“I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, Mr. Ryan,” she said. Her smile was slight and impersonal. “Mr. Jefferson is ready for you now.”
“You are his secretary?” I asked, recognising the clear, quiet voice.
“Yes. I’m Janet West. I’ll show you the way.”
I followed her out into the passage and through a green baize door into a big old-fashioned but comfortable lounge lined with books and with double windows opening onto a secluded walled garden full of standard rose trees that were giving of their best.
J. Wilbur Jefferson was reclining on a bed-chair, fitted with wheels. He lay in the shade just outside the double windows: an old man, tall, thin and aristocratic with a big hooked nose, skin as yellow as old ivory, hair like white spun glass and thin fine hands heavily veined. He was wearing a white linen suit and white buckskin shoes. He turned his head to look at me as I followed Janet West into the garden.
“Mr. Ryan,’’ she said, drawing aside and motioning me forward, then she went away.
“Use that chair,” Jefferson said, pointing to a basket chair close to him. “My hearing isn’t as good as it was so I’ll ask you to keep your voice up. If you want to smoke… smoke. It’s a vice I have been forced to give up now for more than six years.”
I sat down, but I didn’t light a cigarette. I had an idea he might not like cigarettes. When he had smoked, he would have smoked cigars.
“I’ve made inquiries about you, Mr. Ryan,” he went on after a long pause while his pale brown eyes went over me intently, giving me the feeling he was looking into my pockets, examining the birthmark on my right shoulder and counting the money in my wallet. “I am told you are honest, reliable and not without intelligence.”
I wondered who could have told him that, but I put my modest expression on my face and didn’t say anything.
“I have asked you here,” Jefferson went on, “because I would like to hear first-hand this story of the man who telephoned you and how, later, you found this Chinese woman dead in your office.”
I noted he didn’t call her his daughter-in-law. I noted too that when he said “this Chinese woman”, his mouth turned down at the corners and there was distaste in his voice. I guess for a man as old and as rich and as conventional as he, the news that your only son has married an Asian could come as a jar[49].
I told him the whole story, remembering to keep my voice up.
When I had finished, he said, “Thank you, Mr. Ryan. You have no idea what she wanted to see you about?”
“I can’t even make a guess.”
“Nor have you any idea who killed her?”
“No.” I paused then added, “The chances are this man who calls himself John Hardwick did it or at least he is implicated.”
“I have no confidence in Retnick,” Jefferson said. “He is a brainless fool who has no right to his official position. I want the man who murdered my son’s wife caught.” He looked down at his veined hands, frowning. “Unfortunately, my son and I didn’t get along well together. There were faults on both sides as there usually are, but I realise now that he is dead that I could have been much more tolerant and patient with him. I believe my lack of tolerance and my disapproval of his behaviour goaded him to be wilder and more reckless than he would have been if he had been more understood. The woman he married has been murdered. My son wouldn’t have rested until he had found her murderer. I know his nature well enough to be sure of this. My son is dead. I feel the least I can do now is to find his wife’s murderer. If I succeed, I shall feel I have squared my account with him to some extent.” He paused and looked across the garden, his old face hard and sad. The slight breeze ruffled his white hair. He looked very old but very determined. He turned to look at me. “As you can see, Mr. Ryan, I am an old man. I am burnt out. I get tired easily. I am in no physical shape to hunt down a murderer and that is why I have sent for you. You are an interested party. This woman was found in your office. For some reason the murderer has tried to shift the responsibility onto you. I intend to pay you well. Will you find this man?”
It would have been easy to have said yes, taken his money and then waited hopefully to see if Retnick would turn up the killer, but I didn’t work like that. I was pretty sure I didn’t stand a chance of finding the killer myself.
“The investigation is in the hands of the police,” I said. “They are the only people who can find this man – I can’t. A murder case is outside an investigator’s province.[50] Retnick doesn’t encourage outsiders stirring up the dust[51]. I can’t question his witnesses. It would get back to him and I would land in trouble. As much as I would like to earn your money, Mr. Jefferson, it just wouldn’t work.”
He didn’t seem surprised, but he looked as determined as ever.
“I understand all that,” he said. “Retnick is a fool. He seems to have no idea how to set about solving this case. I suggested he should cable the British authorities in Hong Kong to see if we can find out something about this woman. We don’t know anything about her except she married my son and was a refugee from Red China. I know that because my son wrote about a year ago telling me he was marrying a Chinese refugee.” Again he looked across the garden as he said, “I foolishly forbade the marriage. I never heard from him again.[52]”
“Do you think the British police will have information about her?” I asked.
He shook his head.
“It is possible, but not likely. Every year more than a hundred thousand of these unfortunate refugees come into Hong Kong. They are stateless people with no papers. I have a number of contacts in Hong Kong and I try to keep up to date with the situation. As I understand it, it is this: refugees fleeing from Red China are smuggled by junk to Macau which, as you probably know, is Portuguese territory. Macau can’t cope with the invasion nor do they wish to. The refugees are transferred to other junks sailing for Hong Kong. The British police patrol the approaches to Hong Kong, but the Chinese are patient and clever when they want to get their own way[53]. If a junk carrying refugees is spotted by the police, the police boat converges on it, but there are hundreds of junks fishing the approaches to the island. Usually the refugee junk succeeds in mixing with the fishing junks that close protectively around it and since all junks look alike, it becomes impossible for the police boat to find it. I understand the British police are sympathetic towards the refugees: after all, they have had a horrible time and they are escaping from a common enemy. The search for them ceases once the junk succeeds in reaching Hong Kong’s territorial waters. The police feel that as these poor wretched people have got so far, it wouldn’t be human to send them back. But all these people are anonymous. They have no papers. The British police supply them with new papers, but there is no means of checking even their names. From the moment they arrive in Hong Kong, they begin an entirely new life with probably new names: they are reborn. My son’s wife was one of these people. Unless we can find out who she really was and what her background was, I doubt if we’ll ever discover why she was murdered and who her murderer is. So I want you to go to Hong Kong and see if you can find out something about her. It won’t be easy, but it is something Retnick can’t do and the British police wouldn’t be bothered to do. I think you can do it and I’m ready to finance you. What do you think?”
I was intrigued by the idea, but not so intrigued that I didn’t realise it could meet with no success.
“I’ll go,” I said, “but it could be hopeless. I can’t say what chances I have until I get out there, but right now, I don’t think I have much of a chance.”
“Go