A Spoonful of Murder Read online

  Contents

  Maps

  Character List

  PART ONE: SAILING TO ADVENTURE

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  PART TWO: DEATH BY APPOINTMENT

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  PART THREE: THE SECRETS OF THE BIG HOUSE

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  PART FOUR: MISCHIEF AT MIDNIGHT

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  PART FIVE: DEATH COMES HOME

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  PART SIX: A PRINCE’S RANSOM

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Hazel’s Hong Kong Glossary

  Author’s Note and Acknowledgements

  ABOUT THE BOOK

  When Hazel Wong’s beloved grandfather passes away, Daisy Wells is all too happy to accompany her friend (and Detective Society Vice President) to Hazel’s family estate in beautiful, bustling Hong Kong.

  But when they arrive they discover something they didn’t expect: there’s a new member of the Wong family. Daisy and Hazel think baby Teddy is enough to deal with, but as always the girls are never far from a mystery. Tragedy strikes very close to home, and this time Hazel isn’t just the detective. She’s been framed for murder!

  The girls must work together like never before, confronting dangerous gangs, mysterious suspects and sinister private detectives to solve the murder and clear Hazel’s name – before it’s too late …

  Also by Robin Stevens:

  MURDER MOST UNLADYLIKE

  ARSENIC FOR TEA

  FIRST CLASS MURDER

  JOLLY FOUL PLAY

  MISTLETOE AND MURDER

  CREAM BUNS AND CRIME

  Available online:

  THE CASE OF THE BLUE VIOLET

  THE CASE OF THE DEEPDEAN VAMPIRE

  Tuck-box-sized mysteries starring Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong

  Based on an idea and characters by Siobhan Dowd:

  THE GUGGENHEIM MYSTERY

  To Nat and Gemma,

  the other mothers of my books.

  Being an account of

  The Case of the Jade Pin Crimes,

  an investigation by the Wells and Wong Detective Society.

  Written by Hazel Wong

  (Detective Society Vice-President and Secretary), aged 14.

  Begun Monday 24th February 1936.

  THE WONGS

  Vincent Wong (Wong Lik Han 黃力漢)

  June Wong (Wong Ka Yan 黃嘉欣, also known as Ah Mah) – Mr Wong’s first wife

  Jie Jie (Wong Min Su 綿素) – Mr Wong’s second wife

  Hazel Wong (Wong Fung Ying 黃鳳英, also known as Ying Ying) – Vice-President and Secretary of the Detective Society

  Rose Wong (Wong Ngai Ling 藝玲, also known as Ling Ling) – Hazel Wong’s half sister

  May Wong (Wong Mei Li 美麗, also known as Monkey) – Hazel Wong’s half sister

  Edward Wong (also known as Teddy) – Hazel Wong’s half brother

  THE BIG HOUSE

  Su Li 素李 – Teddy’s maid

  Ping 萍 – Hazel’s maid

  Wo On 和安 – Hazel’s chauffeur

  Assai – Ah Mah’s maid

  Ah Kwan 阿昆 – May’s maid

  Pik An 袁琵安 – Rose’s maid

  Ng 吳兄 – A cook

  Ah Lan 阿蘭 – A gardener’s boy

  Thomas Baboo – A guard

  Maxwell – Mr Wong’s secretary

  Daisy Wells – President of the Detective Society, a guest of the Wongs

  HONG KONG

  Mr Peter Svensson (known as Sven) – A businessman

  Mrs Kendra Svensson – His wife

  Roald Svensson – His son

  Mrs Bessie Fu – A businesswoman, owner of the Luk Man Teahouse

  Mr Kai Wa Fan 啟華燻 – A businessman

  Wu Shing 胡城 – A lift operator

  Dr Crispin Aurelius – A doctor

  Sai Yat 細一 – A Triad gang leader

  Detective Leung 梁 – A private investigator

  1

  Somehow, even though Daisy and I had seen the body with our own eyes, I did not quite believe that the crime was real until we came back home from the doctor’s office this afternoon.

  Before that moment, it all just seemed like a bad dream, the very worst sort – like the one I have sometimes where we’re investigating a case and I realize, like a slow shiver going up the back of my neck, that the murderer is after Daisy, and there is nothing I can do about it.

  But, unlike those dreams, this time I cannot wake up, no matter how hard I pinch myself. And I know that I ought to have been able to stop what happened.

  Daisy says that this is nonsense. She says, wrinkling her nose, that I could not have stopped anything – and, in fact, if I had been on the spot, I might have ended up murdered too. Like much of what Daisy says, this is true, though not particularly comforting. But all the same I cannot shake the feeling that I’ve failed.

  You see, I have come back to Hong Kong. Here it is beautiful and bright, the air is warm and heavy and I am at home. No one looks at me oddly. I’m not strange, and that is a wonderful feeling, like opening up your hand and realizing that you have been clenching the muscles of it for far too long.

