The Betel Nut Tree Mystery

by Ovidia Yu

  ‘You read it to me first and I sign it. But I don’t like to answer questions. I am a chef, not a spy. The things white people ask for. Women jumping out of cakes, I ask you . . .’ A dreamy look glazed Kaeseven’s eyes. ‘It would have to be a big cake. And there must be something underneath for structural support . . . a bamboo framework maybe. On a rolling tray. I could use marzipan over gingerbread over a frame . . .’

  I could almost see the cake forming in his head. But just then the serving boy returned. ‘Sir? The table you asked me to watch? They are ready for dessert.’

  Back at my vantage point, I saw Kaeseven had been true to his word. The desserts had not yet been served. But now Parshanti and Kenneth were standing by their table and Kenneth was talking urgently to Nicole Covington, who had just appeared.

  Whatever he said seemed to satisfy her. She waved Parshanti away without looking at her, sat down – on Parshanti’s seat – and looked at the dessert the serving boy hesitantly placed in front of her.

  Parshanti said something to Kenneth, who answered briefly. He didn’t look at her either. His whole attention was on Nicole as he moved to sit on the chair beside her rather than across the table.

  Parshanti hesitated, then fled the restaurant. She would be upset but, more importantly, she was safe and I had been right. Kenneth Mulliner was in love with Nicole Covington. What I had just seen weighed in favour of my theory that they had planned the murder of her fiancé together.

  Of course I couldn’t tell Parshanti I had followed her. Once she was safe, I was annoyed with myself for being alarmed. There was no reason why a modern young woman should not lunch at the Farquhar Hotel with a modern young man.

  But until Nicole had turned up at their table, Parshanti and Kenneth had seemed so comfortable and happy together. Shouldn’t I want my friend to be happy?

  That gave me more reason to prove Kenneth Mulliner was a murderer. It would show I wasn’t trying to destroy my friend’s potential happiness, just saving her life.

  Facts and Fancies

  Back at the Detective Shack, I compiled Kaeseven’s information. On the night of Victor’s death, Nicole had stayed in her suite with a headache. Taylor had kept Junior with him, their dinner sent to Junior’s downstairs playroom.

  Typing always calms me. I find the steady clicks more soothing than any mantra, and I found myself regretting I had not been nicer to Kenneth Mulliner. Or, at least, not shown my suspicion so openly. Guilty or not, he had known Victor Glossop better than anyone else there. A casual conversation might have drawn nuggets of information from him that wouldn’t come up in an official interview.

  My grandmother always said it is important to know our enemies. The mission-school ladies had told us to love our enemies. I thought Parshanti was carrying that too far but it might be helpful if I asked her what she and Kenneth had talked about.

  It was hugely frustrating not knowing what had killed Victor Glossop. Neither his medical records nor the autopsy results had been delivered yet. If it turned out that the man had died of a chronic heart condition, all the excitement would be over and life would resume its dull, rainy routine.

  I hoped there would be more information in the photographs I had taken in Victor Glossop’s room. Sometimes the focus of a camera lens highlights things you miss amid the distractions of real life. But although Dr Shankar had started developing them immediately (pulling down the blinds in Mrs Shankar’s sewing room), it took time: photograph development depended on silver halides, not quicksilver halides, as he liked to joke.

  Until we had facts, there was little we could do aside from collecting background information. It is hard to question suspects when you don’t know for sure that a murder has been committed.

  I looked up as I heard Sergeant Pillay say, ‘Pass them to Miss Chen.’ I smiled at Corporal Wong as he came to my desk with last night’s records from HQ. All police incidents that might relate to gangs, drugs, prostitutes or spies were copied to the Detective Unit.

  I liked Corporal Wong. As one of the youngest officers at HQ, he was always getting stuck with the night shift. Luckily, he seemed to be holding up well, though I know he was teased by the other men because his mother and grandmother took turns to bring a cooked supper to him at the night desk.

  ‘How were things at HQ last night?’

  ‘Nothing much. Disturbance at O’Reilly’s Bar. Some men got into a fight but don’t want to talk about it. The owner wants the police to make them pay for the damage. An imported mirror was broken. Very expensive, he says.’

