Bless the Bride (8 page)

“So you’ll be going back to work for your Chinese gentleman, I take it, Molly?” Gus asked.

“I’ll have to go back and report to him, but when he hears that I’ve scoured the pawnshops and jewelers, I think he’ll have no further use of my services.”

“Maybe that’s for the best, now that you’ve seen Daniel’s face yesterday when he learned you were staying with us,” Sid said, tearing off a hunk of croissant and dipping it in her coffee.

“I know. That’s what I was thinking,” I said. “I’ve got to admit that my career as a lady detective is over and a life of domesticity looms ahead.”

“You make it sound like banishment to a penal colony.” Gus laughed.

“Not as long as the two of you are across the street,” I said. “I’ll enjoy having more time to spend with you.”

“So will we,” Sid said.

“By the way,” I said, remembering what had been forgotten in the fluster of the previous evening, “you’ll never guess who I ran into on the Lower East Side? Seamus and the children.”

“They’re back in New York? That should make you happy.”

“Indeed it does not,” I said, and related the full story.

“Panama—now that sounds like an adventure,” Sid said. “I’ve always wanted to cut a path through the jungle and meet anacondas and jaguars.”

“But not with a small boy in tow,” I said.

“They’re surely not taking the little girl with them?” Gus asked.

I shook my head. “They want me to find her a position in service—nanny’s helper or the like. Poor little thing. I think she’s far too young for that. I’d take her in myself only I don’t think Daniel would approve and it’s no way to start a marriage.”

“We’ll put on our thinking caps,” Sid said. “Maybe Gus knows a family who would like a companion to an only child. But I’m afraid the thinking will just have to wait until after the party. We still haven’t settled on our theme, have we?”

I left them heatedly discussing the theme for my party and made my way down to Mr. Frederick Lee’s office. He had an expectant, worried look on his face as he admitted me.

“Any luck, Miss Murphy? Did you find the missing item?”

“I don’t wish to be rude,” I said, “but I wasn’t sure your employer wished you to know the details of my assignment. You left the room while he spoke to me.”

Frederick Lee nodded solemnly. “I only understood it concerned something that was precious to him. Something that he wanted recovered as quickly as possible.”

“Then I’m afraid I have no good news for him yet, Mr. Lee. I have searched diligently in the immediate area with no success.”

He sighed. “My employer will not be pleased.” But he himself looked almost relieved. “Oh, well, we had better go and deliver the news to him.”

“I can go on looking,” I said. “I’ve only covered a fraction of the jewelers and pawnshops in New York City. But the thief could just as easily have gone across the bridge to Brooklyn or to any other outlying community. It’s like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack.”

“It certainly seems hopeless, but I’m sure my employer will not want you to abandon the quest.”

He took my elbow to steer me across the Bowery. At this hour it was full of women doing their morning shopping for the day’s meals while a gaggle of children clung to their skirts or raced ahead. The moment we turned into Mott Street the contrast was absolute. Here was silence and emptiness. There were no women and no children. We passed a couple of young Chinese men wearing the dark blue baggy jackets and pants that seemed to be the uniform of the Chinese. Their hands were tucked into their sleeves. They avoided my gaze and hurried by, heads down. I felt a stab of pity for them, living amid so much hostility and knowing that they would never have the chance to truly belong here, to get married and live normal lives.

The pity was short-lived, however, as Frederick Lee grabbed my elbow again and shoved me forward at a quicker pace. “Those men,” he whispered. “They are Hip Singers.”

“What kind of singers?” I looked back with interest.

“Don’t look at them,” he hissed. “Pretend they are invisible.”

“What’s the matter with them?” I too found myself whispering.

“Hip Sing is the rival tong,” he said. “Have you not heard about the tong wars? There has been terrible bloodshed between Hip Sing and On Leong, which is our tong. At the moment there is a truce, but it’s very fragile and the least little thing can set sparks flying again.”

“I see,” I said, realizing now why the man yesterday had looked up and down the street before he hurried away. “So are tongs like gangs?”

He looked shocked. “Oh, no, not at all. They are benevolent societies. They offer us protection and loans and even a place to stay. Like your American gentlemen’s clubs.”

