Bless the Bride

hair or two, or did he wear the queue?”
    “He is only half Chinese,” Bobby Lee said. “He behaves like an American.”
    Captain Kear looked at him. “Off you go then, Bobby. I’ll be able to get in touch with you through On Leong if I need you when we go through the cabinet or need to ask you more questions. But don’t think of going back to the apartment before that. You won’t be allowed in. Hear that, O’Byrne. I want you to stay here and keep an eye on this place. You might want to seal off the living room and the master’s bedroom. Don’t let the occupants touch anything and don’t let this one back inside.”
    “Very good, sir.” O’Byrne looked relieved that his next task didn’t involve running around the city.
    Daniel had pulled out his pocket watch from his waistcoat. “You’d better question Frederick Lee before he bribes the On Leong types to let him slip away. And if you want my advice, bring him to the precinct for questioning. Shut him up overnight. There’s nothing like a night in the cells to get the truth out of a suspect. You can take him to the Tombs if you like. I’ll let them know.”
    “Kind of you,” Captain Kear said in a way that might have been sarcastic.
    “And put out a city-wide bulletin to look for the girl. You have a description, do you?”
    “Miss Murphy has just given me a photograph.” Captain Kear held up the package.
    “Excellent. She should be easy enough to find then, if she hasn’t skipped town. In my experience nothing works better than playing one suspect against the other. If Frederick Lee thinks we’ve got her in the Tombs, I guarantee he’ll talk.”
    “Very well.” Captain Kear looked long and hard at Daniel, then said, “And I take it you’ll know where to find Miss Murphy, if we need to ask her any further questions.”

Twenty-one
     
     
     
    It was a good parting blow as Captain Kear walked away and I saw Daniel’s mouth twitch. The moment we were out of earshot Daniel grabbed my arm and spun me to face him.
    “What the devil do you think you were doing?” he demanded. “Do you realize what you’ve done? You’ve made me the butt of jokes in the police department for years to come, not to mention starting up the tong wars again single-handedly.”
    He was shouting loudly and his voice echoed back from the tall tenements and the empty street. He was glaring at me, his eyes blazing. “Did you or did you not promise me that you’d give up this ridiculous nonsense?”
    I decided that this time fighting was not going to get me anywhere. “I did promise, Daniel, and I’m sorry. I never intended to get involved in something like this. Only the man who came to see me was so persistent and said his employer wouldn’t take no for an answer and would pay me generously, so I went to see him, just out of curiosity, and to start with all he asked me to do was to locate a piece of jade jewelry that had gone missing. That seemed like a harmless enough commission, didn’t it?” The words came flying out in a torrent. “It was only later I found out that he was really looking for a missing woman.”
    “And yet you continued to look for her.” His eyes were still blazing.
    “You’re very attractive when you’re angry, you know,” I said, attempting to lighten the mood.
    “Don’t try to make light of this, Molly. It’s a very serious matter,” Daniel said. “You betrayed my trust. You broke a promise. What sort of start to a marriage is that?”
    All right, I had tried being meek and it hadn’t worked. My usual fighting spirit could not be suppressed any longer. “Maybe if you hadn’t insisted that I stay at your mother’s house, sewing undergarments all day and hearing over and over how I didn’t measure up to any of your other lady friends, I wouldn’t have been so anxious for a little excitement,” I said, my own voice rising now.
    “That’s beside the point,” he began, then stopped. “My mother actually told you that you didn’t measure up to my other lady friends?”
    “All the time. In a very subtle and genteel way, of course. ‘Dear Miss So-and-so. Daniel was so fond of her when they were growing up and such a good family too. And the way you sew, your poor children are going to run around in rags.’”
    “She said that?”
    “I didn’t mean to tell you,” I said. “But you pushed me into a corner. That’s why I couldn’t wait to escape. But I’m sorry I took this stupid case. I’m sorry I