FIVE

Stephen kept urging me to go out into the world, so I did. I had no choice after he stormed out of our home. He did not return that night and, by morning, I had progressed from sorrow to guilt to anger. When I woke from a fitful sleep I was decided. I left the children with Delia and took the train into Chicago to go to the Harrison Street police station.

The sergeant at the desk downstairs did not recognize me at first. There was a time, when I was first at the university, that I visited the station several days a week. I’d worked on a project to collate information from boxes of identity cards collected during arrests all over the city. They had been gathered together by Detective Whitbread and he was tremendously excited that a scholar from the university would finally analyze the information for a sociological study. Soon, I was a familiar figure to the men who worked at the station. The fact that I was no longer recognized was a blow to my self-esteem, but I knew it was my own fault. I had stayed away too long.

I introduced myself, explaining my connection to Detective Whitbread. The tall, white-haired policeman on the desk finally remembered me but, before he could sign me in, he became embroiled in an argument with a woman who had barged up to the counter and stubbornly refused to be turned away.

“I insist on speaking to the officer in charge of this investi-gation!” I was startled to recognize Miss Gertrude Howe, Ida Kahn’s adoptive mother. Sure enough, Ida stood beside her quietly, her hands clasped at her waist, her eyes peering through rimless spectacles. The older woman had a tall, big-boned figure and plain features. She wore a rather severe black serge dress and jacket, and a broad-brimmed black straw hat with a jaunty set of standup feathers set off her determined-looking face. She was the epitome of a Methodist missionary, very earnest and straightforward. I’d learned earlier that she’d spent more than twenty years doing missionary work in China. Beside her, Ida seemed quite small. She wore a brown taffeta dress with large puffed sleeves, with a small cameo pinned at her throat and a wide sash at her waist. A small straw hat with silk flowers was perched on her head.

Miss Howe turned from the tall policeman to solicit my help. “Mrs. Chapman, it is a good thing you are here. Can you get this man to listen to reason? You have worked with the local police, or so your husband told us.”

From the look of misery on the sergeant’s face, I conjectured that this was not the first time Miss Howe had been to the station on Mary’s behalf. I’d hoped to speak with Detective Whitbread privately, but reluctantly suggested that I could accompany the women to his office. The sergeant grimaced at the thought so we compromised by agreeing to have Ida wait below. The poor man truly did not know what to make of a Chinese woman in Western dress. I led Miss Howe up the worn stone stairs to the second floor, all the while feeling a pang of guilt. Stephen was right. I should have gone with them when they had taken Mary in the night before.

We found Whitbread in his office. While he showed no enthusiasm at our arrival, I was once again overcome by feelings of familiarity. I had spent so many hours in that high-ceilinged room with its window facing a brick wall. Within the room, a desk, hard wooden chairs, file cabinets, and academic tomes on criminology still filled the space. It was reassuring that the hand-lettered poster listing “The Best Rules for Health, Happiness, and Success” still hung between two cabinets. My eyes sought out number twenty. “If responsibility confronts you, seize it. Do not throw it aside—responsibility represents opportunity.” It seemed particularly apt.

“I am in the middle of an interrogation,” Whitbread said, halting our approach with an outstretched hand as he rose from his desk. In front of him were two Chinese men who presented contrasting images. One was a short, stooped man wearing broad cotton trousers, a loose-fitting cotton jacket, and a black cap. His hair was pulled back in a braid that fell down his back. The other was very jaunty looking, in a checked wool suit and bowler hat similar to one that any American man might wear. There was no braid down his back but under the rim of the bowler you could just see the taut end of a braid that must have been curled up round his head and hidden under the hat. I learned later that this was commonly done by Chinese men who wanted to appear more Western by hiding their queue of hair without cutting it. This man had a sizable diamond ring on one hand. He grinned at us, seeming at ease, while the other man stood with his hands clasped in front of him, looking at the floor. Whitbread looked even more tall and lanky than usual beside the two men.

