Broken Meats: A Harry Stubbs Adventure Read Online Free PDF Page A

this
place?”
    “Certainly.
It’s over the other side of Dulwich.”
    We sat in
the car, which smelled of fresh leather and oiled wood, while Yang familiarised
himself with the controls. He lightly touched the handles and levers in turn
and stroked the steering wheel. I did not dare to offer help, and when Yang
pushed the starter button, the powerful engine roared to life.
    “It’s a
good car,” I said.
    “I drive a
Daimler in Shanghai,” said Yang, flicking the indicator. “Now, what direction?”
    Yang drove
well, coping with the busy traffic without difficulty. I had imagined Shanghai
as a place of rickshaws and oxcarts and carriages but began to think that I may
have been mistaken. I resolved to ask Reg about it.
    I found the
address easily enough even though it was out of the way. The road was a rutted
lane, and the house stood by itself, almost concealed in the trees and
surrounded by an overgrown garden. It was a ramshackle construction, built in
several stages over a long period. It looked at least half-derelict. The roof
slates were askew, but the windows were intact. A thin stream of smoke rose
from the chimney.
    Yang
indicated for me to remain in the car. He crossed the road and knocked on the
door. We waited for a good three minutes. I saw a face at an upstairs window.
It appeared so briefly that I couldn't tell whether it was a man or a woman.
Nobody answered the door. At length, Yang came back across the muddy road and,
taking out a silver fountain pen and business card, used the bonnet of the car
for a writing table. He was close enough for me to see that he did not write
but just drew a simple, looping design. Then he posted it in the letterbox.
    As he
stepped back into the car, I noted that, except for the soles of his shoes,
there was not one speck of mud on him. He walked with the grace of a cat,
treading lightly. Heel and toe touched at the same moment, as though Yang had
been trained to walk silently and did it without thinking.
    “We will
return here later.” Yang passed me another slip with an address on it. “Here is
the next address.”
    “Certainly,
but this lane’s a dead end. You’ll have to drive in reverse the way we came.”
    Instead,
Yang turned the wheel sharply, going forward and then back, changing the heavy
gears with little effort. In a few seconds, he'd turned the big Daimler around
in less space than I would have thought possible. Yang was not a man whom you
could tell what to do.
    “Which
direction next?” he asked as he started back down the lane.
    The second
address was a very different affair. This was a comfortable suburban villa near
Crown Point, set on a street with a dozen other buildings like it. There was
nothing to distinguish the house except for a discreet wooden notice board next
to the garden gate.
    “’Upper
Norwood Theosophist Circle, ’” I read.
    “That is
correct. Please remain here.”
    I watched
again as Yang went and knocked on the door. This time, a maid answered his
knock. A minute later, a grey-haired man came to the door, and he and Yang
conversed for a few minutes. I strained to read any of the messages posted on
the board and wondered what a Theosophist Circle was.
    “We will
return here in a few days,” Yang announced as he opened the car door. “I have
been invited to attend a séance.”
    “What,
calling up spirits and table rapping and all that?”
    “I believe
so.”
    “I
understand you’re here on a religious mission,” I offered. Reg would be
pleased, I thought. It was not a direct question but close enough to the point.
    “Indeed,”
said Yang. “My purpose is not unconnected with the Theosophist Circle.”
    “I’d love
to see one of those séances for myself,” I said without really thinking.
“You see them on the stage and in the pictures, but a real séance must
be something else.”
    Yang
hesitated for the smallest fraction of a second. And yet, in hindsight, I
believe that in that moment he conceived an entirely