"There is a famous Japanese writer named Soji Shimada who wrote thirteen locked room mysteries, only one of which — 'The Tokyo Zodiac Murders' — was translated into English. I wanted to read his other stories, which is why I taught myself Japanese."
"I understand, Inspector Zhang."
"This is important to me, Sergeant Lee. This is a mystery that I can solve. I want to prove that to myself." He smiled. "And perhaps to prove to you that even in the third millennium there is a need for real detectives."
"Like Batman?"
"I was thinking more like Sherlock Holmes," said Inspector Zhang. "We have an opportunity here that we may never have again in our lives. In Singapore we are lucky if we have one murder a year."
"Lucky, Sir?"
Inspector Zhang put up his hand. "You are right; lucky is not the right word. Murders are rare in Singapore. Our island state is the most tightly controlled place on the planet; our Government knows everything there is to know about its citizens, so our crime rate is one of the lowest in the world."
"Plus we execute our murderers," said Sergeant Lee. "Which does act as something of a deterrent."
"Exactly. So do you not see how special this case is, Sergeant Lee? Most detectives would give their eye teeth to work on a case such as this, yet all you want to do is to hand it over to the scientists." He looked around as if he feared being overheard. "And what if we have a serial killer, Sergeant Lee?"
"We have only one victim," said the sergeant.
"That we know of," said Inspector Zhang, fighting to stop his voice from trembling. "What if there are more? What if we have on our hands a real live serial killer?" He shuddered. "Can you imagine that, Sergeant Lee?"
The sergeant nodded, but didn’t reply.
"You know that Singapore has only ever had one serial killer?" said the inspector.
"Yes, Sir. Adrian Lim."
"Exactly, Sergeant," said the Inspector. Every detective on the island knew of the case, of course. It was taught at the academy. The Toa Payoh Ritual Murders. The killings had taken place in 1981, the year that Inspector Zhang had joined the Singapore Police Force. Adrian Lim, who murdered two children as sacrifices to the Hindu goddess Kali. Lim and his two female accomplices were hanged in 1988.
"But he was caught by forensic evidence," said Sergeant Lee. "Police found a trail of blood leading to the flat."
"Exactly," said Inspector Zhang. "Which is why I want to use deduction to solve this case. All the evidence we need is here, Sergeant Lee. All we have to do is to apply our deductive skills. Do you see that? Do you understand?"
The sergeant nodded slowly. "Yes, Sir, I understand."
He patted her on the back. "Excellent," he said. "Let me now finish my questioning," he said. "And you might give some thought as to what this case will be called, because I am sure that it will become the subject of much discussion so it will need a name."
"A name, Sir?"
"A title. The Locked Hotel Room Murder, for instance. Or The Vanished Knife. Inspector Zhang and The Mystery Of The Disappearing Knife. What do you think?"
"I'm not sure, Sir," said Sergeant Lee.
"Well give it some thought, Sergeant," said Inspector Zhang, as he headed for the door.
Miss Berghuis was deep in conversation with her head of security when Inspector Zhang and Sergeant Lee walked back into the sitting room, but they stopped talking immediately and looked expectantly at the two detectives.
Inspector Zhang walked over to the window and turned to face the hotel staff. "So, to continue, Mr. Carr’s seventh and final locked room scenario involves a situation where the victim is assumed to be dead before he or she actually is. That is the reverse of situation number five of course, where the victim is dead, but presumed to be alive."
"So that would mean that Mr. Wilkinson wasn’t actually dead when Mr. Chau went into the room?" asked Miss Berghuis.
"He was," said the waiter. "I’m sure he was dead."
"But you’re not a doctor, Mr. Chau," said Inspector Zhang, "In the confusion, it might have looked as if he was dead but the actual murder was committed later."
"That’s impossible," said Mercier. "He was definitely dead when I got here."
"And you were here soon after the waiter made the call to reception?"
Mercier nodded. "You saw the CCTV footage. Everybody was there within a few minutes at most."
"He was definitely dead," agreed the manager. "You only had to look at the body. At the blood."
"But there was a moment when the waiter was alone with the body," said Inspector Zhang. "When he made the phone call. At that moment he was alone in the room with Mr. Wilkinson, and we have only Mr. Chau’s word that Mr. Wilkinson was dead."
"I didn’t kill him," said Mr. Chau hurriedly, his eyes darting from side to side.
"I didn’t say that you did," said Inspector Zhang. "I merely stated that you were alone with Mr. Wilkinson and you had the opportunity of killing him if he hadn’t been dead already. It is one way of solving a locked room mystery. The room is locked, but the person who discovers the body is the killer. He kills the victim then calls for the police." He shrugged. "It happens, but I do not think it happened in this case."
The waiter looked relieved and loosened his shirt collar.
"Besides, if you did kill Mr. Wilkinson, where is the knife?" asked Inspector Zhang.
"Actually Inspector Zhang, we haven’t searched anyone yet," said Sergeant Lee.
"And there is no need to search Mr. Chau, Sergeant," said the inspector. "What we need to do now is to go back downstairs to the security office; for it is there that the solution lies."
"All of us?" said the manager. "Surely we don’t all need to go?"
"It is the tradition, Madam," said Inspector Zhang. "The detective gathers together the cast of characters and explains the solution to them before unmasking the killer."
The manager laughed, and it was like the harsh bark of an angry dog. "Inspector Zhang, this is not some country house where the butler did it. Just tell us who the killer is."
"It is not a country house, that is true, but a five-star hotel is the closest thing that we have in Singapore," said Inspector Zhang. "Now please humour me and accompany me down to the ground floor."
The inspector led them out of the room and down the corridor to the elevators. He took the first one down with Mercier, the waiter, Miss Berghuis and one of the two uniformed policemen. Sergeant Lee followed in a second elevator with the two assistant managers and the other uniformed policeman. They gathered together outside the security room and Inspector Zhang led them inside. He waved a languid hand at the chair in front of the monitors. "Mr. Mercier, perhaps you would do the honours."
The head of security sat down and ran a hand over his scalp. "We’ve already looked at the CCTV footage," he said.
"We looked, but did we really see what happened?" asked the inspector. He waited until everyone had gathered behind Mercier’s chair before asking him to begin the recording from the point at which Mr. Wilkinson and the prostitute stepped out of the elevator.
"Here we can see Mr. Wilkinson and his guest arriving at eight-thirty," said Inspector Zhang. "Very much alive, obviously."
He watched as Wilkinson and the woman went inside. "She left an hour later. Please skip to that point, Mr. Mercier."
Mercier tapped a key and the video began to fast forward. He slowed to normal speed just before nine-thirty in time to see Ms. Lulu leave the room.