Hongdou sat in the back seat of the rickshaw, repeatedly glancing at the entrance of Chen Baidie’s apartment building.

This residence was a modern apartment building newly constructed by foreigners in the style of a grand hotel, located on Yimo Road in the French Concession—the decor was fashionable and the amenities complete, and the building even had a so-called elevator.

Earlier, when they’d left Wang Bide’s place, He Yunqin, to save time, had called a rickshaw. Once the vehicle arrived, he sent the puller home and took over as driver himself.

At the start, Wang Bide had seemed rather unwilling, but after seeing He Yunqin make as if to start the engine, he shook out his coat and climbed in with an air of perfect composure.

Arriving at Yimo Road, He Yunqin parked the car on the street across from the apartment building and asked Yu Chongyi: “Is there still a guard posted outside Chen Baidie’s residence?”

Yu Chongyi said: “When Chen Baidie first went missing, we left two colleagues on watch, but since we couldn’t find any useful clues in the residence, they’ve since been withdrawn.”

He Yunqin glanced across the street: “That’s one less problem, then. Mr. Yu, it’ll draw too much attention if all four of us go up together—why don’t you go up first, and Miss Yu, Inspector Wang, and I will follow a bit later.”

Yu Chongyi said: “But the doorman at this building is extremely strict about the rules—visitors after six o’clock aren’t allowed in at all without a resident’s explicit permission. I can only bring you in under the pretense of investigating the case, or else I’m afraid the doorman won’t let you through.”

He Yunqin tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, not replying for a moment. Wang Bide chimed in from the back: “If He Yunqin says that, he must have his own way of managing it. Officer Yu, no need to say more—just go on up.”

Yu Chongyi seemed to grasp something, a flicker of embarrassment crossing his face, and he scratched his head: “Inspector Wang’s right. I’ll go up and open the door first—Chen Baidie’s residence is on the fourth floor, turn left as you exit the elevator.”

After he left, Hongdou, remembering how Wang Bide had been sarcastic toward her brother the whole way there, felt a good deal of pent-up anger. Seeing the two men talking, she only looked outside and didn’t join in.

She wondered curiously: going by what Wang Bide had said, He Yunqin must either know some resident of the building, or be a resident himself, otherwise he wouldn’t be able to swagger in so easily. But from what He Yunqin had implied earlier, he himself hadn’t come here much either—meaning he must know some resident inside, though who it was, she had no idea.

Wang Bide and He Yunqin exchanged a few words, but both being busy puzzling over the case, they soon fell silent.

In the half-lit dimness, someone’s stomach suddenly gave a loud growl; because the car was so quiet, the sound seemed magnified several times over, landing on the ears in an incredibly awkward way.

He Yunqin glanced sideways at Wang Bide, and Wang Bide raised his eyebrows: “Not me.”

Hongdou quietly touched her stomach.

She hadn’t eaten a single thing since noon; she said nothing about it, but her stomach had given her away.

Actually, even if she’d admitted it openly, it wouldn’t have been such a big deal, but for some reason she still felt somewhat embarrassed. Afraid He Yunqin would guess it was her, she hurriedly pretended nothing was wrong and looked out the window.

He Yunqin rubbed his chin and pushed open the car door: “I’ll go take a look outside.”

After waiting a while, Yu Chongyi still hadn’t come out, but He Yunqin did come back. Getting into the car, he handed one package to Wang Bide, and passed another to Hongdou without ceremony: “Have a bite to tide you over for now.”

Wang Bide said deliberately: “I’m not hungry.”

He Yunqin said with a cold smile: “I know you’re not hungry.”

Hongdou took the package and found it was osmanthus cake and roasted sweet potato; quite embarrassed, she cleared her throat and said, feigning composure: “Thank you, Mr. He.”

He Yunqin said: “Best to finish eating in the car now, before we go up—wouldn’t want to risk disturbing any traces up there.”

“Mm, I know.”

After a moment of silence, He Yunqin glanced at the rearview mirror and saw Hongdou eating quietly for a while, seeming to remember her brother hadn’t had dinner yet, and after only two pieces of osmanthus cake, cupped the rest in her hands to save.

Before long, Yu Chongyi came out and, tucking the key back into his coat, said: “The door’s left ajar for now. The building patrol makes rounds every half hour—I deliberately waited for them to pass before opening the door, so now’s the perfect time for you to go in.”

He Yunqin glanced at his wristwatch: eight-oh-five.

“Mr. Yu, we’ll go in first. If you find anything at the train station, remember to come meet us at Wang Bide’s place.”

