she’d left her wrap in the club the previous evening and wished to retrieve it. The young man in Van Hagen’s seat seemed flustered by the burdens of the position and the various calls on his attention. After confirming that no one had called looking for them or Mrs. Dong, he let them into the Jazz Club and then excused himself to attend to the complaints and demands of other guests.

Rowland and Edna took seats in front of the stage without interrupting the musicians. The band seemed to enjoy having an audience, however small. When the ragtime number finished, the Australians stood and clapped. The musicians bowed and accepted the applause in good humour.

“What are you folks doing here?” the band leader asked. “This here is just a rehearsal. Y’all come back tonight for a real show.”

“We were hoping we might speak with you,” Edna said.

“Well, well, we got ourselves the prettiest autograph hound in Shanghai!”

Edna laughed. “Oh no, I’m not collecting autographs.”

The saxophonist put down his instrument and grinned. “Then what can we do for you, ma’am?”

Rowland leaned back against a table. He saw no reason to interrupt. Clearly the musicians were more interested in speaking with Edna.

The double bass player asked Edna whether she cared to step out with him for a drink. The saxophonist protested that he had been about to issue an invitation himself.

“Actually we wanted to speak to you about a friend who may have stepped out with one of you. Miss Alexandra Romanova.”

The saxophonist tensed. “You weren’t no friend of Alex’s, I would have noticed you.”

“No, I wasn’t,” Edna admitted, “but Rowly was.”

The band gave Rowland their attention for the first time.

“Rowland Sinclair. How d’you do?”

“You and Alex were cutting a rug the night before she died.” The pianist swivelled on his stool to face Rowland.

“Yes.”

“You sent that uppity Chinaman?” the trumpet player accused.

“No, I didn’t. But Mr. Wing is a friend of mine,” Rowland replied evenly.

“I’m sure Mr. Wing didn’t mean to offend you,” Edna said.

The double bass player laughed and waved his thumb at the saxophonist. “Virgil here put him in his place, good and proper.”

Edna placed her hands on her hips and scowled. “Yes, well that was uncalled for. Poor Mr. Wing was simply trying to find out what had happened to Alexandra!”

Rowland felt a surge of love for the loyal sculptress, though he braced for the confrontation to escalate in the face of her admonishment. But Virgil seemed abashed.

“I reckon I did overreact,” he said. “Things here were awful tense with the police asking questions and everybody talking about a murderer in the Cathay. I might have been a bit jumpy.”

“Why?”

“Because, Mr. Sinclair, I am a black man. And Shanghai ain’t quite that different from everywhere else.”

Rowland nodded slowly. “Fair enough.”

“But you did know Alexandra?” Edna pressed.

“Sure. We knew her.”

“Were any of you in love with her?”

Rowland was, of course, unfazed by the blunt manner in which Edna made inquiries, but the Americans were caught off guard. They vacillated amongst themselves and then Virgil spoke. “We all liked Alex—she was a terrific gal—but none of us were sweet on her.”

“We used to keep an eye on the taxi girls. Sometimes a wiseguy would think buying a dance ticket entitled him to take certain liberties, if you know what I mean.”

“Do you remember any wiseguy approaching Alexandra in particular?” Rowland asked.

The saxophonist shrugged. “There was an Englishman I told to clear off. High and mighty type.”

Rowland groaned inwardly. There were thousands of Englishmen in Shanghai. “High and mighty” didn’t really narrow the field. “Did Miss Romanova borrow money from any of you?”

“Yeah, but we didn’t mind. Poor kid didn’t have a brass razoo. We slipped her a few dollars every now and then.”

“Did she ever say why she needed money?”

“We can’t all afford to stay at the Cathay, Mr. Sinclair. She probably needed to eat.”

Edna shook her head, ignoring the dig at Rowland. “She was trying to borrow money from a number of people—it had to be for more than groceries.”

The musician shrugged.

“I don’t suppose any of you gentlemen have any idea about who might have wanted to kill Miss Romanova?” Rowland asked.

The musicians glanced at each other and then the band leader shook his head. “Some of the taxi girls lived life dangerously, but not Alex. She always remembered where she came from.”

“Did you know she once claimed to be a Russian princess?” Edna ventured.

“Maybe she was,” Virgil said. “She sure didn’t look like no ordinary dame. And she had all the airs and graces you could want.”

The double bass player looked Rowland up and down. “They found Alex in your suite?”

“Yes. I found her.”

“Did you kill her?”

Rowland met his eye. “No. I have no idea what she was doing there.”

The musicians glanced at each other once again. “Alex loved looking around the premier suites,” Virgil confessed. “Sometimes she’d get one of the room boys to let her in just so she could see how people like you lived. She said it made her feel at home. She never took anything or did any harm. Just looked.”

The Public Garden on the northern end of the Bund was bordered by the Huangpu. European in style, the garden had originally been reserved for the foreign community but the restriction had been lifted several years before, opening the park to all comers. Tight buds hinted at colour in flowerbeds set in verdant lawns.

Edna hooked her arm through Rowland’s. He hadn’t said a great deal since they’d left the Cathay. “A penny for your thoughts, Rowly.”

