Charlie Chan in the Temple of the Golden Horde Read online

  THE TEMPLE OF THE GOLDEN HORDE

  by Robert Hart Davis

  CHARLIE CHAN MYSTERY MAGAZINE, May 1974

  The quiet pagoda in the secluded park near San Francisco promised rest and peace to everyone who entered its walls; for those who dared to learn its secrets it promised a cruel death…

  I

  A THIN FOG hung over the high iron gates of the isolated estate on Half Moon Bay south of San Francisco. The night was chill and silent, and for a long time nothing moved among the trees and dark, distant buildings behind the high fence. The only sound was the muffled churning of surf on rocks in the fog night.

  Somewhere the faint chimes of a clock struck ten times through the mist, when a pick-up truck came out of the fog along the narrow dirt road and screeched to a halt outside the high iron gates. A small Chinese man jumped out. For a moment he stood there between the pick-up and the high gates as if not sure what to do next.

  He wore baggy old corduroy pants, a denim shirt, a dark blue windbreaker, and worn, dirty sneakers. There was something vacant about his smooth Oriental face, almost the puzzled face of a child on the thin body of a man in his early thirties. He carried a brass-bound, dark-wood box about the size of a bowling ball bag but shaped like a small chest, and looked around apprehensively in the swirling mist.

  Suddenly he seemed to hear something in the night, his head cocked like a nervous bird ready to fly. He blinked down at the small chest in his hands. Then he ran to a small side gate beside the high iron gates, unlocked the small gate with a key, went through and slammed it shut behind him.

  Once more he stood and listened, smiling broadly as if all at once feeling happy, and began to walk up a curving gravel drive toward a large building some half a mile ahead inside the gate. He walked in quick, short steps - half-running with one leg almost dragging in a sideways movement like a hurrying crab.

  The large building soon loomed up ahead in the foggy night. One of three buildings scattered some distance apart on the wooded grounds, it was nothing at all like the other two. Where they were ordinary, two-story yellow-stucco buildings in Spanish style, it was all dark wood and tile, with wooden pillars holding up an open porch that ran around all four sides, and a high red-lacquered roof like a curved pyramid with the corners turned up - a Chinese pagoda in the mist of the California shore.

  Eagerly, the small Chinese man hurried toward the tall pagoda with his crab-like steps and stopped.

  His childlike face was a mask of sheer terror.

  He stumbled backwards in the gravel drive, still clutching the brass-bound wooden chest.

  They seemed to rise up out of the ground, out of the fog itself, between the small Chinese man and the dark, eerie pagoda. Six shapes like shrouds in the mist, blending gray into the swirling night, faceless and silent, gliding soundlessly as if their feet did not touch the earth.

  Six figures that emerged from the shadows of the trees and the pagoda like eyeless demons.

  With a low, moaning cry. the small Chinese man turned and ran off into the foggy night toward where the trees thinned.

  He ran wildly, in panic, not looking back. Into the fog, he fled blindly with the soundless demons pursuing him. As he reached the last trees, the fog thickened, and he ran stumbling over bare hummocks of thick grass. Twice he fell on the grass slick with the fog, and a new sound filled the night as he got up and ran on still clinging to the brass-bound box.

  The sound of the sea on rocks.

  A close sound growing louder.

  The fleeing man stopped.

  He looked behind him in fear - and ahead of him in terror.

  The hooded figures ran closer behind, closing in from all sides. Ahead of where the small Chinese man stood shaking, the ocean broke an a rocky beach just below a low mound in the fog.

  A surging, dark sea, and the small Chinese man’s childlike face collapsed into something not human. The brass-bound chest slipped from his fingers and fell the few feet down to the rocks and sand below at the edge of the ocean.

  Whimpering like some small, hopeless animal, the little Chinese man began to back away from the water. Then he turned, saw the six demonic shapes slowly encircling him closer and closer.

  He stood as if paralyzed, only his mouth moving to emit the low, animal moans of fear.

