A Spoonful of Murder

by Robin Stevens

  We both popped out from behind the screen, and Ping shrieked. Her face was pinker than ever.

  ‘Miss Hazel!’ she said. ‘You scared me. I’m all – oh, everything is terrible! What a frightening man!’

  ‘You didn’t say anything about that pin looking like mine!’ I said to Ping in Cantonese. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I know there must have been some mistake. It did look just like yours, but … Su Li used to be your maid. You’d never have hurt her. And you’d never have put Teddy in danger, either.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said dizzily to Ping. ‘It’s— Thank you so much.’ Ping was looking at me with such a sincerely frightened, confused expression. I saw that she had weighed me up, and ruled me out – and at that moment I knew that we could rule her out too.

  ‘Miss, I think he’s gone out to see Wo now,’ said Ping. ‘What if he should say anything? He knows about your pin too.’

  We stared at each other, in panic.

  ‘Hazel!’ said Daisy sharply. ‘Hazel, what are the two of you saying? What are you going to do? You’ve got a terribly funny look on your face – HAZEL!’

  But Ping and I were already halfway to the front door.

  Wo On had clearly been polishing my father’s car. The rag was still in his hands as he spoke to Detective Leung. He was shaking his head, and I heard him say, ‘No. I was with the other drivers from the moment Su Li stepped into the lift until I came in to find Miss Hazel and her friend at twenty past twelve.’

  ‘You saw the body?’ asked Detective Leung.

  ‘Yes,’ said Wo. ‘I pulled open the lift doors.’

  ‘And you saw the pin?’ Detective Leung went on.

  I saw Wo’s shoulders stiffen. He jerked his chin up – and caught sight of the three of us coming towards him down the steps.

  ‘I saw a pin, indeed,’ he said loudly. ‘That’s a sign of Sai Yat’s gang; everyone knows that.’

  ‘Indeed they do,’ said Detective Leung. He turned round to stare at us as well.

  I froze. There was a good-girl part of me that knew I ought to simply confess everything. But it was a very small part indeed. Every detective bit of me knew that I could not. I took a deep breath in, tilted my chin up defiantly and looked Detective Leung straight in the eye.

  ‘I have heard that as well,’ I told him. At that moment I have never felt more like Daisy.

  ‘Poor Miss Hazel,’ said Wo, folding his arms. ‘This has hit her hard. Su Li was her maid once, and Teddy is her little brother. She was so upset to discover the crime.’

  ‘It was awful,’ said Daisy loudly, in English. ‘Hazel and I simply have no idea what happened, and you can take my word for it. I am an Honourable!’

  I knew she thought that this would sound impressive, but I saw Detective Leung’s face. It was very polite, and very confused, and I suddenly wanted to giggle.

  ‘Well,’ said Detective Leung at last. ‘Thank you, Miss Wong, Miss Wells. I have no further questions for you or your servants at this time. It seems the next step is to investigate Sai Yat and his gang.’

  I nodded at him because I could not speak, and watched as he turned away from us and walked back up the granite steps of the Big House. It felt like being in the eye of the storm, with thunderclouds all around me. I knew that at any second the sky might crack open – but at this very moment I was safe. I breathed out.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said to Wo. ‘Thank you so much.’

  Wo made a face. ‘I wouldn’t have done anything else,’ he said. ‘I know that there must have been some sort of mix-up about that pin. It did look like yours, but you aren’t part of this. I wouldn’t be doing my duty if I didn’t keep you out of it.’

  ‘Duty,’ I repeated. Even though I had just seen the proof that I had been more to Su Li than a duty, the word still struck me when I heard it.

  ‘Duty and fondness,’ said Wo, and he winked at me. ‘I wouldn’t do this for every member of the household, I promise you. And things have changed since you left, more than you understand. Teddy is a good baby but, when he was born, everyone was upset. Your mother was not pleased, and when Su Li became Teddy’s nurse, the house was up in arms. Your mother and your father had one of their …’ He waved his hands, and in the gap between them I saw the long silences, the passing of messages through servants and children and Jie Jie, that was the pattern of my parents’ arguments. ‘You know. Then your grandfather died. Things haven’t been right for months.’

