Brother Betrayed: Of Gold & Blood, #2

Prologue

August 1868, Grass Valley, California

Comprador Chung Ting Hon sprawled across the capacious bed, his patrician profile smooth and unlined against the white linen of the down pillow, his right arm flung protectively across his young wife, Beautiful Jade, who snuggled against him.

The only sound the man in the doorway heard as he paused, a dark shadow backlit momentarily in the ambient light from the Gold House hallway, was his own breathing, rhythmic and deep.

The Sierra Nevada mountains hid the new moon, a darkened sky magnifying the Milky Way’s white dazzle through the upstairs windows. The naked honeymooners were shadowy shapes in the dim lunar gloom.

They’d thrown off their bedclothes, their bodies and the heat of the night all the warmth they needed, their legs entwined like the new lovers they were.

The smell of orange-blossom oil lingered, reminding the man who loitered on the threshold of the earliest memories of his father’s house. The door closed after him with a barely audible click. As he leaned back against it, stroking his leather-gloved fingers from tip to base, he savoured the peaceful scene.

He’d become hardened to the idea of necessary death.

Kill a chicken to frighten the monkeys, as the proverb went. Or, as the gweilo say, the end justifies the means.

How many times have I told myself this in recent months? And it’s never been more appropriate than on this night.

He closed his eyes and pressed his fingers into their sockets, perhaps even at this ninth hour trying to erase the scene before him.

And then he stepped forward with purpose, balanced and light on the balls of his feet, going to the man’s side of the bed first.

This one will be different from all the others.

Macau’s onetime merchant prince doesn’t know he’s going to end here, in the home of a man he regards as a son.

With calm deliberation, he drew a long thin blade from the sleeve of his tunic and leaned over the sleeping form. One hand tightly clasping the knife’s leather handle, he placed the other on the top of the man’s head and pushed the lethal tip down hard into the slight depression at the base of his neck.

With a wrenching slash upwards, he severed the lower brain stem and cut off all involuntary functioning, like breathing and heartbeat. With suffocating pressure, he thrust the compradore’s face into the pillow. The man died before he could draw one last breath.

His attacker was already moving to the other side of the bed, the sharpened blade red with his father’s blood. His hand closed over the woman’s mouth, and in one smooth movement, he wrenched her head sideways and slid the ten-inch stiletto across her throat.

A few seconds more and he was back at the door. He paused and took in the room with a sweeping glance. Blood from the woman’s ugly neck wound spilled onto the hand that had caressed her lovingly minutes before.

Her killer stood in the doorway, his head tipped back, exultant, face washed in an affirming starlight. Then he struck a match, cupping the flickering flame in his hands until it caught hold.

It was the work of seconds to set alight the discarded sheet that lay on the floor. He allowed himself a final triumphant glance and turned and left the smouldering room.

One

Business magnate and mine owner Sir John Russell slept only fitfully when he retired after saying goodnight to his father’s lifelong business partner, Chung Ting Hon and Beautiful Jade, his exquisite young wife.

He’d woken several times and drifted back to sleep, but this time round he knew it was hopeless to wait to fall into torpor — he had too much on his mind to slumber.

He lay curled under a single sheet in the muted midnight light and listened to the usual night noises: the whispering scuttle of ceiling mice, the creaking of the pine rafters as they cooled from the heat of the day.

Otherwise, a comforting silence mantled Gold House, his capacious Grass Valley villa filled with out-of-town guests. Among them, the revered Chung Ting Hon, a source of wise advice now his own father was long dead.

He smiled ruefully. The old man who founded Russell & Chung Trading with his father Sir Robert Russell over thirty years ago was now eighty, but he left his 38-year-old protégé trailing in vitality.

Russell had been successful at diversifying and expanding the business his father had founded, but at what cost? He’d no wife, no family, and the kinship ties he’d taken for granted were disintegrating around him.

The one bright spot was his recent reunion with his half brothers, Sebastian and Nathan. Since their father’s death over fifteen years ago, the Pacific Ocean had separated them.