  The six hooded figures closed around him and he screamed.

  A single scream that faded into the curling fog.

  II

  THE WINTER SUN broke through the morning fog of San Francisco just before noon, and streamed into the suite at The Mark Hopkins. The brightness was greeted by the songs of a pair of Peking nightingales hopping happily in their cylindrical cage hung from a stand near the windows.

  “Ah,” a portly Chinese gentleman said as he approached the cage of singing birds, “lucky is the man whose day begins with the song of small birds.”

  Dressed in an impeccable dark suit under a silk Chinese robe, Charlie Chan crooned to the birds, and fed them some choice seeds carried for that purpose. His pale ivory face smiled under his thin Chinese mustache, and his ample body had the fluid motion of a man without fat despite his portliness.

  The ringing of his suite telephone interrupted his pleasant moment with his birds. Sighing, the famous detective answered the insistent instrument.

  “Yes,” he said, “this is Inspector Chan of the Honolulu Police… I am most grateful for your official welcome… I have no need of assistance. I will be at the afternoon meeting as arranged… Thank you.”

  Chan hung up with a faint smile at the eager public relations man’s welcome of him. A smile that turned into a frown as the great detective reflected on the way the whole world was being run by public relations men who greeted a complete stranger like a long lost brother simply because he was an “important” person.

  The International Penology Symposium he had come to San Francisco to attend was a serious gathering of criminology experts from across the world, but it would accomplish nothing if it was turned into a circus of “celebrities” such as himself. With a resigned sigh, Chan crossed the suite to a desk. He sat down and began to read through a thin manuscript of the speech he was scheduled to give at the first symposium this afternoon. He was to precede Prefect DeBevre of Paris.

  Chan was still reading the speech half an hour later, when he heard the footsteps out in the hotel corridor.

  With no outward signs, Chan came alert. The reflex awareness of every tiny change around him stemmed from his long years of police work, and was automatic by now. Without moving a hair, he listened.

  The footsteps outside his suite were quick, yet tentative. They were the light steps of a woman who was unsure of herself, even nervous. Diffident, or else trying to be unheard as she moved closer to Chan’s door. Chan did not hesitate.

  Soundlessly, he stood and glided to the door. He listened almost without breathing, his dark, hooded eyes half closed. The footsteps came on, soft and light - and stopped at Chan’s door.

  Chan rested his hand on his pistol under his robe, and reached for the doorknob.

  There was a knock on the door.

  A hesitant knock, and then a little stronger as if the knocker were forcing courage. Chan opened the door.

  “Inspector Charlie Chan?”

  She was a small, slender Chinese girl in her early twenties. Her face was as pale as new ivory, but there was a spirit to it, her dark eyes sharp and bright. Not an old-fashioned Chinese girl, but one of the modern, Chinese-American kind. As if to prove this, she wore a thoroughly American dark green sweater and swingi
ng miniskirt. Chan bowed, smiling.

  “Of the Honolulu Police, yes,” he said. “Please come in. I am honored by this visit of a distant countrywoman so young and so pretty.”

  The girl flushed at the compliment, but she stepped into the suite, looking around curiously as if wondering how a famous detective lived. For a moment, the liveliness of her youth overcame whatever was making her pale and uneasy. Chan waved her to a seat.

  “A glass of wine, perhaps?” Chan asked gently.

  “What?” She seemed startled for a second, then sat down. She shook her head, refusing the offered wine, and sat with her knees tightly together as if suddenly remembering what trouble had brought her to Chan. “You… You’re the real Charlie Chan? I mean, you’re the famous detective?”

  “Oh yes,” Chan said with a grin. “I am Charlie Chan, Chief of Honolulu Detectives, and a very ancient policeman. That much is true.”

  “Mr. Chan, it’s my brother! He -!”

  Chan held up his hand. “All journeys start with the first step. What is your name, young lady?”

