The interpreter dutifully translated.
“Him?” She looked at him, her lip curled like a dog’s. “He is good for nothing. He bleeds us dry. It would not surprise me if he hadn’t pushed my husband off the roof.”
“How can you say that!” Bobby Lee demanded. “I treat him with the same respect I give to my real father. I obey him. I make his businesses prosper for him. I even do his dirty work for him. And I tell you that you do not need to worry. I will prove to you that I will take care of you as if you were my mother.”
“Pipe down, everyone,” Captain Kear said. “All this noise is giving me a headache. I’m not concerned with what’s going to happen now. I want to know what happened on that rooftop, and believe me, I’ll get to the bottom of it.”
“You will see that Frederick Lee came back here for revenge,” Bobby said. “Perhaps he and the girl have planned this together. Perhaps this woman here is also part of the plot.” And he pointed at me.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “I am a well-respected private investigator. Mr. Lee hired me to find this runaway girl. It’s as simple as that.”
“Then why you not find her yet?” Bobby Lee demanded.
“I had only just begun to look,” I said. “Why did your father not find her for five days before he hired me? I’m sure he had plenty of men at his disposal.”
I shifted uneasily on the hard seat of the sofa. I was feeling increasingly uncomfortable about being here, not just physically but mentally too. I longed to be back in the security of Patchin Place. And I still wanted to meet Frederick Lee before Captain Kear’s men caught up with him.
“Do you need me any longer?” I asked. “I’ve told you all I can about the missing girl and I’d like to go home.”
“So I can’t persuade you to go on looking for the girl?”
“The man who hired me is dead,” I said. “As far as I’m concerned, she is free to go wherever she wants to.”
“I’ll need to know where to find you,” the captain said.
I opened my purse. “I have a card in here somewhere,” I said, reluctant to hand my card to a policeman, who would take it back to a precinct where Daniel had been observed only two days ago. I could just picture his sharp eyes picking out my name. “But at the moment I am not living at home. My house is being redecorated, so let me write down the address of my neighbors for you.”
Loud noises from down below announced that someone was coming up the stairs. The houseboy and an older Chinese man in cotton blouse and baggy pants were muscled into the room by a couple of unsavory-looking characters, all of them complaining and yelling loudly.
“These men have brought you houseboy and cook,” the interpreter said.
“Tell them ‘Thank you,’” Captain Kear said.
He did so. They waited and muttered something to the interpreter.
“They expect their reward for finding these men,” the interpreter said cautiously.
“Tell them they should consider themselves lucky I’m not questioning them as suspects in this,” the captain replied. “And then tell them to beat it before I change my mind.”
The interpreter translated, most unwillingly by the look of it, and the two men renewed their protestations while the houseboy started wailing.
“Quiet!” Captain Kear shouted. “Or I’ll arrest the lot of you.”
“What the devil’s going on up there?” a voice boomed. “Are you up there, Kear?”
I recognized the voice instantly.
Twenty
I looked around the room, like a trapped animal. I even wondered if I could run up the stairs and successfully make that jump across to the next building, if I hitched my skirts high enough. But even as thoughts of flight went through my head, Daniel came bounding up the stairs, around the screen, and into the room.
“What’s going on in here, Kear?” he demanded. “Some idiot comes rushing into headquarters babbling about dead Chinamen and tong wars starting again, and then one of your men arrives to request the police doctor and photographer and fingerprint kit, so I thought I’d better come down and take a look for myself.”
“It’s okay, Sullivan. It’s all under control,” Captain Kear said.
“That’s not what it sounded like from downstairs,” Daniel said. “It sounded like chaos to me.”
“It’s just a routine Chinatown murder. Nothing unusual. Besides, it’s Sixth Precinct business and I’m handling it.” Captain Kear gave Daniel a long, hard stare.
“Then why were they babbling about tong wars starting up again?” Daniel asked. He looked around the room. “If this thing is going to get out of hand, we need to stop it right now and if you need extra men to do that—”
He stopped in midsentence. “What in God’s name are you doing here?” he demanded.
“You know Miss Murphy?” Captain Kear asked.
“Know her? In two weeks’ time she’s going to be my wife.”
“Well, I’m damned. You omitted to mention that little fact, Miss Murphy. A husband-and-wife detective team— how convenient.” Captain Kear grinned. “So is she going to help you solve your cases, Sullivan?”
“Miss Murphy has told you she’s an investigator?” Daniel asked.
“She has. In fact she was working for the man who has just been killed.”
