Shadow of the Osprey (46 page)

Kate looked away. She would never make the same mistake as Emma. There were too many men who were prepared to live lives as real husbands. Men who came home every night and were always there for their wives and families. Luke Tracy was not one of them!

As Kate sat consoling Emma, Luke went out to the bush to fetch John and Hue. Soo Yin’s intelligence network would already have informed the tong leader that it appeared Michael Duffy’s expedition had been successful in snatching the Cochinese girl from Captain Mort.

Indeed the information came to Soo Yin from the brothel of his rival tong. John Wong’s greatest fear was about to be realised. He had been marked for a slow, agonising death for his betrayal of a sacred oath. Soo sent a message to his best assassin.

C
hristie Palmerston leaned on the table, staring with seemingly vacant eyes at Horace Brown. Around them in the crowded hotel bar, men swapped stories of good fortune and bad luck. The sun was going down and the bar was filling quickly with thirsty gold seekers.

‘I got Mister O’Flynn back to the miner’s camp outside town,’ Christie said in a weary voice. ‘The doc says I may as well get him a coffin.’

Horace sighed and tap-tapped the point of his walking cane on the floor. He had listened with interest to Christie Palmerston’s unfolding story of the past few days. Henry James was dead, as was Captain Mort. Luke Tracy, John Wong and the girl’s whereabouts were unknown and Michael Duffy appeared to be on the verge of joining James and Mort. He listened with interest to the strange tale about a wild blackfella who had seemingly appeared from nowhere to help the young bushman get Duffy back to Cooktown. As mysteriously as the Aboriginal had appeared he also disappeared. Although Christie had not mentioned the man’s name Horace had an eerie feeling. ‘The blackfella’s name wasn’t Wallarie by any chance?’ he asked quietly, and Christie shot him a startled look.

‘How did you know?’

Horace smiled enigmatically. How could he tell the man on the other side of the table? How could he explain the mysteries of life that occurred from time to time with rational explanation? He was aware of the name Wallarie from his discreet inquiries into the history of the Duffy clan. It was a name with a vague and almost supernatural overtone in their family history. A name to inspire both awe and fear. ‘Dear boy, if I even tried to explain how I know of the name of your dusky Samaritan I think you would consider me quite mad. So let us move on to matters pressing the moment. You have no idea where Hue might be?’ he asked, as Christie downed a shot of rum.

Christie shook his head and stared seemingly into thin air. ‘No idea,’ he replied. ‘Could be anywhere in Cooktown, if they got back all right.’

But Horace had an idea where he might find out the missing trio’s location. Did he not have the services of the tong leader whose intelligence network in Cooktown was better than his own? ‘I would like to see Mister O’Flynn,’ Horace said gently. ‘I owe him a debt for his courage.’

‘I can take you to him tonight,’ Christie replied, rising like an old man from his chair. ‘He’s not far away.’

‘I will, in time,’ Horace said. ‘But I have an urgent appointment first.’

Christie nodded and bade his good night to the little Englishman. Horace watched him leave and brooded on the situation. The Eurasian and the American had Hue somewhere and he had an obligation to get her back and into the hands of the French for the sake of Anglo–French relations. Michael Duffy had kept his word and completed his mission. It was a pity that it seemed it would also cost him his life as he was undoubtedly a courageous and resourceful man. Horace rose from the table and made his way to the door.

Soo Yin eyed the Englishman from under hooded eyes as Horace stood in the small room where from time to time they shared their opium dreams. There was one other in the room with them, a solidly-built Chinese with a toad-like face and many ugly scars covering his body. Horace was surprised to see the third man in the room as he had heard from his Chinese contacts that the man was none other than the dreaded enforcer of the tong. A man very rarely seen unless someone’s demise was imminent.

‘I do not know where John Wong is,’ Soo lied. ‘He will no doubt report to me in due course.’

‘That surprises me,’ Horace replied in Chinese. ‘I thought you knew all that occurred in this town. I thought you would have known John Wong is somewhere in Cooktown.’

Soo’s expression altered slightly and Horace thought he recognised the trace of a dangerous scowl on the man’s face. His statement was a contemptuous challenge to Soo Yin’s competency. Any other man would be dead for such an expression of contempt. But Soo was a businessman above all else and knew that he needed the Englishman’s European contacts in the colonial service. Both men stared at each other across the short distance of the small incense-filled room. Soo Yin did not fear the barbarian who was, after all, an effeminate man who had a taste for both willing Asian boys and opium. Such a man was no threat, he dismissed contemptuously. From the corner of his eye Horace glanced at the Chinese assassin and noticed that the man was sneering at him. Horace could tolerate much in life, except contempt, and felt his anger rising. Neither the tong leader nor his killer noticed the flash of anger from behind the Englishman’s spectacles.

