A Spoonful of Murder

by Robin Stevens

  ‘Daisy!’ I said. ‘Daisy?’

  Daisy did not stir. And I suddenly wondered – even though I knew we had agreed on this plan – how had Daisy known that it was the har gau that had prawns in it? I had never told her, and I know that, to European eyes, all dumplings look the same. What if … What if she really was allergic?

  ‘Come along!’ said my father. ‘You, boy, lift her. Wo is waiting in the car.’

  One of the cooks picked up Daisy. Her arms and legs hung down on either side of his body, and her head lolled.

  ‘Daisy!’ I cried. I had never in all my life seen her like this, so pale and still. What if Daisy did not get better? What if … What if she died?

  My breath felt short. The stairs, as I ran down them behind Daisy, seemed to rise up to meet me, undulating most alarmingly. I had thought we were playing a detective game, but suddenly this did not feel like a game at all.

  Out we ran into the street, the hot noonday sun striking down on us. Wo was holding open the door of the car, his face drawn and worried. Ping was crouched on the seats inside, a makeshift bed of towels and scarves ready for Daisy. I thought, nonsensically, that I knew at last what the towels were for.

  As soon as my father had closed the door behind us, Wo pressed down on the pedal and the car leaped forward, scattering dogs and cats and pedestrians, who shouted at us and waved their arms.

  ‘Will she be all right?’ I asked my father. ‘Will she?’

  His face was set and his jaw was tensed, and he didn’t answer me.

  We screeched up to the entrance of the bank, the lions Stephen and Stitt gleaming in the sun, and my father and Wo pulled Daisy out of the back seat and rushed her inside, Ping and I following with May and Rose. We all paused instinctively at the sight of the lifts.

  The middle lift was open, and the lift operator in it was new. He was shorter and plumper than Wu Shing had been, cheeks pink and shining. He bowed to us and motioned us in.

  Rose made a whimpering noise, and I stepped backwards, but my father glared down at us. ‘Get inside,’ he snapped, and in we went.

  The lift moved upwards and I stared around, my stomach feeling as though it was a floor below my feet not simply because we were rising. The carpet had been replaced, clean and soft and red, and the shining gold walls had been cleaned, but there was still a dent on the inside metal grille that my eye was drawn to again and again. Su Li must have kicked out as she fought Wu Shing. I was horrified all over again. Daisy and I had investigated many terrible crimes, but I thought this must be one of the saddest and the worst.

  I saw how very isolated the lift was – and how closely controlled it was by the lift operator. The new one had his gloved fingers on the controls, which could start the lift with only a touch, or pause its ascent. Wu Shing could have held it just below the eighth floor while he did the deed, and then climbed up and out onto the eighth floor with Teddy, shutting the doors behind him afterwards. That made sense – but how had he known he could get away without being seen?

  It was hard to force myself to be a detective when all I wanted to do was watch Daisy though. She was lying on the low bank of seats at the back of the lift, with Ping hovering over her. Although her gasps had stopped, her breathing was shallow and her face was very pale. She lay with her eyelashes fluttering, her lips slightly open. Her arms were draped across her body, hands open, fingers spread.

  There was something in that pose. It was so like an angel on a tomb, like the illustration in my copy of Little Dorrit (Daisy’s Uncle Felix got a set of Dickens for me for Christmas, and it was the second one I read). It was so like something from a story.

  And then I knew.

  My breathing slowed. My heart unclenched. I let out a choking sob and put my hand on top of Daisy’s.

  ‘Will we be in time to save her?’ I asked, as affectingly as I could, and very slowly I pinched the delicate web of skin between Daisy’s left thumb and forefinger.

  And Daisy scratched the inside of my palm with her index finger.

  ‘What if she dies!’ I cried, my pulse leaping, ready to laugh with joy and annoyance and embarrassment all at once. I should have known after more than two years of friendship if Daisy was allergic to prawns – but, all the same, I had been afraid.

  ‘Dr Aurelius will save her,’ said my father. ‘Be quiet, Hazel.’

  He was still angry with me. I knew I was still facing terrible punishment once this was over.

  Then the lift stopped on the eighth floor, and the lift operator opened its doors onto the white corridor and the gentle scent of antiseptic. The air up here was cool, if a little stale, and wafted about by an electric fan away to our left. As Daisy was lifted up, I bent over her.

