Julian’s eyes went hard and he held Bill Urata’s with them as he exclaimed, ‘That was contrary to our understanding! You agreed that you would do no more than employ a private detective. If, as a result of this, Hayashi gets wind of it that the police are making enquiries he may do away with Merri rather than let her fall into their hands. If that happens her blood will be on your head.’
The face of the young Japanese went almost grey and he cried, ‘For Chris’ sake don’t say that! I’d no option. Things are different here to what they are in Europe and the States. There, fellers and girls won’t stand for being ordered around by their parents any longer. But here the old ways still go on. It’s part of the system. I’d sooner jump off a cliff than not do what my old man tells me. He was dead set on going to the police. What the hell could I do but fall into line?’
He could not be held responsible for the age-old customs of his country, and as Julian mentally assessed this new development he decided that it might not be as serious as he had at first feared. While he had accepted Tilly Sang’s word for it that Hayashi had spies among the police, in view of his special interests it seemed probable that such spies would be men employed in the Narcotics Prevention Department and so unlikely to learn that his activities were being investigated on a matter that had no connection with it. And at least, Julian felt, the Uratas’ having gone to the police proved one thing: they were not in league with Hayashi as Tilly Sang had feared. While in Hong Kong, it had seemed possible that young Urata appeared anxious to go to the police only to support a bluff; his admission now that he had been forced to break his word, and had actually done so, put him in the clear.
After a moment Julian said in a gentler voice, ‘Perhaps my judgment was a little hasty; so don’t take what I said too seriously. Naturally I was annoyed with you for having gone to the police without first letting me know that you had decided to go back on our understanding. But it’s done now. And there is a chance that they may pull our chestnuts out of the fire for us without any harm coming to Merri. Does this mean, though, that we ought to stay here to await the result of their enquiries, or do we go on to Kyoto as we planned?’
‘There’s nothing to be gained by our staying here,’ Urata replied. ‘If the cops get wise to anything they’ll call us up and give us their hand-out in Kyoto; so I’m all for going there. We’ll at least be on the spot then if anything does blow.’
‘When do you propose that we should start?’
‘After lunch. We’ve a place there that’s been in the family since my grand-dad’s time. It’s looked after by a skeleton staff, so as we can make use of it at the big festivals. I mean to check in there, and I’d be happy to have you as my house guest, but I doubt your taking kindly to the way of life you’d have to lead. It’s traditional Japanese. Almost empty rooms; no beds or chairs and low tables. We sleep on bed-rolls on the floor and eat squatting on our fannies. You’d do better to go to the Miyako. That’s American-planned and pretty good with European eats. You’d be more comfortable there.’
Julian nodded. ‘Thanks for the invitation, but I agree. As a matter of fact, I was told in Hong Kong that the Miyako is the best hotel in Kyoto, and I told Mrs. Sang to have the Kuan-yin delivered to me there.’
They lunched in the flat and afterwards left in a chauffeur-driven car. When the modern skyscrapers of the big port dropped behind they ran on through seemingly endless streets of two-storey wooden houses interspersed with rows of squalid shacks, so that Julian began to think that this dreary shanty town would never end. Later it transpired that the city did not have any perceptible ending, as two-thirds of the road to Kyoto was a built-up area.
Occasionally there was an open stretch of flat rice fields with hills in the distance, but most of the way was lined with small factories, poor shops, junk yards and one-storey dwellings with paper windows. To make the journey even more depressing it was raining again, the road was full of pot-holes and so narrow that for the greater part of the time they were crawling behind coaches or lorries.
Kyoto had been the capital of Japan for over a thousand years, and the Mikados had resided there, while the Shoguns, who actually ran the country, lived in the eastern capital Yedo, as Tokyo was then called. It had not been until 1868 that the great Emperor Meiji had overthrown the Shogunate and moved his headquarters to Tokyo; so as Kyoto had been the seat of the Emperors for so many centuries Julian had expected to find it a splendid city.
