Soo Hoo Duck and Yat Sing exchanged glances.
“What happened?” Yat Sing asked in Chinese.
Soo Hoo Duck said, “She was crowded into the curb, held a prisoner for a while.”
“Was she harmed?” Yat Sing asked.
“Certainly not,” Ngat T’oy said proudly. “There is no reason to make so much commotion over this. I want to speak to Ed. Father. And alone, please.”
Soo Hoo Duck said to Yat Sing and to the woman, “Come.”
They shuffled out of the room.
As soon as the door had closed, Ngat T’oy spoke to me with such rapidity that my ears could hardly follow her words. “Ed, I’ve got to undress. You’ve got to find some way of getting my clothes out of here.”
“Your clothes!” I said. “What’s the matter?”
“Come here.”
I moved over closer to her.
She raised her skirt, showed me pink silk, and on that pink silk were ominous splotches of blood.
“Ngat T’oy, you were hurt?”
“Not me,” she said. “I’m afraid — I’m afraid I committed murder.”
“If you killed someone who was trying to harm you, it is not...”
“No, no, not that. I’m afraid I committed deliberate, coldblooded murder. I am afraid I killed a man who never harmed me, a man I don’t even know.”
“But why?”
“I don’t know, I tell you.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“All right. I was driving along the street, intending to run an errand, pay a social call and then see if I could get in touch with you, just to find out how things were coming. A car pulled alongside. A man said, ‘A message for Little Sun’ — that is the name you use always, Ed, and I thought it must be from you. But I was cautious. I pulled over to the curb on Grant Avenue, where there were dozens of people within earshot. My own countrymen. I had only to raise my voice, and I could have commanded the obedience of a dozen of my countrymen.”
“What did he do?”
“Ed, I... I don’t know. He came over to the car. He lowered his voice. He said, ‘A man who is very dear to you is in danger. He wants you to go to him.’
“I drew away a little. I knew, Ed, that you would never send for me because you were in danger, and I think the man realized that, because he said, ‘And there is danger to your father, as well.’ And then his hand rested on my arm and I felt something — a pinprick.
“I tried to jerk my arm away.
“He said, ‘Don’t, you little fool. Can’t you see I’m trying to give you this message without letting everyone on the street hear it?’
“And then he started talking, and peculiar things happened. He said that I must get men whom I could trust and go to a certain place, and he started to tell me where that place was. I was to take a certain street, go so many blocks, then turn to the left, and, as I tried to follow him, a roaring noise came into my ears, and my mind seemed stupefied. I tried to concentrate, and the more I tried, the less could I think. I couldn’t focus my eyes. My tongue got thick. I felt that my body had been turned into a big head. And then I was unconscious.”
“And then what?”
There was more than fear in her eyes, there was terror. “Ed, I don’t know. I felt that men were carrying me upstairs. I was placed in a bedroom. Lately, I have been carrying a dagger, something that I could use in defense if it came to an absolute showdown. I don’t know what happened to me. I seemed to be hypnotized. I was walking on tip-toe toward a bed. A man was sleeping there. I knew that I must kill him.”
“A drug-induced nightmare,” I said.
“Ed, look.” She raised her blouse. I could see a strip of smooth, peach-tinted skin, a leather sheath. She raised the blouse farther. The sheath was empty.
“And what happened?” I asked.
“Ed, I killed him in his sleep. I felt drawn by some power, greater than I was, something over which I had no control, something that pushed me onward as though it had been a big hand. And the moment I struck down with the knife, I felt that I had fulfilled the thing I had been called upon to do. A vast peace and contentment came over me. I slept. And when I awakened, I was in my car, out in the residential district. I was parked at a curb. There was fog swirling all around. I was filled with panic. I started the car and came home at once. Father ordered me to bed. I went into the closet and started to take off my clothes. I saw the blood — and then I remembered.”
“What did your dagger look like, Ngat T’oy?”
“You’ve seen it, Ed. Jade, encrusted with gold.”
“The dragon on the handle?” I asked.
“Yes... And my purse, Ed. It is missing.”
I reached a sudden decision. “I will tell your father the truth. I will tell your father and Yat Sing while you take a hot bath and dress. And then you are going out with me.”
“And these clothes that I have on?” she asked.
I smiled. “Do you not think you can trust Yat Sing for that?”
“Yes,” she said simply, “if I tell him the truth, I need have no worry about someone finding these clothes. But, Ed, do you think that I murdered...”
“Ngat T’oy,” I said, “who knows? There are drugs which destroy the volition. Perhaps you were hypnotized. Perhaps you were drugged and told to dream... The probabilities are that it was merely a dream. You say this man was in bed?”
“He was lying on a bed, but was fully dressed.”
I said, “When you have bathed and changed your clothes, you will come with me and we will investigate.”
Ngat T’oy clapped her hands, summoning her woman.
I left the room, walked down the corridor to where Soo Hoo Duck and Yat Sing were seated, waiting for me.
Chapter Seventeen
I left Ngat T’oy in the car.
The fog had now settled to a thick blanket, muffling sounds.
The big house of Benjamin Ruttling was a white monstrosity, without visible architectural design, a huge, dark bulk suspended in a sea of weak skimmed milk. From the ground, one could not see the roof. Midway along the side of the house, it was impossible to see the corners.
I felt my way carefully along the side of the fog-enshrouded mansion until I found what I sought — a door at the service entrance with glass panels.
What followed was purely elementary in the art of housebreaking.
Ten seconds later, I was inside.
Despite the shortage of domestic labor, a man with the money, resourcefulness and ruthlessness of Benjamin Colter Ruttling would have servants. These servants were probably sleeping in the back wing of the house. My concern was with the front bedrooms.
The job in hand called for all of my skill, all the underworld education I had learned from my contacts with expert criminals, as well as such experience as I had gained in my war with the underworld.
On silent feet, I moved down the long corridor which led to the sweeping staircase that had been so carefully planned for its architectural balance.
The beam of my flashlight, a flashlight hardly larger than a fountain pen, showed me the curving wrought-iron ornamentation of the staircase, the wrought-iron cage for the big indirect-lighting fixture hanging by a massive chain from a hook suspended in the ceiling; showed me the...
I froze in my tracks. A shadow had been cast by some object which lay upon the floor.
The pencil of illumination struck a sprawled body, grotesquely inert in death, a sinister red stain welling out from under it, to send a blood-red reflection from the beam of my flashlight dancing upon the ceiling.
Slowly, carefully, fearing a trap, yet faced with the necessity of doing what had to be done, I circled around the dead man.
The beam of my flashlight illuminated the face, showed the death-distorted features of Whitney, the confidential secretary of Benjamin Colter Ruttling. The dagger of Ngat T’oy was plunged to its hilt in his chest.