Tai-Pan (94 page)

Struan brooded awhile, “Aye, that’s curious, right enough.”

“Longstaff’s no gardener that I know of. Perhaps it was Sinclair’s idea—he’s a bent for gardening. At least his sister has.” Skinner watched the Chinese coolies working at the printing press. “I hear she’s quite sick.”

“The lass is recovering, I’m happy to say. The doctor said it was a stomach flux.”

“I hear Brock was aboard the flagship this afternoon.”

“Your information’s very good.”

“I was wondering whether I should be preparing an obituary.”

“Sometimes I dinna find your humor amusing.”

The sweat ran down Skinner’s jowels and dropped onto his soiled shirt. “That wasn’t meant as a pleasantry, Tai-Pan.”

“Well, I’m taking it as such,” Struan said easily. “Bad joss to talk about obituaries.” He watched the press spewing out tomorrow’s paper. “I had a thought about Whalen. Longstaff named the old town Queen’s Town. Now we have a new town. Perhaps Whalen should have the honor of choosing another name.”

Skinner chuckled. “That would involve him nicely. What name have you decided on, Tai-Pan?”

“Victoria.”

“I like it. Victoria, eh? In one simple stroke Longstaff’s obliterated. Take it as ‘suggested,’ Tai-Pan. Leave that to me. Whalen will never realize it wasn’t his own idea—I guarantee.” Skinner scratched his belly contentedly. “When do I own the paper?”

“The day Hong Kong’s accepted by the Crown and the Treaty’s ratified by both governments.” Struan gave him a document. “It’s all down here. My chop’s on it. Of course, provided the 
Oriental Times
 is still a going concern at that time.”

“Have you any doubt, Tai-Pan?” Skinner asked happily. He could see the future clearly. Ten years, he told himself. Then I’ll be rich. Then I’ll go home and marry a squire’s daughter and buy a small manor house in Kent and start a paper in London. Yes, Morley, old lad, he thought, you’ve come a long way from the alleys of Limehouse and that pox-ridden orphanage and gutter scavenging. God curse those devils who birthed me and left me. “Thank you, Tai-Pan. I won’t fail, never fear.”

“By the way, you might like an exclusive story. Cinchona cures the malaria of Happy Valley.”

Skinner was momentarily speechless. “Oh my God, Tai-Pan, that’s not a story—that’s immortality.” He finally blurted. “Exclusive, did you say? This is the greatest story in the world! Of course,” he added craftily, “the peg to that story is the ‘she’—or ‘he’—who was cured.”

“Write what you like—but dinna involve me or mine.”

“No one’ll ever believe it unless they’ve seen the cure with their own eyes. The doctors will say it’s hogwash.”

“Let ’em. Their patients will die. Say so!” Struan told him bluntly. “
I
 believe the story so much that I’m putting a substantial investment into it. Cooper and I are now partners in the cinchona business. We’ll have stocks available in six months.”

“Can I print that?”

Struan laughed shortly. “I’d na tell you if it was secret.”

On Queen’s Road, Struan was blasted by the heat of the night. The moon was high and misted in a sky almost completely cloud-locked. But as yet there was no nimbus.

He set off down the road and did not stop until he had reached the dockyard. There he turned inland slightly, down a shabby potholed street. He went up a short flight of stairs and into a house.

“Bless my soul,” Mrs. Fortheringill said, her false teeth making her smile grotesque. She was in the parlor having supper—kippers and brown bread and a flagon of ale. “Ladies,” she called out, and rang a bell that was attached to her belt. “Nothing like a good frolic on a hot night, I always say.” She noticed Struan was in shirtsleeves. “No wasted time undressing, is that the idea, Tai-Pan?”

“I just came to see—er, your guest.”

She smiled sweetly. “That old bugger’s outstayed his welcome.”

Four girls ambled in. Their feathered woolen kimonos were stained and they stank of perfume and stale sweat. They were barely twenty—hard, rough, and used to the life they led. They waited for Struan to choose.

“Nelly’s the one for you, Tai-Pan,” Mrs. Fortheringill said. “Eighteen and sound in limb and vigorous.”

“Thank you, ma’am.” Nelly bobbed a curtsy and her full breasts swayed out of the kimono. She was heavy and blonde, her eyes ancient and frosted. “You wanta come with me, Tai-Pan luv?”

Struan gave them each a guinea and sent them away. “Where is Mr. Quance?”

“Second floor back, left. The Blue Room.” Mrs. Fortheringill peered over her spectacles at him. “Times is very hard, Tai-Pan. Your Mr. Quance eats like a horse and swears something terrible. Shocking for the young ladies. His bill’s long overdue.”

“Where’d you get the girls, eh?”

