A COFFIN FROM HONG KONG

I heard myself saying silently, “Frank Belling is English, isn’t he?” and a voice that sounded like the voice of Chief Inspector MacCarthy replied, “That’s right. . . he’s English.”

And yet the thin, dirty specimen who said he was Frank Belling had spoken with a strong American accent. Was it possible an Englishman could have picked up such an accent? I didn’t think so.

A sudden stab of pain in my head concluded these thoughts and I heard myself groan.

“All right ... all right,” I said aloud. “You’re not hurt all that bad. You’ve just had a bang on the head. You have to expect that in your business. You’re lucky to be alive.”

I opened my eyes. I could see nothing. It was as dark as a tunnel, but the familiar smell told me I was still in the room where Wong had coshed me. I sat up slowly, wincing at more stabbing pains and I gently felt the bump on my head. I sat there for some minutes, then I made the effort and got to my feet The door would be behind me and to the left. I groped my way to it, found the door handle and opened the door. A feeble light burning on the landing made me blink. I stood in the doorway listening, but heard only the gentle murmur of many voices in the alley below. I looked at my strap watch. The time was five minutes past midnight. I had been unconscious for about half an hour . . . quite long enough for Belling and Wong to have got well away.

My one thought now was to get out of this evil-smelling hole.

As I started towards the stairs, I heard someone coming up. I slid my hand inside my coat. The gun holster was there still strapped to my side, but it was empty.

The beam of a powerful flashlight hit me in the face.

“What do you think you’re doing here?” a familiar Scottish voice demanded.

“Slumming,” I said and relaxed. “What are you?”

Sergeant Hamish, followed by a uniformed Chinese police officer, came on up the stairs.

“You were spotted coming in here,” he said. “I thought I’d better see what you were up to.”

“You’re a little late. I’ve been holding a one-sided conversation with your pal Frank Belling.”

“You were?” He gaped at me. “Where is he?”

“He’s skipped.” I fingered the lump on the back of my head. “A Chinese pal of his boffed me before we had time to exchange confidences.”

He moved the beam of his flashlight so he could see the back of my head, then he whistled.

“Well, you asked for it, coming here. This is the toughest spot in Hong Kong.”

“Would you take that goddam light out of my eyes? My head hurts,” I growled at him.

He moved past me into the room and swung the light around. Then he came out.

“The Chief Inspector will want to talk to you. Let’s go.”

“He’ll want to talk to a Chinese girl named Mu Hai Ton too,” I said and gave him the girl’s address. “You’d better get after her. She’s likely to have skipped.”

“What’s she got to do with this?”

“She led me to Belling. Hurry it up, friend. You could miss her.”

He said something in Cantonese to the policeman with him who clattered off down the stairs.

“You come on,” he said to me and we followed the policeman into the dark, evil-smelling alley.

Half an hour later I was back on the island and sitting in Chief Inspector MacCarthy’s office. They had got him out of bed by radio-telephone and he looked none too pleased. We had cups of strong tea in front of us. My head was still aching but the tea helped.

Sergeant Hamish leaned against the wall, chewing a tooth-pick, his cop eyes blankly staring at me. MacCarthy sucked at his empty pipe while he listened to my story.

I didn’t tell him about the Silver Mine Bay outing. I felt if I had told him he might have turned hostile. I told him how I had wanted to talk to Mu Hai Ton, how I had found her through the Madame at the Wanchai bar and how I had seen her surprise and distress when I had told her Jo-An was dead.

“I had an idea she might want to pass on the news,” I said, “so I waited across the road and followed her into the walled city.”

I told them how Wong had suddenly appeared, what Belling had said and how Wong had coshed me.

After a long pause, MacCarthy said, “Well, you asked for it. You should have come to me.”

I let that one go.

He sat for some moments thinking over what I had told him, then before he could say what was on his mind, the telephone bell rang. He scooped up the receiver, listened, then said, “Well, keep after her, I want her,” and hung up.

“She didn’t return to her apartment,” he said to me. “I have a man watching the place and we’re looking for her.”

I hadn’t expected she would have been there waiting for them to pick her up. I wondered if they would eventually find her in the harbour the way they had found Leila.

“Have you a photograph of Frank Belling?” I asked. “I have an idea this guy wasn’t Belling. He was an American.”

MacCarthy opened a desk drawer and took out a fat file which showed he was taking more interest in Belling than he had led me to believe. He opened the file and took out a half-plate glossy print which he flicked across the desk so it fell right side up in front of me.