Gelignite (18 page)

Feiffer paused. He said, 'No.'

'I am not a suspect then?'

Feiffer said, 'You are not a suspect. You are a person who may be able to assist with information.' He said, 'If you will not mind my saying so, a man of your years does not go scuttling through drains carrying bombs.' He thought that cleared that up. He said, 'And you have no access to explosives.'

Conway Kan nodded. He said, 'The one place that springs immediately to mind when it comes to having access to explosives is, of course, a quarry.' He said, 'Say, like the granite quarry at Wharf Cove.' He asked, 'Would that be true?'

Feiffer paused. He thought Kan was making just a little too much of relieved innocence. He said with a trace of irritation, 'Yes.'

Conway Kan repeated, The granite quarry at Wharf Cove?'

'Yes.'

Conway Kan said, 'Ah.'

'Why?'

Conway Kan said, 'Because as a matter of fact, I happen to own that as well.' O'Yee looked at him.

*

The aged and deferential servant wearing slippers opened the main door of Conway Kan's mansion and looked at the man standing there. The aged and deferential servant examined him. He knew the man had no appointment. The aged and deferential servant asked, 'Yes?' and agedly and deferentially touched at the pocket of his white linen coat. In the pocket of the coat there was a .25 calibre Webley and Scott automatic pistol, well worn and fully loaded. He asked courteously, 'Sir?'

The man at the door said, I don't want to come in.' He said, 'I've got a package for Mr Kan.' He said, 'I would have used the rear entrance, but I'm only doing a favour for a friend and I didn't know where it was.' He had a small brown parcel in his left hand, about the size of a paperback novel. He handed it over and said, 'It isn't urgent.'

The servant nodded. That all sounded eminently reasonable. (Things always sounded eminently reasonable before the long knives and guns came out.) The servant said, "Thank you.'

The man said, 'I've got my car waiting.' He asked, 'Is Mr Kan in?'

The servant smiled.

There's no hurry for you to give it to him.' He asked, 'He won't get it in the next half hour by any chance?'

The aged and deferential servant shook his head. He kept his hand in his pocket.

The man relaxed. He said airily, 'It's the kidnapping season, you have to be careful.' He glanced significantly at the coat pocket. He said, 'I'm late already,' and went back down the stone stairs to the driveway.

The servant nodded. He watched the man get into his obviously secondhand Moskvich car and drive off.

The servant closed the main door silently and put the package on a black lacquered table outside the scroll room for when Mr Kan was free.

*

Feiffer said, 'You own it? The quarry?
You
own it?'

Conway Kan said, 'Yes.' He said, 'To be frank, the new government regulations on noise control after 6 pm are something of an economic hardship.' He said baitingly, 'Impossible to detonate all those explosions I have stored there.' He said provocatively, 'TNT.'

'Oh, yes?'

That one hadn't worked. Conway Kan said, 'Nitroglycerine? Dynamite?' He made a faint smile and asked, 'What is it that I have there, Chief Inspector?' He said, 'Are there any other sorts of explosives?'

Feiffer said, 'Gelignite.'

'Yes. Gelignite.'

Feiffer said, 'Don't play with me, Mr Kan.'

Conway Kan said, 'Then don't play with me, Chief Inspector! ' He said to O'Yee, 'Are you a part of this?' He seemed suddenly very annoyed.

O'Yee shook his head. He said nothing.

Conway Kan said, 'Loyalty in any event.' He paused and decided about another matter (whether or not the secret between him and O'Yee was still a secret. He decided it was.) He said, 'Mr Feiffer, you knew I owned the quarry.'

'As a matter of fact, I didn't.' Feiffer said, 'In that case you knew the chestnut seller's brother.'

'As a matter of fact, no.'

Feiffer said, 'But you knew the chestnut seller.'

Conway Kan said, 'I may have seen him once or twice, but I am not acquainted with him.' He was going to say something about respective positions in society, but they changed so suddenly, he decided to leave it. He said, 'I simply was not acquainted with him.' He said, 'I knew Mr Leung at the ivory shop and, better, his partner, Mr Tam.' He said, 'As I informed your colleague, Mr O'Yee. But I have no other connection with the recent events.' He said, 'I hardly go about killing people, Mr Feiffer.' He said airily, 'Men of my advanced years do not scuttle about in sewers.'

Feiffer said, 'Drains.'

'I beg your pardon.'