A stony glint came into the old woman’s eyes. “Where there’s a market, there’s always ladies to service it, eh? From England. Some from Australia. Here and there. Why?”

“How much does one cost you?”

“Trade secret, Tai-Pan. You’ve yours, we’ve ours.” She nodded to the table and changed the subject. “You’d like to sup? The kippers is special from home. This week’s mail ship.”

“Thank you, but I’ve already eaten.”

“Who’s to pay dear Mr. Quance’s bill?”

“How much is it?”

“He has the reckoning. I hear Mrs. Quance is right proper upset with him.”

“I’ll discuss the reckoning with him.”

“Your credit’s never in question, Tai-Pan.”

“Did Gorth’s girl die?” Struan asked abruptly.

The old woman was again a model of gentility. “What? I don’t know what you mean. There ain’t any bad goings-on in my establishment!”

Struan’s knife was in his hand, the point touching the withered folds of skin that hung from Mrs. Fortheringill’s neck. “Did she?”

“Not here she didn’t. She were took away. For the love of God, don’t—”

“Did she or did she na die?”

“I hear she did, but it weren’t nothing to do with me—”

“How much did Gorth pay, to keep your mouth shut?”

“Two hundred guineas.”

“What happened to the girl?”

“I don’t know. That’s God’s mortal truth, so help me! Relations came for her. He paid ’em hundred nicker and they were satisfied. They took her away. She were only a heathen.”

Struan put the knife away. “You may have to repeat that in a court of law.”

“That bugger’s dead, I hear, so there’s naught to be said, I’d be thinking. And how can I say anything? Don’t know her name and there’s no corpse that I knows of. You know how it is, Tai-Pan. But I’ll swear on a Bible to Brock, if that’s wot’s in yor mind.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Fortheringill.”

He climbed the stairs to the Blue Room. Its whitewashed walls were a dirty gray, and wind blew through cracks. There was a huge mirror on one wall, and crimson-frilled curtains were draped around the great four-poster. Paintings were stacked on the floor and hung on the walls, and the floor was speckled with oil- and water-color paints. In the center of the room was an easel, and scattered around it were dozens of pots of paints and paintbrushes.

Aristotle Quance was snoring in bed. Only his nose and nightcap were visible.

Struan picked up a broken pitcher and flung it against the wall. It exploded into tiny pieces, but Quance just snuggled down deeper under the covers. Struan picked up a larger pitcher and crashed it against the wall.

Quance eased himself up and opened his eyes. “Bless my soul! The Devil himself, by all that’s holy!”

He bounded out of the bed and embraced Struan. “Tai-Pan, my beloved patron! I worship you! When did you arrive?”

“Get away with you,” Struan said. “Just got in today!”

“I hear Gorth’s dead.”

“Aye.”

“Thank the Lord for that. Three days ago that dung-eater came here and swore he’d cut me throat if I told a soul about the girl.”

“How much did he give you na to tell?”

“Not a penny, dirty miser! Great balls of fire, I only asked a hundred.”

“How’re things with you?”

“Terrible sad, my dear fellow. Herself is still here. Oh God, protect me! So I have to still hole up here. Can’t move—daren’t.” Quance hopped back into bed and, picking up a huge stick, thumped the floor three times. “Ordering breakfast,” he volunteered. “Care to join me? Now tell me all your news!”

“You eat breakfast at nine at night?”

“Well, my dear fellow, when you’re in a whorehouse you act like a whore!” He roared with laughter, then grabbed his chest. “God’s blood, Tai-Pan, I’m faint. You see before you a shadow of a man—a veritable ghost of the immortal Quance.”

Struan sat on the bed. “Mrs. Fortheringill said something about a bill. I gave you a bag of gold, by God!”

“Bill?” Quance rummaged under the pillow and shoved a half-eaten sandwich, two books, a few paintbrushes and several articles of female underwear out of the way and found the paper. He pressed it into Struan’s hands breathlessly. “Look what that usurer’s charging you.”

“Charging 
you,
 you mean,” Struan said. He read the total. “Good God Almighty!” The bill came to four hundred and sixteen pounds four shillings and four pence and a farthing. Seven and sixpence per day, board and lodging. One hundred and seven pounds for paints, brushes, canvas. The balance was headed “Miscellaneous charges.”

“What the devil’s this figure?”

Quance pursed his lips. “ ’Pon me word, that’s what I’ve tried to get out of the old cat.”

Struan went to the door and bellowed downstairs. “Mrs. Fortheringill!”

“Did you call me, Tai-Pan?” she asked sweetly from the well of the stairs.

“Aye. Would you kindly step this way?”

“You wanted me?” she asked even more sweetly as she came into the room.

