The Illusion of Murder (32 page)

The bamboo grows with marvelous rapidity straight up into the air for thirty days, and then it stops. When its growth is finished it throws off a shell-like bark, its branches slowly unfolding and falling into place. The branches are covered with a soft airy foliage finer than the leafage of a willow.

As I have said, nothing can stop a bamboo sprout when it intends to come up. Nothing ever equaled the rapidity of its growth, it being affirmed that it can really be seen growing! In the thirty days that it grows, it may reach a height of seventy-five feet.

Picture then a convict pinioned above a bamboo sprout and in such a position that he cannot get away from it. It starts on its upward course never caring for what is in its way; on it goes through the man who stands there dying, dying, worsening by inches, conscious for a while; then fever mercifully kills knowledge, and at last, after days of suffering, his head drops forward, and he is dead.

“But that is not any worse than tying a man to a stake in the boiling sun, covering him with quick-lime, and giving him nothing but water to quench hunger and thirst,” the guide assures me. “The man holds out and out, for it means life, but at last he takes the water that is always within his reach. He drinks, and when he perspires it wets the lime and the lime begins to eat.”

I am dizzy and my mind is shutting down as we leave the torture area with Ah Cum droning on about another delight of a professional torturer: suspending a criminal by his arms, twisting them in back of him.

As long as a man keeps his muscles tense he can live, but the moment he relaxes and falls, it ruptures blood vessels and his life floats out in a crimson stream.

The unfortunate is always suspended in a public place, where magistrates watch so that no one may release him.

Friends of the condemned flock around the man of authority, bargaining for the man’s life: if they can pay the price extorted by him the man is taken down and set free; if not, he merely hangs until the muscles give out and he drops to death.

They also have a way of burying the whole of criminals except their heads. The eyelids are fastened back so that they cannot close them, and so facing the sun they are left to die.

Sticking bamboo splints under the fingernails and then setting fire to them is another happy way of punishing wrongdoers.

“Stop!” I yell at the startled guide. “No more descriptions. You are torturing me.”

“Are you superstitious?” Ah Cum asks me.

“Superstitious? I suppose so, at least as much as everyone else.”

“Do you wish to try your luck?”

I think about the race to the finishing line imposed upon me and I answer in the affirmative.

“Come. We will go to the Temple of Five Hundred Gods, and you can see your fortune laid out before you.”

*   *   *

W
ITH
F
REDERICK ALSO IN TOW
, at the temple Ah Cum places joss sticks in a copper jar before the luck-god. Then he takes from the table two pieces of wood, worn smooth and dirty from frequent use, which, when placed together, are not unlike a pear in shape.

With this wood—he calls it the “luck pigeon”—held with the flat sides together, he makes circling motions over the smoldering joss sticks, once, twice, thrice, and then drops the luck pigeon to the floor.

“If one side of the luck pigeon turns up and the other turns down, it means good luck. If they both fall in the same position, it means bad luck. Since they both turned the one way, I will have bad luck.”

He did not appear pleased with the result.

I take the luck pigeon. I am so superstitious that my arm trembles and my heart beats in little palpitating jumps as I make the motions over the burning joss sticks.

Dropping the wood to the floor, one piece turns one way and one the other, and I grin with relief.

I’m going to have good luck.

It is Frederick’s turn and he refuses a try.

“I make my own luck,” he says.

49

Ah Cum takes us to a building he says will be a pleasant place to enjoy our luncheon. Once within a high wall we come upon a pretty garden with a mournful sheet of water undisturbed by a breath of wind. In the background the branches of low, overhanging trees kiss the stillwater where long-legged storks stand, graceful birds made so familiar to us by pictures on Chinese fans.

He leads us to a room which is shut off from the courtyard by a large carved gate. Inside are hardwood chairs and tables.

While eating we hear chanting to the weird, plaintive sound of a tom-tom and a shrill pipe.

“We are in the Temple of the Dead,” the guide tells us.

I realize it is Christmas Day. “We are eating Christmas luncheon in the Temple of the Dead,” I tell Frederick.

“Let’s hope the dead don’t interfere with this fine food.”

Ah Cum explains the death ritual.

“It is customary at the death of a person to build a bonfire after night, and cast into the fire household articles, such as money boxes, ladies’ dressing cases, and the like, while the priests are playing shrill pipes.

“The demon which inhabits all bodies leaves the body to save the property of the dead, and once they trick him out, he can never reenter, so souls are saved.”

I climb high stone steps to the water-clock, which, they say, is over five hundred years old, and has never run down or been repaired.

In little niches in the stone walls are small gods, before them the smoldering joss sticks. The water clock consists of four copper jars, about the size of wooden pails, placed on steps, one above the other. Each one has a spout from which comes a steady
drip-drip
. In the last and bottom jar is an indicator, very much like a foot rule, which rises with the water, showing the hour.

On a blackboard hanging outside, they mark the time for the benefit of the town people. The upper jar is filled once every twenty-four hours, and that is all the attention the clock requires.

I am near the gate at the bottom of the steps when a man dressed all in black suddenly grabs my purse and gives me a shove at the same time, sending me down while he runs through the gate.

I am on my feet and rushing for the gate when a group of people on the outside suddenly converge upon the gate, keeping me from opening it.

