Charlie Chan - Walk Softly, Strangler Part 5

"You think it might work?"

"It could," said Roberts. "But it would hardly be a sound basis for launching Annie on a screen career. Such stunts seldom are."

Chan turned to the girl. "How do you feel about it?"

She hesitated, said, "I don't really know. Everything is happening so fast."

"Can she act?" Chan asked the actor.

Roberts said, "Well enough. She's had training and has enough inherited talent. Given good direction..."

He let it hang. Nor did he, the detective noticed, cite which parent she might have inherited her talent from. Chan suppressed a smile at such tacit if typical actor-egotism, said, "How about the director, and the others involved? How do they feel?"

Roberts said, "It's too soon to tell. Kettering, the director, will probably go along, if I know him - and I do."

"And the producer Mr. Heinemann?"

"So far, an unknown quant.i.ty," Roberts told him. "But he's an unemployed producer, so he'll probably fall in line by the time Claudia puts pressure on him."

"How about you?" Chan asked Roberts.

"How do I feel about acting with my daughter?" Roberts replied. "How would any actor feel? I'm delighted."

"Then the relations.h.i.+p would be acknowledged?"

"Certainly. One thing about Claudia - she keeps abreast of the times. The poor thing has to, otherwise she's practically breastless. Oops - sorry! That was in bad taste. But she feels that things s.e.xual in Hollywood have come a long way since poor Ingrid's time of troubles. Therefore..."

Roberts might have run on forever, had not Chan politely asked permission to use the phone. He called Jarvis, told him where he was and of the attack on his person. Jarvis swore mightily and promised to arrange a police guard of the driveway. Otherwise, he had little to reveal of the progress of the case save that the routine investigation was progressing.

Chan had heard this too often not to know its hidden meaning - that nothing was progressing satisfactorily. He hung up, called the hotel, was informed Hei Wei Chinn had left three messages requesting the detective inspector to call him back.

XI.

CHARLIE CHAN decided to make that one from the hotel and took his leave with appropriate expressions of thanks. As he worked his way down the twisting hill roads, this time without interference, it occurred to him that his most recent experience had been most curious on several counts, including the lack of description of his attacker and the spate of apparently honest information that threatened to leave him in greater confusion than ever. d.a.m.n it, he thought, he liked both father and daughter. If, indeed, they were father and daughter. But he felt quite certain important elements of the truth had been skillfully evaded or disguised.

In short, he didn't wholly believe either of them - nor had he the means of sifting truth from falsehood until he could move from a firmer foundation of fact.

Hei Wei Chinn picked him up at the hotel at seven in his cream colored Continental. Through a smog free twilight, he headed west toward Santa Monica. The evening was pleasantly warm, as Southern California evenings are supposed to be and so seldom are, and the parking lot of the restaurant was washed by a cool breeze from the ocean.

The restaurant was ornate, a concrete and tile paG.o.da, and the food was more ornate still. The meal the antique dealer had ordered in advance consisted of a mere nine courses and came close to Chan's flavor-memories of true Mandarin cuisine.

The two chief dishes among a welter of delicate lesser platters were a whole haddock baked to flaky firmness and drenched in a sauce of soy base enriched with diced fruits, both fresh and candied, in zestful combination. And a pair of small Pekin ducks, one cooked in rich sauces with a stuffing of fresh green pine needles, the other roasted slowly with only a small cup of rare brandy inside so that the fumes of the liquor would permeate the bird from its core outward.

Not until the last of the preserved fruits that concluded the magnificent repast was consumed did Chan's host refer to the purpose of their trip - beyond that of the dinner they had just concluded. Leaning back against his side of the booth, he looked at his Bulova wrist.w.a.tch and said, "We have an appointment with Hiu Sai at ten."

"Business - or pleasure?" said the detective inspector.

"My pleasure - your business," said Hei Wei Chinn. "Hiu Sai is a very special custom craftsman. I believe he can be of help to us in the matter of the imitations. When I reminded him of certain highly suspect objets d'art that have been sold as originals in the last few years, he consented to see us."

Chan said, "My friend, if you are taking me to the man who made the subst.i.tute treasures of Mei T'ang, it is eighteen minutes to ten right now."

"Hiu Sai lives close at hand," said Hei Wei, signaling for the check.

As they got back into the car, he said, "You shouldn't have hurried us. Good food lies more easily on a restful stomach. Besides, I hate to be early."

"Sometimes wise man ape early bird to good advantage - get worm," said Chan, his face perfectly straight.

