Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Vol. 49, No. 1 & 2, January/February 2004

Assistant Commissioner Henry joined us. He moved a chair toward us and sat down. Chief Inspector Mewer, who had trailed after him, remained standing. The Assistant Commissioner was experiencing a strangely subdued triumph. For the first time in the history of English criminal investigation, he had used fingerprints to identify a murderer, but he had no notion at all as to the murderer’s identity.

“Who is it?” he asked.

Lady Sara pursed her lips thoughtfully. “There probably are several hundred hiding places in this neighbourhood for a Chinese refugee. It might be wise to arrest him quickly before he knows he’s a suspect. Here is what you should do.”

We watched from the window. The elderly shopkeeper was still standing in his doorway looking in the direction of Charlie Tang’s shop. A detective in street clothing strolled over and engaged him in conversation. He was asking questions about the meeting with Charlie Tang and Wong Li that the Chinaman had told Lady Sara and me about. Another detective joined them. Then a third. Lady Sara had estimated that three would be enough. They were. The old man was seized before he quite knew what was happening.

“But what was the motive?” Chief Inspector Mewer demanded. “They weren’t business rivals. There is almost nothing in common between the two shops.”

“The shop next door to Mr. Shing’s is an opium parlour,” Lady Sara said. “Shing operates them both. The brass shop is his labour of love. The opium parlour is his bank — he probably makes huge profits. Charlie Tang was crusading against opium parlours. The motive was as simple as that. The case, however, is extremely complicated. If you will call at Connaught Mews this evening, I’ll be glad to expound it for you. Right now, Colin and I are hungry.”

She expounded the case for me over our Christmas dinner. “Mr. Shing felt he had to do something to stop Charlie Tang’s anti-opium crusade. He decided that murdering Charlie would be too dangerous. The murder of a mere employee of Charlie’s would be far less risky. If Wong Li’s murder could be arranged so that the obtuse English police would think Charlie did it, Mr. Shing’s problem would be solved.

“Since he has lived in England all of his life, he certainly knows a great deal about police procedures and the way the English justice system works. First there had to be a motive. Witnesses were provided who would swear they saw Charlie Tang and Wong Li quarrelling just before the Tang family left yesterday morning. Those witness probably did walk past at exactly the time they said they did. Of course they actually saw nothing. Their testimony was supplied by Mr. Shing.

“Immediately after the Tang family left, Mr. Shing called on Wong Li. He brought with him the twenty Buddhas he claimed Charlie Tang had asked him to order. Whether Charlie actually did so is unimportant. Probably he did occasionally obtain brass items through Mr. Shing, and the order seemed reasonable enough to Wong Li. Wong Li accepted the Buddhas.

“Or perhaps Mr. Shing never mentioned the Buddhas to Wong Li. He placed them in the shop himself after the murder. One thing we can be certain about is that Mr. Shing took the bottle of sake with him when he called. Perhaps it was Wong Li who was fond of the Japanese liquor. Mr. Shing presented the bottle and suggested that they drink a toast — to anything at all, maybe the English Christmas. They did so in the Tang sitting room, and when Wong Li left the room for a moment, Mr. Shing took the dagger from the wall and used it at the first opportunity after Wong Li returned. Being thorough, he may have poured out one more toast from the sake bottle to make sure the police would believe his tale of three toasts.

“Then he left, locking the shop after him with Wong Li’s keys, which you may be certain he quickly disposed of where they will never be found.

“He had set the stage perfectly. Witnesses would claim to have seen Charlie Tang and Wong Li quarrelling. Wong Li was murdered shortly after that, and the police would think Charlie Tang did it before he and his family departed and then locked both shop and living quarters with his own keys when he left.

“Mr. Shing has the temperament of an artist, and the case he constructed was artistically complete. His downfall came because he assumed that Charlie Tang’s morals were similar to his own. That night it suddenly occurred to him, to his horror, that when Charlie Tang returned from Liverpool and found himself confronted with Wong Li’s corpse, he would simply get rid of it. Charlie Tang has a reputation of being a very sharp individual. He would know that a dead employee could cause him endless inconvenience. Further, the Chinese distrust the police and try to do their own policing. Charlie Tang would deftly dispose of the corpse and perform his own investigation, which might prove highly dangerous to Mr. Shing.