The Silver Lotus (25 page)

The city attorney, Mr. Rice, made a point of stopping by the captain's office. He was a little confused by his own invitation, as it requested the recipient to bring along an estimate of the ship's financial liabilities as listed in the court injunction, and he couldn't quite fathom what that had to do with the fate of the dead man, as it was obvious he had been killed about the same time the ship fetched up on the rocky teeth of Point Lobos. The captain, though mildly amused, commiserated. But he did say that Lady Yee practically invented social frugality, and that he'd never known her to waste so much as a breath of air, thus he was duly persuaded she had something significant to contribute, and suggested that simple compliance was the fastest way to arrive at a solution to the mystery. Besides, he said with a laugh, Lady Yee would see to it that her maniacal chef, Ah Chu, jumped through burning hoops of custard buns and spun sugar to impress her guests. Her teas were always the choicest blends, and her brandy punch was a heaven-bestowed nectar. Mr. Rice said he'd be proud to attend.

Before returning home that evening, Captain Hammond sought out Mr. Atwood at the French House. There he discovered that Lady Yee had requested Mr. Atwood to bring any private logs he may have kept. She knew from long experience that first officers aboard ship often kept their own detailed journals. They never knew when they might be called upon to face official examination. It was considered better form to pen a complaint than voice one. Written private sentiments, no matter how scathing and vitriolic, could not be considered mutinous unless broadcast to other members of the crew to effect a change in command. With so many uncomfortable hours to fill, and so little satisfaction to be had, one would hardly be surprised to see the length of some of their private logs. Captain Hammond often recounted the story of a deck officer he once knew who was so at odds with every ship he sailed on that his journals often ran to four and five volumes of bitter complaints and criticisms. However, no matter how he might have seethed
and scathed in private, while on duty he always remained the most amenable, polite, and competent officer imaginable.

Captain Hammond confided that he had been given instructions to find the cabin boy, Toyuka, and see that he arrived at a certain time. Mr. Atwood offered to attend to that detail on the captain's behalf, and even suggested that the cook, Mr. Beal, might be interviewed as well. He had supposedly known Malakoff the longest and might be encouraged to say a few enlightening words if approached properly. The captain agreed, but said he thought it best if Toyuka and Beal came separately, and were kept apart until after they were interviewed. Again, Mr. Atwood said he would attend to it, and so Captain Hammond thanked him and went home to dinner.

That night the captain decided not to mention what he had learned from the other recipients of Lady Yee's invitations. He knew that when she was ready to tell him anything, she would make a solid point of it. Until then he decided to avoid any discussion of her plans on the grounds that what he didn't know wouldn't keep him awake that night. He did, however, ask whether she had spoken to Dr. Neruda recently, and she said she had not, and would not talk with him until after he had been interviewed by her other guests. Lady Yee admitted that her professional relationship with Dr. Neruda already tainted her as biased on his behalf, and she wished to avoid any suspicion that she had prompted him to say one thing or another. She had hoped her husband might visit the good doctor in the morning and reassure him that all would be well, and that nothing would transpire to injure his dignity or reputation. Nonetheless, it was important for him to bring the documents she suggested, just in case the obvious called for support.

The next day the captain paid a call on Dr. Neruda at the infirmary, and found him not in the least concerned about anything beyond treating a squid fisherman who had been badly burned when his old iron fire basket collapsed. Nothing else seemed very important by comparison,
but he said he would wait on Lady Yee that afternoon as requested. He appeared confident that whatever Lady Yee had tabled, he was to have the benefit of it, so he saw no reason to concern himself further.

