High Road to China. Jon Cleary
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he can get the pair of these, he’ll make all the museums and collectors sick with envy. You know what he’s like about his collection.’
Indeed Henty knew. On their trips into the Chinese hinterland all Tozer Cathay representatives were expected to keep an eye out for any items that might prove worthy additions to the famous Tozer collection.
‘Isn’t it risky, carrying it with you? Wouldn’t it have been safer to have shipped it straight home to America?’
‘That was Father’s original idea, but then he became afraid it might be stolen on the way. I persuaded him to let me bring it with me. I – ’ For the first time she looked embarrassed. ‘I wanted to prove I could be useful. I owe my father a lot, Mr Henty.’
Henty felt at ease enough to be frank: ‘I understand he thinks the world of you. So perhaps the debt is mutual.’
‘You’re perfectly sweet, Mr Henty.’ She smiled, then shook her head, nodding at the gun-case lying on a sofa. ‘He took me tiger hunting in Kwelchow this summer. He didn’t want to go, he was frightfully busy, but I wanted to go and he took me. He’s been doing that ever since my mother died, spoiling me terribly. He’s a kind man, Mr Henty, too kind. At least to me.’
Henty was glad of the qualification, though he couldn’t detect whether she had said it defensively. Bradley Tozer had no reputation in China for kindliness; he hunted business with all the rapacity of an old China Sea pirate. Henty guessed there would be few people in China who felt they owed Bradley Tozer anything.
He was saved from an awkward reply by the ringing of the phone. Eve, a lady who, despite the admonitions of her maternal grandmother, could never resist the temptation to answer her own telephone, picked it up. It was the reception desk.
‘A gentleman to see you, Miss Tozer.’
‘A gentleman? English?’ Basil Rathbone, perhaps? Eve was not so spoiled that she didn’t have girlish dreams occasionally. ‘Did he give his name?’
A hand was obviously held over the mouthpiece downstairs. Then: ‘Mr Sun Nan. A Chinese gentleman.’
Eve looked at Henty. ‘Do you know a Mr Sun Nan?’
‘No. Is he downstairs? I’ll go down and see what he wants.’
Eve spoke into the phone again. ‘Mr Henty will be down to see him.’
She put down the phone, but almost at once it rang again. ‘I am sorry, Miss Tozer, but the gentleman insists that he see you.’ The tone of voice suggested that the Savoy reception desk did not approve of the cheek of a Chinese, gentleman or otherwise, insisting on disturbing one of the hotel’s guests. The hand was held over the mouthpiece again and then the voice came back, this time in a state of shock: ‘He insists he see you at once.’
‘Send him up.’ Eve put down the phone once more and stopped Henty who, leaning on his stick, was already limping towards the door. ‘You had better stay. This Mr Sun evidently has something important he wants to tell me.’
‘If he’s selling anything or wanting to buy, he should have come to the office. Let me handle him.’
‘No, leave him to me,’ Eve said, and Henty suddenly and ridiculously wondered if Mr Sun, whoever he was, might meet the same fate as the unfortunate Mexican.
Mr Sun Nan was brought up to the suite by one of the reception clerks, as if the hotel did not trust pushy, demanding Orientals to be wandering around alone on its upper floors. He was ushered into the suite, a smiling li-chi of a man who seemed amused at the attention he was being given.
‘A thousand apologies, Miss Tozer, for this intrusion. If time had allowed, I should have written you a letter and awaited your reply.’ He spoke English with a slight hiss that could have meant a badly-fitting dental plate or been a comment on the barbarians who had invented the language. ‘But time, as they say, is of the essence.’
‘Not a Chinese saying, I’m sure,’ said Eve.
Sun smiled. ‘No. I only use it because you will be the one to profit by our saving time.’
Henty introduced himself. ‘If you have anything to sell or wish to buy, you should be talking to me.’
Sun smiled at him as he might have at a passer-by, then looked back at Eve. ‘It would be better if we spoke alone, Miss Tozer.’
Henty bridled at being dismissed and Eve stiffened in annoyance at the smiling, yet cool arrogance of the Chinese. ‘Mr Henty stays. If time is of the essence, don’t waste it, Mr Sun.’
‘I was warned you might resemble your father in your attitude.’ Sun gave a little complimentary bow of his head, then the smile disappeared from his face as if it had been an optical illusion instead of a friendly expression. ‘The matter concerns your father. He has been kidnapped.’
Through the open window there floated up from the Embankment the cheerful mutter of London on holiday: the ordinary, reassuring sounds that made Eve think she had not heard Mr Sun correctly. ‘Did you say kidnapped?’
‘I’m afraid so.’ The smile flickered on his face again, but it was no longer apologetic or friendly; Sun smiled as a relieving movement to relax what was indeed a badly-fitting dental plate. ‘My master has him in custody and will kill him on 21 August by your calendar, eighteen days from today. Unless – ’
Eve went to the window and closed it, shutting out the ordinary, locking in the macabre. The clouds were lifting a little, but there was no break in them. She caught a glimpse of a plane high in the sky to the west: it had just written a giant O in dark smoke, an empty circle barely discernible against the grey sky. The pilot’s effort at sky-writing on such a day seemed as ridiculous as what she had just heard Mr Sun say. She turned back into the room in a state of shock.
She heard Henty say, ‘Is this some frightful joke by Jardine Matheson? If so, I think it’s in deucedly bad taste.’
‘It is no joke, Mr Henty.’ But Sun smiled at the thought of Jardine Matheson’s being involved; he thought that was a joke. ‘My master is a very serious man at times. If he says he will kill Miss Tozer’s father, then he certainly will.’
‘You said unless.’ Eve had to clear her throat to get the words out. ‘Unless what?’
‘You have a small statue, I believe. Of the god Lao-Tze riding on a green ox – ’
Surprised, puzzled, Eve gestured at the box on the table. ‘It’s in there. But it belongs to my father – ’
Sun shook his head, face stiff now with impatience and denial. He was a Confucian, but he had a more immediate master, the tuchun, the war lord, in Hunan who laid down timetables which had no place for etiquette and ritual. ‘It belongs to my master.’
‘Where did your father get it?’ Henty asked Eve.
‘He bought it from some provincial governor. General Chang something-or-other.’
‘Chang Ching-yao,’ said Sun. ‘My master’s enemy. My master has the twin to the statue. He owned both of them, but Chang stole one of them from him. Open the box. At once, please!’
Henty grasped his stick as if he were going to use it for something other than support for his leg. ‘This has gone far enough! I think we had better call the police – ’
‘It would be foolish to call the police.’ The hiss in Sun’s voice was even more pronounced now. ‘My master does not recognize any other authority but his own. Even in China.’
‘Miss Tozer, you can’t let him get away with this! How do we know this isn’t some bluff to swindle you out of that statue? The cleverest swindlers in the world are the Chinese – ’
Sun bowed his head again, as if he and his countrymen had been paid a compliment. Then he took a gold watch and chain from his pocket. He was dressed in a dark suit that was too tight for him and he carried a black