  The girl took a deep breath, “I’m sorry. My name is Chan, too, Inspector. Betty Chan of San Francisco. I’ve lived here all my life. That’s why, when I read in the paper you were here, I decided to come to you. My -“

  “To meet an unknown member of my family is like discovering a rare new rose in my garden. You are the daughter of what Chan?”

  “My father was Chan Wu Han, Inspector. He was no one important, a waiter in Chinatown. He died when I was a child.”

  “I remember your father. He was a waiter in the Kung Shi Restaurant. I was served by him once many years ago. At the time he had only a son.”

  “You do remember him!” the girl said, amazed and for an instant smiling back. Then her face darkened again. “Yes, he had one son, older than I am. My brother Benny. Now he’s dead, Inspector! Benny is dead.”

  “I’m sorry.” Chan said sympathetically.

  “Perhaps he’s better off dead, Mr. Chan,” the girl said bitterly, “but he was all I had.”

  “His death was recent?”

  “He disappeared four days ago, Inspector. Yesterday they found him in Half Moon Bay. He’d drowned.” She looked up at Chan. “The police say it was an accident, but I know that Benny was murdered!”

  Chan sat down facing the girl. “That’s a grave charge, Miss Chan. You have some reason to suggest the police are mistaken?”

  “I know Benny didn’t drown by accident!”

  The pretty young girl glared at Chan. The detective showed no reaction, his dark eyes watched her. “You know of some one who wished your brother dead?”

  “No, I don’t know anyone special. Benny wasn’t important, just a handyman at The Temple Of The Golden Horde. It’s a kind of religious cult down on Half Moon Bay south of here. The Khan, he runs the temple, was always very good to Benny. Benny lived down there, was never in any trouble, but -“

  “You know, then, of some motive for murder, Miss Chan?”

  She shook her head. “No, Benny never hurt anyone.”

  “You have, then, some evidence his death was not an accident as the police say?”

  “No, I don’t!” Betty Chan cried. “All I know is that Benny couldn’t have drowned unless someone drowned him!”

  Chan sat back thoughtfully. His smooth ivory face frowned.

  “The police are most skilled in matters of murder, Miss Chan. They make few mistakes, and without a shred of proof to the contrary, a wise man must agree with them. I suggest -“

  “They may know murder, Mr. Chan, but they didn’t know Benny the way I did!” Betty Chan said hotly, and then her eyes began to fill with tears where she sat with her knees pressed so tightly together. “He… he wasn’t very bright, Inspector Chan. Before he went to work for the Temple, I took care of him. He wasn’t crazy or anything, but…”

  She looked up. “The truth is that Benny was retarded, Mr. Chan. Not very badly, but enough to have the mind of maybe a twelve-year-old boy. He could take care of himself day to day, but he couldn’t plan things or think of the future, and the best job he ever had before the Temple was a messenger.”

  She was crying harder now, but without a sound, the silent tears flowing down her pretty young face. Chan watched her, but the detective said nothing. She was talking out her pain, and it was best to let her release it all her own way.

  “I loved Benny, he was so gentle,” she said through her tears, “but it was hard to take care of him, so when the Temple offered him the handyman’s job it was a Godsend. Benny loved the Temple; he was very religious-minded, and he loved the Khan and his work down there. He felt actually needed, responsible, and that was important to Benny. He knew he wasn’t like other men, so to have real importance gave him great pride and a great sense of duty. Do you understand, Mr. Chan?”

  Chan nodded. “You are saying that Benny would never commit suicide. From your description I must agree such men do not kill themselves. But such men do have many accidents, Miss Chan.”

  “No, Inspector, they don’t. They’re super careful, always afraid, never take any chances.”

  “Still, this Temple Of The Golden Horde, is it on a bay? Perhaps very close to the water?” Chan asked. “A dark night, a man walks unknowingly too close to the edge? Could your brother swim, Miss Chan? Such men usually -“

  “No, Benny couldn’t swim, not a stroke,” Betty Chan said.