Though he said nothing, Captain Hammond was privately very pleased that his wife had the power to inspire such secure feelings of assurance in people, and he fervently hoped she could replicate the sensation for her expected guests. If not, then he feared that perhaps someone might be facing a rope, and he sincerely hoped it wouldn't be Dr. Neruda. Nonetheless, the captain was well aware that religious intolerance and subsequent violence were a blade that cut in both directions. And though he had come to like and respect Dr. Neruda in the short time he had known him, the captain was modestly aware that he was by no means fluent in the subtleties of spiritual turmoil and hostility when it came to Asian religious conflicts. Indeed, aside from the fact that it seemed a constant all over the world, religious bloodletting was an aspect of human affairs that he found almost incomprehensible. If it had been a matter of one distinct religion going for the throat of a diametrically opposed philosophy, it might have been marginally comprehensible, but the truth made even less sense, for it seemed that Christians murdered Christians with the same enthusiasm used to kill Muslims, and Muslim sects appeared to delight in murdering each other with the same fervor usually reserved for the destruction of Christians. And sadly, the same could also be said for Buddhists, Taoists, Hindus, Sikhs, Parsis, and even Jews. They all appeared capable of destroying members of their own faith as well as those who bowed to a different deity altogether. It had come to Captain Hammond over years of experience that the world's religions formed the foundation for some of the most irreligious and criminally insane conduct ever devised by mankind. The idea of burning human beings at the stake because they refused to acknowledge a different version of the same deity had always seemed like complete madness as far as the captain was concerned. And
sad as he was to admit it even to himself, Captain Hammond wouldn't have been in the least surprised to discover that Dr. Neruda had indeed killed his tormentor. History was replete with such incidences of moral lunacy, particularly when it came to religious conflicts. He intended to wait upon the truth with an open if somewhat skeptical mind, regardless of Lady Yee's instincts to the contrary.

15

THE FOLLOWING AFTERNOON found Captain Hammond playing host to all those who had received Lady Yee's invitations, save, for the moment, Dr. Neruda. Guests had brought a folio of one kind or another, and each seemed loath to be separated from his parcel. However, they were soon too distracted by the culinary wonders that Ah Chu had assembled on the sideboard to focus on much else. Along with four varieties of rare tea and two kinds of coffee, Captain Hammond was pleased to present his own contribution. This was a seductive and inscrutable concoction that went by the dubious title of “Russian punch.” Though the more exotic ingredients included pomegranate and peach nectar, the whole recipe was a secret that depended upon the moral authority of calvados and pear brandy to make its point. If any potable could be said to replicate a wolf in a sheep's fleece, Russian punch would fit the description quite nicely. It was the captain's bemused contention that his secret punch could leach the meanest motives from the world's greatest misanthropes and transform marginally moral men into archangels. The concoction was always served in small glass cups to avoid accidental inebriation. The captain balanced the portions to warm the cockles of the heart and nurture fellowship. Intoxication, he knew, would have the opposite effect.

The captain temporarily took the head of the table and seated Mr. Campion, Mr. Rice, and Mr. Sanchez to his right, and Mr. Winslow and Mr. Atwood to his left. The chair at the opposite end was reserved for Lady Yee, who had not put in an appearance as yet. She had thought it best to let the men loosen up a bit before putting them through their paces. And there was nothing Ah Chu's marvelous creations could not amend for the better, though she did take the captain's Russian punch into account when timing her entry.

As the men discussed the fate of the Canadian ship and the possible whereabouts of the villainous Malakoff, a small silver bell sounded, and Lady Yee made her entrance. All the men at the table stood up at once. Captain Hammond was as surprised as his guests to behold his wife attired in a beautifully tailored azure gown cut to reflect the latest Eastern fashion. Her long, luxuriant hair was cunningly dressed to rival any Gibson girl illustration. Her subtle elegance was set off by an intricate gold hair comb. It was set with a spray of finely polished lapis lazuli stones in the shape of a cresting wave. Lady Yee never dressed in this manner, and her husband found it quite alluring and seductive, and so too did the other gentlemen at the table, for all eyes remained on her for the next hour and a half. Captain Hammond knew his wife had planned all of this some time ago. She never let any detail go begging for attention, or wasted a potential asset, and in that regard she had, in fact, accomplished her ends, for all the men in the room, including her husband, paid very close attention to her every word.

The liveried houseboy held his mistress's chair, while the maid poured her a cup of tea. She toasted her guests with a warm smile and put them at their ease with a humorous and self-deprecating reference to the fact that you could always dress up a gamecock to look like a goose, but it still couldn't swim. Then she told a funny story that was a little more pointed toward the issue she ultimately wanted to address. She laughed and said that one day in the willow park, an old monk
approached her father and told him about a sage pig that was owned by a farmer in the provinces. In all seriousness, this holy man said he'd heard from a very reliable source that this unusual animal dressed in saffron robes could dance on his hind legs playing bells to the time of any music, always prostrated itself in front of the statue of the Buddha, and never ate a morsel on feast days. The old monk thought this must be a very remarkable pig indeed, and solicited Master Yee's opinion.