“What the devil’s this?” Struan stabbed the bill viciously with a finger. “ ‘Miscellaneous’—nearly three hundred and twenty pounds!”

“Ah,” she replied archly. “Trade, Tai-Pan.”

“Eh?”

“Mr. Quance likes company at all hours, and that’s the amount of his trade since he’s been in our care.” She sniffed disdainfully. “We keep proper books here. It’s correct to the minute.”

“Lies!” Quance howled. “She’s cooked the books, Tai-Pan. It’s blackmail!”

“Blackmail?” Mrs. Fortheringill shrieked. “Why you—you—and here’s me and my ladies saving you from worse than death and the second time to boot!”

“But three hundred-odd pounds?” Struan said.

“Correct to the minute, by God. He likes to paint ’em as well as . . . my bookkeeper’s the best in Asia. Has to be!”

“It’s impossible,” Struan insisted.

Quance stood on the bed and put one hand over his heart and with the other pointed at the woman. “I refuse the entire bill on your behalf, Tai-Pan!” He was puffed up like a peacock. “It’s usury!”

“Oh, it is, is it? Well, I’ll tell you, you blathering old fart-dungheap right to your face—out you go! And I’ll send word to that woman tonight!” The little woman spun around and screeched, “Ladies!”

“Now, Mrs. Fortheringill, there’s no need for temper,” Quance said tentatively.

The girls came running. Eight of them. “Take them out and put ’em in me room,” she ordered, waving at the paints and brushes and paintings. “No more credit, and them’s mine until the bill’s paid to the penny!” And she huffed out.

Quance scrambled out of bed, his nightshirt flaring. “Ladies! You’ll touch nothing, by God!”

“Now, be a good boy,” Nellie said calmly. “If Ma’am says they’s to go, if the Lord Himself was standing there, they’s to go!”

“Oh yes, funnybunny darling,” another said. “Our Nelly’s said it proper.”

“Just a minute, ladies,” Struan said. “Mr. Quance’s been given a bill. That’s the reason for all the trouble. Miss Nelly, er, have you, well, spent time with him?”

Nelly stared at Struan. “ ‘Time’ you say, Tai-Pan? Our dear Mr. Quance has an appetite for time the like of which ain’t even in the Bible.”

“Oh yes, Tai-Pan,” another said with a chuckle. “Sometimes he likes two of us together. Oh, he is a one!”

“To paint, by God!” Quance shouted.

“Oh, go on with you, Mr. Quance,” Nelly said. “We’s friends together.”

“He paints us some of the time,” another said agreeably.

“When?” another asked. “I ain’t ever beed painted.”

“Lies, by God!” Quance protested to Struan, and when he saw the Tai-Pan’s expression, he winced and shrank back into the bed. “Come now, Tai-Pan,” he implored. “No need to be precipitate. A fellow can’t help it if he’s—popular.”

“If you think I’m paying for your quent, you’re sick in the head!”

“What’s ‘quent’?” Nelly asked, indignant. “We’re respectable ladies, that’s wot. We bleedin’ well are and we don’t like dirty words!”

“It’s Latin for ‘time,’ my dear Miss Nelly,” Quance said hoarsely.

“Oh,” she said, and bobbed a curtsy. “Beggin’ yor pardon, Tai-Pan!”

Quance clutched his heart and rolled his eyeballs. “Tai-Pan, if you forsake me, I’m finished. Debtors’ prison! I beg you”—he clambered out of bed and knelt supplicatingly—“don’t turn your back on an old friend!”

“I’ll settle this bill and take all your paintings against your loan. But this is the last penny. Understand, Aristotle? I’m paying no more!”

“Bless you, Tai-Pan. You’re a prince.”

“Oh yes,” Nelly said and sidled up to Struan. “Come on, luv. You pay Ma’am’s bill and it’ll be on the house.”

“Wot about me?” another asked. “Course, Nelly’s got more trickeries.”

They all nodded amiably and waited.

“I’d recommend,” Quance started, but Struan’s glare cut him short. “Every time you look at me like that, Tai-Pan, I feel near death. Forlorn. Lost. Forsaken.”

In spite of his irritation Struan laughed. “Devil take you!” And he strode for the door. But a sudden thought stopped him. “Why’s this room called the Blue Room?”

Nelly leaned down and picked up the chamber pot from under the bed. It was blue. “Ma’am started a new fashion, Tai-Pan. Each room have a different color, Tai-Pan. Mine’s green.”

“I’ve got the old cracked gold one,” another said with a sniff. “Ain’t ladylike at all!”

Struan shook his head hopelessly and disappeared.

“Now, ladies,” Quance said in a exultant whisper, and there was an expectant hush. “As the slate’s clean, after breakfast I propose a modest celebration.”