A Lotus For Miss Quon (2 page)
Read A Lotus For Miss Quon Online
Authors: James Hadley Chase
"Look, fella," Wade had said, "don't let those curves kid you. These dolls are built like boys. They are as flat in front as they are behind. It was only when they saw Lollo and Bardot on the movies that they wised up to what they lacked. You take a walk through the market. You'll see where they get those shapes. I reckon a set of falsies is the hottest sales project in this police ridden hell-hole of a city."
"I am Nhan Lee Quon," the girl had said as she sat down opposite Jaffe. She spoke excellent French. "You may call me Nhan."
They stared for a long moment at each other, then Jaffe stubbed out his cigarette, aware of a sudden tingling excitement.
"I'm Steve Jaffe," he said. "You may call me Steve."
It had been as simple as that.
Jaffe reached down for the nail which Haum gave him. He positioned the point of the nail exactly on his pencil mark, then he accepted the hammer Haum handed up to him. He gave the head of the nail a sharp tap.
In this way, he found the diamonds.
2
Under the impact of the hammer against the head of the nail, a six-inch square segment of the wall collapsed in a flurry of plaster and dust, revealing a deep hole.
Jaffe, poised on the step-ladder, stared with consternation at the damage he had caused, then he said violently, "Oh, double hell!"
Haum, expressing himself in the Vietnamese manner of showing grief, laughed in a high cackle that infuriated Jaffe.
"Oh, shut up!" He exclaimed and put the hammer down on the top rung of the ladder. "Why goddam it, the wall's made of paper!"
Then it occurred to him that the wall wasn't made of paper but was at least the thickness of two feet, and the hole in the wall was a cunning hiding place: a hidden safe which probably had been there for a long time.
Cautiously, he dipped his hand into the dark opening. His fingers touched something. He lifted out a small leather bag, and as he did so, the rotten bottom of the bag disintegrated, and from it poured bright, sparkling objects that bounced on the parquet floor.
He recognized the tiny objects as diamonds. They made a disjointed pattern of fiery brilliance around the foot of the ladder. He stared down at their glittering magnificence. Although his knowledge of diamonds was no more than the average man's, he knew these stones were worth an enormous sum of money. There seemed to be at least a hundred of them; the majority of them were the size of pea seeds. He felt his mouth turn dry and his heart begin to thump with excitement.
Squatting down on his haunches, Haum made a tutting sound with his tongue; a sound the Vietnamese make when they are excited. He picked up one of the diamonds and examined it.
Jaffe watched him.
There was a long pause, then Haum glanced up and the two men stared at each other. With some hesitancy because of Jaffe's tenseness, Haum smiled, revealing his gold-capped teeth.
"These diamonds, sir," he said, "belonged to General Nguyen Van Tho. The police have been searching for them for years."
Very slowly, as if he were walking on egg shells, Jaffe climbed down from the ladder and squatted beside his servant.
Jaffe was an immensely powerfully-built man. He was over six feet tall. His shoulder span would have satisfied two averagely built Europeans. In his younger days, he had been a fanatical physical culture enthusiast. He had gone in for weight-lifting, football, boxing and wrestling. Even after a five year lay off, he was still in pretty good condition, and as he squatted down beside Haum, the physical difference between the two men was sharply contrasted. Beside Jaffe's muscular bulk, the Vietnamese seemed like an undernourished pigmy.
Jaffe picked up one of the diamonds and rolled it between his fingers.
These stones, he thought, must be worth a million dollars — probably more. Talk about the Jaffe luck! I drive a goddam nail into a goddam wall and make a goddam fortune!
Haum said, "The general was a very rich man. It was known that he had bought diamonds. Then the bomb killed him. His Excellency will be very pleased the diamonds have been found."
Jaffe felt his heart give a little kick against his ribs. He looked at Haum who was smiling happily at the diamond he was holding.
"What are you talking about?" Jaffe asked. He straightened up, towering above the squatting Vietnamese. "What general?"
"General Nguyen Van Tho," Haum said. "He was in the pay of the French. He did much harm before the bomb killed him. He robbed the Army of much money and with the money he bought these diamonds. Before he could get away, the bomb went off."