He was sadly disappointed. It had originally been planned as a large rectangle, modelled on the residence of the T’ang Emperors in China, but now it appeared to consist mainly of many square miles of tatty little shops and poor dwellings. As in Osaka, the people in the streets were drab. All the men, other than labourers, were dressed in Western clothes, shoddy cloth suits with flamboyant ties or cheap mackintoshes and caps or trilby hats. All but a few of the women still wore the national costume, but in subdued unattractive colours, and slopped along the pavements in wooden-soled clogs. Totally unlike the Chinese in Hong Kong, who were always smiling and laughing, they were going drearily about their business, and quite a number of them were wearing thick white pads over their mouths and noses. Out of curiosity Julian asked Urata the reason. The young man promptly produced that which Julian had half expected:
‘The folk in my country are very hygiene-conscious. Every Japanese takes a bath at least once a day, mostly in the public bath-houses, and I’d say our clinics here are as good as any in the States. Those pads are worn by people who’ve gotten colds, as a precaution against spreading infection.’
Not till later was Julian to see Kyoto’s more attractive aspects; for in many places not far from the main highway, yet still within the city, there were scores of secluded temple gardens and countrified lanes bordered by tree-surrounded private residences. But only in the city’s centre were there a few broad streets with modern blocks and stone buildings. Running through one of these they sped up a hill, leading to the wooded heights to the east of the city, and arrived at the Miyako.
Entering it was like walking into the Ritz after having driven through one of the poorer quarters of Manchester. Porters in spotless uniforms bowed them in, the lofty and spacious entrance hall was filled with well-dressed Japanese, Americans and Europeans. Urata secured a room for Julian, then accompanied him up to it; and, although it was only about a quarter of the size of the one he had had at the Repulse Bay, he saw that it was equipped with every conceivable modern convenience. The air conditioning was perfect, boiling water gushed from the taps in the bathroom at a touch and he had only to press a bell for one of three small neatly dressed maids, all of whom spoke English, to pop in immediately, take his orders to wash or press his clothes and return them in perfect order in an amazingly short time.
As both men were anxious to see the place in which they believed Merri to be held prisoner, as soon as Julian had inspected his quarters Urata looked up Inosuke Hayashi’s address in the telephone directory, then they went straight out again.
The car took them through the Shijo Dori, with its big department stores, then north-west till they reached an area where there were few modern buildings and most of the houses stood among trees in private gardens. Hayashi’s property proved to be one of the larger of these and formed an irregular island, about two acres in extent, bordered on all sides by leafy lanes. It had big wooden double gates and was surrounded by a tall wall. Leaving the car they walked all round the wall, but the house could be seen only from the front, and then no more than glimpses of its old-style curved roof between the branches of pines and camphor trees.
Having stared at it despondently for a while, and decided that its lay-out offered them no chance of discovering whether Merri was really a prisoner there, they returned to the car, which dropped Urata at his family house, about a mile away, then took Julian back to the Miyako. But they met again an hour later, as Julian had invited the young Japanese to dinner.
When he arrived they went first to the upstairs lounge for drinks, and it was there that Julian saw his rival in a better light. It chanced that at a nearby table there were three men of about Urata’s age, two of whom he recognised as having been at school with him before he had gone to live with his uncle in the States. With Julian’s consent, he asked the three to join them, and his friends were soon eagerly plying him with questions about his life in America. Julian would have expected him to be superior and boastful, but on the contrary he put on no airs and spoke with great modesty of his success at Berkeley University.
This general conversation proved a pleasant prelude to dinner and, over it, the two of them continued to talk about America as, although Julian had never lived there for any length of time, the greater part of his fortune was invested in the States and he had visited its principal cities. By the end of the meal they were calling one another by their Christian names; and as they left the big dining room, with its long glass windows that gave a splendid view of the sweep of wooded mountain to the north-west of the city, Bill said:
‘There’d be no sense in our sitting around tying ourselves in knots about Merri while we’re waiting for the cops to get us the low-down on Hayashi. How say I take you round some of the temples tomorrow?’
‘You’re right,’ Julian agreed. ‘We must do our best to keep our minds off her. It’s good of you to suggest it.’
‘Why, I’d be glad to. I’ve not been to see these old places myself since I was a young teenager, and there are more here than in any other locality in Japan. I’ll pick you up in the auto around ten.’
