Mrs. Pollifax and the Hong Kong Buddha (8 page)

“At the moment I can’t think of a happier thought,” she told him.

Opening the door he added, “Sorry I can’t carry Mr. Hitchens off for the night but I’m afraid it would be
terribly difficult to explain if I were seen, and even harder to explain than his spending the night with you.”

“So long as he doesn’t snore,” she told him gravely.

Robin grinned. “Hit him if he does, although
not
, of course, on the head, poor chap. Look here, I’ll be back in the morning, not
too
bright and early but we can’t let Alec Hao’s trail grow cold.” He opened the door to the hall and peered out. “Looks clear,” he said, waved at her and went out, closing the door behind him.

I
f Mr. Hitchens snored during the night Mrs. Pollifax remained blissfully unaware of it: she was too busy sleeping away two nights of plane travel and a long Monday full of surprises. When she awoke at eight and sat up in bed it was to find that Mr. Hitchens was sitting up too, and staring at her from the chaise longue across the room.

He said with dignity, “I am not accustomed to travel, as you know, or to being hit over the head, or to being chloroformed, either, for that matter.”

“No,” she said, regarding him with interest.

“I have never in my life had such a headache,” he went on, his voice trembling a little, “and I have the most dreadful feeling that I am going to cry.”

“Yes,” she said, and nodded sympathetically. “What I would suggest then, Mr. Hitchens, is that you get up—very very slowly—and go into the bathroom and stand under a hot shower and cry. While you’re doing this I’ll
dress and call room service, order you some
very
strong coffee, and then you can come out.”

“Thank you,” he said miserably, and allowed her to help him to his feet, place a shower cap snugly over his bandaged head and lead him into the bathroom.

By the time that Robin joined them she and Mr. Hitchens were sitting companionably by the window with breakfast trays, and Mr. Hitchens had attempted an egg. “He’s much better,” she told Robin. “He’s been telling me that his being psychic is of no help at all in his own life, which seems a great pity, or—quite naturally—he would never have come to Hong Kong.”

“Ah, but we’re terribly glad you did,” Robin said warmly. “Do you feel up to showing Mrs. Pollifax and me that water wheel and hut where you lost Alec Hao yesterday?”

Mr. Hitchens had obviously recovered from his forlorn state because he said dryly, “I won’t ask how you came through that door without knocking or using a key, or why Lars Petterson should want to—”

Robin cheerfully interrupted him. “Actually I’m an ex-cat burglar working now for Interpol, and I’m not Lars Petterson at all.”

Mr. Hitchens nodded matter-of-factly. “It scarcely matters because I can see that this entire trip is meant to be a Learning Experience for me. Absolutely nothing has made sense so far, and probably nothing will, and now Alec is missing as well as his father and yes, I’m ready to show you where the hut is.”

Mrs. Pollifax gave him a warm and congratulatory smile.

“Good chap,” said Robin. “Let’s go then, shall we? I’ve got Marko in uniform and a rented limousine waiting at the front entrance for us. We, however, will make
our exit by the freight elevator and drive away in a small and inconspicuous Renault. Following that, we’ll need directions and instructions from you.”

Mr. Hitchens pointed to his jacket. “You’ll find a map in the inside pocket, the same one I used for Alec, with the general area circled in pencil.”

“You mean you simply looked at a map and said
‘there’?
”

Mr. Hitchens smiled. “It’s a little like dowsing, if you’re familiar with the word.”

Robin, bringing out the map, nodded. “Yes, indeed, our neighbor in France had a man come in—a water dowser—to locate a missing well on his property.”

“Well, there you are,” said Mr. Hitchens and climbed gingerly to his feet, stood a moment steadying himself and smiled. “Amazing! I’m better. Shall we go?”

Mrs. Pollifax decided with some amusement that Mr. Hitchens had reserves and dimensions that were surprising even himself. Certainly the pedantic quality that he’d worn like a coat on the plane was taking second place now to a different Albert Hitchens whose eyes shone with delight as they crept down the hall, descended to the basement in the freight elevator and found their way out into the street to the inconspicuous Renault. “What a remarkable experience,” he said. “I feel just like a spy.”

Robin gave Mrs. Pollifax an amused glance, brought out a visored cap and dark glasses, took the driver’s seat and handed Mrs. Pollifax a map. “I suggest you crouch down out of sight in the back, Mr. Hitchens,” he told him, “Mrs. Pollifax being the only one of us who’s of no possible interest to surveillants, which is why she can wear brilliant red and pink roses on her hat.”

