The Night Tiger(121)

Voices in the hallway. Lydia sounds subdued, yet there’s an underlying current of excitement that Ren picks up from her. He remembers the thin sticky filaments that clung to her in the hospital and peeks worriedly out. Is she still in danger? The slanting afternoon sunlight casts patterns of light and dark in the hall. Lydia takes off her sun hat and a trick of the shadows makes it look as though she has long dark hair. Ren stops, surprised. The open doorway, the woman standing in it. For a fearful instant, he’s reminded of the pontianak, that vengeful female spirit that comes calling at the doors and windows. Instinctively he starts forward, although it’s already too late. William has let her in. You’re not supposed to let them in. But these are foolish thoughts that his master would be offended to hear. Perplexed, Ren blinks. The dimness in his head recedes; his cat sense is fading and maybe that’s a relief as well.

Lydia hands Ren her hat and parasol and smiles benignly at him. William shows her into the sitting room with its bent rattan furniture moved back into place after the party. Normally he entertains male guests on the veranda, but with Lydia he’s stiffly courteous.

“What can I do for you, Lydia?”

Ren admires how his master gets straight to the point, no beating around the bush. Lydia parries with small talk about the weather and the terrible tragedy at the hospital.

“I heard that you made a statement to the inspector,” she says. “Did you really see someone on the second floor?”

“I can’t discuss that right now,” says William. “But the police have a suspect.”

“Won’t you tell me?”

“I’m sorry, it’s out of my hands.”

She seems dissatisfied at this. “What did you tell the police about me?”

“That you’d called and asked to meet me. And when I arrived, it looked like you had a prior meeting with that orderly, Y. K. Wong. Why did you want to see me that morning, anyway?” he says. “They wanted to know about that as well.”

“I’m afraid I told a little untruth.” Lydia shifts uneasily. “I said that you and I were in the habit of meeting because we were secretly engaged.”

“What?”

“I’m sorry. It was all I could think of at the time.”

William gets up and walks to the other end of the sofa. Ren, still standing quietly in the hallway, can tell that he’s agitated, even furious.

“Why on earth would you do that?”

“Because it looks bad for me. You know, meeting men before dawn in a deserted place. And a Chinaman, too.”

“Lydia,” William presses his side as though it pains him, “you’d better tell me the truth.”

Ren doesn’t hear what she says because at that moment, Ah Long calls him into the kitchen. The tea tray is ready, steaming and fragrant, the sweetmeats delicately arranged on patterned porcelain plates.

“Can you manage?” says Ah Long.

“Yes,” says Ren proudly. Still, Ah Long helps him bring the tray in, setting it on the sideboard.

Ren sneaks a glance at William and Lydia. Their heads are bent together. He can’t see Lydia’s face, but William looks upset. Bad digestion, too much stress, Ah Long had said, and Ren remembers the time, right when that poor lady’s body was found half eaten by a tiger, when William could only eat omelets, not meat. But William never takes medicine, only Johnnie Walker.

Hesitantly, Ren takes out the vial of liquid that Lydia gave him. Stomach medicine, she’d said. Very mild. I take it myself. It’s almost exactly the same color as the tea, and Ren pours it into William’s cup. There. If Miss Lydia asks him if he’s put her medicine to good use, he can answer her properly. She likes William anyway, so she’ll be delighted if it cures him.

Carefully and proudly, Ren places the teacups on the table.



* * *



“Well?” William’s voice is calm but inside he’s seething. “What exactly happened on Monday morning, that you couldn’t tell the police?”

From the corner of his eye, he sees Ren pour the tea at the sideboard before placing it on the coffee table. This is the wrong procedure. Tea should be set on the low table for the host or hostess to pour, but that’s something local servants never seem to understand. William forces his mind away from irrelevant thoughts like this. Lydia. He has to manage her.

Brushing back her hair, she glances up at him. She’s looking very handsome today but it fills him with dread—that fine coloring, those brilliant eyes. So much like Iris.

Lydia says, “That Chinese orderly—he said his name was Wong—wanted to speak to me. About you.”

“About me?” This is so surprising that William sits down again.

“Concerning one of your patients, a salesman who died recently.”

The salesman! The one who caught William and Ambika together in the rubber plantation, so long ago now it seems. The one who died so fortuitously. William’s pulse races, even as he struggles to keep his expression neutral.

Lydia spoons sugar into her tea. “Mr. Wong seemed to think that he’d been mixed up with selling human remains.”

“Nonsense!” says William. This is exactly the kind of rumor that Rawlings told him to quash. If word gets out there will be a terrible scandal for the hospital.

“He also asked me if he’d ever tried to blackmail you.”