Jaffe moved over to the table and picking up a pack of cigarettes, he shook out a cigarette and lit it. He noticed his hand was unsteady.
"What makes you think these diamonds belong to the general?" he asked, thinking here was an immediate complication. He suddenly remembered that Haum was an ardent supporter of the present regime and that he had a photograph of President Ngo-Dinh-Diem hanging in the cook house. He remembered too that Haum went twice a week to attend a course in political science. He suddenly realized the significance of these facts. It was sheer bad luck that this little Vietnamese should have been in the room when Jaffe had found the diamonds.
He would have to handle this situation carefully, Jaffe thought, if he was going to keep the diamonds, and he had every intention of keeping them.
"Who else could they belong to?" Haum asked. He began to pick up the diamonds, collecting them in the palm of his hand. "This house was once owned by Mai Chang."
Scarcely listening, Jaffe was thinking, the little swine is handling those stones as if they belong to him. If I'm not careful, he'll march out of here and hand them to his precious President.
"Who is Mai Chang?" he asked and then his mind shifted to the problem of how to dispose of the diamonds. Certainly not in Vietnam. He would have to smuggle them into Hong Kong; he would have no difficulty in selling them there.
"She was the general's woman," Haum said contemptuously."When he died, she went to prison. This was her house. The general must have hidden these stones here for safety."
"If the authorities knew the woman lived here, why didn't they come and find the diamonds?" Jaffe asked.
"It was thought the diamonds had been stolen," Haum said, reaching under a chair to pick up a stray diamond. "It was supposed the general had them on him when the bomb went off, and in the confusion, someone took them from his body."
"What bomb?" Jaffe asked, merely to gain a little time. He was wondering how he could persuade Haum to keep quiet about the diamonds. He would have to be very tactful. He would have to give Haum a face-saving reason why he should hand the diamonds over to him and to persuade him to accept some of the proceeds. Jaffe couldn't imagine Haum would refuse a sum of money if it were offered to him in a diplomatic way.
"It was while the general was trying to escape that someone threw a bomb at him," Haum said. He stood up and stared at the diamonds glittering in his hand.
Jaffe moved to his desk and took out a white envelope from the paper rack. Casually, he approached Haum. Tut them in here," he said, pinching open the envelope. Haum hesitated, then he poured the diamonds into the envelope. He made a tentative move to take the envelope from Jaffe, but Jaffe had already started to move away from him. Jaffe licked the flap of the envelope, then sealed it. He put the envelope in the hip pocket of his shorts.
A worried expression came over Haum's brown face.
"It would be better, sir, to call the police," he said. "They will want to see the wall. I will tell them how you found the diamonds. In this way, there will be no complications."
Jaffe stubbed out his cigarette. He was feeling slightly more relaxed. At least he had got the diamonds away from Haum. That was a step in the right direction. He must now attempt to persuade Haum to keep his mouth shut.
"Don't let's be in too great a hurry about this," he said, and moving over to an armchair, he sat down. "I don't believe these diamonds did belong to the general. If I took the trouble to check on the various owners of this house, I'm sure I'd find the diamonds belonged to someone long dead and who lived here long before the general came here. It is more than possible that the general's diamonds were stolen at the time of his death."
Haum gazed at him ; his face expressionless. Jaffe could see the little man wasn't impressed by what he had said and he felt a wave of irritation run through him.
"That is for the police to decide, sir," Haum said. "If the diamonds belong to the general, his Excellency will be very pleased to recover them, and you will be highly honoured."
"Well, that's nice to know," Jaffe said sarcastically, "but it so happens I'm not interested in honours. Besides, the police will naturally claim they do belong to the general." He attempted a stiff smile. "You know what policemen are like."
He saw this was a mistake for Haum lost his worried expression and became suddenly hostile.
The diamonds, sir, belong to the State whether or not they once belonged to the general. It is not for anyone except the State to decide what to do with them."
"That's your opinion," Jaffe said, his voice curt. "I could sell these diamonds. Naturally, I would give you a share. You could become a rich man, Haum."
Well, there it is, he thought. Now the cards are on the table. What's the little bastard going to do?
