“So you were done and the night was still young. Couldn’t stay in his room; couldn’t chance being spotted by a key lady coming out of Geoff’s room; at least not that night. But you and Geoff wanted more time and privacy. Now where could you find that amidst the eighteen million of us who live in this town? In the theatre, of course. Geoff surely had a key. It was late so no one else would be there. Now to go back a bit, you must have left Geoff’s room first. Leaving together would definitely have caught someone’s attention – you know how nosey we Shanghanese are – especially when one of our women is with one of their men, no? So you leave and, using Geoff’s key, you enter the theatre through the pinrail door, there. But, oh yes, you didn’t just let yourself in – did you – this hanging took two, didn’t it?”
She began to get up from the chair but Fong’s crisp, “I wouldn’t do that,” made her rethink standing up. “Good,” Fong said taking a step away from her. Then he began again. “So you let Laertes into the theatre and he hid behind the pinrail door – with the noose of course. Would you please, Captain Chen?” Fong waited as Chen took the noose and got into place behind the door. Fong surveyed the situation then crossed downstage and addressed the darkness, “Playing Laertes gave you lots of time to watch the flyman and figure out what he does. After all, Laertes is in the whole play but he’s hardly ever onstage. You do get to wait in the wings and watch the most famous speeches in Shakespeare performed by Hamlet; that must have been a real treat for you. But that’s not the point. The flyman and his counterweights are the point.”
“At any rate, Laertes hides with the noose and you, dear Ophelia, position this chair with its back to the pinrail door. You sit on the chair and when you hear Geoff enter you lean forward, your elbows almost on your knees, and pull your hair to one side and forward to reveal the nape of your neck.”
“Do it!” Fong barked.
She did.
The simple line of her neck was exquisite.
“Geoff stepped forward like this, didn’t he, and he leaned over to kiss the nape of your neck like this, didn’t he?”
Ophelia shuddered and began to cry. Her slender body suddenly taken by tremours.
“Then Laertes leapt out of his hiding place behind the door and while Mr. Hyland was bent over you he slipped the rope around Geoff’s neck. Captain Chen.”
Chen raced forward and looped the noose over Fong’s head. It hung loosely around Fong’s neck. Fong was about to continue but stopped and stood very still. His eyes hooded. His delicate fingers traced the circle of the noose around his neck. Then his hands were still and his eyes snapped open. Now, they were hard – angry. He barked, “Stop crying.”
The girl looked up at him, wide-eyed.
Fong felt the loose rope around his neck again. “You did it, didn’t you, Ophelia? Until now I only thought you lured Geoff here. That Laertes actually did the hanging. Now I know differently.”
Before she could protest Fong charged on. “So Laertes looped the noose around Geoff’s neck like Captain Chen just did around mine. But it’s loose, isn’t it Captain Chen?”
“Yes, it has to be to fit over your head.”
“So Geoff does this.” Fong straightened up and immediately reached for the noose. Chen leapt forward and fought with Fong to first tighten and then keep the noose on Fong’s neck. Fong tries to loosen the noose but Chen held the knot tight. “The noose is now set, Ophelia, but Laertes literally has his hands filled keeping it on Geoff’s neck. That being the case, who was left to pull the rope to hang Mr. Hyland?”
Ophelia stood. Her shoulders were back, her head held high. “He said I wasn’t her. He said it was all a mistake. He said he was sorry.” Suddenly she was screaming, “Sorry? Sorry? What the fuck does sorry mean?”
Fong weathered the verbal storm then counted to three before he asked, “Mr. Hyland said you weren’t who?” Fong’s voice was low. He dreaded but needed to hear the answer to his question.
“Her. Fu Tsong. Your wife, remember her?”
And there she was. A murderess. As if she had emerged from somewhere deep within the girl. A murderess with motive, means and opportunity – and more importantly – with the rage needed to kill a man she loved.
The formalities of arresting the two actors were handled by Captain Chen who quickly moved them out of the theatre to the waiting patrol car on Nanjing Lu.
Fong and Joan were alone. Fong went to the back of the auditorium and sat in the exact same seat in which he’d last seen Geoff. Then sadly he said, “Fuck me with a stick.”
“Is this a quaint Shanghanese phrase?” Joan asked as she moved up the aisle toward him. “Does it have an idiomatic meaning or is it to be taken literally?”
“In this case I probably deserve it literally.”
“Being a bit hard on yourself, aren’t you?”
“I don’t think so.”
Joan put a hand on her hip, sat on the arm of the theatre seat across the aisle from him and said, “Explanation, please.”
He handed her the Shanghai detective’s report of the dead woman found in the Su Zu Creek.
Joan read it quickly then looked at him. “And the key he found on the body fits . . . ?”
“It’s the master key for the guesthouse that Mr. Hyland stayed in.”
Joan thought about that for a moment. “How long was she dead before . . . ?”
“Impossible to say,” Fong interrupted her. “The eels in the Su Zu Creek are ravenous.”
“But she wasn’t at the desk when you went to check Mr. Hyland’s room the day after the murder?”
“No. The woman there was already complaining about how hard it was to keep new workers.”
“So this poor woman was removed to be sure that no one could identify Ophelia as being with Mr. Hyland the night of the murder?”
“That would be my guess,” Fong answered without much enthusiasm. “But when did they kill her? Before they killed Geoff or after, when . . . ?”
“. . . when you could have . . . ”
“. . . done something about it if I had seen what was right in front of me. I allowed myself to be distracted by the little things and ignored the obvious.”
“If that’s true, it’s very bad,” she said flatly.
He looked at her. “Very bad,” she repeated.
Fong nodded.
Joan reached up and tugged at a short blunt stand of hair. “So what exactly did you miss?”
“I missed the biggest clue that Geoff put in front of me.”
“Which was?”
Fong almost laughed but didn’t. Failure wasn’t funny. Murder was certainly not a joke. He took a deep breath then let it out in a line – boy, he wanted a smoke. “The first thing Geoff made sure I saw was Laertes fight Hamlet who just happens to look like a young Geoff. Laertes clearly loves Ophelia. Ophelia loves Hamlet, Geoff. Geoff betrays Ophelia. Laertes and Ophelia kill Geoff. In the West they would say the table was all set for me. Here we’d say the fish’s head faced me.” He looked to Joan. “Do you think . . . ?”
“. . . that the key lady would have lived if you’d understood what Mr. Hyland was trying to tell you?” She let out a long sigh. “No. I don’t. The moment those two murdered Mr. Hyland that poor woman’s fate was sealed. I assume it happened the same night. Once you kill a first time, the second is easier – especially if the second is a poor old woman.”
Fong realized that he’d been holding his breath. He let it out in one long line of relief.
“That still leaves two things about the murder that are unaccounted for,” said Fong.
“What two things?”
“The forget-me-nots in Geoff’s pockets and the vest he wore on the hot night.”
Joan smiled. “Neither strikes me as very mysterious.”
“How do you mean?”
“Mr. Hyland was a middle-aged man having an affair with a young actress.” She looked at Fong who gave no indication that he understood what she was getting at. “Come on, Fong! Okay, I’ll lay it out for you. In middle age, we all thicken Fong, don’t we?” Fong nodded. “The vest helped Mr. Hyland cover that thickening, what Westerners call love handles.” Joan raised her shoulders in the pan-Chinese gesture of “you-get-me?” then added, “How long can anyone hold their stomach in, anyway?”