Her father responded by saying that the pig wasn't all that remarkable, but the story about the pig was. For in fact the tale of the pious pig was an ancient piece of agrarian mythology when his great-grandfather told the story as a joke sixty years before. Lady Yee said the old monk looked deflated and slightly embarrassed until her father reminded him that they had both just been blessed with a clear and present teaching. Rumors, he said, even stupid and moronic rumors, live far longer than pigs, whether pious or not.

All the guests laughed at Lady Yee's story, but they soon noticed that she wasn't smiling, and so their laughter suddenly died away. Taking no notice, Lady Yee went on to say that more reputations were ruined by baseless rumor than by the truth. And though she had no interest in hobbling the truth, she had a vested interest in gutting a few rumors that had come to light, and she begged her guests for the opportunity to hear their opinions on one particularly dangerous story that was presently making snares for the innocent.

Lady Yee reminded her audience that the previous year Mr. Winslow's campaign for reelection for sheriff was considerably impaired by a ridiculous rumor that he was taking money to look the other way when it came to smuggling. Luckily, Sheriff Winslow's broad reputation for irreproachable character and evenhanded though strict enforcement of the laws crushed the rumors and silenced those who spread them. Those same dark forces were at work when Mr. Rice was appointed city attorney, but again these politically motivated rumors were subdued
by more virtuous and intelligent voices insisting the truth was otherwise, and the general public was happy to agree. Nonetheless, Lady Yee took pains to point out that there wasn't one person in public service who was immune to dark characterizations or attacks aimed at personal integrity. Lady Yee said jealousy and envy parented many insidious evils, not the least of these being defamatory rumors calculated to hurt not just one innocent person, but a whole class of innocent people.

The table remained quiet while Lady Yee refreshed herself with a sip of tea. She nodded to thank them for their patience and continued. The case, she said, that most preyed upon her mind at present happened to include the interests of everyone seated at the table, and she confessed that if matters got out of hand, many people would ingenuously suffer the consequences.

Lady Yee produced a small sheaf of notes in her own hand and laid them on the table for reference. She pointed out that the unfortunate case of the grounded ship, as bad as that had been, had now been amplified in consequence by the discovery of the corpse of a missing crewman supposedly murdered with a knife and hidden under the engine-room bilge plates of that same ship.

Lady Yee looked about the table and asked whether everything she had just said was substantially correct. All the men nodded, so she continued with a preamble to a question. Looking at her notes, Lady Yee said that according to the ship's crew roster, the name of the dead man was Clausa Vuychek who, from all officer reports, seemed a rather unsavory fellow who claimed Bosnia as his homeland and the Muslim faith as a birthright. Again, all the men nodded their heads and voiced agreement. Then Lady Yee asked whether during their investigations they had come across crew statements to the effect that the late seaman Vuychek had gone out of his way to be pointedly rude to a Hindu passenger and his family, claiming their “filthy” religion to be anathema to the will of the true God and his profit Muhammad, or like
sentiments of similar absurdity and ill grace. Again, all agreed. Lady Yee then went on to ask whether it had been suggested to any of them that perhaps this man, Dr. Neruda, might have been responsible for the death of Vuychek. The reasoning being that the murder might have been religiously inspired as an act of sectarian vengeance for insults suffered. Everyone agreed that they had heard various thin versions of the same story, but as yet no one had stepped forward as the author of the claim. But as Marshal Sanchez pointed out, the odd thing was that nobody particularly faulted the doctor if indeed he had killed Vuychek. It appeared the Bosnian Muslim lacked for friends among the ship's company. Some men said he was morbidly crazy, others said he was simpleminded and just plain mean, but nobody really cared about him one way or another now that he was dead. And certainly none of the crew would venture their own futures to make unsubstantiated claims in court. Especially in an outspoken defense of a man they neither liked nor trusted.