"Shut up, Charlie," said Hei Wei, putting the cream colored car into drive.

Hiu Sai's modest abode on a shadowy street close to the borderline between Santa Monica and Venice was dark, lit only by an isolated street lamp of low wattage halfway down the block, which shed only enough light to identify the name and number on the battered aluminum mailbox in front.

"That's funny," said Hei Wei as he pulled smoothly to a stop. "He promised to be here."

Chan got out of the car in silence. His eyes followed the twin tracks of concrete that led to the garage door at the left of the two story frame Louse. The door had been raised and the garage yawned an empty rectangle of darkness.

"I don't like this, Charlie," said Hei Wei, standing at his elbow.

Chan studied the front of the house. It certainly seemed empty. He lifted his eyes toward the second story, seeking an open window. All were closed and though the night was warm, there was smoke issuing from a stout brick chimney at the right end of the roof.

He sighed, said, "I have the feeling I'm about to risk a judicial investigation for the violation of Hiu Sai's rights of property."

Motioning Hei Wei to remain where he was, Charlie Chan climbed the three steps to the small front porch carefully, stepping atop the riser to avoid creaks. Gently, he tried the door, found it locked. He peered in the two front windows but, though the blinds were not drawn, could see nothing since the interior lights were out.

Leaving the porch, Chan walked around the house to the back door, which opened readily when he turned the k.n.o.b. He stepped inside, closed his eyes and counted slowly to twenty, to permit them to adjust to the greater darkness. When he opened them, he could discern dimly that he stood in a kitchen. The smell of something burning was noticeable, but the heat was not in the stove, which was unlit.

The lights went on suddenly. Hei Wei had entered behind him, found the switch, turned it on. Ignoring his friend, Chan continued to sniff silently. There was an acrid odor to the unseen fire that suggested to him only one thing - film recently incinerated.

He said, "Where is the other stove?"

Hei Wei looked at his friend in perplexity, then said, "Oh! There's an annealing oven in the workshop in the bas.e.m.e.nt."

It proved, for Chan, an interesting room. He was intrigued not merely by the fact that it was an entirely modern electronic workshop in the anachronistic old frame house - but by the several natures of the articles its owner was in the process of reproducing.

Here were a leather seated wooden chair of medieval times, a wide variety of urns in various stages and hues of l.u.s.tre, old armor (or new armor made old), terra cotta likenesses of Etruscan warrior heads with their wild looking headgear and eyes even longer and wider and more staring than those of the early Egyptian Dynasties.

More immediately interesting to Chan was an apparent object on which the vanished simulator appeared to be currently in work. Held in a vise on a workbench was a block of what looked like amber in which a pair of mating dragon-flies were eternally caught in the act. Atop the bench was a metallic lamp containing a milk white tube that filled its rectangular face.

Hei Wei said from beside him, "So that's how he does it! Sometimes Hiu Sai's workmans.h.i.+p is crude but his measurements are always correct."

"What is it, Chinn?" the detective asked.

Hei Wei did not answer in words. Instead, he pushed a metal b.u.t.ton below the white tube, which instantly came to life as a three-dimensional color reproduction of what purported to be the original of the amorous insects. He stepped back, continuing to look at it admiringly.

"Son of a b.i.t.c.h!" he said. "Look at that! He can make facsimiles without having the object itself for study."

In a corner, they found a filing cabinet partially filled with labeled containers that held other tri-di film capsules. One conspicuous gap in the file was, to Chan, like a cavity in an otherwise perfect set of teeth. He hardly needed information as to what was or had been burned in the annealing oven at the far end of the room to make an educated guess. It was obviously film.

Chan said, "Did you frighten Hiu Sai, Chinn?"

The dealer shrugged, said, "I got the impression over the phone that I annoyed rather than frightened him. He's very secretive about his work, you see."

"I see," said Chan, "and I can see why." He indicated the oven, added, "Is there any chance of saving anything burning in there?"

Chinn snorted. "At two thousand degrees, Fahrenheit? You must be joking."

A small sound from the doorway brought both men up short.

XII.

"WHAT THE h.e.l.l do you think you're doing here?" said a soft Southern voice. "You're under arrest."

A pair of uniformed policemen stood there, Smith & Wesson Magnums very much at the ready. Chan raised his hands with a sigh, saw Hei Wei do likewise.

To the arresting officers, Chan said, "If you will have somebody call Captain Jarvis of the Hollywood Station and tell him you have arrested Charlie Chan..."

