"It's John." Dunross wasn't sure if she knew. She probably does he thought, or soon will. There're no secrets in Hong Kong. "What do you fancy?"

"Winner's Delight in the first, Buccaneer in the second."

"Two outsiders?" He stared at her. "You've inside info?"

"Oh no, tai-pan." A little of her normal good humor came back. "It's just the form."

"And in the fifth?"

"I'm not betting the fifth, but all my hopes're on Noble Star." Claudia added worriedly, "Is there anything I can do to help, tai pan? Anything? The stock market anda we have to slaughter Gorntsomehow."

"I'm rather fond of Gornt he's such a~fang-pi. " The Canton obscenity was picturesque and she laughed. "Now show in Mrs. Gresserhoff."

"Yes, yes tai-pan," Claudia said. "And thanks for the hteung yaul"

In a moment, Dunross got up to greet his guest. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. "Ikaga desu ha?" he asked in shock, his Japanese fluent How are you? astounded that she could have been married to Alan Medford Grant whose name, God help us, was also supposed to be Hans Gresserhoff.

"Genki tai-pan. Doma Genki desul Anatawa?" Fme, tai-pan, thank you. And you?

"Genki. " He bowed slightly in return and did not shake hands though he noticed her hands and feet were tiny and her legs long. They chatted for a moment then she switched to English with a smile. "Your Japanese is oh very good, tai-pan. My husband, he did not tell me you were so tall."

"Would you care for coffee?"

"Thank youa but oh please let me get it for you too." Before he could stop her she had gone to the coffee tray. He watched her pour delicately. She offered him the first cup with a little bow. "Please." Riko Gresserhoff Riko Anjin was barely five feet, perfectly proportioned with short hair and lovely smile and she weighed about ninety pounds. Her blouse and skirt were auburn silk, well cut and French. "Thank you for the expense money Miss Claudia gave me."

"It's nothing. We owe your, your husband's estate about 8,000 pounds. I'll have a cashier's check for you tomorrow."

"Thank you."

"You have me at a disadvantage, Mrs. Gresserhoff. You kin"

"Please call me Riko, tai-pan."

"Very well, Riko-san. You know me but I know nothing about you."

"Yes. My husband said I was to tell you whatever you wanted to know. He told me that, that once I had made sure you were the tai-pan, then I was to give you an envelope I have brought from him to you. May I bring it later?" Again the little interrogative smile. "Please?"

"I'll come back with you now and collect it."

"Oh no, that would be too much trouble. Perhaps I can bring it to you after luncheon. Please."

"How big is it? The envelope?"

Her tiny hands measured the air. "It is an ordinary envelope but not so thick. You could put it easily into your pocket." Again the smile.

"Perhaps you'd like toa I tell you what," he said, charmed by her presence. "In a minute or two I'll send you back by car. You can fetch the envelope and come right back." Then he added, knowing it would ruin the seating arrangements but not caring, "Would you join us for lunch at the races?"

"Oh buta but I would have to change anda oh thank you but no, it would be too much trouble for you. Perhaps I could deliver the letter later, or tomorrow? My husband said I was only to put it into your hands."

"No need to change, Riko-sam You look lovely. Oh! Do you have a hat?"

Perplexed she stared at him. "Please?"

"Yes, it's, er, yes, it's our custom that ladies wear hats and gloves to the races. Silly custom but do you? Have a hat?"

"Oh yes. Every lady has a hat. Of course."

A wave of relief went through him. "Good, then that's settled."

"Oh! Then if you say so." She got up. "Shall I go now?"

"No, if you've time, please sit down. How long were you married?"

"Four years. Hansa" She hesitated. Then she said firmly, "Hans told me to tell you, but you alone, if ever he was to die and I was to come as I have come, to tell you that our marriage was of convenience."

"What?"

She reddened a little as she continued. "Please excuse me but I was to tell you. It was a convenience to both of us. I obtained a Swiss citizenship and passport and he obtained someone to care for him when he came to Switzerland. Ia I did not wish to marry but he asked me many times and hea and he stressed that it would protect me when he died."

Dunross was startled. "He knew he was going to die?"

"I think so. He said the marriage contract was for five years only but that we should have no children. He took me to an advocate in Zurich who drew up a contract for five years." She opened her purse, her fingers trembling but not her voice, and pulled out an envelope. "Hans told me to give you these. They're copies of the contract, my, my birth and marriage certificate, his will and birth certificate." She took out a tissue and pressed it against her nose. "Please excuse me." Carefully she untied the string around the envelope and took out a letter.

