A SMALL COLLECTION OF TABLE KNIVES
Methodically Captain North set to work by first sketching the scrawled message as accurately as possible and then studying the location and nature of the wound.
“Shot at very close range,” he told himself when he noted how badly scorched and powder-stained was the bosom of the dead man’s shirt.
Next he went into the adjoining bathroom and removed the cork from a small medicine bottle. This he firmly inserted in the revolver’s muzzle, all the while taking great care not to mar the fingerprints upon it. Lucky the murderer had been frightened or interrupted so suddenly that he had left behind this revolver. Of course, it might be a plant. He presently dismissed the suspicion as improbable. The scene seemed to speak of a quarrel—not of a stealthy, calculated killing. But why had Greenway been killed?
Try as he would, he could come to no logical explanation for the murder of this man. Perhaps Steel, cruel and ruthless as a tiger, on attempting some coup of his own and being refused, had decided to remove forever a dangerous witness. Or had Greenway suddenly suffered an attack of conscience at the thought of exposing his countrymen to the tender mercies of Wang Kung? If so, the elderly Mr. Junot had had every incentive to remove a treacherous subordinate.
What about Chang? Had he been an emissary of Smith’s? Or had he, in the interests of someone else, tried to bribe the deceased, returning in good faith to get his answer? Were those two blood-written words the key to it all?
The answer might appear at any time, North reflected as he went through the dead man’s pockets and, as he expected, found nothing of interest.
Treading warily to avoid blurring that grisly and still inexplicable message from the dead, North ransacked the desk drawers to find only household bills and one or two personal letters. These he was stuffing into his pocket when Kilgour returned with the news that Inspector Macklin was on his way to take charge for the S.M.P.
“Where have you been?” the Intelligence Captain queried. “Even in Shanghai phone calls to the Central Station don’t take that long.”
“Went to get a bobby. I imagined you want Sing Ah held as a material witness.”
North nodded his approval but kept his deep-set gray eyes fixed on those words that looked like “Dang Hoi.”
“What in hell do you suppose he was trying to say?” Kilgour wearily inquired.
“Damned if I know, even if I were sure that we are reading the writing correctly. Dang Hoi? Somehow it doesn’t sound like Chinese to me—not Northern Chinese, anyway—not that I’m any authority on the matter. Mean anything to you?”
“Not a bloody thing,” was Kilgour’s bitter rejoinder. “But I was thinking that Dang Hoi might be the place where the arms are to be delivered. There’s an atlas in the bookcase over yonder; suppose we look while we wait for Macklin?”
“Right.” High brown forehead corrugated with thought, North settled into a wicker chair and lit his short-stemmed Dunhill. Curious how contemptuous of Death a man could become until the dread figure came stalking towards him.
“Dang Hoi? Dang Hoi?” Again and again the Englishman repeated the name while his finger crept down the index. He heaved a sudden sigh. “Oh, damn the luck!”
“Suppose you try Dong Hoi—a’s and o’s, you know.”
Only a moment later Kilgour’s white-clad figure straightened a little, and he twirled over several pages to a map.
“It is a town, then?” North abruptly aroused himself from his reverie.
“Right-o. But Dong Hoi won’t do us a damned bit of good. It’s the name of a seacoast village in Annam, French Indo-China. Rather puts the quietus on our hopes, eh, what?”
“Not quite.” North got up and commenced to stride back and forth, trailing a comet’s tail of pipe smoke behind him. “Let’s not forget that this plot is being hatched in the French Concession. Junot we must presume to be French—or Belgian. Dong Hoi is a seaport in a French colony. A seaport suggests what?”
“Ships,” Kilgour promptly supplied.
“And why mightn’t ships from a French colony carry munitions to further a French plot?” Puffs of smoke rising faster from the Dunhill’s charred bowl unconsciously symbolized North’s quickening train of thought.
“Wait a minute.” North suddenly caught up a telephone at his elbow, called the Custom House, and spoke rapidly for several minutes.
“On the right trail?” Kilgour demanded.
“Yes. The Dong Hoi’s a steamer of the Compagnie Cambodienne. She docked last week, and Browning at the customs said her invoices showed a lot of spinning machinery.”
“Thank God!” Kilgour cried, and caught up his sun helmet. “Come on, I’ll get a confiscation order from Yuan’s government.”
“You can, but it won’t do a bit of good,” came North’s crisp accents. “You see, Bruce, the Dong Hoi unfortunately cleared for Saigon at dawn this morning. By this time she’ll most likely be well beyond the three-mile limit where nobody can touch her without starting the devil of a row with France.”
“Too damned bad,” Kilgour growled. “Tonight she’ll probably sneak back into one of the Yangtze’s mouths and transship her cargo to some damned river steamer that’ll run up during the night and unload where Wang wants it.”
“More likely than not,” the Intelligence Captain admitted while tapping the dottle of his pipe.
Bruce Kilgour looked startled when a gentle rapping sounded at the screen door.
“That’ll be Macklin,” he predicted.
“I don’t think so; we’d have heard Macklin coming all the way upstairs. I told Chao Ku to meet me here.”
So it proved. Bowing courteously in the doorway stood the Chinese detective with a stiff brown felt hat perched ludicrously high on his head, and his ample jowls billowing over a three-inch collar and a necktie of a dizzying purple and green design.
“Well, Chao. Any luck?”
“With infinite regret, Tajên, it is to say that sampan man set Mr. Smith ashore in French Concession foot of Rue Takou. As yet I have not learned where he is, but patient search continued will no doubt be rewarded.”
“What about Junot?”
“Of him nothing as yet, Tajên. Intelligence of this person is sadly deficient.”
“Nonsense, you’ve only been out an hour. Now, go downstairs and talk to the old mafoo who is with the policeman. Much may be learned from him, as he has seen this Monsieur Junot only today.”
Chao Ku’s pudding-like face lit a little. “Your words are my law, Tajên. I will seek after truth.”
“Right. When you’ve pumped him you’ll find me at the police station, or they’ll know where I am.”
As silently as he had come, the round little Chinese waddled off through the door, much resembling a duck unexpectedly garbed in badly cut gray tweeds.
Very shortly Inspector Macklin appeared, hot, angry, and apprehensive. In his eyes was a bewildered expression like that of a child asked to explain the unconscious cerebration of a tadpole. He would, the inspector said, take charge and investigate in the neighborhood.
“Wish you luck, Inspector,” North smiled encouragement. “Sorry we can’t stay to help, but Mr. Kilgour and I are going to take that pistol to the police station. I want to find out who killed Greenway.”
“Good luck, sir.” Inspector Macklin’s previous ponderous self-assurance had vanished as dew before the sun, leaving behind an almost humble eagerness to accept suggestions.
Once on Canton Road, Captain North halted.
“You go on, Bruce, I want to stop to pick up something at the Royale. Be with you directly, though.”
“Pick up something?”
“Yes, a small collection of table knives,” North called back as he set briskly off down the sidewalk.