  ‘Say you need the loo,’ she breathed into my ear. ‘Go exploring. I shall be making a miraculous recovery in approximately ten minutes. I need your eyes, Watson.’

  I had my mission. Daisy was carried away from me to Dr Aurelius, and I was left to investigate the scene of the crime.

  6

  I was in the quiet marble hallway, with doctors’ doors stretching away from me in three directions. The lift doors were all closed behind me, but feeling them there made my skin prickle. How had Wu Shing got out of the building? He couldn’t go down in his own lift, as it had been stuck on purpose with Su Li’s body in it. He couldn’t have gone down in one of the other lifts, because with his scratched hands he would have been noticeable. So he must have left by a quiet side exit.

  I looked around, and saw a door at the end of that corridor that did not have a gold doctor’s plaque on it. I padded towards it, on tiptoe, past three doors on my right, noticing as I did so that one of the doors’ plaques was blank. I pushed the door open, just a little way, and saw a waiting room, its desk covered by a dust sheet. This building was still new, of course – not all its offices were occupied. There on the floor I saw a tiny speckle of blood, and then I knew. This was where Wu Shing had gone after he left the lift. Could this even be where he had given Teddy to his employer?

  I closed the door and moved forward again to the end of the corridor. I pushed that door open, and this time I found a set of plain stone stairs leading up and down. This was the other way out, apart from the lifts. I hung over the railing and looked down, down, down – all the way to the ground floor of the building. I thought about simply going back to find Daisy and telling her that I knew what had happened. But, as soon as I thought it, I knew with a rather cross sinking feeling that it would not do at all. I had to be a proper detective, and prove what I had guessed.

  I set off, at a gallop. Down the stairs I went, down and down, until I was dizzy and my eyes spun and my legs wobbled. I clutched the banister and felt my breath hitch and my brain swirl.

  And then, at last, just as I thought I would be trapped on the staircase for ever, the steps beneath my feet turned flat, and I was on solid ground. There was a door in front of me, and I pushed it open – out onto the dazzling pavement, Hong Kong sun beating down on me. People’s faces turned towards me, and I knew I must look a sight, flushed and gasping, a girl alone without her maid. I thought back to Wu Shing. I imagined how people would stare to see a dishevelled lift operator without his lift suddenly emerge from the side door. If he’d had a baby with him, one that might even be screaming – why, someone would have stopped him, or mentioned something to Detective Leung. I got a funny creeping feeling. Had I just proved what I had guessed: that Wu Shing must have handed Teddy to his kidnapper in the empty office, before he left the eighth floor?

  A fruit stall had been set up near the door. Its seller, a short, broad-faced woman, was watching me curiously. ‘Excuse me,’ I said. ‘Were you here on Monday?’

  The woman nodded at me. ‘I’m always here,’ she said.

  ‘Did you see … a man in a lift operator’s uniform come out of this door?’ I asked.

  ‘I did,’ said the woman. ‘Thought he looked lost.’

  ‘He didn’t have a baby with him, did he?’ I a
sked.

  ‘Why would he have a baby with him?’ she said, looking confused. ‘What are you talking about? Who are you?’

  ‘Never mind!’ I gabbled. ‘Thank you! Goodbye!’

  I scuttled as quickly as I could round to the main lion entrance, and darted towards the bank of lifts. The lift on the left was waiting for me, and I saw that the operator was the same old man whose lift we had gone up in on Monday.

  ‘Eighth floor, please,’ I said to him, wheezing a little, and the lift clanked to life. I looked sideways at the old operator, and saw him staring back at me, his face wrinkled up with curiosity.

  ‘Miss Wong?’ he asked at last.

  I nodded. ‘You were here on Monday,’ I said.

  The old man bowed.

  ‘Yes, miss,’ he said. ‘I saw nothing, I am sorry. The murderer Shing never came down in my lift, or the other. If he had, we would have stopped him and saved your brother, I promise.’

  I decided to be bold, like Daisy. ‘Mr Svensson did, though, didn’t he?’ I asked.