  ‘I know,’ I said, my throat swollen. I felt angry, suddenly, that I was not grown up. If I was, I might know exactly how to get Teddy back. I would know how to feel about the death of Su Li, who mattered so much to me, and of my Ah Yeh, that could not be fixed and solved and blamed on someone. I would be old enough not to need my father. It seemed as though he did not need me much these days.

  ‘Your grandfather lived a good life, and had a good death,’ said Wo On. ‘But Su Li – she didn’t deserve what happened to her.’

  ‘Was there anything you saw that you think might be important?’ I managed to ask.

  Wo On shrugged. ‘I was outside until twenty past, Miss Hazel, as I told the detective, but all I saw was that old Mr Wa Fan coming out past the car just before I came in to find you. He was clutching a bottle of medicine. Funny – he always pretends that he only trusts Chinese medicine, and then there he was at the Western doctor’s!’

  My breath caught. Mr Wa Fan was the only person on our suspect list who had apparently not been at the bank or the doctor’s – but now we had a witness who could put him at the scene of the crime!

  5

  I suddenly had to get away. I dragged Daisy into the bamboo grove at the side of the house. As we passed through its rustling green spikes, I did not tell Daisy not to look about her, in case she saw a snake.

  The pavilion in our garden is nothing like the one we have at Deepdean for Games. It is wooden and painted red, open to the elements. We sat down on the seats in silence. For a while Daisy fanned herself, staring out at the gardens around her, and did not look at me.

  ‘Goodness. Even when it’s not hot here, it’s hot,’ she observed.

  I sat and breathed deeply until I no longer felt as though I might cry at any moment. My grandfather’s death, and Su Li’s, and Teddy’s loss, and the pin had all crowded on top of me until they were nearly choking me. But after a few minutes they all began to melt away, and I could think like a detective again.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said at last.

  ‘Don’t mention it, Hazel,’ said Daisy, waving her hand. ‘Although what I would like you to do is explain what on earth just happened. I could hardly understand any of it! I do call it unfair that you can speak another language. Tell me everything! The detective didn’t accuse you, did he?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Because Ping and Wo are protecting me. But I don’t know how long they can keep it up. I’m sure Detective Leung is beginning to suspect me.’

  ‘Watson, we’ll get through it, you’ll see. And if your father does find out about the pin – well, we must hope that he will simply know it wasn’t you. One knows, about family members. But tell me what else you heard.’

  ‘Ng – the cook – doesn’t think the Triads kidnapped Teddy, either. He thinks it was someone who didn’t like Father. He told me about a row that Father had with Mr Svensson about money. I think that’s why they were arguing at the party – Mr Svensson needs money after he spent so much on his new house. Then there’s Mr Wa Fan. Ng said that he’s cross with Father because he wouldn’t join the Tung Wah Foundation – it really does sound important enough to him to be a motive. And then there’s Mrs Fu. Ng mentioned something about Grandfather being charitable, and Father wanting to end that – I was wondering if that might be her, after the conversation at the party?’

  Daisy was nodding her head. ‘Interesting. Very interesting. All right, what else?’

  ‘From the way Wo and Ping are behaving, I think we have to rule them out as suspects. If they had done it, t
hey wouldn’t want to protect me – and anyway they weren’t at the party last night, and I never did ask Wo to go and fetch the pin this morning. So they couldn’t have had it to give to Wu Shing! Wo also mentioned that he saw Mr Wa Fan this afternoon. He was coming out of the bank, holding medicine, so he must have been at one of the doctors’. We thought he wasn’t at the scene of the crime, but now we know he was!

  ‘And there’s another thing,’ I said. ‘I know it sounds silly and made up, but in Hong Kong the Triads are everywhere. I think – I think Ng might be Triad.’

  Daisy’s face lit up. ‘Oh, how exciting!’ she cried. ‘Triad members here, in your house! Real criminals – fancy that! How different!’

  ‘It’s not different, really,’ I said. ‘We’ve met lots of murderers in England.’

  ‘Oh well, then, there’s no difference,’ said Daisy, and she twinkled at me. ‘So, how shall we begin ruling out our suspects?’

  ‘I think—’ I started.

