Shanghai, 1931
A world by Ari Weaver
Shanghai, 1931
Shanghai, October 1931. You're a detective with the Shanghai Municipal Police, and Countess Tamara Orlova has been found strangled at her dressing-table mirror in the Arcadia Ballroom with her diamonds still on. The gang boss in the private box, the councillor who was her lover, the Japanese consulate and your own inspector would all like it written up as suicide. Your partner, Sergeant Harbhajan Singh, would not.
Playing as Traveler·
A quarter past one on Wednesday morning, and the band downstairs at the Arcadia has stopped halfway through a foxtrot. Countess Tamara Orlova sits at her dressing-table mirror in a beaded evening gown, her head tipped against the glass, diamonds at her throat. Sergeant Harbhajan Singh crouches beside the chair with his hat on his knee.
Madame Raskova fills the doorway, leaning on her cane. “She hanged herself from the rail, the girls cut her down and put her in the chair, I told the Inspector all this on the telephone already, and he said fine.” Then she adds something in French.
The wardrobe rail behind her is bare brass. On the table stand two glasses, one with lipstick on the rim and one with an inch of brown spirit left in it. The window's left curtain hangs loose. The right one is held back with a gold cord.
Harbhajan lifts the countess's hair with the end of a pencil. The mark on her neck runs level all the way round, and there are two dark bruises the size of thumbs at the back.
“My wife says I'm not a doctor, and she's right, I'm not,” he says. “But I never saw anybody hang themselves sitting down.” He looks up at you. “Shall I tell Madame, or would you like to?”
The dressing room1 of 3