“Do you know that to be a fact?” Lady Sara asked.
“Wong Li told me so himself. He had hoped for some free time to spend with his own family, but Charlie Tang promised him a few days off later if he would guard the shop and residence while the Tang family was gone.”
“Excellent,” Lady Sara said. “Perhaps this problem can be resolved quickly. All we need to do is ask Wong Li if anything untoward happened last night.”
Constable Kung tried the front door. To no one’s surprise, it was locked. He knocked firmly; there was no response. We walked around to the street that ran alongside the building. On the opposite side was the building where Madam Shing paid an extra shilling a week so she could enjoy a front room. It was a shabby street, and the drab fronts of the buildings, mostly dwellings, were entirely unlike the bright, businesslike frontages we had just left. There were two side doors to Charlie Tang’s building. One opened into his shop. Constable Kung knocked on it resoundingly; again there was no response.
We moved on to the other side door, which opened onto a stairway leading up to the Tang family’s living quarters. When the family was at home, it would be left unlocked, and callers would knock or otherwise announce their presence at a second door at the top of the stairs. Now it was locked. Constable Kung knocked loudly.
There was no response.
He tried again. And again.
“Perhaps Wong Li stepped out for a few minutes,” Lady Sara suggested.
Constable Kung shook his head. “He would not. He would have no reason to. Anything he might need or want is there in the shop. Besides, his employer left him to guard the establishment, and that is a sacred trust. We Chinese take such things seriously. No. He is there — either upstairs or in the shop. He must be there.”
He tried again. Again, there was no response.
“Perhaps we should enquire of the neighbours whether Wong Li has been seen since the Tang family left,” Lady Sara suggested.
As I already mentioned, Christmas was not widely celebrated by London’s Chinese. The shop next door to Charlie Tang’s was open for business. It was a cookshop, but my knowledge of Chinese customs was too inexact for me to determine whether the dozen customers we saw there were having late breakfasts or early lunches. What they were eating did not look appropriate to either occasion.
Constable Kung interviewed the proprietor, a muscular Chinaman of medium height wearing an apron that probably had at one time been white. After a jumbled exchange of Chinese — it sounded like a jumbled exchange — Kung turned to us. “Wong Li was left in charge of the premises. He would not leave them until Charlie Tang returned, so of course no one has seen him.”
Lady Sara said thoughtfully, “All we really know is that Charlie Tang intended to leave Wong Li in charge. We don’t know that he actually did so. No one knows that he did so because no one has seen Wong Li since the Tang family left. Isn’t that so?”
Harry Kung pushed his helmet back and scratched his head fretfully. To him, the fact that no one had seen Wong Li was proof that Wong Li was ensconced within his master’s premises and overseeing them watchfully. He had difficulty grasping that this proposition had another side to it. If no one had seen Wong Li, perhaps Wong Li wasn’t there.
Except that he had to be there. Wong Li himself had told Constable Kung that he would be there. Both he and his employer, Charlie Tang, had told others the same thing. The entire neighbourhood knew that Wong Li would oversee Charlie Tang’s premises during the Tang family’s absence. So he had to be there. But in that case, why didn’t he answer the Constable’s knocks?
Back we went for another try at the side door and then for a try at the front of the shop. The Constable’s knocks became violent. There still was no response.
Three Lascars, Indian seamen, came along the street. They were large, husky, dark-skinned men, and their size made both Constable Kung and me look like children. Asked in English about Charlie Tang and Wong Li, they gazed at the Constable silently for a moment, shrugged, and walked on. They would have their quarters somewhere nearby, perhaps a darkened room in a disused shop, crowded with beds, sofas, or even mattresses spread on the floor. They did not mind sleeping ten or twelve to a room. Probably they had done so all of their lives.
A middle-aged Chinese man followed them. Constable Kung discoursed briefly with him. He had heard that the Tang family would be away and that Wong Li would watch the shop. Beyond that, he knew nothing. He had not seen Wong Li, nor had he seen any sign of activity in the building since the Tangs left the previous morning.
A young Chinese man came along from the other direction. He was a tradesman of some sort; he wore an apron and carried a bag of tools. He did not live nearby. He knew who Charlie Tang was — everyone in the East End knew who Charlie Tang was — but he knew nothing about his plans for Christmas.
We walked along the side street for a short distance. I eyed Madam Shing’s window and wondered just how much she could have seen on a dark night. Two young Chinese men — they both looked surly and disreputable — approached on the opposite side of the street. Constable Kung called something to them; they answered, and suddenly he seemed excited. After another exchange, they crossed the street and joined us.
The Constable interrogated them at length before he bothered to translate. “They say,” he said finally, “that they saw Wong Li early yesterday morning. He was arguing with Charlie Tang just outside the shop’s side door. It was something about Wong Li staying to look after the shop, and both men were angry. Li wanted time at home like Charlie’s other employees.”
“How did it end?” Lady Sara asked.
“They don’t know. It was none of their business. They were just walking past, and they kept on walking.”
“It might be wise to write down their names and addresses just in case their testimony becomes important,” Lady Sara said. “The next step would be to call at Wong Li’s home and find out whether he is there. Do you know where he lives?”
The constable knew. We walked down the side street for a short distance to a shabby brick building that housed an odd, dusty shop dealing in amulets and charms on its ground floor. Wong Li, along with his wife and three small children, occupied a single second-storey room. His wife, a young, highly attractive Chinese woman, was bewildered at our questions. Li’s employer had gone to Liverpool, and Li was guarding the premises during his absence. When the Tangs returned, Li was to have an entire week off, and they would go to the southwest of England where, she had heard, it was warmer. All that was agreed. Charlie Tang was a wonderful employer. No, he and Li never disagreed about anything. Li felt lucky to have such an employer.
This, rendered in Chinese and then translated, took some time. In the end, we had not advanced our knowledge except for establishing that Li was not at home and that the person who should have known him best, his wife, thought he was guarding the Tang premises.
Back we went to Charlie Tang’s shop. “Madam Shing’s story, along with the certainty that Wong Li is supposed to be here, suggest that drastic measures are in order,” Lady Sara said. “Is there any legal way to break in?”
Constable Kung was shocked at the thought.
“Supposing a chief inspector ordered you to do it?” Lady Sara asked.
“Oh, well, if a chief inspector ordered it...”
“But I don’t think we have come to that yet. Does anyone in the neighbourhood own a ladder?”
Constable Kung meditated, finally remembering one Samuel Godson, who washed windows for a living. He had customers all across London, wealthy customers, and — for the East End — his was a profitable business. He owned several ladders that he and his employees used. We marched in a procession to the Godson home, which was located in a street that seemed like a veritable oasis amidst the general squalor of the East End. The houses adjoined each other in the usual crowded fashion. Like the buildings in nearby streets, they were old, run down, and in need of repairs, but here the four or five rooms of each house were occupied by a single family. The heads of the houses were tradesmen or small proprietors who were even able to afford a slavy — a young girl who performed the rough housework.