They went first to the Heian Shrine, a huge building erected only in the nineties to commemorate the eleven hundredth anniversary of the founding of the city. The approach to it lay through an eighty-foot-high scarlet-painted Torri—as the arches with flat tops and up-curved ends, so frequently seen in Japan, are called. In its vast forecourt a number of priests and women wearing white blouses and bright red skirts were strolling about. Bill told Julian that the monks were not Buddhists, as they served only in temples whereas this was a Shinto shrine; and that the women were nuns, although they were allowed to marry.
In the courtyard there were also several large bushes that in the distance looked as if they were smothered in white blossom. But it was a late spring; so few of the trees in Kyoto had yet come out, and when seen from nearer the massed white on the branches turned out to be hundreds of strips of paper tied to them. With a laugh Bill explained that many people came to the Heian Shrine to learn their fortunes. If the paper telling the fortune was favourable they kept it, but if unfavourable they left it tied to a branch.
Having mounted the broad steps to the shrine, they took off their shoes, entered it and tried their luck by shaking one brass rod with Japanese characters on it out of a small hole in the top of a canister that held fifty or more. Bill interpreted: Julian had drawn an unexpected journey to a far country, a good rice crop, no family worries and a disappointment in love. Bill’s read success in an undertaking, but later disappointment, only a moderate rice crop, the anger of a parent and success in love.
Julian smiled and shrugged. ‘As there can be no earthly reason for me to set off for a far country, and you are on excellent terms with your father, I don’t think we need take the predictions about love very seriously.’
In the rear of the shrine there was a big garden with three ornamental lakes, over one of which was a picturesque bridge. From it they fed some fat carp with pieces of bread; but as only a few azalea bushes were in flower, Julian found the garden disappointing.
A three-mile drive brought them to Kinkakuji, the Golden Pavilion, a lovely three-storey building set on the edge of another artificial lake. An artistic creation of great beauty, it had graced the site for five hundred and fifty years then, like so many of Japan’s ancient wooden structures, been burnt down; but not until 1950 and not, in this case, by accident: a misanthropic young priest had deliberately set fire to it. His story had been told by Yukio Mishima in a novel that had become a best-seller in the United States, and was said to rival the work of Dostoevsky. However, as a precaution against fires the Japanese kept detailed drawings of all such buildings; so the Golden Pavilion had been re-erected and stood there again in all its pristine glory.
Driving back westward, they ran level with one side of the tall wall that enclosed the Imperial Palace and its many acres of park, then past the fine modern buildings of Kyoto University to Ginkakuji, the Silver Pavilion. Its garden was very similar to that of those they had already visited and, like them, swarming with sightseers, a great part of whom were students and school children. After walking round it the time had come for lunch, and Bill said that Julian must try at least one Japanese meal, adding with a laugh, ‘I recall how you ragged me, first time we met, about being an eater of raw fish; so I’ll let you off that. But I’ve laid on lunch at the Kyoboshi tempura restaurant, where they give you the whole works.’
The car took them to a narrow side street and pulled up outside what looked like a small private house. A man led them through a very narrow passage, up a flight of stairs and into a low room about fourteen feet square. The walls were painted with landscape scenes in the traditional style and occupying the middle of the room was an eighteen-inch-high table shaped like a flattened horseshoe. Inside it were the cook’s requirements, and round its outer edge there was space enough for half a dozen diners.
A youngish but very fat woman, who proved to be the cook, came in, and with her two maids. Both the girls looked to be only just out of their teens. They were dressed in heavy silk kimonos, their jet-black hair was elaborately piled on their small heads with many combs, flowers and ornaments, and their faces were masks of white paint. After the usual deep bows the cook sat down between a large cauldron of boiling oil, that neither smoked nor smelt, and a bowl of thin rice-flour batter; then one of the maids began to supply her with a succession of bits and pieces.
Bill and Julian had, meanwhile, seated themselves on thin cushions, the former with crossed legs, the latter, after finding it awkward to lean forward in that position, sitting sideways on one hip. The cook took up a small piece of something, dipped it first in the batter then in the oil and laid it on the little dish in front of Julian. Near the dish were several small bowls containing sauces, but he did not risk trying any of them and found no difficulty in using his chopsticks to pop the morsel into his mouth. It was so hot that he could not properly taste it, but he thought it was fish.