Feiffer said, 'It was a water drain, not a sewer.' He said, 'No one has accused you.' He said, 'In fact, when you asked directly, I informed you just as directly that you were not under suspicion.' He said, 'I think you are upsetting yourself over nothing.' He asked suddenly, 'Why?'

Conway Kan said, 'I have a position to uphold.' He added, 'A financial position.' He said, 'My integrity and honesty are part and parcel of my wealth—if any—' He said, 'Some of the positions I hold, for example—the trustee ownership of the cemetery, do me no monetary good other than to advance my reputation as a man with whom it is safe and reliable to do business.' He said, 'I get no economic gain from the cemetery.' He said, 'Apart from one or two reserved places, it has been closed for years.' He said, 'To be blunt, the ownership devolves upon the person in the community who can afford to run it.' He said, 'Temporarily, I am that person.' He said, 'The bones of my own grandfather are buried there, as are the remains of a great number of the ancestors of people presently living in this district, as well as other places.' He said, 'Some of the descendants of those people are presently on hard times.' He said, 'All the remains in the cemetery are of people who did well—the ancestors, in some cases, of some of the people who are now living in reduced circumstances. The cemetery and their ancestors are an inspiration to them to succeed—' he added quickly, 'On the material level—and many of them will.' He said, looking at O'Yee, 'As Mr O'Yee knows, my own father was a poor man until he made his fortune in the Caribbean. But his father was very rich.' He said, 'My father owed the man who kept up the cemetery in his day a great debt.' Conway Kan said, 'So now I use my own modest fortune to keep it up.' He said, 'There is nothing sinister about the cemetery.'

Feiffer asked, 'Who are these people Tam sees moving about?'

Conway Kan said, 'I have absolutely no idea.'

'Ghosts?'

'I don't know.' Conway Kan said, 'It is only one person, or ghost, or spirit or whatever, and only Mr Tam has seen it.' He said impatiently, 'I have no notion of what you expect to find out from me about the cemetery.'

'I don't know what I expect to find out.' Feiffer said, 'How do you know Mr Tam is the only one to have seen it?'

'Because he told me!'

Feiffer said patiently, 'He told you that he had seen something. But how do you know that no one else has?'

Conway Kan stubbed his cigar in the ashtray. He sighed. He thought, "This is too much—" 'Because the apparition has not been seen by a more reliable source.'

Feiffer thought, "Nothing." He said, 'I see.'

Conway Kan said, 'If a Chinese was going to enter the cemetery in order to do mischief, he would certainly not enter it at night.' He said wearily, 'Superstition—remember?' He said, 'And in the event, the bomber entered it and left it during the day, did he not?'

Feiffer said, 'He did.'

'So!'

Feiffer said, 'I'm desperate—people are being killed and I—'

Conway Kan said finally, 'In any event, Mr Tam's friend is sufficiently well endowed to deal with any trouble during the day.' He said, 'You mentioned that the drain was in the rear of the grounds—'

Feiffer said, 'Yes.'

'Then the visions have nothing to do with that. As I have said, they are at night and always in the front section of the cemetery.' He said, 'His friend has also watched at night when he is free and seen nothing.' Conway Kan thought, "I can't take much more of this without my lawyer here," He thought better of it. He said in a very tired voice, 'Chief Inspector, I am an old man, I am not up to this sort of thing—' He looked at O'Yee and said, 'Dear friend, you—'

Feiffer said, 'Has Mr Tam's friend been into the cemetery at night to check it?'

'Yes!'

'Where does his friend live?'

'His friend lives in the next room in the building in Soochow Street owned by me.'

'Owned by—'

Conway Kan said, 'For my employees—'

'Then his friend is employed by you?'

Conway Kan said, 'Yes!'

'Where?'

'At—'

Feiffer said, 'At the Wharf Cove quarry.'

'He keeps a watchful eye on my buildings and—'

Feiffer said, 'And, with his friend, Mr Tam, on the cemetery.' Suddenly, he knew the connection between Tam and Wong, between a leper watching a cemetery from a window in Soochow Street who was a friend of the rich and a chestnut seller in Canton Street fallen on hard times who was not. He knew where Dien came in, and the funeral society in Matsu Lane, all of it, the entire plan. He said quietly, 'And Mr Tam's friend, your employee, is not Chinese, is he? The one who listens to Mr Tam's stories about death and superstition and the importance of cemeteries.' He asked, 'Am I right?'