  “Then it is possible -“

  “It is impossible that Benny drowned by accident,” the girl said, interrupted. “Benny saw a friend drown when he was in his teens, and he never got over it. He never went near any water again. He couldn’t swim, wouldn’t even go on a beach, wouldn’t go in a boat, hated even to come near to a bridge. You see, Mr. Chan, Benny had a pathological fear of water!”

  Chan scrutinized her young face. She had all but stopped crying now, her eyes set in a firm certainty. Her brother’s death had not been an accident.

  “Of this you are certain?” Chan said at last.

  “Yes,” Betty Chan said. “Benny could never have gone near the sea. He couldn’t have ever been close enough to an ocean to fall in by accident. Will you… investigate, Mr. Chan?”

  Chan thought for a time. Then he nodded. “There would appear to be enough doubt to raise questions. You have said you know of no enemies, no reason for murder. But did your brother do any unusual act recently? Did he speak to you of any fears or dangers?”

  “No, nothing. He’d just come back from Honolulu on an errand for the Khan at the Temple, on the night he vanished. He never reached the Temple that night.”

  “Can you name the nature of the errand?”

  “Just to pick up some kind of scroll in Hawaii, and bring it to the Khan at the Temple.”

  “This scroll, did it vanish, too?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  Chan nodded. “I’ll need the location of the Temple.”

  Betty Chan told him how to reach the temple on Half Moon Bay, and gave him the name of Lieutenant Forbes of the Highway Patrol barrack at Half Moon Bay as the man in charge of the case.

  “You’ll go now, Inspector?”

  “No, but soon. I have a speech to give early this afternoon, then I must consider the best course of action,” Chan said. He smiled and stood up to go and touch the girl on her thin shoulder. “An answer will be found. It is best now that you rest. Remember, the life of a young woman must come before the sorrow of what is passed.”

  Betty Chan nodded, stood up. “I’ll try, Mr. Chan, and thank you. I… I only want to know how Benny really died and why.”

  III

  BETTY CHAN went out of the suite slowly, her head down as if the weight of her brother rested on her. Chan watched the door close thoughtfully. She seemed a steady young woman, and yet the police were rarely wrong in such matters. With another sigh, and a glance at the manuscript of his speech, he crossed the sunny room to the windows above the steep San Francisco street.


  His nostrils flared slightly, and he smiled at himself - the scent of a chase interested the great detective far more than a dull speech to yawning colleagues. He thought about a retarded man afraid of water who ‘accidentally’ drowned, and…

  Chan stared down at the San Francisco street. The slim figure of Betty Chan came out of the hotel and crossed the steep street. She walked quickly downhill toward the center of the city.

  She didn’t walk alone.

  Two men walked after her. They were casual, seeming to pay no attention to the girl, but Chan had been a policeman too long not to know. They had appeared as if by magic from a doorway across the steep street, followed too casually, seemed too unconcerned, and when Betty Chan turned the corner at the end of the block, both of them walked faster, almost running, and followed her around the corner.

  It was too far for Chan to see their faces - just two men in neutral gray suits and hats, carrying folded newspapers, trying to look like everyone else in the sun of the winter city. But he was sure they were following Betty Chan.

  The detective turned from the window, removed his robe, put on his suit coat and light topcoat, picked up his speech, and left the suite. He went down to the hotel dining room for some lunch, ordering the abalone sauteed with slivered almonds, a California delicacy. At precisely one P.M. he finished his second cup of special Chinese tea, and walked from the hotel into an afternoon beginning to cloud over and with a sharp wind rising up from the great bay.

  Something moved in the same doorway. where the two men had come from to follow Betty Chan. A faint movement, but clear to Chan’s practiced eye. Someone had shifted, come alert, as if seeing what he had been waiting for.

  Without the slightest hesitation or breaking of his stride, Chan turned left down the street, giving no indication that he had seen anything at all. He walked briskly in the rising wind, but did not hurry, pausing twice to look at especially striking examples of the bay window construction of so many San Francisco town houses. Each time he was careful not to look behind him.