Having served Bill with a similar morsel, the cook continued to put other pieces, all of which she had dipped in the batter and oil, on their plates alternately. There seemed no rhyme or reason to the meal. Long peppers, prawns, bits of aubergine, quails’ eggs, celery leaves, seaweed and other more mysterious items followed one another and were frequently repeated, although not in the same order.
While they ate, the second maid knelt first beside one then beside the other, filling little shallow cups with warm saki from a small vase-like bottle of eggshell china. The Japanese have poor heads for spirits, and Julian had heard it said that most of them got drunk if they had more than six or eight cups, although each held only a single swallow. He soon decided that he could have drunk half a bucketful without ill effect, but had not the least desire to do so, as the warm, sweet, sticky spirit lacked any definite flavour and cloyed his palate, making him wish for a glass of water. The meal ended with pots of green unsweetened tea, and he was grateful even for that unpleasant beverage. To his great relief, he was at last able to get to his feet, as for the past hour and a half he had suffered agonies shifting from hip to hip. However, being courteous by nature, he thanked his host for the entertainment and said that he had greatly enjoyed it.
Their next visit was to the Tatsumara silk factory, one of the ancient establishments in the western quarter of the city. There, in an almost dark room, several wrinkled old men were weaving with amazing dexterity on wooden hand looms beautifully-patterned brocades, while in another girls were winding silk thread of many colours on to spindles. From a fine display of goods for sale Julian bought a dozen pairs of silk socks for a tenth of the price he would have had to pay in London, then they went out into the garden.
Like all the other gardens, it was beautifully kept and might well have been that of one of the temples; but its lake held a score or more fish the like of which Julian had never before seen. They were almost two feet long and looked like carp, but were many lovely colours, a number of them being gold or silver, and it was these that Julian found so exceptional. They were not like ordinary goldfish but gilded, just as though their scales were made of gold leaf. Bill told him that if he wanted to buy one it would cost him a hundred pounds.
From the silk factory they went to the most famous of all Zen Buddhist temples, Ryoanji. The outstanding feature of the place was its philosophic sand garden. This was an oblong piece of ground, measuring about seventy-five by thirty feet, covered with very fine gravel. The gravel had been raked with the greatest care into lines and curves, and planted in it were half a dozen rocks of varying sizes. Along the whole length of the temple side of the garden there ran two stout wooden steps on which a crowd of people, most of whom were silent, were standing or sitting looking at this unusual form of landscape gardening.
Bill explained that the idea was to aid contemplation, and that if one stared at the sand and rocks for long enough one could imagine them to be islands in the sea, mountains on the moon, or earth as it was originally created. Julian accepted this theory, but thought such a state of mind would be difficult to attain while, as at present, half a hundred Japanese were taking snapshots of others who were only posing as contemplatives for them.
A little after half past five Bill took Julian to the Kanze Noh Hall to see a Noh play. The seats were all stalls and comfortable fauteuils such as one would have found in a first-class European theatre. But the stage was entirely different. Instead of facing the auditorium, it was a canopy-covered structure, with one corner jutting out into it. One of its inner sides was occupied by the orchestra and the other by a seated chorus. When they arrived the play was well advanced, so they saw only the last quarter of an hour of it. That was ample for Julian since, although he found the resemblance to Greek drama interesting, Bill could give him only a vague idea of what was going on; and the actors, dressed in most gorgeous robes, remained entirely silent, doing no more than posture with slow gestures to indicate their distress, joy or anger.
To Julian’s relief, Bill had made no arrangements for dinner, so dined again as his guest at the Miyako. Before eating he gratefully put down two large whiskies-and-sodas, regardless of the consideration which would have caused most tourists to make do with one; for in Japan, even in a shop, Scotch whisky cost ten pounds a bottle.
During the day, by tacit consent, neither of them had mentioned Merri, although Julian had frequently thought of her. But it had been a very tiring day; so he went early to bed, and again slept soundly.