Dunrossaccepted it. He recognized AMG's handwriting. "Taipan: This will confirm my wife, Riko Gresserhoff Riko Anjin is who she says she is. I love her with all my heart. She merits and merited far better than me. If she needs helpa please please please." It was signed Hans Gresserhoff.

"I do not merit better, tai-pan," she said with a sad, small confident voice. "My husband was good to me, very good. And I'm sorry he is dead."

Dunross watched her. "Was he ill? Did he know he was going to die from an illness?"

"I don't know. He never told me. One of his asks before Ia before I married him was that I would not question him or question where he went, why, or when he was to return. I was just to accept him as he was." A small shiver went through her. "It was very hard living thus."

"Why did you agree to live like that? Why? Surely it wasn't necessary?"

Again Riko hesitated. "I was born in Japan in 1939 and went as an infant with my parents to Berne my father was a minor official in the Japanese Embassy there. In 1943 he went back to Japan but left us in Geneva. Our family is our family comes from Nagasaki. In 1945 my father was lost and all our family was lost. There was nothing to go back to and my mother wanted to stay in Switzerland, so we went to live in Zurich with a good man who died four years ago. Hea they paid for my education and kept me and we had a happy family. For many years I knew they were not married though they pretended and I pretended. When he died there was no money, or just a little money. Hans Gresserhoff was an acquaintance of this man, my, my stepfather. His name was Simeon Tzerak. He was a displaced person, tai-pan, a stateless person from Hungary who had taken up residence in Switzerland. Before the war he was an accountant, he said, in Budapest. My mother arranged my marriage to Hans Gresserhoff." Now she looked up from the carpet at him. "It wasa it was a good marriage, tai-pan, at least I tried very hard to be whatever my husband wanted and my mother wanted. My girt, my duty was to obey my mother, neh?"

"Yes," he said kindly, understanding duty and girt, that most Japanese of words, most important of words that sums up a heritage and a way of life. "You have performed your girl perfectly, I'm sure. What does your mother say is your girl now?"

"My mother is dead, tai-pan. When my stepfather died she did not wish to live. The moment I was married she went up the mountain and skied into a crevasse."

"Terrible."

"Oh no, tai-pan, very good. She died as she wished to die, at a time and place of her choosing. Her man was dead, I was safe, what more was there for her to do?"

"Nothing," he told her, hearing the softness of her voice, the sincerity, and the calm. The Japanese word wa came to his mind: harmony. That's what this girl has, he thought. Harmony. Perhaps that's what's so beautiful about her. Ayecyah that I could acquire such wa/ One of his phones sounded. "Yes, Claudia?"

"It's Alexi Travkin, tai-pan. Sorry, he said it was important."

"Thank you." To the girl he said, "Excuse me a moment. Yes Alexi?"

"Sorry to interrupt, tai-pan, but Johnny Moore's sick and he won't be able to ride." Johnny Moore was their chief jockey.

Dunross's voice sharpened. "He seemed all right this morning."

"He's running 103-degree temperature, the doctor said it might be food poisoning."

"You mean he's been tampered with, AJexi?"

"I don't know, tai-pan. I only know he's no good for us today."

Dunross hesitated. He knew he was better than the rest of his jockeys though the extra weight Noble Star would have to carry would load the deck against the horse. Should I or shouldn't I? "Alex), schedule Tom Wong. We'll decide before the race."

"Yes. Thank you."

Dunross replaced the phone. "Anjin's a curious name," he said. "It means pilot, just pilot, or navigator, doesn't it?"

"The legend in my family is that one of our forebears was an Englishman who became a samurai and advisor to the Shogun Yoshi Toranaga, oh very many years ago, long long ago. We have many stories but they say first he had a fief in Hemi, near Yokohama, then went with his family to Nagasaki as inspector general of all foreigners." Again the smile and the shrug and the tip of her tongue moistened her lips. "It is just legend, tai-pan. He is supposed to have married a highborn lady called Riko." Her chuckle filled the room. "You know Japanese! A gai-jin, a foreigner, marrying a highborn lady how could that be possible? But anyway, it is a pleasing story and an explanation of a name, nehI" She got up and he got up. "I should go now. Yes?"

No, he wanted to say.

The black Daimler pulled up outside the V and A, the Struan arms discreetly on the doors. Casey and Bartlett waited at the top of the stairs, Casey wearing a green dress, self-conscious in a pert green pillbox hat and white gloves, Bartlett broad-shouldered, wearing a blue tie to match his well-cut suit. Both were set-faced.

The chauffeur approached them. "Mr. Bartlett?"

"Yes." They came down the steps to meet him. "You our limo?"

