The Devil's Making by Seán Haldane Page A

blue silk robe, was standing patiently just inside the door. Like one of the Indians in his immobility, I thought, but the face was entirely different in that it had a fixed smile of obsequiousness, which by compressing the cheeks upwards hid the eyes behind narrow slits. Did the Chinese face make the social manners, or the manners the face? I wondered. The kind of thing to interest Charles Darwin. I glanced again at the bookshelves. No, there was no Darwin. No Buffon, or Lyell, or Huxley. The man may have been a doctor but there was no scientific interest except for Galton and Spencer, which any educated man might be expected to have. Perhaps for McCrory, phrenology and Mesmerism were science enough.
    There was a long settee of the usual kind, black horsehair – but with exotic red and gold cushions and a red quilt embroidered with gold thread. Near it was a table with the usual paraphernalia of the doctor’s office, old fashioned listening horn, stethoscope, auscultator, smelling salts. Where would the man’s travelling bag be? Near the desk on the floor. I crouched down and opened it. Listening horn, smelling salts, bandages in rolls, ointments. A small wooden case of surgical instruments: scissors, scalpels, knives, curved scraping-blades.
    I turned my attention to the desktop again. The blotting paper pad was spotted and blotched here and there with purple ink, but there were no reversed words such as a fictional detective would have delighted to read with a mirror. There was an elaborate tray for pens and ink, of the latest style, in ormolu and brass, with the usual equipment. The desk drawers were not locked. In the upper ones were notepads, paper, prescription pads, the catalogues of pharmacists in San Francisco. Nothing surprising. I picked up a cheque book from the Bank of British Columbia. Figures but no names on the stubs. I dropped it in my pocket. In the bottom drawer were several small sealed cardboard boxes, and one which was unsealed. I opened it, but did not recognise the articles in it. I picked one out and held it up to the light of the window. It was a rolled round disc of yellowish parchment, dusted with fine powder. I began to unroll it, then stopped. A sheath! I felt embarrassed. I had never seen one of these things before. I put it carefully back in the box, now noticing a discreet label on the side: ‘One doz. A1 quality Lambskin Condoms.’ The box contained seven. Condom must be a new word. Absent-mindedly I wondered at its derivation but could think of none. I came back to reality, and tapped the box, looking at the Chinaman.
    â€˜Dr McCrory was not married?’
    â€˜Naw.’ The Chinaman smiled more, and bobbed up and down slightly.
    â€˜Did he have a mistress?’
    â€˜Mistress? Lee not know word ‘mistress’.’
    At least a thousand of the three thousand Chinese in town were called Lee. I wondered, even, whether his way of talking, with ‘mistress’ pronounced ‘mistless’, was a self-parody – the stage Chinaman. Not all ‘Celestials’ in Victoria were incapable of prouncing ‘r’.
    â€˜Lady friend?’ I asked.
    â€˜Naw.’ Lee’s smile did not budge. ‘No lady friend.’
    â€˜Then why these?’
    â€˜Lee not know.’
    I put the box back in the drawer. ‘Show me his bedroom please.’
    Lee bowed and led me out to the stairs, stepping aside for me, then following. There were three rooms upstairs, the first with simply a bed and a chair. ‘Guest room’ Lee volunteered, but when I asked him about guests he said there were never any. There was a store room, bare except for two steamer trunks. I opened them and rifled through them. More books in one. Clothes in the other: brocaded waistcoats, pantaloons with silk stripes down the sides. The man was a typical American swell. Good quality linen underwear. Silk shirts neatly folded.
    In McCrory’s bedroom, in a wardrobe, were