“On the contrary,” said Mrs. Pollifax, hastily removing the hat and placing it in her lap, “I was followed all yesterday afternoon after my visit to a curio shop called Feng Imports.”

Robin gave her a sharp glance. “When we have a moment I think I’d like to hear—”

“Good God, you too?” gasped Mr. Hitchens from the back seat. “My three wives—if they could only
know!
”

“Three?” echoed Robin, giving Mrs. Pollifax an astonished glance.

“Who all assumed that psychics lived exciting lives and were
deeply
disappointed,” she explained.

“Except for Ruthie,” called Mr. Hitchens from the floor behind them. “
She
didn’t mind my being a dull chap.”

“Ruthie we must hear more about,” Robin called back to him, “but Hong Kong traffic is fiendish, save it for later.”

Mrs. Pollifax decided that she, too, wanted to hear more about Ruthie, but she occupied herself now with tracing their route on the map through traffic that was, as Robin had predicted, fiendish, as drivers jockeyed recklessly for place and slipped in and out among the more sober travelers, their horns bleating a symphony of discordant notes. But they were not being followed, as she pointed out to Robin. “Do you think,” she asked him, “that your friend Marko is still waiting at the front entrance with the limousine?

Robin shook his head. “No, by now he will have telephoned up to our suite—oh, we’re very elegant, we have a suite—after which he will have returned to the limousine looking petulant, and swearing noisily at the idle and impulsive rich, and after chatting with the other
chauffeurs and asking a large number of interesting questions about who they drive for, he will return the car to the garage.”

“Poor Marko,” she murmured.

“Don’t you believe it,” said Robin as they entered the tunnel that would take them under the harbor to Kowloon. “Not too long ago I swabbed decks and pulled nets on a fishing boat in the Mediterranean while Marko did nothing but sit on deck with binoculars, keeping an eye on drug smugglers nosing along the coast. My blisters were monstrous.” Emerging from the tunnel he called over his shoulder, “You can come out now, Mr. Hitchens, and just in time to see Hong Kong’s newest triumph, Tsim Sha Tsui East, most of it built on land reclaimed from the harbor.”

Mr. Hitchens surfaced, and both he and Mrs. Pollifax stared at the enormous complex of hotels, malls, offices and restaurants before they swung into Chong Wan Road, which soon turned into Austin Road, and at last met with Kowloon’s famous Nathan Road, where the oriental and the old triumphed over the new.

“Now that you’re visible and accessible,” Robin said to Mr. Hitchens, “what exactly did Alec Hao tell you about his father yesterday? You have the advantage of me there because I didn’t even know that his son Alec was back in Hong Kong until a few days ago, and by that time he was either not answering the door or the phone, or was never at home.”

“He was probably out searching for his father,” said Mr. Hitchens. “He told me very little, only that his father had been an inspector in the Hong Kong police department, that his father had grown upset and angry a few weeks ago—something to do with his work—and had suddenly resigned to investigate something important,
but he didn’t confide in Alec what it was. Then one morning his bed hadn’t been slept in, and no one could find him, and three days later Alec cabled and then phoned me in Massachusetts because the police were getting nowhere.”

“Keep an eye out for Boundary Street,” Robin told Mrs. Pollifax in an aside. “And do the police know that you’re here?” he asked Mr. Hitchens.

“Alec didn’t say. Our time together,” went on Mr. Hitchens, returning to the pedantic, “could be neatly divided into: first, mutual greetings; two, getting down to psychic work, which needed a few hours; three, our travels in the car, and four, our common effort to find the hut once we reached that area.”

“How very precise,” said Robin weakly.

“And there’s Boundary Street,” put in Mrs. Pollifax, giving him an understanding smile. “We leave Kowloon now?”

Robin nodded. “Full speed ahead into New Territories, aiming roughly for Yuen Long. Find it on your map?”

“Got it,” said Mrs. Pollifax.