Next morning Bill called for him and took him to Nijo Castle, the residence used by the Shoguns in the old days when they came to Kyoto to consult with the Emperors. It in no way resembled a European fortress, but was a large rectangular park enclosed by high walls that sloped inward and were made of big blocks of stone. Inside these there was a smaller area surrounded by a broad moat and similar walls, protecting an inner garden and the Palace.
The building was of the conventional type, made of dark brown, heavily-carved wood. It had a tiled roof that turned up at the corners, supported by short stout plinths and sliding doors the upper part of which consisted of oiled paper; but it was the largest that Julian had yet seen. The interior also differed from those of the shrines and temples. Inside the outer wooden shell a ten-foot-wide corridor enclosed all the interior rooms. In the felt slippers he had been obliged to exchange for his leather shoes at the entrance of the Palace he began to walk down this long corridor; he noticed at once that, although the floor was even and brilliantly polished, with every step he took it gave a loud squeak.
With a grin, Bill told him the reason. ‘Those old Shogun fellers were scared that they might be bumped off by some of the Emperor’s boys while they were in his city; so they had these floors constructed round their dwelling quarters. ‘Nightingale’ floors, they’re called. They’re laid on thousands of little metal rings that squeak when trodden on. The idea was that their squeaking in the night would give their guards the tip-off that someone was out here gunning for them.’
Having admired the subtle paintings on silk by ancient masters that covered the inner walls, the beautifully decorated ceilings and, in one room, a score of magnificently robed life-sized figures representing a Shogun receiving the homage of his courtiers, Julian asked, ‘Can we go now and see the Imperial Palace?’
Bill shook his crewcut head. ‘No. The Emperor still comes here at times; so I’d have to get us a permit. Later in the week maybe. Anyway, I could fix it for us to take a stroll round the grounds, and there’s acres and acres of them behind that tall wall I indicated to you yesterday. But we’ll run out to the Katsura Palace. That’s the Crown Prince’s place and not all that different, though quite a bit smaller.’
Katsura turned out to be only another large garden, in which the trunks of many of the more precious trees had not yet had removed their winter protective casing of finely plaited straw. In it there were several lakes with a few medium-sized wooden buildings set round them.
It had been drizzling all the morning, but Bill was anxious to take Julian to see the famous moss garden at the Temple of Saiho-ji. In the woods round it there were said to grow over a hundred different varieties of moss, but Julian found he could hardly distinguish one from another; although he admired the beautiful groves of bamboos, forty-foot high and with glossy trunks as thick round as a man’s thigh. They had been there only a quarter of an hour when rain began to come down in torrents; so they beat a hasty retreat to the car.
On the way back into the city Bill said, ‘Seeing you enjoyed Japanese eats yesterday, I’m taking you along to a little place called Hyotie’s. It’s old as the hills. I’d say it was going strong long before those early Yanks threw your chests of tea into Boston harbour. I hope you’ll like it.’
With a sinking heart Julian replied nobly, ‘I’m sure I shall.’
He had already seen that Kyoto was a city of extraordinary contrasts. Shrines and temples that had flourished for eight hundred years and more were still served by devoted priests who sat before candle-lit altars rhythmically clapping their hands, while in nearby streets bars with blaring juke-box jazz and neon-lit pin-table saloons stood cheek by jowl with shops selling only kimonos or figures of the ancient gods; that a gaudy cinema stood within a hundred yards of the Noh Play Hall, and that, while some of Kyoto’s million inhabitants drove about in shiny limousines, others, shod in straw sandals, stood on the pavements clutching staffs and beggars’ bowls. In consequence, he was not surprised when, no great distance from the city centre, the car entered a narrow turning that had the appearance of a pretty country lane, and pulled up outside an old-fashioned bungalow.
On entering it and taking off their shoes, they were bowed into a room not more than eight feet square. No cook appeared this time, but a ‘Madame’ who superintended the meal, and two maids. Julian gave silent heartfelt thanks as he took in the fact that here, although he was to sit on a cushion on the floor, he would at least be able to support his back against a wall.