Nathan and Seb were boys when Sir Robert had died; Nathan had gone with his Australian mother to Sydney, Seb to his Boston uncle, and the three brothers had not seen each other again until a few months ago.

He sighed and gave up on the idea of sleep. Instead, he rolled onto his back and laced his fingers behind his head, thinking back over the evening’s discussions.

He’d invited the comprador to stay so they could settle a dangerous rivalry boiling up between Ting Hon’s two sons, the first-born Chung Ji Ming, known to him as Ollie or Oliver, the name his English mother, Amelia Russell, Sir Robert’s sister, had given him, and Ollie’s half brother Chung Ji Zeng. They’d scheduled a meeting to hammer out an agreement yesterday, but it had never taken place.

The Chung sons ran the China side of the family trading company and also headed the Black Dragon Benevolent Society — one of the six powerful organisations that effectively governed California’s Chinese settlers, recruiting labor for railroad building, policing worker movements and completing the essential ritual of sending their bones back home to China if they died.

Part social agency and part business, Black Dragon had grown exponentially in the two decades since men from the Pearl River delta had flooded into Gold Mountain — or Gum Saan, Cantonese for San Francisco — seeking their fortunes in gold and other commodities.

Ji Zeng had always resented his brother, the first son of the comprador. After John’s mother’s death when he was four years old, his Aunt Amelia had been a mother to him as well as to Ollie. They’d grown up together, more like brothers than cousins.

But until yesterday, Russell hadn’t grasped the younger Chung’s escalating ambition, nor his new obsession with returning to opium trading — the commodity that got Russell & Chung started, but which they’d long ago discarded.

John knew Ollie vehemently opposed the idea of returning to the drug trade, but the planned discussion had never taken place because Ollie hadn’t turned up — and that wasn’t like him. His cousin put his heart and soul into his role as his father’s successor, and he’d never stand him up.

Even more mysteriously, no one — including Ollie’s English wife, Selina — knew where he was. Ji Zeng had floated a fanciful story that he was back in Hong Kong on urgent business, but John knew that was pure fantasy. Ollie would never leave without telling Selina his plans. Something wasn’t right.

He yawned, suddenly feeling weary. In a few hours, he would put Ting Hon and Beautiful Jade on the half day stagecoach back to San Francisco.

He still had faint hopes the patriarch could talk some sense into Ji Zeng, who was adamant that Black Dragon was being left behind by not following some of the other Six Societies into opium and prostitution. He rolled onto his side and hugged a pillow close.

Despite his restlessness, he was on the verge of dropping off when he smelt the faintest whiff of smoke. He sat bolt upright, his senses on high alert, his eyes stinging. Then he heard a sharp crack, like the snap of wood burning. Galvanized, he was off the bed and to the door in two strides; the sheets trailing behind him.

Smoke curled under the door, and his eyes were streaming before he got his hand to the doorknob. He opened it slowly, unsure of what lay in store. Dense black smoke filled the hall, immediately choking his nostrils.

He bent over in a hacking cough, then quickly stood and peered down the hallway to where his guests slept, his ears ringing with the unmistakable roar of fire.

A wave of heat rolled towards him, and his cheeks burned. The guest room door was closed, but through the smoke he could make out an eerie flickering light from under it that confirmed his worst fears.

Grabbing the sheet at his ankles as a mask for his nose and mouth, he sprinted down the passage, wrenched the guest room door open, and stopped dead. Flames were already creeping across the ceiling from the wall on the far side of the room.

Through the smoke he could make out two sprawled figures, the man on his front, the woman on her back, her face an other-worldly white except for the bloody gash at her throat.

He sprang to the bed, although instinct told him they were already dead. He’d taken hold of Ting Hon’s still warm wrist when a heart-stopping boom sounded overhead.

He dropped Ting Hon’s hand and flinched back against the wall as burning ceiling fragments rained down on the bed, showering him with hot embers.

