Noble House

After a pause, Smyth said, "That sort of info'd be expensive. Shall I ask the price?"
"Yes. Please." The big man put his cup down. "The mole doesn't bother you, does he?"
"No, not at all. I'm doing my job thank you very much and it's not my job to worry about moles or to try to catch them. The moment you catch and snatch the bugger there'll be another bugger subverted or put into place and we'll do the same to them, whoever the them are. Meanwhile if it wasn't for this bloody Ho-Pak mess this station'd still be the best run and my East Aberdeen area the quietest in the Colony and that's all I'm concerned about." Smyth offered a cigarette from an expensive gold case. "Smoke?" "No thanks, I quit."
"Good for you. No, so long as I'm left alone until I retire in four years all's well in the world." He lit the cigarette with a gold lighter and Armstrong hated him a little more. "By the way, I think you're foolish not to take the envelope that's left in your desk monthly." "Do you now?" Armstrong's face hardened. "Yes. You don't have to do anything for it. Nothing at all. Guaranteed."
"But once you've taken one you're up the creek without a paddle."
"No. This's China and not the same." Smyth's blue eyes hardened too. "But then you know that better than I." "One of your 'friends' asked you to give me the message?" Smyth shrugged. "I heard another rumor. Your share of the Dragons reward for finding John Chen comes to 40,000 HK an—"
"I didn't find him!" Armstrong's voice grated. "Even so, that'll be in an envelope in your desk this evening. So I hear, old chap. Just a rumor, of course."
Armstrong's mind was sifting this information. 40,000 HK covered exactly and beautifully his most pressing, long overdue debt that he had to clear by Monday, losses on the stock market that, "Well really, old boy, you should pay up. It has been over a year and we do have rules. Though I'm not pressing I really must have the matter settled. …"
Smyth's right again, he thought without bitterness, the bastards know everything and it'd be so easy to find out what debts I have. So am 1 going to take it or not?
"Only forty?" he asked with a twisted smile.
"I imagine that's enough to cover your most pressing problem," Smyth said with the same hard eyes. "Isn't it?"
Armstrong was not angry that the Snake knew so much about his private life. I know just as much about his, though not how much he has or where it's stacked away. But it'd be easy to find out, easy to break him if I wanted to. Very easy. "Thanks for the coffee. Best I've had in years. Shall we go?"
Awkwardly, Smyth put on his regulation raincoat over his well-cut uniform, adjusted the sling for his arm and put his cap to the usual jaunty angle and led the way. As they went, Armstrong made Wu repeat what had happened and what had been said by the youth who claimed to be one of the Werewolves and later by the old amah. "Very good, Wu," Armstrong said when the young man had finished. "An excellent piece of surveillance and investigation. Excellent. Chief Inspector Smyth tells me you want to get into SI?"
"Yes sir."
"Why?"
"It's important, an important branch of SB, sir. I've always been interested in security and how to keep our enemies out and the Colony safe and I feel it would be very interesting and important. I'd like to help if I could, sir."
Momentarily their ears focused on the distant wail of fire engines that came from the hillside above.
"Some stupid bastard's kicked over another stove," Smyth said sourly. "Christ, thank God for the rain!"
"Yes," Armstrong said, then added to Wu, "If this turns out as you've reported, I'll put in a word with SB or SI."
Spectacles Wu could not stop the beam. "Yes sir, thank you, sir. Ah Tarn is really from my village. Yes sir."
They turned into the alley. Crowds of shoppers and stall keepers and shopkeepers under umbrellas or under the canvas overhangs watched them sullenly and suspiciously, Smyth the most well known and feared quai loh in Aberdeen.
"That's the one, sir," Wu whispered. By prearrangement Smyth casually stopped at a stall, this side of the doorway, ostensibly to look at some vegetables, the owner at once in shock. Armstrong and Wu walked past the entrance then turned abruptly and the three of them converged. They went up the stairs quickly as two uniformed policemen who had been trailing from a safe distance materialized to bottle up the front. Once the narrow passageway was secure one of them hurried up an even smaller alley and around the back to make sure the plainclothes detective was still in position guarding the single exit there, then he rushed back to reinforce the undermanned barricades in front of the Victoria.
The inside of the tenement was as dingy and filthy as the outside with mess and debris on every landing. Smyth was leading and he stopped on the third landing, unbuttoned his revolver holster and stepped aside. Without hesitation Armstrong leaned against the flimsy door, burst the lock and went in quickly. Smyth followed at once, Spectacles Wu nervously staying to guard the entrance. The room was drab with old sofas and old chairs and old grimy curtains, the sweet-rank smell of opium and cooking oil on the air. A heavy-set, middle-aged matron gaped at them and dropped her newspaper. Both men went for the inner doors. Smyth pulled one open to find a scruffy bedroom, the next revealed a messy toilet and bathroom, a third another bedroom crammed with unmade bunks for four. Armstrong had the last door open. It let into a cluttered, filthy, tiny kitchen, where Ah Tam bent over a pile of wash in the grimy sink. She stared at him blankly. Behind her was another door. At once he shoved past and jerked it open. It was empty too, more of a closet than a room, windowless with a vent cut in the wall and just enough space to fit the small string mattressless bunk and a broken-down chest of drawers.
He came back into the living room, Ah Tam shuffling after him, his breathing good and his heart settling down. It had taken them only seconds and Smyth took out the papers and said sweetly, "Sorry to interrupt, madam, but we've a search warrant."
'Wat?"
"Translate for us, Wu," Smyth ordered and at once the young constable repeated what had been said and, as previously arranged, began to act as though he was the interpreter for two dullard quai loh policemen who did not speak Cantonese.
The woman's mouth dropped open. "Search!" she shrieked. "Search what? We obey the law here! My husband works for the government and has important friends and if you're looking for the gambling school it's nothing to do with us but it's on the fourth floor at the back and we know nothing about the smelly whores in 16 who set up shop and work till all hours making the rest of us civ—"
"Enough," Wu said sharply, "we are police on important matters! These Lords of the police are important! You're the wife of Ch'ung the dustman?"
"Yes," she replied sullenly. "What do you want with us? We've done noth—"
"Enough!" Armstrong interrupted in English with deliberate arrogance. "Is that Ah Tam?"
"You! You're Ah Tam?"
"Eh, me? Wat?" The old amah tugged at her apron nervously, not recognizing Wu.
"So you're Ah Tam! You're under arrest."
Ah Tam went white and the middle-aged woman cursed and said in a rush, "Ah! So it's you they're after! Huh, we know nothing about her except we picked her off the street a few months ago and gave her a home and sal—"
"Wu, tell her to shut up!"
He told her impolitely. She obeyed even more sullenly. "These Lords want to know is there anyone else here?"
"Of course there isn't. Are they blind? Haven't they raped my house like assassins and seen for themselves?" the shrew said truculently. "I know nothing about nothing."
"Ah Tam! These Lords want to know where your room is."