  Suddenly May came running towards us through the bamboo. She was waving a bit of wood, a broken twig from a peach tree, and she was roaring something. Her twig whacked at the hollow stalks of bamboo, and I stood up, my heart pounding. ‘May! Snakes!’ I called in English.

  ‘I’M NOT MAY, I’M CHING SHIH THE PIRATE. PIRATES DON’T CARE ABOUT SNAKES!’ May bellowed at me.

  Before I could even move, there was a rustling in the bushes behind us, and one of the gardener’s boys appeared. He ran towards May, and dragged her out of the bamboo. May shrieked and kicked him, and tried to struggle free. It ought to have been easy, for I saw that this boy’s left arm stopped smoothly just below the elbow. But his right arm was so strong that he held May with ease.

  ‘Did you say snakes, Hazel?’ asked Daisy. She looked rather pale. ‘Naturally, I do not mind snakes at all, but—’

  ‘There are snakes in the bamboo,’ I said, grinning. ‘We’re in Hong Kong, Daisy.’

  ‘So you keep reminding me,’ she muttered.

  The gardener’s boy came up to the pavilion, still pinning May to his side.

  ‘Miss Hazel,’ he said, bowing politely. His hair was tied back in a queue, and he had dirt and green stains on the knees of his uniform. He looked our age, or perhaps a year older. I got a shock when I saw his face. I hadn’t ever met him – like many of the staff, he had been hired since I left for England. But, all the same, I knew him. He was the thin-faced boy from Su Li’s picture! Daisy nudged me hard, and I knew that she had recognized him too.

  ‘Your sister. I had to make sure that she was safe.’ He spoke in Cantonese.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘We’ll take her back to the house now. You don’t need to worry.’

  I had a rather uncomfortable thought. The boy must have been nearby us as we talked. Had he heard what we’d said? And why had Su Li had his picture in her treasure box? Was he somehow mixed up in this mystery? Could we trust him?

  ‘There’s a snake on your back,’ I said in English. The boy’s face did not change from its smile. I was relieved – it was all right. He had not understood our conversation.

  I grabbed hold of May, perhaps slightly harder than was necessary (she wailed and said, ‘Big Sister! Ow!’).

  ‘Miss Hazel?’ said the boy in Cantonese, behind me. I turned. He was still smiling, all the way up to his eyes. ‘Beware. There’s a snake on your back too.’

  And, quick as a flash, he ran away towards the flower garden, leaving me shaking.

  6

  When we got back to the house, we found Ping waiting for us, nervously waving from the top of the steps.

  ‘Library!’ she whispered to us. ‘Quick! Something’s happened!’

  I imagined that, somehow, my father might have found out about the pin. I saw myself walking into our Library, which always smells of leather and of softly rotting books, no matter how my father has it aired out, and facing him in his desk chair. I could almost hear him shouting.

  But, when Daisy and I crept into the Library, we found it in a sort of chaos that I had not expected at all. That is the problem with imagination – the more you use it, the more you see that the world in your head is not really the world you live in at all.

  At least the Library looked the way it always had. The Chinese books are on the left, and the English books on the right, beside the big front windows. There is a huge golden globe in the middle of the floor, that you can spin and put your finger on and trace the countries sliding away under your hand. I used to love to do it when I was little. Next to the other window, the one that looks out on the side of the Peak, is my father’s desk, where the telephone rests. Maxwell was sitting at this desk, his head in his hands, while my father paced the parquet floor in front of him, shouting. Jie Jie was there too, backed up against one of the bookcases, twisting her hands together, tears on her cheeks.

  ‘What’s happened?’ I asked nervously.

  My father spun round and saw me. His hair was disarranged and his glasses were skew-whiff. I could see the blood vessels in his eyes, darkening the whites and making him look quite alarming.

  ‘There has been a ransom demand,’ he said. My father was shaking with anger, but there was also a desperate crack in his voice that I had never heard before.

  ‘A ransom demand?’ I asked, and I heard my voice shaking too. ‘What did they ask for?’

  ‘One hundred thousand dollars,’ said Maxwell, looking up at me. ‘To be paid on Thursday at noon at the Kowloon docks. Three days from now.’