For long moments he gawped at the burning bed, and then more ceiling debris rained down, walloping him down his left side. Pain shot from his knee to his groin, and he staggered to remain upright.

Where was everyone? The house was full of family and friends, among them his soon-to-be-married brother Nathan, and the celebrated Maori opera singer Pania Te Awa Hayes, a friend from New Zealand who’d lived in California long enough to become a celebrated entertainer here. But where were Mrs Snively the housekeeper, and his Chinese house servants, Mr and Mrs Lee?

Wake up! Fire! Oblivious to the pain in his leg, he staggered back down the hall, banging on walls and doors, shouting warnings. His voice, which had started as a raw croak, grew louder and more urgent with every step. Fire!

Two

Deputy Virgil Hale drew deeply on his cigar and blew the smoke in a continuous, deliberate stream over Russell’s left shoulder, narrowly missing John’s face.

Jaw clenched, John turned away and took several long breaths. Air that smelt of smouldering wood filled his lungs and he willed himself to relax.

He’d been awake since the fire shattered his sleep eight hours ago, and fatigue and frustration were weakening his self-control. His injured leg hurt like the blazes, but he stood grimly gazing at the ruins of the house he’d hoped would provide a cherished sanctuary for his future wife and family.

A day ago, he was a successful, respected businessman with the reasonable hope that the woman he chose would accept him and his fine Gold House without hesitation.

Now he stood in the eye of a maelstrom; home gone, treasured father figure dead — murdered under his roof, his family partners locked in a deadly feud. And this mulish lawman couldn’t be less concerned.

In the dazed hours after they put out the blaze, he’d tried to order his thoughts and get some plan of action under way.

The first step was to get in a sheriff to investigate the comprador’s death, the ensuing arson, and Ollie’s disappearance — they had to be related. Then he would move on to other urgent things, like the comprador’s funeral and rebuilding his home.

The big man with a graying walrus moustache standing next to him in the smoking ruins was one of two deputies appointed to replace Grass Valley’s permanent lawman Jeb Rogerson in his absence back East on urgent family business.

Hale was the senior and permanent appointment, while John’s brother Seb was the junior and temporary one. He’d thought it best to call in Hale, but now he was having second thoughts. In the deputy’s opinion, nothing here required a lawman’s intervention.

I can understand it’s a damned nuisance losing your fine house, Sir John, I really can, he said, as he tapped on the cigar, his ash adding to the black cinders they crunched underfoot.

And of course, we’re lucky no one else was seriously injured. A bit of smoke to get over is all. I’m sure your housekeeper will be fine in a few days. I don’t see what you expect me to do about it.

John was on the point of interrupting, but Hale plowed on. It’s an unfortunate fact that wooden houses burn easily. Damn near wiped out Grass Valley in fifty-five, as you know. Bad luck, too, it caught your guests in it. But we’ve no way of finding who’s responsible.

John stamped on a smouldering ember with his boot.

My stable hand being knocked out when he went to investigate a noise–that shows we had intruders, John objected.

Hale grunted grudgingly. It does. But what are we looking for? After all… His eyes flickered sideways, avoiding John’s gaze. After all, they were only Chinese.

The anger he’d struggled to suppress boiled over. For a moment he was four years old, cowering in a dark alcove, his mother sprawled across the floor of their Hong Kong house, mouth opening and closing like a stranded fish. He had been powerless to do anything then, too.

I beg your pardon? His heart was so cold that he imagined the air temperature had dropped by several degrees. What did you say?

Hale stubbed out his cigar and stepped out of range of his stare. What I mean is they’re not like us, are they? For a start, they aren’t Americans.

John pulled himself up to his full six-foot-plus height.

The man who died in my house this morning was like a father, a protector, and a guide to me.

Ollie and he had spent days of their lives tagging along as Ting Hon went about his business, hanging on his every word and, most of all, feeling secure in the shelter of his eminence.

He wasn’t called Ting Hon, a name associated with palace rule and justice from ancient times, for nothing. He was a man of influence, from a line of Imperial counsellors, and one of the wisest men John had ever known.