The meal was served on two low square tables by the two maids, each set in front of one of the guests. It followed the same patternless course, and consisted of much the same tit-bits as that on the previous day; so, although Julian was able to eat it in somewhat greater comfort, he was glad when it was over.
‘Now,’ said Bill when they had finished, ‘I’ll take you to see the Daigoji Temple. It’s some way out, but has a five-storey pagoda and is one of the high spots of these parts. Then we’ll do the Museum.’
‘No,’ replied Julian firmly. For the time being he had had more than enough of sightseeing in Kyoto during such inclement weather. At the great religious festivals, with their splendid pageantry, or for three weeks in the year when the cherry blossom, azaleas, iris and camellias were all out, the gardens must be a delightful sight, but they were not out yet. And while the trained eye of the Japanese garden lover might appreciate their lay-outs and take pleasure in the fact that, with infinite patience, the gardeners had removed every down-pointing needle from every branch and twig of their pine trees, he felt that to have seen one was to have seen them all. He could not even now remember in which garden he had marvelled at the hundreds-of-years-old pine tree, the lower boughs of which had been trained to give the appearance of a large boat, and in which he had seen the big flat-topped heap of smooth sand on which for centuries priests had stood to take their observations of the stars. ‘No,’ he repeated, ‘I’m used to having a nap in the afternoon; so if you’ll forgive me I’d like to go back to the hotel.’
‘It’s for you to say,’ Bill smiled, and added a little pointedly; ‘when a feller’s getting on into middle age I guess he needs a bit of a let-up now and then. O.K. But there’s upwards of four hundred shrines and temples in this town. Plenty of good ones to see yet and keep our minds off Merri. I’ll pick you up same time tomorrow; then we’ll get going on the round again.’
But Julian was not destined to see any more temples in Kyoto. Next morning, a quarter of an hour before Bill was due to call for him, his telephone rang. It was Bill, and he was speaking from the lobby. He asked Julian to come down at once. When they met five minutes later he took Julian by the arm and piloted him through the crowd in the entrance hall and up a flight of stairs to the tea-lounge, where it was quieter. Then he said:
‘My old man’s buddy, the Police Chief in Osaka, called me half an hour ago. He says there’s no sort of evidence that Hayashi had anything to do with snatching Merri; so getting a warrant to search Hayashi’s place is out. But they’ve traced the ship Merri was brought in on. She’s a small tramp called the Matabura and I thought we might go see her Captain. Maybe money’ll persuade him to give, and we’ll pick up some bit of information he didn’t turn in to the police. But we’ll have to make it snappy. The Matabura has been on a run up to Yokohama since she landed Merri, and she’s due to sail again at midday.’
Julian readily agreed and they hurried out to the car. As soon as they had settled themselves, Bill gave the gist of the report he had received from the Police Chief. There were always one or two spare cabins on a tramp and it was a recognised custom that their Captains should be allowed to make a little extra money by taking passengers in them when they were not required for other purposes by the owners.
At midnight on the day that Merri had been kidnapped the Matabura had been due to sail from Hong Kong to Yokohama, calling in at Osaka on the way. That morning a shipping agent had gone off to the tramp to ask if her Captain could take a Chinese gentleman, named Ling Yee, and his wife and daughter as passengers to Osaka. The daughter, he added, was only just recovering from a serious illness, so would be carried aboard on a stretcher and have to keep to her cabin; but her mother would take her meals to her and Mr. Ling was prepared to pay a bit above the price the Captain would have normally expected to get. The agent produced the money and the Captain had agreed.
That afternoon a coolie had brought off the Lings’ luggage and it had been placed in the cabins they were to occupy, but evening came and they did not put in an appearance. The Captain had waited for them with increasing impatience, and even given them a quarter of an hour’s leeway; but at 12.15 he had sailed.
Half an hour later, when the Matabura had rounded the western end of Hong Kong and was running down the channel between the island and Lamma Island, she had been hailed from a large launch with a number of people in her. The Ling family was among them and Mr. Ling had explained that, owing to his daughter having had a relapse just as they were about to leave their home, the doctor had had to be sent for and their departure had been delayed. As the girl had been declared fit to be moved, and he was still anxious to catch the ship, he had hired a launch in Aberdeen hoping to intercept the Matabura.
