1954
A pilot is hired to drop a payroll for a planter in the remote jungle. When the cash goes missing the pilot is accused of theft. Smith is hired to investigate but the presence of a beautiful woman complicates things.
1954
A charter pilot is waylaid in an alley and told his wife will die if he fails to obey orders. The following day he boards an airplane that is to carry a wheelchair-bound dignitary and his nurse to Taiwan. Also on board are a wealthy businessman and his secretary. But Smith got there first. In fact, posing as the pilot, he managed to search all the passengers. Someone anonymously hired him to prevent trouble on the plane. His first assignment is to find out what his assignment is--what he's supposed to guard against. That question is answered when the pilot heads for Red China. Smith's next assignment, then, is to get the plane to Taiwan. He'd also like to know who his client is.
1954
A young Chinese woman has asked China Smith to find a mute, the only person alive who knows the location of a fortune in gold.
1954
A frightened rumor spreads among "the coolies and rickshaw boys" of Hong Kong: the dragon walks. A remittance girl named Marnee hires Smith to protect her frightened fiance, Justin Kobol. Kobol leaves his home to hide with her on Red Dragon Hill, an artists' colony but at the foot of the hill sits a cryptic legless storyteller who tells Smith that "the young man's shadow arrived before him, asking many questions." A man called Mr. Ronald has come back to Hong Kong after an absence of twelve years and Kobol's father has been murdered. A crime and a treasure from twelve years ago have wakened the dragon.
1954
Chinese thugs break into the Macao warehouse of the Concord Sugar Company, knock the night watchman unconscious--and leave. The company wants to know why burglars don't steal. Carol, who owns the company in partnership with her uncle Edgar, hires Smith. Her uncle has been coming and going furtively. She wants to know if he is being blackmailed. Smith has a novel way of finding out. He throws knives at Edgar. He reasons that a blackmailer will try to keep his victim alive and therefore reveal himself. And Smith is paid to let Edgar live. The money comes from a reporter for the Macao Weekly Mail, "one of those professionally anti-American papers with a foreign sponsor." Soon Smith has three puzzles to solve: What does lovely Gretchen, a blackjack dealer, have to do with a Communist newspaper? Why is the newspaper ready with a headline story about something that hasn't happened yet? What is Edgar hiding from his niece?
1954
While visiting Hong Kong, China Smith is hired by a woman to secretly serve as a bodyguard for her husband, a retired British naval officer. A crooked astrologer has warned her that her husband will die within the week and he has begun to receive threatening letters. When Commander Tilson is found dead in his aquarium, Smith is accused of drowning the old man
1954
Babykins, the parrot from Ton King, is the celebrated partner of dancer Ming Toy. He pulls the strings that cause parts of her costume to fall away. Her troupe arrives in Singapore from Malacca, a town where jewels are missing. Ming Toy's manager Tony hires Smith to recover Babykins, irreplaceable and stolen. But bird in hand, Smith finds Ming Toy performing with an identical parrot. And her dressing room contains a photograph of the man who supposedly stole Babykins. Smith switches birds "as an experiment" and watches the human beings with curiosity. Before long there is death real and faked in a walk-in safe, gunfire and the unsafe operation of heavy equipment, a parrot's vengeance, and a honeymoon present for Ming Toy.
1954
The Mokuhana has been impounded in Saigon for smuggling. The owner, Countess Van Idall, brings Smith from Hong Kong to apply his deviousness to getting the vessel back. She also hires a lawyer named Nordam to bail out the crew because she needs the captain, Babcock, to testify in her favor. But Smith finds out that Nordam is also Delaht of Colonial Steamship Lines. He has schemed to acquire the Mokuhana at half its market value. Smith finds proof of this in the ship's log, but it will do no good in Delaht's home court. The solution is a bit of piracy. It impresses the Countess, who wants to reward him with a permanent berth as a captain.
1954
Smith is sentimental about lost loves. So when Marine Pvt. Kip Adamson hires him to find a woman he lost in the evacuation of Tsin Tao five years ago, Smith wheedles information out of an obstinate Irish nun, Sister Brigid, and his own cynical sometime companion, Countess Steffi Von Idall. He also helps the private evade Mannion of the shore patrol. But mysteries start to pile up--the woman may be dead and Smith's client may know it. There comes a devious nun to the rescue.
1954
China Smith is hired to recover six stolen gold shipments and discover who is working on the inside to aid the thieves.