Haum stiffened. His black eyes opened to their widest extent.
"It would be against the regulations to sell the diamonds," he said.
"The authorities won't know about it," Jaffe said. "I can sell the diamonds and I will give you a share."
"I think it would be better to tell the police, sir," Haum said stiffly.
"Don't you want to become rich?" Jaffe felt the hopelessness of trying to corrupt this little man, but he wasn't going to give up without a struggle. "You could have a house of your own and servants. You could marry that girl of yours who is always hanging around here. You could buy a car."
Haum lifted his shoulders.
"The diamonds, sir, are not mine to sell, nor yours. They belong to the State."
Well, that's that, Jaffe thought. He felt a sudden vicious rage take hold of him. Here I have a million bucks in my pocket and because of this damn yellow monkey, the money's going down the drain. There must be some way out of this jam. To give up a million dollars!
Haum said, "If you will excuse me, sir, it is my afternoon off. I have an appointment."
It suddenly flashed into Jaffe's mind that once Haum left the room, he would first tell Dong Ham, the cook, about the diamonds, then dash off to the police station and within ten minutes, the house would be full of trigger-happy policemen. He got quickly to his feet and stepped between Haum and the door leading to the courtyard.
"Now, wait a minute," he said, "you're going to keep your goddam mouth shut about this or I'll skin you alive!"
He had no idea how menacing he looked when he was angry. His huge, towering figure, his hard, angry expression and the viciousness in his voice struck terror into Haum. The Vietnamese had now only one thought: to get out of the room and tell the police about the diamonds. He darted around the table, along the wall, putting the table between himself and Jaffe, and then made a wild dash for the door.
In spite of his size, Jaffe had perfect balance and his body, still hard in spite of his drinking and his lack of exercise, responded to his quick mind to a degree Haum hadn't suspected.
As Haum's sweating fingers closed over the door handle, Jaffe's fingers closed over his shoulder and jerked him around. Haum was horrified by the strength of those fingers. It was as if his flesh was being squeezed in steel pincers. The agony of the grip made him cry out: a thin scream like that of a terrified rabbit. He tried to break free, struck feebly at Jaffe's wrist, then opened his mouth to scream again.
Jaffe clamped his hand over Haum's mouth, digging his fingers into the Vietnamese's face, cutting off his scream. Haum writhed in the grip, trying to bite Jaffe's hand while he kicked at Jaffe's legs: his soft soled shoes making no impression on Jaffe's hard muscles.
"Shut up!" Jaffe snarled and gave the Vietnamese a vicious shake.
He heard a faint dry sound like the snapping of a stick. Haum's face suddenly became heavy in his fingers and seemed to come adrift from his thin neck. Jaffe saw his eyes roll back and felt his knees sag. He found he was holding the Vietnamese up by his face and that his legs were no longer supporting him.
In sudden panic, Jaffe released his grip and watched Haum slide down against the wall and spread out on the floor like a doll whose sawdust had leaked away. He saw a trickle of bright-red blood coming from Haum's half-open mouth. He knelt beside the Vietnamese and touched him cautiously. "Hey . . . Haum! Hell! What's the matter with you?" Then with a shudder, he stood up. The full force of his predicament struck him. Haum was dead, and he had murdered him!
C
HAPTER
T
WO
With a violently thumping heart, Jaffe stared down at Haum's crumpled body. His immediate reaction was to get help. He turned to the telephone, but paused, frowning and shaking his head.
There was nothing anyone could do now for Haum. He was dead. This was not the moment to think of him, but of himself.
He looked at the ladder standing against the wall. Suppose he told the police that Haum had fallen off the ladder and had accidentally broken his neck?
His eyes shifted to the hole in the wall. The moment the police saw that hole they would suspect it had been a hiding-place for something. They would remember that this house had once belonged to Mai Chang, General Nguyen Van Tho's mistress. It wouldn't take them long to assume that the general's diamonds had been hidden in the wall.
Jaffe moved over to Haum's body. He peered down at the little man. He saw the skin around Haum's mouth and throat was bruised and broken. These tell-tale marks would rule out any story of an accident with the ladder.
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