Broken Meats: A Harry Stubbs Adventure Read Online Free PDF

new plan of action, one
that included me as an accomplice. He had weighed me up, judging my strengths
and weaknesses, what sort of tool I would make, and how I could be used. And he
put his plan into effect.
    “You will
attend, also. It will be more convenient for you not to be associated with me
at this point, you understand.”
    I did not
understand at all, but I pretended that I did. “Certainly. I suppose you have
attended many of these occasions in Shanghai?”
    “Never,” he
said. “I will now inspect this area on foot. Direct me to a parking space for
the Daimler.”
    I guided
him to the dairy yard, which had plenty of room outside. With no deliveries due
until the next morning, they would not mind us parking there. I had Yang wait a
minute while I collared a small boy to act as a guardian. It would not do for
such a fine vehicle to be molested.
    Yang set
off in a circuit with the Theosophist house roughly in the middle. It was a
reconnaissance, but of what sort I found it hard to say. He seemed to give
equal weight to everything; the buildings, the trees, the clouds all seemed to
attract his attention in turn. I tried to see the place as he was seeing it,
but there was nothing worthy of attention as far as I could tell. Except for
the two of us, of course—the small Chinese gentleman in white with his
oversized English guide in black.
    We
attracted curious looks from passers-by. If Yang had been dressed more quietly,
he would not have attracted attention, but his fancy suit, multiplied by his
being Chinese, set minds to working and tongues wagging. Fortunately, we did
not encounter any groups of schoolboys, who would not have let such a peculiar
pair pass without loud comment and perhaps some experimenting on the effect of
throwing mud at that immaculate suit.
    We stopped
by the Great Pond on Beulah Hill while Yang took a cigarette from a slim silver
case and fitted it to an amber holder. Instead of matches, he had a silver
lighter with the same Oriental pattern as the case, and lit up with a single
flick.
    “A pond at
the top of a hill is unusual,” said Yang.
    “I believe
the cattlemen used to water their herds here when they brought them to market.”
This information came from my father, learned from his father who remembered
when cattle were driven into Norwood from the fields of Surrey.
    “How does
the pond remain full? No streams feed it here on the hill.”
    “Perhaps
there’s a spring. There’s lots of underground water… the old Beulah Spa is just
up the road there.”
    Yang shook
his head fractionally but said nothing. He took out an old copper coin with a
square hole punched through it, held in his palm a second, and then tossed the
coin, spinning, into the water. Yang watched the ripples as if reading words on
the water, and only when they had faded to nothing did he set off again.
    We stopped
again outside the gates of the vast, brick-built blocks of the Home and
Hospital for Incurables. Yang looked the structure up and down as though he was
thinking of buying it. I told him how it was a hospital for people with a
chronic sickness such as consumption and palsy or for unfortunates who had been
born deformed and the like. And because it said 1894 on the wall, I could tell
him when it was built.
    “Why is it
here?”
    “Well.” I
scratched my chin. “I suppose it’s because it’s such a healthy locality. Up
here on the hill, out of the smoke of the city and all that. No pea soupers
here.”
    “Indeed.”
Yang stood politely aside as two nurses pushed patients in wheelchairs past us.
One of the patients stared at him rather rudely from his chair but looked away
as soon as Yang returned his gaze. “Many people have died here,” Yang observed.
I shrugged. We moved on.
    We stopped
again at the bottom of Crown Dale, where Yang cocked his head and seemed to
listen. Big crows were hopping around in the park opposite, and I wondered if
he was eavesdropping on them, but he moved on without