  ‘They said he was safe,’ said Jie Jie quietly – as quietly as I have ever heard her say anything. Jie Jie is usually as cheerful and loud as May, but now she was white-faced, and her eyes were red-rimmed.

  ‘He is alive. I could hear a baby crying,’ said my father. Jie Jie burst into tears, and my father, who I have never seen touch either of his wives, threw his arms round her. They stood leaning together, reflected in the shiny parquet floor. I was embarrassed, and looked away.

  As I did so, I caught sight of Daisy. She had sidled away from me, and was now almost at my father’s desk. She leaned against it – apparently caught up in the moment between my father and Jie Jie – and I saw her hand press down and crumple up some pieces of paper that were lying on the edge of the desk.

  A moment later she had whisked them away into the folds of her skirt, her hand against her waist sorrowfully. But then she looked up and saw me watching her, and winked. There is never a moment when Daisy is not being a detective.

  ‘The man had a quiet voice,’ said my father, clearing his throat and stepping away from Jie Jie, who wiped her eyes and folded her arms over her stomach, staring at her feet. ‘He was whispering and I could hardly hear him. And behind him there was … a rattling sound. Pipes, I assumed.’

  My father, I thought, might not make a bad detective.

  ‘What will we do?’ asked Jie Jie.

  ‘We will get Teddy back,’ said my father, and I heard the rage come back into his voice. ‘We will pay the ransom, and then we will make this man sorry he ever took my son away from me. Taking a child, a baby … He will pay.’

  I wanted to stay there, to look after my father, but I could tell that there was no place for me or Daisy. I motioned to Daisy, and we crept away.

  As we came out into the hall, we bumped into my mother. She was hovering by the pot Daisy and I had hidden behind earlier – I thought she might have been watching the door to the Library. When she saw it was us, she came forward quickly.

  ‘Ying Ying,’ said my mother. ‘Miss Wells.’

  ‘Ah Mah,’ I said to her, bowing.

  My mother pursed her lips at us. ‘You are all right?’ she asked. ‘You are looking very flustered. Move more slowly.’

  ‘Yes, Ah Mah,’ I said.

  ‘My stupid husband,’ said my mother. ‘You should not have been there today, Ying Ying. You put yourself in danger. They are saying the murderer was a member of a gang.’

  ‘I didn’t put myself in danger on purpose!’ I said
, feeling sick. ‘I didn’t know any of this would happen, Ah Mah!’

  ‘You look very messy,’ she said, ignoring me. ‘At dinner, I want you to dress properly. Wear that white cheongsam that fits you best, and your new jade pin, if you please.’

  I felt myself go pale, and then red. ‘I – I can’t,’ I said.

  ‘Careless girl!’ said my mother. ‘You have not lost it already?’

  I stood, staring at her in terror. I watched her face change from annoyance to confusion to – quite suddenly – an expression that matched mine.

  ‘Ying Ying,’ she said softly. ‘That pin—’

  ‘I don’t know how it got there!’ I babbled. ‘Please, Ah Mah! Don’t tell Father! I lost it. I swear it’s all a mistake—’

  ‘Do not say another word,’ snapped my mother. ‘Do not ever speak of this again. It is forgotten. Go up to your room now. We never had this conversation.’

  I turned away from her, shaking.

  ‘What’s up?’ whispered Daisy as we climbed the stairs together.

  ‘Mother knows about the pin,’ I whispered back. ‘And – Daisy, I don’t know whether she’s going to be able to keep the secret.’

  7

  Ping was in our room, piling up clothes for the sewing amah to mend. She had helped us, and I believed we could trust her – but I was still not sure we could let her in on proper Detective Society business.

  I was itching to see what Daisy had found, but I forced myself to sit demurely with this casebook on my lap, and write up all the day’s events so far. My pencil rushed over the paper, pouring out all my sorrow and hurt, until my head was left much calmer and more collected. Daisy sat next to me and tried to read Death in the Clouds (she fidgeted terribly, and only turned four pages). Then she went to the window and watched the gardeners as they moved about with their rakes and shears and wheelbarrows of earth.

  At last Ping was called away to help Ah Kwan bathe May (it takes more than one person), and we could talk freely again.