The words came back sharp, and formal: "Mrs.Angelique Struan was his legal wife and is his widow therefore his immediate heir and inheritor of all his worldly goods unless his will states otherwise. If there's no will then she inherits, after probate and all legal fees and taxes are paid. Let's look in his safe."
"I don't think that we can presum--"
"Now, quietly, between the three of us as friends, or I'll get a formal court order through Sir William today to sequester all, I repeat all his papers, and all Struan papers in Yokohama and Hong Kong, for a will search to which my client is entitled." His look was inflexible. "Sorry, old boy. Well?"
"Let's go and ask Angelique." Unsure of himself and knowing he could never allow an outsider to go through Noble House papers and records, Jamie followed Skye back to the tai-pan's office. Dammit, why do I think of it as that, he thought irritably. I suppose because it is the tai-pan's office. Who's the new tai-pan?
Christ, what a mess!
Angelique was sitting where they had left her.
Impassively, she listened to Skye. "There's no need for you to accompany us, Mrs. Struan, rest assured I act for you."
"Thank you but I would like to be there."
They followed her up the grand staircase, the first time for Skye who tried not to be visibly awed by the wonderful chandelier and valuable oils.
Jamie opened the door of the tai-pan suite.
A coal fire burned pleasantly. The four-poster was made up and waiting. Desk tidy, no papers on it. In a near corner of the room Ah Tok squatted mumbling, in despair, somehow tiny now, ugly and ancient.
She paid no attention to them. Angelique shuddered then followed the two men and sat in Malcolm's high chair facing them. Watching them intently.
The little iron wall-safe was concealed behind an oil painting, another Aristotle Quance. Skye smiled thinly. The painting depicted a petty young Chinese girl carrying a fair-haired, fair-skinned child with a pigtail, a boy, against a Hong Kong landscape. He had heard about the painting but had never seen it. Quance was the dean of the artist-chroniclers of Macao and early Hong Kong, an Irishman who had lived there for many years, and died a few years ago in Macao and was buried there. He was also a voracious drunk, gambler, libertine but old friend and devotee of Dirk Struan. Rumor had it the girl was the fabled May-may, Dirk's Chinese mistress, the one who was killed with him in the typhoon of '42, in his arms, and the child their firstborn.
He glanced at Angelique who watched Jamie impassively searching through a bunch of keys and wondered if she knew about Malcolm's Eurasian cousins and his uncle, Compradore Gordon Chen--Dirk's son by another mistress--who, according to Hong Kong gossip, "knew more secrets and had more taels of gold than an ox had hairs." The mantelpiece clock chimed three.
"Who else has keys, Jamie?" Skye asked.
"Just me, me and the... the tai-pan."
"Where are his?"
"I don't know. I presume still with... still aboard."
The safe door swung open. A few letters, all in Tess Struan's writing, except one in Malcolm's apparently unfinished, a small chamois leather bag and a wallet. The wallet contained a faded daguerreotype of his father and mother peering self-consciously at the camera, Malcolm's personal chop, a few chits-- IOU'S and a list of debts and debtors.
Heavenly leafed through them. "Would these others be gambling debts he's owed, Jamie?"
"I've no idea."
"Two thousand four hundred and twenty guineas.
A tidy sum for a young man to lend or be owed. Do you recognize any of the names, by chance?"
"Just this one." Jamie looked at him.
"Madame Emma Richaud? Five hundred guineas."
Angelique said, "She's my aunt, she and Uncle Michel, they brought me up, Mr.Skye. Mama, I called my aunt that for she was mother to me, my own died when I was young. They needed help and Mal... Malcolm kindly sent them that. I asked him to."
"Jamie, I'd like a copy of these, a list please." The solicitor was talking again. "You are required to hold them in safekeeping." He reached for the half-dozen letters but Jamie was there before him: "I'd say these were private."
"Private to whom, Jamie?"
"To him."
"I will get a court order to see them and have them copied if I consider them to be valid."
"You certainly may do that," Jamie said through his teeth, cursing himself for blurting out about the safe until he could get Sir William's advice.
Angelique said, "May I see them, Jamie, please? I suppose they are part of my husband's effects. At the moment they seem so few."
Her voice was so gentle, so sad, no shred of begging, that he sighed and said to himself, Laddie, you're in so deep now it doesn't matter. Sir William will have to decide legalities. Then, suddenly, he was back at yesterday eventide, on the jetty, the three of them so lighthearted, laughing, confident, with any future Hong Kong stormclouds seemingly so far away, seeing the two of them off in the cutter for their wedding night, Malcolm saying, "Thanks, my bonny friend, guard our tail, it's going to need guarding.
Promise?"' He had promised, sworn he would do that, and guard her equally, wishing them long and happy lives, and waved, last on the shore. How right Malcolm was. Poor Malcolm, did he have a premonition? "Here," he said kindly. Without looking at the letters she put them in her lap and again folded her hands, again motionless. A draft waved a vagrant strand of hair near her temple.
Otherwise she was quite like a statue.
The chink of coins attracted Jamie's attention. Skye had opened the little bag. It contained Bank of England golden guineas, and notes. He counted them aloud.
Angelique's eyes did not move from the maw of the safe.
"Two hundred and sixty-three guineas."
Skye put them back in the leather sack. "These should go to Mrs. Struan at once--she will of course give you a receipt."
Jamie said, "Perhaps it's best that we, you and I, Heavenly, we go and see Sir William.
I've never been involved in this kind of matter before and I'm out of my depth--Angelique, you do understand, don't you?"
"I'm out of my depth too, Jamie, adrift too. I know Malcolm was your friend and you were his, as you are mine too. He told me many times. Please do whatever you think best."
Skye said, "We'll see him now, Jamie, sooner the better, he can decide on the ownership of these. Meanwhile..." He walked over to give her the little bag but she said, "Take it with you, take everything, and these too," she handed him the letters. "Just leave me the photograph. Thank you, Mr. Skye. And thanks, dear Jamie, and I'll see you when you return."
They waited for her to get up but she made no move. "You're not going to stay here are you?
Surely not?" Jamie said, perturbed, it seemed so macabre.
"I think I will. I spent so much time here, in this room, that it's, it's sympathetic to me. The door to my suite is open if I... if I need to rest. But please, would you take Ah Tok away, poor thing, and tell her not to come back.
Poor woman, she needs help. Ask Dr.Hoag to see her."
"Do you want the door closed?"
"Door? Oh, it doesn't matter, yes, if you wish."