He shook his head. “Alexandra only had to ask me if she wanted to see the suite,” he said. “I would have shown her through and made sure she wasn’t killed in the process.”

Edna leaned into him. “I wonder why she didn’t just ask.”

“Hotel rules perhaps,” Rowland mused. He wondered if the taxi girl had, for some reason, wanted to see his suite before she met him for tea. Perhaps it was the appointment itself that had made her curious about the Chinese Suite on that particular day.

“We don’t know for certain she was there simply to see your romos,” Edna said.

Rowland nodded. “That’s true, but it’s the first possible reason we’ve found for her presence in our suite.” He paused. “If she was there by chance, then perhaps she wasn’t the murderer’s target.”

Edna could feel the tension in his arm. “If someone was trying to kill me, Rowly, they haven’t tried again.”

“As far as we’re aware,” he added.

“Should we go and see Inspector Randolph?” she asked. “Tell him why Alexandra Romanova might have been in our suite?”

Rowland thought for a moment. “Let’s wait until we’ve spoken with Milt and Clyde. They may have unearthed something worthwhile.”

Edna grabbed his hand and looked at his watch. It was still early. She pulled him towards the pleasure boats and junks moored at a nearby jetty. “Come on then. Milt and Clyde won’t be finished asking after Sergei for hours and you need to take your mind off murder for just a little while.”

Rowland glanced dubiously at the ramshackle craft, but he had never been able to refuse the sculptress anything. Edna selected the junk, lamenting the absence of her camera.

“Where to, Missy?” The junk’s captain directed his question at Edna as Rowland stepped on board.

“Anywhere and back again.” Edna took Rowland’s hand and jumped onto the deck.

The captain bowed and nodded and then cast off, sailing them down the Huangpu, past the great buildings of the Bund. They did not have the river to themselves, of course, and the captain worked the rudder from the vessel’s stern to manoeuvre through the large ships and fishing craft, while he pointed at various landmarks along the way. Rowland removed his jacket and placed it on Edna’s shoulders as the wind whipped up across the river waves. He was reminded of the morning they arrived in Shanghai and had beheld the city in all its glory from the water.

For a while they forgot about Alexandra’s death and the trouble that had besieged them since their arrival in the Far East, talking instead as artists about the lines and shapes of Shanghai—Chinese lettering echoed in the upswept curve in the pagodas, the contrast of moon gates against geometric fretwork, the red and black and gold of dragons and buildings and fabric. They ate fish and rice cooked on deck by the crew, they struggled with chopsticks and pidgin, laughing and being laughed at. Edna charmed the sailors with warmth and interest, despite her lack of local language, and Rowland sketched. It was nearly twilight when the junk returned to the Public Garden.

“Yáyà nong,” Edna thanked the captain and the small crew in halting Shanghainese as Rowland paid the man twice what he asked.

The captain laughed at Edna’s pronunciation and bowed. “Xiá yà nong. Bye bye, Missy.”

The Australians disembarked and headed back towards the Cathay in no particular hurry to end the afternoon’s reprieve. The shadows lengthened and the first lights of evening life in Shanghai were lit. Workers spilled out of office buildings and the Bund became congested. Rowland waved away spruiking rickshaw drivers—they would call Ranjit Singh to collect them from the hotel.

They became aware of the police presence at the Cathay before they entered the hotel foyer.

“I wonder what the devil’s going on,” Rowland murmured as they stepped through the rotating doors.

Van Hagen was at the reception desk. Visibly nervous, he cleared his throat as they approached. Amongst the people awaiting service at the desk, a saffron-robed priest caught Rowland’s eye. “Kung!” He moved towards him.

“Stop right there, Mr. Sinclair.” A young policeman placed himself between Rowland and the reception.

“Officer.” Rowland nodded politely. “What can I do for you?”

The doors to Victor Sassoon’s private lift opened to reveal the man himself with Mickey Hahn on his arm. Neither moved, watching the proceedings from within the lift.

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to come with me, sir.” The constable stepped towards Rowland.

“What? Now?”

“Yes, sir.” Two more constables flanked the first.

Rowland glanced at Edna. “Where exactly would we be going, gentlemen?”

“Police headquarters, sir.”

“And can you tell me why you wish me to accompany you?”

The constable licked his lips. “My orders are to bring you in for questioning.”

Rowland frowned, irritated. What could Randolph want to ask him that he hadn’t already?

The constable read into Rowland’s silence, squaring his shoulders and lowering his voice. “If you refuse, my orders are to arrest you for the murder of a Mr. Bertram Charles Middleton.”

Edna gasped.

Rowland placed his arm around her shoulders. The movement ignited the policemen into action, batons drawn. They dragged him away from Edna and restrained him.

Rowland tried to tell them that he was not refusing to accompany them, that they’d not known that Bertram Middleton was dead. The policemen were unmoved and remained determined to keep him away from Edna to whom they seemed to believe he posed a danger.

“Are you all right, Miss?” the constable asked. “Did he hurt you?”

“Of course not!” Edna tried to reach Rowland. “Let him go!”

“It’s all right, Ed,” Rowland said, afraid the overzealous policemen may decide to arrest her too. “Telephone Gilbert Carmel. Let him know what’s happened. He’ll sort it out.”