“I am sorry to interrupt, but I came to ask you about Dr. Stone, and I found Miss Howe here trying to find out what is happening. She is Dr. Stone’s guardian and accompanied her to the United States to study medicine. Surely you will want to talk to her. Miss Gertrude Howe, this is Detective Henry Whitbread. He is the one who arrested Mary.”

Whitbread frowned.

“I really must know what has happened to Dr. Stone,” Miss Howe insisted. “I brought her here from China to study and she has been awarded honors for her work. That you should arrest her is an outrage. I protest this action and I demand to see her and to know what is going on.”

Whitbread rolled his eyes. He was no stranger to strong-willed women, his own wife being one. “I must finish questioning this man before I can discuss it. I suppose you may enter and wait for the interrogation to complete. Please come in and sit down.” He waved at a couple of chairs in the corner and I took Miss Howe’s arm and led her there while he continued. “This is Mr. Tan Tsao who saw Dr. Stone with the dead man, Lo Sung Chi.” He gestured towards the man in Chinese garb. “Tan Tsao does not speak English, so this is Mr. Charlie Kee who has been sent by the Hip Lung Yee Kee Company to interpret for us.” The bowler-hatted Mr. Kee smiled at us, nodding, while the other man continued to look at the floor. Whitbread turned back to them. “Ask him what he saw after he delivered his package to Mr. Lo.”

Kee turned to the other man and talked to him in what sounded like a series of grunts to me, as I was unfamiliar with the Chinese language. In fact, the only time I had encountered any Chinese people, before Dr. Stone and Dr. Kahn, was when I visited that country’s exhibit at the World’s Columbian Exposition a few years before. Certainly the words they spoke to each other meant nothing to me.

“He says Lo Sung Chi greeted Chinese lady doctor as he leaves shop. Chinese lady doctor comes all the time. They argue about medicines. Lo Sung Chi makes Chinese herb medicine. Many people come to him when sick. Lady doctor tells him he is wrong, Western medicine good, Chinese medicine bad. He says they argue about it.”

I felt Miss Howe move in the chair beside me. I turned and put a hand on her arm, silently imploring her to remain quiet.

“Then what happened? Did he see her leave? When did Mr. Lo become ill?” Whitbread asked.

Again there was back and forth between the two Chinese men. The man called Tan Tsao shuffled his feet and glanced up at Whitbread, quickly turning his eyes back to the floor again. Mr. Kee seemed to be telling him something at length. He replied. Finally, Kee turned to us with the translation. “He says lady doctor put something in ear of Lo Sung Chi. She leaves. Lo gets sick. Very sick. Sick for some hours, finally he dies.”

Miss Howe jumped to her feet. “That man is lying!”

Whitbread rose to his feet as well. “Madam, please!”

“No, he is lying. That’s not what the other man said at all.” She frowned and shook her head. “What he said was that he did not want to get in trouble with the authorities and would Hip Lung protect him. He asked if Hip Lung would really forgive him his debt if he agreed to sign whatever the big nose white man wanted him to do. Kee told him yes, if he signed the paper, his debt would be forgiven. They didn’t talk about Lo’s death at all!”

She turned to the two men and barked at them in what must have been Chinese. This obviously startled them and they both stared at her as if she had grown an extra head. This was followed by a sharp exchange between Charlie Kee and Miss Howe. When Whitbread intervened, Kee just continued to repeat the story exactly as he had told it before, word for word, while poor Mr. Tan Tsao looked like he wanted to sink into the floor. Finally the detective sent the two Chinese men away.

Miss Howe was furious. “Where did you get that interpreter? He’s awful. The tongue they were speaking is a dialect of Cantonese, of which I know only a little from when Ida and I lived in that area some years ago, but even I could tell that what he was saying to you had nothing to do with what he said to the man Tan Tsao!”

Whitbread sat down behind his desk and frowned at her. “The Hip Lung Yee Kee Company commonly provides an interpreter when any Chinamen have dealings with the police or courts. There is always a language problem. These people will happily communicate with white people when they want to sell them something or take their money in gambling but, as soon as there’s a crime to be investigated, suddenly none of them understand or speak English. Hip Lung, who is also called Moy Dong Chew, runs the company on South Clark Street and it is the center of Chinese society in the city.”