  O’Reilly’s was a foreign-owned bar, frequented mainly by foreign sailors on shore leave. A local owner would never have put a mirror in a pub where it would attract demons and spirits. And a local owner would have used his own connections – my uncle Chen, most likely – to settle things rather than call the police.

  ‘And a woman found dead at Yap Pun Kai. Looks like a self-kill.’ Corporal Wong lowered his voice and used the Cantonese term for suicide.

  Yap Pun Kai, literally Japan Street, was Trengganu Street, which ran along the massive old betel-nut plantations and housed most of Singapore’s Japanese brothels. Le Froy was convinced it was also full of Japanese spies, but the Home Office in London refused to see Japan as a threat.

  ‘Karayuki-san?’ That translates as ‘women who have gone overseas’ and refers to Japanese sex workers from famine-struck farming regions in their country. The Japanese consul general in Singapore had banned Japanese brothels almost ten years ago, but Japan’s women were still its third-largest foreign-currency earner, after silk and coal. Those women fuelled the Japanese economy with sex.

  ‘Looks like it. No sign of violence. She was alone in her room and two of her house sisters found her. She had drawn erotic love pictures all over herself, as though planning to meet a client, but she didn’t go out last night and no one visited her.’

  That surprised me. Japanese women with families to support seldom committed suicide. But maybe she was sick, or maybe the parent or child she had been working to support had died, leaving her without reason to work or live.

  ‘I checked for signs of assault but there was nothing.’ Corporal Wong didn’t quite manage to hide a yawn. ‘I think there were bugs in her room. She was all swollen.’

  ‘Thank you, Meng. Get some rest.’

  ‘I hope to work in the Detective Unit one day. If your boss needs help here, can you mention my name?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Why couldn’t Parshanti fall in love with a nice, safe young man like Corporal Wong? My brain answered my own question even as my mind asked it: Wong’s very Cantonese family wouldn’t approve of her. The Wongs wouldn’t even have approved of a Malay Straits-born girl like me.

  Not to mention that nice, safe young Corporal Wong Meng Kong was dull.

  ‘Miss Chen?’ Corporal Wong alerted me from the open doorway. Once he saw he had my attention he pointed, then slipped out and disappeared.

  Looking beyond him I saw a man getting out of the large official car parked in front of the Detective Shack.

  The rains had stopped but the unpaved road in front of the office was still muddy. All of us who had been outside were muddied up to the ankles at least. But the man standing in the doorway of the Detective Shack was spotless. Governor McPherson was back.

  ‘Good morning. Is Chief Inspector Le Froy here? I’m afraid we don’t have an appointment.’

  ‘Please come in, Your Excellency. I will get him for you at once.’

  Le Froy was not in the office. In fact, a quick look around told me I was alone in the office. De Souza had gone to relieve Constable Kwok who had spent the night at the Farquhar. I hoped Sergeant Pillay had seen the governor’s car and gone for Le Froy without telling me, but I doubted it. Prakesh had been disappearing more and more often recently. I suspected he had found himself a girlfriend. But this was not the time to think about it. As soon as I’d got the governor a chair and a drink I would run out to fetch Le Froy myself. />
  ‘Please take a seat, Your Excellency— Oh! Good morning, madam.’

  The governor stood aside to let his wife enter before him. Mrs Viola Jane McPherson was small and round, like her husband. I hadn’t heard anything about her other than that the Government House cooks and servants liked her.

  According to Kaeseven’s sources, as soon as she arrived Mrs McPherson had delighted her new staff by saying, ‘Aside from pigs’ intestines and frogs’ legs you can surprise us!’ when discussing the Government House menus. She even allowed local kuehs and almond jellies alongside the Victoria sponge on her tea table.

  ‘Good morning.’ Mrs McPherson seemed surprised to see me. I hoped she wasn’t one of those ladies who didn’t approve of women in the workplace.

  I gestured towards the wooden stools that were all we had for visitors. It seemed wrong for the governor and his wife to sit on them, as though they were locals being questioned. Perhaps I could pull out the chair behind Le Froy’s desk. But for Mrs McPherson?

  ‘If you want to talk to Chief Inspector Le Froy, he can come to see you at Government House.’

  ‘Didn’t want to bother the man. He must have his hands full. Unofficial visit, this.’

  ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ I could set the kettle to boil before I went for Le Froy.

  They both declined. Mrs McPherson settled herself on a stool with a smile and tugged her bemused-looking husband onto another next to hers. ‘I love these wooden stools,’ she said. ‘Traditional furniture made the traditional way. That’s what I call authentic culture.’

  ‘Governor McPherson,’ Le Froy said, coming in. I released a huge breath of relief. Sergeant Pillay winked at me as he slipped in behind him. He was still breathing hard. He must have run all the way to find Le Froy. And had they run back? Le Froy didn’t seem out of breath but, then, he never did.

  Governor and Mrs McPherson

  ‘Good morning, Your Excellency. I’m sorry to keep you waiting. Good morning, Mrs McPherson. How can I help you?’

  ‘The Glossop boy,’ Governor McPherson said, suddenly all business. ‘Victor Glossop. Found dead in his hotel room. Should have sent me your results. What do you have?’

  ‘The Glossops are family friends,’ Mrs McPherson said. ‘Or, rather, family acquaintances.’

  ‘My condolences,’ Le Froy said. He went behind his desk but did not sit. ‘We communicated the news to Sir Roderick Glossop only yesterday.’

  ‘Sir Roderick wired,’ Governor McPherson said. ‘And Colonel Mosley-Partington. Godfather to the dead boy, you know. Wanted to come over. Put him off. By the time he gets out . . . no. Not in this climate. Pointless. Told him we would do all we could. As for our own son.’

  I discreetly recorded the governor’s words in my notebook. The governor and his wife might have come in search of information but, as friends of the Glossops, they were a valuable source of information.

  ‘Victor Glossop was like a son to you?’ Le Froy asked.

  ‘Great heavens, no!’ Mrs McPherson exclaimed. ‘No, no, no. Our boys are not going to grow up into Victor Glossops, not if I have any hand in the raising of them.’

  ‘Viola Jane—’

  Little Mrs McPherson laid a plump hand on the governor’s arm, hushing him.

  ‘Gregory, if he’s to do his job, the chief inspector needs to know everything we can tell him about Victor Glossop. So you just sit yourself down and be discreet while your irresponsible wife tells all.’

  ‘Bit of a bounder, that boy,’ the governor said. He obviously supported his wife’s opinion, though he could not bring himself to speak ill of the dead. ‘Boys will be boys.’

  Mrs McPherson patted his hand. I liked the new governor’s wife more and more. Singapore was a business investment for our colonial masters, and profits counted for more than people when major decisions were made. But how those decisions were administered on a personal level made a huge difference.

  Le Froy moved out from behind his desk and leaned against it, facing the governor’s wife. ‘Mrs McPherson?’

  ‘You would think Victor Glossop was a good catch, wouldn’t you? A second son born after five girls. Of course you can’t control these things, though goodness knows why not. A woman can read Marie Stopes even if she’s not allowed to talk about her.’

  ‘Viola Jane—’

  ‘I’m sorry, Gregory. It just makes me so angry, smart women acting helpless and ending up useless. Anyway, as I was saying, the Glossops have a healthy elder son so this second boy came as a bonus. Their first, David, is such a nice, dull boy. Never gave a moment’s trouble and married an earl’s daughter. But even the best families sometimes produce children who are a little difficult, especially when there are so many of them. It must be a little like governing Russia, trying to feed and educate the masses.’

  In her forthrightness, Mrs McPherson reminded me of Parshanti’s Scottish mother. Seeming to feel my eyes on her, she glanced in my direction and gave me a sudden sweet smile.

  ‘Of course, this is all confidential,’ the governor said. But I noticed he did not seem uncomfortable at letting his wife talk. So, he was less concerned with how he looked than with getting things done. And he didn’t mind a woman taking charge of the doing. ‘Thought knowing more about the boy might help you. Victor might not have looked much, but he was joint heir to the Glossop family distillery. The Glossops established themselves with cheap alcohol but money made by one generation can be lost by the next. Word has it things are a bit rocky for them right now.

  ‘Times are hard all round,’ he went on, ‘but the Glossop factory equipment is all ready to switch to distilling fuel for war machines. A war would make the Glossops rich again. Richer. It would have been a good time for a young man like Victor to get into the family business. But he wasn’t interested in work. No sense of discipline. Got himself sent down from Oxford.’