“Our gentlemen’s clubs don’t often condone killing each other.”

“We have to defend the honor of our tong if the Hip Sing mob kills one of our own,” he said. “They are not to be trusted. We are a merchant’s association made up of civilized men; they are a bunch of rabble who work in the laundries and the cigar factories.”

He stopped talking as a door opened and two elderly men came out, each carrying a cage with a bird in it. They held the cages up as they walked solemnly down the street.

“What was that?” I asked.

“They are walking their birds. They do it every morning so that the caged birds get fresh air,” he said. “Just as you Americans walk your babies in their buggies.”

“You say ‘we Americans,’” I said to him. “Actually I’m Irish. I’ve only been here two years and I don’t think of myself as American yet. But you were born here. Don’t you think of yourself as American?”

“I would if I felt that I belonged here,” he said. “But as the child of a Chinese man, I can never become a citizen. So I will never truly belong.”

“Never become a citizen, even if you were born here?”

“That’s right. Thanks to the Exclusion Act. But I wouldn’t belong in China either. I am neither fish nor fowl.”

“That must be hard for you.”

He shrugged. “It is my fate. There’s not much I can do about it.”

We reached the storefront of the Golden Dragon Emporium. I noticed that it was next door to a building that proclaimed itself as the On Leong headquarters. So my employer must be heavily involved with the tong to have set up shop beside them. Again I waited until Frederick Lee informed me that we could go up to Lee Sing Tai’s apartment. It was a complete reenactment of the day before. Waiting until the boy admitted us. Waiting in front of the screen until we were told to enter and the man himself sitting as before, in the high-backed carved chair. The drapes were half drawn and shadows hovered in the far corners. I glanced back at that curtain from which someone had observed me yesterday. I wondered who that person had been and whether he was there again, but I decided it wouldn’t be wise to ask questions. Instead I stood in the doorway until my employer waved an elegant hand, directing me to sit on the bench and at the same time dismissing Frederick Lee from his presence.

“Miss Murphy,” he said, nodding civilly. “You will take tea with me?”

He clapped his hands and the tea tray appeared. He waited until the leaves had settled, then poured it with ceremony, handing me the cup with two hands. I noticed the length of his fingernails—they stuck out a good inch or so, like claws. Again the tea was too hot to drink immediately, but I’d learned to be silent until I was spoken to.

“Is it a fine day outside?” Lee Sing Tai asked at last.

“Very fine.”

“Not too hot?”

“Not as yet.”

“That is good. I may venture forth. My songbird needs more fresh air than he receives on the balcony.”

He lifted his teacup to his lips and took a sip. I followed suit, almost bursting with impatience to get this interview over. There was a strange feeling of unreality and foreboding that hovered over me in the half-light of the room. At last he put down his teacup. “You had a successful day yesterday?” he asked.

“If you mean did I find your missing jade piece, the answer is no, I’m afraid,” I said. “I did my best, I can assure you. I visited every pawnshop, every jeweler within a mile or so of here. The pawnshop owners all told me that they never saw Chinese jewelry and they would have remembered if a Chinese person had come into their stores. The jewelers told me that jade was not worth much and they would only buy gold or silver.” I paused, taking a deep breath. “So I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help to you. I could go on looking further afield, of course. There are hundreds more pawnshops and jewelers in the rest of Manhattan, and hundreds more across the bridge in Brooklyn and up in the Bronx and on Staten Island—but I can’t see that it would be worth paying me for what would surely be several days’ work after which I could well come up empty.”

He sat there, staring across the room as if I didn’t exist. The silence was overpowering and I began to feel uneasy. If he came from a country where men were beheaded for not wearing their hair a certain way, was he about to punish me for my failure? I decided to take the initiative.

“Mr. Lee,” I said, “something about this doesn’t make sense to me. You could have employed anybody to ask questions in pawnshops. If the piece has been stolen, isn’t it likely that it’s gone to an underworld fence? I’d have no way of knowing how to contact such people. I’m a private investigator, not a police detective.”

“It will not have gone to a fence,” he said.

