A COFFIN FROM HONG KONG

After a while, I began to sweat less. I poured water into the cracked bowl and had a wash. Then I unpacked and put my stuff away in the cupboard. The hotel was very quiet. I could just hear the murmur of distant traffic, but nothing else. I looked at my strap watch. The time was twenty minutes to six. I saw the card the squat Chinese had given me tucked under the strap and I pulled it out and read the inscription. It said: Wong Hop Bo. English speaking guide. There was a telephone number. I put the card in my wallet, then opening the door, I stepped into the passage.

A Chinese girl was leaning against the door-post of the room opposite. She was small, compactly and sturdily built: her glistening black hair was done up in a thick bun at the back of her neck. She was wearing a white blouse and a close-fitting bottle green skirt. She was nice to look at without being sensational. She was looking directly at me as if she had been waiting patiently for some time for me to appear.

“Hello, mister,” she said with a wide, nice smile. “I’m Leila. What is your name?”

I liked her smile and I liked her dazzling strong white teeth.

“Nelson Ryan,” I said, closing my door and turning the key. “Just call me Nelson. Do you live here?”

“Yes.” Her friendly black eyes ran over me. “Few American gentlemen ever stay here. Are you staying here?”

“That’s the idea. Have you been here long?”

“Eighteen months.” She had a peculiar accent. I had to concentrate to understand what she said. She stared at me with that stare that meant what she meant. “When you want to make love, will you come and see me?”

I was fazzed for a moment, then I managed a smile.

“I’ll remember, but don’t depend on it.”

A door farther up the passage opened and a fat little man who could be either Italian or French came out. He hurried by me, not looking at me. He was followed by a very young Chinese girl. I didn’t think she could have been more than sixteen, but it is hard to judge with these people. She gave me a hard, interested stare as she passed me. I was now under no illusion about the kind of hotel I had landed myself in.

Leila put her beautifully shaped hands under her tiny breasts and lifted them.

“Would you like to come to me now?” she asked politely.

“Not right now,” I said. “I’m busy. Some other time perhaps.”

“American gentlemen are always busy,” she said. “Tonight perhaps?”

“I’ll let you know.”

She pouted.

“That really doesn’t mean anything. You will either come or you won’t.”

“That’s the idea,” I said. “Right now I have things to do,” and I went off down the passage to the lobby where the old Chinese reception clerk sat as stolid and as inevitable as Buddha.

I went down the stairs and out into the crowded, heat-ridden street. A rickshaw boy came running over to me.

“Police headquarters,” I told him as I climbed into the chair.

He set off at a jog-trot. After we had travelled two or three hundred yards, I realised the mistake of taking such a vehicle. The big, glossy cars and the trucks had no respect for rickshaws. Any second I felt I was going to be squashed either by a truck or by an over-large American car. I was relieved when we finally pulled up outside the Hong Kong Central Police Station, surprised to find I was still in one piece.

After stating my business to the desk sergeant, I finally got shown into a small, neat office where a Chief Inspector with grey hair and a military moustache regarded me with impersonal eyes as he waved me to a chair.

I told him who I was and he then told me who he was. His name was MacCarthy and he spoke with a strong Scottish accent.

“Jefferson?” He tilted back his chair and picked up a much-used, much-battered Dunhill pipe. As he began to fill it, he went on, “What’s all the excitement about? I’ve already dealt with an inquiry from Pasadena City about this man. What’s he to you?”

I told him I was acting for J. Wilbur Jefferson.

“I want to get as much information about his son and his Chinese wife as I can,” I said. “Anything you can tell me could be helpful.”

“The American Consul could be more helpful,” he said, lighting his pipe. He blew a cloud of expensive-smelling tobacco smoke towards me. “I don’t know much about him He was killed in a car crash. You’ve heard about that?”

“How did it happen?”

He shrugged.

“Driving too fast on a wet road. There wasn’t much to pick up when we found him. He was wedged in the car which had gone up in smoke.”

“No one with him?”

“No.”

“Where was he going?”

MacCarthy looked quizzingly at me.

“I don’t know. The accident took place about five miles outside Kowloon in the New Territories. He could be going anywhere.” “Who identified him?”

He moved slightly, showing a degree of controlled patience.

“His wife.”

“Can you fill me in on his background? How did he earn his living?”