A little sighing noise that could have been a smothered chuckle disturbed the old man’s lips, and the purple cap twitched on his round head.
“The Disperser of Marauders knows all things,” he murmured blandly, “even to the value of noise in driving away demons. If he says the man he struck was Chang Li Ching’s servant, who is Chang to deny it?”
I tried him with my other barrel.
“I don’t know much—not even why the police haven’t yet heard of the death of the man who was killed here yesterday.”
One of his hands made little curls in his white beard.
“I had not heard of the death,” he said.
I could guess what was coming, but I wanted to take a look at it.
“You might ask the man who brought me here yesterday,” I suggested.
Chang Li Ching picked up a little padded stick from the table and struck a tasseled gong that hung at his shoulder. Across the room the hangings parted to admit the pockmarked Chinese who had brought me in.
“Did death honor our hovel yesterday?” Chang asked in English.
“No, Ta Jen ,” the pockmarked one said.
“It was the nobleman who guided me here yesterday,” I explained, “not this son of an emperor.”
Chang imitated surprise.
“Who welcomed the King of Spies yesterday?” he asked the man at the door.
“I bring ’em, Ta Jen .”