“What do you mean?”
“The police think I’m your date for the evening.”
“Oh, so what? We can’t control what they think.”
“Listen, let me paint a picture for you,” Paige said impatiently. “I believe Stella Lin was murdered, it was a meticulously planned, merciless act. I think the police will get to the bottom of this, and they will certainly ask for a more detailed statement from you.”
He slowed the car down, almost to a crawl. “Oh,” he said, “what’s wrong with my statement? You and I were at the Royal Pheasant Club, we talked about Stella Lin, decided to drop by to see her, we—”
“Your statement is full of holes,” she interrupted. “First, someone knew you were going to meet Stella at the Royal Pheasant Club. That person sent me an anonymous letter. Moreover, if the police check with the maître d’, they’ll find out I went in alone, showed my press pass, and you came later.”
Suddenly, he veered the car to the curb and turned off the engine. “When did you receive that anonymous letter?”
“This afternoon, with the mail.”
“The letter?”
“I tore it into pieces and threw it in the wastebasket.”
He said, “Stella didn’t come to work today. She called the HR manager to say she wouldn’t be coming to the office. Around 10:30, she called me to ask about our reward policy if we recovered all the jewels from the Garrison robbery.”
“What did you tell her?”
“I told her that would depend on who we were dealing with. You know the situation; we never reward thieves. If we did that, we’d be fencing stolen goods. But if someone gives us a legitimate tip that leads to the recovery of insured property, we’d certainly pay, and handsomely.”
“Did you tell her that?”
“Yes.”
“What did she say?”
“She told me she had some information about the Garrison case that she thought would interest me. I told her that in such a big case, false leads were already rampant. She said she could provide evidence to prove that the person she was negotiating with was trustworthy.”
“In that case,” Paige said, “the origin of the jewel butterfly might be self-evident.”
“Are you saying I can be sure I’ve found the right person to negotiate with?”
“That’s just the beginning, but now, I feel there’s an added significance.”
“What significance?”
“You think Stella was in danger because she was going to tell you about the Garrison jewels. Well, let’s assume you’re right, she was killed by those jewel thieves, they wouldn’t have left that jewel butterfly on her feet. All those rubies, emeralds, and diamonds! It would have fetched quite a sum.”
He pondered for a moment.
“And,” Paige continued, “if she was killed by a burglar or a thief, he would have taken the butterfly ornament. So, this indicates the fact: her death must be unrelated to the Garrison robbery, it must have been someone intent on killing her, and the opportunity to steal the jewels was meaningless.”
He looked at her, suddenly filled with respect: “Wow, you’re quite logical, aren’t you?”
“That’s not the kind of compliment a woman wants,” she said. “When a man praises a woman for having a brain, it’s almost as bad as a harsh critique. Women prefer to be pretty rather than smart. Let’s go over our statements again. Did you suggest going to the Royal Pheasant Club this morning when Stella called you?”
“Yes. You surely wouldn’t doubt my statement.”
“I don’t doubt your statement, but I doubt your conclusion.”
“What do you mean?”
“If you tell me 2 plus 5 equals 10,” she said, “I wouldn’t doubt your statement, only your conclusion. In fact, you might have the answer as 10 in mind, with the numbers 2 and 5 in your head, but their sum isn’t 10.”
“Clearly, you’re pointing out that I’ve overlooked some factor, I’m unaware of another 5.”
“Exactly,” she said. “Why do you think there’s another 5? What have I overlooked?”
“The postmark on the anonymous letter I received this afternoon was from yesterday at 5:30 PM. If you suggested going to the Royal Pheasant Club, how did someone know about it yesterday?”
“Let’s go,” he said to her, “the caretaker might not have cleared your office yet. We need to find that letter, piece together the torn fragments, and check the postmark on the envelope. It’s also possible that all your assumptions are wrong, and the postmark is just a clever deception. Why did you notice the postmark?”
“Because Uncle Benedick told me if you want to make something of yourself, you have to pay attention to the tiniest details.”
“Who’s Uncle Benedick?”
“Our family’s reputation is bad because of him; he made a living by—” Suddenly, she stopped talking. She was acutely aware she couldn’t tell Tang Kimberley about Uncle Benedick. She could only discuss him with a very select few. Kimberley signed both their names in the register and said to the janitor, “Please let me go upstairs to Mr. Halsey’s office, and quickly. Do you know if that office has been cleaned?”
“Of course, it’s been cleaned. We usually start from that floor. That’s where the bosses have their offices. They always leave by 5 PM. The other floors are later.”
“So, you’re sure Mr. Halsey’s office has been cleaned?”
“Yes, I did it myself.”
“Did you empty the wastebasket?”
“Yes.”
“Well, we need to find what was in there. There was something important in the wastebasket. Where is it now?”
The janitor grinned and stopped the elevator, “The stuff from the wastebasket is long gone, turned to ashes.”
“You burned it?”
“Yes.”
“I thought you might store it sometimes and dispose of it later.”
“We don’t do that anymore. We burn everything right here in the building. Everything in the wastebasket must be incinerated on-site. That’s Mr. Halsey’s order. No information is allowed to leak out.”
They hurried to Mr. Halsey’s office. Just as the janitor had said, the office was clean. The reddish-brown square wastebasket was empty, not a scrap of paper in sight. At the bottom, there was a folded square piece of cardboard; Page pulled it out, hoping to find a fragment of the letter underneath, but it was in vain. Nothing was found.
“I guess that’s it,” Kimberley said.
“Wait,” she said to him, “I have some doubts about the look on the janitor’s face when he said the paper was burned. Let’s go.”
Clearly, the janitor had been waiting for them to ring, as he quickly brought the elevator up. “Found anything?” he asked.
“Not yet,” Page said, “We want to go down to the basement to see where you burned those papers.”
“It’s just an ordinary incinerator. Mr. Halsey said he wants all papers destroyed right here in the company.”
“I need to check it out,” Page said, “This is important, and I think Mr. Halsey will want a report tomorrow.”
“Oh,” the janitor stopped the elevator at the basement, saying, “It’s on the left.”
Page almost ran down the corridor. In front of the incinerator were several large laundry baskets, two of which were nearly full.
“What’s that?”
“Paper waste not yet destroyed.”
“I thought you said everything had been burned.”
“Oh, the waste from your office has all been burned.”
“How do you know which office these came from?”
He started to get flustered, “Oh, I believe these two baskets were brought from the lower floors.”
Page nodded to Kimberley, then dumped the contents of the baskets onto the floor and began searching through them, picking out letters, memos, newspapers, scraps of paper, and all sorts of miscellaneous items accumulated in the office, throwing them aside.
“We don’t need to look at the stuff that hasn’t been shredded,” she told Kimberley, “I tore that letter into tiny pieces. And you don’t need to bother with anything typed. This letter was handwritten in ink.”
They tossed back the larger pieces into the baskets. As they sifted through to the smaller scraps, Page suddenly exclaimed with joy, “Found a piece,” she said, holding up a triangular piece of paper.