“Ah, the senior Mr. Moy, of course I know of him,” Miss Howe told him. “Well, he’s forgiving the man’s debt in order to have him tell that story.”

Whitbread rubbed his forehead as if it ached. “Which doesn’t necessarily mean it is not the truth. The local Chinese are a closed society. For the most part they police themselves. It is unusual for us to have to intervene. It’s likely that they pay for the protection of the First Ward aldermen—Coughlin and Kenna. Coughlin tried to scapegoat them in his first race a couple of years ago, accusing them of smoking opium. But, since then, they must have started contributing to Kenna’s protection fund. That’s used to buy off police and politicians, to send prostitutes with TB to a sanitarium, and to keep lawyers on retainer if any of them get into trouble. But, frankly, from the point of view of the police, the Chinese establishments in that ward are among the least objectionable. So when Hip Lung sent Kee with this man as a witness we had to hear him out.” He considered the red-faced Miss Howe, who was glaring at him. “You heard the story. This man who died was a herbalist. They’re saying Dr. Stone visited him and argued about treatment. They’re saying she visited him the day of his death, she treated him, and some hours later he died of poisoning. Are you disputing that account?”

“Of course Mary knew the man. She purchased herbs from him. Certainly they discussed the relative merits of traditional Chinese herbal treatments and modern Western medicine. She may even have treated him for some ailment. They were by no means enemies, even if they did disagree in some matters. But why ever would anyone think she would want to poison the man? It’s absurd.”

Whitbread looked uncomfortable. “It was alleged that she wanted to get rid of him to start a practice taking over his patients.”

“Nonsense, where did you hear such a thing? We will be returning to Jiujiang, China in the fall to continue our missionary service.”

“It was representatives of the local Chinese community who approached the mayor and insisted on the arrest. They indicated the young woman might be suffering from a form of madness.”

“Ridiculous! Mary Stone has been attending the University of Michigan for the past four years and she graduated with honors. I’m sure her professors will vouch for her sanity and professional skills. In addition, she has met with many in the local medical community during our visit here and I am certain that all of them will vouch for her as well.”

“I’ve been made aware of her connections in the academic and medical community here,” Whitbread admitted. “In fact, Dr. Chapman came to me last night, along with several other medical men, in an attempt to intervene on her behalf. I have no doubt these people, who are prominent members of society themselves, will exert their influence on behalf of Dr. Stone. But, meanwhile, we cannot just ignore the accusations coming from the Chinese community. Surely you can see that?”

“But why would they make such unfounded accusations? That’s what I don’t understand,” Miss Howe said. “Where is Dr. Stone? Is she all right?”

“I assure you, madam, she is being treated with respect. She is housed separately from the common criminals in a special area. She is in no danger.”

“Can Miss Howe see her?” I asked.

“I’m sure that can be arranged,” Whitbread answered.

But Miss Howe was on her feet. “We will want to visit her later. But first Ida and I must go to Clark Street to discover who is behind this ludicrous accusation.”

Whitbread was also on his feet. “Madam, I strongly advise you to refrain from any excursions into that area. As you are a stranger to our city you may be unaware of the types of establishments that are located on South Clark Street.”

“Nonsense, Detective. You are wrong to think I am unacquainted with that area of your city. On the contrary, I have visited there many times during these past several years to obtain foods and spices not available elsewhere. And of course I am aware of the saloons, brothels, and gambling establishments. I have visited similar areas of cities all over the world, as part of my missionary activities. And, as it happens, we also have some powerful connections in that community and it is there that I will go to find the truth.”

Whitbread shook his head as she stalked out the door. With such serious accusations lodged against her, I knew Whitbread could do nothing to get Mary released, so I decided it would be best for me to accompany Miss Howe and Ida. While I was familiar with those unsavory areas, I had never entered any of the Chinese establishments sprinkled throughout that section of the city. It was with some trepidation that I followed the two women out of the police station and towards Clark Street. If it was members of the Chinese community who had insisted on the arrest of Mary Stone, how did Miss Howe expect to overcome their accusations?