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

The little Chinese woman was so elderly and small she looked like a shriveled monkey. She was panting in exhaustion, and her inscrutable face was, for once, scrutable. She was terrified. Lady Sara took charge of her and sent me to prepare hot tea. By the time I returned with it, she had helped Madam Shing to remove some of the robes that enveloped her, got her positioned comfortably on a sofa, and was massaging her arms and legs.

“Would you believe — she walked all the way!” Lady Sara exclaimed.

I echoed her astonishment. From Madam Shing’s Chinese neighbourhood in the East End to Connaught Mews was between six and seven miles as the crow flies and much further than that following London’s meandering streets, which no sensible crow would have attempted. On that frigid Christmas Eve, the woman had walked herself almost to death.

She kept trying to tell her story, and Lady Sara kept hushing her. “Have your tea first,” she said. After a time she was able to sit up and sip the hot tea I had brought and even munch on a biscuit. The tenseness gradually oozed out of her, but she still looked terrified. Lady Sara watched her patiently, keeping her attention on the tea until she had finished a large cup.

Madam Shing had once been a valuable Limehouse agent. She had conscientiously roamed a large area and made herself an important source of information. She was a well-known and highly respected character among London’s Orientals. Her innate dignity inspired a local rumour that the Dowager Empress of China was a distant connection of hers, and even Chinese who spoke no English called her “Madam Shing.”

For the past few years, old age had curtailed her wanderings and failing eyesight blurred her observation. Now she rarely left the single room she lived in, and the last report we had from her had come several years before. A son in China sent her a small stipend, and Lady Sara made it possible for her to live comfortably by continuing to pay her ten shillings a month. Each month she had to be persuaded to accept it. She knew she was doing nothing to earn it. Whoever was acting as Lady Sara’s paymaster would persuade her to take it on the grounds that something momentous might occur just outside her window, and she would once again become an invaluable source of information. Eventually she pretended to believe that and accepted the money.

Contrary to all of our expectations, something had happened, and it had frightened her severely. When she finished her tea and indicated herself ready to talk, she croaked, “I was looking out of the window, and I saw it.”

“Saw what?” Lady Sara prompted her.

“Man with ladder.”

We waited.

She corrected herself. “Man with a long white beard and ladder. He put a ladder against the building and climbed up.”

“The building across the street?” Lady Sara asked.

“Yes. Across the street.”

“And what did he do then?”

“He opened the window and climbed in.”

“Charlie Tang lives across the street,” Lady Sara said. “Was it his window the man climbed into?”

“Yes. Charlie Tang’s window.”

“Were the Tangs at home?”

“No. Gone to Liverpool.”

Charlie Tang had a brother in Liverpool who occupied a position similar to his in London. Both were leading merchants. Christmas was not a holiday among the East End Chinese except for the small community of Chinese Christians that patronised the Chinese Mission House run by the Reverend George Piercy. Both the Tangs had married English wives, however, and were thoroughly Westernised. They attended the Church of England, sent their bright, happy children to English schools, and associated with leading English merchants while maintaining all of their Chinese connections.

Obviously they were holding a family Christmas gathering in Liverpool, and if Madam Shing’s sketchy description was to be believed, during Charlie Tang’s absence someone had broken into his dwelling, which was above his shop.

That was as much as Madam Shing would say. Lady Sara questioned her at length, but she would not elaborate. She had described exactly what she had seen, or thought she had seen, and not a jot more: A man with a long white beard had placed a ladder against the building across the street and climbed into the first-storey window that was directly opposite to Madam Shing’s own window.

“What sort of clothing was he wearing?” Lady Sara asked.

Madam Shing hadn’t noticed anything special about his clothing. It was a cold night; she supposed he had a coat on.

“What happened to the ladder afterward?” Lady Sara wanted to know. “Was it still there when you left?”

Madam Shing gazed at her blankly. She hadn’t given any further thought to the ladder. She hadn’t looked out of her window again. As soon as she saw what was happening, she determined to tell Lady Sara about it. She bundled herself up, which took time, and when she reached the street the ladder was gone.

“When the man with the long white beard was climbing up, were there other men waiting at the foot of the ladder?” Lady Sara persisted.