Yu Chongyi nodded: “All right.”

He turned to his sister again: “Brother’s going now. I’ll come back to take you home.”

Hongdou handed the half-eaten package of cakes to Yu Chongyi: “Here, Mr. He bought these—take them with you for the road, Brother.”

He Yunqin rested one arm on the car window, the other hand on the steering wheel, listening to the siblings talk, and for some reason felt a pang of envy. He suddenly remembered he had a younger sister too, and felt a sudden lift of spirit. Once they’d finished talking, he opened the car door: “Let’s go.”

The apartment doorman did indeed recognize He Yunqin, and upon seeing him said: “Oh, Mr. He, it’s been a while.”

He Yunqin nodded, said nothing further, and led Hongdou and Wang Bide into the elevator.

At the door of Chen Baidie’s room, He Yunqin gave it a push, and the door swung open at once.

The three entered; He Yunqin locked the door and said to Hongdou: “Miss Yu, when Inspector Wang and I examine the room in a moment, you’d best stay close by us—whatever you see, remember not to touch anything.”

Hongdou said: “Don’t worry, I know all that.”

Wang Bide gave a snort: “Miss Yu is exceedingly curious—she’d better actually stick to her word on this.”

Hongdou pursed her lips inwardly, too lazy to spar with Wang Bide.

He Yunqin crouched down to examine the pale, glossy marble floor, first looking beneath his feet, then slowly sweeping his gaze along the corridor, searching every inch of the surface for traces, missing nothing.

Hongdou kept He Yunqin’s instructions firmly in mind, not daring to wander off, and crouched down close beside him, watching his every move silently and curiously.

A moment later, He Yunqin stood and went to push open the servants’ side room on the right. The moment the door opened, Hongdou followed right behind him without a step’s distance, and no matter whether he turned or looked up, he kept catching a faint, subtle fragrance drifting from Hongdou—a scent with the particular sweet freshness of a young woman, warm and gently invading his nose, disturbing him without reason.

He suddenly turned his face: “Miss Yu, I need to focus quietly on my work here, and it’s inconvenient having you right beside me. Go follow Inspector Wang instead.”

Hongdou froze, and seeing him looking somewhat impatient, assumed she really had been affecting his judgment. She hurriedly stepped back: “All right.”

Turning around, she studied Wang Bide’s back for a moment, thinking to herself that this man, having drunk heavily for so long, surely wasn’t as sharp-minded as He Yunqin—even if she distracted him a little, it likely wouldn’t matter.

So she swaggered right up behind Wang Bide.

Wang Bide heard the footsteps behind him and startled slightly, turning to glance at Hongdou, then shooting a secret glare at He Yunqin.

Hongdou tilted her head back to admire the crystal chandelier’s bell-shaped design on the ceiling, acting as though she hadn’t noticed his resentful look.

Fortunately, Wang Bide also knew the investigation came first, and said nothing more about it.

Once the outer rooms had been searched, Wang Bide led Hongdou into Chen Baidie’s bedroom, saying as they walked: “Yu Chongyi said Chen Baidie currently lives alone. The day she disappeared, Chen Baidie returned to her residence around eight-thirty in the evening. For some reason, she went back to her room, made a phone call for a car, put on her coat, and went out. The servants waited until noon the next day, and when Chen Baidie still hadn’t returned, they finally thought to call Tianyi Film Company, where Chen Baidie worked, and her family.”

As he spoke, his gaze lifted, and he saw He Yunqin staring at the mirror on the dressing table. Walking closer, he saw there was a large patch of light red marks on the mirror’s surface, glossy and oily, as though something had been smeared over it haphazardly.

“Lipstick?”

He Yunqin said to Wang Bide: “Bring it over.”

Wang Bide’s eyes shifted: “What?”

He Yunqin, without turning around: “What do you think?”

Wang Bide put up a bit of a fuss, then quickly produced a small box of paper strips from inside his coat.

He Yunqin took a paper strip from the box, dabbed a small portion of the oily red mark on the mirror’s surface, and put it back into the box.

Hongdou guessed secretly this must be some Western device meant for analysis, and couldn’t help shooting Wang Bide a sidelong glance.

This man had been claiming loudly he had no interest in the case, yet hadn’t forgotten to bring along his special trace-analysis tools when they went out.

He Yunqin said: “It’s probably that Chen Baidie was making a phone call and jotted something down offhand with her lipstick—a phone number, a name, a place name—then, for some reason, wiped it off herself afterward.”