  ‘No, miss,’ said the operator, puzzled. ‘In my lift he only came up, to look for his wife. Mr Wa Fan came down just after him, and then you – you came back up with your friend and the chauffeur, and we discovered what had happened.’

  My heart beat fast. ‘Did Mr Wa Fan—’ I struggled to find the words. ‘How was he?’

  ‘Sad, miss,’ said the lift operator. ‘I think he had been given bad news. He struggled to carry even his medicine and his small bag, and I had to take them for him.’

  The lift juddered to a stop, and the operator pulled open the grille and opened the doors. ‘Here you are, miss,’ he said, bowing, and, although I was desperate to hear more, I had to step out into the white doctors’ hallway.

  I padded back along it, down the middle corridor, doors to my left and to my right. Dr Aurelius was the last on the left. I paused to stare out on the harbour as I passed the windows at the end, at the muscular, churned-up look of the water in the bay as the junks and the ferries passed across it. There was the Star Ferry, white and green, halfway across to Kowloon, a red-sailed junk dipping in its thick white wake. I pushed open the door and went in.

  7

  There was the receptionist again, looking up from behind her desk – and there were my father and Daisy, with old Dr Aurelius between them.

  ‘Wong Fung Ying, where have you been?’ snapped my father.

  ‘I had to powder my nose,’ I said, feeling the heat rising from my face.

  ‘Dr Aurelius is miraculous,’ said Daisy, beaming at me. ‘I’m quite recovered!’

  I saw my father frown at her.

  ‘Daisy is awfully resilient,’ I said quickly.

  ‘So you have told me before,’ he said, still glaring.

  ‘A wonderfully healthy girl,’ said Dr Aurelius, who had the same fat nose and shock of silver hair I remembered from old appointments. ‘An excellent patient to treat. Her heart rate returned to normal almost immediately!’

  He seemed to have no suspicions at all, but I could see that my father did.

  ‘Come,’ he said, and he ushered us out of the office, Ping bustling behind with Rose and May.

  The lift operator had waited for us, and we travelled back down in terrifying silence. I couldn’t bear to look at my father. I could sense that he was confused about Daisy’s recovery, and still upset about my revelation.

  He didn’t speak until we were in the car, Wo On pulling away from the bank entrance. And suddenly I couldn’t bear it any more.

  ‘Father!’ I said. ‘I’m sorry! Please believe me – I should have said something before, about the pin. I was stupid. All I want to do is help find Teddy. I would never have hurt him, never, and I want to get him back, and I’m sorry! Please believe me, Father, please! Tell Detective Leung, so he can find who really did it!’

  I found I was crying big babyish tears. I dashed them away, but they kept on coming. It felt so dreadful to think that my own father might not trust me any more.

  ‘Hazel,’ said my father. ‘Hazel, look at me.’

  For a moment I could not bear to, but then he leaned across the car, put his big square hands below my jaw, and tilted my face up towards him.

  ‘I have been thinking about this,’ he said. ‘And I will not tell Leung anything. You did a stupid thing, but we have all done stupid things lately. The one thing I do not believe is that you could be part of this crime, not even for a moment. I know my daughter better than that. You have done wrong, and you will be punished. When we get home, you and Miss Wells will not leave the house for the rest of your time here. You will be confined to your room – Miss Wells must rest, after all. But I will not have you mixed up in this, not even for a moment.’

  ‘Father!’ I cried.

  ‘Not a word,’ he said. ‘That is the end of the matter.’

  ‘You have to tell Detective Leung about the pin!’ I said. ‘Please! If you don’t – he can’t help Teddy!’

  ‘I think I know what will help Teddy,’ said my father. ‘Do not argue with me, Hazel.’

  ‘You don’t!’ I said. ‘You don’t know how upset the other servants were with Su Li, when she became his maid. And you didn’t even ask her if she minded – or if I did! She died because she was in the lift with Teddy. Don’t you feel guilty about that?’

  ‘ENOUGH!’ shouted my father. ‘Wong Fung Ying, never speak to me that way again. Never question me again. That is an order.’

  May and Rose were gasping, wide-eyed. Daisy was open-mouthed. I could feel myself shaking.

  Everything had gone wrong. How could we solve the case now? How could we prove that Sai Yat was innocent? How could we get Teddy back?

