Read Online Assignment - Cong Hai Kill by Edward S. Aarons - Free Book Online

more.”
    “Poor Chang! He was such
a gentle old man. . . .”
    “Did he once live at
your father’s plantation?”
    “He was a co-manager
with Uncle Paio, for Papa. But Chang left to go into business here, when I
was quite little. Oh, I cried when he left. He always had little gifts for me.
He never harmed anyone. Why did they kill him?”
    “I don’t see Orris Lantern
aboard.”
    Her head twisted in
sudden alarm. “But he was supposed to come down with Chang and give himself up
to you.”
    “And he didn’t, did he?”
Durell said.
    She searched his face.
“Has something happened to Orris? Do you think they—they did the same
things—”
    “It’s too soon to guess.
It could be either way.”
    She stiffened. “I know
what you really think. You think Orris helped with this awful thing,
for some reason; you think Orris changed his mind and won’t come
back-”
    She was near hysteria,
and he gave her a cigarette and made her stand facing the door. She resisted
for a moment, then did as he asked, while he searched the cabin. He knew he
could expect Muong and others here at any moment.
    There were two bunks in
the cramped, hot cabin, but only one seemed to have been used on the trip
downriver. The Chinaman’s single piece of luggage was the only pathetic remnant
of the living man. He stepped into the tiny bath and saw that the big, square
window opening onto the passenger deck had been left ajar. He checked the crude
shower stall, the rusty washbasin, the medicine cabinet. Everything had been
cleaned out. So Chang had packed before he was slaughtered. An hour or so ago,
Chang had still been alive.
    But he had been alone. Orris Lantern
had not kept his promise to tum himself in and abandon the Cong Hai.
    Then why had Chang been
killed?
    He examined the steel
Windowsill in the bath. The paint was scratched and showed gleaming metal
underneath. In this climate, a single day would show rust. So the murderer had
fled through this window—and might still be aboard.
    Major Muong and
several of his men crowded into the stateroom. The organized uproar on the
docks continued.
    “Major, has anyone been
allowed ashore yet?” he asked.
    The Thai regarded him
with blank eyes. “No. The gangway has been sealed.”
    “Then everyone should be
screened. You might spot a known assassin from the Cong Hai.”
    “Precisely. As for
Mademoiselle Danat—”
    “I suggest one of your
men escort her back to the hotel and keep her with Miss Deirdre Padgett.”
    “It will be done.”
    But there were results
even sooner than Durell expected. He heard a slight scuffling below, on the
cargo deck. The passengers from upriver were massed in a noisy tidal wave
against the rail, held back from the dock by a handful of uniformed police
whose round faces reflected a growing fear of losing control. The center of the
scuffle was a dark little East Indian in a shabby seersucker suit. He was
trying to reach the rail, pushing against two saffron—robed Buddhist monks. A
spasm of terror twisted the man’s ratty face when he was pushed back. He turned
his head and looked up at Durell and Major Muong, and the Thai made a
small hissing sound.
    “It is Doko Dagan.
You see him, Mr. Durell? He has a record and does not belong here. He comes
from Bangkok and We have a difficult dossier on him as a labor agitator, a dope
runner, and a politically unreliable hoodlum.”
    “Let’s pull him in,”
Durell said.
    “Precisely. Yes.”
    But the man they wanted
had enough warning. He didn’t hesitate. Clutching a cheap straw suitcase, he
jumped overboard into the muddy river and vanished among the sampans and barges
pressed against the steamer’s side.
     
    “Don’t kill him,” Durell
warned quickly. “Maybe he did the job on Uncle Chang.”
    He leaned forward over
the rail. The fugitive hadn’t hit the water, after all. He had landed in a
sampan that obviously had maneuvered to receive him, and now the coolies were
poling