Frederick is outside the gate. He yells “Stop!” to the fleeing man and gives chase while I push at the gate with ever-growing anger until I blow my stack and throw myself screaming at the obstacle.

The people pressing against the gate scatter as I come through and head off in the direction I had seen Frederick and the thief disappear. I have not gone a dozen paces when Frederick comes around a corner of a building holding up my purse in triumph.

“Got it. He dropped it as I gave chase. Is there anything missing?”

“Thieves always have time once it is in their hands, it only takes a second.” I rummage through the purse. “Nothing is missing.”

“Excellent. So the pigeon luck machine was right—you have good luck.”

“Luck has nothing to do with the thief grabbing my purse. And it didn’t have anything to do with people suddenly keeping me from pursuing him. Like you, some people make their own luck.”

I am steaming and instruct Ah Cum to get me back to the
Powan
immediately.

It’s obvious that the purpose in grabbing my purse was not to steal my money, but to search for the key.

Just as evident is how convenient it was that Frederick Selous lures me to a place where it could be easily arranged, which means that our tour guide is an accessory.

I am cold and distant to Frederick afterward.

“Ask your friend the thief for a tip,” I tell Ah Cum when I refuse him a gratuity after he delivers us back to the ship’s gangplank.

He says nothing but glows with guilt and resentment.

I draw the line at paying to get mugged.

On our return to the
Powan
I am conscious of an inward feeling of emptiness. It’s Christmas Day and I think with regret of dinner at home, although I know it is past midnight in New York.

Suffering from a sick-headache, I go to my cabin, and shortly we are on our way to Hong Kong.

The thief got nothing from me except my last hope that Frederick had spent the time with me because of his feelings for me.

That and my sense of security. I am in China, thousands of miles from the Mahdi and the blood spilled in the marketplace, and I’m still not safe.

I feel as if I have lost another battle.

50

On my last night in Hong Kong I am badgered by the purser of the
Oceanic
and a fellow passenger who will join me on the ship when we cross the Atlantic to see
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves
as performed by the Amateur Dramatic Club of Hong Kong.

They tell me that the theater in Hong Kong knows only a few professional troupes, but the amateur actors in the English colony leave little to be desired in the way of splendid entertainments. The purser says that the very best people in the town take part, and they furnish their own stage costumes. The regiments stationed here also turn out very creditable actors in the persons of the young officers.

We come to the theater in sedan chairs instead of carriages, the narrow streets not being inviting for horse-drawn conveyances. The sight of handsomely dressed women stepping out of their chairs and the daintily colored Chinese lanterns—hanging fore and aft, marking the course the carriers take in the darkness—is very impressive. It is a luxury to have a carriage, of course, but there is something even more luxurious about owning a chair and having full-time carriers in one’s employ.

A fine chair with silver-mounted poles and silk hangings can be bought, I should judge, for a little more than twenty dollars. Some women keep four and eight carriers; they are so cheap that one can afford to retain a number. Every member of a well-established household in Hong Kong has his or her own private chair with carriers waiting to pick up the poles.

Many men prefer a coverless willow chair with swinging step, while many women have chairs that close entirely, so they can be carried along the streets secure against the gaze of the public. Convenient pockets, umbrella stands, and places for parcels are found in all well-appointed chairs.

The
Arabian Nights
tale is a new version of the old story filled with local hits arranged for the club by a military captain; the music is by the bandmaster of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. The beautiful and artistic scenery is designed and executed by two army men, as are the limelight effects.

Inside, the scene is bewitching. A rustling of soft gowns, the odor of flowers, the fluttering of fans, the sounds of soft, happy whispering, a maze of lovely women in evening gowns mingling with handsome men in the regulation evening dress—what could be prettier?

If American women would only ape the English in going bonnetless to the theater, we would forgive their little aping in other respects, and call it even. Upon the arrival of the governor the band plays “God Save the Queen,” during which the audience stands. Happily, they make it short.

The play is pleasantly presented, the actors filling their roles most creditably, especially the one taking the part of Alley Sloper.
*

After Ali Baba discovers the cave of the Forty Thieves and brings part of their treasure back to his brother’s house, he meets Morgana, a clever slave girl.

I cannot take my eyes off of Morgana because I recognize her. “What do you know about her?” I whisper to the purser, who has made himself an authority on Hong Kong plays.

“Professional actress. Aussie, I think. Traveling drama group went broke and stranded her here. Name’s Virginia Lynn.”

I resist the impulse to tell him that not long ago she identified herself as Amelia Cleveland and fled my hotel with me on her heels.

Begging the pardon of my companions, as soon as the play is over, I part company with them and station myself at the stage door.

She comes out with two men but goes in a different direction from them. I catch up with her.

“Good evening, Amelia.”

She throws me a glare. “Go away.”

“You can talk to me,” I tell her back, “or to the police.”

That stops her. She swings around and confronts me. “I’ve done nothing for the coppers to take an interest in me.”

I get almost nose to nose with her and lock eyes. “Nothing except attempt to steal a valuable object through impersonation.”

She takes a step back. “No. I was just a messenger.”

“A messenger? We’ll see if the Hong Kong police think that is as funny as I find it.”

“What do you want? Go, get away from here, go on that silly race you’re doing. Leave me alone, I’ve troubles enough.”

“You’re going to have more troubles if you don’t tell me why you told me you were John Cleveland’s wife.”