Hale spread his hands wide, palms up, attempting to pacify. "I intend no offense, Sir John. It’s how it is in these parts, you know that. I can understand you’ve suffered a grievous loss.

But there’s no way we can tell who’s responsible — or how they got in. And if your security wasn’t up to scratch… Maybe you need to take a might more care in the future.

John knew he was fighting a losing battle but persisted, anyway. And what about the disappearance of my business partner, Oliver Chung — Ji Ming? Is that of no interest, either?

The sheriff shrugged. Like I say, it’s Chinese business, isn’t it? Nothing I can do about it. And I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be barging in, either. You might have been born over there… He regarded John with curiosity, as if seeing him in a new light.

Yes, as I say, you might have been born over there, but you’re one of us, is what I mean. The Chinamen? You’ve got no idea who or what you’re dealing with. Leave it alone is what I’d advise. He turned to leave.

In frustration, John stabbed the toe of his boot into the ashes. He supposed the deputy’s attitude shouldn’t surprise him.

It accurately reflected how many locals viewed the Chinese workers arriving daily at Gold Mountain, as they called it, seeking to accumulate a modest fortune and then return home to their families.

But an impotent rage surged inside him at the thought he might not get justice for the man who’d been a fountain of wily wisdom when he’d needed it most.

He kicked again and his boot came up hard against an object in the cooling ruins. It was a piece of the iron bedstead Ting Hon and Beautiful Jade had died in last night.

He reached out and touched the still warm blackened frame. The brass headboard curlicues had melted away, but the scorched iron was still recognizable as a bed.

He closed his eyes and pictured Ting Hon’s serene face, radiant with an inner spirit that defied his years. He shook his head to clear the image, and was turning to go when his toe came in contact with an object underfoot. Curious, he reached down and picked it up. He rubbed the hard surface to clean it, examining it carefully as he did.

As his fingers traced the delicate Chinese characters carved into a jade surface, a charge of heat ran down his arm. He knew what this was: the precious Dragon Seal; the chop used by Ting Hon and his sons to approve all their major transactions.

The old man must have been holding onto it for Ollie, who’d assumed the general running of the company several years ago, though John couldn’t think of a good reason Ollie would have passed it back to his father.

He rolled the intricately carved block between his fingers, taking momentary comfort in the elegant detailing. Ting Hon’s death, the deliberately lit fire — these alone were weird enough, but to find this treasure in the wreckage?

There was no explanation for its presence. Things had got more puzzling, and locating Ollie even more urgent. If the lawman would not take action, John would have to do it without him.

Three

Californian stage star Grayson ‘Graysie’ Travers Castellanos and her Australian fiancée Nathan Russell stood arm in arm at the entryway to the Stockton House dining room, their faces beaming a welcome.

We love having you here, Pania. Graysie’s red gold hair fell around her shoulders in a shining river.

The fire’s a disaster. No one would suggest anything else. We all feel for John. But you can stay here with us for as long as you like.

The daughter of Elanora Grayson Travers, an East Coast ‘prodigal child’ who eloped out West with a Spanish photographer at 19, Graysie had inherited her mother’s well-born gentility and, by the magic of nurture, assimilated her Spanish stepfather’s bravura.

Pania had always admired her determined optimism, but she’d never seen her as glowing as she was right now. Her joy lit up everything around her, not least the lightly bearded, blond Sydney-sider standing next to her. Pania flushed with an infusing warmth when regarding them.

Nathan and Graysie had announced their engagement three days ago and were looking toward a December wedding. They planned to visit Nathan’s mother and sisters in Sydney after the nuptials, but for now, business opportunities in California, including getting the Ophir, an old gold mine Graysie had inherited, up and running were their focus.

Nathan had worked tirelessly for most of the day helping his brother damp down and clean up after the Gold House fire, but you wouldn’t know it from looking at him.

Lean, bronzed, and brimming with vitality, he had the look of a man who had discovered heaven on earth, and wasn’t about to let it go.

