Mrs. Lee rattled off another string of Chinese.
“He has to go back to China,” the interpreter said. “His bones have to be returned to the place of his ancestors.”
Bobby Lee obviously said something reassuring to her and reached out to touch her, but she shrank away as if burned. He shrugged and went ahead of us down the stairs. As we came out into the street the wind had grown even stronger, sending papers and refuse swirling and making the lanterns hanging on the balconies swing. I hoped that Sid’s paper lanterns were surviving.
“The heat’s broken at last, thank God,” Captain Kear said. Then he pointed down the street. “Ah, here’s O’Byrne now. Did you find Frederick Lee?”
“Yes, sir.” He was panting as if he’d been running hard. “We found him, about to leave his rooms, and you know what? It looks as if he was packing a suitcase. And there were train timetables lying on his table.”
“Where is he now?”
“At his place. Twenty-seven Park Street. I took a couple of On Leong men with me and they are guarding him, sir. I thought you might want to examine his room as well as question him.”
The captain nodded with satisfaction. “Good thinking, O’Byrne. I don’t suppose you found he was hiding the girl, did you?”
“No sign of a young woman there, Captain. At least no obvious sign.”
“It will be interesting to see if she’s been there recently—a nice long hair or two, or did he wear the queue?”
“He is only half Chinese,” Bobby Lee said. “He behaves like an American.”
Captain Kear looked at him. “Off you go then, Bobby. I’ll be able to get in touch with you through On Leong if I need you when we go through the cabinet or need to ask you more questions. But don’t think of going back to the apartment before that. You won’t be allowed in. Hear that, O’Byrne. I want you to stay here and keep an eye on this place. You might want to seal off the living room and the master’s bedroom. Don’t let the occupants touch anything and don’t let this one back inside.”
“Very good, sir.” O’Byrne looked relieved that his next task didn’t involve running around the city.
Daniel had pulled out his pocket watch from his waistcoat. “You’d better question Frederick Lee before he bribes the On Leong types to let him slip away. And if you want my advice, bring him to the precinct for questioning. Shut him up overnight. There’s nothing like a night in the cells to get the truth out of a suspect. You can take him to the Tombs if you like. I’ll let them know.”
“Kind of you,” Captain Kear said in a way that might have been sarcastic.
“And put out a city-wide bulletin to look for the girl. You have a description, do you?”
“Miss Murphy has just given me a photograph.” Captain Kear held up the package.
“Excellent. She should be easy enough to find then, if she hasn’t skipped town. In my experience nothing works better than playing one suspect against the other. If Frederick Lee thinks we’ve got her in the Tombs, I guarantee he’ll talk.”
“Very well.” Captain Kear looked long and hard at Daniel, then said, “And I take it you’ll know where to find Miss Murphy, if we need to ask her any further questions.”
Twenty-one
It was a good parting blow as Captain Kear walked away and I saw Daniel’s mouth twitch. The moment we were out of earshot Daniel grabbed my arm and spun me to face him.
“What the devil do you think you were doing?” he demanded. “Do you realize what you’ve done? You’ve made me the butt of jokes in the police department for years to come, not to mention starting up the tong wars again single-handedly.”
He was shouting loudly and his voice echoed back from the tall tenements and the empty street. He was glaring at me, his eyes blazing. “Did you or did you not promise me that you’d give up this ridiculous nonsense?”
I decided that this time fighting was not going to get me anywhere. “I did promise, Daniel, and I’m sorry. I never intended to get involved in something like this. Only the man who came to see me was so persistent and said his employer wouldn’t take no for an answer and would pay me generously, so I went to see him, just out of curiosity, and to start with all he asked me to do was to locate a piece of jade jewelry that had gone missing. That seemed like a harmless enough commission, didn’t it?” The words came flying out in a torrent. “It was only later I found out that he was really looking for a missing woman.”
“And yet you continued to look for her.” His eyes were still blazing.
“You’re very attractive when you’re angry, you know,” I said, attempting to lighten the mood.