‘If you cannot help me find John Wong,’ Horace said, ‘then I shall bid you goodnight and return to my hotel.’

Soo did not rise but remained reclining on his pillows as Horace left the room. When he was gone Soo nodded to his assassin.

But Horace did not return to his hotel. Instead, he walked a short distance from the Chinese quarter and took up a position in the shadows opposite Kate O’Keefe’s merchandise depot. Very soon his suspicions were confirmed. The Chinese assassin was in the street, mingling with the busy traffic of miners out for a good time. Horace had guessed that if Hue was with either John Wong or Luke Tracy, the American would have naturally sought Kate O’Keefe for help. Now it was obvious that Soo Yin was also interested in the Cochinese girl. Horace had long lost faith in trust. Trust was not a characteristic of intelligence work and he had guessed that the sudden appearance of the Chinese killer was too coincidental. The man had been fetched to kill John Wong and anyone else who might oppose him taking the girl back to Soo. Still smarting from Soo’s contempt, Horace watched the assassin disappear down a dark lane behind the depot.

He is going around the back to seek a way in, Horace realised.

From a bale of cotton cloth Hue watched John Wong move about the small store room. He was like one of the great and feared tigers of her homeland as he paced, acutely alert and ready to pounce, she thought. And his dark eyes reflected the tension he was experiencing as they waited for the American to come and fetch them. ‘You must rest,’ she said softly and John ceased pacing, ‘or you will tire yourself out.’

His warm smile seemed to fill the room and he sat down on the bale beside her. ‘Everything will work out,’ he said with a gentle sigh. ‘Luke Tracy can be trusted.’

‘I know,’ Hue replied. ‘He has done much for me already, as you have.’ John felt the brush of her small hand on his arm and he turned to look into her eyes.

‘Hue,’ he said, and paused. It was hard to find words delicate enough for the moment. They did not come and he looked away.

‘You want to tell me that you love me,’ Hue prompted gently, and he looked at her with an expression of great surprise. She was smiling sadly and he felt as if his heart would burst.

‘I think so,’ he choked, and in halting words continued, ‘I think I loved you from the moment I first saw you with Mort’s party back on the track. I . . . ’ His words trailed away when he saw the expression of pain in the beautiful young woman’s face.

‘I wish it could be so,’ she said looking away. It was not the way of her people to keep eye contact as it was considered impolite, even though Europeans misinterpreted the gesture as evasiveness. ‘But I can never marry any man not promised to me by my family. I must return to my country and continue the war against the French invaders. Just as my ancestors have resisted the Chinese and Huns before me. And who knows . . . after we have defeated the French.’

‘I love you Hue,’ John said. ‘I always will and want to help you in your fight against your enemies.’

Surprised, Hue turned wide-eyed to stare into the face of the man she had grown to respect – and even love – in the short time they had been together. ‘You would journey with me even though I cannot return your feelings?’ she asked. ‘You would risk your life in a war that is not of your own?’

‘For you I would,’ John said simply. ‘And maybe, with time, you might get to like me enough to reconsider your family’s wishes.’

Hue frowned. ‘I cannot promise you that might happen,’ she said. ‘And I would pray that you remain in this country which is really your own. You are more of this land than of Asia. You don’t even speak Chinese very well,’ she added teasingly, and John laughed. Impulsively he gripped her shoulders and kissed her on the lips. Startled, Hue did not resist, and felt his kiss as warm as the breeze in the tropical gardens of her father’s palace.

He drew back and gazed at her. ‘Then maybe I might do a better job of learning your language,’ he said, still laughing softly. ‘I always found Chinese a hard language to master.’

Hue smiled. She so badly wanted to let this big barbarian possess her. She realised the great depth of her desire to always be by his side, but she must conceal her anguish from the man she most wanted. They were both in a time and place not of their choosing and she still had a mission to free her land of the European invaders. ‘If it is in our destinies,’ she said softly, ‘we will be as one.’

