“Food, Mass’er Culum?” Lo Chum said brightly. “Pig? Potats? Gravee? Heya?”
Culum shook his head weakly and Struan dismissed Lo Chum. “Here,” he said, giving Culum the brandy.
“I couldn’t,” Culum said, nauseated.
“Drink it.”
Culum swallowed it. He choked and quickly drank more of the tea that was beside the bed. He lay back, his temples thundering.
“Would you like to talk? Tell me what happened?”
Culum’s face was gray and the whites of his eyes dirty pink. “I can’t remember anything. God, I feel terrible.”
“Start from the beginning.”
“I was playing whist with Gorth and a few of our friends,” Culum said with an effort. “I remember winning about a hundred guineas. We’d been drinking quite a bit. But I remember putting the winnings in my pocket. Then—well, the rest is blank.”
“Do you remember where you went?”
“No. Not exactly.” He drank more tea thirstily and wiped his face with his hands, trying to clean away the ache. “Oh God, I feel like death!”
“Do you remember which whorehouse you went to?”
Culum shook his head.
“Do you have a regular one that you’ve been going to?”
“Good God, no!”
“Nae need to get on your high horse, laddie. You’ve been to one—that’s clear. You’ve been rolled, that’s clear. Your liquor was drugged, that’s clear.”
“I was drugged?”
“It’s the oldest trick in the world. That’s why I told you never to go to a house unrecommended by a man you could trust. Is this the first time you’ve been to a house in Macao?”
“Yes, yes. Good Lord, I was drugged?”
“Now use your head. Think, lad! Do you remember the house?”
“No—nothing. Everything’s blank.”
“Who picked the house for you, eh?”
Culum sat up in the bed. “We were drinking and gaming. I was, well, pretty drunk. Then, well, everyone was talking about—about girls. And houses. And, well”—he looked at Struan, his shame and torment open—“I was just—well, with the liquor and—I felt, well, on fire for a girl. I just decided that I had—had to go to a house.”
“Nae harm in that, lad. Who gave you the address?”
“I think . . . I don’t know—but I think they each gave me one. They wrote addresses—or told me addresses, I can’t remember. I do remember going out of the Club. There was a chair waiting and I got into it. Wait a minute—I remember now! I told him to go to the F and E!”
“They’d never roll you there, laddie. Or put a drug in your drink. Or deliver you back like that. More than their reputation’s worth.”
“No. I’m sure. That’s what I told the man. Yes. I’m absolutely sure!”
“Which way did they take you? Into Chinatown?”
“I don’t know. I seem to remember—I don’t know.”
“You said you felt ‘on fire.’ What sort of fire?”
“Well, it was like . . . I remember being very hot and, well—God’s death, I’m frantic with desire for Tess, and what with the liquor and everything . . . I’ve had no peace, so—so I went to the house . . .” The words trailed off. “Oh God, my head’s bursting. Please leave me alone.”
“Were you carrying protections?”
Culum shook his head.
“This fire. This urge. Was it different last night?”
Again Culum shook his head. “No. It’s been like it for weeks but—well, in a way I suppose it was—well no, not exactly. I was hard as a piece of Iron and my loins were on fire and I just had to have a girl and, oh, I don’t know. Leave me alone! Please—I’m sorry, but please . . .”
Struan went to the door. “Lo Chum-ahhh!”
“Yes, Mass’er?”
“Go-ah house Chen Sheng. Get number-one cow chillo sick doctor quick-quick here-ah! Savvy?”
“Savvy plentee good-ah!” Lo Chum said huffily. “A’ready werry plenty good-ah doctor downstair for head boom-boom sick and all sick-sick. Young Mass’er like Tai-Pan—all same, never mind!”
Downstairs, Struan talked to the doctor through Lo Chum. The doctoi said that he would send the medicines and special foods promptly, and he accepted a generous fee.
Struan went back upstairs.
“Can you remember anything else, lad?”
“No—nothing. Sorry. I didn’t mean to jump at you.”
“Listen to me, lad! Come on, Culum, it’s important!”
“Please, Father, don’t talk so loudly,” Culum said, opening his eyes forlornly.
“What?”
“It sounds as though you’ve been slipped an aphrodisiac.”
“What?”
“Aye, aphrodisiac. There’re dozens that could be put into a drink.”
“Impossible. It was just the liquor and my—my need of . . . it’s impossible!”
“There are only two explanations. First, that the coolies took you to a house—and it wasn’t the Macao branch of the F and E—where they’d get more squeeze for a rich customer and a share of the robbery to boot. There the girl or girls drugged you, rolled you and delivered you back. For your sake, that’s what I hope happened. The other possibility is that one of your friends gave you the aphrodisiac at the Club, arranged for the chair to be waiting for you—and for a particular house.”
“That’s nonsense! Why’d someone do that? For a hundred guineas and a ring and watch? One of my friends? That’s madness.”
“But say someone hated you, Culum. Say the plan was to put you with a diseased girl—one who has the pox!”
“What?”
“Aye. That’s what I’m afraid’s happened.”
Culum died for an instant. “You’re just trying to frighten me.”
“By the Lord God, my son, I am na. But it is one very definite possibility. I’d say it’s more likely than the other because you were brought back.”
“Who’d do that to me?”
“You have to answer that one, laddie. But even if that’s what happened, all’s na lost. Yet. I’ve sent for Chinese medicines. You’re to drink them all, wi’out fail.”
“But there’s no cure for the pox!”
“Aye. Once the disease is settled. But the Chinese believe you can kill the pox poison or whatever causes it, if you take precautions at once to purify your blood. Years ago when I first came out here, the same thing happened to me. Aristotle found me in a gutter in the Chinese quarter and got a Chinese doctor and I was all right. That’s how I met him—why he’s been my friend for so long. I canna be sure the house—or the girl—was diseased or na, but I never got the pox.”
“Oh God help me.”
“Aye. We’ll na know for certain for a week. If there’s nae swelling or pain or discharge by then—you’ve escaped this time.” He saw the terror in his son’s eyes, and his compassion went out to him. “A week of hell’s ahead of you, laddie. Waiting to find out. I know what it’ll be like—so dinna fash yoursel’. I’ll help all I can. Same way Aristotle helped me.”
“I’ll kill myself. I’ll kill myself if I . . . oh God, how could I have been so foolish? Tess! Oh God, I’d better tell—”
“You’ll do nae such thing! You tell her you were jumped by robbers on your way home. We’ll report it as such. You’ll tell your friends the same. That you think you must have had too much to drink—after the girl. That you can na remember anything except you’re sure you had a great time and woke up here. And for the week you’ll act as you normally act.”