Despite her pleasure for them, Pania couldn’t ignore the sharp twinge that dug in under her ribs. Graysie and Nathan had weathered big storms to arrive in this safe harbor, and she didn’t begrudge them their happiness for one moment.

But since her older husband, who’d also been her manager, died more than a year ago, she hungered for her own ‘happily ever after’ ending. An image of Nathan’s dark haired, intense half brother, Sir John Russell, floated uninvited to her mind.

Let me get you a glass of wine, Pania. Nathan gestured to a comfortable armchair.

As a houseguest, she was one of the first to appear for the informal house-warming party Graysie was hosting to acknowledge Basil and Alycia Stockton’s generosity in giving them the use of this rambling, comfortably furnished home.

The Stocktons were usually based on the East Coast, but Basil’s growing business interests in California had led him to buy a home for them to use when they were here. They were delighted to share it with Graysie and her ward, four-year-old Minette.

The doorbell chimed and for the next half hour the room was a flurry of new arrivals, greeting hugs, chatter and laughter. Last night’s tragedy at Gold House underlined the talk with a sombre note, but the joy of family gathering together still bubbled around them.

Pania settled in a corner seat next to impresario Harvey Miller, playfully discussing the pros and cons of undertaking a singing tour of Australia and New Zealand, when the room quietened and a limping figure drew her attention to the doorway.

Leaning on a cane, his black hair uncharacteristically dishevelled, Sir John Russell surveyed the room with his extraordinary onyx eyes. They flicked from her to Harvey and back again.

A brief grimace of a smile flashed across his face and he tilted his head in an ironic bow before making his way towards them with a halting gait. The leg injury he’d sustained last night hampered his movement, and Pania could see he was battling to conceal his pain.

She rose and caught a spark of annoyance in Harvey’s eyes as she gestured to him to make room for Sir John on the sofa.

Mrs Hayes. Glad to see the night’s tribulations have not prevented you from being the life and soul of the party, as usual. John was being his usual acerbic self.

Pania wondered if she was being over-sensitive in detecting a hint of acid in the lightly tossed-off remark. And when she caught the sharp glare he gave Harvey Miller, and she knew she wasn’t imagining it. He’d intended it as a barb.

She patted the vacated place beside her. Sit here, John, and rest that leg. I wanted to thank you for saving my life last night. If you hadn’t aroused the household… She let the sentence die as he waved it away.

We were very lucky, John said, gazing steadily into her eyes. Well, everyone except for the comprador and Beautiful Jade, of course. His deep, warm voice had a ragged edge.

She studied the familiar firm lines of his face: the troughs down his cheekbones were deeper than usual. With a jolting heart, she saw how haggard her usually debonair friend was becoming.

His eyes were ringed in shadows, and his dark eyebrows had sprung rogue gray hairs.

Did that happen overnight?

She’d known him for nearly twenty years, since she’d arrived as Henry Hayes’ young bride. A singer with a pure Pacific bell of a voice, she was fresh off a boat from New Zealand then, and John was desperately trying to live up to the role of young tycoon thrust on him, like the title, by his father’s sudden death.

The knighthood was an unusual one-off hereditary honor, not the usual baronetcy, bestowed on Robert Russell in recognition of his spectacular brave rescue of a British diplomat from an angry Cantonese mob during the First Opium War.

The son wore the honor lightly, but it had its uses with bankers and others in the early days when he was setting up the West Coast branch of Russell & Chung, already a wealthy merchant house in the East.

Henry hadn’t minded when she’d trotted out on Sir John’s arm to public functions the older man had no desire to attend. It added to her celebrity, he said, and she and John became fast friends.

As a rising magnate, John Russell was intensely involved in his business and he had little time for anything else. He didn’t seem to feel the need for a wife and was happy to squire Pania — her fast-rising career managed by her astute husband — when he was in town.

But Henry had been dead for a year, and Pania was restless. That was one reason for the playful talk with Harvey about touring the Antipodes.

She hadn’t been back to her homeland since she’d married Henry — who’d been in New Zealand visiting his American missionary brother — and fled her family.

