Unlike me, Burton spoke Chinese. He asked around, and eventually attracted attention, both from the people who had heard the rumors, and unfortunately the masterminds, Zhang Xiaoling and Xie Jinghe. I don’t think that Burton had any clue that Dorothy had put the small box up for sale, nor do I think he realized just how far the tentacles of Golden Lotus reached or even that they existed until it was too late. I suspect that to him this was a simple case of locals looting tombs. He found someone who was prepared to talk about what he’d heard, the man in the mosque. We know what happened to him. Oblivious to the danger, at least right up until the last minute, Burton headed, not for Hua Shan exactly, but to that area to try to find the tomb.
In a way, the only mistake Burton made was going to see Zhang Xiaoling. Burton overheard Zhang talking to the police the day the silver box was stolen in Beijing, when Zhang was arranging to absent himself from the investigation. It was actually Liu David who confirmed Zhang’s name for Burton, and told who he was, not realizing that this information would get Burton killed. I don’t think Xiaoling told Burton anything—although we’ll never know, both parties to the conversation being deceased—but it did put Golden Lotus on the alert. When Burton went to Xi’an, possibly only on a hunch that if there was a T’ang tomb that was the place to look for it, some really evil people were waiting for him.
I suppose what bothers me more than anything about these events is the role I played in Burton’s death. It was I who planted the idea in his head that Zhang Xiaoling, the man in black, was somehow involved in the robbery at Cherished Treasures House. If I hadn’t told him that, perhaps he’d be alive now.
Rob disagrees, predictably I suppose. He says Burton would have attracted the wrong kind of attention all by himself, determined as he was to find the silver box. While I do know there is an element of truth in what Rob says, I wish I could believe it wholeheartedly. On the other hand, given all his health problems, and his attempts at self-medication, Burton wasn’t really long for this world anyway.
Dr. Xie is in Canada, I regret to say. Somehow he managed to bribe his way out of China. China has asked that he be sent back. My home country does not usually extradite people to countries with the death penalty, so it will be interesting to see how Dr. Xie with all his money makes out in this regard. Due process in this kind of case takes a very long time in Canada, and so it will be some time before we know how this one will turn out. If he is forced to return to China, it will be equally interesting to see whether they will execute someone of his standing for smuggling. In China today, due process is still in short supply where crimes of this sort are concerned. No matter what happens, I rest easy knowing that his part of the smuggling will cease. It is people like Xie and their insatiable appetite for antiquities that fuel both the illegal trade and the looting of tombs.
While we were meeting with Zhang Anthony, police officers were raiding the Xie Homeopathic warehouse in Xi’an. Antiquities were indeed found. Xie used his legitimate business shipments to mask his illegal ones, and used his warehouses in Hong Kong, Vancouver, and Los Angeles to store the antiquities before passing them along to be sold, either through legitimate dealers or not-so-legitimate ones. Several auction houses are being investigated to see if they in fact knew the objects were looted.
My teabags are an important part of the case against Dr. Xie in the matter of the murder of Burton Haldimand, and the attempted murder of a certain antique dealer. Apparently there was arsenic in them. I’m glad I only used one, and that arsenic has to build up in the system to kill you. For whatever reason, Burton didn’t realize until too late what he was getting himself in for. Most likely the man in the mosque told him that the rumors placed the tomb not far from Hua Shan. Burton went there to see what he could find, and already terribly ill, died in that dreary hotel.
I expect there would be arsenic in Burton’s teabags, too, if they could be found, but they, like his tea kettle, have disappeared. David thinks that Xiaoling’s goons were following Burton to Hua Shan, probably intending to kill him on the spot rather than waiting for the teabags to do their deadly work. They didn’t have to kill him, at least there is no evidence they did so, but they did get rid of the evidence. It may be that Burton suddenly realized he was being followed, hence his panicky call to me. I will always remember his attempt to warn me of the danger that he suddenly realized existed.
Liu David of the Ministry of Public Security was investigating a corrupt official of the Beijing Cultural Relics bureau by the name of Song Liang, aka Mr. Knockoff. Burton conveniently afforded him entree into the world of art and those who buy it. David, too, was almost certain that it was Song who had stolen the silver box, and when Song turned up dead in Xi’an, David was sent there to investigate further.
Song had been sent to New York by his employers to try to purchase the silver box for China. While he was as unsuccessful as the rest of us, he did realize that others wanted this highly desirable object. Who knows what thoughts went through his mind? Maybe the bright lights and wealth of New York were just too much for him, and he wanted a piece of it. It was perhaps then that he had the idea of using the silver box as his entree into the smuggling racket. If so, he was decidedly out of his league. All it got him was dead. I may have some sympathy for the poor farmers who loot. I have none for someone like Song Liang. I think of Ting and Rong who saved me from Xiaoling at great personal risk, and the truly poor conditions under which they live. For all their poverty they had a dignity that few others in this saga share.
People to whom I have told this story ask me how I knew that Liu David was a policeman when I saw him in the market outside the Baxian Gong that day. I have a tendency to say it was feminine intuition. That’s really not true. The answer is very simple. I more or less live with a plainclothes cop. Once, early in our relationship, I saw him at a restaurant. He was with two other men. I was about to go over to say hello to him, but he gave me this almost imperceptible shake of the head, and I kept going right past his table. I got the same look, an identical tiny shake of the head from David and I just knew. True, I saw him at a time when I was feeling relatively safe, having just heard the results of the toxicology tests on Burton. Under different circumstances, I might have seen him in an entirely different, and inaccurate, light.
David’s investigation has broadened and caught a corrupt customs agent or three. Several people at Xie Homeopathic are being investigated as well. As for Zhang Anthony, he may well get off scot-free. He says he didn’t know what his son was up to, and maybe he didn’t. He wouldn’t be the first parent to be surprised by an offspring’s extracurricular activities. However, he did sell objects from Lingfei’s tomb over the years. The question is whether it was so long ago that nobody will care. Dorothy’s silver box was found in the trunk of Xiaoling’s car. That would be his second car, after the white Lexus, in this case a red BMW. The wrecked white Lexus by the side of the road in the hills outside Beijing had no plates, but its serial number has been traced to Xiaoling.