Conway Kan said, 'What are you getting at?' Conway Kan said, 'In fact he is—'

Feiffer said to O'Yee, 'They weren't fox prints in the drain.' He said, 'They were the paw marks of a bloody
dog
!'

Mr Kan said, 'The security guard at the quarry.' He said, The one who checks the explosive records.' He said, 'Mr Mendoza.'

Feiffer said, 'Yes—!'

Outside, the minute hand on the wristwatch wired up to its detonator in the brown paper parcel on the black lacquered table reached the quarter hour and made an electrical connection to a battery. An electrical impulse, liberated instantly in the conjoining of two terminals ran joyously down the lead in a millisecond and sent a charge into the copper body of a number six detonator. In that same millisecond the body of the detonator swelled, grew enormous under the pressure of expanding gases, and detonated the batch numbered one pound stick of gelignite pressed around it. The gelignite jumped with the sudden force, then exploded.

*

The telephone rang and rang and rang. It went on ringing and ringing. The telephone went on ringing and ringing. The telephone—

Feiffer picked himself up from the floor and coughed a sudden spasm of acrid blue smoke from the back of his throat. His eyes were streaming and there was a heavy bruised feeling down his back. He looked at O'Yee. O'Yee was bending over Conway Kan, helping him to his feet. Something made a heavy splintering sound and fell down from the wall like the residual rocks and pebbles from an avalanche. The telephone went on ringing and ringing on a side table near the far window. There was the smell of burning in the room and a wisp of white smoke from the ashes of one of the antique scrolls on the floor. The telephone went on ringing and ringing. O'Yee heard the servant's voice coming from somewhere outside in the hall, saying something, and then it stopped, and O'Yee was aware of something like soot or hot ash on his face. The telephone kept ringing unbrokenly. O'Yee wiped the ash or whatever it was away from his face and helped Conway Kan towards one of the chairs that remained upright. The telephone went on—

Feiffer rubbed at his eyes. Things were wet and blurred. He picked up what he thought was the right part of the telephone and said, 'Yes?'

A voice on the other end of the line said, 'This is Mendoza.' Mendoza said, 'You may inform Mr Kan that I have planted charges of gelignite all over his precious cemetery.' He said, 'Some of them in the tombs and coffins themselves, and unless my price is met I intend to detonate them.' He said, 'You can tell Mr Kan that I have made it my business to see that there has been no publicity about past events—' He said,'—which were intended to suggest to Mr Kan that my threat is not an idle one, as well as to instruct those concerned with the cemetery in the same lesson—and, it would be easier and more businesslike to see that there is no publicity about this.' He said, 'The price is six million Hong Kong dollars.' He said, 'Before you ring the police, I shall do it for you.' He asked, as an afterthought, 'Who am I speaking to?' He asked curiously, 'Mr Feiffer?'

'Yes.'

Mendoza said, 'Ah.' That was an unexpected bonus. He said, 'That saves me the trouble.' He said, 'Kindly inform Mr Kan that what I want from him, as trustee and guardian of Chink superstition, is the money.'

Feiffer said, 'You must be—'

Mendoza said, 'Ah.' He paused. He said evenly, 'And for your own part, what I want from you—' He said, 'The police, Mr Feiffer, as the guardians of the law and order that preserve the trustees and guardians of Chink superstition, is even simpler—'

Feiffer did not reply.

Mendoza said, 'Ah . . .' He sounded a little disappointed that Feiffer had not asked. He said, 'I am at the cemetery now.' He said, 'Nearby at any rate. At any rate, I shall be at the cemetery by the time you are at the cemetery.' He said, '— what I want from you, from the police, is immunity.' He said, Total immunity from prosecution.' He said, 'And the money.' He said, 'Absolute and total immunity from prosecution for anything. And the money.' He asked pleasantly, 'Have you got that?'

Feiffer did not reply. He looked dazedly around the shattered room.

Mendoza said, 'All right?'

'I understand what you're saying.'

Mendoza said pleasantly, 'Good.' He said suddenly in a sharp tone, 'Arrange it!'

He made a harsh grating sound in the back of his throat and then he was gone.

The nineteenth-century stone church rotting away in the centre of the Double Tranquillity Resting Place of Heavenly Peace had been envisaged by an American Catholic as the new (and only) Saint Jude's Catholic Church of Hong Kong. The government who immediately agreed to raise the money for the idea were very pleased. They employed trustworthy Chinese workmen who had been deheathenised by the South China Presbyterian Missionaries to build it for him.