  ‘Yes, Father,’ was all I said.

  8

  ‘This is all terribly unfair,’ said Daisy, sitting up with a bounce. We were at home, in our bedroom, leaning out of the window and watching the sun as it dropped towards the horizon over the gardens with the shocking speed it does in Hong Kong. ‘I cannot believe we’ve been confined like this! It puts a terrible crimp in our investigations.’

  ‘It could have been worse. At least you’re not dead!’ I said.

  Daisy snorted elegantly. ‘I do think it’s terribly amusing that you thought I really was dying. You have known me for two years – heavens, that’s ages – and you have surely seen me eat plenty of fish-paste sandwiches. Why on earth would you think that I’d suddenly developed an allergy to prawns?’

  ‘You looked very convincing,’ I said weakly. ‘And I – I really didn’t want you to die.’

  ‘I don’t want me to die, either,’ said Daisy. ‘But you must remember, Hazel, that heroines do not die. We are both perfectly safe.’

  ‘We’re not in a book!’ I cried. It would be quite lovely to know that, no matter what happens, everything will turn out all right in the end, but Daisy and I can never be sure of that. ‘And this murderer is terribly ruthless. They’ve killed two people, and kidnapped Teddy. And he’s just a baby.’

  ‘Very true,’ said Daisy thoughtfully. ‘Talking of which, you don’t think there’s any chance that—’

  ‘No!’ I said. ‘Don’t even think it. We’ll get Teddy back.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ said Daisy. ‘Now, I’ve heard all about your exploits, which were extremely interesting and, I quite agree, answer several questions we had. But you haven’t let me tell you what I discovered yet, and it’s terribly important. I did an absolutely wonderful job of pretending to be dying. Everyone was quite taken in.’

  ‘All right,’ I said, making a face at her. ‘Go on, then.’

  ‘I will,’ said Daisy happily. ‘So. There I was, pretending to be deathly ill. I held on for as long as I could, and let Dr Aurelius prod me and look at my tongue and things. Then he said he wanted to give me some medicine, so I had to stage a miraculous revival, sharpish. He was very pleased about my recovery, especially when I told a story about it being in the family – passed down from Aunt E – so it sounded very
plausible. I thought it was rather clever of me.

  ‘I got him talking about the afternoon of the murder, then pretended to realize where I was, and cry a bit, and say I was frightened. Of course, people are so talkative when they’re trying to reassure you. He told me not to be giddy, that the body was never in his office, that he made sure his patients were far away from it. He didn’t know anything about it until we arrived. Remembered his receptionist coming in to say that his twelve o’clock patient hadn’t turned up – that was Teddy, of course – and so she was sending his twelve fifteen in early. His face went serious and he said, A bad case. Terminal – he doesn’t have very long left. Then he suddenly looked very worried that he’d said too much. Doctors aren’t supposed to talk about their patients’ illnesses, you know, it’s meant to be very private and secret.

  ‘So then, while your father was talking to the doctor, I went and stood next to the reception desk. Your little sister May was being a terrible nuisance, and Ping and the receptionist were trying to stop her ripping pages out of the magazines on the table. So while they were busy I flipped back through the appointment book, looking for Monday. And I found this.’

  She held out a scrap of blotting paper that had been scribbled over lightly with a pencil. It showed the marks the receptionist had made, pressing down with a pen.

  ‘Mr Wa Fan!’ I said. ‘He’s the twelve fifteen. He’s seriously ill! That fits with what the lift operator told me: that he looked sad, and seemed weak. It makes sense if he’d been told that he was dying.’

  ‘Yes!’ said Daisy. ‘Look, Hazel, if we add your evidence to mine, we reach some interesting conclusions. Wu Shing left the building by the stairs, but, according to the fruit seller, not with Teddy. So he must have given Teddy to his employer on the eighth floor, in the empty room you found. Mr Wa Fan arrived on the eighth floor some time before twelve, and then was with Dr Aurelius from just after twelve, to – about twelve ten. That fits with what the lift operator said, and when Wo On saw him at twelve fifteen. Remember what Wo On said – that he saw Mr Wa Fan hurrying away looking upset? It fits with him being ill; so ill that he decided to go to a Western doctor and is ashamed of it.’