The Jade Empress is a seventh short story in Marple: Twelve New Stories, a collection of continuation short stories published by HarperCollins in 2022. The Jade Empress is written by Jean Kwok. In the collection, the story is preceded by The Open Mind and followed by A Deadly Wedding Day.
Synopsis[]
Miss Marple is on board a cruise ship enroute to Hong Kong to meet Raymond West when one of the passengers dies.
Plot summary[]
(may contain spoilers - click on expand to read)
Miss Marple is on board the Jade Empress en route from Singapore to Hong Kong where she is to join her nephew Raymond for a holiday. On board, she has been persuaded to take dancing lessons. She is partnered with an elderly Chinese gentleman, one Mr Pang, who is returning to Hong Kong after a few decades in England to see a son Tao from his first marriage whom he left behind. Engrossed in the dance steps, Miss Marple does not really pay attention when Mr Pang tells his life story and only hears fragments, including a bit about "....peony, treasure of my heart...."
Glancing around, Miss Marple notices the dance instructor with a young man with a red and blotchy neck who is intent on looking where his feet are going. Also she sees Mr Pang's daughter Mudan by his second marriage and an older woman, his caregiver Aunt Faith approaching and point them out to Mr Pang. Suddenly Mr freezes and he stares fixedly at something or someone, but Miss Marple can't determine who he had seen.
That night Mr Pang is absent from dinner, apparently unwell. Miss Marple calls at his cabin and meets instead his daughter Mudan who tells her that Mr Pang had some difficulty swallowing but is better now and is sleeping. Inside his darkened room, Miss Marple can hear his breathing and sees a picture of a woman with a child - not well taken, with dappled sunlight casting shadows over the two. They must be Mr Pang's first wife and the son he has not seen for a long time.
The next morning there is a commotion in the corridor outside Miss Marple's cabin. A steward tells Miss Marple that Mr Pang has died. Also that, over the course of a few days, someone had left bad omens of death such as ducks eggs and white flowers symblozing death in Mr Pang's cabin. Passing the cabin, Miss Marple overhears the ships's doctor Grant and security chief Webster questioning Mudan and Aunt Faith. There is some doubt that Mr Pang died naturally. The suspicion of the doctor and Webster falls on Aunt Faith, a practitioner of traditional Chinese medicine who has been feeding Mr Pang a preparation involving ground cobra. She might have given him an overdoes or might have mishandled the preparation. For webster it is manslaughter at the very least but he does not arrest her.
Shortly thereafter, however, Aunt Faith is also found dead by Mudan, this time stabbed with a steak knife. It is not long before Chief Webster arrests her. A steak knife has been found wrapped in a napkin in her room. Mr Pang had an insurance policy which named her as one of the beneficiaries and she owned a bakery which had not been doing well. It seems an open and shut case but Miss Marple has her doubts. Mudan seems to love her father very much. Moreover Mudan had no need to put bad omens in Mr Pang's cabin to terrorise him. She had ready access to his food and could poison him any time. Miss Marple shares her doubts with Chief Webster. He trusts instincts but cannot act on them alone. He gives her his card and asks her to call him if she should come up with something definite.
Some days after arriving in Hong Kong, Miss Marple is out in a park practising tai chi with a group. She is partnered with an elderly lady with a large red birthmark on her face. Miss Marple suddenly understands what had happened to Mr Pang.
Miss Marple meets Chief Webster and explains. The dappled sunlight and shadows on the picture--actually the son had a large birthmark on his neck. The dance instructor danced with a young man who had a big red splotch on his neck. When Miss Marple pointed out Mudan and Aunt Faith, Mr Pang had seen the young man with the birthmark and recognised his son Tao. This explained the frozen look. Tao was also a beneficiary of Mr Pang's will. He must have come on board the ship and disguised himself as a steward. "Nobody notices a steward" and thus he gained access to Mr Pang's cabin to plant the omens and later to poison him and then kill Aunt Faith because she recognised him. There were also rumours that Mr Pang had some treasure with him. Miss Marple surmises this might be in the shape of a peony brooch. She had seen such a brooch on the mother in the photo.
Subsequently, the brooch and the photo are found in Tao's house during a search and thus caught, he confesses everything. He had been resentful of his half-sister and wanted the full inheritance and the peony brooch for himself. As for "...Peony...treasure of my heart..." it turns out that Mudan means peony.
Characters[]
Mentioned[]
Locations[]
- Singapore
- Hong Kong
- The Jade Empress cruise ship
- Liverpool
Cultural and other references[]
Tropes and Themes[]
Audiobook[]
The audiobook is narrated by Chipo Chung.