"Yes sir. Excuse me sir, but do you both have your badge tickets, and the invitation card?"

"Yes, here they are," Casey said.

"Ah, good. Sorry but without thema My name's Lim. The, er, the custom is for the gentlemen to tie both badges through the hole in their lapels and the ladies usually have a pin."

"Whatever you say," Bartlett said. Casey got in the back and he followed. They sat far apart. Silently they began to fix the small, individually numbered badges.

Blandly Lim closed the door, noticing the frigidity, and chortled inwardly. He closed the electric glass partition window and switched on his intercom mike. "If you want to talk to me, sir, just use the microphone above you." Through his rear mirror he saw Bartlett use the switch momentarily.

"Sure, thank you, Lim."

Once Lim was in the traffic he reached under the dash and touched a hidden switch. At once Bartlett's voice came through the speaker.

"a going to rain?"

"I don't know, Linc. The radio said it would but everyone's praying." A hesitation, then coldly, "I still think you're wrong."

Lim settled back happily. His trusted older brother Lim Chu, majordomo to the tai-pans of the Noble House, had arranged for another younger brother, an expert radio mechanic, to install this bypass switch so that he could overhear his passengers. It had been done at great cost to protect the tai-pan and older brother Lim had ordered it was never to be used when the tai-pan was in the car. Never never never. It never had been. Yet. Lim felt queasy at the thought of being caught but their wish to know of course to protect overcame their anxiety. Oh oh oh, he chortled, Golden Pubics is certainly in a rage!

Casey was seething.

"Let's quit this, Line, huh?" she said. "Since our breakfast meeting you've been like a bear with a sore ass!"

"And what about you?" Bartlett glared at her. "We're going with Gornt the way I want it."

"This's my deal, you've said that fifty times, you promised, you've always listened before. Jesus, we're on the same side. I'm only trying to protect you. I know you're wrong."

"You think I'm wrong. And it's all because of Orlanda!"

"That's a crock! I went through my reasons fifty times. If Ian gets out of the trap then we're better off to go with him than Gornt."

Bartlett's face was cold. "We've never had a bust before, Casey, but if you want to vote your shares, I'll vote mine and your ass'll be in a vise before you can count to ten!"

Casey's heart was thumping. Ever since their breakfast meeting with Seymour Steigler, the day had been heavy going. Bartlett was adamant that their best course lay with Gornt and nothing she could say would dissuade him. After an hour of trying she had closed the meeting and gone off to deal with a pile of overnight telexes, then, remembering suddenly at the last moment, had rushed out in a panic and bought her hat.

When she had met Bartlett in the foyer with great trepidation, wanting the hat to please him, she had begun to make peace but he had interrupted her. "Forget it," he had said. "So we disagree. So what?"

She had waited and waited but he hadn't even noticed. "What do you think?"

"I told you. Gornt's best for us."

"I meant my hat."

She had seen his blank stare.

"Oh that's what's different! Hey, it's okay."

She had felt like tearing it off and hurling it at him. "It's Parisian," she had said halfheartedly. "It says hats and gloves on the invitation, remember? It's a crock but Ian said that la"

"What makes you think he can get out of the trap?"

"He's clever. And the tai-pan."

"Gornt's got him on the run."

"It looks that way. So let's forget it for now. Maybe we'd better wait outside. The car's coming at noon promptly."

"Just a minute, Casey. What have you got cooking?"

"What do you mean?"

"I know you better than anyone. What do you have on the burner?"

Casey hesitated, unsure of herself, wondering if she should reveal the First Central ploy. But there's no reason to, she reassured herself. If Ian gets the credit and squeezes out, I'll be the first to know. Ian promised. Then Linc can cover his 2 million with Gornt and they can buy back in to cover their selling short and make a huge profit. At the same time Ian, Linc and I get in at the bottom of the market and make our own killing. I'll be the first to know after Murtagh and Ian. Ian promised. Yes, yes he did. But can I trust him?

A wave of nausea went through her. Can you trust anyone in business here, or anywhere? Man or woman?

At dinner last night she had trusted him. Influenced by the wine and food she had told him about her relationship with Line, and about the bargain they had made.

"That's a bit rough, isn't it? On both of you?"

"Yes, yes and no. We were both over twenty-one, Ian, and I wanted so much more than being just Mrs. Linc Bartlett, a mother- mistress-servant-dishwasher-diaperwas her-slave and a left-at-home. That's the thing that kills off any woman. You're always left. At home. So home becomes a prison in the end, and it drives you mad, being trapped until death do us part! I've seen it too many times."