The girl had been slung aboard in a hammock and taken straight to her cabin. Her parents had proved to be a quiet, respectable couple, but during the voyage none of the ship’s company had seen the girl. On arrival at Osaka the Lings had been greatly concerned about their daughter because the previous night she had had another relapse. Mr. Ling had gone ashore and arranged for an ambulance to come down to the wharf and, again slung in a hammock, the girl had been lowered over the side and taken ashore. That was the last the Captain of the Matabura had seen of the Lings, but on his return from Yokohama the police had questioned him about his last call at Osaka, and he had told them about the Lings on the chance that the invalid might be the missing girl.
When Julian had heard Bill out he said, ‘Since the dates are right I haven’t a doubt that the girl was Merri, doped both when she was put on board and landed, and kept under light drugs during the voyage. But whoever handled this job in Hong Kong for Hayashi must be a first-class planner. Of course, after the chap who was watching Mrs. Sang’s house had turned in my note, his boss had the best part of a day to work in. His luck was in to find a ship that was sailing that night, but if there hadn’t been one he’d have only had to keep Merri hidden somewhere on one of the off-shore islands for a few days then work the same trick. And what a darned clever one. By it he saved himself from having to get forged papers for Merri at short notice, and avoided the possibility of being traced by having gone with her through the Hong Kong immigration people. Merri’s kidnapper would have known that we should leave the Sea Palace at least an hour before midnight, and once he’d got hold of her all he had to do was to lie well off the coast in the launch until the Matabura came up.’
A good twenty minutes elapsed before they were clear of Kyoto, and they were able to increase their pace only along short stretches farther on. As had been the case when they had driven from Osaka, the narrow road held two streams of traffic that was for a lot of the time moving bumper to bumper, and for a good part of the way they had to crawl behind coaches and heavily loaded lorries. It was, too, another cold, rainy and gusty morning.
Anxiously they kept consulting their watches as the minutes sped by and when they reached the docks the congestion was even worse, so by the time they pulled up on a wharf it was ten minutes to twelve. The Matabura was lying some way off and as Bill pointed her out to Julian he saw that she was already flying her Pilot Jack, showing that she was about to leave harbour.
Hastily they secured a motor boat, and promised its owner a handsome sum if he would make all possible speed out to the Matabura. Even in the harbour the sea was made choppy by sudden gusts of wind. The sky was overcast and it looked like blowing up for another storm. At the very moment they came alongside, the ship’s siren gave three ear-splitting blasts, announcing her departure.
A junior officer had come to the ship’s rail and was looking down at them. Bill called up to him in Japanese. He shook his head; but Bill began to shout at him angrily and, with evident reluctance, the officer threw a rope ladder over the side. Bill swarmed up it with Julian after him. As they reached the deck the propellers began to turn. Leaving Julian standing there, Bill ran forward and up the bridge ladder. He was away for a good five minutes. As he came running back, he panted:
‘Captain’s set against holding her, even for quarter of an hour. But I’ve fixed it for the pilot to take us off in his boat. Skipper won’t leave the bridge. Couldn’t expect that while he’s getting the old tub out of harbour. We’ll have time to frisk Merri’s cabin, though. It’s not been slept in since. Maybe she managed to hide some sorta tip-off about the people who snatched her, hoping she’d be traced to the Matabura. If it linked them with Hayashi we’d be able to get the cops to raid his place. Got to find the steward first, though. He’s gotten the key.’
As the vessel had only just sailed, the deck crew were all hard at work; but Bill grabbed one of them by the arm, swung him round and hissed urgent questions at him in sibilant Japanese. The man hissed something back and jerked his head in the direction of the open doorway under the bridge. Bill ran to it and was gone for another five minutes. When he reappeared the ship was clearing the harbour mouth and had begun to roll, but he was holding a key and pointing aft. Julian turned and joined him as he ran on towards a double row of deck cabins in the stern. Fumbling with the key, he got it in the lock of one of the cabins, turned it and jerked the door open.
