Yeh Ling did not answer for a while, and then he asked:
“Is there any news about the murder of Brown?”
“No,” said Tab, “where was he, Yeh Ling?”
“He was in a smoke house,” said Yeh Ling without hesitation. “I took him there at the request of my patron, Mr. Trasmere. The man had come over to give him trouble and Trasmere wanted me to look after him and see that he didn’t make himself a nuisance. Apparently Brown had these bouts and then recovered, as opium smokers sometimes do, with a distaste for the drug. He must have recovered very suddenly and was gone before I could stop him and before the man who owned the house could let me know. I searched for him, but he disappeared and I heard no more about him until I read in the newspapers that he was dead.”
Tab was thoughtful.
“Had he any friends? You knew him in China?”
Yeh Ling nodded.
“Was there anybody who had a particular grudge against him—or against Trasmere?”
“Many,” said the other, “I, for example, did not like Brown.”
“But apart from you?”