Their route lay along a coast road that skirted island-dappled bays on their left and steep mountains on their right, until at Castle Peak Bay they swung north to meet with Hong Kong’s farmland. And how lovely it is, thought Mrs. Pollifax, her eyes feasting on a soft lush green made even more tender by the volcanic texture of the rocky slopes that held it captive on either side. Every inch of the green fields looked manicured, the fields laid out in tidy squares or crescents or rectangles as far as the eye could see, interrupted only by lowslung whitewashed buildings. To her delight she began to see duck ponds, the ducks so brilliant a white in the sunshine they
looked as if they’d been freshly laundered before being dropped beside their dazzling blue ponds. It was difficult to remember that violence had been done to Mr. Hitchens and Alec in such a radiant and wholesome setting, she thought. Mr. Hitchens appeared to have forgotten it too as he marveled at two women he saw walking along the road, wearing black hats like huge lampshades with pleated ruffles hanging from them.

“Haaka women,” said Robin. “Their being in Hong Kong goes
way
back in time.”

“My camera, my camera,” mourned Mr. Hitchens, and then, abruptly, he cried, “There it is—over there, see it? The water wheel!”

“Right,” said Robin, and braked to a stop.

It lay at a distance of perhaps a quarter of a mile from the road, a very charming wheel set near the edge of a narrow stream of water, surrounded by fields and not far from a copse of green trees.

“The hut’s behind the trees,” said Mr. Hitchens. “There’s no road in, we have to walk.”

“So be it,” said Robin, and turned off the ignition.

As they climbed out of the car Mrs. Pollifax gave Mr. Hitchens an inquiring glance. “Head hurting?” she asked, for she thought he looked decidedly paler than he’d looked when they left the hotel?

“No,” he said. “No, I just feel—uneasy, that’s all.” His lips tightened. “I’m all right.”

A slender path edged the fields and they entered on it, walking single file, the sun hot now that they’d left the harbor behind them. They didn’t speak; something of Mr. Hitchens’s uneasiness had transferred itself to both Mrs. Pollifax and Robin, and they walked quickly and in silence. Reaching the water wheel they found a rough board bridge tossed across the irrigation canal;
Mrs. Pollifax took the lead and headed for the trees that sheltered the hut, its outlines discernible now.

“Yes, that’s the place,” Mr. Hitchens said, looking increasingly unhappy.

The hut was roughly twelve feet by fifteen, mysteriously added to this sea of fields and just as mysteriously abandoned. The primitive door creaked and groaned as Mrs. Pollifax pushed it open and she blinked at the sudden darkness inside. The hut was empty, or so she thought until her eyes, adjusting to the dimness, saw the shape of something huddled on the floor in the corner.

And then, “Oh dear God,” she said in a strangled voice as she moved closer and saw that it was a man.

Robin was just behind her. “Don’t look,” he said sharply, and bringing out a pocket flashlight he knelt beside the crumpled body.

But of course she looked, thinking how strange death was and how it ought to be honored, not turned from in dismay just because it was a mystery, an Unknown that could never be solved by human beings bent on solving every Unknown. The light shone on the face of a middle-aged Chinese male, his eyes open in astonishment at something unseen beyond them; he wore a gray silk suit and a white shirt, both of them smudged with dirt. There was a neat small bullet hole over his left eyebrow, with gray powder marks radiating from it; his right hand gripped a gun.

Robin said grimly, standing up, “It’s Inspector Hao, and he’s dead.”

Behind her Mr. Hitchens said, “When?”

Robin knelt again and touched face, wrists and ankles. “Not too long ago. He
was
alive yesterday, you were right about that.”

Abruptly Mrs. Pollifax said, “Keep the light on,
Robin, there’s something, a piece of paper—” She leaned over and removed a slip of white paper from Hao’s left hand. Holding it to the light she read aloud, “ ‘I despair. To be thought guilty—’ ” She lowered it thoughtfully. “Suicide note?” she suggested with skepticism. “After he’s been missing for two weeks?” She handed it to Robin.

Robin studied the note with a frown while Mr. Hitchens peered at it over his shoulder. “I don’t believe in this,” he said at last. “A torn fragment addressed to no one at all, the sentence unfinished, no signature and the gun placed in his hand … This has been set up to look like a suicide and I don’t believe in it for a minute.”

“Murder,” said Mrs. Pollifax, naming it, and thought how bizarre the word sounded in this silent, primitive hut built into such a serene landscape.

Mr. Hitchens said, “But the gun, and if that’s his handwriting—?”

“Could have been torn from a letter or a diary,” pointed out Robin.

Mrs. Pollifax, looking curiously around her, said, “I wonder if he was killed here at all, Robin. There’s no breeze this morning. If he was shot only a few hours ago in such close quarters shouldn’t there be a lingering smell of gunpowder? And look at the floor.”