July 3, 1953

LATER, SHE HEARD what had happened. Women who had never acknowledged her presence called her or stopped her in town, ostensibly to ask her how she was doing or tell her what had happened after she left, but really to find out her connection to the situation.

“They said he went out on the tennis court and put the gun in his mouth. Very messy. And you know, he only had the one hand. The hook, of course. Quite tricky. The amah found him. Had to be hospitalized herself with the shock. The servants always want to be a part of it, don’t they?”

“Poor Regina,” said Claire. She remembered the party she had been to, the one where she had met Will, with the Pimm’s and the boy and his father hitting the ball back and forth in their tennis whites. She tried to imagine Reggie Arbogast sprawled out on the grass, blood running out of his mouth. “Does anyone know why? Other than what was said…”

“He’d not been himself,” they would say. “Blamed himself for letting the collection disappear. And couldn’t stand to see all the fuss around the coronation, and all the patriotism. Made him feel awful. And I think he felt he was in some way responsible for the death of Trudy Liang.” A pause. “And did you know Trudy? Or Dominick?”

“No,” she would say. “They were gone before I even arrived. I just found out who they were recently.”

“Dominick was just terrible. He went through women like they were used handkerchiefs, although they say he liked both sides, if you know what I mean…”

Claire would wait patiently.

“And the Chens? They were just livid about how Will came in and ruined their party. I can’t believe you just left, darling, it was so dramatic! Melody was in hysterics, Victor tried to be cool, and Will, well, he controlled himself and left not long after you, leaving all of us gaping like fools. I’ve never seen anything like it. What a scandal! Were you close?”

“I don’t know much about that,” Claire would say. “You see, I was teaching Locket but didn’t have much contact with the Chens so I didn’t know them very well. They’d always been very kind to me.”

“Oh…” A sigh, down the telephone line, disappointed. “Well, they are really something.” A pause. “And are you… all right?”

“As well as can be expected,” she would say, or something of the sort.

“And…” And only a few of them could bring themselves to say it. “And Martin?”

And she would not answer, and the deepening silence would embarrass them into hurriedly filling it with small talk and fervent wishes to see her soon, to have tea, or to go for a walk.

They rang off shortly afterward and never called again. She wondered at their transparency.

The government wrapped up its investigation into the disappearance of the Crown Collection. Reggie Arbogast was posthumously honored with a commendation from the queen for his services to the English empire. Regina Arbogast sold the big house on the Peak to a Shanghainese merchant looking to relocate to Hong Kong and set sail for England. Victor Chen was not officially mentioned.

July 5, 1953

FROM A DISTANCE she saw him approaching, a spindly figure with a cane. Hard to imagine this man was the enigma who had ignited such desire in her a mere two weeks ago.

But then he came close, his pale, narrow face, his untidy hair, and he spoke, and she felt his pull all over again.

“Claire,” he said, kissing her on the cheek. “Sit down.” Almost avuncular. She felt rebuffed. He always set the tone of their meetings.

They sat on a bench looking over the harbor. They were on the Peak, where they had arranged to meet, thinking they would not run into anyone they knew, for different reasons than before, and they had been right. They were alone in the twilight hour. The warm wind blew, not unpleasantly.

“I came here with Trudy sometimes,” he said. “That is the same iron rail that was here when I was here with her. I touched it then and I can touch it now, but the circumstances are so different. I’m so different. Do you ever think about that?”

He was a different man, as if a great weight had been lifted off his shoulders. She could feel his lightness.

“Will,” she started.

“And what will you do?” he said as if she had not said anything.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve been in touch with my parents but they don’t seem too eager to take me back in. Something about the cost and his pension. I don’t have a job, or any means of getting one, I think. So I don’t know.” She said this simply, without meaning to cause obligation.

“I see,” he said.

“And you?” she asked.

“I don’t know either,” he said. “It seems impossible to stay here, and it seems impossible to leave.”

“Yes,” she said.

“So here we are,” he said. “Two people without places to go.”

“Do you think I should continue with Locket?”

“They haven’t said anything?”

“No, we haven’t spoken since the party.”

“Well,” he considered. “If they haven’t told you to stop, I would go. But then”-he grinned-“I’m sort of perverse.”

“What was it you took from the grave in Macau?” She had been wondering.

“Oh, that,” he said. “Trudy had a deposit box at the bank and she had always told me that Dominick or I could access it. And I got a posthumous letter from her solicitors telling me I could pick up the key after the war when she had been declared legally deceased. She had told me about another key to the same box before the war but I had never tried to find it. And when I received it from the solicitors, I didn’t know where to put it. So I hid it in Dominick’s grave. Thought no one would ever go there. And it felt right. A little dramatic, but right. And I was always looking for what felt right.”

“What was in the box?”

“Some bank books, financial papers. But what she wanted me to have were the documents, the letters, the things that showed what she had done for Otsubo during the war, and what others had done.”

“Others including Victor Chen?”

“Yes,” he said simply.

“And what did you do with the contents of the box?”

“I just had them sent to the right people. Anonymously.”

“But Victor knew it was you.”

“He knew I was the only one who might have access to that sort of information.”

“Are you in any trouble?”

“I don’t think so,” he said. “But I’ve been wrong before.”

They sat together, strangely comfortable.

“The thing is,” he said, “Victor Chen was not wrong in some way. The British government didn’t, doesn’t, have the right to own all those irreplaceable Chinese artifacts. They stole them from them in the first place, although they would dispute the verb. But the way he went about it…” He shook his head. “That man only knows one way to do things.

“And I didn’t abandon Trudy, not totally. Otsubo stopped signing the furloughs when he realized I wasn’t giving him anything. But there was never one time, or one big reason, that I couldn’t get out. I had a year of furloughs. Trudy would have got me out if I had wanted. That’s one of my deepest regrets. That it just kind of… fizzled. She deserved better than that. And I don’t know, really, what happened to her. I don’t know. I suppose I could find out. There are only too many people who would be delighted to tell me all about it. Including Victor.”

“But what could you have done?”

“Anything but what I did,” he said. “Anything but the nonsense I did in camp: form committees, campaign for hot water or more sheets!” His voice rose, grew violent. “I was a coward, a coward. And didn’t do anything to help her. The woman I loved. I did nothing. Hid behind what I pretended was honor.”

“Did Trudy ever…” Claire couldn’t finish the question.