I wanted to tell him that we were wasting each other’s time and walk out of there. But I hate to give up on anything. “You haven’t made clear to me why this particular piece of jade is worth so much to you,” I said. “It must have some special significance or you would merely have had a copy made to replace it.”

“You are a shrewd young woman,” he said. “I knew this when I hired you.”

“So why did you hire me?”

“To find a missing prized possession, I told you.”

“Of course it’s possible that the person who stole it intends to keep it, in which case I can be of no further use to you.”

“I did not say it was stolen,” he said. “It was taken. That is not the same thing.”

“You have an idea who took it?”

He nodded.

“By a member of your household?”

It was a stab in the dark but I saw a flash of reaction. Then his eyes narrowed. “The situation is delicate.”

“Mr. Lee. I don’t see how I can help you unless you tell me all the facts. I think you have hired the wrong person. Surely one of your employees could go after a member of your household. He wouldn’t have gone far from Chinatown, would he?”

There was a long pause. “I wish you to continue your search, Miss Murphy,” he said at last. “I told you that a precious possession was missing. I had little hope that you’d find the jade but I wanted to see how diligently you pursued this and I wanted to observe your powers of deduction. I should now tell you that another of my possessions is missing.”

“Stolen, you mean? At the same time?”

“Stolen—of this I am not sure. But missing. Definitely missing.”

“More valuable than the jade?”

“More valuable.”

Now we were finally getting somewhere. “Could I have a description of this object?”

He reached across to a side table and handed me a leather folder. “A picture of the missing possession,” he said. “Open it.”

I opened the folder. It was a photo frame in red leather. And inside was a portrait of a young Chinese girl. She was dressed in what looked like a padded silk jacket with bone buttons and a little round collar. Her hair was pulled back into a thick braid that was draped over one shoulder. I looked for any kind of jewel or adornment she might be wearing but could see none.

“I’m afraid I don’t see the article you are referring to.”

He jabbed the glass of the photo frame with his long fingernail. “Bo Kei. My new bride,” he said. “My bride is missing.”

“A person? The valuable possession you’re referring to is a person?” He must have picked up the shock in my voice.

“A most valuable possession, Miss Murphy. She cost me a lot of money. I had her brought over from China only a month ago. As you know, your government makes it impossible for Chinamen to bring their women into this country, so I paid a high price to have her brought here by devious routes. I paid her father a high bride price too.”

“You bought a woman?” I was still staring at the young fresh face looking shyly at the camera.

“That is the way in my country. We have no foolish notions of falling in love, as you people in America do. Marriage is a business proposition. Each side must benefit. I am no longer young, Miss Murphy. I need a son before I die—so I bring in strong new blood from my own part of China. And now she is gone.”

“So what do you think has happened to her?” I was still shocked and fighting to keep my composure.

“I wish I knew,” he said. “I am most worried. Maybe an enemy has kidnapped her, or she has run away. In either case I want her returned to me immediately, together with the jade bride-piece that was given to her.”

“You say an enemy may have kidnapped her. Do you know that you have enemies who might do something as bad as this?”

“Any rich and powerful man has enemies, Miss Murphy. And in my case I am closely aligned with the On Leong tong. Maybe you have not heard of this, but we have been at war with Hip Sing.”

“Frederick Lee told me about this,” I said.

He pursed his lips. “There has been a truce in recent times, but this peace is fragile and who knows if it will last forever.”

“Would stealing your bride break this truce?”

“Naturally. If someone wants to hurt me, to embarrass me, to make me lose face, what better way than to steal my bride? We of the On Leong would want justice and revenge and so the bloodshed would start again.” He paused. I couldn’t think what to say next, but he added. “On the other hand, she could have run away.”

”Do you have any idea why she might have run away?” I asked, thinking that it would have taken something really horrible to make being alone in a strange city like New York seem preferable to remaining in a pampered life amid such rich surroundings.

He frowned as if he considered this question impudent. “Of course I have no idea,” he snapped. “She would have a good life here. She was treated well. She had clothes. Good food. Any sensible young woman would be proud to become wife of a rich and powerful man.”