But I didn’t kid myself into thinking I had anything on him. Dummy Uhl had given me a connection between The Whistler’s Hotel Irvington and Chang Li Ching. Dummy Uhl had gone into action when I accused him of being mixed up in the Shan killings. That much I had—and that was all, except that Chang had said nothing to show he wasn’t interested in the Shan troubles.
In this light, the chances were that Dummy’s death had not been a planned performance. It was more likely that he had seen me coming, had tried to wipe me out, and had been knocked off by my guide because he was interfering with the audience Chang had granted me. Dummy couldn’t have had a very valuable life in the Chinese’s eye—or in anybody else’s.
I wasn’t at all dissatisfied with the day’s work so far. I hadn’t done anything brilliant, but I had got a look at my destination, or thought I had. If I was butting my head against a stone wall, I at least knew where the wall was and had seen the man who owned it.
In the office, a message from Dick Foley was waiting for me. He had rented a front apartment up the street from the Irvington and had put in a couple of hours trailing The Whistler.
The Whistler had spent half an hour in “Big Fat” Thomson’s place on Market Street, talking to the proprietor and some of the sure-thing gamblers who congregate there. Then he had taxi-cabbed out to an apartment house on O’Farrell Street—the Glenway—where he had rung one of the bells. Getting no answer, he had let himself into the building with a key. An hour later he had come out and returned to his hotel. Dick hadn’t been able to determine which bell he had rung, or which apartment he had visited.
I got Lillian Shan on the telephone.