“And then in early October came your family's tragic accident.” He did not say he was sorry, did not mouth any platitudes, he merely made the statement. I thought, however, that he was in fact sorry, that he grieved for my parents alongside his own. I found myself liking him for his reticence.
“There was, as you may imagine, considerable discussion between my parents as to the status of the money. Your mother had been definite, but neither of my parents felt comfortable with the situation. And you, the sole survivor and heir, were not only a child but in the hospital as well, and clearly in no condition to make any decisions. In the end, my father went to the old lawyer who was handling your parents' affairs, and explained as best he could. The lawyer seemed more confused than anything else. There are men who require pieces of paper to give their world order, and cannot deal with the lack. In fairness, I believe the man had spent so much of the previous eight years wrestling with the lack of documentation in legal affairs following the Fire, that he simply could not face one more such problem, particularly when it involved such a—to him—paltry sum. In the end, he actually shouted at my father, saying that if Mrs Russell wanted to throw her money away on a pair of . . . Chinese people and not even make mention of the fact in the will, there wasn't anything he could do about it. And he invited my father to leave, rather rudely.”
His smile was a wintry thing now. “You may not be aware that even today my people, when they venture outside Chinatown, risk being set upon and beaten by drunks and young men. They throw rocks at us as if we were stray dogs. Ten years ago it was far worse. I suppose my father was fortunate not to be dragged away by the police as a common thief.
“In any case, during my visit home over the Christmas holidays we debated the problem, and in the end, decided to let the situation stand. My parents would continue with their plans for the bookstore, with my mother working there now as well. They thought that opening immediately after New Year's, which came in the middle of February, would prove auspicious. During the celebrations, they worked late at night to finish the preparations, shelve the books, arrange the furniture.
“No one heard the gun-shots. If they did, no doubt they would have taken them for fire-crackers. Only the following afternoon did it occur to the grocer next door that the bookshop was strangely quiet. He went to see, found the door unlocked, and discovered my parents in the back, dead.
“When the news reached me in Chicago, I left my studies and came home. And I have been here ever since.”
“And the police?” Holmes asked.
The dark, folded eyes behind the lenses regarded him with gentle pity. “The murder of two elderly Chinese servants, in Chinatown? The incident made less of an impression than the police chief's missing budgerigar.”
Holmes nodded, then asked, “After you took over the bookshop, were there any threats or . . . attempts against you?”
“None. Whatever my parents were killed for, it was not the store itself.”
“Had they any valuables?”
“My father, unlike many men his age, was progressive when it came to money. He put his into a nearby bank that was beginning to take Chinese customers—the Bank of Italy, it was called. My father was very impressed with the actions of its owner, Mr Giannini, who went through the fires of hell, very nearly literally, in preserving the savings of his depositors during the days after the earthquake. So no, there was no store of gold under the mattress, no rare painting or Ming vase a collector would desire. No book worth more than a few dollars. And his bill-fold was in his pocket, untouched.”
I spoke up hesitantly. “What about the Tongs? I've heard they are ruthless against those who stand against them.”
“That is true, unfortunately, but unless it was a thing that came up in the few short weeks after I returned to Chicago, no point of conflict had been raised. My father paid what could be called his ‘association fees.' And when I opened the doors of the bookshop, I was never approached for more than I owed.”
“So the murder was because of something they were, or had, or knew,” Holmes mused. “But you never caught a trace of what that might have been?”
“The life of the city closed over them as if they had never been,” the bookseller told us.
After a minute, Holmes rose and stepped out of the back door to slap his pipe out on the stones. He came back inside, locking the door as he spoke over his shoulder.
“Russell here has very clearly indulged in a pleasantly exotic meal, but I for one have not taken sustenance since a cup of tepid American tea provided by our watch-dogs some hours ago, and a supply of soap and water would not go amiss. Mr Long, would you care to join us in dinner and further conversation?”
“At your hotel?” the bookseller asked, sounding dubious.
“Certainly, unless you have to be back to your shop.”
“My assistant will have closed up, but I don't know that I . . .” His voice drifted off.
“We can find you another coat,” Holmes said.
“Holmes, I don't think that's the problem,” I said. “The St Francis may have certain . . . exclusionary policies.”
“Ah. Well, if they do, we'll take him to our rooms and have our supper brought up. Come, we can do nothing more here at the moment.”
Three sets of eyes and ears scanned the streets for gun-wielding lurkers, but we walked two streets down and caught a cab on Van Ness without mishap. At the hotel, we avoided the question of the dining room's policies by simply whisking our guest past the desk and onto the lift; the operator did glance sideways at Mr Long, but his interest seemed to be more upon the small man's bloody sleeve than on the shade of his skin.
“Russell, would you like to order up a dinner while I remove a quantity of grime from my finger-nails? I won't be a moment,” Holmes said, and stepped into the suite's bath-room. I consulted with Mr Long and then picked up the telephone and placed an order. When Holmes emerged, scrubbed and damp, he made for the collection of bottles which, in a shallow bow to the Volstead Act, the hotel had placed behind the doors of a side-board.
“What flavour of analgesic may I offer you, Mr Long? Despite the strictures of your Eighteenth Amendment, we appear to have brandy, gin, whiskey, the inimitable American bourbon—”
“The brandy would be fine,” our guest said, settling back a fraction into his chair. He took a healthy swallow, then took off his spectacles and cleaned them with a pristine white handkerchief. When they were back on his face, he seemed to relax, as if the cleaning exercise had clarified a decision as well.
“I hope you understand,” he said to me, “why I hesitated to respond to your questions this afternoon in the shop.”
“You wanted to think about it first.”
“Indeed. And also to see you, as it were,
“You need not apologise for saving my life, Mr Long.”
“You are kind. However, when you turned to face me, it appeared as if you were assuming a position of the martial arts.”
“Yes, I have some training.”
“Interesting. And you, sir?”
“A discipline called
“I am familiar with it, although I would have thought that few Westerners were. Thank you, it was merely a point of curiosity.”
“Sir,” Holmes said, with an air of drawing the meeting to order. “You have no doubt spent considerable time on the question of your foster parents' murder.”
“Oh yes, I have. And cast out a hundred lines of enquiry, with no result.”
“Yet you have never formulated a theory as to their deaths?” Holmes put it more as an accusation than a statement, and eyed him over the top of his glass.
The bookseller smiled. “I did not say that.”
“Aha!”
“Yes. However, until this good lady appeared in my store this afternoon, there seemed little I could do about it.”