Hongdou gestured earnestly at the mirror with her hand: “Could it be a long string of phone numbers? This is such a large area—a name or place name reasonably wouldn’t take up this much space.”

Wang Bide, hearing this, looked at her with a touch of newfound respect, hesitated a moment, then took out a palm-sized German camera from another pocket, took several photographs of the mirror, and said: “Not necessarily. If you could figure out what it was just by looking at it, there wouldn’t be so many unsolved mysteries in the world. We’ll have to go back and develop the film to analyze it properly.”

The three of them searched carefully through other parts of the room, but found nothing else. By the time they noticed, it was already nearly ten to ten, so they went to the entryway hall to listen for sounds outside.

Before long, they heard voices in the corridor—it seemed the building’s doorman, seeing the hour, had come around on patrol.

Once the footsteps had faded away, the three of them emerged from the room.

Yu Chongyi arrived far faster than they did. The three of them had only just returned to Wang Bide’s place, and hadn’t even developed the film yet, when Luo Dai led Yu Chongyi upstairs.

He was carrying a bag in his hand, fine beads of sweat on the tip of his nose: “I went through them one by one. There was a tailor who recognized this qipao—said last month an old housekeeper brought copied measurements for someone else’s clothes to be made. Since the measurements were so different from the housekeeper’s own build, the tailor found it strange and remembered it to this day. This housekeeper often came to have clothes made, and the tailor knew she currently worked for a household surnamed Liu.”

He Yunqin frowned: “Surnamed Liu?”

Yu Chongyi nodded: “Since the Liu household is right near the station, I already went with my colleagues, but the master of the house said the housekeeper quit last week and has already gone back to her hometown. I asked if this housekeeper had any relatives in the city, and they said they only knew she had an old sworn sister working for another wealthy household. As it happens, that household is surnamed Yuan.”

Hongdou shot to her feet: “Surnamed Yuan?”

He Yunqin thought it over: “If they had a qipao made, then at the very least, Wang Meiping’s disappearance can’t be unrelated to this family. But going by this clue from the tailor shop, whoever did this left quite a few loopholes behind, which doesn’t quite match up with the killer’s method of committing the crime. Mr. Yu, if this really is connected to the Yuan family, you need to go back to the station right away and apply for a search warrant.”

Yu Chongyi said: “That’s exactly what I was thinking. Since I happened to be passing by Fuhua Lane, and felt this clue was too important to sit on, I came up to let you know.”

Wang Bide clicked his tongue, thinking it over, and said to He Yunqin: “Suppose things aren’t as complicated as you think—if this household could kidnap Wang Meiping, then naturally they could kidnap Pan Yuqi and Chen Baidie too. That is to say, as long as we can find some evidence at the Yuan household, Pan and Chen’s whereabouts will naturally come to light too, won’t they?”

He Yunqin pondered without replying, and Hongdou too was full of doubt.

Yu Chongyi, however, perked up and said to Hongdou: “Hongdou, Brother doesn’t have time to take you home—tonight I’ll have to trouble Mr. He to see you back.”

He Yunqin looked up at him in surprise.

Yu Chongyi, without even pausing for the water Luo Dai had brought, turned and headed down the stairs, then came back a moment later and said to Hongdou: “Don’t worry, as long as we find your cousin, no matter how late, Brother will find a way to send word to you and Mother.”

Hongdou thought over what had just happened and said to He Yunqin: “Could it really be the Yuan family’s doing? Seeing Wang Meiping arrive in Shanghai alone with little worldly knowledge, did they confine her to bear Yuan Ruoli a child?”

But that didn’t add up either — though her brother had deliberately lowered his voice yesterday, she’d still caught a bit of it: Wang Meiping had not only never been violated by Yuan Ruoli before her death, but had also been kept well-fed and plump.

If the child had never even been carried to term, why kill her at all?

“Yuan Ruoli didn’t agree to this scheme?” She turned slowly about the room. “Or did they later find out she was the niece of the ‘Pen of Shanghai,’ and, seeing how fiercely her uncle was cursing them in the papers, feared ruin, and so it gave rise to the idea of silencing her for good?”

She looked at He Yunqin as if seeking confirmation, and he was looking right back at her too.

But he showed no intention of answering, only glancing at the Western clock on the wall: “It’s nearly eleven. Miss Yu, I’ll take you home now.”

Author’s Note: Starting tomorrow, as long as I don’t hit a writing block, I’ll try to post two updates a day. If there are any changes, I’ll announce them ahead of time in the summary (highlighted) and on Weibo. Mwah.