Fong nodded. Even this resentful old man saw the beauty in Geoff’s work. “Where are the counterweights kept?” He pointed to four stacks of iron weights on a rolling cart upstage of the last pinrail line. Fong thanked him for his help. “Just one more thing.”
“What?”
“Did actors use the chair that was here?”
“There’s not supposed to be any chair here.”
“No?”
“No. I wouldn’t allow actors here. This is my territory and I’m . . . ”
“A professional, you’ve told us already.”
“Yeah. And I wouldn’t use a chair because it was my job to be ready.” He was clearly about to reiterate that he was a professional but decided against it. He just harrumphed. Then he said, “Anything else?”
“No. Thanks again for your help.”
As the man left, Chen went to get the counterweights, and four cops shut the various doors to the theatre and then stood by. The rest of the cops muscled the black bag onto the stage and cracked it open. First, they took out a duplicate of the noose that had suffocated Geoffrey Hyland. Then they propped up a mannequin weighted to be just under a hundred and eighty pounds. Geoff’s weight.
Fong walked the stage floor while, with the use of ladders, the noose was threaded through the pulleys and then brought down to the pinrail stage left. Then Chen added 340 pounds of counterweight to the flyline.
The mannequin was set centre stage and the noose put around its neck. “Captain Chen, are you ready?”
“Yes,” said Chen as he took up a position by the pinrail.
“Now, unloop the line and pull.”
Chen untied the line and gave it a yank. The mannequin rose easily off the stage toward the fly gallery. The cops were impressed. Fong signalled Chen to drop the line back in. He did and the mannequin slid gracefully to the stage. “Do it harder, Chen.”
Chen did and the mannequin moved faster toward the fly gallery. “Let it back down, Chen.” The dummy moved smoothly back to the stage. “Now do it hand over hand as fast as you can?”
Chen did and the mannequin moved rapidly all the way up to the fly gallery and stayed there.
Fong shook his head and began to pace. Chen approached him. “It works, sir. With the counterweights, the murderer didn’t need to get Mr. Hyland to climb the ladder. So it answers that question, doesn’t it?”
“That question, perhaps, Captain Chen.”
“But it shows how someone could have hanged Mr. Hyland.”
“Partly.”
“Why partly? The counterweights make it easy enough to lift him.”
“Fine, Chen, but how did they get the noose around his neck? He wasn’t drugged. Even if you could get the noose around his neck, how do you stop him from taking it off if he’s in the centre of the stage and you are all the way over stage left at the pinrail?” Then Fong stopped and looked at the scuffmark on the stage-right proscenium arch. He flipped open his cell phone and punched the speed dial for Forensics. “Lily, have you done the paint match yet?”
“Yes. Very simple. The paint on the arch and Mr. Hyland’s shoe match.”
“Thanks, Lily,” Fong said and snapped shut his phone.
Fong took off his right shoe and tossed it to a cop standing by the pinrail door. “Smear mud on that.” The man was about to ask why then thought better of it when he saw the set of Fong’s jaw. Moments later, he returned and gave Fong his now muddy shoe. Fong took the shoe and put it on the mannequin’s right foot, lacing it up, careful not to get mud on his hands. “Bring the mannequin over beside you at the pinrail, Captain Chen.” He did. “Now put the noose around its neck. You’ll have to let in more line to do it.”
Fong closed his eyes for a moment. A new horrific image was ready to force its way into the sack around his heart, increasing the ghostly weight yet again.
“It’s ready, sir,” said Chen
“Now pull hard, hand over hand.”
Fong hopped down off the stage and headed to the back of the auditorium.
“Ready, sir?” Chen called out.
Fong didn’t turn around; he didn’t have to. “Yes, Chen. I’m ready.” Fong knew exactly what would happen.
The mannequin rose out of stage left in a large arch, flew across the stage like the base of a pendulum. The mannequin’s right shoe hit just above the scuffmark on the stage-right proscenium, leaving a muddy slash, and then the mannequin swung obscenely back and forth as it was hauled to its resting place just below the centre of the proscenium arch.
Chen was ecstatic. “Right. Perfect . . . ” But he stopped before he completed his thought.
Fong had left the theatre. He now knew two things for sure that he’d been uncertain of before. He knew that it was possible to hang Geoff and that Geoff’s hanging was the work of at least two people: one to put the noose around Geoff’s neck, one to pull the counterweighted flyline.
Sometimes knowledge sets you free. Sometimes it makes you want to puke.
Standing in the shadows at the back of the auditorium, Li Chou didn’t want to puke. He wanted to jump for joy. He already had motive: jealousy – and now he had means: counterweights. All he needed was opportunity.
As the men packed up the equipment, Captain Chen found Fong outside the theatre. “That leads to something else, doesn’t it, sir?”
Fong nodded. “My place is just around the corner. Let’s talk there.”
Once in Fong’s rooms, Chen didn’t know where to look. His wife, Lily, had lived here with Fong. The shadowed outline of the antique lintel piece she had bought that caused so much trouble was still on the wall beside the window.
A letter from the condo people awaited Fong on the floor just inside the door. He opened it and was informed that he had only two weeks left “to make his intentions known.” It went on to suggest to him that an “insider’s price” like this was a once-in-alifetime thing. Ignoring Chen, Fong went into the bedroom and put the “offer sheet” on his desk. So much money to buy what was already his. When had this place that he and Fu Tsong had loved in stopped being his? When had it become theirs? Whoever they were. He remembered the French guys with blueprints and “bum-winged” silk jackets and their Beijing keeper with the raspberry-stained cheek.
So they were the ones who offered him the special insider’s price. And what a price! He moved the offer sheet to the top-left corner of his desk. Then to the top-right corner. Then to the centre – yep, everywhere he put the thing, the price was still completely beyond his means, way beyond. The only people he knew who had this kind of money were people he had arrested and were now spending time in jail. How could anyone, anywhere, make this kind of money, let alone have it just lying around to spend on buying back something that was already theirs?
Finally he made a decision. He folded the damn thing and shoved it in the desk drawer. That felt better. Then he remembered that Chen was waiting for him in the other room. When he entered, Chen was looking out the window at the courtyard with the ludicrous Henry Moore-esque statue in it. “Tea, Captain Chen?”
Chen nodded and Fong poured hot water from a large Thermos he kept on the floor into a simple ceramic teapot. “So this was definitely a murder then, sir?” asked Chen bluntly.
“A murder made to look like a suicide,” said Fong as he swirled the water around inside the pot to get the tea to infuse the liquid.
“Then shouldn’t we start with opportunity, sir?” asked Captain Chen.
Fong noted the strength in Chen’s voice, wondered about it for a moment then nodded. He poured the hot liquid into a clean jelly jar and held it out to Chen.
The man didn’t take the proffered cha. “Keys for the theatre then? Isn’t that where we should start? Who had keys to get into the theatre. Keys provide opportunity. Opportunity is the place we should start.”
Fong nodded. Chen took the cha. Fong hesitated. Suddenly new vistas of danger were opening as this very sturdy, very dogged cop stood before him drinking his tea. “Let’s get a list of those who have keys to the theatre, Chen.”