“Oh, I see.” He nodded. “No, you wouldn’t have wanted her turned over to Kear.”
I allowed myself a little smirk. I had handled that rather well without telling an actual lie.
“And does this Chinese girl know who killed her friend?”
“Not exactly, but I think we can guess why she was killed. It turned out that the two girls were cousins. The one who had escaped from the brothel was angry that Mr. Lee was putting yet another girl through the degradation that would surely befall her. So she decided it had to stop. She knew how Bo Kei, that’s the name of my Chinese bride, had escaped over the rooftop, so she went back that way, intending to kill Lee while he slept on the roof. But when she got there, he wasn’t in his bed, and as she started to venture down the stairs she saw what she claimed was a ghost coming up toward her. She was terrified and fled back the way she came.”
“You think the ghost she saw was the killer?”
“It had to be, didn’t it?”
“But she didn’t witness the actual murder?”
“No, but it’s pretty obvious that she came face-to-face with the killer and he knew that she could identify him.”
“And how did she describe this ghost?”
“A white face floating up above a strange animal shape, with too many arms and legs to be human.”
“Ah, I see.” Daniel’s face lit up. “I knew it. Lee Sing Tai was either knocked out or killed in his bedroom, then the killer carried him up to the roof. She saw Lee’s body over the killer’s shoulder. That would explain the extra arms and legs.”
“Yes!” I agreed excitedly. “Then at least we know that it had to be a man who did this. No woman would have been strong enough to carry a body that way.”
“I have a nice set of fingerprints taken from the statue that knocked him out,” Daniel said. “Now I just have to find out to whom they belong.”
We had reached the corner of Bayard Street. “Look, I don’t think you should come with me to the settlement house,” he said. “It wouldn’t look right to have you with me on a murder investigation. Why don’t you go home and stay with this girl until I arrive? I may be a while, as I have some matters to take care of at headquarters first, but I’ll come as soon as I can.”
“All right, Daniel,” I replied. I was delighted that we seemed to be working together for once.
“So Sarah Lindley will be there, will she?” he asked. “And she’s the only one who knows that the death could be murder?”
“Oh, yes, she’ll be there.”
“I thought her fellow wanted her to stop this kind of thing.”
“He did, but he relented. His only stipulation is that he accompanies her there and back at all times. He says the neighborhood is too dangerous.”
“It is,” Daniel agreed. “Only crazy young women like yourself think you can walk around these streets with impunity. Well, good for Monty. I think more charitably of him than I did. So that’s why I’ve seen him in this part of the world.”
“You’ve seen him around here?”
“On more than one occasion. Come to think of it, I saw him on my way to Mott Street today. He was hurrying along at a great clip and didn’t see me.”
“I expect he wanted to get out of such a distasteful area as quickly as possible,” I said. “He always looks as if he’s got a bad smell under his nose, doesn’t he?”
Daniel smiled. “Not every girl can be lucky enough to land an excellent catch like me.”
“Ah, but he’s a lord with a huge property,” I said. “Sarah will be a lady.”
“So there’s the attraction.” Daniel nodded. “Off home with you, then, and I’ll see you when I can.”
He put his fingers to his lips to blow me a kiss, then crossed Bayard toward Elizabeth Street.
I was about to head for the elevated railway when a strange idea came to me. Annie hadn’t said she had seen a white face floating up the stairs. She had said “a white floating head.”
And unbidden, an image of Monty Warrington-Chase flashed into my mind.
Thirty-two
I stood like a statue, staring out across the street. No, that was ridiculous. What could an English aristocrat like Monty Warrington-Chase possibly have to do with Lee Sing Tai? Even as I asked myself the question, a likely answer formed in my head. Monty who looked so unwell recently, who had been seen hurrying toward Chinatown, not noticing either Daniel or myself. I had seen a face that resembled Monty’s emerging from an alleyway on Mott Street, and I realized that the man had come from an opium den. So Monty was a drug fiend.
The moment I realized that, I saw how easily he could have killed Annie. He would not have been seen as an outsider at the settlement house. Nobody would have questioned his presence if he went upstairs, looking for Sarah. And of course he had to kill her because he realized that she had seen him, carrying Lee Sing Tai’s body up the stairs to throw it off the roof. And I had been partly responsible for her death. If I hadn’t brought Bo Kei home with me, then Monty wouldn’t have bumped into her coming out of the water closet, and realized that she was not the girl who had seen him at Lee’s. That the girl he had seen was the other girl Sarah had told him about—the girl who was still at the settlement house.
I looked across the street for Daniel, but he had already vanished between pushcarts. So what should I do now? Obviously report what I had deduced to him, but I needed proof. Then it occurred to me that we had proof, in Lee Sing Tai’s cabinet. That day when Bobby Lee had opened it and complained that someone had been there, I had glimpsed a signature on a piece of paper, half protruding from one of the drawers. There had been something about it that struck a chord then, but I hadn’t been able to place what it was. Now it came to me that I had seen that signature before—when Hermione had shown me Monty’s letter to her. There was a particular flourish to the way he formed his M.