  His wife elaborated: ‘No matter where they sent him, Victor gravitated towards the very worst crowd. He had a real talent for that. They can’t have been sorry when he decided to get out of England. “He’s coming your way. Give him something to do to keep him out of trouble,” his father wired Gregory. As if that boy did anything other than get into trouble!’

  Mrs McPherson turned to me. ‘When Victor visited us in London he made Ellie cry. Ellie was my daily girl. I asked her to help Mrs Covington and her son when they stayed with us,’ she explained to me. ‘Ellie wouldn’t tell me what happened to her but she wouldn’t come back to work till after they’d left.’

  ‘Nicole Covington was staying with you in London?’ Le Froy asked. ‘I didn’t know that. How do you know Mrs Covington?’

  ‘Don’t know her. Victor turned up with them. No warning,’ Governor McPherson said flatly. ‘Bad form. But what’s one to do? You can’t send a young woman to a hotel alone, even if she’s American. Viola Jane sorted it all out. Blankets, bathtubs, everything. You are a blessing, my dear.’

  Mrs McPherson’s smile showed the pleasure this gave her. But she didn’t allow herself to be distracted. ‘Victor was staying in his family’s London house. But it wouldn’t have been correct for Nicole to go there. No engagement had been thought of then. It would have been a scandal. The papers are so terrible, these days. Victor said he needed a place to put up some friends of his. I was expecting a couple of Oxford boys and instead I got Americans!’

  ‘Was Dr Taylor Covington staying with you too?’ I asked, so caught up in her recital that I spoke without thinking. ‘And Kenneth Mulliner?’

  The governor looked surprised, as though he had forgotten I was there. But his wife nodded, as friendly as if we were having a good chat over stringing beans. ‘Oh, yes. Dr Covington came to us. Pleasant enough, for an American. Mr Mulliner stayed with Victor, but came to visit. Victor introduced him as the son of his father’s vicar. At first I didn’t trust him. I have nothing against the young man, but as a friend of Victor’s . . .’

  ‘I thought Victor was polite enough,’ Governor McP
herson said.

  ‘Oh, to you and me the boy was all sweetness and light. Well, of course he was. He asked you for money, didn’t he? Just to tide him over until his father’s came through?’

  Her husband’s noncommittal laugh confirmed this.

  ‘In fact, at the time I thought it was Mr Mulliner who was interested in Mrs Covington. He reminded me of an old Boxer we used to have.’ She turned to her husband. ‘Remember Lord Fartescue? How he used to follow you around drooling? That’s how that vicar’s son—’

  ‘Mulliner. Kenneth Mulliner.’

  ‘That’s right. That’s what Mulliner looked like. His eyes following Mrs Covington around every time she moved.’

  Kenneth Mulliner had been following Nicole? That cemented what I had seen at the hotel. I wanted to jump up and down in excitement and dash out to question him. ‘We should talk to Kenneth Mulliner!’ I cried.

  ‘I think the governor has something else to say,’ Le Froy observed.

  ‘Hmm. Well. Yes. That’s the thing. Colonel Mosley-Partington sent another wire this morning,’ the governor said.

  I could tell we were coming to the real reason the McPhersons had turned up at our temporary shack without warning. ‘He says the autopsy will most likely show the boy died of natural causes. That that would be best all round.’

  ‘Dr Leask and Dr Shankar are testing for a range of poisons,’ Le Froy said. ‘Chemical tests that take time to show results.’

  ‘Mrs Glossop and Mrs Mosley-Partington are cousins,’ Mrs McPherson put in, ‘Daphne Mosley-Partington was a de Havilland before her marriage. Not sisters, though they hated each other like sisters.’ She looked to her husband, as though she was nudging him to continue.

  The governor’s eyes landed on the former king’s portrait on the wall. ‘What a waste. Waste of a good frame too.’

  Mrs McPherson stepped in: ‘The colonel says you must not be allowed to use Victor’s death to trump up your new Detective Unit. He told us he has issued a statement saying Victor died of an eastern fever and the Colonial Office will tolerate no further attempts to harass the grieving family.’