He got no further. The patrolman who had checked their search snorted his disbelief, said, "And I'm d.i.c.k Tracy. You'd better come with us."

It took time. Jarvis had retired for the night and not until close to twelve did anyone identify Chan to the satisfaction of the Santa Monica precinct. A neighbor of the missing Hiu Sai had seen the break-in and phoned an alarm.

"Next time," said the lieutenant on night duty, "let us know in advance. We'll be glad to cooperate, Inspector."

"In Kingdom of Heaven," said Chan, "cooperation, not compet.i.tion, law of land."

Back in the antique dealer's big car, Hei Wei said, "Why the fortune cookie motto, Charlie?"

"People expect it of me," said Chan. "Cannot leave laughing, leave smiling." He gave Hei Wei a broad smile.

"Pardon me while I retch," said Hei Wei, turning east on Broadway. "Where to now, Charlie?"

"Home - to hotel. And thanks for a fine dinner and a most instructive evening."

"You call that instructive?" said Hei Wei. "All but getting arrested? What good did it do?"

"It showed us the efficiency of the Santa Monica Police," said Chan. "It also showed us that someone called Hiu Sai to warn him of our impending arrival."

"Now who would do a thing like that?" said Hei Wei. "You give me the creeps."

"Possibly a man named Hei Wei Chinn," said Chan.

"Me - who was tapping my phone?"

"Remember, you called and made the appointment," said Chan. "It is just possible Hiu Sai decided to call his employer on the Mei T'ang treasure subst.i.tution and ask for advice."

"Son of a b.i.t.c.h!" said Hei Wei, pounding the wheel with the base of a hand. Then, contrite moments later, "Who did Hiu Sai call?"

"That," said Chan, "is the sixty-five thousand dollar question."

"Don't you mean sixty-four thousand dollar question?" Hei Wei asked.

"Because of its importance, I decided to up the ante," said Charlie Chan.

"I buy you the best Chinese dinner in Los Angeles," lamented Hei Wei, "and you turn me into a straight man!"

"Cholly so solly," said Chan.

Both men began to laugh...

But Chan was not laughing when he reached the Hollywood Roosevelt. His face was as serious as his thoughts when he stepped to a lobby phone and gave the operator Claudia Haynes' number. During the seemingly wasted time of their arrest, his mind had been in overdrive. He had been reweighing the crucial minutes during the Mei T'ang party when the murder must have been committed.

He was quite certain that he and Svorenssen had arrived after the crime - but not by much. He once again used his disciplined near-total recall to run over everything he had seen, heard and smelled before and during that critical period.

Claudia's contralto growl came through, said, "Who is it?"

"Inspector Chan," he replied. "Sorry to wake you."

"You didn't," said the agent. "Who in h.e.l.l can sleep with Mei T'ang's murderer still loose?"

Wearing a pink quilted house coat, she received Chan. A loaded highball was in one hand, a loaded cigarette holder in the other. She offered him a drink, which he refused, led him to the living room and turned down the sound on the color television, which was running a James Bond type spy spoof.

Flinging her undernourished limbs on the leather sofa, she said, "At your service."

Claudia Haynes, Chan judged, was not drunk but had reached an uninhibited plateau of semi-intoxication. He said, "You remember yesterday afternoon when you and Gil Roberts got in our elevator?"

"I'm not b.l.o.o.d.y likely to forget!" she replied. A visible shudder shook her thin shoulders.

"How long were you with Roberts before you got into the elevator, Miss Haynes?"

"Not long," she said. "In recent years, I see as little of Gil as possible, apart from professional considerations." Then, with a shrug, "A buck's a buck, as you well know, and while Gil's value as a property is not what it was, ten percent of his earnings is more than I can afford to give Up."

Ignoring the extraneous matter, Chan said, "Do you remember which direction he came from?"

"Not b.l.o.o.d.y likely! He rang my doorbell just as I was about to leave and go upstairs to Mei T'ang's party.', "And you had been at home until then?"

The agent revealed her exasperation, said, "While I am fully aware of the importance of repeated questioning in an investigation of this nature, I was not aware that there was no legal proviso against boring the interogatee to death.

"I've been through it with you, I've been through it with the police. Yes, I was at home. No, I have no witnesses to prove it, unless a check of my phone calls will serve that purpose. All I can tell you is what I already have."

"Thank you, Miss Haynes."

"Make that Ms. Inspector. I'm tired of sounding like the Virgin Queen."