That is all John wanted to hear. He knew then that he would follow his princess to hell and back if their destiny determined it. Hope was a tiny but intense flame that defied any attempt to put it out. Such was the strength of his love for the beautiful Cochinese girl. And, he suspected, such was her love for him.

~

Hah! Only the girl and the Eurasian! The tong assassin peered through a window in Kate’s store. It would be easy when the big Eurasian went to sleep. He would pry open the window, slip in, and cut his throat. But he would have some hours to wait. It seemed the girl and the Eurasian were deep in conversation. They almost looked like lovers from the way they conversed, he thought with some amusement. And it would be a long time before they decided to sleep.

The toad-like killer felt reassured that the unlit yard would conceal him. All he must do was stay awake and then carry out his task. He had no fear; the victim was not expecting him, and he had killed many times before in Hong Kong, without any real fuss. He settled down with his back against a wooden fence and waited.

‘Ah, my good man,’ Horace said, suddenly looming out of the night in the backyard. ‘I thought I might ask you a question.’ Startled, the assassin stood up, knocking over an empty wooden crate.

How had the contemptuous barbarian moved on him so easily? Before he could answer his own question he felt a searing pain in his chest. Confused, he remembered vaguely the flash of light on a sword blade. The Englishman was only a face away and smiling at him as the pain radiated through his chest. How . . . what had happened . . . how could the effeminate barbarian kill him? He was, after all, Soo Yin’s best enforcer.

Groaning with pain the assassin slumped to the ground, his fingers wrapped around the long thin blade of the sword cane. His grip soon relaxed, however, and he died with a surprised expression contorting his face. Horace placed his foot on the dead man’s chest and yanked the blade free. It had been a clean kill, he congratulated himself. The razor-like tip had pierced the man’s heart without him getting a chance to react to the killing thrust.

When the blade came free Horace casually wiped it on the assassin’s jacket before sliding it into the hollow shaft of the silver-knobbed cane. He riffled through the dead man’s clothes and found a large, finely honed knife. No doubt the weapon that would have been used to kill John Wong, he thought idly. And it would do to complete the task he had in mind. Softly whistling an old tune he remembered from his days soldiering in the Crimea, Horace carried out his task with the professional efficiency of a master butcher.

Soo Yin’s ghastly expression gave Horace great pleasure. The tong leader had actually recoiled from the thing that had rolled with an obscene splattering of blood right up to the pillows where he reclined. He looked up at Horace who had casually removed his spectacles to wipe them, annoyed that some of the assassin’s blood had smeared his spectacles when he had cut off the man’s head. When he was satisfied that the spectacles were clean, he replaced them on the tip of his nose, and spoke. ‘I have no doubt that you are somewhat upset that I killed your man,’ he said casually. ‘But I do not like being doublecrossed. Or lied to. Both you and I know that the Cochinese girl is staying in Kate O’Keefe’s depot. And as far as I am concerned, she will remain there under your protection, in the company of John Wong.’

‘Why should I listen to you?’ Soo Yin hissed. The head lay inches away, staring with sightless opaque eyes at him. It was acutely unnerving that the man who he had dismissed as an effeminate barbarian had killed his best assassin. When he looked up from the head to the portly little man standing before him he saw only an expression of mild amusement; there was absolutely no sign of fear at all from Brown, considering that he had dared make such a gesture. Only feet away were men that he could call on to kill the barbarian here and now without question. But Brown seemed oblivious to the threat. ‘I could have you killed Mister Brown,’ he continued. ‘You were a stupid man to think you could come here in an attempt to make me lose face.’

‘That is not my intention Soo,’ Horace replied. ‘You are a businessman, and as such I knew I could not come to see you unless I had something of importance to offer.’

‘What might that be?’ Soo queried. His expression reflected an interest in the statement Horace had made and he could see that the tong leader was even now forgetting the presence of the head at his feet.

‘For your compliance with my wishes to leave the Eurasian and the Cochinese girl alone,’ Horace said calmly, ‘I will pledge assistance in you expediting the remains of your dead countrymen back to the land of their ancestors.’

‘You have contacts in the customs service?’ Soo asked with rising interest. ‘Who will assist me?’ How had the Englishman learned of his means of smuggling gold in the bodies of dead coolies being sent home to Hong Kong? He should not have wondered. Horace Brown was a remarkable man for a barbarian. Not only did he speak his language with fluency but he was also a spy.

‘I have,’ Horace replied, and Soo smiled for the first time in Horace’s memory of the man.