“For a price,” Aileen muttered.
Albert frowned at her.
“Well, it does,” she said defiantly. “You have to pay CCBA if you want to open a business in Chinatown.”
“Isn’t that just like one of the tongs, then?” I asked.
“Oh, no,” Albert said. “It’s how the tongs started out. Now they’re too busy trying to destroy each other and demand protection money from us businessmen. At least the CCBA is not crooked. They will probably pay to hire a lawyer for Frederick Lee.”
“Unless someone in On Leong like Bobby Lee pays them not to,” Aileen said.
“Hush, woman. Do not speak of something you know little about,” Albert said. “My word is respected in this community. If I ask for help, I will receive help. You need not worry, Miss Murphy. I will do my best for a fellow Chinese.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I can’t tell you how relieved I am.”
“How do they know that Lee Sing Tai was murdered?” Albert Chiu asked. “From what I heard, he fell from the roof where he had been sleeping.”
“Someone pushed him from the roof,” I said.
“How do they know this? Was there a witness?”
“He had a wound to the side of his head,” I said. Even as the words came out I realized that I was probably the one who had caused all this trouble. If only I had kept quiet about noticing the wound. If only I had not insisted that Lee Sing Tai had been murdered, then Captain Kear would probably have been happy to let the death be ruled accidental. As usual I had spoken too hastily, without thinking through the consequences, and it was my fault that Frederick Lee was now locked up in the Tombs.
“Is that so?” Mr. Chiu nodded. “So it is believed that someone struck him first and then threw him to his death?”
“You see, I knew it,” Aileen Chiu said triumphantly. “I knew there had been a death that night. What did I tell you?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Well, we were sleeping on our roof too,” Aileen Chiu said. “And our Kitty woke up and said she thought she saw an angel. So I said to Albert—it’s come down from heaven to take somebody, you mark my words. And I was right.”
“Your Kitty saw an angel? On Mr. Lee’s rooftop?” I asked.
“She couldn’t exactly pinpoint it to Mr. Lee’s rooftop, but it was one of those buildings farther down the block. Her father thought she’d dreamed it, of course, but she was quite insistent. It was either an angel or a fairy, she said.”
“Did she say what this angel looked like?” I tried to keep my voice steady.
“A little dainty spirit thing, like a young girl with white wings, and it flew from one roof to the next.”
Twenty-seven
I ran all the way back to the El station on Chatham Square, driven by my anger. I stood, seething, on the railway platform, waiting for a train that didn’t come. Finally it dawned on me that today was a public holiday and the train schedule would be curtailed. I ran down the steps again, not willing to wait any longer, threw caution to the winds, and hailed myself a cab.
I had to get back to Patchin Place immediately. I had to confront her. I didn’t stop to think that if she had killed once before, most efficiently, she could do so again if cornered. I was so furious at having been taken in by her. Poor little Bo Kei—please do what you can to help Frederick. I know he’s innocent. Well, of course he was innocent if she had killed Lee Sing Tai herself. Unless she had persuaded or driven him to help her. She had demonstrated just how forceful she could be. And he was besotted with her. A man will do a lot for a woman he loves, especially if there is only one way for them to be together and that involved hurling her husband from a rooftop.
There was still the question of the big workman’s boots. Frederick was a clerk, and his sort didn’t wear hobnail boots. But then I had never actually studied his feet. He could have inherited the shoe size of his European mother. He could have worn those boots that night to throw us off the scent. I dismissed that notion right away. Who would be aware that the tar on the rooftop might become soft enough to leave imprints after a hot day?
But if Bo Kei had killed Mr. Lee, she would surely have needed an accomplice to help her carry the unconscious Lee Sing Tai to the edge of the roof. And in my cursory examination I had seen no sign in the dust and dirt up there of a body having been dragged. And what better accomplice than her beloved Frederick? I realized with utter mortification that I had probably been duped yet again.