Black Mask Magazine (Vol. 24, No. 9 — January, 1942)
- Автор: Reeves Robert, Champion D. L.
- Год: 1942
- Язык: английский
- Год: Fictioneers
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Black Mask Magazine (Vol. 24, No. 9 — January, 1942)». Краткое содержание книги:
Sah-jin O’Hara, Bluecoat Devil of the Chinatown Squad had been handed some queer crime clues in his dealings with the slant-eyed Sons of Han, but never a plastered parrot that wouldn’t talk — not even to utter the three little words that held the key to a fabulous fortune.
Chapter One
The Purloined Parrot
The parrot is known by many names, but call it perico, papagei or perroquet, it is still a remarkable bird. Bespectacled professors describe it as a zygodactyl of the order Psittaci; howling black savages of the Congo speak of it as The Talking Ghost — and down in Chinatown the slant-eyed Sons of Han call it The Feather Devil.
But mention the word “parrot” to Sergeant Dennis O’Hara of the Chinatown Squad and you will hear a shorter and stronger name for the species, for the Red-Hair Sah-jin, as the Yellow Quarter calls him, is not likely to forget the mystery of The Parrot That Wouldn’t Talk.
“That’s the kind of breaks you get in Chinatown,” O’Hara said. “Everywhere else the parrot is famous for imitating the human voice — so I get stuck with one that wouldn’t talk. We didn’t want a whole speech, either — just three little words, but drunk or sober, that blasted Feather Devil kept its beak shut.”
Then O’Hara grins at you. “Never heard of a drunk parrot, eh? Well, this one was plastered, all right — wobbling on its feet, and making noises like hiccoughs. Yes, sir, I’ve been handed some damn queer clues in my time, but that liquored parrot tops ’em all!”
It happened that the mysterious chain of events began one quiet evening as Yun Chee the tea merchant sat in his favorite bamboo chair, reading aloud from the poems of Li Po. Behind him, on a pedestal-stand near the open window, was a green parrot called Choy.
“Rawk-awk!” squawked the parrot, stirring restlessly.
“Silence!” Yun Chee commanded, frowning, then began Li Po’s famous Moon Poem in a sing-song chant:
“Awk!” shrilled the parrot, and there was a swift sound like the rustling of feathers.
In rising anger Yun Chee twisted his head around — then his jaw dropped, and the wooden-bound volume of poems clattered to the floor, for a long arm had darted in through the open window, snaring the parrot in folds of black cloth. And before the startled merchant could spring to his feet, the pedestal was empty — the parrot gone!
“Hai! Thief! Thief!” Yun Chee yelled, dashing to the window in time to see a dark figure racing through the back garden. Snatching an antique Mongol dagger from the wall, Yun Chee dashed out to corner the brazen thief.
The marauder was halfway up a narrow ladder set against the high, spiked wall, when the merchant leaped forward and seized him by the legs, pulling him to the ground. As Yun Chee struck with his antique blade, his knife-hand was seized in a grip of iron. There was a brief, sharp scuffle — a scream — a groaning fall.
Wei Lum, the merchant’s servant, hearing his master’s cries, came running through the back door as the black silhouette of the thief was poised atop the wall, hauling up his ladder, then making a headlong leap into the darkness.
“Ai-yee!” Wei Lum wailed, crouching down beside Yun Chee’s prostrate body to strike a match. The spurt of yellow flame revealed the antique dagger which was buried to the hilt in Yun Chee’s chest.
“Mask — thief — steal — Choy!” Yun Chee gasped, then gave a bubbling cough, shuddered, and subsided into limp silence.
“Poh-liss! Poh-liss!” Wei Lum screamed to the arousing neighbors, and dashing into the house, pounded out shivering crashes on a gong which hung in the hall.
Detective Driscoll of the Chinatown Squad came on the run from Mulberry Lane, but Yun Chee was already dead when he arrived. He was busy questioning the servant when Sergeant O’Hara reached the scene in a red prowl car.
“Yun Chee — stabbed to death,” Driscoll reported. “This is gonna be a tough nut to crack, Sarge. The guy made a clean getaway. We’ve got the knife, but it belonged to Yun Chee himself, and worse luck, Wei Lum pawed it over, trying to pull it out of the wound. That kills our chance of getting decent prints.”
“Hell!” was O’Hara’s brief comment. He stood outside the window through which the parrot had been snatched, his glance taking in the details of the richly furnished room. A red-and-gold lacquered cabinet stood just inside the window, holding a jade figure of Kwan-Yin and a vase with a plum blossom design.
“Look at the stuff on this cabinet, Driscoll. Here’s a Kwan-Yin in mutton-fat jade. And this vase is genuine Ming. A thousand dollars’ worth of loot right under the thief’s hand, and he steals a five dollar parrot! Does that make sense?”
“Maybe he didn’t know it was a Ming vase,” Driscoll suggested.
“Could be,” O’Hara conceded, “but show me a Chink who doesn’t know mutton-fat jade when he sees it.”
Driscoll rubbed his chin. “Look, Sarge, the parrot he stole wasn’t even worth five dollars. For five bucks you can get a talking bird, and this one was just the squawky kind. Even so, it’ll be enough to put a rope around that killer’s neck — if he holds on to it! That’s the catch. If the guy has ten cents’ worth of brains, he’ll wring the bird’s neck and toss it into the first ash can.”
“I don’t think so, Driscoll. This looks like a planned job to me. I think this fellow wanted Yun Chee’s parrot — and nothing else.”
“But why?” Driscoll argued. “Why kill a man for a dumb, no-account bird like that Choy? There’s the Ming vase — and the jade. Either one would buy a boat load of parrots.”
“Well, screwy things happen in Chinatown,” O’Hara replied, “but there’s always a reason behind it, and I’m betting this is more than just a sneak-thief job. We’ll see, Driscoll. As the Chinks say: Time holds the key to every lock.”
“I’d say the parrot was the key to this one,” Driscoll replied. “How’s chances of tracing it?”
“No dice,” O’Hara growled. “There are dozens of those damn green parrots in Chinatown. The Chinks buy ’em from sailors along the waterfront. Some are kept for pets, others make parrot stew. If we start a systematic search, the news will be all over the place inside of five minutes. Our man simply gets rid of the bird, and we blow our only chance.”
But the Blue Coat Devils were not the only ones in Chinatown concerned over the deed of violence which had sent Yun Chee to join his honorable ancestors. The tea merchant had been a high official of the Tsin Tien Tong, which would suffer a Number One “loss of face” if his death went unsolved and unavenged.
Soon it was rumored that the Tsin Tien Tong offered a reward of five hundred Rice Face dollars for the capture of Yun Chee’s murderer, and that the tong council had already voted upon the punishment to be visited upon the guilty man. He would not be delivered to the Rice Face Law — no, by Tao! He would be taken to a secret place to hear his doom. Death — death by the split bamboo!
“Aye, a life for a life!” the yellow men whispered. “The Scales of Justice must be evenly weighted.”
“It’s a race, Sarge,” Driscoll said, reporting the rumors. “If that Tsin Tien crowd get their hands on the killer first, he’s a dead pigeon.”
“All right, then, it’s a race,” O’Hara replied. “But I’ll give you odds that their five hundred dollar reward goes begging.”
But while the two greatest powers in Chinatown pursued their grim manhunt in relentless rivalry, little Wei Lum, faithful servant of the murdered tea merchant, had his own ideas for tracking down the killer. Let the Blue Coat Devils hunt with death-dealing pistols, let the great tong bait its trap with silver. Wei Lum had a potent weapon of his own — music!