  But, all the same, some things have changed in uncomfortable ways. I have been in England for almost two years, and while I was there I learned how to be not only an English schoolgirl and a best friend but also a detective. That is what the friendship between Daisy and me is all about, after all. We are secretly detectives, and have solved five murder cases so far, and, although it is not exactly true to say that we helped the victims, we did at least find out the truth about their deaths when the police could not.

  But in Hong Kong I am with my family, who remember me as the smaller, younger Hazel I was when I stepped onto the boat to go to Deepdean. It’s harder to be brave and grown-up and sensible when all I’m expected to be is dutiful, a good daughter and a good older sister. It’s particularly hard to be the second, because— But I am getting ahead of myself. Daisy says to tell things in order as much as possible, and she is right. At least I have not forgotten how to lay out a case in a new notebook, the one Daisy gave me for Christmas.

  All I will say, before I go back to the moment when everything started –
this journey, this crime – is that a terrible thing has happened, a thing that the Detective Society must investigate. And we will – but this time I am stuck in the very middle of the case. I am not just a detective, I’m a witness. And I think that I might even be a suspect.

  2

  It all began with a telephone call in January, during the first week of our spring term at Deepdean School. There was snow on the ground, and my head was still full of Cambridge at Christmas, and the rather shocking thing that had happened at Daisy’s Uncle Felix’s wedding in London on New Year’s Day. So, when I was summoned to Matron’s office to speak to my father one morning, Hong Kong seemed very far away indeed.

  The line crackled and boomed. ‘Hello?’ I said, and heard my voice echo away from me, halfway across the world. There was a pause, and then my father began to talk.

  ‘Wong Fung Ying,’ he said, and his voice sounded hollow even through the telephone. ‘Prepare yourself.’

  Wong Fung Ying is my Chinese name. To everyone in England, and usually even to my father, I am Hazel Wong. He only uses my other full name when something very serious has happened, and so my stomach dropped in anticipation.

  ‘It’s Ah Yeh. Your grandfather. Hazel, you know he has not been well. I’m afraid he has passed on. It happened yesterday. We did not think – we did not think it would happen so soon, but it has.’

  ‘Father!’ I said. ‘Are you sure – really?’ I clutched the telephone, and the mouthpiece trembled against my lip. I felt a rush of impossibility. I could smell my grandfather’s pipe, the tobacco on his breath, feel his hand heavy on my head.

  ‘I would not lie to you, Hazel. Now, listen to me and be calm. You must come home. You’ll miss the funeral, of course – that will happen next week – but if you leave in the next few days you’ll be here for at least part of his mourning. Do you understand? You can’t miss that.’

  ‘No, of course I can’t,’ I whispered. My throat was full of things to say, but all that came out of my mouth were those words. I remembered, so clear and strong I could taste it, sitting next to Ah Yeh, watching him peel an orange into segments and pass me every third one. He was too big and important to have gone. It could not be. ‘What does Ah Mah say?’ I asked.

  ‘What? Your mother agrees with me, of course. You must come home,’ said my father, sounding confused. I knew it had been an odd thing to say – but I had to ask. ‘Now, Matron will arrange your transportation. You’ll catch the boat at Tilbury Docks, and it shouldn’t take more than a month—’

  ‘I want Daisy to come,’ I said. I was rather surprised at myself for being so bold. I had almost not known what I was going to say until it was already being said. But, as I spoke, I realized how much I meant it. If I was to come home (if I was to face my mother, a voice whispered in my head), I needed Daisy with me.

  ‘Hazel!’ said my father, sighing. ‘It’s always Daisy with you. A more unsuitable friend for you I couldn’t imagine, even if she does appear to be a lady. Do you think she’ll be able to manage Hong Kong?’

  He did not think so, but I knew she could. Daisy adapts to wherever she is, like a brightly coloured lizard. So I took a deep breath and gathered all the bravery I had found on the Orient Express to overcome my father’s will. ‘I’m not coming without her,’ I said, and my hand holding the telephone receiver trembled even more.

  My father sighed again, and made an impatient noise. ‘I shall speak to the school,’ he said. ‘If they agree, and if her family does too – well, I suppose you may bring her. But, Hazel, I do not want you to be silly about this, do you understand? Don’t let Miss Wells put any of her wild ideas into your head. Your Ah Yeh was old. Old and tired. It was his time. He is not another case like – well, like the one last summer, or any of these other ridiculous things you’ve got yourself mixed up in. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes,’ I choked out, wiping my eyes. I did understand, and that was not why I wanted Daisy there. I did not need her for detection. For once, I simply needed her because she was my best friend.

  ‘Good. Now, hand me back to your matron. I need her to put me on the line with that headmistress of yours.’

  I handed the receiver back to Matron, and went stumbling out of her study. Daisy was waiting in the echoing, chilly House hallway outside, her blue eyes wide and her nose wrinkling with curiosity.

  ‘What’s up, Hazel?’ she asked, but I pushed past her without a word. I went rushing up the threadbare carpet of the House stairs and along the narrow, dimly lit corridors to our fourth-form dorm. The window was open, even though there was frost on the grass outside, and I wrapped my scratchy grey wool blanket around my shoulders and lay down on my bed, shivering.