At the same moment they both moved to enter, and collided. Muttering apologies to one another, they stepped inside. It was a small single-berth cabin and had been tidied up since Merri had occupied it. There was only one cupboard and the bare drab walls offered no place of concealment for any clue she might have left.
Julian pulled open the cupboard, but it was empty. Bill dived at the bunk, snatched off the thin coverlet and began to crush parts of it between his hands, so that had a piece of paper been under the cotton cover it would have rustled. As he did so, he cried to Julian, ‘The mattress! That’d be the most likely place she’d hide a letter.’
Tearing the sheets and single blanket away, Julian hauled the canvas-covered mattress from the bunk. Bill produced a penknife and swiftly ripped open one of its ends, then he said, ‘Here, you carry on with this. Mustn’t let the pilot go off without us. He’ll not know we’re in here. I’ll go tell him and ask how long we got. Be back in a few minutes.’
He dashed from the cabin, swinging to the door behind him. Julian was kneeling on the floor, thrusting his hands in among the mattress’s horsehair stuffing. There was nothing in the end Bill had opened, and he had gone off with his penknife; so Julian could not slit open the other end. Frantically, he pulled the horsehair out by the handful. It took him ten or twelve minutes before he was satisfied that no piece of paper had been hidden in it. Quickly he searched the sides of the empty bunk, the top of the cupboard and the ventilator, but with no luck.
Bill had not returned. By then the ship had been under way for at least twenty-five minutes, and was wallowing through a heavy sea. Lurching to the cabin door, Julian grasped the handle and turned it. But the door did not open. He tried it again, again and again. Only then did it suddenly dawn on him that the door must be locked.
At that, chaotic thoughts tumbled through his mind. Only Bill Urata could have locked it. The pilot boat must have put off, within five or ten minutes of passing the harbour mouth. It couldn’t live in a sea like this. Bill must have locked him in deliberately and gone off in her. The account of Merri’s being brought to Osaka in the Matabura had been nothing but a pack of well-thought-out lies. But perhaps she had. This must be one of Urata’s ships for them to have let Bill come on board when she was at the actual moment of sailing—or perhaps Hayashi’s. It looked now as if that was the same thing. It might well be that the Uratas managed Hayashi’s shipping line for him. Tilly Sang had been right. Bill Urata was Hayashi’s man and had put on a clever act to win the confidence of his master’s enemies, so that he could sabotage any attempt to get Merri back. And he, Julian, had been fool enough to walk into Bill’s trap.
Frantically he tried to open the cabin window, but it would not budge; so it was either stuck or had been secured in some way outside. And it was made of heavy plate glass. There was not even a chair in the narrow cabin: nothing with which he could smash it. He pounded on the window with his fists, then on the walls, while shouting to be let out. But a high wind was blowing and spray from the waves now slapping on the deck outside; so he failed to attract anyone’s attention.
Heaping the bedclothes and scattered bits of mattress on to the bunk, he sat down on them with his head between his hands. Over an hour drifted past during which he could do nothing but berate himself in abject misery. He was roused by the clatter of a bucket outside. Jumping up, he again shouted and pounded on the window. A seaman heard him, came to the window and stared through it at him with a puzzled look, then unlocked the door.
Angrily Julian demanded to be taken to the Captain, but the man clearly did not understand English. After searching his mind Julian found enough Japanese words to convey his meaning. The man made signs to him to stay where he was and went off along the heaving deck. Five minutes later he returned with a thick-set middle-aged man, in rough but somewhat better clothes. Frowning at Julian he said:
‘Me Captain…. Kano Dosen…. You stowaway.’ Then, pointing at the ruined mattress, he added angrily, ‘What for? What for?’
Ignoring the question, Julian indignantly protested that he was not a stowaway but had been locked in.
The Captain tried the handle of the door and said, ‘Accident. He go snap, snap.’ Forbearing to argue, Julian demanded that the ship should return to Osaka. With a scowl the Captain replied, ‘No possible. No possible.’
In vain Julian argued, pleaded, threatened. Then, seeing that his efforts were useless, he asked, ‘How soon shall we reach a port?’
The reply he received was shattering. ‘Days sixteen. Bad weathers twenty. Make no stop. Ship go Honolulu.’