And she wasn’t at all sure she wanted to go back. Some things, she mused, were best left behind. Neither had she appointed a new manager, although Harvey was making pointed hints he’d be interested in taking her on.

She wasn’t even sure she wanted to continue with her old touring life any longer.

John was fending off inquiries about his injured leg. Give it a couple of days and it will be fine, he was saying to mine manager Irish Red. It’s just a knock.

Strange that the fire seemed to start upstairs in the bedroom, said Pania, when there're no fires lit in the house at this time of year. Did someone forget a candle?

John's head snapped up. We’re not sure how it started, he said, giving her one of his searching stares. Deputy Hale seems to think it was simply rotten bad joss. Nothing untoward.

She searched his eyes for what he wasn’t telling her. She knew the town was humming with rivalries and discontent. Was Russell the target of a business feud?

Harvey’s been cruising the Sing Song Clubs talent-spotting. There’s a lot of unrest out there. The bite is going on for protection payments.

She edged forward in her seat. "They say a Nevada City club owner who refused to pay up had his throat cut. The girls are terrified.

They’re reluctant to tour with Harvey even if the money is good — they’re frightened of retribution if they leave their current club. That’s what they’re saying, isn’t it, Harvey?

John frowned. You haven’t taken Mrs Hayes out with you, have you, Miller? When you’re auditioning?

Not yet. But I was thinking about it. They might feel more relaxed if there’s a woman present.

John gave Harvey one of his impenetrable stares. I’m not happy about that, Miller. It could be dangerous. There’s some sort of turf war brewing among the Six Societies, and I don’t want to see anyone else hurt.

Harvey’s natural flamboyance deflated under John’s penetrating gaze. He was a big-shouldered man, built like a lumberjack, but always dressed with understated elegance.

Tonight. he wore a fashionable cream mid-length sack coat over a subtle, ivory-striped waistcoat — a combination designed to be noticed but not showy. With his spiky hair, neat pointed goatee, and bon vivant sparkle, Harvey was always the first to raise a toast.

He made a harrumphing sound as he cleared his throat in irritation. Russell, you’re overreacting. I’ve been dealing with the Sing Song clubs for years. We’ll be fine.

He reached out to clasp Pania’s hand. She knows a lot of the girls, and they adore her.

Pania quietly withdrew her hand. There’s something you are not telling me. I can sense it. Something bad. Cough up.

He shook his head, and his eyes flicked to the floor. Nothing. Nothing at all, Mrs Hayes. I don’t want you out there.

"John, have you forgotten? I’m an entertainer. I work the clubs. All right, not the Sing Song Clubs exactly, but some that are not all that different.

I can’t stop working because you’re getting anxious in your old age.

She’d intended it as a throwaway line, a light-hearted remark to break the intensity of the moment, but as soon as she’d said it, she knew she’d struck a sour note.

He reared back from her as if she’d slapped him. You never take no for an answer, do you, Mrs. Hayes? I don’t know how Henry put up with it.

He pinched the bridge of his nose, as if warding off a headache. It’s perilous out there, I tell you.

A taut silence stretched between them, broken only when a buxom woman rustled up in a flurry of bronze satin skirts. Well, my goodness, here he is! Just the man I was looking for.

The overblown dress exaggerated Huldah Wilmington’s puffball profile, but she seemed oblivious to the picture she presented.

She planted herself in front of John, fixed him with beady-eyed enthusiasm, and reached out and pumped his hand vigorously. Sir John. Delighted to see you again.

She perched on the arm of the sofa beside Harvey, blithely unaware she was cramping his space, and leaned across him to engage John’s full attention.

While you’re laid up like this, what could be nicer than to relax at my little luncheon tomorrow? You can rest in pleasant company, with no vexations. After that dreadful fire, you need a break.

A German widow left a comfortable fortune by her sea-captain husband, Huldah amused herself holding popular match-making events several times a year for a wide circle of acquaintances and associates. As one of the state’s