  I knew Ah Yeh had been ill. But he was not supposed to die with no warning, when I was not even there. I was supposed to be with him – and anyway he should not have died at all, because he was Ah Yeh. He was as much a part of our house and Hong Kong as the columns in our hall, the pond in our garden, the steps up to our front door. He could not die.

  I wrote Daisy a note. Sometimes, when I cannot say something, I write it. This was one of those times. I wrote it in several different codes, because Daisy and I have been practising (and she is fearfully bad at sticking with it), and I folded it up and put it on her bed. Then I went to lie down again.

  Daisy came in. I knew it was her because she walked softly, one foot in front of the other, like a thief. There was a crumpling as she opened the note, and then an annoyed noise. I heard her pull open her school bag and rip a piece of paper out of an exercise book, and then I heard the scratch of her pencil as she began to work on the codes.

  I counted seconds, and then minutes.

  ‘Hazel,’ said Daisy at last. ‘The note was unnecessary. You might have just told me.’

  ‘I couldn’t,’ I said into the blanket. I could feel my eyes stinging, but I told myself it was just the wool making them smart. ‘Not out loud.’

  ‘I’m going to sit on your bed,’ said Daisy. ‘If you don’t mind.’

  I knew that this was her way of saying that she was sorry about my grandfather. Daisy doesn’t usually ask for permission for anything. She just thumps down on my stomach or my legs and doesn’t care whether it hurts me or not.

  ‘All right,’ I said.

  ‘So,’ said Daisy after a pause, ‘I suppose I’m coming to Hong Kong with you, then?’

  I leaped up and threw my arms around her. That was when I really began to cry.

  3

  I have never done well on boats. They always make me feel watery, inside and out – and of course I was already more watery than usual. I remember the journey to Hong Kong as tasting of salt, from the sea and from the tears rolling down my cheeks.

  Daisy had a marvellous time, exclaiming over the dining room and the cabins (all as glorious as those on the Orient Express, though on a larger scale), but there are only a few days of the voyage I can properly recall now, and one of them was the morning we heard the news about George V.

  ‘Dead!’ said Daisy blankly, staring down at the five-day-old newspaper. We were sitting on the SS Strathclyde’s first-class deck under the Egyptian sun after breakfast, staring out at the mirror-smooth water of the Suez Canal as our tugboats dragged us forward, puffing steam. ‘Goodness, we’ll have to have a new king now! Oh, I must find a mourning band from somewhere. It’s all right for you, Hazel. You’re already in black.’

  ‘The poor queen,’ I said. ‘The poor princess and princes!’ I stared down at my black dress and felt their pain along with my own for a moment.

  Daisy cocked her head to one side thoughtfully. ‘I wonder. I suppose it was natural causes? I mean – we don’t think that there was any foul play? He was the king, after all. What if someone murdered him?’

  ‘You know he’s been ill, Daisy,’ I said. I had the unpleasant feeling that I knew where this conversation was going. ‘He was an old man. And I shouldn’t think anyone would want to kill him. His eldest son doesn’t want to be ki
ng at all!’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Daisy. ‘I suppose so. Though somehow it makes me think … Hazel, there’s no possibility – I mean – are we quite certain that your grandfather—’

  ‘Don’t say another word,’ I said, suddenly hot to my fingertips with hurt. ‘Ah Yeh isn’t one of our cases. He wasn’t murdered. He just died, Daisy. People die of natural causes. And what are you saying – that his son might have killed him? My father?’

  ‘No!’ said Daisy, and I was glad to see that she was blushing pink. ‘I only meant – well, wasn’t your grandfather rich?’

  ‘I suppose he was,’ I said stiffly. ‘But, Daisy, you can’t go around saying he was murdered. And don’t you dare say anything like that to my family when we get there, all right? Grandfather died of old age, just like our poor king. He was almost eighty!’

  ‘All right,’ said Daisy, grumbling. ‘But you can’t blame me for saying it!’

  ‘Yes I can,’ I said.

  There was a thoughtful pause from Daisy, and then she patted my hand apologetically. Everything was all right between us again, but, whenever I saw one of the British passengers with a mourning band over their sleeve, I felt as though the ache in my chest was doubled.

  The other thing I remember is Daisy in the library.

  As the ship steamed through the Strait of Malacca, and the water around it turned greenish blue, with frills of phosphorescence smoking off behind it every night, she began to behave in a rather strange fashion.

  She kept slipping away at odd moments and returning hours later, her fingers stained with ink. I thought she might be making notes about the passengers without me, and was rather upset, until, as we were docking in Singapore, I went to the library to return Tess of the D’Urbervilles and came upon Daisy, seated at a table with a pile of books in her lap, a pen in her hand.

  She jerked her head up to look at me and a blush spread across her cheeks under her suntan.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I asked.

  ‘Studying,’ said Daisy after a pause. ‘Don’t tell anyone. It’s just that – well – you’ve never told me much about Hong Kong. Which is fearfully bad form, Hazel. So far, I have simply had to infer, but that won’t do while I’m visiting. I know I have the right clothes, I looked that up in magazines, but clothes can only get one so far.’